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 […]
The USA, Russia, and Israel are losing face in their military operations and will try to save it. How will the EU deal with it? In Europe, the art of saving face — even when things go truly badly — is neither a well-known nor a particularly well-developed science among our decision-makers, and above all […]
Are the new “regime change” policies an existential challenge to the organization, shifting it from a defensive mechanism to something else? NATO’s violation of the Tenth Commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” The word regime is a negative term for government or administration, which are neutral, ordinary terms. When action is pending or […]
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 […]
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. […]
