Briefing

Editor’s Note: Corridor’s of Power is written by veteran foreign correspondent RolandFlamini and appears in World Politics Review every Sunday. Click here tobrowse past installments of the column. TONY’S BOY SAVES DAY — The fact that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, emerged as the key figure in resolving the standoff with Iran over the 15 captured British sailors and Marines sends the message that it was Downing Street and not the Foreign Office that succeeded in resolving the crisis. The British government has kept mum about how its diplomatic offensive developed but, according to British [...]

This week, a Chinese leader will address the Japanese Diet for the first time in over two decades. The speech is to be the highlight of Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka starting April 11. His visit is expected to lead to closer relations between China and Japan, which had soured under Japan’s previous prime minister. Relations across the East China Sea have steadily improved since the anti-Japanese riots in China in 2005. Following the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last fall, Sino-Japanese relations have rapidly improved, and appear to be on their best terms since [...]

PARIS — “The question that needs to be asked is — do we want to be vassals of the United States, do we want to be a 51st state?” observed Gilles Savary, a French Socialist member of the European parliament, to the London Daily Telegraph recently. Savary was referring to U.S.-European relations in tones the Telegraph described as “searingly anti-American.” But Savary is not just another left-wing French politician singing the familiar anti-American chanson. He is a foreign policy spokesman for Ségolène Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate. Savary’s comment carries added weight because the conventional wisdom about Ségolène Royal is [...]