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Begin New Search Topic Development Political Geography Russia Journal The National Interest

1. Beware Collusion of China, Russia

Author:
Leslie H. Gelb and Dimitri K. Simes
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The National Interest
Abstract:
VISITING MOSCOW during his first international trip as China's new president in March, Xi Jinping told his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that Beijing and Moscow should “resolutely support each other in efforts to protect national sovereignty, security and development interests.” He also promised to “closely coordinate in international regional affairs.” Putin reciprocated by saying that “the strategic partnership between us is of great importance on both a bilateral and global scale.” While the two leaders' summit rhetoric may have outpaced reality in some areas, Americans should carefully assess the Chinese-Russian relationship, its implications for the United States and our options in responding. The Putin-Xi summit received little attention in official Washington circles or the media, and this oversight could be costly. Today Moscow and Beijing have room for maneuver and a foundation for mutual cooperation that could damage American interests.
Topic:
International Relations and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Beijing, and Moscow

2. The Fallacy of Human Freedom

Author:
Robert W. Merry
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The National Interest
Abstract:
John Gray, The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), 288 pp., $26.00. JEAN-JACQUES Rousseau famously lamented, "Man is born to be free-and is everywhere in chains!" To which Alexander Herzen, a nineteenth-century Russian journalist and thinker, replied, in a dialogue he concocted between a believer in human freedom and a skeptic, "Fish are born to fly-but everywhere they swim!" In Herzen's dialogue, the skeptic offers plenty of evidence for his theory that fish are born to fly: fish skeletons, after all, show extremities with the potential to develop into legs and wings; and there are of course so-called flying fish, which proves a capacity to fly in certain circumstances. Having presented his evidence, the skeptic asks the believer why he doesn't demand from Rousseau a similar justification for his statement that man must be free, given that he seems to be always in chains. "Why," he asks, "does everything else exist as it ought to exist, whereas with man, it is the opposite?"
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
Russia