A Deep DIVE For New Great Power Competition
July 9, 2019 7 min. read

The U.S. must engage in more long-term, strategic thinking in order to compete effectively in the new great power competition with both China and Russia.

Read more
The Belt and Road Initiative: Shaping the Narrative of a China Story
August 16, 2018 6 min. read

Mapping the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one can easily get lost in the amount of information available. Hundreds of projects and nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of investments currently exist in over 60 countries. A serious analysis of each project must take into account a variety of factors, including funding sources, implementing partners, budget […]

Read more
China’s strategic influence is growing in the Americas
April 25, 2018 6 min. read

Last year Panama became the second Central American country to establish diplomatic ties with China. This is the latest example of how Chinese investment in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region has afforded Beijing closer political ties. As the US reduces its influence south of the border, China’s economic ventures will pay dividends at […]

Read more
America today: Will the center hold? If so, what might it look like?  
August 24, 2017 3 min. read

There is much to make us wonder whether the American Center will hold. Yet, many will say, hold on, Armageddon is not nigh. We’ve been “here” before.

Read more
Soft Power: Russian and American University Students Find Common Ground
May 8, 2017 3 min. read

While U.S.-Russia relations remain uncertain, students at the Volgograd Institute of Management engaged their American counterparts in some diplomatic bridge-building.

Read more
The Neglected G20: Understanding China’s “Hangzhou Model”
October 25, 2016 4 min. read

The G20 Hangzhou Summit was a glitzy event for China’s diplomacy. Considered a success by Chinese media, the Summit received little international coverage.

Read more
The Soft Power of Francis’ Geopolitical Papacy
April 29, 2016 5 min. read

He is outspoken on migration and refugee issues, was involved in brokering an upgrade in U.S.-Cuban relations and takes part in debates on hot-button topics from income inequality to climate change. Francis’ view of the papacy is clearly geopolitical.

Read more
Beijing’s Man in Bangkok: Wang Zhimin and the Thai-Chinese Soft Power Machine
April 20, 2016 8 min. read

Amorn Apithanakoon, known in Chinese as Wang Zhimin, is the CEO of one of Thailand’s biggest entertainment companies, Wang is also an officer in several Thai-Chinese “community organizations” that serve as political front groups for the Chinese government in Thailand. If Beijing succeeds in drawing Thailand into China’s authoritarian orbit, no small thanks will be due to his long years of pro-Beijing activism in the kingdom.

Read more
China’s war for Africa’s hearts and minds
October 17, 2014 6 min. read

China has made a badge of honor out of Zheng Bijian’s term coined in a seminal 2005 Foreign Affairs article, which described the Middle Kingdom’s path toward modernization as a “peaceful rise.”

Read more
Soft Power, America vs. China: America Still Wins
January 22, 2014 5 min. read

China is engaged in a soft-power war with America and the West. America may not have noticed this, but China has. While America takes its soft power around the world for granted, China struggles to win even the “hearts and minds” of its own citizens. “Soft power” is defined by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye […]

Read more
Chen Guangbiao’s Chinese Soft-Power Circus Comes to New York
January 9, 2014 4 min. read

Chinese recycling tycoon Chen Guangbiao recently made headlines when he announced his “plans” to buy the New York Times. I put “plans” in quotation marks because the newspaper’s owners had expressed neither knowledge of any such deals in the works nor interest in selling it to anyone, least of all to a nationalistic Chinese businessman […]

Read more

Popular from Press