This month, Sri Lanka, unable to pay the onerous debt to China it has accumulated, formally handed over its strategically located Hambantota port to the Asian giant. It was a major acquisition for China’s Belt …
Articles by: "Brahma Chellaney"
US President Donald Trump is arriving in Asia at a moment when the region’s security situation is practically white-hot. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, recognising that the world’s ‘center of gravity is shifting to …
China has long regarded fresh water as a strategic weapon—one that the country’s leaders have no compunction about wielding to advance their foreign-policy goals. After years of using its chokehold on almost every major transnational …
Myanmar’s military has lately been engaged in a brutal campaign against the Rohingya, a long-marginalised Muslim ethnic minority group, driving hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh, India, and elsewhere. The international community has rightly …
The more power China has accumulated, the more it has attempted to achieve its foreign-policy objectives with bluff, bluster, and bullying. But, as its Himalayan border standoff with India’s military continues, the limits of this …
China denies mixing business with politics, yet it has long used trade to punish countries that refuse to toe its line. China’s recent heavy-handed economic sanctioning of South Korea, in response to that country’s decision …
Bite by kilometer-size bite, China is eating away at India’s Himalayan borderlands. For decades, Asia’s two giants have fought a bulletless war for territory along their high-altitude border. Recently, though, China has become more assertive, …
World powers have often been known to intervene, overtly and covertly, to overthrow other countries’ governments, install pliant regimes, and then prop up those regimes, even with military action. But, more often than not, what …
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tenure has been marked by high ambition. His vision—the ‘Chinese dream’—is to make China the world’s leading power by 2049, the centenary of communist rule. But Xi may be biting off …
US President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy—based on tactics and transactions, rather than strategic vision—has produced a series of dazzling flip-flops. Lacking any guiding convictions, much less clear priorities, Trump has confounded America’s allies …
Russia may be in decline economically and demographically, but, in strategic terms, it is a resurgent power, pursuing a major military rearmament program that will enable it to continue expanding its global influence. One of …
Over the last eight years, as China’s posturing in Asia became increasingly aggressive, many criticized US President Barack Obama for failing to stand up to the Asian giant. It was on Obama’s watch, after all, …