The war in Ukraine has placed US and NATO policy toward Russia under a spotlight, highlighting how the US and its allies have expanded NATO right up to Russia’s borders, backed a coup and now a proxy war in Ukraine,...
Two starkly different viewpoints published in The Australian over Canberra’s posture toward China show the contrasting approaches to strategic uncertainty and perception of threat from Beijing. The first article was posited by Hugh White on November 21 and the second was put forward by Peter Jennings two days later. China, the Bogeyman of the New Cold War READ MORE White, emeritus professor at the Australian National University, tends to...
There is no question about it: Our planet is warming faster than ever before. Having plateaued around 280 parts per million for thousands of years, global CO2 emissions have shot past 400 ppm at the end of the last decade, an atmospheric rise set in motion by the 18th-century Industrial Revolution. Human activity in its myriad modes of creative destruction has led to a global average temperature rise between 1.1˚C and 1.2˚C...
Some 40 years ago, the Club of Rome published a study with what at the time was a relatively provocative title, “The Limits to Growth.” The book appeared at a time of rising environmental consciousness and growing uneasiness with respect to the state of the planet. Throughout the advanced industrialized capitalist West, citizens got involved in a range of movements that expressed anxiety over nuclear power, concern about the depletion...
World capitals and Olympic committees will soon need to make a consequential decision. They can either reward and reinforce Chinese President Xi Jinping's unprecedented power grab — at home and abroad — by participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics in the name of “political neutrality,” or they can hold him accountable for his authoritarian rule by boycotting the Games and depriving him of a victory lap on the world stage....
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen recently confirmed reports that US Marines and special operators are training local troops on the island, reflecting growing concerns in Washington over the state Taiwanese-Chinese relations. In her statement, President Tsai said she had faith that the US would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion, which is what, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Chris Maier, the Americans...
The New York Times has produced one of the silliest news articles about Chinese history — or, for that matter, anyone’s history — ever written. Chris Buckley’s article, “To Steer China’s Future, Xi Is Rewriting Its Past,” is misleading in more respects than one. It claims to be about the history of China, but the past in question only concerns the country’s Communist Party. Any serious journalist should understand that...
The international order is in deep trouble, and not only since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not how things were supposed to turn out. The collapse of the “evil empire,” the end of the Cold War and the integration of Central and Eastern Europe into the EU were supposed to bring about a new era of stability and prosperity, the latter epitomized most prominently by China’s embrace...
