Wall Street Journal (March 18)
“Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin is the latest marker of the deep ties between Beijing and Moscow as the war in Ukraine continues into its second year.” As Xi advances “an increasingly assertive diplomacy” to “pursue… his country’s rightful place as a great power…. China’s relationship with Russia is especially important.”
Tags: Assertive, Beijing, China, Deep ties, Diplomacy, Great power, Moscow, Putin, Relationship, Russia, Ukraine, Visit, War, Xi
Washington Post (December 1)
“Experts have known for years what the United States must do: place a strong and steadily rising price on carbon dioxide emissions, invest heavily in clean-energy research and development, and make climate a top priority in international diplomacy. President Trump is instead denying the problem.”
Tags: Clean energy, Climate, CO2, Denying, Diplomacy, Emissions, Experts, Invest, Price, Priority, Trump, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (October 12)
“President Trump prides himself on one-on-one diplomacy, but too often it results in rash and damaging decisions like his abrupt order Sunday for U.S. troops to retreat from northern Syria. Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now dictating terms to the American President, and the consequences are likely to be felt far beyond Syria and Turkey.”
Tags: Abrupt, Damaging, Decisions, Diplomacy, Erdogan, Pride, Rash, Retreat, Syria, Troops, Trump, Turkey, U.S.
CNN (October 25)
“Donald Trump’s unconventional diplomacy is pushing China and Japan closer together…. Still, despite the US hostility” moving the countries “closer together, the two countries’ long and fractious history makes an easy and lasting rapprochement difficult.”
Tags: China, Diplomacy, Hostility. History, Japan, Rapprochement, Trump, Unconventional, US
Time (May 3)
“Diplomacy is subtle, atomic science complex. But the perceived villainy of Iran by the average American is the stuff of cartoons.” Opponents of the nuclear deal have been keen to exploit this antipathy. According to Gallup, “84% of the American public viewed Iran ‘unfavorably,’” when the deal was signed and with the constant stoking of fear there’s little reason to believe that number has gone down.
Tags: Antipathy, Diplomacy, Fear, Gallup, Iran, Nuclear deal, Opponents, U.S., Unfavorably, Villainy
Reuters (December 14)
The world finally “learned its lesson and got a climate deal.” The victory in Paris “was an agreement born from a fear of failure, delivered by the smoothness of French diplomacy.” Remarkably, it took place just six years after “countries had bitterly walked away from global climate talks in Copenhagen without a deal.”
Tags: Agreement, Climate deal, Copenhagen, Diplomacy, France, Paris, Victory, World
Financial Times (August 13)
“Japan’s public diplomacy hovers between the ludicrous and the sinister. In recent months, the country has specialised in foreign policy gaffes that seem designed to give maximum offence to its Asian neighbours while causing maximum embarrassment to its western allies.” Japan’s newly unveiled naval destroyer, which looks a lot like an aircraft carrier, is the most recent offense. It shares the name “Izumo” with “a Japanese warship that took part in the invasion of China in the 1930s.”
Tags: Aircraft carrier, Allies, Asia, China, Destroyer, Diplomacy, Embarrassment, Foreign policy, Gaffes, Invasion, Izumo, Japan, Warship
New York Times (March 2)
The outcome of recent negotiations with Iran “was frustratingly incremental, but it keeps alive the slim possibility of a diplomatic solution…. It is hard to know whether Iran will ever abandon its nuclear ambitions.… Mistrust runs deep on all sides. Still, it makes sense for the United States and its partners to be creative in pursuit of a deal that will prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.”
Tags: Deal, Diplomacy, Iran, Mistrust, Negotiations, Nuclear weapons
The Economist (January 7)
Hopes that Bashar Assad might step aside, making room for a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria, evaporated after a defiant speech on January 6. The war has claimed an estimated 60,000 Syrian lives. With the opposition determined not to “negotiate a political solution to the crisis until Mr Assad is out of the picture, both sides are still trying for a military victory.” Mr Assad’s “speech provided no reason to believe the bloodshed will end soon.”
Tags: Bashar Assad, Crisis, Diplomacy, Military, Opposition, Solution, Syria
Washington Post (May 1)
Tokyo and Washington made “a welcome step forward” with the decision to move 9,000 marines to other Pacific bases. This “small but significant diplomatic breakthrough” will finally ease “the two-year-old standoff over U.S. bases on the Japanese island of Okinawa.” The deal will strengthen “an alliance that both countries need more than ever” and may even “open the way for an invigoration of strategic cooperation at just the right time in East Asia.”
