Author: Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner

Chinese Communist officials have branded the constraints imposed on Hong Kong’s electoral system as “the new practice of democracy” in the former British colony — a vocabulary for the ideological competition between Washington and Beijing. “The standard of whether an election is successful is not how high-profile or bustling it is but if the elected…

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government raised the specter of a military conflict in a series of statements reinforcing their demanded rollback of NATO military presence in Eastern Europe after U.S. lawmakers denounced the Kremlin proposal as a “pretext for war” against Ukraine. “The security situation in Europe, the Euro-Atlantic region, and Eurasia has indeed greatly…

A seventh round of nuclear negotiations billed as a “last chance” to rehabilitate the 2015 nuclear deal came to an inconclusive close, as Iranian officials agreed to “an agenda” for negotiations over key impediments to the rehabilitation of the 2015 nuclear deal and then called it a day. “It was better than it might have…

Russian President Vladimir Putin will bear the blame for Russian soldiers “coming home in body bags” if he orders a new invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden’s administration said in response to the Kremlin’s latest high-stakes maneuver. “The Russian people don’t need a war with Ukraine,” a senior administration official told reporters Friday. “They don’t…

Russian President Vladimir Putin will suffer “massive consequences” for another invasion of Ukraine, NATO allies vowed in an unusual warning to Moscow. “We are gravely concerned by the substantial, unprovoked, and unjustified Russian military build-up on the borders of Ukraine in recent months, and reject the false Russian claims of Ukrainian and NATO provocations,” the…

President Joe Biden’s administration has blacklisted more than three dozen Chinese companies and research organizations in a bid to deny Chinese security services access to cutting-edge American biotechnology. “The scientific pursuit of biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Thursday. “Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to…

A global conflict between the great powers of the world is “already in full swing,” according to a senior Russian diplomat, and it’s happening in cyberspace. “The war [in cyberspace] is underway and unfolding very intensively,” the Russian Foreign Ministry’s international information security director, Alexander Krutskikh, told a political science conference on Thursday. “The media…

Chinese and Russian forces could soon expand their military exercises in a show of unity against the United States and allied democracies, following a new dialogue between Beijing and Moscow. Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the measures on Wednesday in a virtual meeting. The conversation occurred in a fraught…

Chinese military forces conducted live-fire drills in the South China Sea, even as Chinese diplomats sought to rebut the warning about “Beijing’s aggressive actions” that Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered on a tour of Southeast Asia. “It is not China that deliberately provokes disputes in the South China Sea and sows discord between regional…

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned China that an invasion of Taiwan would incur incalculable costs as the senior Japanese politician and U.S. officials spoke up for the island democracy’s autonomy. “When there is a threat over Taiwan and its democracy, it is a dire challenge to all of us, especially to Japan,” said…