East Asia

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump preferred the Neofascist Marine Le Pen as president of France, who wanted to pull out of NATO and the European Union. Trump’s own Environmental Protection Agency advisers are resigned because of his attack on the science of climate change. Trump is mulling pulling out […]

China

China’s covering a Football field with Solar Panels Every Hour in Quest to End Coal

contributors

By Janet Xuanli Liao | (The Conversation) | – – China’s remarkable growth over the past three decades has elevated it to global superpower status. But its economic miracle has also attracted attention for the wrong reasons: the country is now the world’s largest energy consumer, oil importer, and CO₂ emitter. It led to the […]

China

Sorry, Trump: China is Leading World toward first “Ecological Civilization”

contributors

David Tyfield | (The Conversation) | – – The Trump administration’s hostility towards climate action and research leaves a void in global climate politics. Could China step up? The world’s largest absolute emitter could certainly use US inaction as an excuse to backslide on its promises of greenery. But China could instead see this as […]

Africa

Does Trump’s slashed Foreign Aid Budget give China the Advantage?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The US foreign aid budget is not mainly about helping the poor. It is an instrument for buying influence in countries important to the US. The poorest countries in the world do not get much help from the US. Israel, which is a wealthy country, gets […]

China

Has Trump quietly surrendered to Russia and China?

contributors

Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – If there’s a single consistent aspect to Donald Trump’s strategic vision, it’s this: U.S. foreign policy should always be governed by the simple principle of “America First,” with this country’s vital interests placed above those of all others. “We will always put America’s interests first,” he […]

China

Could Trump’s War of Words with China turn Hot?

contributors

By Rajan Menon | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Forget those “bad hombres down there” in Mexico that U.S. troops might take out. Ignore the way National Security Adviser Michael Flynn put Iran “on notice” and the new president insisted, that, when it comes to that country, “nothing is off the table.” Instead, focus for […]

China

Trump’s Coming “Islamo-China” War . . . or, Whatever

contributors

By Ira Chernus | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – What kind of national security policy will the Trump administration pursue globally? On this issue, as on so many others, the incoming president has offered enough contradictory clues, tweets, and comments that the only definitive answer right now is: Who knows? During his presidential campaign […]

China

Screwed?: 4 Top International Crises we have to depend on Trump to Resolve

Juan Cole

By Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Within months of taking office, President Donald Trump is likely to face one or more major international crises, possibly entailing a risk of nuclear escalation. Not since the end of the Cold War has a new chief executive been confronted with as many potential flashpoints […]

China

The Chinese Solar Juggernaut that Trump Can’t Stop

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump has pronounced solar power “too expensive” and has pledged to revive the use of coal. The former is a falsehood, the latter a genocide. (Coal kills people with lung disease and global warming). Moreover, Trump keeps complaining that China is eating Americans’ lunch with […]