As Myanmar’s long-simmering Rohingya crisis boils over into ethnic cleansing, refugee exodus and possible civil war, there are inevitable calls for economic sanctions to be reimposed on Myanmar’s military-dominated government. The outgoing Obama administration lifted U.S. economic sanctions on Myanmar, also known as Burma, in late 2016 in recognition of its partial transition to democracy under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Now the Nobel Peace Prize laureate finds herself the subject of international condemnation for her failure to act toward, or even to speak in favor of, a peaceful resolution to the crisis. There is no hint of [...]
For the past decade, China’s involvement in international humanitarian relief has steadily risen as it has sent its people, supplies and support to nations around the world. While these humanitarian efforts have often been framed as a tool of Chinese foreign policy, China has also increasingly integrated itself into the international humanitarian relief system. In an email interview, Miwa Hirono, a Japanese scholar who has written extensively on Chinese humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, explains how Beijing’s approach to disaster relief has evolved and how China continues to balance its policy of noninterference with its desire to provide assistance abroad. WPR: [...]
China signed an extraordinary $20 billion loan agreement with Guinea earlier this month, providing the West African country with much-needed financial resources over the next two decades in exchange for concessions and access to its abundant deposits of bauxite, an industrial aluminum ore that is in high demand. The first phase of the deal involves three separate Chinese mining infrastructure projects in the northwestern town of Boffa: a planned alumina refinery and two bauxite extraction operations. China is currently a top global consumer of bauxite, an industrial ore that is first refined into alumina, also known as aluminum oxide, and [...]
