When Arab societies rose up and toppled four dictators during 2011—in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya—people around the world joined in the celebration. Yet soon after the autocrats’ fall, a wave of apprehension washed over many in the policy and intellectual elite in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East itself. The warnings and […]
Some well-known names in China’s cabinet, including central banker Zhou Xiaochuan, and senior provincial officials, entered leadership of the country’s top political advisory body. The leaders that comprises a chairman and 23 vice chairpersons were elected by members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Yu Zhengsheng, 67, a member of […]
The United States often uses exaggerated civilian casualty numbers to make a case for military intervention in strife-torn regions. Since the 1990s, the West has justified its military interventions on liberal grounds — to remove noxious leaders who oppress their people or who have begun to conduct policies that appear genocidal. Buoyed by the intervention […]
Since the second half of 2012, financial markets have recovered strongly worldwide. Indeed, in the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average reached an all-time high in early March, having risen by close to 9% since September. In Europe, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s “guns of August” turned out to be remarkably effective….But this financial market […]
Two new books lament the outsized role of the military in Israeli national security decisionmaking, blaming the generals for favoring force over diplomacy. But the military has sometimes been a force for peace and moderation, and in truth the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the result of far more than just Israel’s bureaucratic politics. […]
Early this year, China found a missing province, one doing very well for itself. The total GDP for 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, was 51.9 trillion yuan. The total GDP figures of China’s 31 provinces for 2012 added up to 57.6 trillion yuan, giving the phantom 32nd province an annual GDP of 5.7 […]
Lost in this cross-wired debate is the issue of the long-term future of the economy. Britain has been finding it difficult to recover from the financial crisis not just because of its austerity policy but also because of its eroding ability to engage in high-productivity activities. This problem is most tellingly manifested in the country’s […]
As China, Japan and many other nations face an aging demographic profile, the youth segment of India’s population is growing rapidly, and is projected to continue to do so for the next 30 years. Provided India can act quickly on health, education and employment, this demographic dividend has the potential to inject new dynamism into its flagging economy. […]
When Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari travels to Iran on Monday to oversee the formal inauguration of an ambitious gas pipeline project from Iran to Pakistan, his gesture of defying US pressure on this issue will be seen broadly as a hollow one. With just days before the tenure of his elected government ends, Zardari […]
While the new appointments won’t be formally announced by the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, until mid-March, two senior party sources in Beijing have confirmed promotions for veteran diplomats Yang Jiechi, Wang Yi, and Cui Tiankai. Together, the appointments suggest that China wants to improve the optics of its relationship with the United States, if […]
