In the past month, two seemingly unrelated events have turned Central Asia into a potential flashpoint: an aggressively expanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between Russia and China.
On June 4, 1989, history forked.
Will China be the "growth pole" that will snatch the world from the jaws of depression?
Let’s say that China sends a ship 75 miles off San Diego to do a little surveillance. Those are international waters, after all, and Beijing is interested in the latest developments in our submarine warfare capabilities at Naval Base Point Loma. And it wants to do some reconnaissance for its own expanding fleet of subs. Want to bet that the United States dispatches a ship to tell the Chinese to back off?
The people of Burma have high hopes for Barack Obama. Burmese still look to Washington — rather than Beijing, New Delhi, or Moscow — to provide reliable political support for democratic change. But although Burma is back in the headlines — with the Rohingya refugee crisis and Thailand’s refusal to provide these stateless Burmese Muslim boat-people with refugee status — the other foreign policy issues pressing in on the Obama administration may quickly push the Southeast Asian country to the back burner.
You might have missed the news: China is now No. 3.
With multiple crises affecting our world – global economy, climate change, resource depletion – we must urgently redirect the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on preparing for war. The United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea spent about $970 billion in 2008 on the military. That figure, alarmingly, is on the rise. For about one-tenth of this near-trillion dollar amount – about $90 billion a year – we can achieve more genuine security by eliminating global starvation and malnutrition, educating every child on earth, making clean water and sanitation accessible for all, and reversing the global spread of AIDS and malaria.
Beijing is a sprawling metropolis. Avenues up to 12 lanes wide connect high-rise centers of commerce. But with size comes pollution. The air in Beijing in winter is opaque, and after a week of breathing it left me with the miserable Beijing cough. Global warming analysts point out that China is building a new coal […]
In Asia, gifts matter. Consider the gift exchange during the recent high-level chat between Taiwan’s new president Ma Ying-jeou and Chen Yunlin. Chen is the chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), Beijing’s primary negotiation body with Taiwan. He recently went to Taipei for five intensive days as the highest profile mainland visitor in the last 60 years. Although Chen only met Ma for a brief talk, they did manage to exchange gifts. President Ma gave Chen a fine porcelain ornament. Porcelain, a key symbol of Chinese culture, is also known as china. Ma’s gift, then, can be interpreted as a sign of the "One China" consensus because what he gave Chen was one "china." Indeed, under the framework of the "1992 consensus," which allows both parties to interpret the term "one China" differently, Beijing and Taipei are willing to promote their bilateral relationship while remaining ambiguous about more sensitive issues.
One of the most profound migrations in history is taking place today. Cities are swelling all over the world with the influx of farmers and peasants. But it is in China, the world’s most populous country, that this great migration has the potential to remake geopolitics. The numbers are staggering. There are 182 Chinese cities large enough and connected enough to qualify as international metropolises. Of these, 89 have populations larger than a million (compared to only 37 in the United States). This migration in China will not only affect energy use, climate, and agricultural production. It will inevitably shift global power from West to East as these Chinese cities become the center of finance, politics, and art.