China Archive

Although Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s historic rapprochement with China has ushered in a period of stability in cross-strait relations, the military imbalance between the two neighbors continues to grow. Beijing’s military modernization is rapidly dwarfing Taipei’s capabilities and blunting Washington’s ability to defend its ally in the event of conflict. Left unchecked, this growing imbalance will make it increasingly difficult for Taipei to maintain the necessary deterrent required to preserve its independence from the mainland, and for long-term stability to prevail in the Taiwan Strait. The calm that has pervaded the Taiwan Strait since Ma’s inauguration last year is certainly […]

As China prepares to mark 60 years of communist rule, one of thegreatest challenges facing the country’s rulers remains uniting China’sdiverse ethnic groups, as recent unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang provincedemonstrates. Ninety-two percent of China’s 1.3 billion people areethnic Han Chinese,while the rest consists of a mix of 55 officially recognizedethnic minorities, from Mongols and Manchus, to Tibetans andMuslim Uighurs. Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan reports from Sichuan province.

The U.N. climate change negotiations currently underway and set to conclude in Copenhagen late in 2009 seek to establish new arrangements in anticipation of the termination of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. According to our current understanding of the science, a successful outcome to these negotiations is critical to maintaining a stable climate, even if the estimates of the costs of damage from inaction vary widely. The negotiations are currently beset by a series of obstacles. But if these are overcome, the resulting agreement will change the global landscape in terms of trade, politics and the entire international system. The […]

After two days of high-profile meetings and deliberation last week, the G-20 managed to make official something everyone already knew: the United States and Europe can no longer effectively manage the whims of the global economy on their own. To that end, the group reached consensus on two major fronts: 1) the more diverse G-20 should effectively replace the Western-dominated G-8 as the world’s primary economic coordinating body; and, 2) voting power within the IMF should be reformed to give greater voice to emerging powers. Stop the presses, right? Yes and no. This is big news, but not necessarily new […]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev emerged from a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama with a more open attitude toward tougher sanctions against Iran in the event negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program don’t produce results. That’s a pretty quick dividend from the missile defense decision, but I think Nikolas Gvosdev is spot on here: But the crux of the matter for the U.S. is not when Tehran crosses theline and has a working bomb, it is trusting Iran to have a nuclearinfrastructure like Japan’s. I think that Russia will be far moresupportive of “trusting” Iran with nuclear technology than a U.S. […]

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg delivers a keynote address on the Obama Administration’s vision for the future of the U.S.-China relationship at a conference hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington. Full transcript.

Depending on how close you have your ear to the ground, you might have picked up some buzzing about Chinese military incursions across the “Line of Actual Control” that comprises its vaguely defined border with India. The incursions have included a helicopter flyover, as well as an “Animal House”-type incident where Chinese soldiers apparently tagged stones on the Indian side of the line with “China” graffiti in red paint. But they occur in the context of a significant Chinese infrastructure buildup and militarization — one that has caused a good deal of concern in New Delhi — along its side […]

When I was in Ecuador two years ago, a businessman named Ivan excoriated me about the limits Washington placed on business that local fishing firms could do with the U.S. The conversation went on for a while, but when it ended, he promptly introduced me to his teenage daughter and pleaded with me to speak to her so that she could practice her English. In fact, she spoke eloquently and fluently, but the irony was no less striking: The gringos to the north offered little opportunity to Latin America, but the best chance for Ivan’s daughter to succeed — leaving […]

During the last several weeks, Americans have found themselves back in the middle of a fierce debate over our continuing military effort in Afghanistan. What was Bush’s forgotten war had, until recently, seemed quite safely transformed in public opinion into Obama’s “war of necessity.” Now, because of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for significantly more troops, coming on the heels of his public declaration that the Taliban are essentially “winning,” the ruling Democrats have suddenly been thrust back into “quagmire” mode. Predictably, we are once again awash in feverish Boomer analogies to Vietnam, despite the pronounced absence in Afghanistan of any […]

Last week, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) issued a report calling for sweeping changes in the international financial and monetary order. Arguing for a reduced role for the dollar, the report advocated for a global reserve bank with the power to issue its own currency, to monitor its members’ national exchange rates, and to prop up or push down their currencies. In other words, UNCTAD is making the case for a global central bank. The U.N. is not alone in calling for such a move. Since the eruption of the global financial crisis last fall and […]

Just a few followup items I thought I’d get into the habit of posting: – With regard to my observation about the lack of Iraq or Afghanistan War literature or cinema, Jonathan Bernstein makes the obvious point, which I myself had noticed on reading the post afterwards, that all the novels and films I mentioned with regard to WWII and Vietnam were published or released well after the end of those wars. He also makes a less obvious, but just as astute, observation about the relation between a war’s popularity and the kind of works of art (propaganda vs. critical) […]

I’m going to go way out on a speculative limb on this one. But that UAE cargo plane carrying weapons to China that was detained while refueling in India suddenly seems like more than just a simple case of bad timing. The plane was detained while the Indian internal security minister was visiting Washington for talks on security (and counterterrorism) cooperation. It’s now emerging that there were some suspicions that the weapons on the plane included U.S.-manufactured Harpoon missiles sold to the UAE. And all this goes down at the same time a UAE crown prince is “making the rounds” […]

File this one under B, for Bad timing: Laura Rozen, from her new digs over at Politico (great pencil-drawing portrait!!), reports that the U.S.-UAE 123 nuclear agreement is due to escape congressional limbo in mid-October. The only potential wrench is concern over the UAE’s past history of lax export controls, in particular regarding potential diversion of controlled materials and technology to Iran. In other words, probably not the best time for a China-bound UAE cargo plane, stopping over for refueling in India, to not declare its cargo of arms and explosives. Apparently, the omisison resulted from a “technical error.” The […]

A study by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that U.S. arms sales surged last year, despite the worst global economic downturn in decades. (UPDATE: WPR subscribers can download the CRS report here.) In 2008, U.S. arms dealers signed new weapons contracts worth approximately $37.8 billion, a considerable increase from previous years. The surge was remarkable given that the total volume of new arms orders in 2008, $55.2 billion, was billions of dollars below the comparable figures for 2007 and 2006. The United States also fortified its position as the leading arms-exporting country. Last year, the volume of global defense […]

The news that the State Department has decided to terminate aid to Honduras — aid that had only been suspended previously — essentially translates into formally defining the removal of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as a coup. As Elizabeth Dickinson notes at the FP Passport blog, there are interests on both sides of this debate, and I find the argument of not being odd man out in Latin America right now compelling. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that in tacitly deprioritizing the problematic question of amending constitutions to extend term limits, the Obama administration weakens any efforts […]

NEW DELHI — Even as they resist persistent pressure from Western nations to rein in their carbon emissions, India and China are warming up to each other on the contentious climate change issue. The rare display of solidarity is all the more noteworthy given the two Asian giants’ generally tenuous relationship, as well as previous fractiousness regarding which one should do more to combat global warming. However, at the climax of a four-day visit to China last week to discuss a wide range of bilateral environmental issues, India’s Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh felt upbeat enough […]

NEW DELHI — India’s defense procurement and modernization processes are infamously slow, and mired in red tape, corruption, and lack of long-term strategic planning. One prominent result has been the country’s unsuccessful quest to either procure aircraft carriers internationally or build them at home. The delays have forced India to refit its sole aircraft carrier — the 50-year-old INS Viraat, which according to earlier plans should have been junked by now — to operate for five more years, by which time India hopes to have procured more. The irony is that, over time, Viraat’s air fleet has also been substantially […]