The Obama administration may be worried about the domestic economy and unemployment these days, but there is one policy the president can look on as a significant success—the new US approach to Asia. It was scarcely six months ago when the Administration, in a rare display of display of diplomatic finesse, announced a movement of […]

“Crisis in the eurozone” stories are getting boring and this is one two year old soap opera the world would just as soon see disappear. Nevertheless it grinds on; yesterday the German finance minister said it could go on for another two years.  Unfortunately, he’s right.But while the news from Europe is complicated and inconclusive […]

The barefoot, blind lawyer from China is apparently on a flight bound for the US, and there are huge sighs of relief in both the Foreign Ministry in Beijing and at the US Department of State.Although some breathless commentary describes the diplomacy around Chen’s flight to freedom as the worst diplomatic spat between the US […]

With the last class of the semester out of the way, I’m off for two weeks in Europe. I’ll be in Germany at some conferences and events this coming week, and then it’s off to St. Petersburg to give a talk at a conference at the Smolny Institute.With any luck there will be time to […]

It was just a short aside in a speech; the junior member of Russia’s rotating leadership team was talking about how conflicts like the one in Syria could have broader implications for world politics and pointed out that great powers could get involved in unpredictable ways: “At some moment, such actions, which undermine sovereignty, can […]

Armed North Koreans took control of several Chinese fishing vessels on Thursday. They are holding 29 Chinese fishermen hostage and demanding a ransom payment. It is not clear if they were operating on orders from Pyongyang or are just pirates.Whether planned or not, it’s foolish for North Korea to provoke its only friend and benefactor […]

In his latest Bloomberg column, “American Decline a Mirage in a World That’s Rising,” Ezra Klein points out something we’ve been stressing at Via Meadia for some time: If American preeminence relies on the continued immiseration of Brazil, China and India, then, even in the most selfish terms, I’m not sure that it’s worth having. […]

A new fight over higher education is brewing in Texas, where a decline in contributions from the state government has prompted the University of Texas’ flagship Austin campus to propose a tuition hike on in-state students that would push tuition above $10,000 per year. The school’s president, William Powers, Jr., has been leading the push […]

Via Meadia has been closely watching the rollout of Washington’s new Asia-Pacific policy, somewhat awkwardly called a “pivot.” All in all, we have noted, the focus on Asia is an ambitious foreign policy project that could come to rival the Marshall Plan in its impact on global geopolitics. Pundits and politicians across the political spectrum have […]

Things haven’t been going so well for the BRICs lately. China’s growth numbers are down considerably from their highs of a couple years ago, and China’s central bank has been taking seriously the dual threats of slowing growth and rising inflation from expansionary policies. Economic woes in India, meanwhile, have transformed it from a potential […]