While confrontations continue in Seoul between right and left-wing factions over the fate of Yoon Suk Yeol following his ill-conceived declaration of Martial law on 3 December 2024, it is instructive to look back at the many attempts to improve North-South relations when things seemed not quite so hopeless. Can they be revived? (more…)
Category: USA
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A five-minute scroll
The world reacts to President Trump’s proposal to take over Palestine. A crime of forced displacement that will create more conflict and bloodshed. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and global journalists respond. (more…)
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Roaming charges: Manifest Destiny’s child
There was a messianic fervour in Donald Trump’s Second Inaugural speech that wasn’t evident eight years ago. As dark as the 2016 American Carnage diatribe was, there was still the sense that Trump was a salesman pitching a vision he didn’t quite believe in, but thought he needed to sell in order to legitimise himself to his own ragged ranks of followers. Mainly, he seemed surprised to find himself where he was. The man who returned to power this week seemed sterner, surer of how to leverage his authority and who to use it against, more confident of his own invincibility. Was this hubristic exhibition infused by the bullet that grazed his ear, or his close encounters with incarceration, and the Supreme Court anointing him with an almost Divine-like cloak of immunity to do whatever he wants for whatever venal reason? Likely, all of the above. (more…)
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Trump’s decision to withdraw American support for WHO is a huge mistake
It only took a week for Donald Trump to have America looking like Belarus as a dictator, helped by totally subservient politicians, put governing in the hands of unqualified, unintelligent loyalists. As one commentator asked this week “When did brains go out of fashion!” (more…)
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Trump floats US takeover of Gaza – after ethnically cleansing Palestinians
Standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip,” which would be emptied of Palestinians. (more…)
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Ending the US alliance: America first means Australia last
The foundation of Australia’s alliance with the US is that there is a shared commitment to the rule of law and constitutional democratic government. We are faced with the choice of waiting until there cannot be a shred of doubt that the US is committed to a dictatorship or beginning the process of cutting our ties with this latest incarnation of American democratic government.
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Paul Keating says Trump may avoid a major war
Donald Trump’s “snatch-and-grab” foreign policy rejects the belief in US primacy and exception that was sliding towards a military confrontation with China. (more…)
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“Game of narrative”: Prof Sachs on dictatorship vs democracy and phoney wars
Cambridge Union
I don’t believe the US has any right or any ability to put in place a democracy in any other country. Nor do I believe, by the way, that American democracy functions as a real democracy anymore on the life and death issues… This is not democracy. This is a game. And it’s a game of narrative, writes Professor Jeffrey Sachs. (more…)
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Trump’s MAGA and the new Pax Americana
In the short period since his election, President Trump has started to tear down the edifice of western rules-based law and international order. Ironically this is the international political and economic system of which the USA has been its main beneficiary, definer and enforcer, and over which it has engaged in conflicts and wars around the world since the end of the second world war. (more…)
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Where have all the liberals gone?
The new liberal consensus, born of a shared “exhaustion,” is that it is time to “tune out,” or “take a break,” or simply close one’s eyes and ears. (more…)
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DeepSeek’s success challenges assumptions about Chinese tech companies – and the US-China competition
The release of the new DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model has shocked the tech world. (more…)
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A massive mandate?
Donald Trump and the MAGA gang point to the ‘massive mandate’ he obtained to justify any policy he may implement. (more…)
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Is America marching in the final footsteps of the British empire?
Yu-Book Lim used to head a Singapore think tank and was Executive Chairman of IMC Plantations before that. He has just published an extended, thought-provoking essay: “Xi Jinping’s “Once-in-a-Century Upheaval” Prophecy. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
The West Bank attacks continue since the Gaza ceasefire. In India, poor Muslim’s shops are being bulldozed. In the US, Caroline Kennedy speaks of her concerns about Robert F. Kennedy Jr leading the HHS. (more…)
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Trump’s Greenland for Odessa deal
In late February 2022, I was walking on a street in Irkutsk (in the middle of Russian Siberia) when I met a former female student of mine who had just come from her work office. She was upset by the invasion of Ukraine but even more so by the attitude of some women in the office. The main topic of discussion was speculation on “how many new provinces we will get”. (more…)
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How the Chinese beat Trump and OpenAI
The hype around Artificial Intelligence, the now failed U.S. attempt to monopolise it, and the recent counter from China are a lesson in how to innovate. They also show that the U.S. is losing the capability to do so. (more…)
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Donald Trump at the National Cathedral Washington
Addressing Donald Trump at the National Cathedral’s inauguration service, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, looking the incoming president in the eye, pleaded with him: “to have mercy on people who are scared and help those facing persecution”.
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1st call between Marco Rubio and Wang Yi
Neither State Department nor MOFA is gonna like this piece.
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I’m going ‘Trump sober’ in 2025
Pearls & Irritations have graciously published the many articles I have written over the last five years on Donald Trump. I’ve written about his inciting the insurrection on 6th January 2021; examined his lack of moral virtue using Aristotle’s taxonomy as a template, contrasted him with other world leaders; and critiqued his negative influence as a pseudo-transformational leader. I’ve spent time and energy thinking about this man, and the possible implications for leaders elsewhere apart from the good olde US of A. However, from now on, I’ve decided to go ‘Trump sober.’
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Donald Trump’s return: gloves off reset
Donald Trump’s return to power for a second term has sent ripples across the globe. On his first day in office, he wielded executive authority with vigour, signing many executive orders, including withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement for the second time. This move reversed the country’s climate commitments yet again, signalling Trump’s prioritisation of energy dominance and domestic interests. (more…)
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How stupid is America’s ruling class?
Yes, there is an American ruling class, and we’ve now got the photos to prove it. (more…)
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Democracy promotion, regime change and US foreign policy: the case of Bangladesh
The deeply entrenched authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina was toppled by a student-led movement on August 5 2024. The global community cheered the moral courage and the phenomenal organisational skills of the student leaders. The redoubtable Economist magazine voted Bangladesh as ‘the country of the year’ (2024) because students led a movement that ‘toppled a tyrant’ and paved the way for a brighter future. (more…)
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US “blunt force trauma” trade strategy treated with Chinese acupuncture
At this time it seems impossible to avoid discussing President Trump and his approach to China. What is less often discussed is China’s approach to Trump. (more…)
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Under Trump, the US and China may be greater friends than ever
Much has been said about the impending trade war amid Donald Trump’s threats to implement new tariffs against China, Mexico and Canada. But while many fear this could exacerbate tensions between China and the United States, we could find China is not as impacted as first thought. (more…)
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Australia must choose between economic prosperity and subservience to the US trade and military agenda
Australian Government cabinet papers from 30 years ago show that Australian leaders suspected that the claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were probably false. However, Australia committed troops because Australia wanted to ingratiate itself with the United States and was prepared to break international law to do so. This sets the standard for Australia’s willingness to co-operate with any Trump-led escalation of efforts to undermine China economy with tariffs and sanctions. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
A new day in the world. Israel rewrites history by criminalising the truth of events of October 7, 2023. In the US, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivers a sermon for the ages to the new President, whose thoughts on Gaza were recorded from the Oval Office. Meanwhile Australia’s media is called out for its lack of balance. (more…)
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Elitists touched up by one of their own – The Callick case
The Murdoch Press sure knows how to whip up an eye-catching headline – it may be its longest suit. True to form, on 19 January 25 The Weekend Australian ran a corker – “HOW THE AMERICAN HATERS IN OUR MIDST GO EASY ON CHINA.”
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Vassal states of the imperial order pay homage to their US master
The spectacle of Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Ambassador Kevin Rudd lining up for their security passes to the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States is nauseating. It is a grotesque example of hypocrisy and the deviant practices of realpolitik. Both leaders have previously criticised Trump for what he is. Both would argue they are now merely serving Australia’s interests by their ‘honoured’ presence as he takes power again. (more…)
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Will Trump’s hard line on Beijing ‘blow up’ Canberra’s China policy?
Canberra insiders fear the second coming of Donald Trump could bring pressure on Australia to disown its “stabilisation” policy with Beijing. (more…)
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Thanks Trump, for helping make China great again
Donald Trump’s second term may not be all bad for all nations, including and especially China. For many Chinese internet users, Trump’s policies have unwittingly strengthened their country. This is why he has earned the popular nickname “Chuan Jianguo,” which means “Make China Great.” (more…)