Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambition by now is clear: to reclaim his country’s global greatness and establish itself over time as the pre-eminent economic and political power, not only in Asia but across the world stage.
Afghanistanʹs drug economy provides a regular income to rural communities in this extremely unstable country. With eighty-five percent of villages in the countryʹs south cultivating opium poppies, yield fluctuations have more to do with the weather than government policy.