Foreign Affairs

最近中国发生的种种事情都令人不安。 几十万的维吾尔族穆斯林被关入新疆的奥威尔式的“再教育营”。香港的一个政党被取缔，尽管香港在中国享有特殊地位和长期的言论自由。 [Read the English version of this article here.] 一位南部港口城市的教师被要求交出护照，以便他的学校能够密切关注他的行动。 诺贝尔奖获得者刘晓波——一位身患疾病的异见者——被禁止出国寻求医疗。旨在打击犯罪的国际刑警组织的主席刚回到中国就消失了，再次出现时竟已被政府拘留，面临腐败的指控。这样的例子不胜枚举。 类似事件的报道一个个浮出水面，每个报道本身都令人震惊，但又很容易被当作积极的大方向中无须重视的小插曲。然而，把这些散落的事件组合在一起，我们就会看清习近平主席掌控下的中国的真实方向，这是一幅令人感到压抑的画面。 中国正在大谈进步，但很多方面都正在回到过去，中国的领导干部在镇压上愈发不顾颜面了。 新疆政府把维吾尔族百分之五到百分之十的人口集体关押起来，这种手段似乎属于上个世纪，而非二十一世纪。 但这些严厉措施并非简单地收回过去几十年的改革和开放。北京方面正在将这些措施扩大到更大的地理范畴，将它们从西部边境地区扩展到相比之下似乎相对自由的地区，并采用高科技服务于老式的的极权主义野心。简而言之，我们目睹的不是中国压迫现状的延续，而是一种令人震惊的新事物的开始。 镇压的前沿- 新疆 在中国西部土地辽阔的新疆，本地人反抗中国统治已有多年历史。相对而言，中国通过控制当地人的外出、言论和文化表达来镇压这种反对也行之有年。但在过去的两年里，当局采取了前所未有的措施，向该地区的维吾尔族和其他少数民族强制灌输汉族文化。中国建立了一个由180多个“教育转化”营组成的网络，在没在有任何刑事指控的情况下，关押了多达一百万维吾尔族和其他少数民族。当局声称这些中心是用于“职业培训”和“法制教育”。一些曾经的囚犯描述了一种由军事化训练和普遍虐待构成的体制，他们说在那里，囚犯们大喊党的口号，学习习近平思想。与此同时，当局招募了大批汉族公民入住维吾尔族家庭，监视这些家庭，挑选需要再教育的人。...

The Spanish government's plans to exhume the country's former dictator Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen has caused a fierce debate over the dictator's legacy and the politics of memory. 

Earlier this month, Geir Pedersen, Norway’s ambassador to China and a former permanent representative to the United Nations, was appointed special envoy on the Syria conflict. The task Pedersen inherits is gargantuan, even for one of the better-respected diplomats in the UN biosphere, and one with a long history of work on seemingly intractable conflicts. Syria has been brutalized for nearly eight years now. Pedersen inherits a broken opposition and a stubborn, unruly, murderous dictator in Damascus who refuses to leave. At the very heart of any negotiation must be the simple premise that Assad—a man with much blood on his hands, but who retains the support of Putin and Hezbollah—must go. 

The turmoil in the Catholic Church today reveals yet another front in the populist rebellion against establishment leaders that has roiled the politics of the West.

The United States and key regional allies are finally sharpening their focus on strategic competition with China for influence in the South Pacific.

Focus on liberalizing investment, not trade, at the G-20.

Jair Bolsonaro has accomplished the once unthinkable: he has won the presidency of Latin America’s largest country, which accounts for approximately 40 percent of the region’s population and a roughly equal share of its GDP. Bolsonaro will likely preside over the biggest foreign policy shift in Brazil's recent history—a change that will have important reverberations throughout the Americas and across the globe. He has made clear his intention not only to be one of Washington’s strongest allies but to borrow much of his international agenda directly from Trump’s playbook. 

The Khashoggi affair comes at a bad time for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is facing economic troubles and tension with Europe and Washington. But Erdogan seems to be playing his cards carefully, and trying to turn the affair into an opportunity to damage the reputation of his rival, the young Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). Ankara seems to have more evidence against Riyadh than it has revealed so far, suggesting that Erdogan might be using some evidence as leverage to extract concessions, such as increased financial support from Saudi Arabia or exemption from impending U.S. sanctions on Iran. 

Despite Jair Bolsonaro's repeated misogynist comments about women, his anti-corruption, law-and-order platform has the support of many female voters concerned about corruption and violence in Brazil. 

The split in the Orthodox Church between Constantinople and Moscow will have wide-ranging implications for Russia's foreign policy under Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian domestic politics under Petro Poroshenko.

Khashoggi's death has made the need to reassess the US-Saudi relationship urgent and unavoidable.

Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, Europeans have struggled to come to terms with his confrontational style and policies. From Trump’s tariffs to his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris agreement to calling the EU a “foe,” no U.S. president since World War II has appeared so distant, even hostile, to European interests. Early on, many European leaders attempted to cultivate a good relationship with Trump, hoping that a personal connection could help calm the increasingly turbulent waters of the transatlantic alliance. Some, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and EU President Jean-Claude Juncker, succeeded, while others, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May, fared less well.

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With U.S. untethering a continuing trend, a Europe whole, free, and at peace means a Europe able to fend for itself on the world stage

Iraq has a new president and prime minister, but the way they gained power strongly suggests that their appointments were the result of muhasasa dealings rather than the functioning of parliamentary democracy. If this turns out to be true, any efforts they make to reform Iraq’s corrupt government will be hampered by the debts they owe to the powers that put them in place.

We asked dozens of experts to weigh in on whether the transatlantic alliance has been irreparably damaged.

This sprawling book by a Pakistani diplomat and anthropologist examines why relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe are so contentious—and what might be done about it. 

Ever since World War II, countries have been reluctant to officially declare war on one another, even after they appear to be fighting one. Because a declaration of war brings burdensome legal consequences, the simplest approach is to find a euphemism to describe the conflict.

Anyone glancing at a newspaper these days finds a litany of woes: war, crime, disease, terrorism, and environmental disasters, all sandwiched between predictions of the coming collapse of market capitalism and liberal democracy. U.S. politicians on both the right, such as President Donald Trump, and the left, such as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, warn that the United States and the world are sliding toward calamity. Pessimism rules the day. The world does indeed face challenges. Yet by almost any measure, life for most people has been getting better in almost every way. Levels of war and conflict are near historic lows. People are living longer and healthier lives and are better educated than ever before. Incomes for most families are higher than at any time in history. One billion people around the world have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the last two decades, and although...

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and former State Department Principal Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy Richard Nephew argue that since the end of the Cold War, the United States’ use of unilateral economic policy, particularly sanctions, has threatened to alienate other countries and undermine U.S. power. Under President Donald Trump, that threat has become a reality.

A future conventional conflict between the United States and China could slide into a nuclear crisis more easily than we think.