East Asia

Biggest East Asian move into Mideast since the Mongol Empire: In Open Challenge to US, China inks 25-year, $400 bn Deal with Iran

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Saturday, IRNA reports, Iran and China signed a 25-year cooperation agreement. The signatures were affixed in Tehran by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a ceremony on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of modern diplomatic relations between Iran and China. […]

China

Washington’s Delusion of Endless World Dominion: China and the U.S. Struggle over Eurasia, the Epicenter of World Power

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com) – Empires live and die by their illusions. Visions of empowerment can inspire nations to scale the heights of global hegemony. Similarly, however, illusions of omnipotence can send fading empires crashing into oblivion. So it was with Great Britain in the 1950s and so it may be with the United States today. By […]

China

Not Waiting on Biden: China breaks US Iran Blockade, moves to import nearly 1 mn b/d of Ayatolllah’s Oil

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – China is dramatically ramping up its imports of petroleum from Iran this spring, going from a daily average of 300,000 barrels per day during the past year to 856,000 bpd. So reports Felicity Bradstock of Oilprice.com. The Biden administration has dragged its feet on negotiating a return to the 2015 […]

China

City of lost mosques: how Suzhou tells the story of China’s Islamic past

The Conversation

By Alessandra Cappelletti | – The labyrinth of alleys and lanes in the old city of Suzhou hides a secret: historical fragments of the long history of Islam in China. Regular stories in the international press highlighting the treatment of Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region tend to obscure the fact that Islam was […]

China

By 2030, 60% of New Cars in China will be Electric, and by 2040 all New Cars in the World will be: USB Bank; Will Mideast Oil States Survive?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 60 percent of new cars sold in China in 2030 will be electric, according to Switzerland’s UBS bank. And by 2040 the only new cars on the market globally will be electric, the bank predicts. So report Daniel Ren and Pearl Liu for the South China Morning Post. The forecast […]

China

Biden, Climate Change, and China: A New Cold War equals A Scalding Planet

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Slowing the pace of climate change and getting “tough” on China, especially over its human-rights abuses and unfair trade practices, are among the top priorities President Biden has announced for his new administration. Evidently, he believes that he can tame a rising China with harsh pressure tactics, while still gaining its […]

China

Biden’s Top Foreign Policy Challenge: Avoiding a Cold War with China

Conn M. Hallinan

Taiwan and the South China Sea are the likeliest points of conflict — but conflict is not an option. ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – President Joe Biden’s administration faces a host of difficult problems, but in foreign policy its thorniest will be its relations with the People’s Republic of China. How the new administration […]

China

That Time when America was a Superpower before Trump surrendered to China

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – After four years of Donald Trump’s fitful tenure, America is awakening from a long, troubled sleep to discover, like the fictional character Rip Van Winkle, that the world it once knew has changed beyond all recognition. In that classic American tale by Washington Irving published in 1819, an amiable but shiftless […]

China

With Trump Gone, Can the U.S. and China Cooperate on a Failing Planet?

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – For just a moment, let me try to look on the bright side of the storming of the Capitol last week by a mob incited and dispatched by President Trump. When George W. Bush, the president who launched the Global War on Terror and then invaded Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, referred to what […]