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When Lang Lang, a resident of New York, was invited by the White House for a piano recital at the banquet for Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington DC on January 19, no one really bothered to check the music he would play.

India must recognize that even as there may be areas that India and China cooperate occasionally, Beijing will take every opportunity to deny India any strategic advancement.

While successfully balancing relations between Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia power blocks, New Delhi’s affinity for this Gulf outreach is rooted in geopolitical and geo-economic realities

In China’s view, disengagement is a done thing; if New Delhi thinks otherwise, the onus is on it to do what it can.

For New Delhi, the pressure from an unrelenting China is pushing India farther away — and leading it to deepen its security partnerships.

This episode illustrates the danger facing Indian foreign policy from domestic political developments, increasingly centered on religious conflict.

China and India need to do more than repeatedly declaring outcomes of meetings as 'successful' and 'positive'. Talking things out straight will no doubt lead to friction and diplomatic parleys but at least it will be an enterprise in reality.

The abrogation of Article 370 and the bifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 provoked intense diplomatic response from the international community. For the most part, India received widespread support for its decision. At the same time, however, there have been criticisms of the restrictions imposed in the region on communication and civil liberties. China and Pakistan, in particular, reacted with hostility and attempted to

It has had to navigate the debate on civil liberties, overcome history, and deal with China’s posture

Both countries are likely to focus on trade and economic issues in Mamallapuram, but the overhang of the growing political dissonance in their relationship cannot and should not be discounted.

India has signalled that it will embed its regional policy within the framework of SAARC. This should reduce the disquiet among our neighbours arising from the sheer size of India and its economy. This has a history since India's Pakistan policy of today is rooted in Vajpayee's visit to Islamabad to attend the 12th SAARC summit.

Development cooperation has gained further currency in a post-pandemic world amid staggered economic growth and an increasing gap in financing the Sustainable Development Goals. As a strategic geographic expanse, the Indo-Pacific has witnessed an upswing in cooperation programmes under different modalities (North-South, South-South, and triangular development partnerships). This paper explores the role of development cooperation as a tool of dipl

Taiwan is facing an existential identity crisis, one whose consequences can go well beyond the region. The island exists between two sovereignties: it has domestic sovereignty and is secure in its identity as a democracy and an economic powerhouse; at the same time, it has an uncertain international sovereignty and is insecure in a larger battle with China about that identity. From a traditional international-relations perspective, Taiwan meets e

But New Delhi's decision to send a contingent of the Indian Army for the September 1-7 Vostok 2022 military drill in Russia's far east has raised eyebrows, particularly in the West that is trying to isolate Moscow after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a major exercise involving more than 50,000 troops and 5,000 weapons units, including 140 aircraft and 60 warships, with the participation of troops from China, India, Laos, Mongolia, Nicar

Narendra Modi’s West Asia policy remains the one area of achievement in an otherwise indifferent record of foreign policy.

श्रीलंका में भारतीय और चीनी राजनयिक मिशन के बीच एक चीनी मिलिट्री रिसर्च पोत के वहां पहुंचने को लेकर सोशल मीडिया पर बहस छिड़ गई.

The external affairs ministry is always a difficult place to be in if the PM has a strong diplomatic agenda and foreign policy orientation

India and the European Union (EU) share a deep political and strategic relationship that pivots around democracy, global rule of law, security, and trade. While the depth is obvious on paper, however, the partnership has delivered short on dividends expected by both sides. Yet diplomatic engagement remains robust, and in recent times is moving towards greater mutual understanding of the challenges of terrorism and the potential counterterrorism s

The first few weeks of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's tenure has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity. The steps taken by him in the foreign policy domain give a clear indication of the new government's priorities.

This paper outlines the responses of the US Congress and European Union (EU) parliament to the Indian government’s abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution and the surrounding events, including the communications lockdown in Kashmir. It notes contrasting responses: the US Congress showed a binary reaction of moderate and extreme calls to action, and the EU parliament honed a more expansive approach to address India’s apparent “democrat

This brief assesses the growth of Armenia’s defence deep-tech landscape, and the geopolitical ramifications of its development for India, in particular. Tracing its historical development and current status in light of the current strategic volatility in the South Caucasus, the brief highlights the scope for closer cooperation between Yerevan and New Delhi in the deep-tech domain, shaped by such factors as issue-based convergences, Armenia’s

India’s multi-pronged strategy of using various instrumentalities of power — legal, diplomatic, economic and military — seems to have had some effect in shaping Pakistan’s behaviour.

It aims to signal its diplomatic ascendance and challenge Washington as the big shaper of outcomes

Bhutan's reported decision to establish diplomatic relations with China marks an end to the system of buffer states that the British Raj had created in the 19th century to secure the subcontinent against encroachments from external powers.

The announcement on the side-lines of the Rio+20 Summit that Bhutan and China have decided to establish diplomatic relations is not only a reflection on the evolving foreign policy of the Kingdom but it also carries with it broader implications for the political dynamics of Asia.

Structural issues like partial utilisation of allocated funds, slow implementation of projects, and short-staffing pose a major challenge to the successful implementation of the budget

In the aftermath of 18 Indian soldiers being killed when an Indian Army infantry base in Uri was attacked India is on the lookout for diplomatic answers.

Traditionally, a newly elected South Korean President visits Washington first, followed by Tokyo. But the new President Park Geun-hye, as expected, did visit Washington first in May, but followed it up by a visit to Beijing and not to Tokyo. This is interpreted this to speculate that China has taken precedence over Japan in Seoul's diplomatic calculations.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has detained an estimated one million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps in the Xinjiang province for forced re-education and political indoctrination. While the West has deplored China’s actions, the major Muslim countries have defended and even welcomed the policy. China has exploited its economic and diplomatic clout and the growing indebtedness of the Muslim world to subdued any criticism of its actions

The 6th BRICS Summit brought together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on July 15 in Brazil. The annual diplomatic meeting announced plans for the New Development Bank, which would be located in Shanghai, China.

Recent grey-zone activity in maritime-Asia suggests an increase in hybrid warfare, even as the lines between military, economic, diplomatic, intelligence and criminal means of aggression become increasingly blurred. By replacing overt military aggression with soft provocations – kept well below the threshold of open warfare – aggressors attempt to leverage asymmetry, ambiguity and incrementalism for strategic effects. These tactics are highly

The Biden administration is seeking to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy as part of its national security. This issue brief analyses the US’s cyber threat landscape and examines the Biden administration’s cybersecurity strategy. It explores the strategy’s ideological, geopolitical, technological, and diplomatic significance in a rapidly shifting domain.

Beijing’s motivations concerning the conflict resolution in Niger include a mix of economic, political and reputational drivers.

When India first began developing the ANI in the 1980s, the defence and foreign policy establishments were not entirely in agreement

India has assumed the G20 presidency at a critical and opportune time in history, even as the half-yearly report card indicates that consensus-building in the grouping has been more difficult than India may have expected. This brief identifies six areas where India can manifest its capability to lead the building of an effective and plausible climate action plan. Globally, championing the tracking of per-capita emissions and fossil fuel-b

This paper makes an assessment of the situation in eastern Ladakh following the Chinese occupation of several areas across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the summer of 2020. That occupation led to an incident in the Galwan river valley in mid-June, which resulted in deaths on both Indian and Chinese sides—the first such casualties since 1975. The paper outlines the course of events since then, and the negotiations that have been on

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been engaged in significant diplomatic activism since he took office. He has met with regional leaders from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE and has emerged as a key pillar in Riyadh's attempts to consolidate a Sunni bloc in the region.

Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine follows its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its continued direct support for separatist activities in eastern Ukraine, marking a new chapter in Moscow's geopolitical approach. China's response and its overt diplomatic, financial, and economic support for Russia was also noteworthy. This brief assesses the contours of the new geopolitical formation (the ‘DragonBear’, a term coined by this author)

While there has been progress over the last few years in terms of garnering greater support for the EU Space code, there appear to be a few outstanding issues that need further elaboration and alteration to make the code more appealing. The way forward might be to shift from a consultative to a negotiating phase, before moving to hold a diplomatic conference.