China’s influence on the world stage steadily increases but European media reporting remains generally prejudiced against China.  This is probably due to two main factors.  First, bad news makes  good news in the news world.  Second, there are well-organized lobby groups hostile to China, namely Taiwan, Tibet and human rights, and also industrial sectors seeking [...]

Chas W. Freeman Jr spoke to the Global Strategy Forum on 20 January 2010 on the mounting speculation about China’s emergence as a global hegemon to rival and, perhaps in time, surpass the United States. This is the thrust of what he said: The US – which spends more on its military than the rest [...]

President Obama did the EU a favour by deciding not to attend the scheduled 24-25 May EU-US summit in Madrid, for two reasons.  First, because he prevents Spain from ignoring the spirit of Lisbon.  Second, it will force the EU to rethink the whole issue of third country summits.  Athough originally apparently a US practice, [...]

TO ALL CHINESE READERS  This last year was an extremely difficult one for all of us.   China has performed extraordinarily well economically in the global recession, which has helped see the acceleration of the trend of economic and financial gravity away from the West and to Asia .  Barack Obama entering the White House was [...]

France and Germany sought the lifting of the EU arms embargo in 2004 but Washington insisted on the embargo being maintained.  The embargo was lifted against Uzbekistan last October, despite continuing concerns about human rights in the central Asian nation.  This leaves China in the company of a handful of countries, including  Congo, North Korea, [...]

Everyone agrees that the European Union must get its act together.  The wrangling over the next EU-US summit shows that the EU won’t get it’s act together until the egotism of Member State leaders is brought under control.  Now it’s the turn of Spain, the current EU Presidency, which insists on hosting the summit and, [...]