Asia-Pacific

Photo: American cartoon, published in 1898: "Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans!" Source: Wikimedia Commons

Is China Seeking to Remake the World in Its Own Image?

Viewpoint by Richard Hanania*

This is the second of a four-part series. Click here for Part 1

NEW YORK (IDN) – No other state was considered a fundamental threat to the U.S. over the issue, with a mix of external pressure and internal incentives leading them to ultimately develop more rigorous patent laws and enforcement. Many corporations, the parties most directly affected, treat the problem as the price of doing business.

Perhaps, then, the threat is that China seeks to remake the world in its own image? This is a popular trope among the national security establishment.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 January 2021

Photo: Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden host a State Luncheon in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on September 25, 2015. Source: U.S. Department of State

What Is the U.S. Afraid of China Actually Doing?

Viewpoint by Richard Hanania*

This is the first of a four-part series.

NEW YORK (IDN) – Across the political spectrum, there is widespread agreement that America must get serious about the threat posed by China. As the Trump administration comes to a close, the State Department has just released a document called ‘The Elements of the China Challenge’. A distillation of conventional wisdom among national security experts and government officials, it argues that the U.S. needs a concerted effort to push back against Beijing. On its first page, the document tells us that “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has triggered a new era of great-power competition.”

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 07 January 2021

Photo: From left to right, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger chat at the State Luncheon in honour of the Prime Minister at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2016. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Encourage USA To Compromise with Russia, Iran, China and The Islamic World

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – We are waiting. Waiting for a quick decision on whether the US will renew its agreement with Russia to extend the New Start Treaty, that cuts the long-range nuclear weapons each possesses by 1550 (a 30% cut). It’s due to expire in just over a month on February 5. The Russians have said they want to renew it. President Donald Trump has done nothing about nuclear arms control- despite ridiculously being accused at home of being in President Vladimir Putin’s pocket. Indeed, he has made Russia more vulnerable to a nuclear attack than it was before he came into office.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 29 December 2020

ASEAN Holds the Reins in The South China Sea

Viewpoint by Sourabh Gupta

The author is a resident senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), Washington DC. This article first appeared on EASTASIAFORUM on 18 December 2020.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – On 6 May 2009, Malaysia and Vietnam jointly notified a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). The submission implicitly declared that the Spratly islands were incapable of generating entitlements beyond their 12 nautical mile territorial sea limit.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 26 December 2020

Locked-In, Australians Help to Keep Tourism Sector Alive

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SILVERTON (IDN) – With over 9.3 million international visitors spending close to $34 billion in Australia last year, Tourism Australia’s executive director Bob East predicted a rosy picture for the county' tourism sector, in its annual report for 2018-19 released at the beginning of this year. He said the sector has seen “exceptional achievements” in the past year, and thousands of tourism operators are “making a good living from a strong and sustainable industry”.

Even before the rosy report could be properly distributed, the tourism sector came crashing down, when Australia became the first country in the world to seal its borders in January this year. It was just before the peak of the international visitor arrivals during the lunar new year holidays in Asia.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 18 December 2020

Photo: UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, Siddharth Chatterjee, appointed as UN Resident Coordinator in China.

UN Chief Appoints an Eminent Indian National as Resident Coordinator in China

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Siddharth Chatterjee, an eminent Indian national at the world body, as UN "resident coordinator" to China, who has the same rank as an ambassador of a foreign state accredited to that country. The Chinese government' has formally accepted the UN Secretary-General’s selection.

Observers consider this important particularly as Chatterjee is also an Indian Army Special Forces veteran. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from the National Defence Academy in India.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 17 December 2020

Australia-China Spat: It's More Than Just Trade

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – A one-sided trade war has been gathering momentum between China and Australia, ever since Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an “independent” international investigation of the origins of Covid-19, which infuriated China.

China is Australia’s biggest trading partner with two-way trade worth A$ 235 in financial year 2018-19, which amounts to 26% of Australia’s total trade.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 11 December 2020

Photo: The panorama of Port Vila, capital and largest city of Vanuatu. CC BY 2.0

Vanuatu's Development Success Overshadowed by COVID-19

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – The Pacific Island Developing State of Vanuatu has emerged as one of the region’s great success stories. Vanuatu has joined the ranks of Samoa and the Maldives as one of only six countries to graduate from being a least developed country since the category was introduced by the United Nations in 1971.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 December 2020

How the U.S. Is Locking Out China from Latin America and the Caribbean

Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad *

NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) – On August 20, 2018, El Salvador’s leftist president Salvador Sánchez Cerén announced on national television that El Salvador would break its ties with Taiwan and recognize the People’s Republic of China. This was in accord with international law, said Sánchez Cerén, and it would bring “great benefits for our country.”

Not long after, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio took to Twitter to announce that this move “will cause real harm to relationship with the U.S. including their role in #AllianceforProsperity.”

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 04 December 2020

Photo: AndryaHart: Rocky creek in the rainforest that could be submerged or destroyed by the Dunoon dam. Credit: Andrya Hart.

Australia: Veteran Environmental Campaigners Gear Up for a New Battle

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 45th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous reports.

CHANNON (IDN) – In the late 1970s, they were breastfeeding youthful mothers seen on national television blocking the path of bulldozers sent in to fell timber forests in Terania Creek close by. Today they are grandmothers still living in this pristine rain forest area gearing up for possibly another epic battle, with the same passion, to stop the local council and developers building a dam here and flooding precious rainforests and sacred Aboriginal sites.