Asia-Pacific Archive

China launched its second lunar probe in late-September, with its mission being to find a landing site for a lunar rover expected to launch before 2013. In an e-mail interview, Gregory Kulacki, senior analyst and China project manager in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, discusses China’s space program. WPR: What is the status of China’s space program? Gregory Kulacki: China is more or less on schedule with their plans to complete a permanently occupied space station by 2020. The plan was first formulated in the mid-1980s and funded in the early 1990s. China is also […]

Although opinion polls show that foreign policy will have little impact on today’s congressional elections, the war in Afghanistan will certainly be an important subject of concern for the new Congress. And last week’s unprecedented joint Russian-U.S. drug raid against several narcotics laboratories in Afghanistan is a hopeful sign. The raid suggests that Russian-American differences over the war are narrowing, and raises the possibility that Moscow will provide additional support to the coalition’s war efforts in Afghanistan in coming weeks. In a commando operation that took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, Russian counternarcotics officers for the […]

Pakistanbanned five militant groupsand froze their assets in Balochistan in September, following a government initiative to target separatists in the unstable region. In an e-mail interview, Tahir Kamran, visiting Iqbal Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Wolfson College, discusses the separatist movement in Balochistan. WPR: What is the background and current status of the separatist movement in Balochistan? Tahir Kamran: Insurgency is a recurring phenomenon in Balochistan, one that, according to hardcore Baloch nationalists, dates back to as early as 1948, when the princely state of Qalat (comprising a major part of present-day Balochistan) was forcibly acceded to the state […]

Writing recently in the Financial Times, long-time economic journalist Gideon Rachman lamented the passing of a post-Cold War “golden age,” in which “countries shared a belief in globalization and Western democratic values.” In Rachman’s calculation, that consensus has been battered by the global financial crisis, which ushered in a “new, less-predictable era.” Rachman, whose book entitled “Zero-Sum Future” comes out next February, is clearly prepping the literary battlefield by positioning himself as an “anti-Robert Wright.” The latter’s book, “Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny,” argued that human progress has been characterized by — and thus depends on — our increasing […]

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tour of Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam this week gave a boost to India’s “Look East” policy, underscoring the need for greater integration and deeper engagement between India and East Asia in trade and other strategic sectors. Singh, who traveled to Japan and Malaysia for bilateral visits and to Vietnam for the 8th ASEAN-India Summit, has made it clear that his government’s foreign-policy priority will be East and Southeast Asia, which are poised for sustained growth in the 21st century. India’s efforts to make itself relevant to the region come at a time of great turmoil […]