Category: Asia

China’s hard line a sign of weakness not strength

     

  In an illuminating anecdote that David Shambaugh heard from two Chinese officials who witnessed an encounter between Hu Jintao and Russian leader Vladimir Putin with Beijing’s increasingly harsh scrutiny of… Read more »

Pakistan must investigate killing of activist, says rights group

     

Pakistani authorities should conduct a prompt and impartial investigation into the killing of human rights activist Khurram Zaki, who had been publicly critical of extremist cleric Abdul Aziz (above) and militant sectarian… Read more »

U.S. poised to end ban on arms sales to Vietnam, keep sanctions on Myanmar

     

The United States isn’t ready to fully shed sanctions in Myanmar, instead awaiting progress on issues including human rights as the government run by former opposition leader Aung San Suu… Read more »

Philippines at risk of succumbing to dictatorship?

     

  Anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte secured a huge win in the Philippine presidential elections, according to a poll monitor on Tuesday (May 10), after an incendiary campaign dominated by his… Read more »

Obama must raise Vietnam’s rights abuses, civil society crackdown

     

Thich Quang Do, the Patriarch of Vietnam’s Unified Buddhist Church (left), has called on U.S. president Barack Obama to use his forthcoming trip to the Communist state to highlight continuing… Read more »

The real purpose of China’s new anti-NGO law

     

China’s new anti-NGO law is evidence of a xenophobic shift in the country’s politics, an anti-foreign turn driven by several related trends, The Wall Street Journal notes: First, President Xi Jinping has… Read more »

India denies visas to Chinese dissidents

     

India has declined to issue visas to two Chinese activists hoping to attend a conference on promoting democracy, days after it revoked a visa for an exiled ethnic Uighur leader… Read more »

An ‘existential threat’ in China’s future?

     

More than halfway through his five-year term as president of China and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party—expected to be the first of at least two—Xi Jinping’s widening crackdown… Read more »

China prompts criticism with new curbs on foreign NGOs

     

China took a major step on Thursday in President Xi Jinping’s movement away from Western influences and toward stronger social control, as it passed a new law aimed at limiting the work… Read more »