Xi Jinping‘s just-started journey to the west hemisphere will be his first tour to Latin America as Chinese president. Meanwhile, his June 7-8 talks with his US counterpart Barack Obama at Sunnylands estate, California, will also be the first summit between the world’s two largest economies after both countries underwent leadership transition. Read Here – China Daily
With a general election approaching in Germany this fall, Angela Merkel finds herself mired in a scandal about her communist upbringing. The belated reckoning with Merkel’s past reveals little about the chancellor’s political sympathies — and plenty about the German public’s historical ignorance. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
In the debate over the future of China’s growth, one factor typically animates the bulls more than any other: the country’s sheer size. One way or another, this undergirds most optimistic scenarios. China is so big it can absorb years and years of public-works spending without waste becoming a drag. The population is so large, […]
Among European publics ‘the Greek crisis’ is a phrase that invokes images of corruption, poor government, civil unrest, and social turmoil. Foreign governments and political commentators have grasped that this narrative also provides a way to provoke political change in their own countries. By threatening a future ‘akin to Greece,’ unpopular domestic reforms are passed […]
There is a lot going for India’s relations with Japan if New Delhi can overlook the Dragon in the room and get on with what it needs to do to ensure its economic and diplomatic rise. Read Here – Indian Express
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and dropping the continent’s welfare model in favor of tougher U.S. standards would spark a revolution. Read Here – Reuters
The People’s Liberation Army Navy has been circumspect in its involvement inSouth China Sea territorial disputes, and the United States has been careful to avoid being entrapped by regional allies in their territorial disputes with China. Armed conflict between China and the United States in the South China Sea appears unlikely. Read Here – East […]
Current trends in the global energy market don’t look good for Saudi Arabia. First, the International Energy Agency projected in November 2012 that the United States will surpass the Gulf petrogiant as the world’s top energy producer by 2020. Then, last week, it revealed that North America, buoyed by the rapid development of its unconventional oil industry, […]
Yet again Iraq finds itself at a ‘crossroad’ – a euphemism for political intransigence to the point of paralysis coupled with a spike in violence, cruelty and ethno-sectarian entrenchment. As with all such crossroads since 2003 the idea that Iraq needs to – or indeed inevitably will – fragment into three states with neat ethno-sectarian […]
For much of this year, discrimination of immigrants and racism have been hotly debated in a country where 14% of its 9.6m people are foreign born. Now the riots could make immigration and integration the pivotal debate in Swedish politics. Read Here – The Economist
