AUKUS Security Alliance Exposes EU’s Fecklessness
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have announced a new tripartite strategic alliance aimed at countering China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have announced a new tripartite strategic alliance aimed at countering China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
The European Parliament has halted ratification of a controversial investment treaty with China until Beijing lifts sanctions on European lawmakers, academics and think tanks. The move, a rare display of fortitude by an institution notorious for vacillation, reflects a hardening stance in Europe toward the Chinese Communist Party.
A growing number of Western lawmakers and human rights groups are calling for a boycott of the next Winter Olympics, set to take place in Beijing in February 2022.
Four major European and American apparel and footwear manufacturers have been sued in a French court for allegedly using forced labor in Xinjiang, a mostly Muslim region in northwestern China.
The Chinese government is boycotting Western clothing retailers for expressing concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang, China’s biggest region.
The current standoff is, in essence, about the future of free speech in Europe. If notoriously feckless European officials fail to stand firm in the face of mounting Chinese pressure, Europeans who dare publicly to criticize the CCP in the future can expect to pay an increasingly high personal cost for doing so.
Morocco recently established full diplomatic relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords, an effort by the United States to forge normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states to build a united front against Iran.
The European Union has negotiated a controversial trade deal with China. The pact has been widely criticized because European leaders, in their apparent rush to reach an agreement, have sacrificed their professed concern for human rights on the altar of financial gain.
Israel and Lebanon recently initiated groundbreaking negotiations to resolve a long-standing maritime border dispute in the eastern Mediterranean. Resolution of the dispute could lead to developing the potentially lucrative natural gas fields that would benefit both sides.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently declared that his decision to convert the Church of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’s massive sixth-century Byzantine cathedral, into a mosque foreshadows a future pan-Islamic reconquest of Jerusalem.
A recent report by the American think tank RAND warned that China has close ties with Iran, and that “the Chinese government might require Chinese companies doing business in Israel to share insights with the Iranian government in order to win friends and influence in Tehran.”
On a wide range of geopolitical issues — from relations with China, Iran and Russia to anti-Semitism, climate change, defense spending (NATO), energy dependence (Nord Stream), globalism, Hezbollah, Huawei and mass migration — U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell embarrassed German leaders by showing that their words and actions do not match.