Edward Said’s “Orientalism” encapsulates the essence of why the West resists the rise of China as a major economic and military power. Even though “Orientalism” was first published in 1978, just as China was opening up its economy to the rest of the world and well before it acquired its present economic prowess, it provided insightful Continue reading »
World
“It’s quite clear from recent policies that the US aims to curb China’s economic development and encircle the country with military bases in unfriendly (from China’s viewpoint) countries. Such demonisation only reinforces repressive trends in China and benefits security-obsessed hardliners in China’s political system. That’s why “de-demonisation” can help those in China who favour a Continue reading »
America’s space policy reveals its hegemonic obsession and the future quandaries for Australian policy. Even America’s approach to exploration and colonisation of the Moon is only comprehensible in terms of terrestrial geopolitics. It now expects the world to bow to its power in outer space. Both China and America have ambitious plans for colonisation, resource Continue reading »
The key to economic development and ending poverty is investment. Nations achieve prosperity by investing in four priorities. Most important is investing in people, through quality education and health care. The next is infrastructure, such as electricity, safe water, digital networks, and public transport. The third is natural capital, protecting nature. The fourth is business Continue reading »
Being led by the nose by warmed-over former colonies like the US, Australia and India to fight a country thousands of miles away is neither smart diplomacy nor smart foreign policy. In war games, Beijing’s missiles and rockets cascade down on Taiwan and on U.S. forces as far away as Japan and Guam. Initial casualties Continue reading »
The historian of American foreign policy Gabriel Kolko would often say that those who seek to determine the destiny of humankind were in for surprises and, ultimately, disappointment. Any vainglorious and limitless ambition to rule the world is doomed to failure, regardless of the state. The world, whether it be the global economy or the Continue reading »
A year after Israel killed the Palestinian American journalist, an FBI probe remains pending, yet the U.S. has gone silent on her death.
The post Shireen Abu Akleh’s Colleagues Are Still Waiting for Justice appeared first on The Intercept.
The Israeli protests against its new right-wing government have now touched on Israel’s nuclear weapons. To underline what is at stake, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak cast aside Israeli ambiguity over whether it possesses nuclear weapons to warn his compatriots that Western diplomats are worried that a Jewish messianic dictatorship could gain control over Israel’s nuclear Continue reading »
India as the Chair of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) hosted the SCO Defence Ministers’ Meeting on 28 April. Largely unreported in Western media, the meeting underlined important divergences in the narrative promoted by US-centric media that suggests India and China have irreconcilable differences. The first striking illustration of this spirit of cooperation between India and Continue reading »
What the general told me about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the early days of the Obama administration. During the first year of the Obama administration, I spent months in the summer and fall of 2009 reporting about the Pakistani nuclear arsenal from here in Washington; from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital; from New Delhi, the Indian Continue reading »