Posted on April 20, 2020. Tags: Asia, Carl Schmitt, Chernobyl, China, coronavirus, COVID-19, Czech Republic, Donald Trump, European Union, Germany, Globalization, Hubei, Hungary, Liberalism, state of emergency, Trump, U.S., United States, WHO
“Viruses know no borders and they don’t care about your ethnicity, the colour of your skin or how much money you have in the bank.” The words of WHO official Dr Mike Ryan about Coronavirus (COVID-19) would seem to many of us common sense. What appears ‘common sense’ does not, however, always manifest in the […]
Read the full story
Posted in Australia, China, Europe, European Union, Germany, Refugees, Security Issues, UN, US, World
Posted on September 4, 2020. Tags: Aid, Bashar al-Assad, Belt and Road Initiative, China, Crimea, Russia, Sanctions, Security, Sovereignty, Stephen Krasner, Syria, UN, Veto, war, Xinjiang
‘War is the continuation of politics by other means’. This well-known quote from 19th century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz epitomises the Russian and Chinese role in the Syrian conflict, which is now in its tenth year. The conflict began in March 2011 after pro-democracy protests in Syria were brutally crushed by the Syrian […]
Read the full story
Posted in China, Conflict, Middle East, Russia, Syria, UN, World
Posted on September 8, 2019. Tags: China, Donald Trump, Far-right, identity, Nationalism, Politics, Populism, President Trump, United States, Xi Jinping
I moved to London when I was 16, having spent my entire childhood living in Beijing. My parents met there studying Chinese and my father later got a job with the Spanish embassy. When I arrived in the UK in 2014 British national culture seemed like a breath of fresh air compared to the parochial […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Europe, World
Posted on April 28, 2019. Tags: Belt and Road Initiative, China, South China Sea, The Quad, Vietnam
Rapid economic growth and the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has allowed China to expand its regional influence. Within the South China Sea, China’s expansion has materialized in the form of a coercive maritime strategy. Aside from straddling the key sea lanes of communication used for trade, the South China Sea also contains […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, Australia, China, Conflict, India, Security Issues, US, World
Posted on July 9, 2018.
The United States has recently taken an aggressive approach to evening-out what US President Donald Trump sees as a major trade imbalance. At the risk of a possible trade war, the President has implemented tariffs against the EU and China on major goods such as steel and automobiles. But retaliatory tariffs are planned in response. […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Economics, Global Economy, Global Politics Videos, US
Posted on June 22, 2018. Tags: Asia, Censorship, China, Chinese, Cross-strait conflict, Cross-strait relations, Democracy, Diplomacy, Hong Kong, One China Policy, People's Republic of China, Politics, Republic of China, South China Sea, Taiwan, Taiwanese
Last month, two more countries broke away from the fast dwindling assortment of diplomatic allies that officially recognise Taiwan as a sovereign state. The political volte-face in May by the Dominican Republic and Burkina Faso in favour of closer ties with Beijing follows a long trend of diplomatic shifts that leave Taiwan increasingly isolated on the […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Conflict, Political Security, Security Issues, World
Posted on March 27, 2018. Tags: China, Economics, Globalization, Infrastructure, international trade, one belt one road, Politics, Security, Trade, World, Xi Jinping
In the autumn of 2013, China’s president, Xi Jinping, first introduced plans for what has become known as the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, the largest integrated international infrastructure project the country has yet undertaken. The plan consists of a land-based economic belt and a string of ports constituting a ‘maritime silk road’, stretching from […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Economic Security, Economics, Global Economy, Political Security, Security Issues
Posted on September 30, 2015. Tags: Beijing, China, Culture, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, UN, Washington, Women's Rights, Xi Jinping
By Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of education and history at NYU Last Sunday, at the United Nations, world leaders marked the 20th anniversary of the landmark Beijing accord on women’s rights. They celebrated women’s progress—especially in education, health, and labor—and underscored ongoing gender inequalities. But they also condemned the jailing of female political dissidents in China, which […]
Read the full story
Posted in China, Religion, UN, World
Posted on February 16, 2016. Tags: Asia, Asia Economics, China, Cold War, Great Power Politics, India, Non-alignment policy, Post- Cold War, United States
Introduction At the time of India’s independence in 1947 the world had just witnessed the end of the Second World War and was slowly being engulfed in a new power struggle with the Cold War. The brewing trend of the time was that of alliance forming with either of the blocs led by the United States (US) […]
Read the full story
Posted in China, Conflict, India, Political Security, Security Issues, US, World
Posted on March 4, 2016. Tags: Arms Control, Autonomous Weapons, China, Israel, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Warfare
War will never again be the same. Autonomous weapons have nearly arrived, and so far nothing has been able to stop them. At the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, an open letter—signed by over three thousand of the world’s most relevant robotics experts, and endorsed by luminaries including Stephen Hawking, Nobel Laureate […]
Read the full story
Posted in China, Israel, Russia, US, World
Posted on September 5, 2015. Tags: China, Japan, World War Two
The bridge, upon which history this way passed, still stands. Renovated, but with some of the original paving slabs that echoed to the hobnailed boots of Japan’s Imperial army. It was on this bridge that an incident took place that some historians now believe may have been the first shots of The Second World War. […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, World
Posted on May 2, 2015. Tags: Asia Defense, Asia Economics, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China, China-South Korea relations, Middle power diplomacy, South Korea, THAAD, THAAD deployment to South Korea, U.S., U.S.- South Korea relations
‘When whales fight, the shrimp’s back is broken.’ The South Korean government has long viewed itself in terms of this proverb when it comes to its relations with the People’s Republic of China and the United States. The two great powers, in their battle for influence over the Asia-Pacific region, often require that South Korea […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Economics, Global Economy, Security Issues, US, World
Posted on June 7, 2015. Tags: Arbitration, CETA, China, Economics, European Union, international trade, Investments, ISDS, TTIP, U.S.
At the stakeholder briefing during the ninth round of negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), U.S. chief negotiator Dan Mullaney quipped that everyone was discussing Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) systems except the negotiators. The latter have not discussed the issue since January 2014, when the European Commission launched a public consultation, […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Economics, Europe, Global Economy, US, World
Posted on May 31, 2015. Tags: ASEAN, Beijing, China, South China Sea, U.S.
Tensions in the South China Sea were raised once again on the 21st of May when a U.S. P8-A Poseidon surveillance plane was identified by Chinese early warning radar gathering reconnaissance above the Spratly archipelago. The crew of the P8 were warned at least eight times to abort their flight over the contested waters, yet […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Security Issues, US, World
Posted on May 13, 2015. Tags: Africa, Angola, China, Nigeria, Oil, Opec
Emerging from a nearly three decade long civil war that began at the time of the country’s independence from Portugal and which did not end until 2002, Angola experienced an oil production boom in the years that followed. With the discovery of massive amounts of oil at several deep water fields south of the Congo […]
Read the full story
Posted in Africa, China, Global Economy, World
Posted on February 17, 2015. Tags: Africa strategy, China, Djibouti, Guelleh, Maldives, Mao, Mugabe, PLAN, Silk Road, Sri Lanka, String of pearls, Susan Rice, Zimbabwe
Sun Tzu, in his seminal book The Art of War, argued that all warfare is fundamentally based on deception. “When able to attack, we must seem unable; When using our forces, we must seem inactive; When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; When far away, we must make […]
Read the full story
Posted in Africa, Asia, China, Economic Security, Global Economy, Security Issues, World
Posted on January 14, 2015. Tags: Al Qaeda, China, Europe, Globalization, ISIS, Modernity, Terrorism, The Taliban
The main source of hostility in the modern world is the widening gap between the most and least developed segments of human civilization. While some societies are exploring potential life on other planets, life has not changed much for others over the past millennium. Unlike in previous centuries, the permeation of modern day technologies makes […]
Read the full story
Posted in Asia, China, Conflict, Europe, Security Issues, Terrorism, World