South East Asia

The Taliban have dissolved Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission, and four other government departments, citing a budget crisis. The cuts were announced on Monday, days after the Taliban announced their first annual national budget. Afghanistan’s budget deficit for this year is $501 million. At the time of the announcement, Taliban officials …

Chinese President Xi Jinping has come up with a new global security proposal questioning implicitly the logic of the Indo-Pacific strategy, as well as the Quad involving Australia, Japan, India, and the United States. Xi proposed a new “Global Security Initiative” at the Boao Forum for Asia’s annual conference in …

CIA Director William Burns has stated that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become unsettled by the performance of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. China, a country that has been increasingly aggressive against Taiwan, has been known to be a Putin ally and has been observing how the …

On 9 March, South Koreans voted a conservative, Yoon Suk-yeol, into the presidency to replace the left-leaning Moon Jae-in. Yoon has taken a harder rhetorical line than his predecessor toward Pyongyang. But a dramatic shift in North Korea policy is unlikely. South Korea is changing political direction. After five years …

President Joe Biden on Friday announced he’s nominating one of his top national security aides as ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, aiming to underscore his administration’s commitment to the Pacific region.

Germany’s recently elected center-left coalition under Chancellor Scholz chose India as the partner for its first governmental consultations on 2nd May 2022. Beyond the signaling effects that Europe’s and Asia’s largest democracies intend to cooperate more closely together, the final joint statement exhibits the depth of mutual understanding and trust …

Recently, the central government of China has issued a new policy on the “Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of a Large Unified National Market (hereafter referred to as ‘Opinions’)”. The Opinions propose to speed up the …

Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict. It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s …

This imaginary memo reviews the Russia–Ukraine war at its current stage through the eyes of an advisor to the General Secretary. From: OFFICE OF THE CENTRAL COMMISSION FOR MILITARY-CIVIL FUSION DEVELOPMENT, BEIJING Subject: THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE Chairman and General Secretary, The war in Ukraine is …

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan paved the way for the Islamist group to regain a safe haven This week marks 11 years since the death of Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of al-Qaida. On May 1, 2011, US President Barack Obama announced his death, slain during a US …