Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis gave an insightful speech last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that addresses the Obama administration’s trade priorities in the Asia-Pacific and outlines the complex challenges (regional architecture, rising China, and others) that will undoubtedly temper the US trade policy stance for years to come. This […]
Politics in Bangladesh matters to me. Politics in Bangladesh might matter to you. But why should the U.S. government worry about politics in Bangladesh? I have at least 2 arguments in response to that question. The first response attaches to ongoing developments in the attempt to establish regional security in South Asia, to a) support […]
In the midst of the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti, China has given the international community a glimpse of its humanitarian spirit. The Chinese government wasted no time in dispatching a team of 15 rescuers along with several millions of dollars in aid, and later sent 45 or so medical staff. At the same […]
Henry Hoyle, the China Blogger here at FPA, has a great post up about a grand rapprochement between Japan and China in 2010. He is certainly not alone in wondering what might come of a more robust bilateral relationship. Speculation of a so-called “grand rapprochement” is pervasive, as many are eager determine how, and by […]
The sitting Awami League government has hanged the 5 individuals convicted of assassinating President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975. The executions came some 14 hours after the Appelate Division of the Supreme Court rejected a review of the Supreme Court verdict. Quite apart for the normatively retrograde administration of capital punishment in Bangladesh, The Daily […]
Micheal Pettis has a great post up at his always worth-a-read blog China Financial Markets. In “The Myth of the Blithe Consensus,” the Carnegie Endowment fellow and Peking University finance professor reviews the evidence that China’s madcap loan growth of 2009 has returned with a terrible fury in the first weeks of 2010, with dire […]
The images below require no introduction nor explanation. They do require that we ensure that within our lifetime we are able to look upon these images as we do when we gaze upon the work of Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. We must ensure that this lived experience no longer attaches to any young […]
India celebrates its 60th Republic Day today. It is to this day in 1950 that the Indian Constitution came into force after its independence from Britain in August 1947. The Republic Day celebrations are an opportunity to display the nation’s cultural diversity, military might and other achievements to its people and the world through a […]
Willy Lam has a piece in the new Jamestown Foundation China Brief breaking down Beijing’s most recent signaling on its Tibet strategy. New policies for the restive region, announced by Xinhua following a January 8 Politburo session devoted to the question of how to pursue “breakthrough-style economic development and long-term stability” in Tibet, essentially amount […]
Zainab Jeewanjee addresses the idea that President Obama is “changing tones” on foreign policy. An article in DAWN news suggests he is not living up to expectations on his foreign policy to Pakistan. Jeewanjee explains that he however is. Hawkishness on his part was promised from the onset of his campaign trail.
There was a rush of rioting today in the garment factory district of Dhaka earlier this morning. Following an unfortunate accident where a garment factory worker was run over by a speeding bus, factory workers were reported to have torched 15 vehicles, while vandalizing 50 other vehicles. Over 200 riot policemen responded to the […]
Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Friday. His words offer up a broad assessment of the regional challenges confronting the US and adumbrate, in broad strokes, the “principles of US engagement in the Asia-Pacific.” In one revealing passage, Campbell states, “the […]
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