A prominent Chinese academic argues the conditions are right for a US–China “grand bargain”. But recent events in Venezuela and the Middle East raise hard questions about what kind of America China is dealing with.
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Category: USA
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Can Washington still strike a grand bargain with Beijing?
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Best of 2025 – Trump’s drug war on Venezuela reeks of hypocrisy
Donald Trump’s campaign against Venezuela is less about drugs than power, exposing deep hypocrisy in US policy and raising uncomfortable questions for Australia about its alliance.
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Best of 2025 – Charting Trump’s decline
New polling reveals a clear and sustained decline in public approval of Trump and his policies that is already reshaping US electoral prospects, with significant implications for Congress and beyond.
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Best of 2025 – Five reasons Trump’s economy stinks and 10 things the Dems should do about It
The Trump economy is truly awful for most Americans. Democrats need to show America that they can be better trusted to bring prices down and real wages up. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Burn it all down movements
When a 34-year-old democratic socialist defeats a political dynasty in the nation’s largest city, we’re witnessing more than another electoral upset. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – After Trump goes home
If anyone had any lingering doubts about the change in the world order, the sight of President Trump pumping his fist into the air at the doorway of Air Force One, before turning his back on Asia to fly home, they should be put to bed now. (more…)
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Why Australia should walk away from AUKUS
Trump’s actions in Venezuela and rhetoric elsewhere confirm that the United States no longer respects international law or allied interests. Australia should rethink its strategic dependence accordingly.
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Best of 2025 – Gunboat hypocrisy in the Caribbean
Even as Donald Trump crisscrosses the globe, bringing his purported peacemaking skills to parts of the world that did not even know they were at war, his administration has openly been preparing for militarised regime change in Venezuela. Neighbouring Colombia too isn’t safe. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Trump’s risky American economy
Trump’s tariffs, migration and fiscal policies are endangering the American economy, and risk destroying American claims to global leadership. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – From illusion to real peace: Trump’s test in Gaza and Ukraine
Real peace demands Palestinian statehood, Ukrainian neutrality and the courage to defy the war lobby. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Albanese and Rudd sold out freedom of the press this week
Many Australian journalists think Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Ambassador Kevin Rudd did a wonderful job this week in handling the corrupt narcissist who runs the United States, Donald Trump. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – The Pope, the media and the ‘normalisation’ of Trump
As world media and leaders normalise US President Donald Trump’s erratic behaviour, Pope Leo XIV must resist and keep his distance. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – These are fighting words
As political violence escalates in the United States, chaos is spreading and democracy itself is under threat. The words of anger, ill-considered and increasingly crude, are accelerant on the American bonfire. (more…)
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The USA today: a derangement threatening the World
The response to events in Venezuela exposes how breaches of international law are absorbed, reframed, and normalised – and what that reveals about power, decadence, and global silence.
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Best of 2025 – Between two wounds: Gaza confronts Trump’s plan to end the war
On a cold morning in central Gaza City, Nevin Al-Barbari, 35, sat in what remained of her family home, watching her two-year-old daughter, Reem, explore the rooms she had only recently come to know. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – The Chris Hedges Report: We are all antifa now
The designation of the amorphous group antifa as a terrorist organisation allows the state to brand all dissidents as supporters of antifa and prosecute them as terrorists. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Australia needs to diplomatically disengage from our ‘dangerous ally’
It seems likely that our prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly later this month. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Mamdani’s victory bought hope to Gaza
Zohran Mamdani is a Ugandan-born Muslim American politician, outspoken supporter of Palestine, and the new Mayor of New York City. His victory there is a symbolic moment that reflects a deeper shift in American awareness toward global justice, especially the Palestinian cause. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – When the centre cannot hold: US polarisation is driving the word away
Once admired for its democratic institutions, cultural dynamism, and global leadership, the United States now finds itself in a different spotlight. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Australia and Taiwan caught between Trump and Xi’s great-man fantasies
If there was any doubt in Canberra that the traditional political alignment with the US is in turmoil, the past week or so confirms it irrefutably. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Australia must defend International Criminal Court
If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia. (more…)
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2025 in Review: The fading West, a cautious Labor win and an uncertain world
From the erosion of Western authority to Australia’s election result, 2025 exposed deep shifts in global power, alliance politics and the limits of domestic reform.
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Why did Trump send his warships to Venezuela?
As US pressure on Venezuela intensifies, Washington is reviving an openly interventionist approach to Latin America. The targets extend beyond Caracas to the region as a whole.
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Font of all knowledge? Of Rubio, Rupert and playing to type
A curious US culture-war memo about typefaces becomes a sharp lesson in readability, newspaper craft, and how badly those lessons have been forgotten in Australian journalism.
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2025 in Review: Bullies and sycophants, cowardice on high, courage from below
A year defined by bullying power politics, media cowardice and moral failure – alongside rare but vital acts of courage that point to a different future. (more…)
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From partnership to pressure: why India–US ties have frayed
The downturn in India–US relations during Trump’s second presidency exposes deeper structural weaknesses in the partnership, from trade and strategic autonomy to diverging political priorities. (more…)
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Deleting climate science: the Trump EPA rewrites the causes of warming
The Trump administration has removed references to human-caused climate change and key scientific data from EPA websites, alarming climate scientists and health experts. (more…)
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Ceding the future to China
Delivered as remarks to Brown University’s Watson School during its “China Chat” series, Chas Freeman reflects on China’s return to global prominence and the United States’ accelerating retreat from the international order it once led – and asks what coexistence looks like as power shifts in the 21st century.
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China’s challenge is explaining why it succeeded
Western commentary often dwells on China’s problems while overlooking the cultural and historical foundations of its extraordinary achievements. Understanding both is essential to informed judgement. (more…)
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When foreign policy becomes domestic theatre
Australia’s response to Japan’s rhetoric has been framed as a test of loyalty, but the outrage is largely media-driven. Caution in foreign policy is not betrayal – it is a rational defence of national interest.