Earlier this year, Bob Carr, Australia’s foreign minister and a longtime friend of the United States, observed with Aussie clarity: “The United States is one budget deal away from restoring its global preeminence.” He added a caution: “There are powers in the Asia-Pacific that are whispering that this time the United States will not get […]
YESTERDAY marked the 11th anniversary of the US war in Afghanistan. More than 2,000 American soldiers have now been killed, and as the US presidential candidates debate each other to lead the most dominant power on Earth, perhaps it is time for someone to ask them: Was it worth it? On Sept. 11, 2001, 2,977 […]
The House Intelligence Committee report on Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., China‘s two largest phone-equipment makers, breathlessly hints at a massive national security breach in the making. The committee report, out today, says Chinese intelligence services could spy on the U.S. by using the two companies’ equipment to tamper with American telecoms networks. The companies, based in […]
Exactly 11 years ago, with the wounds of 9/11 still fresh, the United States and Britain invaded Afghanistan. They arrived in anger, collected allies along the way, and grew in ambition. Today that anger has faded, those allies depleted, and their ambition exhausted. The campaign is already the longest in American history, far surpassing the Revolutionary […]
The International Monetary Fund cut its global growth forecasts as the euro area’s debt crisis intensifies and warned of even slower expansion unless officials in the U.S. and Europe address threats to their economies. The world economy will grow 3.3 percent this year, the slowest since the 2009 recession, and 3.6 percent next year, the IMF said […]
China isn’t very good at foreign policy; that is the only way to make sense of the apparent decision by a number of large Chinese banks to boycott the annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF scheduled for Tokyo next week. As the WSJ tells us, the decision comes as a result of the latest flare […]
The dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku / Diaoyu islandscontinues to simmer. Even as International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde warned about the dangers to the global economyshould the dispute escalate, the fallout from the squabble continues to build momentum. There was always going to be a risk of economic consequences for both […]
LABOR is pursuing a dramatic upgrading of Australia‘s relationship with China that would put diplomatic ties between Canberra and Beijing on a similar footing to relations with the US, Japan and Indonesia. Foreign Minister Bob Carr revealed yesterday that he had sent the head of his department, Dennis Richardson, to Beijing last month to propose the […]
VISITORS to the showroom of the “Everything is Good” jade company in the Chinese border town of Ruili are swiftly steered towards one particular lump of black rock among many thousands on display. It looks innocuous enough, but a small slash on one side, revealing a translucent green and purple interior, betrays its true worth: […]
Despite all the attention the trade deficit receives each month, little heed has been paid to the rapid expansion of U.S. exports, which have been growing nearly three times faster than gross domestic product since 2005. As a share of the U.S. economy, exports are at their highest point in 50 years. Rather than slow […]
looking beyond borders 