Beyond support for armed militias which take orders more from Tehran than Baghdad, Sistani is also aware that Iraqis, including most Iraqi Shiites, resent more mundane issues such as Iran’s dumping of cheap manufactured goods on the Iraqi market, thereby undercutting struggling Iraqi businesses. The anti-Iranian sentiment is so widespread that when fertilizer run-off poisoned […]
President Trump appears to be getting advice on China policy from World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It’s all starting to resemble a pro-wrestling match where one wrestler gets his opponent in a headlock, throws him to the ground and has him pinned—for a long two seconds—until he miraculously escapes. It’s good theater, but it’s tough on […]
In delivering his 2019 government work report to the National People’s Congress in Beijing, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the country would “work faster to make China strong in manufacturing” – this despite there being no mention of “Made in China 2025” in the government work report for the first time in three years. Read […]
China’s added GDP last year exceeded the value of Australia’s total output, the country’s statistics agency said as it sought to highlight the country’s economic resilience. In 2018, China’s economic growth rate slowed to the lowest level in 28 years – a fact that has fanned concerns about the country’s economic outlook. Read Here – […]
For the past seven decades, the world has been moulded by a strong, transatlantic relationship with the US and EU underwriting the terms of peace, stability and economic prosperity. The success of this order has created its own existential challenge. Its rising beneficiaries in Asia and elsewhere increasingly challenge the validity of these arrangements and […]
China’s senior diplomat Wang Yi said the latest round of trade talks with the US had provided “positive prospects” on Sino-American ties and the global economy, as state media reacted with cautious optimism. The talks between chief negotiators in Washington, described by Wang at a Beijing event as “achieving concrete progress”, yielded an immediate delay […]
With the Chinese economy slowing, the US believes that China is hurting and desperate for a deal to end the bilateral trade war before it resumes after March 1, when the current 90-day truce expires. But the two economies’ longer-term fundamentals compel a very different verdict on relative strength. Read Here – Project Syndicate
February brings the most significant series of tests yet of whether President Trump can transform his disruptive U.S. foreign policy into concrete outcomes. The four to watch most closely are: negotiating a trade deal with China, denuclearising North Korea, rallying an international community to contain Iran, and democratising Venezuela. Read Here – CNBC
The Chinese economy ended 2018 on a weak note, but not so weak that people now fear growth will fall off a cliff. Gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter clocked in at 6.4 per cent, the weakest since the first quarter of 2009, but in line with market expectations. The quarterly growth profile, which shows […]
It’s customary these days to lament U.S. relations with allied countries like Germany and Canada, or to worry about warmth with unfriendly ones like Russia and North Korea. Ties with India, however, are a refreshingly positive outlier. Bilateral relations are mostly healthy and both sides continue to raise their strategic bet on a close long-term […]
looking beyond borders 