South East Asia

Since about 2018, Chinese officials have been talking about the moon and Mars as sovereign Chinese territory, part of the People’s Republic of China. This means that China considers those heavenly bodies to be like the South China Sea. This also means that China will exclude other nations from going …

When US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declared that Washington wanted to see Russia so “weakened” that it would no longer be able to invade a neighbouring state, he lifted the veil on US goals in Ukraine. He also held out the prospect of a long-term US-Russian contest for …

China processed record amounts of crude oil in 2021 to meet rising domestic consumption of petroleum products. In the second half of the year, China processed slightly less crude oil and began exporting significantly less gasoline and diesel than in the first half of the year to ensure sufficient domestic …

Grave political implications await China in South Asia and in Indo Pacific as in April 2022, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, two of China’s most notable client States in South Asia, are in a state of economic meltdown, with the ‘Kiss of Economic Death’ implanted by China’s ‘Debt Trap Diplomacy. China’s …

China has become a strategic partner for many countries in the Middle East. China’s role has expanded greatly with Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s announcement in 2013 of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is the cornerstone of the modern Chinese strategy. Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize the …

China’s positioning with regard to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, and it is likely to be a central topic of discussion at the China-European Union Summit scheduled to be held this Friday. But for Beijing, which is seeking to mend fences and shore …

As the Biden administration prepares to release its National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, observers are searching for clues on how those reviews will grapple with the framework of “great-power competition” that anchored the previous administration’s high-level policy documents. That framework has achieved substantial bipartisan traction in the intervening …

Not long after the commencement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I wrote that for China, binding itself tightly to Moscow would do harm to Beijing’s long-term interests. That is because, I wrote, an alliance between a superpower like China and a far less dynamic country like Russia, whose economy is …

As Belgrade feels the heat over its warm ties to Moscow, Beijing’s stake in the country is likely to grow. Serbia is coming under significant pressure over its policy towards Russia due to current events in Ukraine. A country on track to EU accession, with European values enshrined in its …

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.