On May 14, US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a bilateral summit at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It was Trump’s first visit to China since 2017. It was also the first time since 2001 that a US president visited China without stopping at the capital of at least one US ally in the region, whether Japan, South Korea or Australia. Both sides agreed on the importance of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, and Beijing reaffirmed its hawkish stance toward Taiwan. By comparison, neither Trump nor Xi have made public mention of…
Author: Frank M. Everett
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Chinese President Xi Jinping sign the China-Tajikistan Treaty of Permanent Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 12, the political culmination of Rahmon’s four-day state visit. The two leaders also signed a joint statement on deepening the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in the new era and witnessed the signing of about 31 intergovernmental cooperation documents covering trade, investment, artificial intelligence, green mining, agriculture, culture, education, housing, inspection and quarantine, as well as market surveillance. The partnership had been elevated to the status of “comprehensive strategic cooperation” during…
India’s initial optimism about relations with Nepal is fading fast. After the Gen Z uprising in Nepal last year, New Delhi strongly supported the caretaker government of Sushila Karki and its unique agenda of holding timely elections. The Karki government has kept this promise. In the March 5 legislative elections, the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) obtained almost two-thirds of the majority. Its future candidate for prime minister, Balendra Shah, took the reins of government on March 26. India, which was understood to have agreed before the poll with the RSP that its vital interests would be protected if the party…
US President Donald Trump made his long-awaited trip to China this week, arriving in the country on May 13 and holding a bilateral meeting and state banquet with China’s Xi Jinping on May 14. He will have tea and lunch with Xi on May 15 before leaving for Washington. Trump’s visit was the first by a US president to China since 2017 – during Trump’s first term. From Beijing, Trump and Xi have promised a new era for bilateral relations. Xi even presented an entirely new formula: “building a constructive Sino-American relationship of strategic stability”. According to the reading from…
In a month, the Uzbek football team will debut at the FIFA World Cup as the only representative from Central Asia and the Caucasus. This is an important achievement that underlines the positive dynamics of Uzbek football within the men’s and women’s national teams. Uzbekistan is in a tough group, with three difficult opponents: Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Portugal. The good news for Uzbekistan fans is that the team is made up of players already present top leagues. The best example is Abdukodir Khusanov, who currently plays for Manchester City; in fact, Khusanov is the first ever Uzbek…
The Turkmen government backtracked during the 2025 cotton harvest on small steps taken over the previous two years to reduce the use of forced labor, the Cotton Campaign coalition said in a new report. Progress toward eliminating forced labor is not necessarily linear, and positive developments in one harvest can be reversed the following year without sustained political will or market pressure. The report – “Cotton from Turkmenistan: State-enforced forced labor during annual cotton harvest, high risk in global supply chains » – presents findings from independent civil society monitoring of Turkmenistan’s 2025 cotton harvest by Turkmen.News and Turkmen Initiative…
On April 19, Singapore’s Channel News Asia reported that Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam were in talks with Russia for crude oil supplies, despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, given the disruption of supplies from the Middle East due to the conflict between the United States and Iran. Despite this clear indication that Southeast Asia lacked oil for its own needs, the Australian government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Foreign Minister Penny Wong, embarked on a mission to East and Southeast Asia to seek guarantees of supplies of gasoline, diesel and fertilizer from some of these same…
Gunfire broke out yesterday amid chaotic scenes at the Philippine Senate, after gunmen attempted to enter areas of the building where Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa is hiding to avoid an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Dela Rosa, the main leader of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent “war on drugs” campaign, holed up in his Senate office on Monday after fleeing agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Hours later, the ICC announced it had unsealed an arrest warrant for the 64-year-old for crimes against humanity. The arrest warrant, initially issued on November 6, was…
Jho Low, a fugitive Malaysian financier wanted for one of the biggest financial scandals of the 21st century, has reportedly requested clemency from US President Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday that the pardon request “was filed in recent weeks,” citing a number of people familiar with the matter. A Justice Department website lists a pending application for “post-sentence pardon” under the name of Taek Jho Low that was filed this year, the WSJ added. If granted, the pardon would eliminate US criminal charges against Low, accused of orchestrating the drain of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a…
Republicans have a strange daddy fetish with Donald Trump. It’s even stranger when you consider that the man they consider their parental figure is an old man who constantly falls asleep during meetings And looks like he was hit by a truck while arriving for a summit in China.Vice President JD Vance’s entire political future is tied to Trump. Vance must remain in Trump’s good graces because there has been no talk of a Republican primary schedule. Trump himself floated the idea that the Republican Party would not hold a presidential primary in 2028 and that the president would instead…