Brinkmanship does not work beyond the brink.
“Either a nuclear-equipped DPRK or a collapsed DPRK,” Wu Chaofan concludes, “would cause disastrous interruption of the process of China’s peaceful development.” As long as the North Korean regime was playing inside these boundaries it was possible for China to use the situation to apply strategic pressure on the [...]
A chastened but sanctimoniously aggressive dragon
Qin Gang, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, made some eminently reasonable and sensible points yesterday. The Asian Development Bank’s approval of a loan package to India—which includes financing of a project in India’s Arunachal Pradesh state (which China calls ‘Southern Tibet’ and claims as its own)—he said, “can neither change the [...]
China must act forcefully to stop North Korea and Pakistan from expanding their nuclear arsenals
The Obama administration tasted its first—and crunching—diplomatic defeat at the hands of the North Korean regime last week. After threatening to interdict North Korean ships, just about the only action the US government will take in response to North Korea’s nuclear [...]
China’s geoeconomic move to strengthen its geopolitical power in Asia
A few days ago, China, Japan, South Korean and the ASEAN states agreed to set up a US$120 billion to manage currency volatility. The Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) primarily reduces the member countries’ dependency on the International Monetary Fund. It deliberately excludes India.
Here’s an excerpt from [...]
On estimating political risk in India
India is the only Asian country outside the East Asian region to be included in the Political & Economic Risk Consultancy’s (PERC) Asian Risk Prospects for 2009 report. According to PERC, India is the riskiest country among those analysed, and it’s risk rating is to increase for the coming financial [...]
The Rudd government would do well to climb out of an unnecessary hole it has dug for Australia
Greg Sheridan has a very insightful piece on the India-US nuclear deal and the stakes for Australia (linkthanks V Anantha Nageswaran). He gets it right when he argues that Australia can’t hope to enjoy a close relationship with [...]
The discomfort with reapolitik
Gurcharan Das came back to New Delhi from a lecture tour of East Asia with some astute observations about how countries in that part of the world perceive India (via Shehjar & Pragmatic). They look forward to India playing a more assertive role in East Asia because “they fear China and desperately [...]
Australia has decided that it pays to be nice to China
There’s an interesting discussion going on down under about the death of the “Quad”, a grouping involving India, Japan, Australia and the United States. It was not only seen as an Asia-Pacific “concert of democracies”, but more importantly, as a quiet attempt to balance China’s [...]
Cite Pakistan’s failure and draw your favourite conclusion
What’s with editors of leading Indian newspapers? After Mr Gupta, the articulate Vir Sanghvi falls into the same trap: of declaring that democracy is better than dictatorship (linkthanks Pragmatic) and then tripping up while attempting to draw other conclusions. This time about the fates of states vis-a-vis their [...]
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