Int’l Affairs

Foreign Policy of China Salient Features and Challenges Aftab H. Wahla Mao Zedong ruled China from 1949 to 1976 and remained the chief architect of his country’s foreign policy during that period. Given his revolutionary nature, US’ military and economic assistance to Kuomintang (nationalist government) during the civil war, socialist underpinning of his political thoughts and decolonization process, he was …

Demolition Men Do Not Build Nations, They Destroy Them   Siddharth Varadarajan Noted Indian-American journalist, editor and academic Siddharth Varadarajan recently published an article in which he made a scathing criticism on the Hindutva-promoting steps being taken by Narendra Modi government. He discussed curfew in kashmnir at great lengtgh and also the start of construction of ram temple at the …

A Bizarre Suggestion Athar Mansoor With the US presidential election 2020 just a few weeks away, President Donald Trump has come up with one of the strangest suggestions – delay the election. This idea has been dismissed by several Republicans including Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and House of Representatives minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who remarked, “Never in the history …

Territorial Claims – and Counterclaims – over Ladakh Dr Basharet Shah After the 2017 Doklam crisis, June 15 this year marked another standoff between China and India owing to prior tense border clashes. The decades-old border conflict between the two countries on their territorial claims and counterclaims turned into an acute crisis which left 20 Indian soldiers dead. Forces of …

Is the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ Doctrine Still Relevant? Tehmina Habib Introduction The rise of humanitarianism and the international community is the product of the long festering Cold War. In the 1990s, the global political landscape was overwhelmed with the idea that human beings matter more as compared to state sovereignty and this notion became the foundation of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ …

Democracy Dr Munawar Sabir A simple but important reality is that creation of cities is called civilization. In this regard, Mesopotamia (in Iraq today) is believed to be the first-ever civilization, established around 6000 years ago. It is pertinent to understand that city and formal politics are twins. All ancient cities/civilizations were mercantile in nature, and needed some basic laws …

Coronavirus, Oil and the Middle East. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is now experiencing the worst recession since that of 1929. It has developed with terrible speed, causing by July 24, the death of 636,000 people, with 15 million infected.Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people have been put out of work and the result …

Perpetuated Insanity against Besieged Humanity Racial injustice, Kashmir and Palestine—dark days ahead Dr Mahboob A. Khawaja “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein How to Mirror the Racial Injustice and Insanity against Mankind? There is much evil and …

Israel’s Annexation of West Bank An ill-conceived move that violates international law Aftab Abbasi As a fulfilment of the pledge he made during his election campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu, the incumbent Prime Minister of Israel, announced to kick-start the process to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank on July 1. However, in the face of the …

India-China Territorial Dispute in Perspective Mustansar Hussain Tasir Amidst their historical territorial rivalry and divergent regional and global outlooks, a rapid rise of China and India on world stage has further added to their existing geopolitical and geo-economic contest. Various international observers see their quest for absolute dominance in their overlapping spheres of interest and influence in different perspectives. Keeping …