Myanmar junta can’t hide behind a sham election

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Two years after a coup d’état orchestrated by Myanmar’s military leaders ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, the country’s political and economic crisis continues to deepen. In the World Bank’s most recent forecast, released on January 30, economists predict that Myanmar’s economy will grow a mere 3% over […]Continue Reading

Fed slows rate hikes but signals more to come

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In: Asia, Business

To anyone wondering how high interest rates will go and when they will start coming down, the Federal Reserve has just provided an answer: “We still don’t know.” That’s the real meaning of the quarter-point interest rate increase the Fed announced Wednesday and the signals it sent in making the announcement. Financial markets read those […]Continue Reading

The US, China, and the Thucydides trap

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In: Asia

In 2012, the American political scientist Graham T Allison argued that the US and China were on a collision course for war. Allison claimed that fear of China had led the US to fall into the “Thucydides trap.” Allison was referring to the Greek historian Thucydides, who chronicled the war between Sparta and Athens. Thucydides […]Continue Reading

Philippines opening wider to US troops and arms

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A US navy personnel (L) gives instructions to his Philippine counterpart during drills at a naval base in Sangley point, Cavite City, west of Manila on June 28, 2013. Photo: AFP/Ted Aljibe

MANILA – US Secretary of Defense  Lloyd Austin touched down in Manila this week to open a new era of military cooperation with America’s oldest ally in Asia, significantly at a time Washington and Beijing are locked in a rising contest for military supremacy in the region. Just hours into the US defense chief’s visit, […]Continue Reading