China has been developing closer ties with countries in Central Asia over recent years. Trade between China and the Central Asia region grew to US$89 billion in 2023, an increase of 27% on the previous year. Chinese trade rose with every country there except Turkmenistan. In my paper from June 2024, which is part of […]
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As global players focus on the Arctic, US icebreakers are scarce
Nowhere on earth is global warming proceeding more rapidly than inside the Arctic Circle. Over the past two decades, the Arctic has grown five degrees Celsius warmer. And the trend is accelerating, with the Arctic warming nearly four times as rapidly as the rest of the planet. Climate scientists expect that Arctic median temperatures will […]
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When Pope Francis spoke to Asia Times on China
Pope Francis gave his first-ever interview on China and the Chinese people on January 28, 2016, to then-Asia Times columnist and China Renmin University senior researcher Francesco Sisci. The Pope urged the world not to fear China’s fast rise in a historic one-hour interview at the Vatican. He said the Chinese people are in a […]
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Great Game On: Shining light on the contest for Central Asia
The Founding Fathers advised Americans to steer clear of entangling alliances if they wished to preserve their newly acquired Republic. This may be news to some of our politicos but not to President Donald Trump. No US president has been leerier of the interventionist foreign policy bequeathed to us by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt […]
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1930s tech bros wanted to merge the US, Canada and Greenland
A movement that wanted to merge North America into one nation and extend its borders as far as the Panama Canal might sound incredibly familiar. But this group, called the “technocracy movement,” was a group of 1930s nonconformists with big ideas about how to rearrange US society. They proposed a vision that would get rid […]
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US makes clear Europe’s security isn’t a Trump priority
European defense ministers left their meeting in Brussels on February 12 in shock after the new US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, told them they could no longer rely on the US to guarantee their security. Hegseth said he was there “to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from […]
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Reasons for hope Trump won’t sink world’s critical minerals supply
There’s a chance Donald Trump’s second term as US president could have a long-term negative impact on the demand for and supply of what are known as critical minerals. These include copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and the “rare earth elements,” such as lanthanum and yttrium. They are vital for the green energy transition, being used […]