The Odd Couple: Singapore’s Relations With China

As to why China and Singapore developed a special relationship can be traced back to the latter’s spectacular economic growth after its independence in 1965. With the exception of three years, Singapore’s economy would grow at an annual rate of over six percent for three decades (and over ten percent for half that time)…That appealed […]

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With Sri Lanka, Delhi Must Be Seen As A Friend Of All Communities

As Delhi receives the new Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, there is considerable optimism about making a fresh start in the bilateral relationship that has endured unprecedented stress in the last few years. During his first term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a big effort to normalise the relationship; but the fractures in Colombo’s power structure […]

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Where China Isn’t Sending Its Best And Brightest

In this sense, China is acting like the colonialists of old: For nearly a century, Britain, first through the East India Company and then under the Crown, exported its own mediocre men to supposedly civilize the South Asian Raj, contributing to the Empire’s impotence and eventual fall. Today, China is ultimately undermining its efforts to […]

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Rule of Rajapaksas

Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency has started off predictably and disquietingly. There is no pretence that this time it will not be the Rajapaksa family rule. After Ranil Wickremesinghe stepped down as Prime Minister following the Gotabaya victory, the new president lost no time in appointing Mahinda as the new prime minister of a caretaker government. Read […]

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Shinzo Abe’s Legacy: A Stagnant Economy, Loyalty To Donald Trump, Deepening Rivalries With China and The Two Koreas

Japanese media featured smiling shots of Shinzo Abe, who has just broken all records to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, at 2,887 days and still going strong, striding atop Japan’s political scene like a real-life colossus. For all the celebrations of Abe’s record-breaking past, the real questions are for the future: what is Abe doing […]

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India’s ‘Multipolar Asia’ And China

India envisions a ‘multipolar Asia’: shared regional leadership where major and minor powers have equal standing in decision-making. This model is based on the rationale that China’s rise in Asia is unbalancing the regional power structure and eroding India’s strategic choices. While a growing association with China in bilateral and multilateral mechanisms has made New […]

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The Biggest Winner Of the Japan-South Korea Dispute? China

South Korea’s decision to end an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, part of a widening rift between the two U.S. allies, has the Pentagon on edge — and not just because it arrives amid stalled efforts to persuade North Korea to denuclearize. “China is the biggest winner here,” said Rob Spalding, a former senior official on President Trump’s National Security […]

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