By Abul-Hasanat Siddique Why have the fruits of the “Arab Spring” not been met? Over one year ago, Casper Wuite and I became published authors when our book, The Arab Uprisings: An Introduction, was released. An incredible feat for the two of us aside, the revolts that swept the Middle East and North Africa from […]
Chinese recycling tycoon Chen Guangbiao recently made headlines when he announced his “plans” to buy the New York Times. I put “plans” in quotation marks because the newspaper’s owners had expressed neither knowledge of any such deals in the works nor interest in selling it to anyone, least of all to a nationalistic Chinese businessman […]
After Beijing unilaterally declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea last month, to include the disputed Tokyo-controlled islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, the reaction by regional neighbors and the U.S. was swift. But with each action, a subsequent and escalating reaction has been triggered. China’s […]
Since my previous post on this incident was submitted, a suspect has been arrested in the New Year’s Day arson attack on the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. The suspect, who turned himself in to authorities and made a full confession of guilt, is a Chinese national who claims to have set the fire because […]
Over a month has passed since the release of Pope Francis’ Evangelii Guadium – the first major ‘apostolic exhortation’ of his papacy. Elected less than a year ago, much has already been written in both Catholic and secular circles about the importance of his leadership He enjoys approval ratings any political leaders would envy. Mainstream […]
The New York Times last week published a new account of the Benghazi attack, based on interviews with Libyan participants and witnesses and U.S. officials, which disputes the now widely accepted assumptions that the attack was planned well in advance by al-Qa’ida or one of its affiliates and that the infamous online video “Innocence of […]
An arson attack on the Chinese consulate-general in San Francisco has exacerbated tensions between China and the United States. The attack occurred the night of Jan. 1, when someone poured gasoline onto the front door of the consulate and set it ablaze. While the building sustained significant fire and smoke damage, there were no injuries, […]
Andrew Peacock/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Following its spectacular success as host of the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing’s successive attempts at increasing its “soft power” have often fallen short. Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or […]
Our favorite longreads and blog posts from the past two weeks.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel yesterday for his 10th time in the Middle East region in efforts to move Israeli-Palestinian peace talks forward. Until his scheduled Sunday departure, his visit will include ‘intensive conversations’ with both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a senior State […]
A perusal of reader comments on Chinese news websites following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo reveals an online explosion of nationalist fury. Despite U.S. attempts to dissuade Abe from visiting the shrine and U.S. criticism following his visit, America has not been spared the anger of […]
1. A Bird Does Not Change Its Feathers. The big players are not going anywhere. In 2014, Netanyahu will still be Prime Minister of Israel, Abbas will still head the Palestinian Authority, and Obama will still be the U.S. president. Obama has for some time now removed himself from the scene, with Secretary of […]
China and the United States were both right to condemn Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo on Dec. 26, 2013. For once China and America are on the same page. China’s leaders will waste no time, however, in exploiting the incident to stir up anti-Japanese nationalism at […]
Working on an essay on Israeli and Palestinian public opinion on the two-state solution as a Research Associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), I have been looking at many polls. Therefore, I was very interested in an article posted by Jennifer Rubin on her blog for the Washington Post last week. Entitled “Maybe […]
Dr. Janice Gross Stein is the Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, where she is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science. Dr. Stein is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the […]