Journalism

Passing through Indonesia back in 2019, I asked a longtime friend why Southeast Asians were so quiet when it came to supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Once an anti-Suharto activist, now a businessman, he rolled his eyes at my naivete. “Hong Kong has had it too good for too long,” he said. “The rest of […]

In a business district a couple of miles from Vilnius’ Medieval Old Town, an office block sign lists organisations and companies working there. Nestled between a company called BaltCap and the big accountancy firm Price water house Coopers is the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania, a building which has lit a spark, pitting tiny Lithuania […]

Since leaving the European Union last year, the British government has decisively pursued two strands of policy that cement its tilt toward Asia. Without much fanfare, it has applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Japan-Australia led free-trade grouping with its market of half a billion people over 11 countries. […]

The cyberattack that shut down an American East Coast pipeline underlines a global security challenge that needs urgent attention. When ransom-seeking hackers breached the pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline last Friday, they claimed they were only after money. But their success and ease of operation exposed, yet again, the fragility of civilian infrastructure to hostile forces. […]

As dust settled from last month’s discordant US-China summit in Alaska, the People’s Daily published two photographs side by side. One showed the 1901 Boxer Protocol meeting in which Western powers forced their way onto Chinese soil after quelling an anti-foreign uprising. China regards those sanctions imposed on the corrupt Qing dynasty as the beginning […]

As Donald Trump was heading out of the White House, China’s Xinhua news agency did not mince its words: ‘Good riddance to the current US administration and its final madness,’ it declared. President Xi Jinping has called for a ‘healthy and stable’ relationship with the Biden administration, one that upholds principles of ‘no conflict’ and […]

David Foster hosted Humphrey on a TRT Roundtable discussion together with Marcin Zaborowski (Editor-in-chief of Res Publica Foundation) and Agnieszka Legucka (Polish Institute of International Affairs). […]

David Foster hosted Humphrey on a TRT Roundtable discussion together with Jagannath Panda (Manohar Parrikar Institute) and Francis Lun (CEO of GEO Securities).

The array of nations lined up behind the US sends an unequivocal message that China’s time has not yet come.

The Indo-Pacific: British and Vietnamese Perspectives […]

The terminology used to encapsulate China’ expansion is increasingly revolving around scenarios for a new Cold War. On the surface, with anti-China naval deployments to the Indo-Pacific, gulag style camps in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang and a crackdown against political dissent in Hong Kong, comparisons to the 20th Century Cold War may seem […]

Had he lived, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would have turned 100 this year and proudly seen his daughter Sheikh Hasina at the helm of his country, navigating it impressively through the complexities of the 21st century. But Mujib survived barely four years from his independence victory in 1971 to his horrific assassination, together with most of […]

Crisis often helps to lift the fog of bureaucratic process and shows institutions in their true light. That has been the case with the World Health Organization, the leading arm of the United Nations to fight a global pandemic. The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the weakness not just of the WHO but other institutions. At […]

David Foster hosted Humphrey on a TRT Roundtable discussion together with Clete Willems (Former US Trade Negotiator), Jean-Pierre Cabestan (Political Science Professor), and Sir Simon Fraser (Former Head of UK Diplomatic Service).

Lost kingdoms, stunning scenery, incredible creatures and centuries of intertwined cultures and religions … Humphrey Hawksley discovers them all on Indonesia’s islands. […]

Borders have always fascinated me. With just one step, you can cross culture, language, food, politics and much more. Some are tense. Some are awash with welcome. Sometimes, there’s the swipe of a biometric code. Sometimes, a creaking pole across a dusty road, miles from anywhere. Here is my random list of ten unusual borders, […]

Since childhood, I have had a fascination for borders – the more remote, strange and romantic, the better. And for years, I have wanted to speed across an expanse of snow on a sled drawn by a team of Alaskan huskies. When work took me far into the Arctic, I discovered a small company, Birk […]

In 1979, not long after America’s Jan 1. recognition of Beijing’s Communist regime as the legitimate government of China, former U.S. President Richard Nixon returned to China and was feted as a hero for his groundbreaking visit to the Chinese capital in 1972. […]

When the Chinese leadership maps out its long-term regional and global policies, the territories of Hong Kong and Taiwan take special position. While the United States, Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative through Asia and Africa are all vital to China’s continued growth, these two cosmopolitan wealthy, educated societies represent its emotional side. Beijing regards […]

The ongoing protests in Hong Kong offer insights into China’s flexibility of governance and its patient ability to challenge the current world order. Much has and will be written on this issue. But for an answer on how governance may unfold, consider Taiwan, which for 70 years has stood in the storm’s eye of a […]

The re-election success of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes at a unique time for his country because Western democracies are continuing their inward naval-gazing and the world stage is crying out for new players with bold ideas. In his first term, Modi blazed an international trail through the sheer force of his personality and […]

Recent elections in India and Europe, societies with a range of cultures and levels of wealth, have provided further proof that the concept of a global society, with shared values, is retreating into one dominated by sovereignty and the nation state. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on his Hindu nationalist ticket, won an even bigger […]

There is much swirling debate at the moment about the rise of China, the cohesion of Asia and the writing of an alternative world order. Whether the threat comes from North Korea’s nuclear weapons or stealth espionage through the Chinese tech giant Huawei, the global commentariat is having a field day. Their arguments range from […]

What are we to make of Russia? A major player on the world stage undoubtedly, but what really is Putin power? And is he being unfairly painted as the bogeyman of the east? David Foster hosted Humphrey on a TRT Roundtable discussion together with Ben Nimmo, who investigates Russian disinformation campaigns at the Atlantic Council, Alexander […]

Once a confident nation that ran an empire on which the sun never set, Great Britain is today a fractious place, split within families, villages, Parliament and from cabinet post to cabinet post. Meanwhile, many in Asia are shaking their heads, wondering what is going on and how much they should care about or plan […]

China’s rapid expansion into the South China Sea has been a global flashpoint since 2012, after a confrontation with the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal fishing reef. However, tensions over the disputed territories extend well into the previous century. And China’s expansion is rooted in its understanding of its 5000 year old history. As China […]

A quarter of a century ago, an 18-year-old American student living in Singapore was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for writing graffiti on cars and stealing road signs. The United States protested the sentence’s severity, arguing Michael Fay’s punishment was too harsh for a teenage prank with no violent crime committed. Fay’s case […]

The scheduled visit by the U.S. secretaries of defense and state to India on Sept. 6 highlights Washington’s latest attempt to create a strategic Asian alliance strong enough to counter the growing influence of China. But is the unformulated plan for a “free and open Indo-Pacific” — promoted by officials from President Donald Trump down […]

Two years ago, China and Russia issued a joint declaration with the aim of throwing out an open challenge to the current US-led world order. Coming after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and a court ruling against Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea, the two governments announced bluntly in June 2016 that they would enhance […]

After months of planning that required the most choreographed of diplomatic skills, Britain hosted a lavish visit in April for the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, followed by a summit for the 53-member Commonwealth, a large international grouping that comprises a bygone colonial power and those it had once colonised. At first glance, not much […]

OSLO: In 2016, two seemingly unrelated incidents unfolded in remote and vulnerable parts of Europe. One view might suggest the events, efficiently swept away with quiet diplomacy, counted for little. Another considers the incidents as demonstrating Russia’s and China’s determination to test the outer boundaries of European and American resolve. There may be nothing new […]

With a lot of fanfare, China has expanded its flagship Belt and Road Initiative to a vast swath of new territory far removed from the Middle Kingdom — the Arctic. A detailed white paper last month outlined plans for a “Polar Silk Road” that would link Asia to Europe across the frozen far north. As has […]

In the early 1990s, as remnants of the Berlin Wall were transformed into a tourist attraction, there was a near-unchallenged presumption that governance, through the democratic will of the people, would underpin our future. Germany, once divided by two opposing ideologies, united under the democratic banner and countries that had mostly lived under Soviet control […]

LONDON: Disasters dominate the news agenda, with recent dystopian images of hurricanes raging in the Atlantic, earthquake-fractured streets in Mexico, apocalyptic flooding in South Asia and burning villages of Rohingya Muslims in scenes reminiscent of Cambodia’s killing fields. Advancing technology has changed how disasters are reported, but what attracts attention and how we react remain […]

  How China handles it’s renegade province of Taiwan will not only determine its own ambition of reunification but will also be watched closely by the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Humphrey Hawksley reports from the once heavily militarised Taiwanese island of Kinmen. China Has Chance to Undercut US by Wooing Taiwan

Britain is putting down new markers on the global stage as it prepares to leave the European Union. But can it risk annoying China if it’s to succeed. Humphrey Hawksley – UK’s nuclear plant imbroglio fuels post-Brexit debate

Two islands in the Bering Straits, one Russian, one American, are barely two miles apart. Only a few military observation posts remain on the Russian island, but a community of Eskimos lives on the US island. After the Cold War they hoped to resume regular contact with Russian relatives – but now the chances seem […]

India’s economy is the 10th largest in the world, but millions of the country’s workers are thought to be held in conditions little better than slavery. One story – which some may find disturbing – illustrates the extreme violence that some are subjected to. They tried to escape and were punished with an axe. Punished by […]

China’s recent decision to force a showdown with Vietnam in waters around the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea tempers an argument that has gained momentum in recent months — that is, with the growing assertiveness of Russia in Ukraine and China in East Asia, a weakening U.S. is being challenged by increasingly confident […]

Humphrey Hawksley reports from the brick kilns of India where more than two million people feed the booming construction sector and economic miracle by working in conditions campaigners describe as ‘slavery.’ Their work goes into building the skyscrapers, offices and call centres, but the bricks they make are now being condemned as blood bricks. India […]

Humphrey Hawksley goes to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda to investigate the link between minerals, war and business. These are the raw materials used in our every day lives for computers, phones and household appliances. Humphrey asks if a little-known American law might force a change to how multi-national companies do business in […]

For years, the chocolate industry knew their raw products were farmed in unacceptable conditions – using slavery and children. Humphrey Hawksley first exposed the cocoa scandal more than a decade ago. Returning again to the Ivory Coast, he finds children taken from their parents and forced to harvest cocoa with little evidence that chocolate makers […]