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5.8.2018
The Dragon is awakening, and the world is trembling The Dragon woke up making the whole world tremble. Nothing shakes China, not even the 2008 financial crisis during which its model was seen as an alternative model savior. China continues to display insolent growth and impudent arrogance. China’s success challenges and fuels many curiosities. Indeed, here is a Confucian state, which is not formally a Western liberal democracy, officially communist, that has become the ...
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21.7.2018
As the 10th official summit of the BRICS approaches in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 25-27 there is much to be impressed by. Long gone is the image of the BRICS as the creation of Jim O’Neill and Godman Sachs back in 2001. Instead of a volatile phenomenon, dependent on rates of economic growth, the BRICS has sustained its shape as a club with a significant diplomatic personality. Indeed the fact that at the the 2011 Sanya summit, South Africa joined the club along ...
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5.7.2018
When ASEAN came into official existence in 1967 a pessimistic environment has surrounded its establishment. Bilahari Kausikan a prominent Singaporean diplomat described its unconducive vulnerable regional setting in the following terms: Consider the situation in 1967. All five ASEAN countries faced Chinese- inspired, if not directly-backed, internal Communist insurgencies…At the same time, almost every member of the five original ASEAN members were at the other’s throat. ...
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13.6.2018
President Putin made an official state visit to China to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional economic and security organization that includes China and Russia along with other South and Central Asian countries. Its head of states meeting took place in the coastal city of Qingdao. Before the summit, Putin had bilateral meetings with the Chinese leadership in Beijing, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. ...
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7.6.2018
During a working visit to Russia in last week, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, concluded a Declaration of Strategic Partnership with his host, Russian president Vladimir Putin. The elevation in bilateral ties aims to strengthen cooperation in various dimensions, including oil market stability and combatting terrorism. Given that this declaration is a first for Russia in the Gulf, it implies that the United Arab Emirates has become ...
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3.6.2018
It is expected that Trump’s unilateral abrogation of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) will increase the influential role of Rising Powers’ surge in Middle Eastern politics. At least such a moment of reckoning meant a happy day for Russia and China emboldened as they should in their efforts to gain futuristic lucrative strategic deals with Iran on similar fashion to selected EU companies “win-win” relationship with Tehran. Thus, in July 2017 the French ...
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1.6.2018
The new definitions of power as a term of international relations appeared in the 21th century. While the West feels uneasy about the rise of China, in the last quarter of 2017 Western academia added a new term to define China besides “soft power” and “hard power” and began to call the country as “sharp power”. Unlike hard power, soft power and smart power, sharp power is called a term that helps the authoritarian regimes (such as China and Russia) to strengthen their ...
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1.5.2018
A number of rising powers’ leaders were recently confronted with legal charges centred on corruption or corrupted practices ending in harsh judicial judgements that aren’t always favourable to the general public. Brazil , South Korea and South Africa amongst others. In the case of Brazil Lula da Silva the previous President of Brazil for 2 terms has been sentenced for nine years and six months in prison after being found guilty on corruption and money laundering. The ...
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30.3.2018
From March 25-27th, the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, co-hosted with the Afghan government the Afghanistan Peace Conference, a summit that took place just a few months after the Samarkand Security and Sustainable Development Conference. These events show that the region is seeking peace and stability as a primary objective in order to allow its full development as a secondary, but very important objective. Both of these summits and the region’s organization towards peace are ...
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26.2.2018
In February, Central Asian news outlet Ferghana News quoted a number of officials in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense who stated that an agreement had been reached with the Chinese government to open a base in the Afghan province of Badakhshan, near the border with Tajikistan. Chinese officials were quick to deny these reports, with the Afghan officials then reaffirming them. The base, if opened, would be China’s second foreign military base following the opening of a ...
