...likely demand that the Chinese government take care of its own constituencies before bolstering a foreign market for increased Chinese investment. As its citizens grow increasingly conscious of their own economic inequality, Beijing will be hard-pressed to continue its current African policy. China will be recalled to address domestic problems before advancing international engagements. While China will necessarily grapple with waning, or at lea...
...ht that China’s energy and development-related moves towards Greenland, Iceland, and even the Canadian Arctic were just regular expressions of a developing country with big energy needs. What they failed to understand is that Beijing policy planners did not seek dominance in the Arctic just to quench their country’s energy needs. Rather, China sees economic preeminence as an early step towards making tangible diplomatic and security inroads...
...and 113 athletes to the games, respectively. The global recession and subsequent rioting that has ensued in Britain for the last two years have not prevented the UK from hosting the Olympics. At the last summer games, held in Beijing, the U.S. made the very deliberate and public decision not to boycott the games, despite the fact that 106 American lawmakers called for a boycott to protest China’s support of the despotic Sudanese government and th...
...f cab drivers were ignored to create hundreds of miles of VIP lanes available only to athletes, sponsors, and IOC members. In 2008, hundreds of migrant workers, street vendors, and homeless were swept off the streets to clear Beijing of the “undesirable.” The Olympics are not a reflection of who we are as global community. Instead, they have become the world’s most expensive cocktail party. So much for “sport at the service of mankind.”...
...rty-state continues to face, it is laughable Xi Jinping and his cronies will bring any kind of meaningful change to the Chinese system. The rule of law may have to wait another decade to take route in China. This November in Beijing, it will simply be another case of “Meet the new boss—same as the old boss.”...
Last month, India announced a missile test that had capabilities to reach Beijing and Shanghai. The country’s reason for the missile test, according to Indian defense, was to build a credible minimum deterrence with no hostile effects. In likely response, Pakistan conducted the first test of its Shaheen 1-A intermediate-range ballistic missile less than a week after India. And even more recently, Pakistan has planned to test fire a brand new-cap...
...e, most prominently major deforestation fed by a growing hunger for paper goods. The consequences proved dire: huge sandstorms, known to locals as “yellow dragons,” struck major cities in the north, including the capital city Beijing, large tracts of agricultural land were degraded, and little grassland remained to feed herds of sheep and cattle roaming the lands of inner Mongolia. The GGW, part of a larger national effort to increase forestation...
...North Korea as a buffer zone in order to prevent stronger U.S. influence in the region. Many activists claim China may be the key player and could influence the DPRK to back down. But, despite their long alliance, experts say Beijing may not have as much control as most people think. “In general, Americans tend to overestimate the influence China has over North Korea,” says Daniel Pinkston, a Northeast Asia expert at the International...
...the world’s “wealthy and mobile” expats – teachers, students, and professionals who have no intention or possibility of ever attaining local citizenship. Western expats are a common sight in Asia, and entire neighborhoods of Beijing and Shanghai are populated by foreigners and catered to their tastes. These individuals not only act as cultural representatives of foreign countries, but also undoubtedly affect the culture of the host country, as w...
Since the beginning of its economic reforms in 1978, the People’s Republic of China has become our lender and our factory, our second-largest trading partner and our number one economic competitor. And much has been written on China’s potential as a geopolitical challenger to the United States, but Beijing’s aspirations to global power are, for the moment, aspirations and nothing more. The more pressing problem (the Chinese economic bubble) is m...
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