Tag: Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)

Beijing Signals Optimism for U.S. Ties After Biden-Xi Meeting

Chin@Strategy

The prominent position of the photo on the front page of China’s main official newspaper spoke volumes: In it, the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping, smiled and shook hands with President Biden against a backdrop of Chinese and American flags. For months, the newspaper, People’s Daily, has featured Mr. Xi’s warnings that China must steel itself militarily and politically for an era of strife, denunciations of American policy and Communist Party officials’ warnings that “hostile forces” — that is, the United States — were eager to sabotage China’s rise. A day…

China Is Burning More Coal, a Growing Climate Challenge

Chin@Strategy

China is poised to take advantage of the global urgency to tackle climate change. It is the world’s dominant manufacturer and user of solar panels and wind turbines. It leads the world in producing energy from hydroelectric dams and is building more nuclear power plants than any other country. But China also burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and has accelerated mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants, driving up the country’s emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases nearly 6 percent last year, the fastest pace…

Did Germany Learn From Its Russia Trouble? The Test May Come in China.

Chin@Strategy

BERLIN — Germany understood the trap of strategic vulnerability that it had laid for itself in relying so heavily on Russian gas only after Moscow invaded Ukraine and turned off the spigot. But whether that lesson has been fully absorbed may be tested elsewhere: China. As Chancellor Olaf Scholz prepares for his first visit to Beijing on Thursday, a planeload of executives in tow, Germany’s intelligence chiefs and allies are warning him against pursuing business as usual with a China that is saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait. Were tensions to…

Pentagon’s Strategy Says China and Russia Pose More Dangerous Challenges

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — Eight months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as China pushes to increase its nuclear, space and cyberforces, the Pentagon outlined a sweeping new strategy on Thursday that called for more robust deterrence at an increasingly tense moment in international security. The document, the National Defense Strategy, which also includes reviews of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and missile defenses, has been circulating for months in classified form on Capitol Hill. The last national defense strategy, published in 2018 by the Trump administration, was the first since the end…

How Finnair’s Huge Bet on Faster Flights to Asia Suddenly Came Undone

Chin@Strategy

Nestled near Europe’s rooftop, Finland spent decades leveraging its location to become a popular gateway for Asian travelers. Its flagship airline, Finnair, offered flights from Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai to Helsinki that, by crossing over Russia, were hours shorter than flights to any other European capital. Airport chiefs invested nearly $1 billion in a new terminal with streamlined transfers. There were signs in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and hot water dispensers for the instant noodle packets favored by Chinese tourists. Then Russia sent troops across Ukraine’s border on Feb. 24,…

Biden’s Tough Tech Trade Restrictions on China

Chin@Strategy

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: We’re now engaged in a trade war with China. Actually, you probably haven’t heard this one before. I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s clumsy tariffs aimed at reducing America’s trade deficit. I’m talking instead about the sweeping new controls the Biden administration imposed last Friday on exports of technology to China — controls meant to constrain other advanced countries as well as the United States. Unlike the Trump tariffs, these controls have a clear goal: to prevent or at least delay Beijing’s…

Your Wednesday Briefing: Ukraine Seeks an ‘Air Shield’

Chin@Strategy

Zelensky seeks an “air shield for Ukraine” A day after more than 80 missiles pummeled Ukraine, killing at least 19 people, President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the Group of 7 nations at an emergency virtual meeting to help his country defend its airspace. Zelensky asked for antimissile systems, or at least financing for them. “When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems,” he said, “the key element of Russian terror — missile strikes — will cease to work.” The G7 leaders pledged “undeterred and steadfast” military…

India and China Call for De-Escalation After Russian Strikes

Chin@Strategy

NEW DELHI — India and China, two powers that have offered Russia some relief in the face of Western sanctions, expressed concern after the deadly missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday and renewed calls for de-escalation and dialogue. Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing that “all countries deserve respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that “support should be given to all efforts that are conducive to peacefully resolving the crisis.” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said New…

From Moscow to Tehran, a Crisis of Illiberalism

Chin@Strategy

The worldview behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine assumed the following premises: The West and America are declining, decaying and internally divided. The globalized world is becoming multipolar, with “civilization-states” re-emerging and competing to claim their spheres of influence. And Russia and China in particular represent potent alternatives to Western liberalism that stand ready to contend for global dominance. As badly as the war has gone for Putin, some of this analysis still holds up. The world has indeed responded to the Ukraine War along multipolar lines. Saudi Arabia’s snub…

With Ukraine War, Europe’s Democratic Project Takes on New Urgency

Chin@Strategy

The Chinese Communist Party is principally concerned about control, but it does also care about good governance, she said, “which is why participatory practices are allowed.” Nevertheless, she cautioned, they are managed by the party and “at any time, the party can pull back.” Jaroslaw Kuisz, editor in chief of Kultura Liberalna, a centrist-liberal media organization in Poland, said that history explains the “nervous sovereignty” of countries on the edge of big empires — for instance, Taiwan, which lives under the threat of mainland China, as well as Poland, Finland…