Asia-Pacific

Photo: Image compiled by the author, public domain

TikTok, Trump and the Need for a Digital Non-Aligned Movement

Viewpoint by Juan Ortiz Frueler*

This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (IDN) – Recent weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in the US stance towards tech companies from the People's Republic of China (PRC). After hounding the telecommunications company Huawei for years, the social networking app TikTok is the latest Chinese company to enter the firing line.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 23 August 2020

Helping Women Entrepreneurs in Asia and Europe to Thrive Under Lockdown

Viewpoint by UN Women, Bopinc and The DO School

NEW YORK (IDN) – The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical role of collaboration in creating gender-inclusive ecosystems where women can emerge and thrive. As the European Union, UN Women and its partners Bopinc and The DO School highlight their commitment to helping more women entrepreneurs on the occasion of the World Entrepreneurs Day this year on August 21, two initiatives should be recognised for their remarkable progress in providing the space and tools these women need: the Entrepreneurship Accelerator and Industry Disruptor.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 20 August 2020

Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong prepare for a group photo with ASEAN leaders at the ASEAN-Russia Summit in Singapore, 14 November 2018. Source: ASEAN

Russian Influence in Southeast Asia Will Struggle to Be More Than Marginal

Viewpoint by Joshua Bernard B Espeña, UP Diliman *

DILIMAN, Quezon City, Philippines (IDN) – The Russian people have voted in favour of constitutional reforms that give President Vladimir Putin the potential to stay in power until 2036 through a landslide victory in a national referendum on 2 July 2020. While critics complain about voting irregularities, the changes mean that Putin could become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Peter the Great.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 17 August 2020

5G Is Only One of Many Battle Arenas in U.S. Tech War in Which China Holds the Cards

Viewpoint by Prabir Purkayastha

The writer is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement. This article was produced in partnership by Newsclick and Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The U.S. tech war on China continues, banning Chinese equipment from its network, and asking its Five Eyes partners and NATO allies to follow suit. It is a market and a technology denial regime that seeks to win back manufacturing that the U.S. and European countries have lost to China.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 14 August 2020

Never-Ending Russia-US-Africa Geopolitical Triangular Games

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW (IDN) – Instead of concentrating on developing its newly-established strategy for Africa, Russia has locked horns with United States over its funding for educational programmes, media and NGOs.

Russia has also accused foreign players of adopting neocolonial tendencies and approaches in dealing with Africa, according to analytical reviews and observations by diplomats, policy experts and researchers.

: Kester Kenn Klomegah; THE WORLD; Russia; 13 August 2020

Map: Soviet Invasion of Manchuria (1945), based on Glantz's maps in Levenworth Paper No 7 - Feb 1983. CC BY-SA 3.0

Soviet Advance Not U.S. Atomic Bombings Forced Japan To Surrender

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Seventy-five years ago the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9 was premeditated mass murder.

President Harry Truman had a workable alternative to using the atom bomb – to cooperate with Stalin, as Roosevelt and Churchill had done on the Western front, in the Soviet advance on Japan, rather than making it a race for control.

Indeed, it was the Soviet advance that convinced Japan to surrender.** Although unaware of each other’s thinking both Truman and the Japanese leadership shared a common cause – they both wanted to pre-empt the possibility of the Soviet Union occupying parts of Japan before the U.S. had got its boots on Japanese ground. Truman did not want to be compelled to concede Soviet participation in the government of post-surrender, occupied, Japan.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 11 August 2020

Photo: Mahinda Rajapaksa takes oath as the new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Source: Newsfirst Sri Lanka.

Powerful Rajapaksa Brothers' Landslide in Sri Lanka Election Should Get "Liberals" Thinking

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – The landslide victory of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP – Sri Lanka Peoples’ Front) led by the Rajapaksa brothers throws a challenge to so-called “liberals” everywhere whose ideology may not be in sync when a huge portion of the electorate vote for a “strong” government rather than a coalition representing various segments of the community that may not provide political and economic stability at a time of a crisis.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 09 August 2020

Image: Icon of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Limited Company (TSMC).

Why Taiwan Is at the Heart of a Geopolitical Struggle to Produce Cutting-Edge Computer Chips

Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback

The writer is a market analyst and commentator. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NEW YORK (IDN) – The media likes to dabble in war game fantasies between the 21st-century great powers China and the U.S., but it’s a distraction from the hybrid economic warfare that is underway—from Trump’s tariff hikes to the shores of the advanced economy.

Here in a nutshell is the problem facing the United States. The country that used to be a world leader in all forms of high tech, especially semiconductor chips, now spends its time re-designing chocolate chips.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 August 2020

Photo: WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during the closing session of the 73rd World Health Assembly on 19 May 2020. Credit: WHO.

Trump Managed to Lead the World With the Worst Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad *

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) – Six months ago, on January 30, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Ten days before this, the Chinese government had said—to great alarm—that the coronavirus could be transmitted from human to human. The contagiousness of this virus led the WHO to make the declaration, which came a month after the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told their counterparts in the United States about the virus.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 07 August 2020

Photo: Atomic Bombing in Nagasaki and the Urakami Cathedral. Credit: Google Arts&Culture

Japanese and American Catholics Take on the Bomb

By Drew Christiansen

Writer Drew Christiansen, S. J., is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He is the co-editor with Carole Sargent of A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020). facebook.com/disarmnowgeorgetown

WASHINGTON, DC. (IDN) -- Nagasaki is the historic centre of Japanese Catholicism. In the 16th century, beginning with the missionary visits of one of the first Jesuits, Francis Xavier, Nagasaki was the focal point of their efforts to bring Christianity to Japan.