Gordon Chang, 1945
There are 119 new holes in the Gansu desert that suggest China is now shifting to war-fighting mode.
John Walsh, EAF
In the wake of the Myanmar coup in February and with no signs of a resolution to the crisis, China has plenty of reasons to be uneasy about its interests in the country. It now appears that China is making contingency plans to deploy troops to protect those interests.
Hanns Maull, Japan Times
The status quo in the Taiwan Strait looks increasingly shaky. Its demise would almost certainly usher in a major conflict and undermine regional stability in East Asia — and even the international order as we know it.
Yao Chung-yuan, Taipei Times
For several years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has instructed the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) to use its range of advanced fighter jets to provocatively probe — and even cross — the Taiwan Strait median line. The PLA has also used aerial drones, which it classifies as "strategic weaponry," to slip into Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), although on a less frequent basis.
Zachary Abuza, The Diplomat
Russia will never match U.S. or Chinese influence in the region, but it has proven adept at getting a decent return for its minimal investments.
Ilan Berman & Joshua Eisenman, Jerusalem Post
By supporting the plight of the Palestinians, China is cynically stoking the most emotional issue in Middle Eastern politics in order to distract Muslim nations from its own campaign against Uyghurs.
Alex de Waal, Al Jazeera
By allowing much-needed aid to reach starving Tigrayans, the Ethiopian PM may prevent his country's disintegration.
Shashi Tharoor, Project Syndicate
A hostile China and the looming US withdrawal from Afghanistan have forced India to rethink its regional strategy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has thus sought to improve relations with Pakistan and engage with the Taliban - and for now, at least, it appears to be making the right moves.
Kevin McNamara, National Interest
Pre-pandemic economic and social progress looked very good for Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, and troubling for Germany and France. If these trends resume—and there is no reason to think they won't—the East will soon outshine the West.
Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times
America has already been through a renaissance — it is unlikely to be reborn again
Toril Moi, London Review of Books
e don't admire Simone Weil because we agree with her, Susan Sontag argued in 1963: ‘I cannot believe that more than a handful of the tens of thousands of readers she has won since the posthumous publication of her books and essays really share her ideas.' What we admire, Sontag thought, is her extreme seriousness, her absolute effort to become ‘excruciatingly identical with her ideas', to make herself a person who is ‘rightly regarded as one of the most... Читать дальше...
Economist
ubans have always been resourceful," says Ana, the owner of a private farm-to-table restaurant near Havana. "But now we need to be magicians and acrobats." The communist island is facing its worst shortage of food since the 1990s. Finding ingredients was never easy in a place which imports around 70% of its food. Over the past year it has become nearly impossible. When grocery shops are empty, as is so often the case, Ana tries the internet or the black market, only to find that prices are prohibitively high. Читать дальше...
Nicolas Tenzer, Atlantic Council
The Franco-German proposal for a European Union (EU) summit with Russia—doomed from the start and rejected on June 25—sheds light on deep dissension within the European Council on relations with Russia and the work that must still be done to develop foreign policy in Brussels.
Gioconda Belli, NYT
The country has elections this fall, but its president keeps jailing the opposition.
Rahul Mishra, Lowy Interpreter
UK Foreign Secretary manages a mid-pandemic whistle-stop tour of Asian nations in a bid to promote "Global Britain".
War on the Rocks
Editor's Note: On July 4, 1821, then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams gave the following Independence Day speech. And now, friends and
Fred Kaplan, New York Review of Books
The most complete account we are likely to get of the deceptions and duplicities that led to war leaves some crucial mysteries unsolved.
Michael Peck, Foreign Policy
This wargame explains how Russia really stopped Hitler.
