With all the world’s attention focused on the Beijing Olympics and to a lesser extent, the “truce” in Georgia, we should not underestimate the serious implications for U.S. strategic objectives posed by the Chinese military modernization programs, (Russia’s announced modernization programs is another element).
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By 2010, the PLA Navy could have about 60 very modern to [...]

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Everyone is distracted by the Olympics. The squabbling here on the campaign trail consumes the media. Two presidential candidates and a lame-duck president all are weighing in on foreign policy. No wonder Vladimir Putin thought it was a good time to invade Georgia.
Apparently the Russian prime minister knew exactly what he was doing but [...]

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There are echoes of history in all this. Echoes that remind us in one way or the other of Berlin. China’s Olympic extravaganza — and its suppression of dissent — inevitably remind us of Adolf Hitler’s Berlin Olympics in 1936. Russia’s torrent of lies — its claims that democratic Georgia has been engaged in ethnic [...]

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There is an odd quiet globally. The Middle East is seeing tension easing across the board. Tensions between Russia and the Czechs or Georgians have mounted, but nothing like they could have. The Chinese are tense but managing the run-up to the Olympics and the oil price rise as well as can be expected. Nothing [...]

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It’s a reminder that China’s pollution problems aren’t just taking a devastating toll on China–they’re also affecting the rest of the world. Acid rain partly caused by Chinese sulfur emissions pours down on Japan and South Korea. Eighty percent of the East China Sea, one of the world’s largest fisheries, has become toxic, due to [...]

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It may be a sporting event but Beijing is on war footing with an estimated 100,000 soldiers, police and anti-terrorist commandos mobilized to guarantee the safety of next month’s Summer Olympics. The People’s Liberation Army has also deployed a battery of surface-to-air Hongqi missiles to guard against attacks from the sky. Despite the preparations, however, [...]

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What the Games Mean for Beijing’s Future.
Failure to plan for predictable problems has turned China’s coming-out party into an embarrassment.
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Yet even as Beijing has worked tirelessly to ensure the most impressive of Olympic spectacles, it is clear that the Games have come to highlight not only the awesome achievements of the country but also the [...]

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With a $3 trillion war bill and an economy that flounders as China’s soars, could America’s era of dominance on the world stage be coming to an end? Mick Brown and the photographer Alec Soth travelled across America and China to observe how the future of these two great nations is intertwined, and to find [...]

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Winning and then staging what are sure to be spectacular and successful games will help justify the party’s continued rigid authority, and let it bask in most Chinese people’s excitement to be hosts.
But the games will also be seen as one of history’s most expensive, and well-orchestrated, coming-out parties.
After three decades of breakneck economic growth, [...]

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While the vast majority of people in her generation abandoned religion long ago, there is another ’strange coincidence’ which leaves many of my friends and students uneasy. The earthquake occurred on May 12th, or 5.12. My friends show me how if one adds each individual number together (5 + 1 +2), the sum is 8. [...]

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Just in the time for the Olympics, the Chinese government has proved itself to be a pioneer as well as a top exporter in cutting-edge online censorship methods. And Western firms still give Beijing their active support. more…

Baiting the Dragon: German Business Warns of Pushing China too Far
Internet Users Strike Back: Chinese Call for Boycott [...]

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Like all other foreign journalists in China, I get my share of criticism from Chinese readers, mostly about my stories on TIME’s website or my posts on our China Blog. Some of the criticism can be pretty sharp–that comes with the territory. But the opprobrium has taken on a distinctly unpleasant edge in recent weeks [...]

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But for the past few years democracy has been in global retreat. Notwithstanding a small occasional triumph here and there, in Latin America, Africa and in Eastern Europe, the tide has been turned.
The most significant defeat of all has been in China, where the success of limited capitalism has not been matched by political [...]

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China has burned its fingers on the Olympic flame as the international spotlight is shone on its human rights record in Tibet. Still, German politicians should refrain from overwrought gestures such as an Olympic boycott and instead continue to engage both Beijing and the Dalai Lama in dialogue. By Erich Follath more…

Olympics in Chains: China [...]

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Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull.
Nationalism is more often aroused by setbacks than success, so the Tibet problems and the possible threats to a triumphal Olympics are stirring it in China.
On the horizon is the possibility [...]

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Communist China has tried mightily to put on a friendly face for the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. But with China’s thuggish military occupation of Tibet on display to the world, the regime in Beijing is showing its true colors.
Tibetans being killed in the streets by Chinese security forces, while bad enough on its [...]

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China has accused Muslims in the nation’s northwest of trying to start a rebellion, following what an exile group said Wednesday were peaceful protests against injustices under Chinese rule. The unrest occurred in China’s Muslim-majority Xinjiang region last month, after Chinese authorities warned that “terrorists” based there were planning attacks on the Beijing Olympics and [...]

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Violence in Tibet and China’s harsh response to it have marred China’s hopes for calm before it hosts the 2008 Olympics. At first, countries played down any kind of boycott in response. But contrary voices are now starting to make themselves heard. more…

Ceremony Overshadowed by Tibet Unrest: Tibet Activists Disrupt Olympic Torch Ceremony
Photo Gallery: Unrest [...]

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Confronted by accusations of a disregard for human rights at home and abroad, Beijing finds the Olympic Games have exposed it to extraordinary international pressure.
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Pick any dictatorship at random and chances are you’ll find China lurking in the background
At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, spectators will watch as athletes from the worst regimes on the planet parade by. Whether they are from dictatorships of the left or right, secular or theocratic, they will have one thing in [...]

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When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken — half of a breast — that measured 14 inches. “Enough to feed a family of eight,” said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who has traveled to China to [...]

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