“For us Ukraine is the defining moment on whether we live in a world governed by rules or by force. We condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine and support this country’s sovereignty, democracy, not because we follow the US blindly, as sometimes China’s suggests, but because it is our position. This was an important message for the Chinese leadership to hear.” — EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan gave Taliban fighters access to more than $7 billion worth of American military equipment, according to data in a report submitted this week to U.S. lawmakers and confirmed by the Pentagon.
Does Russia need workers?
The labor force in Russia is gradually declining. This indicator reached its peak in 2008-2011. Then the labor market was 76 million people, or 53% of the total population of the country. By 2020 that figure has fallen below 73 million, less than 51% of the total population.
In the afternoon of April 26, 2022, a burqa-clad woman blew herself up near a van close to the Confucius Institute, a Chinese language teaching center at Karachi University. According to Karachi counterterrorism police, four people, including three Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver, were killed and four others, including two Chinese nationals, were injured in the attack. Among the dead were the director of the Confucius Institute Huang, teachers Guiping, Ding Mupeng, Chen Sai, and their Pakistani driver Khalid.[1]
On April 22, 2022, Hammam ‘Isa Al-Sheikh, a self-described “activist” based in Idlib, Syria and a supporter of the Syrian jihadi group Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the most powerful in the Idlib area, posted an image on his Telegram channel showing a page from the sixth-grade English textbook used in the Dar Al-Wahy Al-Sharif (Home of the Noble Revelation) school system, which is affiliated with HTS. The textbook page, from a unit called “Muslim Heroes,” depicts Saudi-born Samer Al-Suwaylem aka Khattab Al-Shishani (the Chechen), who was a prominent commander in the Chechen jihad against Russia in the 1990s and 2000s, hailing him as “the greatest jihadist heroes [sic] in the modern era, the man who conquered the Russians at the height of their power, and through him God raised the banner of glory in Dagestan and Chechnya, [and] Afghanistan.”
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.