Tarry a little, there is something else. This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are “a pound of flesh.” —Portia, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene II Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned on his former One Belt, One Road (OBOR) allies, arrogantly demanding a pound of …
Continue reading A Pound of Flesh: Why is India Trying to Sabotage the Silk Road Initiative?
While the US troops on the borders of Russia and Iran are generally considered intimidation/provocation tactics aimed at Moscow and Tehran, the broader reality is that America intends to use its troops as speed-bumps in China's New Silk Road. NATO’s recent land and sea exercises in eastern and southern Europe as well as the Black …
Amid the proverbial doom and gloom pervading all things Syria, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune sometimes yield, well, good fortune. Take what happened this past Sunday in Beijing. The China-Arab Exchange Association and the Syrian Embassy organized a Syria Day Expo crammed with hundreds of Chinese specialists in infrastructure investment. It was a sort …
China and Syria are already increasing economic ties while Damascus confirms that China will be given priority in all post-conflict reconstruction. With many in Damascus increasingly confident that Syria will win the war against the terrorists who have invaded their country, focus is starting to gradually shift to re-building Syria’s damaged infrastructure. China is set …
It was 20 years ago today. Oh, those were heady, exciting days, informally regulated by a clock in Beijing’s Tiananmen counting even the seconds left for Hong Kong’s return to the motherland. They were ominous days, too. At the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong, temporarily propelled to the center of the universe, booze-driven Western …
Continue reading Hong Kong’s Role for Next 20 Years? Silk Road ‘Super-Connector’
Will the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ever manage to cross the Hindu Kush? Temerity is the name of the game. Even though strategically located astride the Ancient Silk Road, and virtually contiguous to the US$50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a key BRI node – Afghanistan is still mired …
China’s cardinal foreign policy imperative is to refrain from interfering abroad while advancing the proverbial good relations with key political actors – even when they may be at each other’s throats. Still, it’s nothing but gut-wrenching for Beijing to watch the current, unpredictable, Saudi-Qatari standoff. There’s no endgame in sight, as plausible scenarios include even …
The struggle between the unipolar and multipolar camps to determine the future of the 21st century is rapidly turning into a contest between two competing hemispheric-wide connectivity projects. By now, everyone in the world is familiar with China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, though not many people are aware of the …
Continue reading Competitive Connectivity is at the Core of the New Cold War
In the perennial electoral battle between principlists (conservatives) and reformists, Iranian reformists have once again won handsomely. Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani was reelected in a landslide on Saturday – with at least 56.88 percent of the votes according to the latest count at time of publishing and a projected vote share of 20 million votes …
Continue reading Iran Bets Its Future on ‘Reformist’ Rouhani
