The track climbed skyward in the thinning autumn Himalayan air, through low-hanging clouds and around hairpin bends with sweeping views over a valley of fields and rivers. So high we went that it seemed there could be nothing more except mountain wilderness. Then, came twangs of music from rustic instruments and around a corner we […]
Read MoreRecent reports
Recent reports by Humphrey Hawksley for the BBC, YaleGlobal Online, Asian Affairs, and Nikkei Asian Review.
Hong Kong’s Tai O village offers political lessons
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 […]
Read MoreWhy is the world courting Papua New Guinea?
Papua New Guinea is the kind of place most people have heard of, but would struggle to find on the map. So why is it suddenly attracting a significant amount of geopolitical attention and high profile visitors? […]
Read MoreDemocracy fights back
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 […]
Read MoreIf you want giant glaciers, wondrous wildlife and the adventure of a lifetime, Alaska is waiting for you
Riding in a high-speed catamaran along an Alaskan fjord, the captain asked: ‘See that glacier ahead? How far away do you think it is?’ A dozen of us on a boat tour were travelling under a cloudless blue dome of a massive sky with ice floes knocking the hull and waterfalls tumbling down hillsides on […]
Read MoreAsian countries must restrain hawkish AUKUS parties
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. […]
Read MoreAlaska’s growing global trade hub highlights booming US-Asian trade
For a few months last year, the prize for the busiest airport in the world slipped away from those great hubs of Atlanta, Hong Kong and London. The highest volume of air traffic flew in and out of the remote American city of Anchorage in southern Alaska, with a population of less than 300,000. Almost […]
Read MoreGlobal rules against cyberattacks must be updated
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. […]
Read MoreThe Cat Warrior’s Feline Diplomacy
I first met Hsiao Bi-Khim on a sidewalk during Taiwan’s 2008 election campaign. Sitting on a low plastic yellow stool, wearing a stylish white trouser suit, she was stuffing leaflets into envelopes. An elderly couple came up and greeted her. She gave them a pile, set them to work, then turned her attention to my […]
Read MoreClarity, communication… and caution
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 […]
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