Is the world entering a new cold war? Our answer is yes and no. Yes if we mean a protracted international rivalry, for cold wars in this sense are as old as history itself. Some became hot, some didn’t: no law guarantees either outcome. No if we mean the Cold War, which we capitalize because it originated […]
Many believe that China’s ‘profound transformation” is a result of President Xi Jinping’s seemingly endless personal obsession with political control. The overlooked answer, however, is that this is indeed the culmination of decades of thinking and planning by a very powerful man—but that man is not Xi. Read More Here
A routine transfer of a spymaster in Pakistan, believed to have been encouraged by China, has embroiled the powerful army and the prime minister’s office in a controversy on who appoints or transfers the head of the premier spy agency. Read More Here
Joe Biden might have scorned Trump’s “America first” approach to the world, but he’s doing his best to carry on Trump’s legacy on everything from foreign policy to trade and immigration. Read More Here
Even though Vladimir Putin was first elected Russia’s president in 2000, he is currently serving his “zero” term – according to the law that “nullified” his three previous presidencies and the current one. Read More Here
China’s domestic situation must be watched very closely in the year to come, before Xi is elevated to Mao status by the next Party congress. We should not discount the rationality of many of the new rules being introduced. Read More Here
In a country that regularly censors opposing viewpoints, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s push for “common prosperity” has triggered something unusual: A spirited public policy debate. Read More Here
With the Taliban’s sudden reconquest of Afghanistan, US President Joe Biden is learning how quickly “inbox problems” can derail other objectives. Whether he will recover and salvage his legislative agenda remains to be seen; history offers conflicting lessons. Read More Here
Before the Radcliffe Line, there was the Durand Line. The British, having seized territory from Afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1878-80 and annexed it to British India, dispatched Mortimer Durand to formalize those gains with a treaty in 1893. Read More Here
For members of China’s red aristocracy, the problem isn’t billionaires—it’s billionaires they’re not related to. The new rich of the 1980s onward often scrabbled to build connections to powerful families, like the relatives of Gen. Ye Jianying, for exactly this reason. Read More Here
