Wal-Mart provides shelf-space. The goods come from China
Gordon C Chang puts it really well:
The significance of Khan’s assertions is that they undermine the stout Chinese defense of Iran. First, they highlight long-held Iranian ambitions to build an atomic arsenal.
Second, by detailing how the Pakistani government was involved in nuclear transfers to Iran, Khan raises new [...]
The fault, dear Mr Naik, is not across the Himalayas
Mint has a very good editorial in response to the accusation that China is “systematically killing” Indian manufacturing.
Admittedly, there are geopolitical considerations at stake for India. But as the trade deficit with China widens over the last few years, it’s giving vent to populism, not some [...]
More unrealism from Brzezinski
As we have noted earlier, a Brzezinskian world is a world where there is a tidy bipolar world, where the United States and China sit together and make The Big Decisions. It differs from the real world in that the real world is real, and the Brzezinskian world lies in the domain [...]
No deal is a good deal, but the real deal is geopolitical
Back in October 2007, this blog had argued that because “it requires unprecedented international co-operation at a time of geopolitical flux…we can’t expect meaningful international co-operation on tacking climate change”. Instead “the immediate ray of hope is unilateral domestic action: states may be compelled [...]
Maritime territorialism is a bad idea—but it might signal something worse
Rory Medcalf, over at the Lowy Interpreter flags a very important issue (via NRA). He draws attention to a media report that suggests China is considering maritime territorialism in the Gulf of Aden where navies from as many as 40 countries are engaged in anti-piracy [...]
The world doesn’t become bipolar by wishing that it is
Zbigniew Brzezinski, like many others who came of age during the Cold War, believes that a bipolar world is much easier for the United States to ‘manage’ than a multipolar one. That might even be correct. The problem is—the world is not bipolar—even in the face [...]
The Indian government does well to streamline visas for business and employment
Without doubt, India must reform its visa regime and be more welcoming to foreigners who wish to visit, live and work in the country. In the September 2009 issue of Pragati Salil Tripathi calls for the Indian government to relax its atavistic, paranoid [...]
The geopolitical implications of Xuanzang’s round-trip
The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s journey to India and back is well-known (see Samanth Subramanian’s review of Mishi Saran’s book in Pragati). What is not so well-known is that his trip led, unintentionally, to a diplomatic spat between the China and India that ultimately resulted in the first Chinese military [...]
Nuclear weapons are doing what high mountains once did
As K M Panikkar noted, while India developed a sophisticated framework of inter-state relations within the natural frontiers of the subcontinent it “lacked interest in the balance of power outside its own national frontiers”. Arrian, the ancient Greek writer, contended that Indian kings refrained from expanding their [...]
The costly refusal to see beyond itself and the subcontinent
An extract from Sardar K M Panikkar’s Annual Day address to the Indian School of International Studies on 13 February 1961:
The study of international relations is fundamentally a study of power relationships. This, of course, has to be interpreted in terms not only of military power [...]
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