Asia-Pacific Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Traditionally, China has preferred to pursue bilateral deals when investing in Central Asia, but its ambitious plans for the One Belt, One Road initiative will require a more integrated approach. In an email interview, David Lewis, a Central Asia expert and senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, describes the political and other challenges China will need to grapple with to make this phase of the […]

On March 15, King Salman of Saudi Arabia arrived in Beijing for a three-day visit. The trip, part of a one-month tour of Asia, was widely covered in the Saudi and international press, in part due to the fact that the king was accompanied by an entourage of 1,000 people. Far more noteworthy were the $65 billion worth of agreements the king signed with Chinese President Xi Jinping in fields ranging from cooperation on China’s space exploration program to the construction of new refineries in China with Saudi Aramco, the state oil company. Saudi Arabia is clearly seeking to deepen […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Relations between China and Myanmar have been deeply affected by Myanmar’s ongoing political evolution, though China nevertheless sees Myanmar as a key player in its One Belt, One Road initiative. In an email interview, Yun Sun, senior associate with the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, traces how bilateral ties have changed in recent years and how One Belt, One Road could potentially serve leaders […]

A few years ago, a trio of competing multilateral infrastructure development projects sought to advance economic interconnectedness in Central Asia, a region that, by most measures, is perhaps the least-integrated in the world. Washington proposed a “New Silk Road Initiative” to tether Central Asian states with one another and with Afghanistan. Moscow, meanwhile, launched the Eurasian Union, which was to serve, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said, as the foundation of a new “epoch” for the post-Soviet states. And China, in 2013, announced plans for its “Silk Road Economic Belt” (SREB), expanding railway and, most especially, pipeline networks in the […]

Last month, former resistance fighter Francisco Guterres won an election to become East Timor’s next president. The vote was the third since factional fighting within the military triggered widespread violence in 2006, leading to a military intervention headed by Australia. In an email interview, Damien Kingsbury, professor of international politics at Deakin University in Australia, discusses how the vote unfolded and what the results mean for legislative elections planned for July. WPR: How did the substance of this campaign compare to past campaigns, and what does that say about how the country is evolving more than a decade after the […]

Stories abound in the U.S. press about the hollowing out of the State Department. Employees at Foggy Bottom have relocated from work desks to cafeteria tables to spend their newfound free time over paperbacks and coffee. But there is one table that U.S. diplomats could find themselves absent from this fall—the negotiating table at the next international climate meeting in Bonn in May. U.S. President Donald Trump’s skepticism of climate change guarantees that his administration will cede leadership on the issue. “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Budget and Management, said […]

The Chinese government has long framed its treatment of the ethnic Uighur population in the region of Xinjiang as part of a counterterrorism campaign, even more so recently. In February, the so-called Islamic State released a video purporting to show militants from Xinjiang vowing to bring the fight to China. On April 1, the government began enforcing anti-extremism measures including rules against veils and “abnormal” beards. In an email interview, Sean R. Roberts, a cultural anthropologist at George Washington University currently working on a book about Uighur militancy, discusses how violence in Xinjiang has evolved and whether it can accurately […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. China has been a consistent partner for Egypt despite the latter’s years of instability going back to the Arab uprisings of 2011. It should come as no surprise, then, that Egypt is part of Beijing’s ambitious One Belt, One Road initiative. In an email interview, Kyle Haddad-Fonda, an expert on China’s relations with the Arab world, explains how Egypt’s role in OBOR shows that the initiative […]

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepalis are heading to the polls on May 14 to elect local government officials for the first time in two decades and inaugurate voting under the new constitution that passed in September 2015. But just six weeks before the voting begins, politicians are scrambling to strike a deal with the Madhesis, an ethnic group from Nepal’s southern plains that has pushed back against provisions in the new constitution. Madhesi political parties are pushing for a constitutional amendment to give them greater representation in government and redraw provincial boundaries in order to create two federal provinces that stretch […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka was an eager player in China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, hoping to use Chinese capital to execute a massive postwar infrastructure upgrade. But OBOR has run into a number of problems in Sri Lanka. The country has reportedly borrowed more than $6 billion for infrastructure projects, mostly from China, and officials now say the loans are too expensive. […]