Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Of debt and bondage with Beijing
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 26/11/2022
» Recently released details of Kenya's 2014 loan agreement with China to finance a controversial railway project have once again highlighted the predatory nature of Chinese lending in developing countries. The contract not only imposed virtually all risk on the borrower (including requiring binding arbitration in China to settle any dispute), but also raised those risks to unmanageable levels (such as by setting an unusually high interest rate). With terms like that, it is no wonder some countries around the world have become ensnared in sovereignty-eroding Chinese debt traps.
No justification for engaging with Taliban
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 19/08/2022
» In the year since the United States' disgraceful abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the country has gone down precisely the path any logical observer would have predicted: a medieval, jihadist, terrorist-sheltering emirate has been established. The US will incur costs for betraying its Afghan allies for a long time to come. But nobody will pay a higher price than Afghans.
Beijing's South China Sea grab
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 18/12/2018
» It has been just five years since China initiated its major land reclamation in the South China Sea, and the country has already shifted the territorial status quo in its favour -- without facing any international pushback. The anniversary of the start of its island building underscores the transformed geopolitics in a corridor central to the international maritime order.
China poses threat to the environment
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 27/08/2018
» Asia's future is inextricably tied to the Himalayas, the world's tallest mountain range and the source of the water-stressed continent's major river systems. Yet reckless national projects are straining the region's fragile ecosystems, resulting in a mounting security threat that extends beyond Asia.
A new front in Asia's water war
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 13/10/2017
» China has long regarded freshwater as a strategic weapon -- one that the country's leaders have no compunction about wielding to advance their foreign-policy goals. After years of using its chokehold on almost every major transnational river system in Asia to manipulate water flows themselves, China is now withholding data on upstream flows to put pressure on downstream countries, particularly India.
Water woes taking an increasingly hard toll on Asia
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 28/04/2016
» Asia's water woes are worsening. Already the world's driest continent in per capita terms, Asia now faces a severe drought that has parched a vast region extending from southern Vietnam to central India. This has exacerbated political tensions, because it has highlighted the impact of China's dam-building policy on the environment and on water flows to the dozen countries located downstream.
Afghans must be ready post-US
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 31/03/2014
» As it braces for its upcoming presidential election, Afghanistan finds itself at another critical juncture, with its unity and territorial integrity at stake after 35 years of relentless war. Can Afghanistan finally escape the cycle of militancy and foreign intervention that has plagued it for more than three decades?
Friendless China mourns loss of North Korea
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 16/02/2014
» At a time when China's territorial assertiveness has strained its ties with many countries in the region, and its once-tight hold on Myanmar has weakened, its deteriorating relationship with North Korea, once its vassal, renders it a power with no real allies. The question now is whether the US and other powers can use this development to create a diplomatic opening to North Korea that could help transform northeast Asia's fraught geopolitics.
China's stealth wars threaten stability
News, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 12/06/2013
» China is subverting the status quo in the South and East China Seas, on its border with India, and even concerning international riparian flows _ all without firing a single shot. Just as it grabbed land across the Himalayas in the 1950s by launching furtive encroachments, China is waging stealth wars against its Asian neighbours that threaten to destabilise the entire region. The more economic power China has amassed, the greater its ambition to alter the territorial status quo has become.