This year’s recently released U.S. Treasury Foreign Exchange Report reads like Hamlet would read if we excluded the Prince of Denmark. In seeking the sources for world external imbalances and for global currency misalignments, the Treasury looks everywhere other than where the main source of these imbalances now resides.
Read Here | The National Interest
US President Joe Biden’s administration has doubled down on the claim that China is mounting a genocide against the Uighur people in the Xinjiang region. But it has offered no proof, and unless it can, the State Department should withdraw the charge and support a UN-based investigation of the situation in Xinjiang.
Read Here | Project Syndicate
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga received renewed commitments from the United States to the two sides’ alliance and the kudos due to the first foreign leader to be greeted by US President Joe Biden in Washington.
Read Here | Asia Times
A more assertive China is extending its influence across the Indo-Pacific and around the world. Existing alliances and institutions aren’t up to the task of addressing the consequences, and domestic politics across the region mean that an “Asian NATO” is off the table. That’s where the Quad comes in…
Read Here | Foreign Affairs
This diplomatic process, which is crucial to avoiding further conflict in the Middle East and allowing President Biden to focus on competition with China, will falter unless the Biden administration moves quickly. American negotiators should list the sanctions that the United States is prepared to remove in exchange for Iranian compliance.
Read Here | NYTimes
It’s the 50-year anniversary of “The Ping Heard Round the World,” a Time Magazine headline in their April 26, 1971 edition. An unexpected invitation for the United States table tennis team to visit China in that year led to Nixon’s visit in 1972, which dramatically changed the course of history. The full story, however, is much more intricate and interesting, and Japan is at the center of it.
Read Here | The Diplomat
China and Japan have decades of experience in managing their regular diplomatic crises, but escalating tensions over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the East China Sea are creating a new test for Asia’s most powerful giants.
Read Here | South China Morning Post
Far from offering America a face-saving exit from a 20-year war, a complete US military withdrawal from Afghanistan will make it an accomplice of the Taliban. And a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will cause lasting damage to the interests of the United States and its friends.
Read Here | Project Syndicate
As they, like China, have undergone an authoritarian shift in recent years, some Middle Eastern countries that are long-time US allies have endorsed China’s hardline stance on human rights and political dissent. It has had a dampening effect on the global backlash against China…
Read Here | South China Morning Post
Shaking hands and signing deals from Abu Dhabi to Ankara, Tehran to Riyadh, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent Middle Eastern tour once again demonstrated China’s growing influence in the region. Yet, while the trip saw some impressive numbers talked and important political statements made, the visit may have had more to do with a country many miles from the region: the United States.
Read Here | Asia Times
