The ‘phase one’ trade deal between the United States and China entered into force on 14 February 2020. As part of this agreement, China agreed to make structural reforms, open up its financial services and strengthen intellectual property. China also pledged to buy at least US$200 billion in additional US goods and services over 2020 and 2021.
Americans performed three very different policies on the People’s Republic: From a total negation (and the Mao-time mutual annihilation assurances), to Nixon’s sudden cohabitation. Finally, a Copernican-turn: the US spotted no real ideological differences between them and the post-Deng China. This signalled a ‘new opening’: West imagined China’s coastal areas as its own industrial suburbia. Soon after, both countries easily agreed on interdependence (in this marriage of convenience): Americans pleased their corporate (machine and tech) sector and unrestrained its greed, while Chinese in return offered a cheap labour, no environmental considerations and submissiveness in imitation. Both spiced it by nearly religious approach to trade.
Shûrâ, Or The Principle Of Collective Deliberation
When one evokes the relation between Islam and democracy, (1) the temptation is great to go to texts (Qur’an and Hadîth) and to Muslim political history of experiences of governance with analogies to modern pluralistic systems. (2) Hence the reformist currents of Islamic thought, which intend to promote the principle of shûrâ, which can be roughly translated as “collective deliberation”. On the theological level shûrâ refers directly to the Qur’anic text, in particular to Sûrah 42, precisely entitled “The Consultation”:
Al Qaeda Changed the World—but Not in the Way It Expected
On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda carried out the deadliest foreign terrorist attack the United States had ever experienced. To Osama bin Laden and the other men who planned it, however, the assault was no mere act of terrorism. To them, it represented something far grander: the opening salvo of a campaign of revolutionary violence that would usher in a new historical era. Although bin Laden was inspired by religion, his aims were geopolitical. Al Qaeda’s mission was to undermine the contemporary world order of nation-states and re-create the historical umma, the worldwide community of Muslims that was once held together by a common political authority. Bin Laden believed that he could achieve that goal by delivering what he described as a “decisive blow” that would force the United States to withdraw its military forces from Muslim-majority states, thus allowing jihadis to fight autocratic regimes in those places on a level playing field.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Yugoslav wars, Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. Although the Balkan states moved toward democratic governance and integration with NATO and the European Union in the immediate aftermath of the wars, consistent neglect on the part of the West has contributed to a dramatic backsliding in recent years. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin is seizing his opportunity and using the former Yugoslav states as the next battlefield to weaken NATO and the European Union.
Even as Ankara rolls out a new scheme to contain the country’s currency crisis, the severe losses of millions of low-and middle-income Turks appears irreversible.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s emergency plan to prop up the battered Turkish lira and stop creeping dollarization has reversed the currency’s free fall for now, but the package of new measures offers no remedy to the loss of purchasing power plaguing Turkey’s wage-earners — from unskilled workers to white-collar professionals — amid soaring inflation.
Turkey’s economic turmoil might challenge Ankara’s grip over opposition-held areas in Syria, where in-house rivalries among the armed factions over financial resources have escalated.
With economic turbulence rattling Turkey’s economy, the question is rising of whether Ankara can maintain its grip on Syria’s opposition-held areas where the Turkish lira is the de facto currency.
The Peoples’ Democratic Party charges that the prosecutors are reluctant to fully investigate the links of the health worker who attacked the party’s office in June.
On June 17 at 10:50 a.m., a bulky young man with tattoos and cut-off gloves, wearing a leather vest and carrying a heavy bag, walked into the Izmir office of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and fired four shots into a young female party volunteer. Then he took a photo of her as she lay on the floor dying and posted it on his WhatsApp status with the word “Body 1.”
NATO’s Weakness Invites Russian Aggression
“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.” -Artistotle
In September, we ran a story about the think tank, RAND, and their war game after an action that essentially proved NATO, like a pearl of wisdom in Congress, is powerless against Russia if they were to take any military action towards Europe.
Without adequate ground forces to slow the attack’s momentum, there was no way for NATO to halt the Russian assault.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed Prime Minister of Romania, Nicolae Ciucă, to NATO headquarters on Tuesday. The Secretary General congratulated Ciucă for his appointment as Prime Minister, as well as praising Romania’s contributions to the Alliance, including for playing an essential role in the Black Sea region. Stoltenberg also welcomed Romania’s efforts to help build stability in the Western Balkans, and its support to NATO’s partners, including to Moldova and Ukraine.