With a Friday prayer sermon by a former president and a call for a national referendum on the government’s legitimacy by another, the drama and crisis in Iran following the disputed elections are not over yet. When he spoke on Friday, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said many Iranians have doubts about the election […]
Last week, the Chinese government said the country grew nearly eight percent in the year to the second quarter. Beijing’s economic stimulus and record bank lending have proven effective and China is in a good position to emerge comfortably from the Great Recession. Do the new figures signal China’s economic resilience? Or is it too […]
Two weeks after unrest erupted in Xinjiang, Beijing should reassess its policies towards and relations with ethnic minorities. Instead of a strong and uncompromising response, the Chinese government needs to protect rights and provide opportunities for real autonomy. Ethnic tensions must be reduced not used to justify harsher measures. Minxin Pei, a senior associate at […]
“After decades of frustration, miscalculation, unrealized potential, India is now emerging as a factor in the global balance of power,” writes Shakti Prasad Srichandan in a Foreign Policy Association Feature published yesterday. He is a scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “In the coming years, it will have an opportunity to shape outcomes […]
Are India’s foreign policy institutions undermining the country’s rise? Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in this month’s issue of Asia Policy that “India’s own foreign policy establishment hinders the country from achieving great-power status.” He argues that India needs to reform and expand the foreign service and develop […]
When traveling abroad, Americans are often reminded that many people don’t love the United States. In fact, some seem to dislike or even hate the world’s superpower. But shouldn’t a president who is popular around the world improve America’s image? Sure, but President Barack Obama hasn’t improved the global view of the US. At least […]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke today at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. She emphasized the centrality of the United States and the importance of cooperation. Even though no country can solve global challenges alone, “no challenge can be met without America.” Working with the world’s rising powers – including China, India, […]
It’s a start, but it’s only the beginning. During his trip to Moscow last week, President Barack Obama made small steps in improving relations between the United States and Russia. Notably, the countries agreed in principle to cut their nuclear arsenals and allow American troops and weapons bound for the war in Afghanistan to fly […]
Who will come out of the economic downturn on top? Will the rising powers continue to rise? Even though many analysts believe the financial crisis originated in the United States, the International Economic Bulletin published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace contends that it is one of the least affected countries. The unequal impact […]
What China needs to reduce corruption is not more high-profile capital punishment cases, but a free press and an independent, de-politicized judiciary and police force that will fairly implement and adjudicate the law. Monopoly rule from the top makes it hard to develop such institutions.[…]
Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, made a controversial statement today. He predicts that China will attack India by 2012 in order to distract its massive populace from rampant internal unrest. He stated: “China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India […]
Time to re-read Huntington? His controversial and path-breaking Foreign Affairs article of 1993 and subsequent book posited that the post-Cold War era would be one of conflict and “fault line wars” among the world’s major civilizations: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, and Latin American and possibly African… Is the current unrest in China’s western […]
Ethnic tensions are high in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China. Rioters clashed with police – the largest protests in China in two decades – in the region’s capital, Urumqi, on Sunday and the Chinese state news agency reported that 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. Over 1,400 people have […]
Disarmament doesn’t usher in a safer world, arming with the right armaments, defensive armaments, does. […]
Demonstrating their global reach, Brazil, Russia, India and China are improving ties with Africa. The BRICs are looking to gain influence, friends, access to raw materials and export markets. Standard Bank of South Africa is publishing a “BRIC in Africa” series focusing on the new players in Africa (the initial report was released in May […]