The Kremlin made sure this year was the year the world finally took notice of Russia. But there was a hitch: Much of the world didn't like what it saw.
In some ways, this year marked Russia's biggest breakthrough on the international stage since the trauma of the 1991 Soviet collapse.
As the world's energy king -- the leading natural gas producer and second oil producer after Saudi Arabia -- Moscow now has a guaranteed seat at the international economic table where until just a few years ago Russian finance ministers went cap in hand.
New diplomatic clout was on display in July when Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted world leaders from the powerful Group of Eight (G8) club in Saint Petersburg. Moscow paid off billions of dollars in foreign debt and took a boldly independent line on major international issues, including Iran.
"The most important thing we felt was that there was a significant increase of the Russian factor in international affairs," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in summary on Wednesday.
But if Russia is back, few in the West are laying out the welcome mat.
The influential Economist magazine recently portrayed Putin on its cover as a Chicago mobster -- aiming a petrol pump instead of a machine-gun.
"Don't mess with Russia," the headline reads, echoing warnings throughout the Western media, while influential US congressmen continue to push for Moscow to be excluded from the G8.
The ill feeling kicked off as early as January, when Russia's giant Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in retaliation for the Western-leaning ex-Soviet republic refusing a more than fourfold price increase.
Moscow insisted the goal was to apply market principles to gas sales, but many in the West saw evidence not of a resurgent Russia, but an authoritarian country ready to bully smaller neighbors.
The image battle tipped the other way in July when the Kremlin, helped by top US public relations firm Ketchum, launched a G8 charm offensive.
But that diplomatic summer of love ended abruptly with a return to the kind of Russia that most associate with the wild 1990s.
In September, gunmen in Moscow assassinated the deputy head of the central bank. Then in October Anna Politkovskaya -- crusading journalist, human rights activist and Putin critic -- was shot dead outside her home in the capital.
Russia also became embroiled in a mismatched diplomatic fight with tiny Georgia, a pro-Western neighbor that claimed to have arrested four Russian spies and was slapped with an economic embargo in return.
Then came the real crunch: the radiation poisoning death in London last month of fugitive Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.
In a dramatic, if so far totally unsubstantiated deathbed statement, Litvinenko pointed the finger directly at Putin, and this triggered an avalanche of reports about political repression in Russia and the resurrection of the KGB.
"The image of Russia is now in a deplorable state," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov conceded this week. "The mood definitely worries us, the mood of many Western media."
Peskov acknowledged that there had been "a series of contract killings" and other "objective problems" in Russia, but argued that these had been used by the media in an "aggressive anti-Russian campaign."
Lavrov dismissed much of the criticism as sour grapes at Russia's oil-fueled return to world power status.
According to Moscow Carnegie Center analyst Masha Lipman, Moscow's image problem is undermining the achievements on the economic and diplomatic fronts.
"There was a real increase of Russian influence in the world this year. Russia is holding an ever more independent position. Look at Iran, North Korea and Russia's competitiveness with the West over Central Asia," she said.
"At the same time, Russia's image has very seriously worsened [and] the worsening of this image is starting to harm Russia because there is no trust left."
Leaders throughout Europe and the US who largely befriended Putin are on their way out, she noted, and "the future leaders can be expected to be less patient."
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
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