There is no official word either from China or from India on who will represent Beijing at the upcoming G20 summit.
China, besides denying the United States allegations that COVID-19 has emerged from a bio-lab in Wuhan, also rejected that it emanated from a wet market in the central Chinese city from bats or pangolins before infecting humans.
While the US omitted China and Russia from the list of invitees, Beijing was furious over the invitation to the self-governing island Taiwan, which China said is a blatant violation of the 'One China' policy that considers Taipei as the integral part of the Chinese mainland.
Against the backdrop of the standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh, the White House press secy said the United States was closely monitoring the current situation and supports its peaceful resolution.
Why omit the Tiananmen massacre from the history of China's Communist party, asks Claude Arpi.
Experts said the tensions have added to a sense of apprehension in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia that China will engage in more aggressive behaviour in pursuit of its territorial interests, which in turn has raised the possibility of a serious and coordinated pushback by leading global players.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist party of China and the People's Republic of China's president, was received at Moscow airport by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko and not Russian President Vladmir Putin as expected.
How China's all powerful Communist party bungled the response to the coronavirus crisis.
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Chinese observers forecast that whether it is Trump or Biden, they are expected to follow tough and hardline policies towards Beijing as part of US efforts to contain the rise of China.
'It's a very tough situation. We're talking to India. We're talking to China. They've got a big problem there'
India and China achieved a major milestone this year when their bilateral trade crossed the landmark figure of $100 billion but it did not generate any fanfare in both capitals as the two Asian giants are going through a "particularly bad patch" in their relations due to a set of actions by Beijing in violation of agreements that led to the military standoff in eastern Ladakh. Starting with a modest $1.83 billion in 2001, the bilateral trade crossed $100 billion-mark in the first 11 months this year, a significant milestone for which the two countries carried out campaigns to boost trade and build it as a major stakeholder to improve the relations between two nations, whose ties otherwise remained frosty over the festering boundary dispute and strategic rivalry. According to last month's data from China's General Administration of Customs (GAC), the India-China bilateral trade totalled $114.263 billion, up 46.4 per cent year-on-year from January to November 2021.
NewsClick said that none of these investigations led to any chargesheets or complaints over the last three years."
'There is little doubt that China today stands in the dock, charged with misdemeanour with regard to the health and well-being of its own citizens and of the people of the world,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
The United States-China Summit meeting concluded at a sprawling mansion in Woodside, California with Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreeing to work towards ensuring that the differences between the two countries remain manageable and the relations do not derail.
"CCP's (Chinese Communist Party) territorial aggression is also apparent on its Indian border where China has attempted to seize control of the Line of Actual Control by force," US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien said in a remark on China early this week in Utah.
'The leadership is confronted with an economy growing at its slowest pace in 20 years,' points out Claude Smadja.
China is all set to send on Thursday the first three crew members to its under-construction space station which is expected to be Beijing's eye in the sky and will rival the ageing International Space Station (ISS).
Pompeo, who became the Trump administration's highest ranking official to visit Sri Lanka, said that the US and Sri Lanka shared a vision for democracy to build a relationship and the "freedom to hold democratic elections".
What was the need for Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, President of the People's Republic of China and Chairman, Central Military Commission, to don the new role of Commander in-Chief? Does this mean that the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao faces numerous threats from within the Communist Party?
The magazine in its cover story, titled 'Revisiting Tiananmen Square', has said globally the anti-China sentiment is at its peak since 1989 students' protests. The publication has made this claim citing an assessment report of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated to the Ministry of State Security, which happens to be China's top intelligence body.
Europe's bloated welfare state helps you understand the old communist adage 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'.
Xi, 68, holds China's all three power centres -- General-Secretary of the CPC, Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission which is the overall high command of the military, and the Presidency is set to complete his second five-year tenure next year.
'How Xi Jinping will withdraw the aggression and justify it to his Communist party in case of a negotiated settlement might be his biggest headache.' 'Unless he is ready to gamble on an armed conflict, whose outcome given India's battle-readiness and determination is always uncertain,' observes Virendra Kapoor.
The entire gamut of China's activities is aimed at keeping India on tenterhooks, cause fatigue to its troops and keeping its security system unstable, so that it cannot play a meaningful role in international geopolitics as an effective partner of the US and Japan, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
In its set of recommendations, the China Committee said that economic sanctions against China in case of an attack on Taiwan will be most effective if key allies such as G7, NATO, NATO+5, and Quad members join, and negotiating a joint response and broadcasting this message publicly have the added benefit of enhancing deterrence.
Chinese billionaire and Alibaba group founder Jack Ma is suspected to be missing following his mysterious disappearance from the public eye for over two months after Beijing's aggressive crackdown on his business empire.
Henry Kissinger once said, 'It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.' India will have to wait and see, observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
The rover, Zhurong, named after a god of fire and war in Chinese mythology, landed at the pre-selected area in Utopia Planitia on Mars, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The massive square became famous all over the world with an iconic picture of a young man standing before a row of battle tanks in a bid to stop them.
'Xi's assumption of absolute power is neither complete, nor irreversible.' 'Nor is it safe, for Xi, for his party, or for his country more generally.' 'And the government knows this,' says Mihir S Sharma.
Speculation about the missing Chinese Defence Minister General Li Shangfu may have been removed and detained became rife after he was conspicuously absent at the meeting of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in Beijing on Friday.
'Which will not happen.' 'Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has expressly refuted Beijing's statement that normalcy was returning to Sino-Indian relations.'
'India need to look beyond the economic prism.' 'China had no qualms in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council last year -- not once, but thrice -- thus violating Indian sensitivities,' observes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The onus today is on China, but it also requires a little diplomatic finesse from India, backed by a modernised armed force, argues BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in this excerpt from his new book, Himalayan Challenge: India, China And The Quest For Peace.
'COVID-19 will not stop the expansion of China's 'infrastructure power'.'
It is premature to make the assumption that Biden's policy toward China will not be a break with Trump, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'India cannot allow Beijing's policy of stabilising and destabilising the border at will to perpetuate its own ends.' A riveting excerpt from Manish Tiwari's 10 Flashpoints; 20 Years National Security Situations That Impacted India.
The military preparations underway show that the PLA may undertake operations this summer to achieve whatever objectives they could not achieve last May, asserts Jayadeva Ranade, the distinguished China expert and retired RA&W officer.
