With the world looking to China for assurance that it can manage its slowing economy and tumultuous stock market, President Xi Jinping has begun pushing a remedy that sounds less like Marx and Mao than Reagan and Thatcher. Read Here – The Boston Globe
Donald Trump supercharged his hostile takeover of the Republican Party on Super Tuesday, scoring big wins in at least seven states as he threatened to break away from his GOP rivals in the delegate chase. Read Here – Politico
If (Donald) Trump is the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton is chosen by the Democrats, the 2016 election may seem like a distorted, vulgar repetition of 1964: a contest between a Republican who scares and repels people, including Republicans, and a Democrat whom many voters, including Democrats, don’t like or trust, leading to an outcome […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) deserves credit for effectively responding to the global and European financial crises. However, the institution will face different and potentially more difficult challenges in the next five years as it struggles to come to terms with a changing international power order and lending rules that are not well suited to […]
Chinese elite politics has always been frustratingly opaque because of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) continuing addiction to secrecy and strategic concealment. All the old adages from Sun Tzu’s `Art of War’ about hiding true ability, misleading and subverting seem to have been internalized and become the life blood of the Party from its […]
By winning over the black voters who rejected her in 2008, Hillary Clinton may clinch the Democratic nomination—and inherit the coalition built by the president who defeated her. Read Here – The Atlantic
The international community is watching closely as Iranians wrap up two elections today, one for the parliament, or Majlis, and the other for the Assembly of Experts. For brief profiles of the central actors in current Iranian politics, Read Here – Brookings
Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union to punish President Vladimir Putin for meddling in Ukraine remain a drag on growth. And oil’s decline to a 13-year low has been catastrophic for Russia, where almost 50 percent of government revenue comes from crude and natural gas. Read Here – Bloomberg
Downshifting is always painful, but politicians often make it more painful—and ultimately more destabilising—than it needs to be. That was certainly the case in the U.S. in the 1970s, and Chinese leaders would do well to learn from America’s experience. Read Here – The Atlantic
