Showing 1 - 8 of 8
South America is a battlefield in the new Cold War
News, Hal Brands, Published on 12/02/2019
» The political crisis in Venezuela has pitted the US against a dictator who refuses to leave office. But the crisis has a broader significance: It shows that Latin America has again become an arena in which rival great powers struggle for influence and advantage. As the US faces surging geopolitical rivalry around the world, its position is also coming under pressure in its own backyard.
China is blowing an opportunity with Meng's arrest
News, Hal Brands, Published on 21/12/2018
» China is blowing the geopolitical opportunity of a lifetime. There has probably never been a better moment to undo America's greatest strategic advantage by dividing the US from its global network of democratic allies, many of which are horrified by President Trump's rhetoric and policies and deeply worried about Washington's staying power. Yet, Beijing is doing its best to remind that democratic world that it has far more to fear from a hegemonic China than from an erratic America.
Democracy is the biggest US asset
News, Hal Brands, Published on 22/11/2018
» In his speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence put the clash of political values between the US and China at the heart of the clash of geopolitical interests between the two countries. Mr Pence declared that America seeks a "free Indo-Pacific" where countries and individuals can "exercise their God-given liberties"; he touted Washington's progress in deepening its relationships with the region's democracies, from old allies such as Australia, newer partners such as India and small nations such as the summit host, Papua New Guinea. Mr Pence contrasted this approach with Chinese coercion and announced that "authoritarianism and aggression have no place in the Indo-Pacific".
Great powers' spat undermines global cooperation
News, Hal Brands, Published on 20/11/2018
» In recent years, we have seen the renewal of a phenomenon that seemed to have passed into history with the end of the Cold War: fierce and potentially violent competition between the most powerful countries on the globe. Yet as dangerous as that competition is in its own right, it is also worsening prospects for solving many of the world's other problems, from migration to economic crises to climate change.
Trump's phone tap karmic revenge?
News, Hal Brands, Published on 30/10/2018
» Specific incidents can sometimes reveal much larger truths. This would seem to be the case regarding recent revelations that the Chinese have been eavesdropping on US President Donald Trump's less-than-secure phone calls and using the information gathered as part of an elaborate plot to influence the president.
The ideology behind China's global master plan
News, Hal Brands, Published on 15/06/2018
» The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017 is sure to loom large in future accounts of China's relations with the world. It was then that the party cleared the way for Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely, and when Mr Xi himself advertised China's global ambitions by declaring that Beijing would now "take centre stage" in world affairs. It was also when Mr Xi threw down the gauntlet in an equally consequential way.
The military threat in China's global plan
News, Hal Brands, Published on 12/06/2018
» For years, most experts believed that China's military challenge to the US was regional in nature -- that it was confined to the Western Pacific. After decades of tacitly free-riding on America's global power-projection capabilities, however, Beijing now is seeking the capabilities that will allow it to project its own military power well outside its regional neighbourhood.
Xi risks scaring Asia back into Washington's orbit
News, Hal Brands, Published on 06/03/2018
» One thing seems certain about Xi Jinping's move to establish himself as China's dictator for life: The bolder and more openly assertive foreign policy he has pursued since taking power five years ago is here to stay. The conventional wisdom is that the US, its Asian allies, and the broader international order are thus in for a rough stretch, as China demands its place in the sun. "Xi's consolidation of power," writes my Bloomberg View colleague James Stavridis, "will make China an even more formidable competitor." Less appreciated, though, is that this approach could also end badly for China, because Mr Xi may be overplaying his country's hand.