South East Asia

After more than a month of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government, progress toward a peace agreement remains slow.

A combustible mixture of political unrest, stalled governance and military meddling await the incoming Biden administration. Political uncertainty has descended on Pakistan as the combined opposition, seeking to dislodge the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, has gathered under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). While the conflict …

China has embarked on a grand journey west. Officials in Beijing are driven by aspirations of leadership across their home continent of Asia, feelings of being hemmed in on their eastern flank by U.S. alliances, and their perception that opportunities await across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean. Along the way, …

Following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, many observers asserted that China-U.S. relations, what have been strained most of the time over the past three years, will see a change, most likely for the better. Judging from the moves taken by the militaries of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait …

Both the UK and the EU are engaged in a game of brinkmanship, amounting to a kind of shadow theatre— neither wants to shoulder the blame for the UK’s exit from the EU without a trade deal between the two. The stakes are higher for the UK.

Senior Pakistani Shia cleric Allama Syed Sajid Ali Naqvi condemned a recent move by the US to impose sanctions on Al-Mustafa International University. In an address to Pakistani scholars and seminary students on Sunday, the senior cleric described the move as unethical and illegitimate and a sign of the United …

China may soon achieve a military equilibrium with the United States, General Mark Milli, head of the United States’ Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. According to him, the PRC has a “very powerful” economy; the country has spent a lot of money developing the armed forces. At the same time, …

President-elect Joe Biden has said he will stand up to China and Russia, but unlike President Trump, he has stressed the need to work closely with allies and international organizations to present a united front against two countries that Washington considers its foremost competitors.

In October, Boeing and Mitsubishi signed an agreement to modernise Japan’s F-15 aircraft so they could carry long-range cruise missiles. The reason why Tokyo decided to upgrade the aircraft was China’s intensifying air patrols over the disputed Senkaku Islands, which have been a big issue for the two nations.

The People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) of China was forecast to have become the world’s navy in late 2019, although it still lacks the global power projection capabilities of its US counterparts. The Pentagon has responded with plans for a dramatic increase in the size of the US Navy using smaller …