This past weekend, China became the third country to land a spacecraft intact on the moon. The unmanned Chang’e-3 probe subsequently deployed a robot rover that will explore the lunar surface for the next three months, while the landing vehicle will conduct scientific experiments for the coming year. Beijing’s accomplishment is notable since it was […]
Criticizing the conventional wisdom about the inevitability of China’s global ascendancy and American strategic decline is a regular preoccupation for this page. Indeed, a recent post took aim at the prevailing notion, subscribed to by a wide-ranging group that includes Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, that Beijing can translate its vast holdings of dollar-denominated assets into policy […]
The conventional wisdom about America’s global standing wants to have it both ways. The narrative about last month’s fiscal melodrama in Washington emphasizes how wildly dysfunctional domestic politics are quickening the country’s strategic decline and how China is emerging as the beneficiary. Yet at the same time the outrage over U.S. global surveillance efforts has […]