The annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit recently took place in Papua New Guinea. Controversy has shrouded the build-up to the event; the local government decided it was a good idea to purchase 40 Maseratis to chauffeur attending dignitaries, in a country where poverty is rampant, while two cruise ships were docked in the harbour […]
The apparent success of Putin’s misadventures in Ukraine could serve as an attractive geopolitical militaristic strategy for other nations with territorial disputes, such as China.
Lately, it seems China’s aggressive foreign policy stance toward territorial disputes in the South China Sea is backfiring, especially in Vietnam. Last month, Vietnamese officials offered India two oil-exploration blocks in the disputed South China Sea waters, which Vietnam calls the East Sea, which drew strong condemnation from Beijing. In turn, India promised to sell […]
While Chinese President Xi Jinping is busy greeting world leaders this week at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing, here in the quiet, old Dutch town of Galle, Sri Lanka, Chinese tourists are visiting one of the best preserved colonial-era cities in Southeast Asia.
In a piece on Foreign Policy’s website the other week, Tim Roemer, the immediate past U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, urged Washington officials to pay closer attention to India as a geopolitical and economic partner. In his view, the country needs to be at the center of the U.S. strategic pivot to Asia and both capitals must, among […]
There can be no denying the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama’s cancellation of his trip to Southeast Asia, October 6-12, where he was scheduled to attend to attend the APEC Economic Leaders meeting in Bali, Indonesia, then the East Asia Summit in Brunei, followed by visits to Malaysia and the Philippines, is extremely unfortunate. […]
The state visit to New Delhi by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2010 focused on the potential for mutual economic cooperation. Wen arrived with a large business delegation that promptly signed some $16 billion worth of deals. The two governments also pledged to take their $60-billion trade relationship to the $100-billion level by 2015. […]
Last month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed, in an article for the Foreign Policy Magazine, ‘America’s Pacific Century’! This week, President Obama will be laying the foundation through a series of multilateral meetings involving Pacific Rim countries. He will start with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Hawaii (Nov 12th-13th), and continue at […]
Having made the calculation that America’s security and prosperity would be enhanced by partnership with India, the United States over the last decade has promoted New Delhi’s admission into global governance structures. For the Bush administration, this meant doing the heavy lifting required to enroll India into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an informal cartel governing […]
In 1995, then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton riveted the world at that year’s Beijing World Conference on Women. She made a compelling case for all of us – particularly governments – to address the issues important to women and girls, and made the tag line “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are […]
Once again, it’s time for business leaders to step forward As earlier posts have argued, relations between Washington and New Delhi – which not too long ago seemed destined to reach for the stars – are now feeling the heavy tug of gravity. In place of soaring rhetoric and high-profile undertakings, ties between the two […]
Last year, Russian people stuck it to the Man by painting a giant penis on a St Petersburg drawbridge. The Kremlin’s revenge sends that message right back. It’s much less funny, much more obscene, but also involves a bridge: a $1.3 billion bridge to a remote island as part of an overall $24 billion bill […]
In a display of the increasing role that financial, trade and economic policy holds in US foreign policy, President Obama in the first leg of his Asian tour announced a host of new trade deals with India supporting tens of thousands of US jobs as he began a 10-day trip through Asia — demonstrating the importance of global trade to the sluggish US economy.
APEC – Gregory Clark, over at Japan Times, argues that APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) is an obsolete framework that was never very affective in the first place. If one agrees with him or not, he gives a good background on the history of various political-economic groupings in East-Southeast Asian region since the Cold War. Obama’s […]
Cambodia – In a never ending quest to irritate his larger neighbor, Thailand, Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen, is considering allowing former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to move there. Despite the fact he is wanted on criminal charges in Thailand, ranging from tax evasion to treason. Thaksin was deposed in a bloodless 2006 coup […]