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Dark times loom for the US economy in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s latest threat on August 1 to levy 10% tariffs on some $300 billion of imports from China. In response, China allowed the yuan to weaken against the dollar and thereby cushion the impact for Chinese exporters. In...
Wired takes a new look at China’s social credit system that has been nearly unanimously maligned in the West as a totalitarian tool that should frighten any freedom-loving citizen of a Western democracy out of his or her wits. The Chinese claim it is an efficient management tool. Wired clearly...
The world’s governments and peoples must decide how to address the increasing surveillance and data collection — and the resulting loss of privacy — that digital formats provide. In recent years, much of this attention has focused on the rapidly building surveillance and data aggregation in...
The headlines grabbed attention: “China’s economy grows at slowest rate in nearly 30 years,” noted the Financial Times in a typical example. China’s GDP growth in the second quarter had slowed to 6.2%, the smallest gain since 1992, back when the country’s economy was first shifting into...
The next steps by the likes of China and Russia toward segmentation of the internet, and the way private companies respond, will make or break the World Wide Web. On February 12, the Russian State Duma passed a bill to create a “sovereign” internet, demanding independence from global servers...
Donald Trump is making political waves by deploying warships. But is the United States gambling with its credibility as an international force for order? Since 2002, the most important security conference in the Asia-Pacific region has been held annually at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore....
The US has never excelled at understanding other cultures, but under Trump the insurmountable obstacles to connecting with cultures that look and feel different have become more apparent. Did we need proof that racism is implicit in US foreign policy? The proof has been there for centuries...
Xi Jinping finds an alternative to exceptionalism to consolidate China’s bid to lead the global economy. Raising the debate to the level of universal principles, Chinese President Xi Jinping has framed his response to US President Donald Trump’s doctrine of America First, a specific brand of...
Instead of attempting to undermine China’s Latin America plan, the United States needs to construct one of its own. On April 12, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo kickstarted a week of travel to several Latin American countries, where he did not fail to warn of the dangers of a close...
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to John L. Harper, the Kenneth H. Keller professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University. Foreign policy decisions made by US President Donald Trump have been widely criticized both by his opponents and his own party....
The outcome of the election may be unclear, but the next president of Indonesia should take notes on how to do business with China. On April 17, Indonesians went to the polls to vote for a new president. Although the official result will be announced in May, “quick counts” by polling...
