The Western media has begun complaining about Southeast Asia’s collective decision to move forward with 5G network technology from Chinese telecom giant Huawei despite US demands that nations ban all Huawei products. These demands are predicated on clearly fabricated security threats surrounding Huawei technology. The US itself is a global leader of producing hardware with hidden backdoors…
The trade war between the United States and China is increasingly weighing on the global economy, but unfortunately it does not appear that it will end any time soon. Many pundits in the U.S. originally believed that the trade war would be short because the economic pain would be too much for the Chinese to…
Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Zarif paid a visit to his Chinese counterpart Wang Li at the end of August to present a road map for the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership, signed in 2016. The updated agreement echoes many of the points contained in previous China-Iran accords, and already in the public domain. However, many of…
The month of August was named for the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus whose reign from 27 BC to 14 AD is usually remembered for what became known as Pax Romana — an era of peace — but ended with him becoming ever more dictatorial. As Tacitus recorded, “Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the…
The biggest reason for last week’s torrid stock market rally was rekindled “optimism” that the escalating trade war between the US and China may be on the verge of another ceasefire following phone conversations, fake as they may have been, between the US and Chinese side. This translated into speculation that a new round of…
A senior Polish official explained to me recently why his country couldn’t accept American demands to exclude Huawei from Poland’s buildout of 5G broadband. During the early 2010s, the United States ignored Poland entirely, but Huawei made a long-term commitment, and built the country’s entire telecommunications infrastructure. To exclude Huawei at this point would be…
