A November 20, 2023 file photo of a Houthi military helicopter flying over Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea The United States has hosted the first meeting of the new working group on terrorism in the Quad format in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 19-21. The QUAD working group on terrorism was constituted in …
Continue reading “US’ war on terror against Houthis is smoke and mirrors”
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar (L) met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Washington, DC, September 28, 2023 The sombre mood at the Council on Foreign Affairs in New York during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s talk on Tuesday was only to be expected against the backdrop of the India-Canada diplomatic spat over the killing …
Continue reading “India won’t be bullied in multipolar setting”
US President Joe Biden, Australian PM Anthony Albanese, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and Indian PM Narendra Modi held a QUAD meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, 20 May 2023 This week augurs an acceleration of strategic realignments among the big powers amidst growing signs of a new cold war globally with particular focus on the United States’ …
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (C) with Director of Foreign Affairs Commission of Communist Party of China Central Committee Wang Yi (L) and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) at trilateral meeting, Jakarta, July 12, 2023 On Monday, while delivering the keynote address at the annual China Business Summit held in Auckland, New Zealand Prime …
G7 Summit leaders at “working lunch” session, Japan, 19 May, 2023 The Foreign Secretary’s special briefing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Asia-Pacific tour (May 19-24) dovetailed skilfully into three summit meetings, and brings to mind an institution of the Middle Ages known as the “wandering minstrels”. Wealthy people used to employ minstrels to entertain them …
‘Sayonara’ – Japan’s controversial statesman Shinzo Abe departs When politicians die, especially an untimely death in tragic circumstances, obituaries tend to go overboard. A sense of perspectives is lost when obituaries become eulogies. But you can’t falsify history. And in the final analysis, it is the forces of history that write the course of politics …
A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber takes off during a 13-hour joint air patrol with China in Asia-Pacific region, at an unidentified location (image released by Russian MOD on May 24, 2022) The joint air patrol over the waters of the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea on Monday by an air task force …
Continue reading “Indo-Pacific power dynamic in radical shift”
US President Joe Biden and leaders of Association of Southeast Asian Nations at a special summit, Washington, May 12, 2022 The Chinese daily Global Times featured a political cartoon marking the US-ASEAN summit meeting in Washington on May 12-13. It showed the US President Joe Biden seeking help from a bus load of ASEAN officials …
Continue reading “Indo-Pacific strategy adrift in an illusion”
Prime Minister Modi and President Biden (File photo) An extraordinary week has passed for the Modi government’s dalliance with the Quad. Call it a defining moment, a turning point or even an inflection point — it has elements of all three. The last week saw a 2-day visit to Delhi by Japanese prime minister Fumio …
China’s Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a press conference for the Fifth session of China’s 13th National People’s Congress on foreign policy issues, Beijing, August 7, 2022 Traditionally, the Chinese foreign minister holds press conferences on the margins of the sessions of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People …
