When President Xi Jinping meets his US counterpart Donald Trump, tea rather than beer might be the best way to oil the wheels of the diplomatic relationship. Xi was quick to cross the cultural divide and share an ale with former British prime minister David Cameron in 2015 but that tactic will not work for […]
Two international lending institutions and Pakistan’s central bank have raised concerns about the debt burden of a huge China-led infrastructure program on the country’s improving but fragile finances. Surging Chinese imports for the initiative, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor program, have complicated Pakistan’s balance of payments problems during its second year of economic recovery […]
Next week, Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to the United States to meet Donald Trump for the first time. But according to Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times, power is flowing in the opposite direction. Read Here – The Atlantic
India is in a period of rapid economic development, but the nation has not been as generous as its neighbouring countries hoped it would be in providing financial assistance to underdeveloped areas and promoting regional integration. A yawning infrastructure funding gap in South Asian countries creates space for China and those nations to strengthen economic […]
Israel and India probably do not have what amounts to a strategic alliance, but the two nations have many converging concerns and interests, since both are living in a dangerous environment. The economic relationship between the two countries is impressive when seen in isolation but disappointing by international comparison. Bilateral trade increased from virtually zero […]
It’s no coincidence this evolution has coincided with the rise of social media. The only thing that can accelerate a topic online better than outrage is humour—combine the two and you have a potent tool for reaching millions. (Hell, even protest signs—“We shall overcomb”—spawn top-10 lists.) Read Here – Wired
China’s strategy has targeted the information ecosystem at its source. Rather than simply trying to censor unfavourable stories or burnish its image, China is going after the infrastructure of information—whether through Hollywood acquisitions, the global media that informs international opinion and policy, or the norms, standards and corporate platforms powering the Internet, a medium through […]
For both China and India, Buddhism is a useful enhancer of cultural soft power. The religion has, over the past decade, increased in importance for India as New Delhi tries to re-energize the religious tradition and integrate it into the country’s cultural strength; for China, meanwhile, Buddhism is an important means of soothing domestic discontent […]
Ultimately, of course, policy differences, not personal ones, will matter most. Everyone in the Saudi leadership shares with the Trump administration a common view on the dangers posed by Iran. But there’s a gap in their respective positions on the war in Yemen and how the kingdom can best be extricated from it. Read Here […]
Almost 40 years after a short yet devastating war launched by China in 1979, there has been not any official commemoration of the war in Vietnam. The fierce fight from February 17 to March 16, 1979, claimed tens of thousands of lives, soldiers and civilians alike, in Vietnam’s border provinces, but the conflict hasn’t received the […]
looking beyond borders 