Author: Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner

Chinese strategists and officials across the Indo-Pacific see a heightened risk of an accident that triggers a conflict between the communist regime and the United States, due in part to Beijing’s intensifying military pressure on Taiwan. The shadow of a conflict has grown of late, as Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has affirmed his intention…

State Department officials are struggling to operate the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia, having lost 90% of their staff as a result of a sanctions-related controversy that could force the embassy in Moscow to the brink of closure. “We’re not going to be able to carry on as we have over the last several years,”…

State Department officials are developing a “precept on diversity and inclusion” for the foreign service promotion process as Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team tries to manage perennial criticism that the U.S. diplomatic corps isn’t diverse enough. The news comes as the Blinken State Department has become known for promoting a “woke” cultural agenda. The…

New Zealand, a U.S. ally with a reputation for economic dependence on China and conflict avoidance, wants to participate in a landmark trilateral defense deal between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. “And cyber is one area that we’d certainly be interested in, but there’s no detail yet — so we will be…

U.S. officials are strategizing about “expanding Taiwan’s participation at the United Nations,” according to a State Department announcement that left Chinese officials fuming just as they were planning to celebrate the regime’s arrival at the United Nations. “This totally went against the tide of history,” former Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said…

A Hungarian diplomat hosting his U.S. counterpart at a Washington event raised eyebrows Thursday with an acrimonious accusation that the Biden administration is meddling in his country’s upcoming election. Ferenc Dancs, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry’s deputy state secretary for North America, sent a stir through the Champagne-sipping gathering at the tony Cosmos Club with the…

World powers should censure Iran for stonewalling the United Nations nuclear inspectors, according to the watchdog agency’s chief. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi’s call for the global rebuke of Iran comes after months of Western powers avoiding action, fearing it might jeopardize President Joe Biden’s bid to broker a return to the 2015…

European Union legislators voted overwhelmingly in favor of trade talks with Taiwan and other measures flouting China’s claims to sovereignty over the island, leaving officials in Beijing fuming at the display of tension between Western democracies and the communist regime. “It is vile in nature and has an egregious impact,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned “packing courts” as a threat to democratic systems and governance, during a trip to Latin America that could put him crosswise with a left-wing campaign to enlarge the Supreme Court. “Consider a country where a leader is elected in a free and fair election and then sets about chipping…

China and Russia have surpassed the United States in the exploration of key space-related technologies due to shortfalls “likely” to prevent NASA from achieving its goal of a manned mission to Mars by 2033. That assessment reflects a failure to invest in the research and development of nuclear propulsion systems needed to carry humans to…