In today’s environment of growing US-China competition, America’s allies are increasingly faced with a series of what international relations authority Dr. Victor Cha calls “binary choices” between the two powers. “Open competition in relations between the United States and China has dramatically changed the environment in which the US must operate,” Cha said at a recent East-West Center webinar titled […]

Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan at the end of August, the only semblance of government remaining there is the Taliban. But the Taliban are not partners in defeating terrorism there, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command said. “I don’t see them as a partner — I’ll just be frank,” Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke, commander of U.S. Special […]

The past year has witnessed a spate of reports about Chinese ‘model villages’ coming up in disputed areas of its Himalayan border with India and Bhutan. In January 2021, NDTV had reported a Chinese village had come up on the banks of the Tsari Chu river in the Longju region, the site of the first Sino-Indian clashes in 1959. A […]

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will strengthen cooperation with China to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, especially in the health sector, said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, head of the ICRC’s Regional Delegation for East Asia, Reuters reported. This comes amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan on the back of economic sanctions. Kraehenbuehl said about 47 percent of the […]

Officials representing several Chinese companies are in Afghanistan to conduct on-site inspections of potential lithium projects, Reuters reported. Citing China’s Global Times, Reuters reported that representatives of five companies obtained special visas, arriving in Afghanistan in early November, via the China Arab Economic and Trade Promotion Committee in Kabul and Afghanistan’s mining ministry. Ganfeng Lithium, China’s biggest lithium producer, told […]

Takashi Okada, Japan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, says his country has decided to reopen its embassy in Kabul after the new government ensured Tokyo about its security. Enamullah Samangani, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s deputy spokesman said in a tweet that Takashi Okada raised the issue yesterday during a meeting with Abdul Kabir, the IEA’s political deputy prime minister in Kabul. […]

US special envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West will return to Doha next week for talks with Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) officials, the US State Department said on Tuesday. Addressing a press briefing, State Department spokesman Ned Price said talks between the two parties will focus on a number of issues including counterterrorism, humanitarian aid, and the economic situation in […]

“Bizarre that the [Pakistani] government is negotiating and accepting the demands of “India-sponsored and India-directed” organisations.” -Hasan Zaidi , Pakistani journalist and filmmaker In November 2017, protesters belonging to several Sunni religious groups from the Barelvi school of Islam led by Tehreek-i-Labbaik (TLP) Pakistan chief, Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi, congregated at Islamabad and Rawalpindi to demand removal of Law Minister […]

The Biden administration appears disposed to reactivate the existing alliance arrangements as well as to cultivate new allies in the Indo-Pacific. The administration following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan seems poised to divert more resources towards the Indo-Pacific theatre while imposing an unstable border on Beijing to remain embroiled in the Afghan trap. It sought to strengthen Washington’s network of […]

Introduction As the momentum of global economic gravity continues to shift towards East Asia, the contours of a new economic and political geography within South Asia are also becoming visible with enhanced connectivity among western China, Pakistan and Central Asia. Led by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this transition is already influencing the thinking patterns of politics, culture and […]