South East Asia

Ukraine war: Russia’s G20 walkout heightens tensions at fractious summit as China’s rise continues

While G20 foreign ministers were meeting in Bali, Indonesia, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, threatened further escalation in his war against Ukraine, announcing to the world that “by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet”. What he meant became quickly clear when a missile attack hit an apartment building in Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killing 33 people. Further indiscriminate attacks followed against Kharkiv in northern Ukraine and Mykolaiv in the south.

G7 Countries Have a Plan to Counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

At the recent G7 Leaders’ Summit in Germany, Western leaders formally launched a global infrastructure and investment partnership, largely designed to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Since its launch in 2013, BRI has been marred by criticism of unsustainable infrastructure projects in some recipient countries—from debt traps to environmentally degrading and democracy eroding projects.

European Scientists Empowering China’s Military

“Western universities need to understand that Chinese military scientists have only one client, and that is the People’s Liberation Army.” — Meia Nouwens, researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Politiken, May 19, 2022.

The Taliban Will Have Trouble Reining in Afghanistan’s Opium Economy

In the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a great deal of attention has been given to the causes and consequences of the failed intra-Afghan peace process, the factors leading to the collapse of the Afghan military and the role played by pervasive corruption at the highest levels of the country’s internationally backed government.

Xi Sees the Ukraine War Through the Lens of the U.S.-China Rivalry

Not long after the commencement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I wrote that for China, binding itself tightly to Moscow would do harm to Beijing’s long-term interests.

That is because, I wrote, an alliance between a superpower like China and a far less dynamic country like Russia, whose economy is a small fraction of the former’s size, is not much of an alliance. This would especially hold true if Beijing’s support for Russian President Vladimir Putin deepened European wariness of China and caused Europe and the United States to grow even closer, both of which now seem almost certain.

Russia-Ukraine War: Implications for Asian Geoeconomics

As the war and resulting sanctions redraw trade maps in Asia, Iran stands to be the primary beneficiary.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has set off a series of sanctions from Western states and many others that will have broad implications for some time to come, even in the unlikely scenario of a relatively quick end to the fighting. The impact on the global economy and supply chains from both the war and the escalating sanctions regime has already been significant but will have long-term consequences on the geoeconomics of Asia and East-West trade that require closer examination.

Great Power folly? NATO’s ill-timed turn to China

While Europe becomes increasingly dependent on the US in its own backyard, the alliance puts Beijing on notice.

Russia and Ukraine are at war, Europe’s failure to take its defense seriously is evident to all, and the allies finally feel pressure to spend and do more militarily. Why, then, did they treat China as an adversary and invite several Asia-Pacific governments to last week’s NATO summit?