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Don't let US-China trade disputes turn into a shooting war

Don't let US-China trade disputes turn into a shooting war

Video: Washington hawks may be taking things to extreme, at what cost?

Analysis | Video Section



The U.S. and China are in a fierce competition over who dominates the global economy. While Washington has rightly zeroed in on the need for supply chain independence, China's unfair trade practices, and intellectual property theft, hawkish voices have blurred the lines between economic and security concerns, and the Biden administration's economic "fixes" have tended to be to impose exclusionary measures that end up pushing Beijing even further into a defensive crouch.

In this video, the Quincy Institute's Jake Werner talks about how this is putting the two powerful nations into an escalatory spiral.

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Analysis | Video Section
China United Staes

TSViPhoto via shutterstock.com

House passes $1.6 billion to deliver anti-China propaganda overseas

Asia-Pacific

Since at least 2016, foreign interference in American elections and civil society have become central to American political discourse. The issue is taken extremely seriously by the U.S. government, which has levied sanctions and called out foreign adversaries for sowing “discord and chaos” through their propaganda efforts.

But apparently Washington takes a different view when it comes to American propaganda operations in foreign countries. On Monday, the House passed HR 1157, the “Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund,” by a bipartisan 351-36 majority. This legislation authorizes more than $1.6 billion for the State Department and USAID over the next five years to, among other purposes, subsidize media and civil society sources around the world that counter Chinese “malign influence” globally.

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Is Nigeria using Russia as an excuse for bloody crackdown?

Protesters continue anti-government demonstrations against bad governance and economic hardship, in Lagos, Nigeria August 5, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko

Is Nigeria using Russia as an excuse for bloody crackdown?

Africa

Nigeria is on edge as individuals linked to the deadly protests that recently shook the West African country are to be put on trial on charges that carry the death penalty.

Their arrest is part of a wider dragnet that has been triggered in part by the president's fears that the demonstrations are part of a Russian-inspired plot to overthrow his government.

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space weapon

Marko Aliaksandr via shutterstock.com

How the US made space more dangerous

Global Crises

The past year has witnessed a growing chorus of alarm in Washington regarding the military utility of space. From the proliferation of space debris to the hastened tempo of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons development by China and Russia, there is a fear that U.S. space assets are held in peril by the threat of direct attack and the destruction of orbital usability. In November of last year, Chief of Space Operations General Chance Saltzman went as far as to designate China’s adoption of ASATs in 2007 as a key moment of inflection in the militarization of space.

These worries have a legitimate basis — scientists have posited that space debris has the potential to render certain orbital clouds such as low earth orbit (LEO) unusable through cascading collisions. ASATs only compound this risk, as even individual tests can generate thousands of pieces of debris. Further, LEO and other orbits are a vital terrain for U.S. military satellites, whose uses range from communication to positioning systems and intelligence collection. This led the Biden administration to adopt a unilateral moratorium on ASAT testing in 2022.

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