SPEAKING FREELY Rising China tests the waters By Abraham M Denmark and Daniel M Kliman With joint exercises between the navies of the United States and Vietnam kicking off, Washington and Beijing’s rivalry over the South China Sea is heating up. Although exercises with Vietnam involve non-combat training such as search and rescue, they reinforce recent remarks by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Speaking at last month’s meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Clinton affirmed that peacefully resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea amounted to a US ”national interest”. What followed was a sharp … Continue reading Rising China tests the waters

BOOK REVIEW Reality check for Asian titans India and China: The Battle between Soft and Hard Power by Prem Shankar Jha Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia Views about the inexorable rise of China and India to global dominance have multiplied as the two storm ahead with impressive economic growth rates amidst a worldwide downturn. Speculation that these Asian giants will reconfigure the international order with their accumulating might has assumed an air of certainty, a matter of “when” and not “if”. But it is worth inquiring whether the market-based modernization in both countries is proceeding in a stable direction or setting … Continue reading India and China – Reality check

Last sultan gets a modern makeover By Sami Moubayed DAMASCUS – For the past year, sporadic articles have appeared in the Arabic press debating the life and policies of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the last absolute monarch of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled from 1876 until forced to abdicate in 1909. For decades after the collapse of the empire, especially when Arab republics were in their infancy, Abdulhamid II was blamed for much of the difficulties that crippled Arab provinces of the empire, especially Ottoman Syria. In TV soap operas or novels he was always portrayed as an autocratic despot who … Continue reading Sultan Abdulhamid II

Speculators help stoke China’s food prices By Olivia Chung HONG KONG – The three great determinants of food prices – flood, drought and speculators – are helping to drive China’s inflation past the government’s full-year target to the highest in almost two years. The Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, rose 3.3% in July from a year earlier, 0.4 percentage points higher than the June increase and exceeding the government’s 3% full-year ceiling. It is the largest year-on-year increase since a 4% gain in October 2008. The country’s worst floods in a decade, which have killed 1,454 people … Continue reading Chinese Food Speculators

Mission assassination in Afghanistan By Pratap Chatterjee “Find, fix, finish, and follow-up” is the way the Pentagon describes the mission of secret military teams in Afghanistan that have been given a mandate to pursue alleged members of the Taliban or al-Qaeda wherever they may be found. Some call these “manhunting” operations and the units assigned to them “capture/kill” teams. Whatever terminology you choose, the details of dozens of their specific operations – and how they regularly went badly wrong – have been revealed for the first time in the mass of secret United States military and intelligence documents published by … Continue reading Mission assassination – Afghanistan

Medvedev’s wishful thinking By M K Bhadrakumar There was an element of hyperbole when a Moscow news service airily speculated this week that Catherine the Great’s historic dream of gaining access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea was nearing realization even as Russia was getting ready to propose to Pakistan an “extensive road and rail system being largely bankrolled by Moscow” to connect Central Asia with Pakistan’s sea ports. The Moscow commentator was anticipating the agenda of discussions at the quadripartite summit of Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, hosted by President Dmitry Medvedev at his vacation home in … Continue reading Medvedev plays chess

China threat: Now you see it, now you don’t By David Isenberg It’s that time of year again; the time when the Pentagon rolls out its annual threat assessment on China. The Pentagon has been issuing these reports since 2000, pursuant to US law. This year the 74-page “2010 Annual Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” [1] will undoubtedly be a disappointment to those conservatives who are looking to depict China as a menacing strategic competitor to the United States. While the executive summary includes the usual warnings about China’s pursuit of … Continue reading China threat?