Yanghee Lee, Project Syndicate
The conflict between the Chinese authorities and Hong Kong’s citizens will continue to escalate as China implements its new security law on the territory, which is why international action has become urgent. The United Nations should not wait until all that is left to be done is clean the blood off the streets.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
A flawed policy on Covid-19 was driven by the country’s exceptionalism
Lynn Berry, Russia Matters
Investigative journalist Catherine Belton set out to trace the takeover of the Russian economy by Vladimir Putin’s friends from the KGB, but as her reporting stretched through the years, she uncovered something more sinister.
Nyshka Chandran, FP
In Indonesia and the Philippines, military leaders are managing the coronavirus response—with lasting political repercussions.
Ted Galen Carpenter, TAC
American diplomatic and military support for Taiwan has grown dramatically during the Trump years. The administration has taken steps to boost that support, but Congress also has pushed its own initiatives. One key measure was the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act in 2018, which not only authorized but encouragedhigh-level defense and foreign policy officials to interact...
Salvatore Babones, National Interest
Something is going on in the North that is, as yet, invisible to outside observers. Remember that Kim Jong-un disappeared for three weeks in April-May, and has only rarely been seen since. His sister, Kim Yo-jong, has suddenly taken on a much more prominent—and much more militant—role in governing the country, even apparently taking it upon herself to issue orders to the military in her own name. Is brother Kim sick? Is sister Kim taking over the family business? Читать дальше...
Daniel DePetris, RealClearWorld
After a decade of conflict, destruction, and severe economic contraction, Syria’s civil war may be nearing an end. Syrian President Bashar al Assad, thanks to extensive military, economic, and diplomatic support from his Russian and Iranian partners, is as close to vanquishing his enemies as he has ever been. The anti-regime opposition is now boxed into a small, crowded corner of northwestern Syria -- a territory only kept out of Assad’s reach
David Kampf, WP Review
It is too soon to tell how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect international security. Whether it will provide opportunities for prolonged peace or create conditions for new rivalries and disputes depends on how long the pandemic lasts, how the world moves forward from bungled initial responses and how quickly countries recover from the virus’s societal and economic fallout. But already, the pandemic is exposing and accelerating trends that have made the world more vulnerable to international conflict. Читать дальше...
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Indian Express
Chinese intrusion in Ladakh has created a challenge that must be met. India must guard against complacence
Wazim Mowla, Global Americans
It’s been more than three months since Guyana’s national and regional elections and the country is close to having a winner formally declared—after a transparent and credible electoral process. However, with the electoral crisis nearing its end, Guyana must overcome a final hurdle before democracy is restored in the country. Things appeared to be heading in the right direction when the incumbent, A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition... Читать дальше...
Yanzhong Huang, SCMP
The pandemic has rekindled conspiracy theories, renewed criticism and hostility and increased calls for a hard decoupling – while leaving a leadership void for China to fill and inflicting greater economic damage on the US
James Palmer & Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy
Nuclear powers New Delhi and Beijing engage in a skirmish marking the first combat deaths along their border in more than four decades.
Daniel Davis, TNI
Trying to force regime change at the barrel of a gun or through economic sanctions is doomed to failure. Unfortunately, this failed policy has succeeded only in exacerbating violence and suffering—and continues to work against American interests.
N. Meriggi & A.M. Mobarak, NYT
How to combat Covid-19 in a developing economy.
Joshua White, Brookings
China has significantly expanded its engagements in the Indian Ocean region over the past three decades, raising fears among American and Indian strategists that its growing naval presence, together with its use of so-called “debt-trap diplomacy,” might provide it with meaningful military advantages far from its shores.
Joshua Keating, Slate
With a still-raging pandemic, a looming economic catastrophe, and tense worldwide protests over racism and police violence, about the last thing the world needs right now is a land war between its two largest countries—which have about 430 nuclear warheads between them.
The Economist
Even then, India’s government played down the severity of the crisis, eager to avoid giving the impression that it had been caught napping on the border—and mindful that a nationalist backlash would make it harder to defuse the situation. As diplomats and generals worked the phones and met at the border, things seemed to be calming. On June 9th India’s government said China had pulled back troops, tents and vehicles at the Galwan valley and another site (though not the lake), and that India had reciprocated. Читать дальше...
Ian Bond, Foreign Policy
The EU must defend its values rather than caving to economic pressure from Beijing.
George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures
In March, we declared our 2020 forecast null and void. The COVID-19 pandemic had essentially rendered it irrelevant. The question we posed in March was whether the disease and the steps taken to manage it would lead to a recession or a depression. A recession is a cyclical financial process inherent in the business cycle. It is inevitable, stabilizing and...
Montijn Huisman, Diplomat
Reaching “xiaokang shehui” status is a crucial goal for the CCP. Is it still achievable?
Robert Carlin, 38 North
On the morning of June 9 (KST), North Korea announced to domestic and external audiences that it would “completely cut off all the communication and liaison lines between the north and the south”—joint liaison office, military and Blue House-North Korean party communication lines—at noon (KST) on the same day.[1] It said this was a first step of “phased plans for the work against the enemy,” indicating other measures will...
