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The Taliban have, for the first time, been presented with a comprehensive peace initiative. This is an invitation they can not turn down. President Ashraf Ghani’s proposal at the conclusion of the recent meeting of the Kabul Process on Peace and Security Cooperation was as bold as it was surprising. ... Read more »
May the shifting superpower dynamics bring hope for Afghanistan? Both Moscow and Beijing are displaying increasing interest in Afghanistan, after a decade and a half of domination by Washington. This shift is having effects in both Afghanistan and among its neighbours. the international power play surrounding Afghanistan is changing Recent ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Ringen on Monday, 16 October 2017
The only drama in the “two sessions” jamboree in Beijing this spring is that there was no drama at all. Each year the Chinese political élite, 5000 men and a few women strong, congregate in the capital for a week of meetings of the legislature, the National People’s Congress, and ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Thursday, 11 May 2017
Uncertainty concerning President Donald Trump’s China and North Korea policies have instilled new fears of war in East Asia, a region that has enjoyed a surprising level of peace for almost four decades. Yet, if China treats Trump with care, the region may remain peaceful. The text in this post ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Tuesday, 25 April 2017
When Chinese president Xi Jinping met US president Donald Trump in Florida on 6–7 April, Xi convinced his host that it is not easy to exert influence on North Korea, but apparently promised to help the United States to the best of his ability. In practice, it may be Trump who helps ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Tuesday, 21 March 2017
Stein Tønnesson delivered this year’s The Fjord Memorial Lecture at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer. The lecture discusses Trump’s team of advisors, calls for fighting the increasing use of lies in political campaigning, sees Trump’s election as having weakened democracy worldwide, and perceives a major risk to world ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Thursday, 30 June 2016
Expectations regarding President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing on Saturday (June 25) had been rather subdued, and the modest results were mostly immaterial. Last year, the two leaders grandiosely celebrated their countries’ World War II victory over the Axis powers; and in 2014, they announced a great increase in economic ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Friday, 22 April 2016
With the explosion of the Ukraine crisis in spring 2014, Russia made a determined effort to upgrade its strategic partnership with China and achieved instant success. Large-scale economic contracts were signed in a matter of a few months, and the military parades in Moscow and Beijing in respectively May and ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Thursday, 3 September 2015
70 years ago, Japan signed an agreement of formal surrender on an American warship in Tokyo Bay. The anniversary of this event will be marked in Beijing today, September 3rd by a massive military parade in which Chinese and Russian soldiers march together. President Xi Jinping’s most important guest during ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 1 September 2015
The bilateral meeting in Beijing will be demonstratively cordial but loaded with mutual disappointment. Putin cannot fail to see that his hopes for harvesting rich dividends from closer Russian ties with China have failed to materialize and delivered him to a position of one-sided dependency. Xi, meanwhile, has few doubts ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Friday, 24 July 2015
Since the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979 – a period of 36 years – there has not been one single war between states in the whole of East Asia, a region comprising one third of mankind, and which was ravaged by some of the word’s worst wars from the 1840s to ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 22 July 2015
The United States needed Russian support to conclude the Iranian nuclear deal. As U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged, “we would have not achieved this agreement had it not been for Russia’s willingness to stick with us.” But with U.S.-Russian relations at their lowest point since the end of the Cold ... Read more »
Posted by Espen Geelmuyden Rød on Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Today almost half of China’s 1.3 billion inhabitants are online, along with 85 million Russians and 17 million Saudis. The proportion of people with Internet access in these countries will soon be comparable to that of the United States, Germany and Japan. But what are the political consequences of allowing ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Tuesday, 24 February 2015
The Ukraine crisis has made Russia more dependent on China. Putin is popular in Beijing, and Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are the best of friends. But can China save Russia from its crisis? 70 years ago, from 4-11 February 1945, Josef Stalin received US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, ... Read more »
Posted by Erica Chenoweth on Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Since at least 2011, the Chinese government has censored numerous websites on the topic of nonviolent resistance, including websites for the Albert Einstein Institution, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, an online bibliography of scholarship of nonviolent action, and the website for the NAVCO data project, among others. A month ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Monday, 17 November 2014
Russian and Chinese presidents aim to divide US and allies, including Japan, with WWII celebration. When Chinese President Xi Jinping met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, he stated that “Japan must look at history squarely and more towards the future.” Xi’s carefully ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 12 November 2014
In a case of striking symbolism, President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as if seeking reassurance against the specter of a mass public uprising. The dismantling of that icon of the Cold War signified a breakthrough in finally achieving ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Wednesday, 8 October 2014
World War 1 was primarily a European War. World War 2 was both European and Asian. World War 3 has not yet occurred. If it does, it will be mainly Asian. Provided the pattern of alliances and strategic partnerships continues to look the way it does today, World War 3 ... Read more »