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As dusk fell on June 15, a bloody clash broke out between Chinese and Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley on the northwest China-India border, where a tributary of the Indus flows westward from Aksai Chin to Ladakh. In line with China’s recent expansionist policy elsewhere, its military had...
In East Asia, face masks are accessories akin to hats and scarves, a civilian, not a medical, accessory. People wear them for a variety of reasons: the smog, the cold, the sun, hay fever, unruly acne or to send a message usually transmitted via earbuds in North America: Don’t talk to me unless...
The Black Lives Matter movement has been sweeping advanced liberal democracies, from the United States to Western Europe, impacting even those countries, such as Switzerland, comparatively marginally involved in the slave trade. Black Lives Matter confronts all of these societies with their...
Editor’s Note: These are unprecedented times. A global pandemic has changed life as we know it. In recent months, Fair Observer has examined the crisis through political, economic and social lenses, publishing articles from around the world. The result is three 360° series that we urge you to...
The term soft power was coined by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s as a country's ability to influence others without the use of force. Soft power is established in culture and grounded in history, unlike hard power, which is based on coercion and the use of military and economic means. Soft power and...
Article 1 of the UN Refugee Convention defines a refugee as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.” In...
The border clash between China and India has made the headlines of international news. On May 5, troops from both countries confronted each other on the banks of Pangong Lake in Ladakh, the northernmost region of India. Four days later, they squared off in North Sikkim, an area of India that...
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, health-care systems around the world are left strained. The outbreak continues to throttle the efficiency of many health-care sectors, pushing some to the brink. While deficiencies within public health systems are exposed, other viral enemies have come to the...
Anta, the leading Chinese sportswear brand, is determined to make itself as well-known and trendy around the world as Adidas and Nike. With it being named an official sponsor of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and with Chinese President Xi Jinping having been seen wearing the brand, it might be a...
We may not like what President Donald Trump is saying about the World Health Organization (WHO), China and the world at large. In fact, we do not like it at all, but Trump has a point, and acknowledging it would empower us to address him in earnest, with honesty and efficiency. The world is led...
It should be apparent to most observers of international relations that the Chinese government wants the world to play by its own set of rules. Beijing appears to believe that China’s rise and its assumption of global leadership positions are an inevitable extension of earlier periods in its...
