After suffering technological and industrial stagnation and contraction over the past several decades, China's defense industry has undergone an extensive restructuring since the late 1990s to make it leaner, more efficient and better able to meet the high-technology needs of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).... MORE

Four months after the U.S. ordered its troops into Afghanistan to remove the Taliban regime, China and Pakistan joined hands to break ground in building a Deep Sea Port on the Arabian Sea. The project was sited in an obscure fishing village of Gwadar in... MORE

Elsewhere, Ian Storey and I have both argued that the PLA's aircraft carrier program is shelved but not canceled altogether. [1] Profound political and military factors are at work to delay construction, but the idea of China possessing carriers is not dead. In other words,... MORE

If one theme characterizes Thailand's foreign policy, it is the ability to take advantage of the rivalries of larger powers. Skillfully avoiding occupation during various colonial enterprises, Thai foreign policy has cleverly sensed the prevailing winds and adapted accordingly. Thailand's close relationship with China –... MORE

According to recent Western reports out of China and views expressed by the Japanese press and many analysts, Beijing is either actively encouraging or tacitly tolerating a growing anti-Japanese sentiment in China. Thus Beijing is portrayed as largely, if not entirely, responsible for the deteriorating... MORE

Can Hu Jintao recover from the blow that the so-called "Zhao Ziyang fiasco" has dealt to his already shaky reputation? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s shabby treatment of the recently deceased former party chief has cast doubt not only on Hu's commitment to reform but... MORE

Nothing better demonstrates La Rochefoucauld's maxim that "hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue" than the Joint Declaration on Non-proliferation and Arms Control issued at the China-European Union Summit held in The Hague, Holland, on December 9, 2004. The declaration was filled with... MORE

Call it the Great Leap Leftward. President and Commander-in-Chief Hu Jintao is presiding over a leftward turn in politics that has come as a surprise to Hu admirers who were once impressed with the Fourth-Generation leader's reformist inclinations. In Chinese terminology, "left" has the connotation... MORE

The devastating tsunami that crashed ashore throughout Asia on December 26, 2004 sparked the largest international reconstruction effort in recent history. As governments and NGOs across the globe mobilized to provide aid to affected regions, political rivalries were temporarily put aside in the spirit of... MORE

The regional reverberations from the recent regime shake-up in Burma continue to be felt in Beijing, New Delhi and in most ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) capitals. After barely 15 months in office, Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt was sacked in mid-October 2004. Since... MORE