When Saudi Arabia’s veteran foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, made no annual address to the United Nations General Assembly last week for the first time ever, his unspoken message could hardly have been louder. Read Here – Reuters
Obama’s failure to don a batik shirt for the closing photo shoot of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit changes little. In addition, if the past is any guide, China’s leaders will once again overplay their hand. For many of its neighbors, China’s uncompromising stance on sovereignty over various disputed atolls and islands is just too alienating. 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
For all the flurry of recent activity in ASEAN–India relations, the status of the relationship remains decidedly mixed. Read Here – The Diplomat
The leaders of India and Pakistan have pledged to work together to halt a recent upsurge of violence in Kashmir, according to senior officials. Read Here – BBC Read Here – The Daily Times, Pakistan
It turns out that Burma may need China after all. Reformers had hoped that the transition from a military regime to democracy would bring in new foreign investment to help Burma wean itself from support from its massive neighbor to the north, which was its main patron during decades of international isolation. But it hasn’t quite turned out that […]
President Putin’s op-ed in the NYT today is fantastic. It’s a virtual end-zone twerk, as this botoxed former KGB hack brags about restoring a more peaceful world order, basks in the relatively new concept of Russia’s global stature, asserts obvious untruths – such as the idea that the rebels were behind the chemical attack of August […]
China is not an empire, and it rejects the deep-rooted imperial thinking in forging diplomatic relations. China was humiliated and bullied for a century, which made the country much more eager for equality than its Western counterparts. Read Here – Global Times
The U.S. is looking beyond its shores, including at the Westinghouse deal with India, to revive an industry that is not doing as well as its supporters project it to. Read Here – The Hindu
One of the impacts of the global recession is that it has compelled a number of countries to scale back their diplomatic representation overseas by closing some of their embassies. Faced with the economic and financial realities during economic downturns, governments often have little choice but to cut back on the spending that is involved […]
looking beyond borders 