The News from Down Under – Steady but with some Fluff

Central Bank Governors and Finance Ministers of G20 countries pose for a family picture near the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge

The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers (Ministers) met this weekend in Australia to further develop the G20 Brisbane Action Agenda. They released, mercifully, a short communique that identified, whether stated or not, their continued measured efforts to achieve in G20-speak ‘strong sustainable and balanced growth”.  This meeting is just one piece in a continuing effort to provide policy coordination for the G20 – and a step along the road to the completion of the Brisbane Action Plan.

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From Past to Future Historical Lessons and the US-China Relationship

World War I (2)

 

The historiography of World War I and the examination of the events that led to war on August 4, 1914 are enormous.  Notwithstanding that very large historical and analytic record, the examination of the approach to World War I is in the process of receiving a new infusion as I suggested  recently in The Flood of Remembrance – 100 Years Since the Great War approach the 100th anniversary of the war’s outbreak. Indeed this very article and the others that accompany it are part of this new look at an old issue.

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Avoiding A New Cold War – I don’t think so!

East China Seas ADA33CDA-EEA5-489A-BB1D-3EFFDCBCFD0F_mw1024_n_s

Fashioning a moderately cooperative relationship between the US and China – the two great powers in the international system today  – has occupied many minds.  International relations specialists continue to be haunted by ‘power transition’ thesis.  According to this hypothesis, when a rising power challenges the leading status quo power, competition and often conflict follows.  Indeed historical examinations over the last century and a bit suggest that when these conditions prevail, with the most notable exception of the US and Great Britain in the late nineteenth century, these changes in the power distribution among the great powers lead to competition, rivalry and conflict.  It certainly underscores the long standing effort by the Harvard Study Group – the group I have been involved with for a number of years – and many other bilateral US-China efforts to focus their attentions on the changing dynamic of the US-China relationship.  As Beida’s Yiping Huang has written recently:

But times have changed. Today, although the US is still the world’s largest economy, China is already the second-largest and is set to overtake the US with

in the next 10 years. It is, therefore, reasonable for China and other developing countries to want to be part of the new rule-making process. But a transition of global superpowers could make all parties very nervous, as in history it often ended in war. This makes China–US cooperation all the more important, not only to avoid major confrontation but also to build a better world (January 19, 2014 EastAsiaForum.com).

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