When Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae arrived in Hanoi on May 1, he was driven from Noi Bai Airport in a VinFast Lac Hong 900 LX. The car’s name evokes a mythical bird from Vietnamese tradition, while its design is inspired by the bronze drum of Dong Son and bamboo groves, blending modern industry and cultural heritage. Over the next three days, Takaichi and Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung signed six cooperation documentslaunched the first project under Japanese POWERR Asia Initiativeand identified “economic security, including energy, critical minerals, semiconductors, AI and space, as new priority areas” in bilateral relations.…
Author: Frank M. Everett
This is part two of a four-part series on “The first hermetic empire» – analyzing the historically unprecedented shutdown that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building in 2026, and how this shutdown has rendered American policy assumptions obsolete. Part I documented the two substitutions of slogans through which Beijing has rewritten its history and pre-written its future. This episode returns to the conditioning sequence which prepared the population to accept the closure that these slogans authorized. Subsequent installments will examine the four-dimensional architecture by which the closure was mechanically designed (Part III), as well as the long historical framework…
This week NIRA data presented the results of its annual public opinion poll, commissioned by the Alliance of Democracieswhich was conducted in 85 countries around the world between March 19 and April 21, 2026. The results are not surprising but nevertheless offer valuable new evidence and nuance about the significant changes the world is witnessing. Essentially, the data shows how much the United States has lost its global appeal in recent years. Just three years ago, the United States enjoyed a comfortable global lead in soft power. Almost no one had a good opinion of China and a bad opinion…
The May 13-15 summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ended, surprisingly, without any new agreement. announcement. At the same time, fears that Taiwan would be sidelined in reaching these agreements have not materialized – at least as far as is known. Trump said before leaving for China that arms sales to Taiwan would be a topic of discussion. This has led to concerns that arms sales could be subject to negotiations, in violation of long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan. The Six Assurances – US government policy since 1982 – State that Washington will not consult…
North Korea’s strategic posture has visibly changed since the signing of the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) agreement in 2021. Pyongyang has “irreversibly”inscribed nuclear weapons in its constitution, formalized a”Global strategic partnership» with Russia which contains a mutual defense clause, sent 14,000 soldiers on the battlefield in Ukraine, reunification abandoned with South Korea and committed to modernize its outdated navy. North Korea constantly reminds its citizens of the perception of threat posed by AUKUS. The official state media mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), recently described AUKUS as “seriously threatens regional peace and security” after Australia transferred the first $500 million payment…
As ASEAN leaders prepared for last weekend’s annual summit in Cebu, French President Emmanuel Macron was filing away a letter from Kim Aris, the son of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It was a cry for help. Forty-eight-year-old Aris just wants proof that his mother is still alive. He wants Macron to at least encourage the junta and its new president, Min Aung Hlaing, to make somewhat more than casual statements regarding his mother after her apparent move from prison to a “designated residence” somewhere in Naypyidaw. You’d think Suu Kyi’s son would be entitled to an address.…
The message from the recent defeat of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Indian state of West Bengal is clear: the people of West Bengal want a chance to reverse the long-term decline of their state. West Bengal is the western half of the Bengal region – the other half being Bangladesh – which has long been one of the wealthiest regions in South Asia. This election reflects the population’s desire for change and economic development. Long an economic and cultural power, West Bengal’s illness lasts several decades. Between 1960 and 2024, its…
Trump/Xi meetings in China were private. It seems there have been no big breakthroughs or “victories” that Trump can bring back to the United States.Trump tried to flatter the Chinese leader, who responded with threats against Taiwan. PoliticusUSA is straight-to-the-point, no-BS news delivered straight to your inbox. Support us by becoming a subscriber.The Trump trip, where he took with him a group of the world’s richest CEOs, appears to have been a complete failure on all fronts. Republicans were hoping Trump would announce another of his fake deals with China that would help relieve farmers devastated by the president’s toxic…
Congressional oversight hearings are often good for all sides, but they really serve to exercise oversight and evaluate how policies are implemented and their effectiveness. Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) was trying to question HUD Secretary Scott Turner about his department’s homelessness policies.PoliticusUSA provides 100% independent news and opinions. Support us by becoming a subscriber.Turner said, “What I will say, and I offer this, is number one: The Biden administration’s HUD spot report says we had 770,000 people in America who were homeless at one point, and that was with record funding. So we have record funding, but yet we have…
On May 7, two Anglo-Chinese dual nationals were sentenced at the Old Bailey in London for espionage. Peter Wai and Bill Yuen were convicted of carrying out a “shadow police” operation against Hong Kong dissidents from Yuen’s workplace, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO). Using Wai’s contacts and access to sensitive information related to his role as an immigration officer within the UK Home Office, the two men monitored Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and attempted to launch an operation to illegally seize and return to China a woman suspected of fraud. style of the Chinese Operation Fox Hunt.…