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While Xi Jinping was being received with great pomp and ceremony in Moscow last week, Fumio Kishida was 500 miles away in Kyiv. The fact that the president of China and the prime minister of Japan paid simultaneous and competing visits to the capitals of Russia and Ukraine underlines the global significance of the Ukraine
Russia has carried out one of its largest strikes on Ukraine including with nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that hit cities and knocked off back-up power at Europe’s largest atomic plant. Of the more than 80 rockets fired, six were nuclear-capable hypersonic Kh-47 Kinzhal air-to-surface missiles, according to Ukrainian officials. The assault has left much of Kyiv
Here is a thought experiment. If Taiwan did not exist, would the US and China still be at loggerheads? My hunch is yes. Antagonism between top dogs and rising powers is part of the human story. The follow-up is whether such tensions would persist if China were a democracy rather than a one-party state. That
The number of American troops in Vietnam peaked in 1969. Twenty years later, Born On the Fourth of July, which dramatised the maiming and political awakening of one soldier, came out. Even after Platoon, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, even after the protest songs of Edwin Starr and Creedence Clearwater Revival,
Xi Jinping has called Vladimir Putin his best friend. But now the Russian leader is in urgent need of help from China. Putin’s army is bogged down in Ukraine and running short of ammunition. Should Xi prove that he is a friend indeed by supplying Russia with weapons? China’s decision will say a lot about