For both China and India, Buddhism is a useful enhancer of cultural soft power. The religion has, over the past decade, increased in importance for India as New Delhi tries to re-energize the religious tradition and integrate it into the country’s cultural strength; for China, meanwhile, Buddhism is an important means of soothing domestic discontent […]
What motivated Mrs Gandhi to release the POWs? What went on behind the scenes? Were there any compelling circumstances at play that have remained unreported? If there were any, ideally they should be brought into the public domain, so that future generations may benefit from the lessons of history. Read Here – The Wire
Pakistani nuclear weapons are under control of the military’s Strategic Plans Division, and are primarily stored in Punjab Province, far from the northwest frontier and the Taliban. Ten thousand Pakistani troops and intelligence personnel from the SPD guard the weapons. Pakistan claims that the weapons are only armed by the appropriate code at the last […]
Ultimately, of course, policy differences, not personal ones, will matter most. Everyone in the Saudi leadership shares with the Trump administration a common view on the dangers posed by Iran. But there’s a gap in their respective positions on the war in Yemen and how the kingdom can best be extricated from it. Read Here […]
Almost 40 years after a short yet devastating war launched by China in 1979, there has been not any official commemoration of the war in Vietnam. The fierce fight from February 17 to March 16, 1979, claimed tens of thousands of lives, soldiers and civilians alike, in Vietnam’s border provinces, but the conflict hasn’t received the […]
Why is Trump so out of sorts? It could be that he’s simply found, in fire-and-brimstone Donald, his latest role. Yet it seems equally likely that Trump has stumbled into an Aesop’s fable of his own making. Having received what he so fervently wished for, he’s now found that leading the free world is a […]
Foreign-policy realists define great-power status in terms of a country’s self-perception or material capacities. For China, however, status is conceived in the context of its relationship with the established authority, namely the West. Read Here – Project Syndicate
In the sort of diplomacy that Tillerson must conduct now, secret talks certainly have their place; for example, in forging breakthroughs like President Nixon’s opening to China or President Obama’s to Cuba. More routinely, however, diplomatic success requires using interviews, press conferences, social media, and speeches to address and shape public and legislative opinion simultaneously […]
China hopes India can understand the pursuit of China and regional countries for common development, and be part of it. However, New Delhi doesn’t share this thinking, instead seeking to balance China. If such tendencies in India continue, China will have to fight back, because its core interests will have been violated. This is not […]
The Koreas were split at the end of WWII. That was when the Japanese, who annexed the peninsula in 1910, were replaced by occupying forces from the Soviet Union in the north and the United States in the south. The partition line at the 38th parallel would eventually mark the border of what have become […]
looking beyond borders 