South East Asia

Modi’s Big Mistake

How Neutrality on Ukraine Weakens India

In February, as Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border and Russian missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities, India equivocated. Its representatives at the UN abstained on 12 resolutions condemning the invasion. Its initial statements at the Security Council were decidedly mealy-mouthed: its UN ambassador did not mention Russia by name, nor did he criticize the war. India’s foreign ministry expressed a curious evenhandedness, seeking “de-escalation,” as if both countries were belligerents, and pleading for a “return” to “the path of diplomatic negotiations and dialogue.” Despite the rhetorical care the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted to appear neutral, the time may have come for India, in its own interest, to rethink its stance.

The New Nuclear Age

How China’s Growing Nuclear Arsenal Threatens Deterrence

In late June 2021, satellite images revealed that China was building 120 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos on the edge of the Gobi Desert. This was followed by the revelation a few weeks later that another 110 missile silos were under construction in Hami, in Xinjiang Province. Together with other planned expansions, these sites amount to a dramatic shift in the country’s approach to nuclear weapons. For decades, China maintained a relatively small nuclear force, but according to current U.S. intelligence estimates, that arsenal is now on track to nearly quadruple, to 1,000 weapons, by 2030, a number that will put China far above any other nuclear power save Russia and the United States. Nor does it seem likely that Beijing will stop there, given President Xi Jinping’s commitment to build a “world class” military by 2049 and his refusal to enter into arms control talks.

With Russian Route Blocked, Uzbekistan Looks to Indian-Iranian-Afghan Chabahar Port Project

The Russo-Ukraine war, the extensive Western sanctions against Russia, and the growing possibility that European border states will block east-west transit corridors traversing Russian territory into Europe are having far-reaching implications for the landlocked countries of Central Asia, which have historically relied on road and rail corridors through Russia to reach markets there and beyond. Prior to the war, Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus had all hoped to be part of the “New Eurasian Land Bridge” linking Europe to East Asia. But those aims were derailed when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale re-invasion of Ukraine on February 24. This has created a severe headache for China, endangering as it does its Belt and Road Initiative’s (BRI) northern route, which crossed Russia and the Black Sea via Central Asia (South China Morning Post, March 12).

China conducts major military drills as US lawmakers visit Taiwan

The PLA says the drills were conducted ‘in response to the recent wrong signals’ by Washington over Taiwan.

By RFA staff 2022.04.15 — The Chinese military conducted a large multi-force exercise on Friday morning around Taiwan, just hours after U.S. lawmakers arrived for a visit to show support for the self-ruling island and meet President Tsai Ing-wen.

The Cold War Never Ended

Ukraine, the China Challenge, and the Revival of the West

Does anyone have a right to be surprised? A gangster regime in the Kremlin has declared that its security is threatened by a much smaller neighbor—which, the regime claims, is not a truly sovereign country but just a plaything of far more powerful Western states. To make itself more secure, the Kremlin insists, it needs to bite off some of its neighbor’s territory. Negotiations between the two sides break down; Moscow invades.

Russia’s new world order is bad news for Africa

Rather than following the lead of despots like Putin and Xi, Africa should chart its own path.

On March 30, just a day after a Russian missile hit an administrative building in the port city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, killing at least 12 people, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the case for the establishment of new world order. In a videotaped message to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Lavrov claimed the world is “living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations”. He added, “We, together with you, and with our sympathisers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order”.

What led to leader Imran Khan’s downfall in Pakistan?

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party lost the support of coalition allies, denying a majority he needed to defeat a no-confidence vote.

Imran Khan’s tumultuous term as prime minister of Pakistan has ended, following weeks of high political drama and days of constitutional chaos.

The Supreme Court’s landmark verdict late on Thursday restored a parliament that Khan had sought to disband and mandated a vote of no confidence that he sought to avoid.

Imran Khan’s Fall: Political and Security Implications for Pakistan

How did the political crisis escalate?

The Pakistani parliament voted no confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan in the early hours of 10 April, in a culmination of tensions that had been building for some time. Khan’s main opponents, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), had long insisted that his victory in the 2018 general elections was the result of military interference. But beyond that shared belief, the two parties differed over ways to oppose Khan’s government; the PPP called for a no-trust vote in the federal parliament while the PML-N vacillated, opting at times to resign from the legislature and at other times to take to the streets in protest. The Khan government brought its two rivals together by consistently targeting their top leadership through a flawed accountability process overseen by the controversial National Accountability Bureau. Meanwhile, public anger at the government was growing because of soaring inflation and governance failures. Politicisation of the bureaucracy and interference in policing deprived citizens of basis services and security. The prospect of unrest was real. Yet when the opposition agreed on a common goal, ousting Khan through constitutional means – a no-trust vote in parliament – it posed a far bigger threat to the prime minister’s survival in office.

Chinese Pundit And Military Expert Song Zhongping: The Bucha Massacre Was Staged By The Ukrainians

Popular Chinese military scholar and TV host Song Zhongping said in a video he uploaded to the Chinese short video sharing platform Douyin on April 4, 2022 that the massacre in Bucha, Ukraine was staged by the Ukrainian government, and that there is video evidence showing some of the dead bodies standing up. Like much of China’s domestic media, Song’s claims echo Russian propaganda about the massacre, even though the Chinese government has not openly expressed support for Russia.