Introduction: The U.S.-China “Trade War” Since Early 2018 For over a year, the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been engaged in a contentious trade dispute initiated by the Trump Administration over a host of alleged unfair Chinese trading practices: ranging... MORE

Introduction: China’s (Junior) European Partners in the “16+1” On the heels of People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping’s busy bilateral tour in Western Europe in March, PRC Premier Li Keqiang started his own multilateral tour in Eastern Europe in April. Designed primarily to... MORE

Representatives of Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian railways inked a cooperation memorandum on May 6, 2019, in Ankara, to leverage the potential of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway and increase the volume of freight carried along the route (Azertag.az, May 6). “The tripartite cooperation will boost the... MORE

April 2019 saw a flurry of activity around the Baltic Pipe infrastructure project set to connect Poland and Denmark. The pipeline, which will carry around 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from the North Sea to Poland and further to the Baltic States, is... MORE

Introduction—A New Approach to United Front Work in Central and Eastern Europe In the era of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, “united front work” (tongyi zhanxian gongzuo, 统一战线工作) has taken on greater significance and a global scale (China Brief, April 24, 2018;... MORE

The European Commission and its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, are bracing for a May 13 deadline, presented to them on April 12 in a quasi-ultimatum form by Nord Stream Two project company CEO, Matthias Warnig (112.international, April 23). On the company’s behalf, Warnig threatens to sue... MORE

Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer, Novatek, which captured the largest share of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in Europe in the first quarter of 2019, has sold 20 percent of its planned Arctic 2 LNG project to China (Novatek.ru, April 25). The stake went... MORE

The Kremlin is losing the most important “weapon” in its campaign to restore a semblance of Moscow’s former empire in the post-Soviet space. According to Russian commentator Semyon Novoprudky, that weapon is the economic dependence of many post-Soviet countries on the Russian labor market (Spektr.press,... MORE

On April 24, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev arrived in China to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (Report.az, April 24). This was Aliyev’s second official visit to the world’s most populous country, since 2015. In light of growing Chinese involvement in... MORE

One year ago, in April 2018, a quasi-authoritarian regime collapsed as a result of a nationwide protest movement in Armenia labeled the “Velvet Revolution” (see EDM, April 23, 2018). And the following December, the first non-fraudulent election in 20 years secured a comfortable parliamentary majority... MORE