Gotabaya Rajapaksa has won the Sri Lankan presidential election after a closely fought race against ruling party candidate Sajith Premadasa, with the country’s Election Commission declaring him the winner on Sunday. “I would like to inform everyone that I will execute everything you trusted in me [to do],” Rajapaksa said at the results announcement, flanked by his brother Mahinda, a former two-time president.
The directive was among 403 pages of internal documents that have been shared with The New York Times in one of the most significant leaks of government papers from inside China’s ruling Communist Party in decades. They provide an unprecedented inside view of the continuing clampdown in Xinjiang, in which the authorities have corralled as many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years.
Taken together, domestic economic management, recent political and geopolitical choices made at home, the regional and global consequences of Trump and Trumpism, the geo-economics and geo-politics of China’s rise, are all beginning to pose a challenge to the extant Rising India narrative. The old narrative is taking a beating. A new narrative can only be built on the foundations of improved economic performance and better management of domestic political challenges.
There is little or no excitement in global capitals over the Sri Lankan presidential polls this time, unlike during the last two or three elections of 2005, 2010 and 2015. For most in the ‘international community’ (read: West), one of the two main contestants is ‘unwelcome’ and the other is ‘unknown’.
China’s growing engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in recent years has captured the attention of policymakers, business leaders and foreign policy observers across the region. It seems nearly everyone these days wants to talk about China’s evolving presence and role in the region…But largely absent from the conversation has been a serious, dedicated look at the normative impact of relations with Beijing on governance.
Being able to “think in space” is a crucial tool for decision-makers, but one that is often de-emphasised. In order to improve its ability to think in space, the national security community ought to objectively assess how effectively it is employing geographic information and seek every opportunity to sharpen its skills in this area.
Over the last several months, opponents of the ongoing protests in Hong Kong have clashed with protest supporters at universities across the world. In Australia and New Zealand, pro-Beijing students have occasionally shoved, doxed, and threatened peaceful protesters. In some cases, these activities seem to have been directed by Chinese embassies and consulates, while others appear to have been spontaneous actions, undertaken by students from mainland China.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, open societies were triumphant and international cooperation became the dominant creed. Thirty years later, however, nationalism has turned out to be much more powerful and disruptive than internationalism.
Pakistan’s powerful military is struggling to keep its grip on power as the country seethes with anger over the rising cost of living caused by sluggish economic growth, political victimisation, narrowing space for freedom of expression, and the militarisation of politics.
Instead of an attack in India that initiates crisis, what if one arose following a proactive Indian operation to seize territory over the Line of Control (LOC) in the portion of the disputed territory of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan? Indian leaders have contemplated such operations in the past, and the current government in India has demonstrated its willingness to take considerable risks, including in the February 2019 crisis.
