Is a new player entering the Game of Thrones? Perhaps taking a cue from the Obama administration’s strategic shift away from Europe and towards Asia, Canada is now mulling over an Asian “pivot” of its own.Although many Canadians are still unsure about the merits of a more active policy in Asia, there are signs that […]

Cambodia took the blame for ASEAN’s recent failure, for the first time in its 45 year history, to agree on wording for a joint communique at the recent gathering in Phnom Penh. Cambodia’s strenuous objection to any mention of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea mirrored Chinese interests. This was not a coincidence, writes […]

Both American and Chinese officials have slammed the release of the Pentagon’s “Air-Sea Battle”—a war-planning document focusing on China—as damaging to U.S.-China relations. The criticism centers around concerns that the plan, which models potential scenarios for a future war between the U.S. and China, is both alarmist and irresponsible.Alarmist and irresponsible? Far from it.One of […]

By the time you see this, I will be somewhere over Eurasia bound for Delhi. Over the next few weeks I’ll be traveling around India, where I’ll be giving talks and attending events on behalf of the U.S. State Department. Regular Via Meadia readers know I do trips like this from time to time. These […]

Is the information revolution having its Thermidor? (Thermidor was a month in the French revolutionary calendar; in Thermidor of the Year II—July 1794 for the reactionaries—the fever of the Reign of Terror broke and the revolution began to settle down.) There are times when it seems so; social media seems to be hogging all the […]

Don’t tell Al Gore, but Russia and China are leading the charge to take custody of the internet from a handful of U.S.-based NGOs and give it to the UN.The BBC reports that Russia has submitted a proposal to give a UN council responsibility for “allocating at least some of the internet’s addresses as well as the […]

Another green subsidy, another green scandal. The Wall Street Journal reports that a governent program meant to aid businesses that turn cooking oils into fuel may be guilty of serious fraud. The federal government now alleges that two of these businesses have been abusing the system, casting a pall over the entire program: In December 2010, […]

Citizens of China’s richest city are flocking overseas, and many are headed for the English-speaking world. FT: Shanghai Overseas Chinese Affairs Office [reports that] 1.02m Chinese with Shanghai residence permits, or Shanghai natives with foreign citizenship, are currently living or studying in 159 countries around the world. That figure is half again what it was […]

Standing at its full height, India could rival China and perhaps someday surpass it as the manufacturing giant of the world. Right now, however, India’s failure to develop a strong local manufacturing sector has exposed it to many serious economic problems, one of which is a trade deficit with China. While India should be able […]

Detroit’s Highland Park public school district is in such bad shape that the city has decided to outsource the whole school system to a private company that runs for-profit charter schools: The parents came to hear from the charter company, Leona Group LLC, which promises to improve the learning environment and boost student performance in a district […]