Asia & the Pacific

China hopes to see good results from trade talks with the United States, the country’s foreign ministry said on Monday (Feb 11), as the the latest round of negotiations began in Beijing.  

In August 2018, the nonpartisan Aspen Strategy Group (ASG) convened its thirtyfourth annual meeting in Aspen, Colorado. Over the course of three days, ASG members and invited experts from government, universities, think tanks, and the private sector debated the impact of dramatic technological change over the next decade on American national security. Our conversations covered a wide breadth of emerging technologies—artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, and biotechnology—and the challenges they pose to America’s military, the intelligence community, U.S. economic power, and democratic institutions. Our group grappled with the central dilemma of how the U.S. government can harness these technologies—developed primarily in the private sector and research labs—to compete with China and other adversaries in the years ahead.

Will protests at home hurt French President Macron's efforts to be seen as a leader of the West? Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns digs in.

For a decade now the Halifax International Security Forum has been a place to discuss the major external threats facing Western democracies and how to counter them.  One of the main themes coming out of this year's gathering of military, political and academic leaders is the biggest threat to democracy is coming from within.

"In the democratic world, many of our strongest and largest democracies are in some type of crisis," says former U.S. ambassador Nicholas Burns, who now teaches at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

We have the most solipsistic president in American history offering up the most solipsistic foreign policy ever at a time when the me-me-me generation are busy taking selfies and other pols the planet over are trying to play that self-centeredness to their advantage. Have we reached Peak Solipsism? And what does that mean for the international system. We discuss in honor of and in the context of this week’s meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York City with David Rothkopf in New York, Ambassador Nicholas Burns in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rosa Brooks in Washington, DC and Kori Schake in London, England.

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro joined Harvard Kennedy School Professor Nicholas Burns in a discussion concerning the role Congress should play in foreign policy in the era of President Trump. Castro discussed his upbringing and the civic conscious he gained at a young age alongside his twin brother Julian Castro, which encouraged him to eventually pursue a career in public service. The conversation covered a wide range of foreign affairs topics including immigration, trade, and terrorism. Castro took questions from the audience and voiced his concerns about a variety of global developments and threats and his believe that Congress should take a more active role in these issues.  

Ambassador Burns says it was "unwise" for Trump to question Russian meddling during a joint news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Poland on Thursday. Burns states that in doing so, Trump was "out of step with his own political party" and failed to defend the United States.