China’s Hundred-Year Strategy

Beijing has a documented plan to be the premier global superpower by 2049. It’s over halfway there. 

Americans think in four-year election cycles. Chinese leaders think in terms of centuries. Just leaf through the glossy, cream-colored, gold-flecked pages of The Governance of China. This anthology of political theories by Chinese President Xi Jinping is considered almost sacred scripture in Beijing.

Across 18 chapters about leading the most populous nation on the planet, Xi outlines his utopian vision for the Chinese people. In the world he describes, the Chinese are heirs to an ancient and unique civilization entitled to a privileged position among nations. In this world, China is an economic, cultural and military superpower, while the United States is no longer a major geopolitical power.

Asian countries decide to create trade pact for A-Pac

NEW DELHI: Business leaders of Asian nations today decided to promote new free trade agreements and strengthen the existing pacts to use them as building blocks for creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).

According to a joint statement issued after the 4th Asian Business Summit, economic partnership agreements and FTAs will bind Asian economies together and promote greater regional cooperation for expanded trade in goods, services and greater cross-border investment flows, besides dismantling of non- tariff barriers.

Europe and US pledge to create world’s biggest trading bloc

A very good point is made in the sense that this could be a means to contain China’s growing economic hegemony while simultaneously bolstering both EU and US growth.

The European Union and America are to open negotiations with the aim of creating the world’s biggest free trade area worth €86bn (£75bn) within two years.

The talks have been heralded as a “game-changer” that could help kick-start stagnant or contracting European economies back into growth by adding 0.5pc to GDP every year.

David Cameron pledged that Britain, which currently chairs the G8 group of countries, would do everything it could to help broker the difficult talks.