Shuanghui International’s $7.1 billion purchase of US pork giant Smithfield was a US milestone for many reasons. Not only was it the biggest investment ever by a Chinese company, it also was proof that the US government could make impartial decisions about Chinese investment. And it meant that 70,000 US workers are now in the employ of […]
Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever […]
An unmistakable sense of unease has been growing in capitals around the world as the U.S. government from afar looks increasingly befuddled — shirking from a military confrontation in Syria, stymied at home by a gridlocked Congress and in danger of defaulting on sovereign debt, which could plunge the world’s financial system into chaos. Read […]
President Obama’s trimming of stops on a trip to Asia this month has raised questions locally about the US government’s two-year-old re-balancing of resources to the region, a shift embraced by allies such as Japan and the Philippines as their common rival China looms larger. Read Here – Christian Science Monitor
One of wisest responses to the revelations by Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who detailed the US government‘s snooping on online communications, came from one of America‘s leading academic bloggers: “Has the deadline for having a firm opinion about Snowden expired?” asked Daniel Drezner of Tufts University. “If so, I need an extension.” Read Here – The […]
One of the predictable two-step dances in U.S.-China foreign relations goes like this: First, an arm of the U.S. government issues a carefully worded statement referring to recent activities carried out in, or by, China—all deeply documented. Second, a representative of the Chinese government flatly denies everything. Read Here – Businessweek
The United States often uses exaggerated civilian casualty numbers to make a case for military intervention in strife-torn regions. Since the 1990s, the West has justified its military interventions on liberal grounds — to remove noxious leaders who oppress their people or who have begun to conduct policies that appear genocidal. Buoyed by the intervention […]
looking beyond borders 