The Trump administration has consistently elevated military voices over those of experienced civil servants in the development of foreign policy, and funding cuts to non-defense federal agencies, along with the resignations of many career civil servants, have left government offices woefully understaffed. Read Here | Foreign Affairs
The recent meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in Tokyo revealed many of the dilemmas the United States faces in its attempt to contain China—no matter who wins the race for the White House. On one level, it was remarkable that the meeting of foreign ministers from Australia, India, Japan, and the United States happened […]
Never before has imperialism been so condemned as now. European colonialism continues to constitute a raw and living memory in the collective minds of its hundreds of millions of victims and their descendants, even while each and any aspect of racism is noisily condemned in the United States. Empire, in other words, has come to […]
Just over a week ago, Emanuel Macron said he wanted to end ‘Islamic separatism’ in France because a minority of the country’s estimated six million Muslims risk forming a ‘counter-society’. On Friday, we saw yet another example of this when a history teacher was decapitated in the street on his way home in a Paris suburb. Read […]
China has now displaced the U.S. to become the largest economy in the world. Measured by the more refined yardstick that both the IMF and CIA now judge to be the single best metric for comparing national economies, the IMF Report shows that China’s economy is one-sixth larger than America’s ($24.2 trillion versus the U.S.’s […]
Which of the two Asian giants has more sway in Dhaka these days is debatable. But with India distracted with a spiralling Covid-19 epidemic and with several unresolved bilateral sore points, China may have an upper hand, one it is now seeking to consolidate to its strategic advantage. Read Here | Asia Times
American banks, insurance companies and asset managers have lost none of their appetite for making money in China and have met with remarkably little deterrence from US President Donald Trump’s administration. Far from decoupling from China, Wall Street seems more intent on tightening the knot. Read Here | South China Morning Post
For all the hand wringing over Donald Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric, the 2020 US election is not really about the incumbent. It is about deep-seated suspicion regarding the national government’s role, which makes populism a recurring feature of American political history. Read Here – Project Syndicate
Alliances are still standing (if frayed), America’s hard power remains unrivalled (for now), and Trump steered well clear of any costly new military blunders like the war in Iraq or the 2011 intervention in Libya. Even some of Trump’s fiercest critics acknowledge that the administration has notched some important foreign-policy successes—most notably on China and […]
The consequences of the presidency of Donald Trump will be debated for decades to come—but for the Chinese leadership, its meaning is already clear. China’s rulers believe that the past four years have shown that the United States is rapidly declining and that this deterioration has caused Washington to frantically try to suppress China’s rise. […]
looking beyond borders 