South East Asia

Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, is coming under political pressure to explain why it did not alert lawmakers sooner about the activities of a suspected Chinese spy, who the security service now say was “knowingly engaged in political interference in the U.K.” The British security agencies have been warning in …

Irregular warfare (IW) is a method available for Great Powers to shape or control the global architecture by enabling a state to “influence populations and affect legitimacy” without incurring the heavier losses of blood and treasure typically associated with armed conflict.1 The past decades have witnessed the rise of the …

A staggering 40% out of 650 Chinese investments in Europe in the years 2010-2020, according to Datenna [a Dutch company that monitors Chinese investments in Europe], had “high or moderate involvement by state-owned or state-controlled companies.” When the Chairman of the UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, wrote that …

Taliban’s repudiation of Pakistan’s position on the Durand Line challenges a pillar of Pakistan’s security policy. In at least two incidents in late December and early January, Afghan Taliban soldiers intervened to block an ongoing Pakistani project to erect fencing along the shared border between Afghanistan and Pakistan — the …

To Counter Beijing, the Biden Administration Needs to Decide What It Wants The Biden administration has repeatedly identified China as the United States’ foremost foreign policy challenge. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has referred to China as the Pentagon’s top priority. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has described China as …

Natural gas started flowing from Russia to China for the first time on Dec. 2 when Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, officially launched the initial phase of a huge new pipeline known as the Power of Siberia. Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, claims it is expected …

In 2021 China was, and in 2022 again will be, dominated by the domestic economy, relations with the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic and President Xi Jinping. Despite spectacular bounce-back growth in the first half of the year, China’s economy had slowed dramatically by year’s end. Worries centred on the …

Much has already been said about the recent heightening of U.S.-China tensions and its potential fallout. What gets less attention is how the U.S. and China themselves perceive the status of their relationship, and how that affects their plans for the future. An analysis of prevailing elite opinion in the …

The admission of Syria into the Chinese economic project is the latest sign of strengthening relations between Damascus and Beijing. Syria has joined a major Chinese initiative on global trade, infrastructure and connectivity. The head of Syria’s Planning and International Cooperation Commission, Fadi al-Khalil, signed a memorandum of understanding with …

It was a year of transition for US trade policy in 2021. The Trump administration’s trade representative Robert Lighthizer was replaced by Katherine Tai, a senior trade lawyer with a history of taking on China. While Tai’s appointment signalled President Joe Biden’s leanings toward a multilateral approach, under her leadership, …