The summit site for this weekend’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit is at a newly built university campus in Vladivostok, Russia. Once world leaders clear out, the students will take over.
The International Media Centre is in a building that looks like it will be campus’ main hub once it becomes Far Eastern Federal University. I’m in that centre now as I write this. Continue reading APEC Notes: Getting a coffee
Michael Ignatieff, writing at the blog for the New York Review of Books, looks at Great Power Diplomacy and Syria and has some rather dire observations: Continue reading A sobering verdict on Russia and China from Prof. Ignatieff
Obama’s [decision to suspend the Keystone XL decision] marked a triumph of campaign posturing over pragmatism and diplomacy, and it brought U.S.-Canadian relations to their lowest point in decades. It was hardly the first time that the administration has fumbled issues with Ottawa. Although relations have been civil, they have rarely been productive. Whether on trade, the environment, or Canada’s shared contribution in places such as Afghanistan, time and again the United States has jilted its northern neighbor. If the pattern of neglect continues, Ottawa will get less interested in cooperating with Washington. Already, Canada has reacted by turning elsewhere — namely, toward Asia — for more reliable economic partners.
– Derek Burney and Fen Hampson, “How Obama Lost Canada”, published June 21, 2011 by Foreign Affairs
The thesis put forward by Burney — a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. and Hampson – an academic at Carleton University — has generated some pushback. Continue reading US Ambassador pushes back on "Obama lost Canada" meme
Chris Sands of the Washington-based Hudson Institute brings my attention to a recent publication from the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Congress rough equivalent to Canada’s Library of Parliament, published on May 30 which provides Congress with a comparative trade and economic analysis between the U.S. and those countries in and about to be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. Canada announced it would seek to join the TPP talk at the G20 in Mexico a week ago.
Here’s one of the notable paragraphs I took from that study. I have bolded what I thought to be the most interesting line: Continue reading US Congressional Research Office on Canada and the TPP
Hong Kong’s largest circulation English daily newspaper reports:
China has sent five warships to the disputed Scarborough Shoal off the west coast of the Philippines with the warning that Beijing is ready for “any escalation” of the conflict. Continue reading Meanwhile in the South China Sea: China moves its warships
In Greece yesterday, a party called “Golden Dawn” won about 7 per cent of the vote, enough for that party to enter Parliament. Check out this video of Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos. His ultra-right message is scare enough but check out the black-shirted thugs beside him; the Swastika-like party symbol (it’s called a “meander” apparently). And Michaloliakos has been know to give “Heil Hitler”-style salutes. And yet, the party rejects the tag of “neo-Nazi”. In this video, from the Daily Telegraph, Michaloliakos lays out his message: Continue reading Greek Neo Nazis win Parliament
Voters are at the polls this weekend in France, Greece and Kosovo. Will update this post with notes, etc. as they become available:
Voter turnout in the ballot facilitation in Kosovo was reported at approximately 17 per cent by 14:00 hrs today by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo.
In France, incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy is out and the champion of the Socialist Party Francois Hollande (above) is in: Continue reading Watching elections in Kosovo, Greece and, of course, France
In Washington for a meeting of G8 foreign ministers, Canada’s John Baird and American’s Hillary Clinton have made a wager on the first round of the NHL playoffs. Baird, of course, is an Ottawa-area MP and the Ottawa Senators are in the playoffs against the New York Rangers. Clinton, of course, is a former senator from New York. Continue reading Baird makes hockey playoff bet with Clinton
Kevin Narizny, an assistant professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., has an interesting essay in the latest issue of the journal World Politics. The paper is called “Anglo-American Primacy and the Global Spread of Democracy: An International Genealogy” and, in it, Narizny argues “that Anglo-American primacy over the past three centuries was a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of the global spread of democracy.” Continue reading Connecting global Anglo-American primacy and democracy
Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and now a member of the British House of Lords, reviews what looks to be an interesting book from journalist Jonathan Fenby: Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How it Got There and Where it is Heading:
The gee-whiz statistics of China’s economic ascent since it made its peace with capitalism – albeit a pretty rough and sharp-elbowed variety – are all on parade here. China exports as much in a day now as it did in a year when I first clapped eyes on it in 1979. It is the largest manufacturer and exporter, the biggest maker of steel and consumer of energy, and dominates the market in everything from vuvuzelas to sombreros.
While 400m or more Chinese have been lifted out of poverty, problems darken the polluted heavens. The environmental toll of helter-skelter growth has been heavy. As the Gini coefficient shows, the gap between the very rich (often the very seriously rich) and the poor has grown wider. So is China, observers ask, a rich country with a lot of poor people or a poor country with a lot of rich citizens? The population is ageing fast, with an increasingly obvious gender imbalance; the number of favoured males is outstripping the female population. By mid-century, with 1bn Chinese living in water-stressed cities, the largest population in the world will be Indian.
Read the whole review: Chris Patten on the rise of China – FT.com.
