Almost 80 years ago, Pyongyang drowned Mao’s grand dreams. Will it now boost Xi’s? The Chinese president’s trip has impossible expectations: to begin to stem the Gordian knot of the regional arms race. [update: just ahead of China’s presidential visit, North Korea announces that its nuclear program is “irreversible.”] Chinese President Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit […]
The US upsets its old friends, but China doesn’t win new ones. They’re parallel weaknesses, with America having the upper hand, but things could turn around if Beijing finds its compass. Washington needs more stable ties. It’s still unclear how the US wants to reconcile its new face and posture at home and abroad. The […]
If short- and long-term actions are not taken, perceptions of past US mismanagement of COVID and of China’s rising trade surplus could result in a volatile combination in a few years. COVID’s failure The year 2020 may have been crucial for US-China relations. Indeed, contrary to what Beijing expected at the onset of COVID, America […]
The New Encyclical arrives in a void. There is no opposition to the Church, nor does anyone care about the common people. The Pope chose to speak for individual men and women, cast aside in a world of machines and superheroes. A century ago, the task of Rerum Novarum was extremely difficult — almost impossible […]
Blowing up the World China, Trump, the Straits, and migration are tearing the world apart. We need a different way of looking at things. China is developing its own ‘independent’ view. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is not an isolated episode but the latest in a series of blows to the global trade […]
China and Russia are irritated with each other, but a divorce would certainly be worse for either. The two seem destined to navigate their uneasy ties, hoping for a turnaround. Russia today wants to intensify its relationship with China and complains that China is not equally warm in return, treating Russia as a junior partner. […]
In a few short decades, Italy moved from the “sorpasso” boom to a suicidal loop. Bright Italians move out, and young migrants move in. Both are desperate. Things can spin out of control, crashing the nation and the continent. Can the Church save Europe as it did after the fall of Rome? Chauvinism in America […]
