Worldcrunch
? Laphi!* Welcome to Monday, where post-Merkel Germany looks set shift to a center-left coalition, San Marino and Switzerland catch up with the rest of Europe on two key social issues, and a turtle slows things down at a Japan airport. Meanwhile, we take an international look at different ways to handle beloved, yet controversial, […]
? Jambo!* Welcome to Friday, where Biden and Xi Jinping hold their first call in seven months, Denmark becomes the first EU country to lift all COVID restrictions and an unexpected romance is making news in Spain. Die Welt reporter Daniel-Dylan Böhmer also meets with key Taliban officials in Kabul to give a glimpse of […]
At the heart of Beijing’s health diplomacy, traditional Chinese medicine accounts for nearly 30% of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry’s turnover, and anyone who criticizes it could be punished.
HONG KONG — The Beijing authorities have finally decided to set aside the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government and its Legislative Council and instead craft themselves a national security law for the former British colony. According to Wang Chen, deputy chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the Chinese government’s rubber stamp agency, […]
After weeks of denial and manipulation, China wanted to play the role of a caring superpower. But something about its soft-power push went awry.
The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated tensions between Beijing and Washington. It’s time that cooler heads prevail, and Germany has just the right person for the job.
Welcome to Monday, where AMLO gets COVID, Chinese miners are rescued, and King Kong finds a worthy opponent. Les Echos also takes us to Syria, where coronavirus and a crumbling economy are wreaking havoc in a country already devastated by 10 years of civil war. Viktor Orban, Xi Jinping and a simple question for the […]
How is it that analysis of the rising world power is reduced to an abstract notion from the field of genetics? Established experts on China are not looking at the future.
With business sense and political pragmatism, communist China probably sees more sense backing Venezuela’s liberal opposition, which could seal the fate of its longtime ally.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Jan. 2 speech addressing “reunification” with Taiwan has done what no political leader on the island nation has managed recently: set off a wave of unity among the Taiwanese people. Xi had apparently seen an opportunity to exploit November’s huge setbacks for the pro-independence governing party in Taiwan’s local elections. The […]
Despite Kremlin denials, Western sanctions are hitting Russia hard, and prompting its president to look elsewhere for new alliances and opportunities.
The U.S. has long enjoyed hegemony over the 2.7-million sq km Caribbean basin. But whether Washington likes it or not, Beijing is showing that it too wants a piece of the pie.
In the age of Trump, there are innumerable issues and arguments that go unnoticed or underreported because this president is sucking up the oxygen of the entire American media universe, with his indecisive tweets and resulting indecisive policies. This is one of those topics that escaped the public eye. It centers around Trump’s announcement to […]
-Analysis- There is no set recipe for democracy. Still, we can agree that the ingredients must include basic guarantees of free speech and free elections: If you don’t have the right to speak out against those in charge — and eventually vote them out of power — you are living under some form of rule […]
The old, retired cardinal has had enough. He does not like what the Vatican is doing in China. He takes a plane and asks to be received by the pope. But instead of bringing it to an end, the encounter between the two men escalates the tensions around the Vatican’s pending agreement with China, a […]
Recently opened to visitors, the ‘816 Nuclear Military Plant’ in Fuling takes visitors back in time, to the height of the Cold War. It also brings to mind the current nuclear ambitions of China’s provocative neighbor, North Korea.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is breaking with recent U.S. convention by portraying China as a rival that wants to undermine American prosperity. But it may take more than an aggressive tone to change the complex relationship between two economies that are joined at the hip. In a new national-security strategy released Monday, the White House lumped China with Russia as powers seeking to “challenge American power, influence, and interests,” and attempting to erode the country’s security and prosperity. “We will attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries, but in a manner that always protects our […]
Brutal evictions of poor migrants in Beijing’s outskirts are part of a long history of cynical control of the populace.
-Analysis- Some shoes are just too big to fill. Take the ones left behind by Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died just over a year ago at 88, and whose five-day cremation ceremony began in Bangkok yesterday after 12 months of national mourning. The longest-reigning monarch in Thai history served for 70 years, and was […]
-Essay- TAIPEI — I still recall the long journey I made in 1987 during my first visit in China, traveling in crammed buses with the smells of caged poultry on board. Through Guangzhou in Canton, and the famous mountain landscape of Guilin and Yangshuo in the southeast province of Guangxi, I recall being amazed that, […]
The U.S. has a long history of inhibiting Chinese expansion in Asia. Now, Donald Trump is handing them the keys.
-Analysis- Donald Trump is already discovering the old dictum that presidents are elected on domestic policy but eventually take refuge in foreign policy. With his own Republican party bickering and blocking his healthcare proposal in Congress, Trump turns this week to welcoming foreign leaders with whom he can attempt his powers of persuasion on a […]
Xi Jinping’s calls in Davos to protect free trade are not a jab at Donald Trump, but in keeping with China’s march toward a market-led consumer society.
-OpEd- Is this China’s big moment? The World Economic Forum in Davos is welcoming Chinese president Xi Jinping as a special guest. It’s the first time a Chinese leader has attended the event. It marks a historic moment, not least because it comes just a few days before Donald Trump will be sworn in as […]
Trade with Asia will be all the more important for Latin American countries once President Obama leaves office.
Among the many memorable lines from Rodrigo Duterte’s run for the presidency was this colorful threat to Chinese leaders: If elected, he would personally ride a jet ski across the South China Sea to plant the Philippine flag on the Spratly Islands that are claimed by both countries as their own. Just past 100 days […]
SPOTLIGHT: SHOULD OBAMA APOLOGIZE IN HIROSHIMA? When Barack Obama becomes the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima tomorrow, the ceremony will include hibakusha, survivors of history’s only nuclear attacks. No doubt, each victim of the 1945 bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will have their own expectations of the American […]
Already very active within the country, Chinese censorship is now being applied outside its borders, and via the Internet. What are the implications for China, and the rest of us?
BEIJING — Over the past month President Xi Jinping made a state visit to the United States and to the United Kingdom. In the U.S. he was welcomed with a 21-gun salute on the south lawn of the White House followed by a state banquet. In Britain he was greeted by the Queen, and rode […]
HEARTBREAKING IMAGES SHOW HORROR OF MIGRANT CRISIS Shocking photographs of the body of a Syrian toddler, whose body had washed up on a Turkish beach after his family’s failed attempt to reach Europe, are sparking global outcry. The first of the images shows a Syrian boy identified as Aylan Kurdi, 3, face down on the […]
EMERGENCY EU SUMMIT AFTER MIGRANT TRAGEDY European Union leaders are holding an emergency summit in Luxembourg to discuss a common response to the ongoing migrant crisis. But the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini warned ahead of the meeting that there was “no easy solution, no magic solution,” the BBC reports. This comes just one […]
UKRAINE DEATH TOLL TOPS 5,000At least 13 people died after a Donetsk city bus was hit by a shell this morning amid ongoing fights between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists. It takes the death toll in the Ukrainian conflict to more than 5,000. The attack, during which many more were injured, appears to have […]
Beijing wants to control nearly half the world’s robot production by 2020, but the plans to get there have some fundamental flaws. There may still be time to reprogram it all.
BEIJING — Since Chinese President Xi Jinping took office at the end of 2012, at least 23 high-ranking local officials have been fired because of corruption. What is most striking — though not surprising — is the stark contrast of these officials’ images depicted in the media before and after their fall. Last month, for […]
Media in emerging economies must start to challenge the dominant voice of the Western press, argues Xinhua News Agency chief Li Congjun in a guest column for America Economía.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014 CHINA-U.S. AGREE ON GAS EMISSIONS Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama signed a landmark deal to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, The Washington Post reports. China, for the first time, agreed to cap its output by 2030 or even earlier if possible, and pledged to increase the share of non-fossil fuels […]
Tuesday, November 11, 2014 APEC SUMMIT ENDS WITH CHINESE FREE-TRADE PROGRESSAfter two days of meetings at the Beijing-hosted Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, leaders of the 21 regional economies agreed to begin work toward possible adoption of a free-trade pact proposed by China, AP reports. A two-year study of the initiative will be launched with the […]
Monday, November 10, 2014 APEC SUMMIT Asia-Pacific leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, are in Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, where China’s Xi Jinping and Japan’s Shinzo Abe met for formal talks for the first time after more than two years of deep tensions over disputed islands. South Korea and China announced this […]
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (China), BBC NEWS (UK), Worldcrunch BEIJING – One day after formally appointing Xi Jinping as the country’s new president for the next 10 years, China leaders have named Li Keqiang for a five-year term as premier, the last leg of a well-oiled generational transition of power. Although Xi and Li hail […]
China’s incoming President has promised to tackle bribery and abuse of power. The country’s digital citizen-reporters will hold him to his word.