Military planners in India are eyeing a crucial junction of the world which serves as the conduit for 80 per cent of China’s imported oil.
If these tensions were ever to boil over into war, India would probably exploit a crucial advantage. Its navy, which eventually plans to deploy three aircraft carriers and two nuclear-powered attack [...]

read more....

China’s growing military ambition, matched only by its growing military spending, is fuelling a rapid Asian arms race.
Beijing deploys the world’s biggest army, its defence spending is rising faster than any other power and, to cap it all, its forces will this month carry out their first spacewalk.
With India, Japan and Russia also investing heavily [...]

read more....

The leasing by India of a Russian Project 971 nuclear submarine built in Komsomolsk-on-Amur is the latest hot news.
The agreement, whose significance for Russian-Indian cooperation has yet to be assessed, could have a profound impact on the balance of forces in the region.
Read More…

Read Part 2…

read more....

America is losing its lead in the space race as other countries challenge its dominance on the “final frontier”, the head of Nasa has warned.
The more obvious rivals such as Russia and Europe have been joined by countries as diverse as Brazil, Israel and India, which are all launching their own space programmes.
Read More…

read more....

Corruption continues to intensify in two-fifths of the world’s nations, nurtured by persistent poverty, political instability and crime.
In percentage terms, the number of countries perceived to be corrupt fell slightly, according to recent surveys by Transparency International, an international watchdog group. But that’s only because the sample size of its annual study has gotten larger [...]

read more....

After 10 years of steady effort, both India and China have made significant qualitative changes in their navies. In terms of submarine capabilities – the construction of SSNs and SSBNs – China is now far ahead of India, however.
China has built two 094 SSBNs and two 093 SSNs, along with JL2 and JL1M submarine-launched ballistic [...]

read more....

The old continent could once offer itself as the model for a new world. No longer: the EU’s universalism is crashing against rising global states (China, India) and forces (religion, nationalism). The response to Ireland’s referendum is a foretaste of serious political crisis to come, says Ivan Krastev.
There is something unreal and profoundly disturbing about [...]

read more....

DEVIN STEWART: I’m Devin Stewart, from the Carnegie Council.
Welcome. Thank you very much for coming.
The “rise of the rest” is a huge topic in the academic world, as well as the policy world and the world in general.
What does the rise of other countries besides the United States—the rise economically, politically, and culturally—what does it [...]

read more....

India said that it needs a military space program to defend its satellites from threats like China’s newly revealed ability to shoot down targets in orbit.
The comments by India’s army chief raise the possibility of a regional race that could accelerate the militarization of space and heighten tensions between the Asian giants, who have been [...]

read more....

A new international relations orthodoxy is coalescing, to the effect that America is slouching towards mediocrity. In newspaper columns articles and on TV talk shows you will hear journalists charting the “relentless relative decline” of the United States. The military is overstretched; the economy is exposed; the political system is broken; the punters are suffering [...]

read more....

A recent hardening of positions on both sides does not augur well for regional stability in Asia.
Notwithstanding this lofty rhetoric, the reality of Sino-Indian relations is growing increasingly complicated as the two Asian giants continue their ascent in the global inter-state hierarchy.
Tensions over a boundary dispute between the two sides are escalating, with China opening [...]

read more....

India is using groundwater so rapidly that some areas have already run out. In a village in Rajasthan, the state sends in water by train.
TEJA KA BAS, India — Bhanwar Lal Yadav, once a cultivator of cucumber and wheat, has all but given up growing food. No more suffering through drought and the scourge [...]

read more....

For decades, the world relied on the powerful U.S. Navy to protect this vital sea lane. But as India and China gain economic heft, they are moving to expand their control of the waterway, sparking a new - and potentially dangerous - rivalry between Asia’s emerging giants.
China has given massive aid to Indian Ocean nations, [...]

read more....

“The big story is productivity in China,” he asserts, noting it is an incredible 9%, or three times the level of productivity in the US during its 1990s peak. Admiral Owens attributes this to the country’s high-quality infrastructure. It will allow the Chinese economy to soon become the second-largest in the world, with a GDP [...]

read more....

In effect, the BRIC countries collectively took the place of the United States as the locomotive of the global economy, helping to haul the rest of the planet along.
But there is a problem. They may not be able to keep it up, because just as it looked like the world had found a new economic [...]

read more....

Those Canadians who hope to see the new Asian giants rival the U.S. in a few decades as the great global engine and the new big market for Canada simply do not realize that such a change would be an unmitigated disaster for us.
China is a brutal one-party dictatorship, a mixture of totalitarianism and unbridled [...]

read more....

“After decades of considering Pakistan their principal enemy, Indian defence officials are beginning to see China as a more serious long-term threat, and they don’t want to be caught unprepared again. Washington is embracing India as a rising power that can be a valuable ally to stand with this country, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and [...]

read more....

The growing thirst for oil in China and India is well known. However, this global surge in demand is being led by oil producers that are emerging as significant consumers, too, undermining their capacity to export when global supplies are tightening.
“Consumption is cannibalising their export capacity,” Jeff Rubin, an oil analyst for CIBC World Markets [...]

read more....

Are the BRIC countries an emerging threat?
From the article:
The concept of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — was coined five years ago in a research paper from the Goldman Sachs investment bank.
This week, reality takes over from theory as the foreign ministers of the BRIC countries hold their first formal meeting [...]

read more....

Is there any end to Chinese ambitions in Asia? China wishes to dominate Asia with blockades, blockages, military diplomacy and political Machiavellism.
China’s building of the port of Gwadar at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in fact is meant to blockade the oil supplies of the world. Its military diplomacy is on display at the [...]

read more....

I’m sure we can count on China passing this technology on to Pakistan. China wants Pakistan to keep India on its toes.
From the article:
With this, India has become capable of launching missiles from air, land, ships and submarines and joins an elite group that includes the US, Russia, France and China.
The performance of the missile [...]

read more....