Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has maintained a bipartisan consensus on New Zealand’s relationship with China, which was nurtured over decades by successive governments. In return for a lucrative trading relationship, criticism of China has remained muted. Yet Ardern has likely sensed that the public mood on China is hardening.
During U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recent visit to the African continent, he unveiled a strategy document framing Washington’s new approach to relations with Africans. But the lofty ambition expressed in the document is unlikely to be realized, due to contradictions between Washington’s words and actions.
Since Brexit, the U.K. has worked to reenergize its ties with Israel, as part of its wider “Global Britain” ambitions. Last month, it launched negotiations to establish a new bilateral free trade agreement—the outcome of which will be shaped by the winner of the Conservative Party’s leadership race.
Last week, Kigali played host to the second Kigali Global Dialogue, which brought together more than 150 people from 45 countries to ponder solutions to critical issues the world faces. For countries in the Global South, the conference sought to ponder how they can navigate development challenges amid great-power competition.
As energy supplies from Russia to Germany dwindle because of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Germans are grappling with the prospect of an unprecedented energy crisis that could last months, as well as with the implications it could have for food supply shortages, droughts and security concerns.
Antony Blinken was in Africa this week for a three-country tour, where he unveiled the Biden administration’s new approach for deepening ties with African nations. The strategy seems to hit all the right notes. But to implement it, the U.S. will have to break long-established habits in its relations with the continent.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is using his visit to Africa to unveil Washington’s new approach to relations with the continent. That approach will be hampered by Washington’s deafness to long-standing complaints on a range of issues from many African countries, and its blindness to its own hypocrisy toward the continent.
The first ship exporting grain from Ukraine since February left Odessa’s port this week thanks to a deal brokered by Turkey and the U.N. The agreement aims to ease the global food crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but there are doubts as to whether it will hold for long enough to make a difference.
In response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit this week to Taiwan, China has applied an expanded political, military and economic coercion toolkit to punish Taipei. That points to Beijing’s desire to increase the cost on Taiwan for attempting to expand its international space and further solidify the U.S.-Taiwan bilateral relationship.
When U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres first released “Our Common Agenda,” his 2021 report on the future of multilateralism, many diplomats were skeptical of how it would apply to peace and security. But parts of the report actually look more, rather than less, relevant after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.