Forty years ago, Deng Xiaoping was visiting Tokyo, as the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China was coming into force. There, Deng addressed the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute, articulating his famous idea that the issue should be shelved, because “[t]he people of our generation don’t have sufficient wisdom to settle this discussion, [...]
All European roads no longer lead to Rome, but Beijing, with Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Mark Rutte and Angela Merkel travelling to the capital of the European Union’s largest trade partner. But the European leaders didn’t go to China just to make a new friend; Europe has a few grievances for Beijing to address. [...]
Now that China has done away with presidential term limits, Xi Jinping can retain all his current titles and power long into the future. Most commentary defending the move argues that Xi is consolidating power to push through difficult reforms and strengthen China, and that he wants to remain in charge beyond 2022 to [...]
The narrative of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as spanning over 65 countries and gathering 62 percent of the world population, 31 percent of its GDP, and 40 percent of global land area should once and for all disappear now that China has announced the extension of the BRI to Latin America. Ever [...]
Following the visit of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the beginning of January, Chinese leaders welcomed another major state visit from a European official: the British prime minister, Theresa May. While Macron is seeking to strengthen his position as a leader of the European Union and the voice of Europe, May is more [...]
After Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Party primary and was then elected US president, he offered her the post of secretary of state. In Australia, Julia Gillard did the same once she unseated Kevin Rudd from the prime ministership in 2010: she named him foreign minister. Throughout the world, the [...]
Throughout the past half-century, the driving force of globalization and the creation of a rules-based order has been the North Atlantic partnership between the United States and Europe. But in the past six months, the paths of America and Europe have diverged on everything from trade and climate change to preserving an open, multilateral [...]
If one image has come to define the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s ambitious, amorphous project of overseas investment, it’s the railway. Every few months or so, the media praises a new line that will supposedly connect a Chinese city with a European capital. Today it’s Budapest. Yesterday it was London. They are the [...]
If Thomas Friedman wrote his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree today, maybe the Lexus would be replaced with a Chinese vehicle, like a Geely, for example, because globalisation has a new pole: China. In the past, the US led the wave of globalisation through its economic might, soft power and hyper-connectivity. But [...]
On April 18, Beijing hosted the 7th European Union-China Strategic Dialogue which was chaired by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, with Chinese State Councilor, Yang Jiechi. The meeting came ahead of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation scheduled to take place in Beijing in mid-May [...]