China said it will seek a higher “quality and efficiency” of growth next year, signaling new leaders may accept a reduced pace of expansion in exchange for a more sustainable model. There was no mention of seeking “relatively fast” growth, a policy in place since 2006, in a report yesterday by the state-run Xinhua News […]
A FORMER prime minister, who resigned in 2007 after a shambolic first year in office, and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which two years later was hounded out of the governing role that it had taken as its birthright, are both headed for a remarkable return to power. In the hours after midnight it became […]
A casual observer of the Arab world will most likely have concluded that the experiment in adapting political Islam to democracy has already failed. Almost two years ago, as the Arab revolutions began in Tunisia, it seemed a foregone conclusion that political pluralism on a western model would take the place of the ageing autocrats […]
To say that corruption is endemic across Pakistan is neither new nor an understatement. But last week, a statement by President Asif Ali Zardari’s handpicked head of the main anti-corruption body stunned even those Pakistanis who have become relatively immune to graft. According to an estimate by the so-called National Accountability Bureau (NAB), led by […]
On the small, spectacular island of Jeju, off the southern tip of Korea, indigenous villagers have been putting their bodies in the way of construction of a joint South Korean–US naval base that would be an environmental, cultural and political disaster. If completed, the base would hold more than 7,000 navy personnel, plus twenty warships […]
BANGLADESH suffered a violent birth. In the last days of 1971 the country then called East Pakistan was engulfed by torture, rape, mass-killing and other acts of genocide. The main perpetrators were Pakistani troops bent on preventing secession from “West Pakistan”. But the army had the support of many of East Pakistan’s fundamentalist groups, including […]
Egyptians will vote today in a referendum on a new constitution that has polarized the country, with opposition groups urging the rejection of a charter they say lays the ground for Islamist dominance. Cairo, Alexandria and eight other governorates will vote today, with polling stations opening at 8 a.m. local time. The rest of the […]
Instead of leading the post-Arab Spring Middle East, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is setting a sad new standard for gratuitous intolerance. Three weeks ago, Turkey’s dominant political figure took time out of his busy schedule to threaten the makers of Turkey’s most popular soap opera. The program ‑ “Magnificent Century” ‑ is a […]
Washington‘s aggressive pursuit of containment of China and Beijing’s difficulty in launching major economic and political reforms will likely prove an explosive mixture. Meanwhile, Japan, India, and other Asian powers exploit the logic of “two ovens”. The 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was to be the springboard for economic and political renewal in […]
One of the elementary rules of foreign policy is when you are in a hole, stop digging. But judging by their recent behavior, Beijing’s foreign policy mandarins and national security establishment are clearly in violation of this rule. Despite the diplomat heat China has received for its tough stance on territorial disputes in recent months, […]
