September 2024

Political scientist specialised in peace and conflict research. Professor and Head of the Global Changes Center at the Faculty of Philosophy, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia – and TFF Associate Here I am, back from China—or more precisely, back from another planet, another dimension of space and time. For days, and even now as I write these words, I remind myself not to fall under the influence of those first powerful impressions from my initial encounter with such a magnificent country. China is too vast and too complex to grasp or understand through reading or just one visit. Even during my stay, impressions were rushing in so fast that I thought I was gathering material for many columns. Now, knowing that my next column coincides with the October 7th—the beginning of the bloody drama that turned into a genocide, which the sacred watches with eyes wide shut—I...

Sustainable peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of development, justice and harmony The three authors were published today by China Watch & China Daily’s English edition. It will also be published in Chinese and thereby reach a very large audience. The article also represents the first cooperative effort between Guangdong Institute for International Strategies and TFF. Li Xing who is a Yunshan leading scholar and a distinguished professor at Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, and professor of international relations at Aalborg University, Denmark. Jan Oberg is a former professor and co-founder and director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden. Li Qing is professor and executive president at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. Now head over to China Daily > >

Thore Vestby & Arild Vollan Visiting today’s China is like travelling into the future. So much has happened in the last 20-30 years that we should travel to China to learn and see what is happening. It’s incredible what the country has achieved in just a few years. Soon, China will have built 50,000 kilometres of high-speed train lines. Just travelling by train in China is such a great experience that it’s worth the visit. These trains are completely silent and offer a level of comfort you’ll find in first-class aeroplanes—an enchanting and must-experience travel experience. Strangely, we in Norway can’t make “pirate copies” of Chinese trains. We are told that Chinese companies are happy to build new high-speed train lines in Norway. But we ran into problems when we tried to explain to the Chinese that we in Norway have introduced “Bus for Train”. It’s a term that doesn’t...

Ethnic minorities expert Barry Sautman gives his take on education, the next Dalai Lama, Han chauvinism and Beijing’s treatment of Uygurs September 24, 2024 Barry Sautman is a professor emeritus at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Division of Social Science and visiting professor at Tsinghua University. An expert on China’s ethnic minorities, particularly the Tibetan and Uygur communities, his research focuses on minority rights, cultural preservation and social change. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus.For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here. This article/interview was first published by the South China Morning Post on September 23, 2024 What drew you to ethnic minority issues in China? I’d been to Xinjiang perhaps three or four times many years ago. I was concentrating on a particular subject, which was preferential policies. At that time I was studying them broadly, going to different minority areas including Tibet,...

Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance is ‘not just regional but global’, a Western overreach that will be dangerous and destabilising Alex Lo September 24, 2024 In politics and war, delusion often sounds like vision. Jens Stoltenberg certainly has “that vision thing”, as the late George H.W. Bush once derisively called it. If the retiring Nato chief is anything to go by, and I hope not, the biggest military alliance in history with “North Atlantic” in its title is about to go global. Is this Western alliance about to expand into the East? If so, what do you call that? Western imperialism redux? This article was first printed by the South China Morning Post on September 24, 2024 In his parting gift for world peace or rather world war, Stoltenberg said in an interview with Foreign Policy, which is itself an undeclared information organ of Washington’s security and foreign policy elites,...

And its positive attitude to the West Jan Oberg Shanghai, China, September 16, 2024 When travelling around China, one of many things to note is that the Chinese are very positive toward the West, make use of Western inspirations, and know much more about the West than Westerners know about China.This is quite remarkable because, historically, China has been the object of ruthless Western colonialism and warfare as well as racism—e.g. the ”yellow fewer/danger” syndrome—while China has done nothing similar to the West. Here are some examples, big and small, of the mentioned knowledge and fascination of the West: • Many young Chinese have chosen to have a Western name, like, say, Alison or Kevin. They say it is difficult for us in the West to remember and pronounce Chinese names. • The Chinese know all the Western brands and gladly call their products something related to the West. They...