Despite COVID-19, remittance flows remained resilient in 2020, registering a smaller decline than previously projected. Officially recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $540 billion in 2020, just 1.6 percent below the 2019 total of $548 billion. Read Here | World Bank
Beijing pledges more regional cooperation on Covid-19 shots and Chinese-funded infrastructure during multilateral talks in Xian amid concerns come from Russia and the five Central Asian countries themselves about China’s expanding footprint. Read Here | South China Morning Post
In President Biden’s address to Congress on American foreign policy, there were two instances where he earned a standing ovation — one was for his statement on the Indo-Pacific and the other was for ending the “forever war” in Afghanistan. Strikingly, the latter received a lukewarm salvo, across the political spectrum. Read Here | The Hill
China’s population grew at its slowest pace since the 1950s over the 10 years to 2020, government data shows, adding to pressure on Beijing to ramp up incentives for couples to have more children and avert an irreversible decline. The population of mainland China increased 5.38 percent to 1.41 billion, according to the results of […]
India’s strategic community was in a frenzy last month after USS John Paul Jones carried out a freedom of navigation exercise near India’s Lakshadweep Islands. Indian observers were mystified by the timing of maneuver, coming as it did at a moment when U.S.-Indian relations are on a high. Read Here | WarOnTheRocks
The Biden administration is in the midst of its comprehensive China policy review; it remains to be seen how its approach will compare with its predecessors. There are powerful reasons to sustain the One China policy, but equally powerful reasons to adapt it to meet the realities of today. Read Here | The National Interest
The Covid-19 pandemic is not over, but it is already clear that Lord Rees, Britain’s astronomer royal, has won his 2017 bet with the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker that “bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six-month period starting no later than Dec. 31, 2020.” Read Here […]
The international community must join forces and develop a collective approach to help India address its COVID-19 crisis, not only for moral reasons, but also because the health of other countries’ populations and economies are at stake. Governments can take several steps to mitigate the impact.
In the early twentieth century, during a period when Tibet was effectively self-governed, it was known as “the hermit kingdom.”… In more recent times, Tibet’s isolation has been shaped by altogether different forces, some of which have reduced it and some of which have heightened it. Read Here | Foreign Affairs
It may be that in today’s world, when a superpower conflict could destroy much of mankind, China and the US will avoid a war over Taiwan. But the two sides are engaged in a game of chicken, which can escalate quickly and unpredictably, with fear of humiliation making it difficult to back down. Read Here […]
looking beyond borders 