South East Asia

In December 2021, United States intelligence claimed China was helping Saudi Arabia develop ballistic missiles. Washington feared the Saudis were abandoning them in pursuit of a closer partnership with China. For some US policymakers, this pointed to the growing threat of China displacing the United States as the principal external power in the …

Nothing better illustrates the utter ineptitude of the Biden administration’s dealings with the Middle East than Saudi Arabia’s decision to forge a strategic alliance with China. Biden set the tone for his strained relationship with the Saudi royal family during the 2020 presidential election contest when he denounced the kingdom …

Xi Jinping has made an offer difficult for the Arabian Peninsula to ignore: China will be guaranteed buyers of your oil and gas, but we will pay in yuan. It would be so tempting to qualify Chinese President Xi Jinping landing in Riyadh a week ago, welcomed with royal pomp …

This year, Leicester’s famous multiculturalism, so praised by the establishment, exploded. Knife attacks, stone- and bottle-throwing, cars torched, religious symbols under siege, dozens wounded, including policemen…. Then the hunt for Hindus began in Britain’s streets. “Leicester to be first city where white people are minority,” announced The Independent in 2007. …

In 1904, Jack London, the most celebrated American writer of the time, was sent as a reporter to cover the war between Russia and Japan. According to Daniel A. Métraux, editor of a collection of London’s writings on Asia (1): “London’s tenure as a journalist in Korea and Manchuria was …

The foreign ministers of Iran and India called for the expansion of relations between the two countries in various fields.  In a telephone conversation on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar talked about a range of regional and international issues and subjects relating to cooperation …

Saudi Arabia’s decision in October to spearhead a two million barrel per day cut in OPEC+ production quotas, and the harsh US response to it, is only the most recent example of the drift in Saudi–US relations. The dispute risks opening up space for China to expand its political influence in the …

In 2006, deadly riots in the capital of Tonga, Nuku’alofa devastated the government and business districts in the small-island nation. The cause of the riots that lasted almost a month was the delay by the government in initiating democratic reforms. As tensions between the pro-royalists and pro-democracy factions rose, King Tupou VI, …

Xi Jinping called China and Gulf nations ‘natural partners’ and urged regional leaders to be partners in promoting unity, development, and security China’s president Xi Jinping urged Gulf nations to use the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange as a platform to receive payments of oil and gas using the …

Riyadh’s interest in Pakistan’s Gwadar port is of particular concern for Tehran and its vital oil trade with China. A $10 billion Saudi Aramco refinery is being built near the port city of Gwadar in Pakistan, about 169 kilometers (km) east of Iran’s Chabahar port in the western Sistan and …