China has entered the adolescent stage of its development into a superpower – the past few years have been epochal, peaking with China overtaking Japan as the second biggest economy. China states categorically that their rise is ‘peaceful’ while other countries (particularly America) call on China to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’. Here we have a clear divergence of opinion, but what can this tell us about the current state of the ‘world order’? (more…)
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The assistant to the US president for counter-terrorism and homeland security, John Brennan, recently described Middle East peace talks as a “tradition” in which every American president must partake.
The Peace Talks and the Two-State Solution
18 Oct
Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted on 7th September 2010, though the post appears to have gone AWOL, so I am re-posting for posterity.
The assistant to the US president for counter-terrorism and homeland security, John Brennan, recently described Middle East peace talks as a “tradition” in which every American president must partake.
Describing US commitment to a peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians as a “tradition” is perhaps an exaggeration – serious American involvement with peacemaking between the two sides only really came about in 1991 with the Madrid Conference and then dropped off significantly with the George W. Bush administration.
However, it seems reasonable to see Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement on the 20 August that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would begin meeting for direct talks in Washington on the 2 September, as a continuation of previous US attempts to bring about a resolution to the conflict.
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