China

This article is adapted from Parag Khanna's book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.

The term "second world" has fallen out of use. It used to mean countries of the socialist world; today I use the phrase to refer to those countries in eastern Europe and central Asia, Latin America, the middle east and southeast Asia which are both rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, postmodern and pre-modern, cosmopolitan and tribal -- all at… more

Most scholars and policymakers favor stemming the tide of nuclear proliferation, even as they acknowledge the pacifying effects of established nuclear arsenals on great power relations. When it comes to nuclear arsenals, how robust must a country's nuclear arsenal be--how much is enough? Some of the key variables in existing studies - e.g., the nuclear "balance of power" - have been poorly conceived, and the data used to measure the nuclear balance and its effect on policy has come from… more

A similar version of this article also appears on The New Republic, which features a debate between Steven Clemons and Richard Just, TNR's deputy editor, on the appropriate response to the Beijing Olympics.

China's Olympics are an enticing target for "cause crusaders" who want to taunt the regime with public relations stunts while the global spotlight and attention of billions are watching every countermove China's leaders make. The "norms" of any state are not really evident… more

This article is the third part of a TNR debate between Steven Clemons and Richard Just, deputy editor from The New Republic, on the appropriate response to the Beijing Olympics.

Please click here for the first part of the debate. For the second part, please click here.

From: Steven Clemons To: Richard Just

Richard reads me pretty well. I don't believe that the U.S. government should throw its weight behind an Olympics-tethered human rights rebuke of China --… more

This article is the first part of a TNR debate between Steven Clemons and Richard Just, deputy editor from The New Republic, on the appropriate response to the Beijing Olympics.

From: Steven Clemons To: Richard Just

Hillary Clinton recently called on George W. Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies, and I think she's showing a strategic blind spot that is worrisome.

To add a bit of context, last October, The New Republic's editors ran a thought-provoking editorial, "Gold… more

It is difficult to find a westerner who does not intuitively support the idea of a free Tibet. But would Americans ever let go of Texas or California? For China, the Anglo-Russian great game for control of central Asia was neither inconclusive nor fruitless, something that cannot be said for Russia or Britain. Indeed, China was the big winner.

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Boundary agreements in 1895 and 1907 gave Russia the Pamir mountains and established the Wakhan Corridor -- the slender eastern tongue… more

Grand explanations of how to understand the complex twenty-first century world have all fallen short-until now. In The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Parag Khanna shows how America's dominant moment has quickly been replaced by a geopolitical marketplace where the European Union and China compete with the U.S. to shape world order on their own terms.The primary battlefield is the Second World, regions lying between the three leading empires and the third world:… more

With the United States and China, who will rule whom? That's the central question of In the Jaws of the Dragon by Tokyo-based journalist and writer Eamonn Fingleton. His own answer is sobering. As American leaders fixate on the Middle East, China quietly consolidates both its geostrategic vision and its economic and military power. What is at stake is far more important than manufacturing jobs or the transparency of Sovereign Wealth Funds. It is a matter of which nation will… more

In shifting power, the rise of manifold destiny; If a struggle for resources unfolds between East and West, democratic values could be in for a battering (Toronto Star)

... "For countries like Russia that have been kicked around and patronized by the U.S., a multi-polar world is something of an article of faith," says Anatol Lieven, author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism. "The same may be true of China."

Many believe that in recent years… more

Before China carried out an anti-satellite test in January 2007, some U.S. policy-makers, including NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the U.S. House China Working Group, advocated greater cooperation between the United States and China in space. After the test, which created a massive cloud of space debris that angered international space professionals and alarmed the American public, increased references to U.S.-China competition and hints of a new space race drowned out calls for cooperation. Using the experience they… more