South East Asia

It’s been a year since the United States and the Taliban reached their historic agreement on bringing peace to Afghanistan, but as expected, it has not led to any rapid results. Talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government have been taking place in the Qatari capital Doha since last …

Surprise developments in protracted conflicts are rarely an overnight success. Nor do they happen in isolation or involve only the parties in the dispute. With regard to the India Pakistan deal on the Kashmir ceasefire, surely there were other actors at work, and more than one issue at play. It …

President Joe Biden has much repair and restoration work to do in East Asia. Donald Trump seriously degraded the United States’ role in the region, helping Beijing to escalate the most hostile and confrontational US–China relationship in 50 years. Simultaneously, Trump undermined US credibility with the allies and partners that …

In November 2020, 15 countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) amid a backdrop of deglobalisation and trade protectionism. While RCEP demonstrates the success of ASEAN’s middle-power diplomacy and promotes regional trade and economic development, it also serves China’s national interests and will make the region’s largest economy more …

The Indian Navy has a bevvy of planned engagements this spring, including with the UAE and France. The Indian Navy is preparing for a busy month ahead with exercises planned with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), France, and the Quad countries. According to media reports, the UAE is set to …

Our nation has endured revolution, civil war, world war, and cold war. We have survived every kind of hardship and won. Today, we are in a new kind of war: a war of information. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rise to illegitimate prosperity is one of the greatest threats to …

What does the Chinese Communist Party actually want? Sometimes, the regime’s plans can seem inscrutable. Other times, they are more blunt. The latter is certainly the case for one high-profile Chinese scholar serving the Party: Jin Canrong, the Chinese “State Master,” a professor at the Chinese People’s University in Beijing, …

Naval exercises that may unite France, the UAE, the US, Japan and Australia could provide a major message of strategic partnering. Naval drills are defining new relationships from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf of Oman and beyond.France is playing a leading role, according to new reports. A recent drill …

China has told Japan that Beijing is “exercising self-restraint” in operating its coast guard ships near the Senkaku Islands amid rising security concerns over its new law which allows such ships to use weapons against foreign vessels, Japanese government sources said Saturday.

Complacency or eased trade restrictions on dual-use technology would be the greater danger. So would any backing-off of counter-espionage investigations into Chinese bribery of American university professors or further infiltrations of PLA-linked Chinese nationals into research centers in the U.S. Both are prime examples of Beijing’s willingness to play a …