China’s Communist Party has concluded its Third Plenum, and analysts in the West scrutinize details, hoping to pinpoint the direction of the world’s largest emerging power. Two theories on China’s rise have dominated since 1989, and both are wrong, argues Eric X. Li, venture capitalist and...
Poverty, conflict and overpopulation have historically forced migrants to pursue opportunity in wealthier nations. Modern migrants have more options for low-cost travel, yet nations have more organized registration, border surveillance and enforcement tools, explains Joseph Chamie, former director...
Increasing numbers of Chinese choose to study abroad, and nearly half head for US institutions of higher learning. The reasons behind the exponential growth, even at the undergraduate level, are as much financial as “the emphasis on globalization and diversity touted by the universities,” explains...
Visitors to Africa have long been intrigued by the continent's art, eager to introduce the work to global markets. Stone sculpture was revived in Zimbabwe, the former British colony known as Southern Rhodesia, in the 1960s after a British art adviser, Frank McEwen, became director of the...
In Scandinavia, health care is a social good, and for the United States, it is a business. The differences on costs and outcomes are glaring. The US invests $8604 per capita on its system, compared with $5674 for Norway, $4564 for Denmark and $3870 for Sweden, according to the World Health...
As the United States withdraws forces from landlocked Afghanistan, it needs cooperation from Pakistan for the easiest exit route and support against the ongoing war on terrorism. Pakistan resents US drone attacks and other intrusions, yet with a troubled economy, also relies on funding from the...
As finance minister for India from 1991 to 1996, Manmohan Singh prevented economic collapse by opening the nation’s economy. When he became prime minister in 2004, many anticipated great promise for India as an emerging economy. Over the past decade, India could pursue economic growth and strategic...
The global economy is in flux. Emerging economies await signals of an improving US economy and for Federal Reserve plans to pull back from bond purchases on the order of $85 billion per month. Anticipating an end to those capital flows, investors began withdrawing capital from emerging markets,...
Bitterness from the Second World War lingers throughout the Asia Pacific region; Japan lost the war, yet rebuilt and became a strong ally with the United States, its one-time opponent. Many in China and South Korea suggest that Japan has not expressed adequate apology to Asian neighbors for wartime...
As the world’s leading military powers invent new weapons systems, other nations develop countermeasures. “China has no illusions about its military inferiority via-à-vis the United States and knows that the status is likely to endure for at least two decades,” explains security analyst Loro Horta...
Cambodians are connected to the world through trade, investment, tourism, cultural events, social media and dual citizenship. The connections influence how the citizens deal with their long-running authoritarian regime. With a per capita income less than $1000, many Cambodians refuse to support the...
Japan and South Korea are each close with the United States and could be strong allies, after adequate atonement and forgiveness for historical atrocities. But instead the gulf is widening, as indicated by a terse exchange between the two leaders attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation...
Pakistan released the Afghan Taliban’s second in command to catalyze a peace process. It’s not the first effort. In trying to end fighting in Afghanistan and secure a sustainable representative government for Afghans, from mid-2011 to March 2012, the United States tried encouraging Taliban members...
The world wrestles over what to do when nations and the UN Security Council fail in their responsibility to protect civilians from atrocities. A strike, as threatened by US President Barack Obama for a chemical weapons attack on Syrians, would have been legal, argues Harold Hongju Koh, former dean...
Luisa Parraguez, Francisco Garcia Gonzalez, Joskua Tadeo
October 1, 2013
Una avalancha de secretos expuestos por el ex contratista de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA) de Estados Unidos está complicando las relaciones entre ese país y sus vecinos del sur. Los reportes dicen que Estados Unidos espió a países sin discernir si sus relaciones con ellos eran buenas o...
Luisa Parraguez, Francisco Garcia Gonzalez, Joskua Tadeo
October 1, 2013
An avalanche of secrets exposed by a former National Security Agency contract worker is complicating US relations with southern neighbors. Reports allege that the United States spied on countries regardless of poor or good relations. Stopping the Bolivian president’s plane in Europe for a few hours...
There was no handshake between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and US President Barack Obama during the United Nations General Assembly, but the tone of their rhetoric promises a sea change in relations after more than three decades. The Iranian public supports Rouhani's moderate proposals as...
China’s officials discourage public debate about corruption, regarding it as criticism of Communist Party rule, yet some abuses of power can’t escape attention, notably those associated with Bo Xilai, the popular former party chief of Chongqing, who has received a life sentence for bribery. The...
The crisis over the use of chemical weapons in Syria has offered an opportunity for a diplomatic initiative that Russian President Vladimir Putin has grasped with both hands. The result, writes Thomas Graham, senior fellow with Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and former...
Palm oil is Indonesia’s most valuable agricultural export and the industry employs nearly 2 million people. Indonesia has laws prohibiting the slash-and-burn method of clearing fields for large plantations, explains Pavin Chachavalpongpun, of Kyoto University’s Centre for Southeast Asian Studies....
