China’s rubber-stamp parliament allowed President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely, perhaps for life, as it ratified a contentious constitutional amendment to abolish the two-term presidential limit, making him the most powerful leader since Chairman Mao Zedong. Read Here – Business Line Also read: Chinese President Xi Jinping confident and relaxed as lawmakers vote to remove term […]
China is set to introduce significant changes to its foreign affairs structure with the merger of two ministerial-level organisations under its top diplomat, as it continues to push for greater recognition as a global leader, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Under the plan, the Communist Party department responsible for relations with overseas political […]
China has transformed the Indo-Pacific region’s strategic landscape in just five years. If other powers do not step in to counter further challenges to the territorial and maritime status quo, the next five years could entrench China’s strategic advantages. Read Here – Project Syndicate
At a moment when many of his former voters believe that America is facing a genuine democratic crisis, former President Barack Obama has been largely silent about what is happening in American politics. Other than a handful of appearances—an interview with David Letterman in a new Netflix show, or an oral history project at MIT—he insists on […]
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Washington on Sept. 24, 2015 on a state visit, hundreds of Chinese students lined the streets for hours, carrying banners and flags to welcome him. It was a remarkable display of seemingly spontaneous patriotism. Except it wasn’t entirely spontaneous. The Chinese Embassy paid students to attend and helped organise […]
Australia is the canary in the coal mine of Chinese Communist Party interference. Over the past 18 months, the country has been shaken by allegations of the Chinese party-state working to covertly manipulate the Australian political system and curate the wider political landscape. There are claims of Beijing-linked political donors buying access and influence, universities being co-opted as […]
Let’s face it: Trump likes strongmen. He likes Putin, Erdoğan, Duterte and Xi. It’s the namby-pamby Western leaders, especially the women like Merkel and May, whom he views with disdain. From this perspective, Kim is the big kahuna, the ultimate catch. A good relationship with him might even pave the road to Stockholm, where Trump […]
One inconvenient feature of the global trading system is that efforts to protect the jobs of voting workers in one country risk affecting jobs, and perhaps votes, in another. Thus President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported aluminium and steel, offered with the rationale that American metalworkers had been losing jobs to foreign competition, alarmed […]
Russia’s agenda is straightforward: to assert its influence at the expense of Washington and the rules-based international system. The Kremlin’s toolkit includes: leveraging economic and business ties, exerting political influence, harnessing the information space, and forging or deepening military ties with key countries. Where the United States and its allies have pulled back or failed […]
Predictions of a coming Indian golden age are typically based on two trends. The first is urbanization. Between 2010 and 2050, India’s urban population will grow by as much as 500 million—the largest projected urban population growth in world history. Historically, urbanization has been linked with rising literacy, the establishment of a middle class, economic dynamism, […]
looking beyond borders 