Yevgeny Khaldei’s iconic photo of the Red Army soldiers raising the Soviet flag on top of the Reichstag building in Berlin, May 1945. The joint statements between two countries are usually riveted on a particular event but in extraordinary circumstances involving great powers, it could assume an epochal character and can be viewed as diplomatic …
Continue reading “The Sino-Russian Alliance Comes of age — Part 1”
Pope Francis (L) meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a private audience at The Vatican, May 13, 2023 President Vladimir Zelensky’s tour of Rome, Berlin and Paris has been a success, securing for Ukraine significant additional quantities of weaponry for the upcoming offensive against Russian forces. The high water mark was Germany’s announcement of a …
Continue reading “Biden can be charming. But Beijing should be wary of sequels”
A Chinese balloon in the sky over Montana, USA, Feb 1, 2023 There is no question that the circumstances surrounding the “balloon affair” between the United States and China are dodgy. Burlesque does not belong to China’s diplomatic toolbox. China never used balloons to browbeat adversaries. Unsurprisingly, expert opinion largely tends to go along with …
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Beijing, February 4, 2022 The most animating template of the West’s “information war” lately against Russia is, perhaps, its distorted projection of the China-Russia relationship in the context of the Ukraine crisis. This dubious enterprise has practical implications for the “endgame” in Ukraine, the …
The guided-missile destroyer USS Ross enters the Black Sea to participate in Sea Breeze 2021 exercises, June 26, 2021 The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov exhorted today in an extraordinary statement that the state authorities and the society at large must mobilise their resources amid the West’s pressure. Addressing an audience in Vladivostok, Lavrov said, …
Disengagement between Chinese and Indian forces at the banks of the Pangong lake in Eastern Ladakh The Washington-based Quincy Institute, arguably the most intellectually stimulating American think tank nowadays, in its compulsively readable publication Responsible Statecraft featured on Tuesday an investigative report titled Weapons biz bankrolls experts pushing to extend Afghan War, authored by Eli Clifton, …
Continue reading “India’s forever wars and forever warriors”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) being received by then US Vice-President Joe Biden (R), Washington, DC, September 24, 2015 In geopolitics, misperceptions tend to become conventional wisdom over time. A narrative has gained ground over the past 2-3 years that there is a “consensus of opinion” in the United States as regards its China policies. …
President Donald Trump walks toward sunset at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, Nov 1, 2020. Into the final stretch of the US elections, a Joe Biden presidency is lurking on the horizon. Votes are still being counted in Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada. The races are too close to call. However, as …
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) signed the statements on the “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era” and on “strengthening contemporary global strategic stability”, Moscow, June 5, 2019 The first part of the three-part essay is here. The second part is here. Discourse of shared legacies The …
Continue reading “The Sino-Russian Alliance Comes of Age — Part 3”
Signing ceremony of The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany: Foreign Ministers of USA, UK, USSR, France, GDR, FRG (from left to right) ; Moscow, September 12, 1990 “I look for the land of the Poles that is lost to the Germans, for the moment at least. Nowadays the Germans have started …
Continue reading “The Sino-Russian Alliance Comes of Age — Part 2”
