Most observers are gloomy about the prospects for serious economic reform in China. But they ignore a central lesson of recent Chinese history: reform is possible when the right mix of conditions comes together at the right time. And the very circumstances that facilitated the last major burst of economic reform in the 1990s are […]
The man at the helm in North Korea today is an accident of history, surrounded by vestigial assertions of narcissistic genius that are de rigueur for North Korea’s depiction of its own leaders. More than any time since the young Kim Il-song was surrounded by Soviet generals in the 1940s, the North Korean leader today […]
Sino-US economic and trade relations are the most powerful proof of the win-win and interdependent nature of bilateral relations. But the good momentum that has been achieved has also encountered some obstacles because some people in the US always want to politicize the relationship and Washington has been maintaining restrictions on high-tech exports to China. […]
Even so, it’s time for Australian leaders to stop complaining about the unfairness of the situation and start addressing the real weaknesses in their underlying economy. For years now, theirs has been, as the title of Donald Horne’s 1964 book had it, a “lucky country.” Arguably, no developed economy has benefited more from the reforms […]
Every third person in an Indian city today is a youth. In about seven years, the median individual in India will be 29 years, very likely a city-dweller, making it the youngest country in the world. India is set to experience a dynamic transformation as the population burden of the past turns into a demographic […]
Global military spending fell for the first time since 1998 despite spending increases in Russia and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) annual report,which was released on Monday. “Global military expenditure fell in 2012, to $1753 billion, equivalent to 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). Although the fall was only 0.5 percent […]
Fitch Ratings downgraded China’s long-term local currency debt one notch, from AA- to A+. The primary reason for the move was the country’s too-rapid expansion of credit, one of the “underlying structural weaknesses” the agency cited in its announcement. Many analysts in fact think the debt resulting from then Premier Wen Jiabao’s borrowing binge, which began to accumulate in earnest […]
As Japan searches, still confusedly, for a new identity within Asia, it may come to appreciate, as Jeff Kingston, a close observer of contemporary Japan, writes, “the potential benefits of reassuring past enemies.” But how will the effort at reconciliation with victims of Japanese aggression shape official memories of Japan’s war in Asia? In most Asian […]
When elected president in 2000,Vladimir Putin‘s first order of business seemed straightforward: strengthen the Russian state and bring it back from oligarchic control and regional warlordism. Consolidation was in order. There were two ways to achieve that. Read Here – Moscow Times
Last week the UK’s defence select committee published a report which concluded that civil war in Afghanistan is likely when international forces leave next year. If the predictions of ‘Securing the Future of Afghanistan’ are correct, the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence share much of the blame. When I returned to Kabul in January […]
looking beyond borders 