While a visiting senior politician from Vietnam and her Chinese hosts talked in Beijing about the friendship and comradeship between the two communist neighbors, it was reported that their coast-guard vessels had been involved in a confrontation over a reef in the South China Sea. READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON ASIA TIMES.Read More

Preaching is one of the things that Chinese leaders and officials do –and do brilliantly – on the international stage. Wherever they go, they always preach about how international relations should be conducted and paint their country as a responsible, benign and altruistic power. READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON ASIA TIMES.Read More

The ‘America First’ Endgame argues that we are currently witnessing the ‘endgame’ of the international system established by the USA in the immediate post-WWII period. It is against this background that the US has enacted a new monetary, fiscal, trade and foreign policy mix, ‘America First’, which amounts to a coherent and comprehensive financial war...Read More

On and in the lead-up to June 4, many people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Yet in mainland China, any mention or coverage of the Chinese army’s violent crackdown on the peaceful student-led protests was totally forbidden. READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON ASIA TIMES.Read More

Countries often mark landmark anniversaries of their normalized relations. But instead of commemorating the 40th anniversary of their normalization of ties with fanfare, the United States and the People’s Republic of China are engaging in a multi-front conflict. READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON ASIA TIMES.Read More

The escalating USA trade war must be seen as part of a much wider US push-back against a rising China, and indeed much of the global system that is considered not to be acting in the American interest. For China, this raises concerns over the impact on its economy and highly integrated domestic and international...Read More

While Russia’s vision of a Greater Eurasia has proven useful in addressing certain foreign policy dilemmas, it is still in need of further conceptual development. The paradigm of “orders within orders” could expand and complement the idea of a Greater Eurasian partnership, while also advancing and securing Russia’s long-term interests by reformulating its relations with...Read More

In a meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, which took place just hours before his sit-down with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, on February 27, US President Donald Trump invited his Vietnamese counterpart to visit his country this year, and the latter accepted the invitation. Though they did not say when the...Read More

“It is as hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.” This was one of the pictorial worms inserted in our minds by an earnest and persuasive Sunday School teacher. It was a fantastical image that I turned over in my...Read More

As relations between the EU and Russia remain frosty, Moscow has pivoted towards Beijing in search of deeper strategic cooperation. How can Europe re-engage with a Russia increasingly focused on (Eur)asia? This week marks the five-year anniversary of the Maidan Revolution, which set in motion the events that would lead to the Russian annexation of...Read More