Nadim Shehadi Saudi Arabia, followed by Bahrain, the UAE and Kuwait, cut their ties with Lebanon last week because it had fallen under the control of the resistance axis of Hezbollah and Iran. Thirty years after the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, the region is still divided along a fault line that is principally defined […]
Read MoreHu Xijin The Tsai Ing-wen authority has said that the island will defend itself “to the very last day” if the Chinese mainland attacks. Most people know they are bluffing. A recent Wall Street Journal report quoted several experts as assessing that Taiwan’s military has “poor preparation and low morale”. Also, “adult men in Taiwan […]
Read MoreWang Wen On the last page of his famous book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy quotes Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of the German Empire, saying that, “all of these Powers are traveling on the stream of Time, which they can neither create nor direct, but upon which they […]
Read MoreYossi Mekelberg Back in 2018, when Theresa May was still clinging to her job as UK prime minister, she unveiled plans to hold a celebration of the country’s departure from the EU. It was instantly dubbed the “Festival of Brexit.” Since then, it has been renamed “Unboxed: Creativity in the UK.” According to its promoters, […]
Read MoreAndrew Hammond This week’s 10th anniversary of the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya exemplifies how much of the 2010s were a wild period for international politics, with a long wave of political turbulence following the 2008-09 international financial crisis. The fallout from that period, which left the global economic system teetering on the […]
Read MoreHu Xijin The three taikonauts onboard the Shenzhou-13 spaceship entered China’s space station core module Tianhe on Saturday. The entire nation was watching and felt a shared sense of national pride. One after another, the country’s major achievements are reshaping the feeling of being a Chinese. The latest off-world success is another showcase of China’s […]
Read MoreHu Xijin Beijing has proposed to suspend the city’s light show and shortened the time of the city’s landscape lighting at night. I believe it makes sense for Beijing to launch this initiative now, whether this is because of Beijing’s power supply shortage or a response to the power shortages in Northeast China and other […]
Read MoreChris Doyle No country can afford to wait until the global pandemic has ended before determining the proper lessons to be learned. The stakes are too high. That is why a UK parliamentary select committee report into the coronavirus published on Oct. 12 received so much attention. The findings are stark, describing it as Britain’s […]
Read MoreAndrew Hammond While much on the agenda this week in Brussels for the summit of Europe’s 27 government leaders will be familiar, there is a historic power shift underway that could bring about significant change in 2022. The summit will probably be the last for outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her close collaborator, French President […]
Read MoreHu Xijin After his visit to the island of Taiwan, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott published on The Australian newspaper on Sunday an edited version of a speech he delivered in the island. The article has a provocative headline “My message to Taiwan: get ready to fight.” It advocates that “the best way to […]
Read MoreMartin Jacques There is growing interest in the West about the present wave of reforms in China, which began with the defrocking of Ant, then the regulatory moves against the anything-goes behavior of the tech giants, and the more recent criticism of the glaring inequalities in Chinese society. The initial Western reaction was predictably negative, […]
Read MoreIshtiaq Ahmad Afghanistan is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The end of the 20-year war may have silenced the guns for a while, but the war-torn country is at serious risk of imploding due to the worsening conditions it faces. This could have grave consequences for regional stability and international security in the […]
Read MoreHu Xijin Beijing has proposed to suspend the city’s light show and shortened the time of the city’s landscape lighting at night. I believe it makes sense for Beijing to launch this initiative now, whether this is because of Beijing’s power supply shortage or a response to the power shortages in Northeast China and other […]
Read MoreHu Xijin Today’s Chinese people are more dignified than ever before, and one of the important reasons is that we are not as poor as before. I cannot remember how much Chinese nannies would earn in 1993, but their monthly salary was definitely very meager — I’d say less than 100 yuan ($15.5). I went […]
Read MoreFaisal J. Abbas Two events related to tech giant Facebook this week should force us to stop and reflect about how the rise of social media has impacted us as societies, especially in the Arab world. Two days of testimony to US senators by whistleblower Frances Haugen, and the six-hour outage of Facebook and other […]
Read MoreNidhal Guessoum With the growing digitization of various aspects of society and the exponential increase in the amount of data “exhaust” that most of us produce, data privacy has emerged as an important issue of our time. First, a brief reminder about the amount of data that we produce and that companies such as Google […]
Read MoreDing Gang Meng Wanzhou has returned to the motherland. This is a landmark event which carries significance for China’s integration with the world and the international order. No matter how China, the US and Canada communicated and negotiated, Washington and Ottawa agreed to release her. The result shows that the US long-arm jurisdiction could be […]
Read MoreJames Gomez China’s request to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, is no surprise. In November 2020, during an APEC summit, President Xi Jinping said that China would actively consider the possibility of joining the regional trade group. Developing countries would benefit from a rules-based international order that aids the […]
Read MoreNong Rong – Ambassador of China to Pakistan October first is a great and solemn day in the history of the Chinese nation, featuring the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On this special occasion, on behalf of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, I would […]
Read MoreChris Doyle After one of the closest elections in modern German history, the ultimate winners and losers may take some time to emerge. In 2017, it took more than four months for Angela Merkel to form a coalition, and who would bet against her making this year’s Christmas speech as caretaker chancellor? The results had […]
Read MoreDing Gang On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, many academic institutions in China and the US held seminars to summarize the changes in the US, China and the world in the past two decades. There was an argument that after the 9/11 terror attacks, the US no longer saw China’s rise […]
Read MoreHu Xijin The Chinese mainland announced on Sunday suspension of imports of cherimoya and wax apples from the island of Taiwan due to the discovery of a known pest in recent shipments. This has led to bitter complaints from some politicians on the island. The leader of the Taiwan region Tsai Ing-wen pecked at the […]
Read MoreSofia Monsalve When I visited my parents in Bogota last month, I witnessed how people in their neighborhood went up and down the streets begging for help to survive. Since the end of April, Colombia has experienced one of its biggest waves of social unrest in recent times — and hunger is at the core […]
Read MoreHu Xijin General John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday, “Our goal should be to never go to war with China, to never go to war with Russia. Because that day is a horrible day for the planet, and a horrible day for our countries.” Retired US […]
Read MoreMartin Jacques In historical retrospect, America’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York’s Twin Towers was breathtakingly disproportionate. Tragic though it was, a death toll of 2,977 barely registers on the Richter scale of military conflict and acts of terrorism. If the same had happened to the magnificent Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, it […]
Read MoreDr Theodore karasik During a pandemic it is common for variants to emerge, as the global COVID-19 outbreak has shown.The latest to circulate, the so-called mu variant, is causing isolated infections in South America, Europe and the US. Meanwhile, delta variants, including delta plus, continue to produce “offspring.” What does a new variant mean for […]
Read MoreHu Xijin Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating recently said that China’s “great problem” is that “it [China] is now a state as large as the United States, and with the potential of being much larger – an unforgivable sin for American triumphalists.” The former Australian head of state made such a statement when accusing […]
Read MoreWang Wen Some people say the year 2021 is witnessing the world economy obviously walking out of its darkest moment.They are perhaps right if we look at the numbers. Based on the predictions of multiple agencies, world economic growth is expected to stand at 6 percent this year, with the growth of China, the US, […]
Read MoreJoseph Dana The delta variant of the coronavirus disease is wreaking havoc around the world and wealthy countries are deploying booster shots as a defense. With remarkable speed, the US has pushed ahead with a plan to offer a third vaccination jab as an attempt to curb the spread within its borders. This response is […]
Read MoreAlistair Burt What a difference a few weeks makes. Since my highlighting, in a July column, the harsh media spotlight under which the US decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was already being seen in London, we have had to confront the reality of the consequences. While by far the most painful aspect has been […]
Read MoreDing Gang “You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” This saying has been repeatedly come into my mind as the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches.I can still recall an exhibition of children’s artwork that debuted at the Museum of the City of New York on the first anniversary of […]
Read MoreHu Xijin The USS Kidd guided missile destroyer and the USCGC Munro cutter made a transit in the Taiwan Straits on Friday, the eighth time the US has sent warships through the Taiwan Straits this year. On the same day, the PLA held multiple military exercises on both sides of the Straits.The two pieces of […]
Read MoreMohamed Chebaro The blast at Kabul airport, the subsequent US retaliation, and the Taliban’s condemnation of America’s so-called unilateral action has maybe distracted us from the criticism of the British government’s failure to evacuate hundreds of Afghans eligible for asylum in the UK.That failure could be permitted had Britain under Boris Johnson and his Brexiteer-dominated […]
Read MoreNidhal Guessoum While some teaching and learning took place inside classrooms during the pandemic, most of the education world went online. Now, however, most of the students and teachers in the Arab world and elsewhere are resuming in-person classes — with various kinds of health precautions and pedagogical changes. Indeed, the pandemic has affected how […]
Read MoreHu Xijin I think what we can expect most from the new Afghan government should be as follows, and in that order:First, they draw a clear line against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other terrorist forces that pursue “Xinjiang independence,” and they do not support any activities aimed at destabilizing China’s Xinjiang Uygur […]
Read MoreKang Bing Despite becoming the top source of foreign direct investment last year, China is a newcomer to the world of investment and still has a lot to learn in the field of global investment. When China began measuring its overseas foreign direct investment (OFDI) in 2002, its total OFDI amount was a mere $2.7 […]
Read MoreMushahid Hussain August 15 will probably go down in history as the day that marked the formal end of the ‘American Century’ and the beginning of the ‘Asian Century’. On that day, the US-propped Kabul regime collapsed, with its head fleeing with around $169 million cash stashed in his luggage, and the ignominious, panicky exit […]
Read MoreAndreas Buelow Our world is full of possibilities and opportunities, as well as much uncertainty and risk. This has been true throughout human history but, right now, more opportunities are available to more people than ever before. What’s more, as humanity advances, there is a pervading sense of confidence that we can manage the challenges […]
Read MoreWang Wen The Chinese think tanks’ report – “America Ranked First?!: The Truth about America’s fight against COVIID-19” – has been viewed at least 500 million times. The report named the US as the world’s No. 1 anti-pandemic failure, No. 1 political-blaming country, No. 1 pandemic spreader, No. 1 politically-divisive country, No. 1 currency-abusing country, […]
Read MoreYang Cheng This year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Since its inception, the SCO has proved to be a multi-layered framework for political, economic and security cooperation, with China and Russia as the two engines driving it. The birth and development of the SCO have embodied China’s participation […]
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