China

Why China’s riches won’t bring it freedom

by News Sources 05.21.2013

Pankaj Mishra writes: Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in the U.K. and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger views of political developments in [...]

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China walks the tightrope in the Persian Gulf

by News Sources 01.16.2012

The Hindu reports: Without undermining its ties with Iran despite growing military tensions in the region, China, is seeking a deeper engagement in the oil and gas sector with Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states, as part of a developing contingency plan, in order to ensure stable energy supplies. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao [...]

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Are we entering a new era of Chinese exceptionalism?

by News Sources 01.15.2012

Reaching for the heavens – China’s expanding ambitions now include sending men to the moon as well as rapid expansion of military capacity on earth. And all the while its economy continues to grow at a rate far outpacing the economies of western nations. With increasing confidence, China’s leaders have now stepped to the center [...]

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Occupy Beijing?

by News Sources 01.01.2012

Minxin Pei writes: Rapid economic growth hasn’t been able to stem the rising tide of discontent in China. Even as the economy has soared, the number of protests has jumped. So what’s really wrong? The outbreak of spontaneous mass protest against corruption and abuse of power in China is showing no signs of abating. In [...]

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China vice premier sees chronic global recession

by News Sources 11.20.2011

Reuters reports: A long-term global recession is certain to happen and China must focus on domestic problems, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan has said. “The one thing that we can be certain of, among all the uncertainties, is that the global economic recession caused by the international financial crisis will be chronic,” Wang was quoted [...]

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Nuclear powers plan weapons spending spree, report finds

by News Sources 10.31.2011

The Guardian reports: The world’s nuclear powers are planning to spend hundreds of billions of pounds modernising and upgrading weapons warheads and delivery systems over the next decade, according to an authoritative report [PDF] published on Monday. Despite government budget pressures and international rhetoric about disarmament, evidence points to a new and dangerous “era of [...]

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China’s debt pileup raises risk of hard landing

by News Sources 10.10.2011

Reuters reports: When China announced a nearly $600 billion package to ward off the 2008 global financial crisis, city planners across the country happily embarked on a frenzy of infrastructure projects, some of them of arguable need. Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, answered the call for stimulus action with a bold plan for [...]

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Syria unrest: Western anger at U.N. vetoes

by News Sources 10.05.2011

BBC News reports: Western nations have lamented China and Russia’s vetoes of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown on anti-government protests. France said it was a “sad day” for Syria, while the US ambassador to the UN expressed “outrage”. The resolution had been watered down to try to avoid the vetoes, dropping a [...]

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How China sees English riots

by News Sources 08.14.2011

David Cohen writes: It's been a good couple of weeks for China’s conservative press and a bad one for the image of liberal governments, as democracies battle crises ranging from the US budget standoff to Britain’s ongoing riots. Chinese commentators have taken the opportunity to take a few shots at the nations that have long [...]

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Enter the cyber-dragon

by News Sources 08.08.2011

In the September issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Joseph Gross writes: Lying there in the junk-mail folder, in the spammy mess of mortgage offers and erectile-dysfunction drug ads, an e-mail from an associate with a subject line that looked legitimate caught the man’s eye. The subject line said “2011 Recruitment Plan.” It was late winter [...]

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After historic downgrade, U.S. must address its chronic debt problems

by News Sources 08.06.2011

A commentary in China’s official Xinhua News Agency says: The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appeared to be numbered as its triple A-credit rating was slashed by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) for the first time on Friday. Though the U.S. Treasury promptly challenged the unprecedented downgrade, many outside [...]

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Why China won’t revolt

by News Sources 03.06.2011

GlobalPost reports: With single young men at the heart of Arab world revolt, China might seem a country ripe for uprising. But while it’s got millions of single young men, they don’t appear interested in amassing a movement for change. China now has at least 20 million young men with no chance of ever finding [...]

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In Bibiland Iran was Germany but now Egypt is Iran

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2011

After for several years being convinced that it was 1938, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who appears to live in a time warp, has now decided that it’s 1979. Iran was Germany and now Egypt is Iran. From Jerusalem, the prospect of Egyptians fully-armed with votes looks more dangerous than Iranians stockpiling enriched uranium. Further [...]

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US should exercise green power

by News Sources 01.08.2011

Kevin Gallagher writes: To kick off 2011, the Obama administration has had the audacity to file suit at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China’s policies to build green technologies. This action is deeply flawed. The US should not try to beat China down, but should pursue its own green jobs policy and reform the [...]

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How the US and China colluded to undermine Copenhagen climate summit

by News Sources 12.09.2010

Der Spiegel reports: Last year’s climate summit in Copenhagen was a political disaster. Leaked US diplomatic cables now show why the summit failed so spectacularly. The dispatches reveal that the US and China, the world’s top two polluters, joined forces to stymie every attempt by European nations to reach agreement. In May 2009 the Chinese [...]

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WikiLeaks row: China wants Korean reunification, officials confirm

by News Sources 11.30.2010

The Guardian reports: China supports the “independent and peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula” and cannot afford to give the North Korean regime the impression it has a blank cheque to act any way it wants, Chinese officials based in Europe said today. The officials, who asked not to be identified, spoke after the Guardian [...]

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How China lost patience with North Korea

by News Sources 11.29.2010

The Guardian reports: China’s willingness to accept Korean reunification, revealed in private conversations between senior Communist party officials and US and South Korean diplomats, reflects Beijing’s deep, previously concealed exasperation with its wayward ally North Korea. But the leaked US diplomatic cables suggest there is no consensus on how to proceed towards this goal, with [...]

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The new rules: globalization’s massive demographic bet

by News Sources 11.17.2010

Thomas PM Barnett writes: By calling the Chinese out explicitly on their currency manipulation in his concluding address to the G-20 summit last week, President Barack Obama may have torpedoed his relationship with Beijing for the remainder of what China’s bosses most certainly now hope is his first and only term. Burdened by a Republican-controlled, [...]

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America’s power has already been eclipsed in Asia

by News Sources 11.10.2010

As many a conservative American commentator remains obsessed with the question as to how the United States can retain its position as the world’s preeminent power, Pankaj Mishra indicates why that question is already moot: it is a position America has already lost. He points out: India has many more likely and rewarding partners in [...]

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Bloomberg to America: lay off the Chinese

by News Sources 11.07.2010

The Wall Street Journal reports: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on a visit to Hong Kong and the neighboring city of Shenzhen, had some harsh criticism for his own fellow Americans: Stop blaming the Chinese for their problems. As the debate rages over China’s trade and currencies policies, the 68-year-old Bloomberg, now in his [...]

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Israel: smart enough to create Stuxnet and stupid enough to use it

by Paul Woodward 10.01.2010

Ever since speculation began, suggesting that Israel is the source of the Stuxnet malware, there has been a buzz of excitement in the Zionist corner of the blogosphere. The DEBKAfile — trusted source for pro-Israel fantasists all over the world — declared that if it turns out that millions of Iranian industrial units have been [...]

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Washington stuck on the sanctions track

by Paul Woodward 05.18.2010

As if to demonstrate that Washington refuses to be upstaged by lesser powers, Hillary Clinton blazed away in the campaign to impose not-quite crippling sanctions on Iran, after winning Russia and China’s agreement today on a draft resolution that will go to the Security Council. The Wall Street Journal reports: Washington called the proposed sanctions [...]

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After the Massachusetts massacre

by Paul Woodward 01.24.2010

After the Massachusetts massacre By Frank Rich, New York Times, January 24, 2010 It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America. It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006. It [...]

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Why America and China will clash

by Paul Woodward 01.19.2010

Why America and China will clash By Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, January 18, 2010 oogle’s clash with China is about much more than the fate of a single, powerful firm. The company’s decision to pull out of China, unless the government there changes its policies on censorship, is a harbinger of increasingly stormy relations between [...]

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