Indian Ocean security is an enduring maritime issue. Tensions on the high seas also include focusing on the Indian Ocean. As an area of water, policing and securing these sea lanes has always been a challenge. Today, the issues are becoming more complicated but manageable with deconfliction measures when necessary. …
Read More »Taiwan holds drills amid Pelosi visit concern, China tension
Taiwan’s capital staged air raid drills Monday and its military mobilized for routine defense exercises, coinciding with concerns over a forceful Chinese response to a possible visit to the island by U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. While there was no direct link between China’s renewed threats and Taiwan’s …
Read More »Ukraine War Advancing Central Asia Development
The Russia–Ukraine War and Western sanctions on Russia has seen a sudden rise in connecting Central Asia to China and Russia because of the disruption in international trade and transport routes caused by the conflict. Even Iran has seen a sudden rise in its importance as a transit and transport …
Read More »The Rise of Multimodal Transportation Among Russia, Iran and India
As the Ukraine war has entered its fifth month, and two decades after Iran, Russia and India signed the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in 2002, Dariush Jamali, head of the Iranian-Russian Port of Solyanka in Astrakhan Oblast, announced that the first transit shipment from Russia to India had been …
Read More »China rebukes Navy operation in South China Sea as US strike group enters area
The U.S. Navy “seriously violated China’s sovereignty” on Wednesday by sending a destroyer past the Paracel Islands, a disputed chain in the South China Sea, according to the Chinese military command for the area. The USS Benfold steamed past the Paracels, 200 miles off China’s southern coast, on a freedom-of-navigation …
Read More »The War in Ukraine Is Testing China’s New Partnership With Russia
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to draw outrage and reprisals from the international community, China is maintaining the cautious distance from Moscow it has taken since the onset of the crisis, with many observers suggesting that Beijing may have been caught unaware by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to …
Read More »NATO’s New Division of Labor on Russia and China Won’t Be Easy
The bloc’s formal designation of Beijing as a threat is just a first step. Now comes the hard part. For the first time since the Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century, Europe now views an Asian power as a direct security threat. Unlike Japan, which overran Europe’s East …
Read More »US Pledges Not to Start a Cold War Against China at G20 Meeting
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held “substantive and constructive” talks on Beijing-Washington relations and major international and regional issues of common interest, on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Read More »Elective Affinities: Iran, India and China’s Responses to the Ukraine War
Iran, India and China have found themselves dragged into the crisis in Ukraine, as their wagons remain hitched to the invading power for complicated reasons. 'Sooner or later Russia will be back, and we do not know what kind of Russia that will be. It may fall subject to some …
Read More »The US No Match for China’s Advanced Use of Energetic Materials in Missiles
The US military could potentially be at a tactical disadvantage should a conflict arise in the South China Sea over Taiwan. This is what National Defense magazine noted regarding the edge of China in terms of developing energetic materials commonly used in pyrotechnics, propellants, and explosives. The article revealed the …
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