Opinion

The fight between Apple and the U.S. government comes down to a technical enigma wrapped in layers of emotional debate. On the surface, people seem to be drawn to opposing sides depending on feelings: fear of terrorism, or suspicion of government, distrust of corporations. But the crux of the disagreement comes down to a technical question, not a gut feeling: …

Kazakhstan’s first McDonald’s will open March 8 in Astana. The world’s largest fast food chain has been operating in Russia since 1990 and last year opened its 500th store in that country (there are now 545)–while also, for the first time in Russia, permanently closing a store. Moving into the Kazakh market, per Reuters’ report, took more than a decade …

China is facing an uphill battle on two fronts. At home, government prestige is waning as the economy falters with Chinese people sending their money abroad as the stock market stumbles amid a slowing economy and a deteriorating currency. And as the bad economic news continues to drip out of China so do the dispatches about its military maneuvers in …

Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook is such a respected figure that it’s easy to overlook the basic problem with his argument about encryption: Cook is asserting that a private company and the interests of its customers should prevail over the public’s interest as expressed by our courts. The San Bernardino encryption case was the wrong one to fight. Apple doubled-down …

The call given by world’s top economies to focus on structural reforms and look beyond ultra-low interest rates, would not only strengthen the global economy, but also restore confidence in the markets. The holding of G20 meeting is timely and comes amid fears driven by slowing growth in the host nation China, steep falls in world financial markets, and US …

This week, Admiral Harry J. Harris, Jr, U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) commander, made headlines for his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In the written testimony submitted to the Committee, he articulated his view that China sees the South China Sea as “a strategic front line in their quest to dominate East Asia out to the Second Island Chain.” …

The United States presented a draft resolution on North Korea to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. The resolution, which would tighten sanctions on Pyongyang, represents the culmination of nearly two months of negotiations between the United States and China, beginning just after North Korea’s nuclear test on January 6. Final agreement on the resolution came during Chinese Foreign …

It’s early spring and that means India’s national budget session is in the air. The Indian government will be formally presenting its budget for the next fiscal year on Monday. Last year’s $290 billion budget, as I discussed in The Diplomat at the time, showcased a gradualist approach to reforming India’s fiscal policy. The 2016 budget is the second to …

None of the remaining Republican presidential candidates has a detailed health-care plan. The one who has done the most to outline an agenda, Senator Marco Rubio, is still a bit lighter on those details even than Barack Obama was when he ran in 2008. But Rubio is at least on the right track, while the other candidates are wandering aimlessly, …

Last November, in a bid to internationalize its currency, China’s yuan was successfully admitted to the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of reserve currencies, joining the Euro, the U.S. dollar, Japanese yen and British sterling in the cohort of elite currencies. The yuan’s ascension is an economic milestone for China and a political victory for the world’s …