The high price of the Guatemala-Taiwan relationship

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The president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, traveled on Wednesday to the United States, with stops in Guatemala and Belize, two of the 13 countries in the world that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei. On Sunday, March 26, Honduras announced that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and immediately established relations with the People’s Republic of China. It […]Continue Reading

How China overreached and lost its grip in the Pacific

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Xi Jinping is building a track record of overreaching in his foreign policies. Chinese attempts to gain influence among the Pacific island states fit this increasingly familiar pattern. Last year, the security agreement that Beijing reached with the Solomon Islands stunned the larger liberal democratic countries upon which the Pacific island states have traditionally relied […]Continue Reading

Existential crisis for Iran in South Caucasus

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Tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia are threatening to destabilize the South Caucasus, prompting some to worry that Iran could eventually be pulled into a wider regional conflict. But is Iran really prepared to invade its Shia-majority neighbor to protect Armenia, or are recent military moves little more than bluster? While Azerbaijan’s military continues to capture parts of […]Continue Reading

In Ukraine, one of the battlegrounds is language itself

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More and more Ukrainians are switching from speaking Russian to speaking Ukrainian. In the media, this language shift is frequently portrayed as recent, dating back to the Russian invasion of February 2022. But the invasion was not the trigger. It was merely an accelerator. To understand Ukraine as a nation, it is important to understand […]Continue Reading