Tony Blair and David Cameron were polished and formidable. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were rigid, fearful, cautious. Johnson might as well be another species. He is lively and engaged, superficially disheveled but in fact focused and watchful. He is scruffy, impulsive, exuberant. Read More Here
In recent months… there have been disturbing signals that Beijing is reconsidering its peaceful approach and contemplating armed unification. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made clear his ambition to resolve the Taiwan issue, grown markedly more aggressive on issues of sovereignty, and ordered the Chinese military to increase its activity near the island. Read More Here
For several months, Annalena Baerbock has been the It Girl of German politics. Baerbock, who is the Green Party candidate for chancellor, has been widely touted as a successor to Angela Merkel. Her party has stood roughly at parity with the conservative Christian Democratic Party at about twenty-nine percent in the polls. Read More Here
Despite presenting his agenda as the antithesis of Donald Trump’s, President Joe Biden, like his predecessor, is managing global affairs as an extension of domestic politics and economic policy. The goal of what the Biden administration calls “foreign policy for the middle class” is to promote the interests of America’s middle-class and working people. Read […]
If China historically had pursued the path that its current paramount leader, Xi Jinping, seems to want to take, it would not be a rising economic superpower. History shows that it is in China’s own interest to allow for more regional autonomy and less centralization. Read More Here
A consensus is forming that the election will be gerrymandered by the powers that be. In reality, they are applying Western norms of democracy, although the 1979 Iranian revolution created a unique political system devolving upon the unassailable supremacy of the concept of velayit-e-faqih (guardianship of the jurists in power), but renewable through free elections on the […]
It has never been easy to write about China, but today access is harder, and sources are more limited than they have been for decades. The pandemic hasn’t helped—since March 2020, China’s borders have been closed to most non-Chinese citizens. The result of this is that it is even harder for outsiders—and even most Chinese—to […]
A growing storm over the origins in China of Covid-19 has explosive political implications for the United States at home and abroad, as well as the duelling legacies of two presidents that will be defined by the pandemic. President Joe Biden told Americans he had ordered US intelligence agencies to report in 90 days on whether the virus […]
When historians reflect on India’s experience of COVID-19, they will puzzle over the contrast between the first wave of the virus that struck in 2020 and the far worse second wave that descended on the country a year later. Read Here | Foreign Affairs
The former Prussian royal family’s effort to recover riches lost after the Second World War hinges on one question: did their ancestors’ support help Hitler and the Nazis take power? Read Here | The New Statesman
looking beyond borders 