Blackwater founder Erik Prince arrives for a closed meeting with members of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 30, 2017 (AP photo by Jacquelyn Martin).

It may take years to unravel the tangled web surrounding “Project Opus,” the bungled 2019 mercenary operation to prop up Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, which allegedly included efforts to deploy a special hit squad to Libya. Few observers tracking the burgeoning global market for privatized armies, however, were likely surprised by reports last week that U.N. investigators suspect the involvement of former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince. The recently leaked U.N. report makes only glancing mention of Prince’s alleged ties to the operation, but it marks the second time since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that Prince’s company, Hong Kong-based Frontier […]

1

One of former President Donald Trump’s principal legacies was to elevate the attention that U.S. foreign policy accords to China. His administration argued that America’s erstwhile “engage but hedge” approach had failed and that it was time to take a tougher line. The results of his policies, though, suggest that adopting an overly China-centric U.S. foreign policy is mistaken. Pursuant to its more confrontational approach, the Trump administration imposed steep tariffs on Chinese exports and, having concluded that Beijing’s technological progress posed a particularly pressing threat to U.S. national security, took a number of steps to thwart the expansion of […]

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, center, and Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony in Beijing, Oct. 28, 2014 (AP photo by Andy Wong).

For much of the past couple of decades, Afghanistan has been a rare exception to the strategic competition between India and China in South Asia. New Delhi never believed it could be the preeminent power in Afghanistan, unlike in other nearby countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal. Following the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, India was happy to engage with Kabul under Washington’s security umbrella, while taking solace in China’s initial unwillingness to get more involved. A joint desire for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan even seemed to raise the possibility of cooperation between the two rivals. But […]

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam at a press conference in Hong Kong, Jan. 19, 2021 (AP photo by Vincent Yu).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Rachel Cheung and Assistant Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive China Note by email every week. When Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp won the city’s local elections in a landslide in 2019, securing 17 of its 18 districts, their unprecedented victory was a slap in the face for the Hong Kong government, and for Beijing, whose puppets suffered a humiliating loss. But that victory was short-lived, as the authorities in Hong Kong are now making sure the opposition won’t be […]

Residents taking the ferry stand near a Chinese national flag in Wuhan, China, Jan. 15, 2021 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

Sometimes springtime comes and goes in a flash. That’s the way things felt early this month, when people who follow China were left agog at the extraordinary flourishing of discussion on Clubhouse, the young but fast-growing app that combines social media with audio chat. Though available in China since last spring, Clubhouse saw a spike in interest after a widely noted appearance by Elon Musk, a big celebrity in China, on Jan. 31. Still flying under the radar of authorities in Beijing, the app allowed Chinese users to join up with people from all over the world in mostly calm […]

The icon for the social media app Clubhouse is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Feb. 9, 2021 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Rachel Cheung and Assistant Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive China Note by email every week. As China moved to block Clubhouse last Monday evening, a sense of impending doom spread among Chinese users on the audio-chat application that caught fire in the country this month. Moderators in group chats scrambled to let mainland Chinese speakers take to the podium, giving them a last chance to comment before they lose access to the app. The ban hardly came as […]

Members of the Uighur community living in Turkey hold a protest near China’s consulate in Istanbul, Feb. 10, 2021 (AP photo by Mehmet Guzel).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Rachel Cheung and Assistant Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive China Note by email every week. The shocking allegations of systematic sexual abuse of ethnic Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region, detailed in a recent BBC report, did not come as a surprise to Arfat Erkin, a Uighur student living in the United States. “It is something all Uighurs know subconsciously,” the 23-year-old told me. “We all knew that, but we never brought it up or faced it, because it’s […]

A man looks at his smartphone near video display screens showing Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Beijing, Aug. 22, 2018 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).

In late November, Daniel Zhang, the chairman and CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, gave a speech at the Chinese government-sponsored World Internet Conference. The event was taking place in Wuzhen, a historic town in eastern Zhejiang province, but Zhang’s intended audience was hundreds of miles away, in Beijing. Just weeks earlier, Chinese regulators had nixed the blockbuster initial public offering of Ant Group, Alibaba’s financial arm, reportedly at the behest of China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Xi and other top officials took umbrage at earlier comments by Jack Ma, Alibaba’s co-founder, who had publicly criticized regulators for stifling innovation. Seeking […]

President Joe Biden delivers a speech on foreign policy at the State Department, in Washington, Feb. 4, 2021 (AP photo by Evan Vucci).

In his first foreign policy address as president, delivered last week at the State Department, Joe Biden drew the curtain on the disastrous Trump era, rededicating the United States to repairing its tattered alliances, reengaging the world and defending freedom. “We are ready to take up the mantle of global leadership yet again,” he declared. “America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.” The most novel aspect of Biden’s plainspoken speech was how he erased any clear distinction between foreign and domestic policy. The nation’s strength at home determines its success abroad—and vice versa. But […]

A Customs and Border Control agent patrolling on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico, east of Nogales, Arizona, March 2, 2019 (AP photo by Charlie Riedel).

For anyone looking out on the world from the new Biden White House, America’s challenges can only seem extraordinarily daunting. Even if it could be taken in isolation, the public health crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic would gravely test any administration. But, of course, the coronavirus challenge cannot be resolved in isolation. Beyond its immediate public health dimensions, the pandemic has created an enormous economic crisis for a United States whose status as a global leader has never looked so compromised in the postwar period. For Washington, the pandemic has also spawned a fiscal crisis, with the Treasury […]

A security person moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a World Health Organization team arrived for a field visit in Wuhan, China, Feb. 3, 2021 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Rachel Cheung and Assistant Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive China Note by email every week. After months of bureaucratic delays and two weeks of quarantine in China, international investigators from the World Health Organization finally started their probe into the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan. The mission began last Thursday amid political tensions and controversy. Less than a week into the trip, the scant information released so far under the watch of Chinese authorities offers little assurance that […]