Tag Archives: South Asia

China National Petroleum Corporation's Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig is situated close to the Paracel Islands, which Vietnam claims fall inside its exclusive economic zone. Source: East Asia Forum

In Deep Water: China tests its neighbours’ patience

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Control of water, including navigation rights, resource extraction and the exploitation of shared watercourses is at the heart of today’s geopolitical tensions in Asia. China’s recent actions in the South China Sea and Himalayas have given rise to further—and at times violent—conflict over the region’s natural resources. So will water insecurity lead to greater partnership in Asia? Or will it lead to a revival of China’s traditional sense of regional dominance and undercut efforts to build a rules-based approach to growing resource conflicts?

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Patchwork mountain landscape of agriculture, forestry, and deforested terrain, Tianlin County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. Source: CIFOR (Flickr)

Deforestation: REDD-y for peace or fuelling conflict?

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REDD forestry efforts don’t pay enough attention to their influence on local conflict dynamics. For REDD+ to be an effective mechanism to curb deforestation and strengthen peace opportunities, it has to pay more attention to pre-existing land and forest conflicts linked to tenure, take into account the interests of the local communities and be more sensitive to the local context

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MQ1 Predator Drone

US Drone Strikes in Pakistan: ineffective and illegitimate

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Strikes by unmanned combat air vehicles, or armed drones, have become the tactic of choice in US counterterrorism efforts in Yemen, Somalia and, the topic of current controversy, Pakistan. The lack of transparency, dubious effectiveness, civilian casualties and negative consequences for US national security being highlighted by current debate means that Washington needs to re-evaluate its approach.

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NPT Double Standards 4

Can the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty outrun its double standard forever?

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The recent walkout by Egyptian negotiators at UN talks have demonstrated that, like a building with rotten foundations, the nuclear non-proliferation regime is far less stable than many believe it to be. Egypt’s actions make clear that anything less than a regime specifically geared towards addressing the reasons why some states seek nuclear weapons is a regime existing on borrowed time.

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Bay of bengal Climate Insecurity

Bay of Bengal: a hotspot for climate insecurity

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The Bay of Bengal is uniquely vulnerable to a changing climate because of a combination of rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, and uncertain transboundary river flows. These problems combine with already existing social problems like religious strife, poverty, political uncertainty, high population density, and rapid urbanization to create a very dangerous cocktail of already security threats. Andrew Holland argues that foresight about its impacts can help the region’s leaders work together to solve a problem that knows no boundaries.

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