Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Credits- Wikimedia Commons / Rabs003 Source- The National Interest Author-  Yukon Huang If the past is any guide, China will become more of a target as the U.S. presidential campaign enters its final phase. Republican candidate Donald Trump’s statements about levying high tariffs on imports from China have already elicited rebukes from senior financial officials, and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s perceived hard-line security views toward China are a source of discomfort for Beijing’s leadership. Such sentiments exemplify the intense scrutiny that China’s economic and foreign policies receive in the United States. and abroad. Whether one is a politician, a foreign investor or a diplomat, one is influenced by beliefs shaped by location and values, as gleaned from major public opinion polls. Political, economic and security considerations influence views, and together they explain why relations between China and the United States. and its allies in Asia are und

President Xi Jinping  ( Image credits- Foreign & Common Wealth Office) Source- Eurasia Review Author- D.S Rajan A series of politically significant events have taken place in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since the end of February 2016. Prima facie, they seem to mark the beginning of a movement spearheaded by some elements within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and sections of  social elites in the country like the business circles  and intelligentsia against certain  policies and style of functioning of Xi Jinping, who has been able to emerge as the PRC’s supreme leader though concentration of  power in his hands , thus raising questions for the  ‘collective leadership’ governing principle accepted in the Post-Deng Xiaoping era. A list of such events (11 in number, arranged in chronological order) is given below as Appendix. A prominent development is the release of Panama Papers exposing the  involvement of Xi’s   brother in law in the investment in of

Forbidden City, Beijing ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Mingzi Zhongqiu)  Source- The National Interest Author- Harry J. Kazianis  Twenty-five years ago, the mighty Soviet Union was finally thrown onto the ash heap of history—never to rise again. And yet, the fall of one of the most powerful empires in human history, we often forget, was never a sure thing. Indeed, looking back just ten years’ time, to 1981, very few people foresaw the demise of the USSR. In fact, many made predictions that it was America who was in for a rough patch in the years to come. Even a cursory survey of history from that era depicts an America still struggling to overcome a deeply ingrained malaise: the Soviets seemed on the march almost everywhere, the U.S. economy was in shambles, the nation was still reeling from the emotional scars of the Vietnam War as well as the resignation of a sitting president. The hits just kept on coming—a seemingly never-ending crisis, and what must have felt

Image credits- China Daily Source- The National Interest Author- Gordon G.Chang Mao Zedong, as he made his desperate escape from the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek during the Long March in the 1930s, brought only one book with him, Michael Pillsbury reports in The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. It was a “statecraft manual” with lessons, stories, strategies and maxims from as far back as 4000 BC. “Chinese strategy is, at its core, a product of lessons derived from the Warring States period,” writes Pillsbury. As the Pentagon insider tells us, Beijing’s approach to the world was set more than two millennia ago, when “China” as a unified state did not yet exist. There is a sense today that the Chinese are the maestros of statecraft, long-term thinkers and masters of the arts of both diplomacy and war. But is it true, as Pillsbury suggests, that China’s strategists think in longer time frames than tho

Tibetan protest against China ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Flickr-Tom Booth) Source- The Diplomat Author- Kevin Holden The United Nations is set to receive evidence that Chinese People’s Armed Police troops have repeatedly opened fire on unarmed Tibetan protesters calling for religious freedom over the past seven years. Evidence of deadly attacks by the Chinese paramilitary on Buddhist demonstrators across the Tibetan Plateau – provided by witnesses, whistleblowers, and a secret government document smuggled out of Tibet – will be presented to the UN’s Committee against Torture later this year. International human rights groups, working with figures inside Tibet who aim to expose these killings internationally, will gather in Geneva in November for the UN hearing. “The usage of live ammunition against peaceful Tibetan protestors does exist and it is also disproportionate,” Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay, the head of Tibet’s government-in-exile,

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Craig Nagy Source- The National Interest Author- Peter Mattis A couple of weeks ago, AEI scholar Michael Auslin published a column for the Wall Street Journal about a quiet dinner in Washington where a senior China scholar declared the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had reached the final stage before collapse. The political collapse of the world’s second-largest economy and a nuclear power is no small thing. What should Washington do? Go outside the Fourth Ring Road (a Chinese reference akin to saying go outside the Beltway), forge links to marginalized Chinese and speak out about Chinese human rights to show the Chinese people that the United States has “a moral stake in China’s development.” Even if the CCP’s collapse does not occur for years, these measures will help U.S. policy makers be “on the right side of history.” Such measures appear trivial in the face of a problem the size of China’s potential political instability