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 […]
Read MoreThe Jaipur Literary Festival
During avisit to the world renowned book event, Humphrey Hawksley finds a refreshing antidote to growing global concerns about threats to freedom of speech and thought For five days every January, hundreds of thousands converge on the elegant old Diggi Palace in Jaipur for the world’s biggest literary festival. A half-hour flight from Delhi, Jaipur […]
Read MoreThe ‘Polar Silk Road’
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 […]
Read MoreBrexit Britain’s troubled quest to ‘Asianize’ the Commonwealth
As the U.K. reaches a critical phase in its negotiations to leave the European Union, Theresa May’s government is engaged in a desperate hunt for alternative partners. London has seized on the Commonwealth of Nations, formed out of the British Empire, as one way of strengthening its political and economic alliances outside the EU. On […]
Read MoreDemocracy in Kurdistan and Catalonia
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 […]
Read MoreIslamist radicalisation
Humphrey Hawksley asks why Islamist radicalisation has impacted some countries more than others. When President George W Bush ordered troops into Afghanistan after the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the word ‘radicalisation’ was rarely, if ever, mentioned. Bush argued simply that terror was evil and needed to be stopped at source to […]
Read MoreFast, Furious or Fake News
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 […]
Read MoreThe Philippines — How China Plans to Win the Asia-Pacific
SCARBOROUGH SHOAL – March 2017
The Philippines, has found itself in the eye of the storm after China took over traditional Philippine fishing grounds about a hundred miles off its west coast. In 2014, Chinese Coast Guard crews pounded them with water cannon and ordered them to leave. China has since occupied the area known as Scarborough Shoal, despite the Philippines having a defence treaty with the United States, should it come under attack. Humphrey Hawksley has been to the fishing village most affected and discovered that beyond the high-level diplomacy things were not exactly as they seemed. […]
Read MoreTaiwan-China – a Flashpoint Once More
KINMEN, TAIWAN – February 2017
It was not only Beijing, but also Taipei that was relieved by the U.S. president’s decision to continue to policy of one China, respecting Beijing’s insistence that any country that recognises China cannot recognise Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan. After years of being an unresolved by settled situation, Donald Trump indicated that the U.S. might want closer ties with Taiwan and the island suddenly because a flashpoint again that could redefine America’s relationship with Beijing. At present, Taiwan has a close relationship with China and after a short ferry ride from the Chinese mainland to a Taiwanese island, Humphrey Hawksley sees why. […]
Read MoreLessons of the opium wars
Humphrey Hawksley reports from the Opium War museum in southern China on the impact that Britain’s invasion in 1989 has on Beijing’s foreign policy today. Lessons of the opium wars
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