In a high-stakes game marrying geopolitics with big business and international espionage, is turnabout fair play? According to one very opinionated corner of the Chinese Internet, the answer is a resounding yes. Yesterday, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a report casting a heavy shadow over Chinese telecom behemoths Huawei and ZTE. […]
Further evidence that the fight over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea is having an impact on the global economy: Auto sales in China fell in September for the first time in eight months, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced on Wednesday. That’s largely because Chinese consumers are staying away from Japanese brands. The overall […]
Mitt Romney may have talked about the Middle East yesterday in what was billed (and panned) as a major foreign policy address, but ad spending by both candidates’ camps shows that global affairs are still low on the list of key campaign topics. Fewer than 10% of ads aired in the U.S. presidential race to date have made […]
Want to find a job? That’s not a problem if you are trained as a technician and looking for work in China or Brazil. Ditto for sales representatives, who are in hot demand in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Japan, engineers won’t sit idle. Meanwhile, in Ireland, IT workers are needed. In the Netherlands, it’s […]
The directors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank return to Tokyo this week for their annual meetings after a gap of 48 years. It’s a different Japan. The ageing of the host nation, the rise of China, the “shift” of the epicentre of global growth to mainland Asia, in more ways than […]
China rejected on Tuesday as “groundless” U.S. accusations that two top Chinese telecoms equipment makers posed a security risk. The U.S. House of Representatives‘ Intelligence Committee urged American companies on Monday to stop doing business with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp., warning that China could use equipment made by the companies to spy on […]
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 […]
