China is engaging in a nearly trillion dollar play for the future of Afro-Eurasia—called the Belt and Road Initiative—and has so far caught the United States flat-footed. Unless the United States works with key allies and partners to craft a forward-leaning response, it risks replicating the strategic failure that occurred in the South China Sea. The result […]
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to pump billions of dollars into the new Silk Road initiative as he described his signature foreign policy push as inclusive, one that should not be held hostage to old rivalries and power games. China is hosting at least 29 heads of state, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan […]
In concrete terms, the Belt and Road initiative is an immensely ambitious development campaign through which China wants to boost trade and stimulate economic growth across Asia and beyond. It hopes to do so by building massive amounts of infrastructure connecting it to countries around the globe. By some estimates, China plans to pump $150bn […]
The influx of Chinese economic assistance into Sri Lanka and Cambodia has raised questions regarding the intentions behind these massive loans. While China may still be considered a developing economy, its current strategy of providing soft power loans and aid to its regional neighbours is reminiscent of the tributary system that the country employed back […]
Considering the asymmetric relationship Southeast Asian countries have with China in the economic and security realms, and the challenges this reality poses for them in terms of making progress in their territorial disputes with China, many see Japan-Southeast Asian strategic partnerships and Japan’s multifaceted relationship with the U.S. as interrelated, synergistic and a boon to […]
The Chinese geopolitical reality is that it is an isolated country that is also deeply divided internally. Its strategic priority, therefore, is internal stability. Isolation amidst internal disorder has been China’s worst case scenario. The government of President Jinping Xi is working aggressively to avert this instability, and this issue defines everything else China does. […]
The name Silk Road conjures images of caravans, desert steppes and adventurers like Marco Polo navigating the ancient trading routes connecting China with Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. China’s modern-day adaptation aims to revive those routes via a network of railways, ports, pipelines and highways. Read Here – Bloomberg View
For more than 100 years, Britain has been perpetually at war. Some conflicts, such as the Falklands, have become central to our national narrative, but others, including the brutal suppression of rebels in Oman, have been deliberately hidden. Read Here – The Guardian
Next week, at a summit in California, US President Barack Obama will meet with the leaders of the ten countries of Asia’s most important regional grouping: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The event, the first-ever US-ASEAN summit on American soil, is being touted as a sign of America’s growing interest in Southeast Asia. The […]
A strategically vital and reportedly oil rich 3,500,000-square-kilometre body of water, the South China Sea is ensconced between the Asian mainland and a whole host of east Asian island nations. And almost every country touched by it—China, The Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia, among others—claim some right or the other over it, or at least over […]
looking beyond borders 