When Indian prime minister Narendra Modi addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, he will find a warm reception from lawmakers — something nearly unthinkable 15 years ago, when India still proudly existed as a non-allied state with the US. Read Here – Defense News
The initiative is gigantic, with future investments of almost $1 trillion already announced. In comparison, America spent an inflation-adjusted $130 billion on the Marshall Plan following the World War II. China’s web of trade would span over 60 countries that are home to 4.4 billion people — more than half of the world’s population. Further, the initiative would […]
These gathering clouds over Afghanistan mean that traditional partners such as India must get involved in ways that they chose not to earlier. The danger of a re-emergence of warlordism is now a very likely possibility if the Afghan security forces are not helped in their task of taking on the Taliban. Read Here – The Wire
Though Xi continues to focus on domestic issues, including a weakening economy, and cracks down on foreign non-governmental organizations with a new repressive law, he is also making clear that China intends to shape East Asia’s security environment. Read Here – War on the Rocks
The FTA has brought down import taxes on both sides of the Pak-China border and removed many non-tax barriers which, in the past, disallowed bilateral trade in certain goods and commodities. This has led to a deluge: from high-end electronics to low-end toys, from replicas of art pieces to handbags, from sanitaryware to shoes and […]
The basic framework was strikingly simple. The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending. Read Here – Bloomberg
Their presence at the G-7 summit at Ise-Shima, Japan, last week was hardly noticed in India. But among the six leaders of the developing world present in the outreach session were Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh, and Maithripala Sirisena, president of Sri Lanka. Read Here – The Indian Express
Like a typical school bully, China is big and strong, but it doesn’t have a lot of friends. Indeed, now that the country has joined with the United States to approve new international sanctions on its former vassal state North Korea, it has just one real ally left: Pakistan. Read Here – Project Syndicate
In two years, Modi has displayed an instinctive understanding of power in the conduct of world affairs, and he has also benefited from being less politically hamstrung than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, with whose worldview he in fact shares much in common. Read Here – The Wire
With less than a month until British citizens vote on whether the U.K. should stay in or leave the European Union, Americans could be forgiven for being preoccupied with their own political dramas. Still, President Obama conspicuously weighed in on the British debate in April, writing in The Daily Telegraph “with the candour of a […]
looking beyond borders 