Xi Jinping, delivering his first New Year’s address as China’s president, said the country must press ahead with reforms in 2014 to improve livelihoods and make the country “rich and strong.” Read Here – Bloomberg
Beijing lawmakers and sociologists have urged the government to prepare for a possible baby boom after the capital relaxes its family planning policy next year. Read Here – Xinhua
With 2013 approaching termination, it may be a good time to review the five most portentous events and developments of the year. Read Here – The National Interest
The U.S. and China have the most important bilateral relationship in the world. The rising global superpower and the status quo superpower are deeply cooperative and deeply competitive — at the same time. Read Here – Bloomberg
The essence of President Vladimir Putin‘s annual address to the Federal Assembly on Dec. 12 was that his enchantment with state capitalism and Soviet economics is continuing. Rather than promoting higher economic growth, he wanted to go after the remaining prominent private businessmen Read Here – Moscow Times
Although Mao and Marx have been replaced in many ways by modernization, the great helmsman is still at the center of China. Read Here – The Euroepan
Silvio Berlusconi is out and Angela Merkel was reelected. Nelson Mandela and Hugo Chavez passed away. Fidel Castro didn’t. People took to the streets in Kiev and Bangkok, Cairo and Khartoum. The president of Syria ignored Barack Obama’s red line and used chemical weapons, while Iran was willing to engage in negotiations with the United […]
Multiple Indias have always existed in Gandhi’s land of 700,000 villages, but never perhaps in such proximity or with such access to one another, a rising class of conspicuous consumers hoisted through a decade of now faltering growth hard by villages where unemployed men dim boredom with alcohol. Read Here – New York Times
A series of elections in India last week has exposed a major diplomatic problem for the U.S. State Department: The man expected to lead the world’s largest democracy in 2014 is not legally allowed to enter the United States. Read Here – Foreign Policy
China’s growing assertiveness with Japan and the U.S. is helping bring a level of attention to Southeast Asia unseen since the Vietnam War, ushering billions of dollars of investment, wider access to trade and stepped-up military assistance. Read Here – Bloomberg
