Posted by seumasach on February 28, 2018
Pepe Escobar
24th February, 2018
The Quad – comprising the United States, Japan, India and Australia – was set up a decade ago, ostensibly as an Asia-centered security cooperation mechanism. Funnily enough, Beijing always suspected it actually represented a containment strategy.
Posted in Containing China, Multipolar world | Tagged: Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), China Australian cooperation, Chinese soft power, End of empire, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(QUAD) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 28, 2018
The Belt and Road Initiative now appears as an unstoppable reality shaping 21st Century politics. The Anglosphere may try to isolate itself from it at great cost to itself but with the failure of Western intervention in the Middle East it cannot stop it. The resurrection of the , allying Australia, Japan, India and the USA, as a counterweight to the BRI looks unconvincing. As US hegemonic aspirations fade the dream lives on in the vacuous rhetoric of a New Cold War and a union of democracies none of which relate to the reality of economic sclerosis, unplayable debt and political division.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
27th February, 2018
From an Indian perspective, the visit to the United States by the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his meeting with President Donald Trump on February 23 turns out to be a reality check on the power dynamic in the Asia-Pacific. Australia is torn between two vital partners – the US in the security sphere and China in the economic sphere. The dilemma is acute insofar as Turnbull has voiced opinions on threat perceptions regarding China, which are contrary to the Trump administration’s assessment and, yet, the US and Australia are key allies.
Posted in Multipolar world, New Cold War | Tagged: Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), China Australian cooperation, Chinese soft power, End of empire, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(QUAD) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 25, 2018
The prospects of Quads, an Asian NATO aimed at countering Chinese influence, may simply dissolve under the sway of Chinese sort power. After all, the BRI actually offers real benefits in terms of India’s development in contrast to the meagre offerings of the fading Hegemony. Furthermore, India has already joined the SCO, a sort of Asian NATO aimed at countering US influence, and cannot for long attempt to ride both horses.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
25th February, 2018
Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale has hit the road running, as it were. There isn’t going to be a time lag following his predecessor’s permanent retirement from the South Block before the much-needed abandonment of the China policies over the past three years got under way. Those policies were characterized by a muscularity without precedents or a sense of ground realities that brought the two countries almost to the brink of war. In retrospect, they proved fanciful, sterile and even counter-productive –except, perhaps, to create a raison d’etre for the India-US defining partnership in the era of “America First”.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank(AIIB), Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 20, 2017
“Per the first pair, any diminishment of China’s powerful economic influence in Australia – particularly in terms of commodity purchases, investments, real estate deals, and wealthy foreign students – could theoretically be replaced by the US or its allies, though not on the same qualitative level and not without self-inflicted damage to the island nation.”
This is an understatement: Australia is geared to exporting raw materials to the world’s foremost productive economy. The USA cannot replicate China’s role in this respect and, as for US allies, well, who are they? Merely assuming, as the latest national security doctrine does that India and Japan are US allies doesn’t mean that they are US allies. After all, is the UK, the country Trump refuses to visit, a US ally? Clearly, the Australian “security state” is biting back but can it trump Australia’s fundamental interests? Australia’s own little Brexit will likely be as ephemeral as Brexit itself.
Andrew Korybko
Australia is implementing its own “foreign agents” legislation modelled off of the US’.
Posted in Containing China, Multipolar world | Tagged: Australia-China relations, China-led globalization, Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 21, 2017
Adam Garrie
20th November, 2017
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called for a three step peace process in order to put an end to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, which has seen many refugees flee from Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese diplomacy, Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 25, 2017
“All in all, the US attempts to create friction in the South China Sea area by instigating the ASEAN countries are floundering. Equally, it signifies the continuing decline in the US influence on the ASEAN as a regional group.”
M.K.Bhadrakumar
24th October, 2017
The 11th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting at the Clark free port in Pampanga, Philippines, turns out to be Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s first exposure to ‘rising China’. In certain ways, it becomes a reality check, too.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Chinese soft power, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 20, 2017
Adam Garrie
19th October, 2017
Yesterday’s marathon speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping was not only a blueprint for China’s future, but for the future of the 21st century. Not only will all roads lead to China by century’s end, but in many ways, the new and most vibrant roads in the world already do.
Read more
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese soft power, One Belt One Road, strategic partnership between US and China | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 24, 2017
Spengler
18th September, 2017
Not since the British garrison at Singapore surrendered to Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita in 1942 has Western opinion of an Asian power changed so fast. When China’s 2015 stock market bubble popped, prevailing Western opinion held that China’s economic boom would flame out in a debt crisis comparable to America’s subprime disaster of 2008 or the near collapse of Europe’s southern tier in 2013.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 17, 2017
“Largely unreported by Western corporate media, what happened in Vladivostok is really ground-breaking. Moscow and Seoul agreed on a trilateral trade platform, crucially involving Pyongyang, to ultimately invest in connectivity between the whole Korean peninsula and the Russian Far East.”
13th September, 2017
Moscow has been busy building agreements that would extend Eurasian connectivity eastward. The question is how to convince the DPRK to play along…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Chinese soft power, One Belt One Road, Russian diplomacy, Trans-Korean Railway | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 14, 2017
Alexander Mercouris
13th September, 2017
The North Korean crisis took a further twist on Monday with a significant climbdown by the US at the UN Security Council and a further diplomatic victory by China.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese diplomacy, Chinese soft power, Russia-China peace plan for North Korea | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 3, 2017
The Silk Road is reaching right into the US backyard
1st September, 2017
The People’s Republic of China is preparing to carry through with plans to invest a massive US$30 billion in developing Haiti’s infrastructure, including power plants, sanitation works, water systems, railways, affordable housing, and marketplaces, in an agreement that is expected to have a major social, economic, and developmental impact.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Chinese soft power, New Silk Road | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 