When he arrives in Myanmar, President Barack Obama will mark a historic occasion. Not only will it be the first time a sitting American president has visited the country, the trip also represents the final step in Myanmar’s remarkable rehabilitation from international pariah status. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made a point of […]
In the course of a U.S. presidential campaign, the American public is bombarded with surveys asking voters to rank the relative importance of various issues, and whether they think the country is overall on the right track. Not so in China, where another leadership transition has just concluded, with the 18th Party Congress choosing Xi […]
As President Barak Obama resettles in the Oval Office and casts his gaze again beyond US politics, he may well be reminded that few eyes were on the ball when the Arab uprisings appeared to erupt suddenly in the spring of 2011, catching pundits and politicians by surprise, and re-positioning Washington’s Middle East policies. Today, […]
In April 2010, when the global economy was beginning to recover from the shock of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook predicted that global GDP growth would exceed 4% in 2010, with a steady annual growth rate of 4.5% maintained through 2015. But the forecast proved to be far too optimistic. In […]
With the formation of the Syrian national coalition in Doha last weekend, the Syrian conflict seems to have entered a new phase. For the first time since the breakout of the Syrian revolution almost 20 months ago, the Syrian opposition has a representative body that can speak in its name. Western governments have long been […]
Barack Obama has been reelected by concentrating on domestic issues. A look beyond US borders would have been unbearable to American voters anyways. That isn’t Obama’s fault: Foreign policy problems usually come with a long history, and we certainly can’t blame the president for not forecasting global turmoil. Yet we can admit that the global […]
There is no fiscal cliff in China, and probably no sex scandal at a spy agency waiting to burst, yet China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, is under just as much pressure as U.S. President Barack Obama to hit the ground running. Xi is assuming control of the Communist Party at a time when there is […]
n November 2010, President Obama visited India for three days. In addition to meeting with top Indian business leaders and announcing deals between the two countries worth more than $10 billion, the president declared on several occasions that the US and India’s would be the “defining partnership of the twenty-first century.” Afterward, Obama flew straight […]
Barack Obama, re-elected president of the United States, will start his new term in January. Xi Jinping, who will lead China for the next decade, will start his stint soon after. The two will have to become friends if they are to ensure that the global economy’s baby steps towards recovery are not crushed midway. […]
Mao Zedong believed that revolutionary fervor could overcome technological backwardness. But when more pragmatic leaders took power in Beijing, they found that China lagged so far behind the West that the country risked permanent second-class status. Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, launched China’s rise by reforming the economy and opening the country to the West. With […]
looking beyond borders 