Opinion

Catherine Putz On Saturday, while Kazakh police were rounding up potential protesters near the Baiterek monument, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov was meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. That the protests were linked to simmering frustrations about changes to the Land Code that rumor said could lead to the Chinese purchase of Kazakh land is a coincidence–but one that highlights ...

  The acrimony between Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, inflamed in recent weeks, is likely to be resolved with a series of compromises that will bring relative unity in the weeks after next month’s final primaries. Limited conversations between supporters of the two candidates have been productive and both sides are guardedly optimistic, despite the sharp barbs the campaigns ...

On a sunny day in Warsaw, it’s difficult to understand why the city’s well-kept streets simmer with anger and discontent over the European vision. The economy has been growing at 3.6 percent, roughly twice the overall European rate. And there’s little or no influx of Syrian or Afghan refugees: Warsaw must be whiter than any other major city in Europe, ...

  Jenna Gibson Stories about South Korea’s education obsession are nothing new. News outlets have run exposés of illegal late-night cram schools or lamentations of the country’s high-pressure testing system. In these stories, much has been said about the mental health repercussions of 14-hour school days. But there are now growing concerns about the physical consequences of keeping students in ...

  When The Economist recently reported that Taiwan’s trade with China “ballooned” during the administration of outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou of the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT), it was repeating what has become a commonplace among writers on the cross-strait relationship. We are told that trade “boomed” under Ma (Washington Post, Institutional Investor), or “particularly since Ma” (East Asia Forum, International Business ...

  ANKARA A tour of the war zones in Iraq and Syria with the top American commander ends, appropriately enough, here in Turkey, the strongest power in the region and the place where the modern troubles began a hundred years ago with the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The abiding strategic fact about the current war against the IS is ...

  Rapprochement between Washington and Hanoi has moved an extra mile towards deeper engagement following the US decision to lift a decades-old ban on lethal arms sales to Vietnam 40 years after a the bitter US– Vietnamese war ended. Amid growing tension with China over a maritime dispute, the lifting of arms embargo is vital as it will allow Vietnam ...

  Jonathan Bernstein With a bunch of new polls released over the weekend, speculation about how a general election race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ends is beginning to matter. Just not in the way you would think, based on all the hype. We have three ways to predict what will happen, each with strengths and weaknesses. First, there ...

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have propelled their campaigns in part by appealing to globalization’s losers. The blue-collar American workers who have seen wages shrink and jobs disappear offshore have responded strongly to Trump’s China-bashing and Clinton’s newfound suspicions about free trade. Free Trade Feud The reality, though, is that neither candidate is going to bring manufacturing jobs back ...

  T he Economist recently joined an illustrious group of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and South China Morning Post, who have all illustrated a story on soccer in China with a picture of Xi Jinping kicking a soccer ball in Dublin. Only it’s not a soccer ball — in Dublin Xi Jinping was trying his hand ...