Recent meetings between Beijing and Moscow – at the Belt and Road Forum last month and at a two-day summit last week in Russia – are the latest in a string of efforts to strengthen Sino-Russian ties, especially along the border. However, like many nations, Russia has found that working with China can be a double-edged sword. Read […]
The German chancellor herself has said she is highly skeptical of the leadership role ascribed to her by international media. Merkel’s view is, in fact, shared by her fellow citizens, whose appetite for global leadership remains limited. Berlin’s de facto dominance in Europe notwithstanding, Germans are as reluctant as ever to embrace a prominent international role. Read […]
Bhutan, one of the world’s smallest nations, has protested that the Asian colossus, China, is chipping away at its territory by building a strategic highway near the Tibet-India-Bhutan trijunction in the Himalayas. Bhutan has security arrangements with India, and the construction has triggered a tense standoff between Chinese and Indian troops at the trijunction, with […]
North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile flew right past President Donald Trump’s boast of “It won’t happen!” Guess what, boss? It’s happening. It’s bad and it’s going to get worse. And Trump has no plan for how to stop it… If Kim is not stopped it is likely that he will have missiles capable of hitting Los Angeles, New […]
U.S. President Donald Trump just sought to redefine the West. In a speech to cheering crowds in Warsaw on Thursday, Trump described the West’s values in terms of religion and culture and called for the defense of its civilization against radical Islam. It amounted to a manifesto for his foreign-policy vision. The address included repeated invocations of […]
It may seem odd that Chinese elites would use leaks at all, given the Communist Party’s opacity and Beijing’s tight control of the press. But it is precisely because China’s media is not free that leakers seeking to damage their opponents may turn to foreign outlets. In doing so, they take advantage of the fact […]
Narendra Modi’s arrival in Israel marks not only an epochal moment in India-Israel relations, but also the final rejection of the psychological Raj that has hampered Indian diplomacy for so long – since independence in 1947. While Jawarhalal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, fought for freedom from Britain, he and the wider political establishment that surrounded him […]
In the last three weeks, as the Modi government’s dispute with China has become increasingly more acerbic, Beijing has been issuing a series of warnings to New Delhi, the most serious of which has been its observation that India has not learned the lessons of history and has not forgotten its humiliating defeat in 1962. These are a small step […]
There are some problems that “good chemistry” just can’t solve. At a surprisingly cheerful summit meeting at Mar-a-Lago in April, Chinese President Xi Jinping seemed to find Donald Trump’s sweet spot. Xi said they “cemented their mutual trust”; Trump called Xi a “terrific person” and hailed their “good chemistry together,” predicting that “lots of potentially […]
The I.M.F. has a complex definition of “advanced,” but a common thread is that all the nations have a per-capita income of at least around $15,000. Since Poland completed the transition from Communism to democracy in 1991, its economy has been growing at an average annual rate of 4 percent and, remarkably, has not suffered […]
looking beyond borders 