In recent years, Bangladeshis have suffered the brutality of security forces and massive environmental destruction. For months now, the news from the world’s seventh-most-populous country has been dominated by the fractiousness of the country’s main leaders, thetrial of men suspected of war crimes during Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971, and the slavery-like conditions of the […]
No country has done more than India to stall progress on international climate negotiations during the past two months. Read Here – Slate
After a period of distraction, the U.S. reaffirms by word and deed its interest in Asia. Read Here – The Diplomat
The Communist Party summit that recast Xi Jinping as a reformer extraordinaire has produced its first foreign-policy initiative: poking Japan in the eye, writes William Pesak. Read Here – Bloomberg
Absent a war with Iran—which seemed increasingly likely absent a deal—the neocons will be deprived of their raison d’etre. Yes, they can rail about China, which is making dangerously provocative moves against Japan this week. But the Middle East is where the real action is for the neocons. Iran has been a crucial enemy, the […]
The Afghan president‘s push to delay a security pact with the U.S. has undermined confidence in Afghanistan’s future, testing international support for the country at a crucial moment, the U.S.-led coalition’s top commander said. Read Here – WSJ
The roadmap for China’s foreign exchange reforms has now come into focus, following the recent conclusion of the landmark Third Plenum, which outlined the blueprint that is set to shape the direction of economic reforms in the world’s second-largest economy for the next decade. Read Here – The Diplomat
To be sure, Russia and Japan are not natural security partners. In the twentieth century, they fought two wars against each other, first in 1904–05, and again in 1945. Japan seized territory from Russia in the first; Russia seized territory from Japan in the second. In the following decades, the two countries largely kept their […]
Gold’s burnished appeal in China stems in part from a lack of alternative investments. While the MSCI All-Country World Index of equities rose 18 percent this year through Nov. 22, the Shanghai Composite Index slumped 3.2 percent. Policymakers clamped down on property investments in March to cool the housing market, ordering the central bank to raise down-payment requirements […]
In reality China has made plain that, while it is happy to bully lesser states such as the Philippines, it has little appetite yet for an open confrontation with the United States which can still–but for how much longer?–bring overwhelming naval and air assets to bear in the western Pacific. Read Here – Commentary
