Monthly Archives: December 2018

America Competes With China’s Belt and Road

Under the Trump administration, US response to China’s OBOR is more coherent and comprehensive than in the past, expert says WASHINGTON—China’s One Belt, One Road initiative is one of the world’s most ambitious and controversial development programs. Under the Trump administration, the United States is rolling out new infrastructure projects and other initiatives in the […]

China: Averse to hegemony – Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal

China has been pursuing an ambitious economic agenda without flexing its military muscle in its neighbourhood and worldwide. Instead of coercion, it has been engaging the neighbouring states by mega-financial investment, encouragement of economic cooperation, and mutual infrastructure projects. It is transferring technology and financing projects in the smaller states. This benign internationalists approach has […]

Is China ready to become the next global leader?

In a speech to mark China’s 40th anniversary of economic liberalization, the Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the ‘opening up of the economy’ was “a great revolution in the history of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation”. He further said a quantum leap has been made in the cause of socialism with Chinese […]

How the U.S. and China can reset relations and get results

Jane Harman, president of the Wilson Center, represented California in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served as ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. If China and the United States had Facebook accounts, their relationship status would be “it’s complicated.” And it’s gotten more complicated with the sudden resignation of Defense Secretary Jim […]

China tiff about more than trade, economist says

PULLMAN, Wash. — More observers are beginning to realize the U.S.-China trade war isn’t about trade but who controls the world, says a retired Washington State University agricultural economist who once headed a USDA-sponsored China study group. The U.S. has the economic power to win its trade war with China but lacks the political perseverance, […]

Xi Jinping’s year in diplomacy: from butting heads with Donald Trump to cosying up to Rodrigo Duterte

  The major tête-à-têtes between Xi and world leaders have been portrayed in Chinese state media as significantly bolstering his presence abroad in what was glowingly termed “heads of state” diplomacy. But China’s increasing international footprint – including Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative – has also faced an increasing pushback, from concerns about debt […]

Forget the Thucydides Trap – a ‘rising’ China has no desire to go to war with the US, and Washington needs to dispel its paranoia

As China commemorates the 40th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations with the United States, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou – the CFO of one of China’s top technology companies, Huawei, by Canadian authorities on behalf of the US – appears to vindicate the Thucydides Trap thesis that the US and China may be locked into […]

US Defense Chief’s Resignation Stirs Doubts in Asia about Help Resisting China

TAIPEI — U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis visited Vietnam twice this year and suggested in October stronger relations as China bears down on Vietnamese maritime claims. In the Philippines a month later, Mattis swore to uphold a decades-old military alliance that helps Manila resist China. A U.S. naval ship passes through the South China Sea […]