A common thread appears to link each of these disasters: a Chinese penchant for secrecy that makes things worse.
They’re coming from different angles, but American leaders are beginning to sound a lot like China’s when warning of the dangers of an untamed, unregulated internet.
From Myanmar to India and the Philippines, autocratic regimes have been on the rise since the South African leader and icon of inclusive democracy left his presidency.
The results from the US-North Korea summit are at worst vague and opaque, but at least the two nations are no longer sabre-rattling with nukes, and that’s a good start – as long as the US president can stay out of his own way.
An open letter to the US president: keep your eyes on the prize (no, not the Nobel Peace one, the other one – building trust for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula). Oh, and try not to smile.
Eighteen months into his mercurial presidency, the Donald Trump who promised to be the ultimate deal broker looks more like the ultimate deal choker.
Pushing Tehran into Beijing’s embrace seems like another example of the Donald “Making China Great Again”.
The US president may indeed deserve praise for the current optimism on the Korean peninsula – but it is not because of the ‘fire and fury’ threats or the taunting of Kim Jong-un. It’s the sanctions, stupid.
Cooler heads could still prevail, but it seems unlikely as Beijing and Washington up the stakes in a tit-for-tat spat that could play havoc with the world’s economy.
Beijing knows its trade practices are unfair and tilted towards protecting its domestic industries. The surprise is only that it has been able to get away with it for so long
On the surface, conditions seem ripe for a repeat of the sell-off two decades ago. But there are some big differences between then and what we are witnessing today.
As demographic crises loom across Asia, solutions like dropping the one-child policy will not be enough; the region must learn to embrace immigrants if it is to cope with a looming manpower shortage.
Triumphalists in Beijing take note: America will bounce back after Trump. And when your only real allies are Kim Jong-un and Hun Sen, you might want to rethink your ‘soft power’ strategy
