16CHINATRUMP-facebookJumbo Courtesy: New York Times
13 July 2017

2016, the hinge year

Three epoch-making events in 2016 are continuing to have global repercussions. They were: Brexit, China’s rubbishing of the July verdict of the Permanent Court of Arbitration after it rejected its claims on disputed islands in the South China Sea, and Trump’s election. This article, the prologue to a book-in-progress, The Hinge Year – Geopolitical Dislocations and Dispersals, outlines how these events intersect with transformed geoeconomic realities

18954814573_2507b30c25_k Courtesy: MEA/Flickr
6 June 2017

A Modi-Sharif meet likely in Astana?

The 17th Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is being held in Astana this week at which Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif will be present. But no meeting is likely to take place between them--and even if it does, it will not advance peace between the two countries

PAKISTAN-CHINA-DIPLOMACY Courtesy: AFP
18 May 2017

Pakistan: riding high

The Indian government must be commended for staying away from the Belt & Road Forum in Beijing this week on the basis of principled objections. However, the forum has robust global participation – 30 heads of state attended the meeting, as did the chiefs of the UN, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). India was the only country in the world that was invited, but refused to participate

shanghai-420380_960_720 Courtesy: Pixabay
23 March 2017

China: four-city eye opener

An opportunity to be a part of a recent think tank delegation to China offered the author insight into China’s foreign policy, development plans and issues affecting the India-China bilateral relationship. Gaps in perception that keep both countries apart must be bridged for them to leverage their emerging positions in Asia and the world

silk road Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
14 February 2017

Interweaving the old Cotton and Silk Routes

China’s resurrection of the ancient Silk Road is ambitious, sprawling, hegemonic. Its pre-European origins, though, lay in a criss-crossing of nameless caravan routes on which Indian cotton was traded as vigorously as Chinese silk, tangible proof of the interdependence of two ancient civilisations over two millennia

china-map-of-obor-1 Courtesy: The Wire
6 February 2017

OBOR: in search of private financing

China has launched the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative in an attempt to rebuild the ancient Silk Road with proposed land and sea routes to promote infrastructure, trade, and investment in the regions that it will thus connect. The challenge will be to attract private financing to support the official and multilateral ones