East Asia

( Codepink) – Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s […]

China

GOP Death Cult Forbids Mandatory Masks, Keeping US in Crisis, as China Grows 3.2%

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Georgia governor Brian Kemp, one of the worst and most corrupt people in the world, is attempting to prevent municipalities in Georgia from fining people for refusing to wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. He is suing Atlanta over it. The question is not whether his obstructionism […]

Donald Trump

Iran? N. Korea? If Trump needs a war to win in November, which enemy will he choose to wag the dog?

Open Democracy

By Paul Rogers | – ( OpenDemocracy.net) – With the US presidential election less than four months away, Donald Trump trails Joe Biden in the polls by a substantial margin. His strategy as his ratings decline has been to concentrate on his core vote, which amounts to a little more than 30% of the population […]

China

How Trump lost Iran to China: 25-Year ‘Lion-Dragon Deal’ makes Iran part of One Belt, One Road

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2015 nuclear deal signed by the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany with Iran had the potential to bring Iran into the world community economically and politically. Iran at one point intended to buy 80 Boeing civilian airliners, creating jobs in Seattle. A country with extensive […]

China

The Final Defeat of the John Bolton Hawks? How Russia and China could humiliate Trump on Eve of Election by Lifting Iran Arms Embargo

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is about to go up against China and Russia at the United Nations Security Council over the looming end to the UNSC arms embargo on Iran, and is facing a humiliating defeat that will further harm the US standing in global affairs. The 2015 Joint Plan for Collective Action […]

China

Trump’s China Shell Game: Bashes Biden on Beijing but asks Xi for reelection Help

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration has been running ads against Joe Biden accusing him of being soft on Beijing. And the Biden campaign has been depicting Trump as a patsy for praising Chinese President Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Both are betting that the US public is increasingly hostile to […]

China

The Looming US-Chinese Missile Crisis

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – America’s pundits and politicians have largely concluded that a new Cold War with China — a period of intense hostility and competition falling just short of armed combat — has started. “Rift Threatens U.S. Cold War Against China,” as a New York Times headline put it on May 15th, citing recent clashes […]

China

Trump’s ‘Uncreative Destruction’ of the U.S.-China Relationship

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Economists like to think of the wreckage caused by stock market downturns, widespread bankruptcies, and corporate downsizing as “creative destruction.” As it destroys the old and the dysfunctional, the capitalist system continually spurs innovation, much as a forest fire prepares the ground for new growth. Or so the […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Coronavirus and Intelligence: Trump is Getting up Conflict with China the way Bush did with Iraq

Bob Dreyfuss

By Bob Dreyfuss | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – There’s a meme that appears now and then on Facebook and other social media: “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” That’s funny. What’s not is […]