China

BY MELVIN GOODMAN Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain China’s orchestration of the renewal of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia should be a wakeup call to the Biden administration’s national security team, particularly to Antony Blinken’s Department of State.  China’s success exposes flaws in American national security policy, particularly the policy of nonrecognition as well as the reliance on the use of military force to achieve gains in international politics. Our instruments of power are not working. Mao Zedong often cited a Chinese proverb from the Han Dynasty that “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” Deng Ziaoping cited this proverb to justify radical changes in domestic pol...

BY MICHAEL T. KLARE Photograph Source: Supreme Dragon – CC BY-SA 4.0 Is China really on the verge of invading the island of Taiwan, as so many top American officials seem to believe? If the answer is “yes” and the U.S. intervenes on Taiwan’s side — as President Biden has sworn it would — we could find ourselves in a major-power conflict, possibly even a nuclear one, in the not-too-distant future. Even if confined to Asia and fought with conventional weaponry alone — no sure thing — such a conflict would still result in human and economic damage on a far greater scale than observed in Ukraine today. But what if the answer is “no,” which seems at least as likely? Wouldn’t that pave the way for the U.S. to work with its friends and allies, no less than with China ...

The Tibetan spiritual leader “often teases people” in an innocent way, his office said after a video of him kissing a minor went viral Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama arrives to attend a prayer at the Main Tibetan Temple in McLeod Ganj on April 5, 2023. ©  AFP The Dalai Lama has issued an apology after a controversial clip emerged on social media showing the spiritual leader asking an Indian boy to “suck his tongue.”  The incident took place at an event in the northern Indian city of Dharamshala in late February, although the footage went viral only recently, triggering outrage among some social media users. The clip shows an Indian boy approaching the Tibetan spiritual leader and asking him: “Can I hug you?” After inviting the boy on...