Geography Archives: Asia

This is a moment of truth, therefore, as the U.S. unsheathes the sword to bleed and dismember Russia, and gives an ultimatum to China to stay out of it. 

Before joining the neo-liberal order, India used to have “rupee payment arrangements” with the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries under which the main international reserve currency, the U.S. dollar, was used neither for settling transactions nor even as the unit of account in terms of which the trade-related transactions were denominated.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Russia relations, Ukraine, Humanitarian Aid, Taiwan, China-EU relations, China-Central Asia relations, sanctions, differing views of democracy, and European security.

Biden, finally, has his foreign policy ‘success’: Europe is walling itself off from Russia, China, and the emerging integrated Asian market.

The Republican evangelical right scapegoats trans people as their latest “culture war” to mobilize far-right support and secure corporate interests.

As we write these notes at the beginning of March 2022, the eight-year limited civil war in Ukraine has turned into a full-scale war. This represents a turning point in the New Cold War and a great human tragedy. By threatening global nuclear holocaust, these events are also now endangering the entire world. To understand the origins of the New Cold War and the onset of the current Russian entry into the Ukrainian civil war, it is necessary to go back to decisions associated with the creation of the New World Order made in Washington when the previous Cold War ended in 1991.

A flurry of recent newspaper articles have denounced what they describe as Chinese imperialism. Such texts are part of a new Cold War media blitz against China that simultaneously serves U.S. imperialism by blessing it or denying that it exists.

With the official stance shifting from all-in to wait-and-see, the future of biodegradable plastic in China is uncertain.

The essence of the relationship of imperialism lies in the control over the world’s resources, including land-use, by the metropolitan powers.

In the strategic vision of the U.S., Russia should be disarmed to become part of Europe as a “sidekick” and a bridgehead to contain China, the “more dangerous enemy” as Kissinger described it.

Apart from the fact that China’s food system offers lessons that could improve policy-making in both high and low-income countries, the world’s most populous country is also one of the world’s major producers of food despite having less cultivated land.

The reason the party’s cartoon has evoked horror is because we have seen this sort of singular obsession with a targeted religious minority before and know where it leads.

Already threatening war with Russia, the White House this month has unveiled a new imperial grand strategy for the Indo-Pacific that raises the prospects of war with China.

What about this China factor? Why do Western pundits/savants pay so little heed to this game-changer? It should not require my half-century of studying/reporting on Russia-China relations to notice that China and Russia have never been so strategically close as now.

The key elements conform to a principled stance—and a balanced one. India’s stance so far has been one of a ‘standoffish’ attitude that basically absolves Delhi of the need to take a position on which its key ally the United States and the time-tested Russian friend have locked horns. 

I was initially pushed to try to run for president. I really did not want to, because I felt somebody younger and more vigorous should. I am 76! – Walden Bello

Arguably the best known contemporary proponent of Chinese exceptionalism in the English-language is Martin Jacques, best known for his 2009 bestseller ‘When China Rules the World’, a tour-de-force in the repackaging of orientalist tropes for the 21st-century.

Out of his world of struggle and his world of books emerged Pansare’s commitment to culture and to intellectual liberation. Along with his comrades, he set up the Shramik Pratishthan (Workers’ Trust), which not only published books but also held seminars and lectures. One of the most popular programmes organised by the Trust was the annual literary festival in honour of the Marathi writer Annabhau Sathe.

The Chinese embassy in Ukraine released a notice on its WeChat public account Friday to urge Chinese nationals in Ukraine to “pay close attention to” changes in the local situation, as the U.S. and several other Western countries asked their nationals “to evacuate immediately” amid so-called warnings of an imminent invasion by Russia.

In early December 2021, Laos inaugurated the Boten-Vientiane railway, a 414-kilometer (km) electrified high-speed railway that runs between the capital Vientiane and the town of Boten on the Laos-China border.