South East Asia

Amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has been notably quiet on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza — in sharp contrast to the fervent, daily anti-Israel comments from neighboring Iran. While Akhundzada has no public-facing digital accounts, his edicts and statements …

When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government had ‘credible allegations’ regarding India’s involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen, he added to the spiralling doom loop that has been roiling India–Canada relations. In the aftermath of the murder, which …

The example set by Russia and India’s near-identical policies towards this conflict is that it’s indeed possible to balance between Israel and the Palestinians without doing so at either’s expense. This upsets each warring party’s respective American and Qatari backers, which is why they’re actively attempting to discredit those two. …

The pictures from Afghanistan in August 2021 are indelible: As the Taliban swept through the countryside and stormed Kabul, reclaiming the country from Western-funded elites, the U.S. presence in the country evaporated overnight, and thousands of Afghans tried in desperation to escape the country on the last few U.S. aircraft …

China’s Armed Forces Are More Capable—but Beijing Feels Less Secure For months, all eyes have been on the high-level personnel turmoil in the Chinese military. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu has not been seen in public for weeks, raising questions about whether he still holds his position. Li Yuchao, the …

On September 13, China’s newly appointed ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Xing, arrived at the presidential palace in Kabul to present his credentials to the acting prime minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Mohammad Hassan Akhund. Uniformed Taliban members welcomed him to the palace in a grand theatrical ceremony. While …

The recently announced India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) project linking India with markets in the Middle East and Europe was the highlight of the G20 summit this year. The new corridor represents half the global economy and 40% of the world’s population. According to the memorandum of understanding signed on Sept. …

Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia? The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years …

Why is the US so hell-bent on pushing Bangladesh on democracy and human rights? Is Bangladesh any worse than Pakistan or many other Middle Eastern sheikhdoms on these issues? Why is the US even threatening to sanction police officers who battle Islamist radicals on the streets? The answer can be …

During the May 2023 G7 summit in Hiroshima, US President Joe Biden observed that ties with Beijing would ‘thaw very shortly’. Four months later, the United States and China have taken important first steps to put the balloon incident behind them and stabilise their rocky relationship. Lines of communication have …