By Pepe Escobar Beijing is advancing a Chinese-led globalization that will challenge U.S. hegemony both regionally and globally. Earlier last week, the first Chinese commercial train, with 32 containers, arrived in Tehran after a less than 14-day journey from the massive warehouse of Yiwu in Zhejiang, eastern China, crossing Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. This is a 10,400 … Continue reading
The stage is set for further tensions in the South China Sea as Beijing announced on Friday that it has adopted its first law on deep sea exploration, in the nation’s latest move to assert itself as a maritime power. On Friday, China’s top legislature passed the country’s first law on deep seafloor resource exploration to “protect the maritime environment” and “ensure … Continue reading
By Stratfor Global Intelligence Widely published satellite imagery from Feb. 14 shows the presence of new Chinese air defense systems on Woody Island in the South China Sea, highlighting continuing maritime frictions in the area. But new imagery obtained by Stratfor provides a higher-resolution view of the deployment and activities taking place across the island. Specialists at … Continue reading
By Brian Kalman A long brewing crisis of both regional and global proportions has been festering in the South China Sea in recent years between claimants to a variety of islands, reefs and shoals and more importantly access to oil and natural gas resources that are worth trillions of dollars. Although this dispute, or more accurately … Continue reading
By Peter Lee On October 27, 2015 China hawks got what they had long demanded: a US Navy Freedom of Navigation operation (aka FONOP) within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, one of China’s manmade islands in the South China Sea. But it turns out that wasn’t enough! China hawk joy was transformed into widely-advertised disappointment … Continue reading
By Abhijit Singh One of the more interesting aspects of Asian maritime politics is the Russia-China naval relationship. Both are major maritime powers with considerable stakes in regional security. Like Beijing, Moscow has sought to safeguard its maritime interests in strategically vital spaces in the Asia-Pacific by initiating a military modernisation programme aimed at projecting a … Continue reading
By Eliza King As China continues to expand into a superpower large enough to one day rival the United States, the support and cooperation of Southeast Asian countries is imperative. Since 2000 China’s trade with the 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member countries rose from $32 billion to $350 billion in 2014, with estimates … Continue reading
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Tectonic geopolitical shifts are taking place in Eurasia. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo and the Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta, both great travelers of their days, would be thoroughly impressed with the trade networks that are developing. The Eurasia of today is developing into a vast network of superhighways, railroad connections, mammoth ports, … Continue reading
By Michael Snyder If the United States and China are supposed to be such “great friends”, why are both sides acting as if war is in our future? Thanks to events in the South China Sea and the blatant theft of the personal information of millions of U.S. government workers, tensions between the United States … Continue reading
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times As Cold War 2.0 between the U.S. and Russia remains far from being defused, the last thing the world needs is a reincarnation of Bushist hawk Donald “known unknowns” Rumsfeld. Instead, the — predictable — “known known” we get is Pentagon supremo Ash Carter. Neocon Ash threw quite a show … Continue reading