In moves that signify their strong desire to strengthen bilateral cooperation, the European Union and Vietnam have reached milestone agreements in recent months. On 30 June 2019, they signed a free trade agreement (FTA) and an investment protection agreement (IPA). Over a month later, on August 5, they inked a new defence agreement. In many...Read More

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

In his recent visit to the US, China’s President Hu Jintao was treated to an extravagant state banquet at the White House, an honour usually reserved for America’s closest friends and strategic partners and something denied to him in 2006. And the overall tone adopted by the leaders of the world’s two preeminent economic powers...Read More