Category: Diplomacy
Xi’s Agenda Troubled by Miscalculations: Top Singapore Diplomat
As strategic competition between China and the United States intensifies, Beijing enters its momentous 20th Party Congress (kicking off on Sunday) saddled with three big foreign policy mistakes. So argues Singapore's former top diplomat, Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan, in an entertaining interview with ...
China Releases Climate Plan Focusing Heavily on Global South
China has released a new concept note on climate cooperation in the runup to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (known as COP27) taking place in Egypt in November. The document suggests areas of cooperation between China and international partners on ...
Ethiopia Debuts New Chinese-Built Science Museum
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed inaugurated a new Chinese-built museum of science in Addis Ababa last week. He said the museum "offers both the young and old a place to inquire, explore, innovate and invent" and praised how it was "built in ...
One of China’s Leading Mideast Scholars Expresses Sympathy For Iranian Protestors, Testing the Limits of What’s Acceptable in His Own Country
One of China's most prominent Mideast scholars, Fan Hongda from the Middle East Studies Institute at Shanghai International Studies University, is expressing solidarity with anti-government protestors in Iran on social media. At the same time, he's pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable online speech for a Chinese ...
The SCO Reaches the Mediterranean
By Leonardo Bruni Iran joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has led to a flurry of analyses from across the wider Mediterranean. Divergent perspectives emerge between foreign media coverage, which emphasize international security implications, and what domestic Iranian media reports that ...
Somalia Voted With China’s Critics at the UN Human Rights Council to Initiate a Debate on Xinjiang. But Why?
Somalia was a standout last week when it was the only African country and the only Muslim-majority country to back a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council that called for a debate over China's human rights policies in Xinjiang.
China and India’s Steadily Deteriorating Relationship
It wasn't that long ago that many people thought the longtime rivalry between India and China had begun to subside. In fact, Xi Jinping traveled to India in 2019, his second visit as president, for a profile, seemingly amicable summit with ...
Xinjiang Human Rights Council Vote Prompts Spirited Debate in Asia Over Why Governments Backed China
The two Asian governments with the world's largest Muslim populations, Indonesia and India, have been on the defensive in recent days for their vote last Thursday at the United Nations Human Rights Council to block a discussion over Chinese human rights policies in Xinjiang. ...
After Months of Delay, China Finally Begins Debt Restructuring Talks With Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe informed the country's parliament late last week that China had finally agreed to begin long-desired debt restructuring talks. During a recent visit to Tokyo, President Wickremesinghe also called on Japan, Sri Lanka's other main creditor in addition to China and ...
Arab Barometer: Arab Publics Favorable Views of China Decline the More They Learn About Chinese Foreign Policy
Two of the lead researchers at Princeton University's Arab Barometer public opinion survey project shared some additional insights about the findings from their 2021 poll on how people in the MENA region perceive the United States and China. Michael Robbins, director ...
Locating the Global South in China’s Party Congress
By Lukas Fiala and Hugo Jones We’re fairly accustomed to observing how the issue of China feeds into elections across global south countries. China is a political football, often framed as a problem that needs to be dealt with and low-hanging ...
China and India’s Bumpy Road to An “Asian Century”
China and India must find ways of tolerating each other’s military rise to ensure the dawn of an “Asian Century.” So argued Zhou Bo, a former official in China’s Ministry of Defense and currently a researcher at the Center for Strategic ...