Search

International diplomacy therefore hit an impasse: the international community remains committed to a two-state solution and does not want to promote a one-state solution over Israeli objections, but also does not see any current credible political pathway to a two-state one. New US administration, new regional approaches The Trump administration's priorities had been to maintain warm relations with Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE, isolate Iran and promote Israel's regional political and economic integration. For its part, the UAE publicly stated that Israel would need to choose between normalisation with Arab countries and annexation of Palestinian land; it could not have both. Furthermore, while the Gulf states maintained an official boycott of Israel, in 2002 they had signed the Arab Peace Initiative (API), endorsed by the Arab League, under which all Arab states (except Jordan and Egypt, which already had relations with Israel) offered to recognise Israel in return for a negotiated two-state solution with a just solution for refugees. [Extracted from the article]

Against the background of a personal rapport between president Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Trump administration did not express concerns, privately or publicly, on the curtailment of civil liberties and press freedoms by the Modi government; indeed, Trump's visit to New Delhi in February 2020 had been marked by large-scale protests against India's Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Following the sweeping election victory of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in November 2020, which the leadership of the Tatmadaw (Myanmar's armed forces) viewed as a threat to its political and economic privileges, the Tatmadaw declared the election result illegitimate, overthrew the elected government, transferred power to commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and imposed a year-long state of emergency. The Biden administration also increased its engagement with India to counter China's assertive role on its land border with India, through its military-logistical support in response to the Galwan border clash in June 2020, and its influence in the Indo-Pacific region, through the first Quad Leaders summit in March 2021. This was due largely to its widening rift with China and subsequent strategic convergence with India to counter China's assertive role on its land border with India and its influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Distrust in India about US support in a wider India-China conflict fed reluctance to define the border as a front-line of the US-China contest. [Extracted from the article]

A longtime scholar of Chinese politics, Economy examines several case studies in which China under Xi Jinping's leadership has been intentionally or unintentionally shaping the regional and global order. Economy suggests that it is difficult to respond to China's strategic ambition because countries have distinctive approaches to China's economic coercion, and thus greater coordination is necessary. This is critical: especially when Economy argues that China is playing it smart in some policy areas, it remains unclear to readers why Beijing has sometimes acted, or reacted, to harm its strategic objectives. [Extracted from the article]