Section: Non-Asian media focused on Asia
Autocracies masquerading as democracies are a threat across the globe
RUSSIA’S successful interference in the 2016 US presidential election may inspire other countries to do the same. These other countries don’t look threatening. They look like democracies. But they’re not. They’re a special kind of autocratic regime that masquerades as a democracy. And what looks like benevolent conduct by...
China-Russia: A pseudo-alliance fraught with mistrust and irritation
HIGH-level bonhomie was on display at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires last December, as it invariably is at meetings between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin – the irreplaceable leaders of China and Russia. Yet the exaggerated gestures of goodwill cannot quite camouflage the underlying tensions in this presidential pseudo-alliance. Following the...
UK sets sail for Asia as Brexit storm rages on
TO outside observers, the UK seems to be imploding in a self-inflicted domestic debate over its relationship with the European Union. Despite this unfortunately-accurate representation of the situation, British foreign policymakers across Whitehall have managed to quietly and miraculously effect a major transformation in the country’s...
China, Russia in Uneasy Energy Embrace
As sanction threats loom over its export plans, Russia is casting itself as a leading defender of China’s energy security.At a bilateral energy meeting in Beijing last month, Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s state-owned Rosneft oil giant, said his company expects to supply China with over 50 million metric tons (366.5 million...
Can China’s companies be World Cup winners?
WITH football’s World Cup just a matter of weeks away, attention is turning towards host-country Russia. Back in 2009, when the country bid for the right to hold the 2018 tournament, it was a rather different place: Dimitry Medvedev was president, oil prices were higher, the Russian economy was booming, and economic sanctions against it had...
Russian military down flight MH17 – investigators
A RUSSIAN military unit on Thursday has been confirmed as the source of the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board, Dutch investigators said. The airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a Russian-made “Buk” anti-aircraft missile on July 17, 2014 over...
China’s first homegrown aircraft carrier commences trials
CHINA marked another milestone in its bid to modernise its military on Sunday after starting sea trials of its first domestically developed aircraft carrier, according to state media. The still-unnamed carrier was launched this time last year but since then has been undergoing fitting of weapons and other systems and has not yet entered service....
Philippines urged to remain part of the ‘ICC family’
THE International Criminal Court (ICC) has called upon the Philippines to remain a party to the Rome Statute, after President Rodrigo Duterte announced it would pull out due to investigations into the country’s bloody war on drugs. A statement released by the ICC on Tuesday said that the Philippines’ formal decision to withdraw from...
Did Donald Trump’s election consultants really meddle in Malaysia’s polls?
MALAYSIA is among a small list of countries which reportedly had its polls influenced by Cambridge Analytica, the UK political consultancy that played a key role in US President Donald Trump’s election victory and which is now at the centre of Facebook’s election manipulation scandal. British broadcaster Channel 4 News recently...
China’s Oil Investment in Russia Raises Questions
Nearly two months after the announcement of China’s largest private investment in Russian energy, terms of the deal keep expanding along with questions about how they will play out. On Sept. 8, privately-held CEFC China Energy Company Ltd. said it had agreed to buy a 14.16-percent interest in Russia’s Rosneft oil company for U.S. $9.1...
