China’s vision for the future is “Give Peace a Chance”. It is also the title of one of John Lennon’s most prominent songs. It became the anthem for the anti-war movement, at the time of the US-waged war against Vietnam. John Lennon was a peace activist. No wonder he was ostracized, considered enemy number one by…
Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure project of the 21st century. Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly demonized 24/7: a toxic cocktail of fear and doubt, with Beijing blamed for everything…
Critics often claim that China is using its massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a form of coercive “debt-trap diplomacy” to exert control over the countries that join its transnational infrastructure investment scheme. This risk, as Deborah Brautigam of John Hopkins University recently noted, is often exaggerated by the media. In fact, the BRI…
The west has colonized, exploited, ravaged and assassinated the people of the Global South for hundreds of years. Up to the mid-20th Century Europe has occupied Africa, and large parts of Asia. In Latin America, though much of the sub-Continent was “freed” from Spain and Portugal in the 19th Century – a new kind of…
With the transformation of the rules of the “Great Game” in the Middle East emerging out of President Trump’s recent Syrian surprise pullout and Putin’s brilliant manoeuvres since 2015, a sweeping set of development/reconstruction programs led by China now have a chance to become hegemonic across the formerly hopeless, terrorist-infested region. The fact that the…
It’s quite refreshing to take a break from doom and gloom and forget about black blocs trying to destroy Hong Kong’s economy. A graphic illustration that serious business will proceed as usual is being offered this week by a forum, “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay: New Horizon for China’s Reform and Opening Up of One Country,…
