External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar (L) met China’s State Councilor & Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Bali, Indonesia, July 7, 2022 The G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at Bali, Indonesia, last week was threatened by the hot lava flowing from Eurasia. Western diplomats tried hard to “isolate” Russia but the indefatigable Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refused …
US-China détente on the horizon
Yang Jiechi (1st R), Politbureau member of Chinese Communist Party met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (1st L), Luxembourg, June 13, 2022 The Kyodo news agency reported on Monday that Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are holding a four-way summit on the fringes of the NATO leaders’ gathering in Spain next …
Sino-Russian collusion over Taiwan, Ukraine seems improbable but isn’t
US has whipped up war hysteria over satellite image of Russian military camp in Yelnya, over 500 kms from Ukraine border, to allege Moscow’s invasion plans and to justify NATO involvement The “feel-good” from Tuesday’s virtual meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping leaps out of the US-Russian summit in Geneva in June. Biden’s …
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US, China commence ‘responsible competition’
The only breakthrough that can be ascribed to the virtual meeting between the US and Chinese presidents, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, on Monday / Tuesday is that there has been an easing of visa restrictions on the accredited journalists of the two countries. But here too, a caveat must be added, namely, that “a …
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COP26: Wall Street rolls out climate finance
Low-carbon Energy and Environmental Protection Technology Special Exhibition Zone, 4th CIIE, Shanghai, Nov. 4, 2021 The US climate envoy John Kerry is getting down to the real business at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow after President Joe Biden has had his photo-ops, made his idiosyncratic public remarks and flew back …
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Biden Doctrine abates China tensions
US President Joe Biden speaking about the end of the war in Afghanistan, White House, Washington, August 31, 2021 A 90-minute phone conversation between the presidents of the United States and China surely makes world news, but President Joe Biden’s call to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Friday draws special attention on its timing, …
US-China relations at crossroads
In two phone calls past fortnight, Chinese Councilor & FM Wang Yi (L) told US counterpart Antony Blinken (R) that coordination over Afghanistan would depend on US policies towards Beijing The Biden Administration, in dire straits over Afghanistan, is pursuing China for help. There have been two phone calls to Chinese State Councilor and FM …
Quad meets the “Saigon moment”
US Vice-President Kamala Harris (L) being presented with a spray of orchids named after her, as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) looks on, Singapore, August 23, 2021 The regional tour of Southeast Asia by the US Vice-President Kamala Harris got inundated with the tsunami of criticism over the United States’ frantic efforts to complete …
CPC transforms China as a world class power
Zhou Enlai (left) and Mao Zedong (second from left) at Chinese Communist capital of Yan’an, c.1936. Photo by Edgar Snow. This is the season to reread Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, the classic work on the birth of the communist movement in China. Alongside John Reid’s Ten Days That Shook the World, the gripping …
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Breakthrough in Afghan peace process!
The “extended Troika” on the Afghan problem comprising the United States, Russia, and China — and Pakistan — have announced in Doha on Friday a road map in consultation with the Ashraf Ghani government and Taliban as regards the way forward in immediate terms for reaching a peace settlement. The announcement followed consultations in Doha …