China

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World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Parag Khanna shows how America's dominant moment has quickly been replaced by a geopolitical marketplace where the European Union and China compete with the U.S. to shape world order on their own terms.The primary battlefield is the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

Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it's 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It's as if the first decade of the 21st century didn't happen -- and almost as if history itself doesn't happen.… more

This summer’s public revelation that China has constructed two or more new ballistic missile submarines raises a number of strategic, operational and bureaucratic questions about the future of nuclear arsenals held by China and the United States. How China deploys and operates these systems, as well as how the United States responds, will significantly impact the stability of deterrence in the Pacific. The New America Foundation invites you to join five national security scholars as they participate in a… more

The intersection of ongoing structural shifts in international energy markets with strategic trends in global financial markets poses the most profound challenge to American hegemony since the end of the Cold War. In 2006, Pierre Noël and I wrote in these pages about an "axis of oil" -- a loose and shifting coalition of energy-exporting and -importing states, anchored by Russia and China, that is emerging as a counterweight to the United States (so far, most notably in Central Asia… more

The view that sometime during this century a “changing of the guard” will occur, when China will displace the United States in much the same way as America did Britain, is widely held. It unites liberals and conservatives, optimists and pessimists, most of whom accept the proposition that “the East is back”, with China leading the pack. The debate is over when the shift will happen and what a world that currently bears an American stamp will look like after… more

Are we focused on Iran, or not? The Bush administration says that Iran is the greatest threat to our effort in Iraq, to the security of Israel and to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Indeed, the White House says that Iran is the principal supporter of terrorism around the world. And, oh yes, Tehran is working to get a nuke.

So if all that’s true, why are we antagonizing the key countries we’d need to help us against Iran? Why drive away… more