..……………..hello hello hello…Weiwei…where have you been?…I see you in dreams…bleeding…in the darkness of the sun…79 spots in the flame…each a nightmare one cannot wake up from…Weiwei…the last son…you told me as we said goodbye…your last night on the Lower East side…未未…the last child of your Mother and Father…born in the labor camp…exiled from Beijing to the far desert…
Despite official Indian denial that there is no competition between the two Asian giants (The Economic Times 2010) in Africa, India’s foreign policy swings between attempting to catch up with the Chinese, who have made major inroads in Africa over the past decade, and accommodating the aspirations of China, India and the western world in the context of India’s enduring relations with the continent. This competition centres on three major issues: energy security, access to Africa’s untapped markets and diplomatic influence.
It has been more than two months since Chinese artist Ai Weiwei disappeared. The son of famous poet Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei is well known for his architecture, curating, photography, film, and social criticism. After his collaboration with the architects Herzog and de Meuron on Beijing’s Olympic stadium, his fame spread. Outspoken and liberal, Ai has long been an advocate for democracy. He stated that he had no interest in the 2008 Olympics and would not attend the opening ceremony: “an Olympics held without freedom and against the will of the people will be nonsense because no totalitarian regime can play at being democracy. It is a pretend harmony and happiness.”
One of the chief reasons for Western audiences to watch Up the Yangtze is its intimate portrayal of the aspirations and anguish of the Chinese citizens depicted in the film. With so much glib reductionism on offer by Western commentators, it is refreshing to hear Chinese voices expressing their own hopes and frustrations.
Ghanaian cocoa, Gabonese iron and Congolese oil have been swapped for construction of dams (Bui, Poubara, and River Dam), allowing Chinese corporations such as Sinohydro to capture the bulk of Africa’s hydropower market. The ‘barter system’ thus enables China to export goods and labour, facilitating for China the opportunity to ‘import’ their recycled project capital in addition to African resources. In the process, China has activated arguably the same ‘Western’ capitalist vehicles of engagement…
If the killing of Osama bin Laden were a Hollywood murder mystery, the shootout scene in Abbottabad would be followed by the unveiling of the sponsor who arranged for the al-Qaeda safe house. Is it the Pakistani intelligence officer who appears early in the movie to assure his U.S. counterparts that he is fully committed to bringing bin Laden to justice? Is it the Saudi construction magnate who owes several major favors to the bin Laden family? Or perhaps it’s the U.S. embassy official who, it might turn out, believes that Osama is more useful alive than dead — until finally, he is useful no longer.
In the wake of Obama’s recent tour of Latin America, media reports and commentators claimed that China has been economically outmuscling the United States in the region. The reality, however, is that Beijing’s economic presence has not come at the expense of the United States. Although Washington still maintains an overwhelming edge, its influence is decreasing. This decline will be exacerbated by Obama’s focus on boosting U.S. exports to the region rather than importing more of Latin America’s manufactured goods.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has let China write its own rules despite his demand that all foreign-owned mining ventures sell majority holdings to black Zimbabweans.
Severing the ties that bind disarmament and nonproliferation is not only bad policy, it’s an offense against common sense.
Energy concerns may underlie U.S. involvement in the intervention in Libya, to the exclusion of Bahrain and Yemen.