Pacific

Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones: The Trajectory of China's Maritime Transformation

Sidharth Kaushal and Magdalena Markiewicz

This Occasional Paper examines China's maritime strategy by placing its contemporary evolution in context.

"“What is clear is that while China and Russia may be in lockstep against the U.S. right now, that closeness doesn’t play out in all other contexts" said Raffaello Pantucci, the director of international security studies at the London-based RUSI think tank. "

Xi Jinping Has Embraced Vladimir Putin—for Now

"In February 1984, the deputy head of the Indian Consulate in Birmingham was grabbed as he got off the bus heading home with a cake for his daughter’s birthday. The next day, Kashmiri nationalists announced that they had kidnapped him and were demanding a ransom and the release of a Kashmiri leader in Indian custody. The Indian government refused and Mhatre was brutally murdered. Three decades later in 2005, the Kashmiri connection came to life once again when a group of British born young men blew themselves up on the London public transport system murdering 52 innocent commuters. Their journey to Al Qaeda training camps had started through Kashmiri oriented ones. "

India's actions in Kashmir could have bloody consequences in the UK

"Still, Lam chose the worst possible moment to try to rush the bill through and “badly mismanaged” the issue, wrote the former British diplomat Charles Parton, a senior associate fellow at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute. Not only did it virtually coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown—traditionally marked by heightened emotions and a public vigil in Hong Kong—but it was equally risky to court potential unrest so close to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949. "

Ich Bin Ein Hong Konger

The Evolution of Online Violent Extremism in Indonesia and the Philippines

Nava Nuraniyah

This paper outlines the evolving use of online platforms by pro-Daesh groups in Indonesia and the Philippines and how this has enabled extremists to develop and strengthen their networks.

"Russia and China have often competing, but occasionally overlapping political, economic and security interests in countries across the world. These interests can converge in places, such as the Arctic, or diverge, as in their growing competition on the arms market, and as they compete for global recognition as powerful political players. Central Asia is often overlooked as a theatre in which Russian and Chinese interests come together, and where the five republics are caught between the influences of these two large powers. "

The battle for hearts and minds in Central Asia: Russia vs. China