Can Nixon’s 1971 analysis of China be helpful today? The country is very different from 55 years ago, but the American challenges could be just as important. On June 9, 1971, Henry Kissinger arrived in Pakistan with a delegation. Something he had eaten must have disagreed with him for he retired to his room with […]
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 […]
Four humble suggestions for the American administration to restart bilateral ties on the right foot. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is arriving in Rome on Thursday to meet with the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and Pope Leo XIV. The apparent purpose is to mend relations after recent ruptures and friction. […]
The US and Iran have reached a plateau where they could really negotiate, as the power balance in Tehran evolves. Meanwhile, China’s game could be at a turning point, and the Pope is in it. In a twilight between war and peace, Iran may not yet have found its new dimension. The nation is in […]
As the first round of negotiations between the US and Iran failed, Chinese interests may loom larger, and Tehran may need a deal with America more than ever. The Iran of the ayatollahs has institutional and strategic depth. The institutional depth was evident after the attack in mid-June of last year. The regime did not […]
A Book review, Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000-2000 by Avner Greif, Guido Tabellini, Joel Mokyr The book offers a truly convincing answer to an enigma that has troubled me for at least 30 years. That is, China is not deaf or blind; it’s not that it hadn’t heard or seen the Western […]
(US intervention in the Middle East and its plans on the Indo-Pacific might have something to learn from Mao’s strategy about Japan in 1937. Eventually, Japan was defeated, and Mao took power in China.) In the spring of 1938, 88 years ago, Mao Zedong gave a set of three talks titled On Protracted War. It […]
