IDSA Comments

For decades, the issue of Tibetan autonomy has been a bone of contention between China and the Tibetan government in exile. While Beijing considers Tibet an integral part of China, the Tibetan people owe their allegiance to the Dalai Lama. Over the years, friction between the two parties have manifested through outbreak of anti-China uprisings, both within and outside Tibet. The occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet on March 10, 2009, once again reinforced the acrimonious relationship between China and the Tibet government in exile.

• Pranamita Baruah |
• April 13, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Pakistan’s counter-terrorism performance has received much attention. However, the United States’ capacity to sustain the ‘War on Terror’ needs greater attention, because Washington is the principal state leading the global fight against terrorism. Defeating and routing Al Qaeda was the core objective of the United States following the September 11 attacks, according to former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) counterterrorism expert Paul Pillar. Washington was prepared to live with the extremist Taliban if its leadership snapped ties and handed over the top leadership of Al Qaeda.

• Kartik Bommakanti |
• April 13, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

True to its planned schedule, North Korea defied warnings from the international community on 5 April 2009, launching a rocket capable of reaching Alaska and Hawaii. As was expected, it stirred a chorus of worldwide criticism. Yet, the emergency meeting of the United National Security Council convened for the specific purpose of debating the North Korean issue remained deadlocked. China armed with veto power remained inflexible in its position and called for “calm and restraint” from the international community in an effort to “safeguard peace and stability of the region”.

• Rajaram Panda |
• April 13, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

As the new government headed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu takes charge in Jerusalem, it seems that there are no easy solutions to what Israel perceives to be its central strategic question – how to effectively stop the Iranian nuclear quest. Israel’s leaders across the political spectrum have long maintained that a nuclear capable Iran, coupled with the rhetoric against Israel emanating from Tehran and its help to groups like the Hezbollah and the Hamas, constitutes an existential threat.

• S. Samuel C. Rajiv |
• April 08, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

North East Asia’s fragile peace is being threatened by North Korea’s planned launch between 4 and 8 April over Japanese territory of a communication satellite. The US and its allies suspect the planned satellite launch to be a long-range ballistic missile test. The prevailing uneasy peace is accentuated by the fact that both a ballistic missile and a satellite launcher operate on very similar technology.

• Pranamita Baruah , Rajaram Panda |
• April 02, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Labour Party Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has been in office for nearly one and a half years after his unexpected victory over John Howard in late 2007. For almost three decades after World War II, Australia systematically repudiated the idea of being identified as an Asian country, until the resource boom in the early 1970s that catapulted Australia as one of the major resource exporters to resource-importing countries such as Japan and now China. Since then, Australia’s external orientation has undergone a profound change.

• Pranamita Baruah , Rajaram Panda |
• April 01, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

There has been a major shift in China’s foreign policy towards Nepal since the Maoist ascendance to power. China had earlier adopted a policy of ‘non-intervention’ in the internal matters of Nepal and largely stayed out of Nepalese internal politics. However, the demise of the monarchy and the ascendance of political parties have forced China to reshape its Nepal policy. Moreover, frequent protests by Tibetans in recent months alerted the Chinese to the possibility of the China-Tibet border being misused.

• Nihar R. Nayak |
• March 30, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

US President Barack Obama’s landmark appeal to the Iranian people for a shift away from decades of confrontation was a significant move in the right direction. Obama’s videotaped message on March 20, 2009 (on the occasion of Nowruz) stated that “the US wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations but it comes with real responsibilities...” Obama’s offers came 30 years after the US broke off diplomatic relations with Iran.

• M. Mahtab Alam Rizvi |
• March 30, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

In its efforts to check the piracy menace, Japan deployed two Maritime Self Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers - Sazanami and Samidare - on March 14, 2009 in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia, on a four-month long anti-piracy mission. Japanese law mandates that that the destroyers can only escort Japanese merchant ships through this piracy-prone area without the authority to use weapons. 2,595 Japan-linked commercial ships have already registered their requests to be escorted.

• Pranamita Baruah |
• March 30, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The Indian Parliament has recently passed the Central Industrial Security Force (Amendment) Bill 2008, paving the way for the government to provide Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) security to private industrial establishments on cost re-imbursement basis, besides providing CISF security cover for Indian embassies abroad as well as for India’s UN missions.

• Om Shankar Jha |
• March 19, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan and projected to be the man most likely to become Japan’s next prime minister, has become dangerously entangled in an illegal political funds investigation. The resulting damage to the DPJ appears to be severe. It was believed to have had a strong chance to win the coming general elections, scheduled anytime before September 2009. The scandal has injected a new dimension to the already volatile political situation that has evolved in Japan since 1992, when the Liberal Democratic Party lost power for the first time.

• Rajaram Panda |
• March 18, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Counter-terrorism and elimination of religious extremism were important parts of Sheikh Hasina’s election manifesto. But the concern about terrorism is not limited to top Awami League leaders and is also felt by a major section of the Bangladesh public. Many supported the Awami League in the hope of reversing the rising trend of extremism and terrorism in the country. In her very first press conference after winning the elections, Sheikh Hasina stated that she will not allow the country's soil to be used by terror groups and proposed a joint task force in the subcontinent to tackle terror.

• Anand Kumar |
• March 16, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent four-stop swing through Asia – Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China – in her first tour as Secretary of State represented a strong new beginning for America’s Asia diplomacy. Relations between the US and China and the US and Japan at the moment are free of any acrimony and generally good. However, the recent global economic meltdown has affected the major Asian economies such as Japan and China to some extent given their heavy dependence for exports on the American market.

• Rajaram Panda |
• March 09, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

India’s position stands vindicated. It had for long maintained that not only have insurgents from the north east found safe havens in Bangladeshi soil but that they have enjoyed the backing of the Bangladeshi state as well. These allegations have now been proven with the confessional statement of Md. Hafizur Rahman and Din Mohammad, the two accused in the Chittagong arms haul case. This was the largest arms haul in Bangladesh, which had taken place on April 2, 2004 in the Chittagong area.

• Sreeradha Datta |
• March 09, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The mutiny by the troops of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) on 26 February 26 was extraordinarily brutal. The mutiny toll was about 81 with 72 still missing. Many of these were officers of the Bangladesh army. Three mass graves were discovered. Many bodies were thrown into the sewer pipelines. Many of those killed were stripped, mutilated, bayoneted and shot. The Director General of the BDR, Major General Shakil Ahmed was killed in cold blood. Even his wife was not spared. Her dead body was discovered in one of the mass graves.

• Arvind Gupta |
• March 09, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The mutiny by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldiers which started on February 25, 2009 with the brutal killing of army officers has sent shock waves through Dhaka. Even though many in Bangladesh empathize with their demands and genuine grievances, none have been able to fathom the reason for the brutality with which Army officers were killed. The officers were shot, bayoneted and dumped in mass graves and sewerage. The massacre also included the killing of family members, ransacking their houses and in some cases looting valuables.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik |
• March 05, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Prior to the Democrats coming to power the Chinese Communist Party believed that the Barack Obama administration will push harder on Human Rights and other sensitive issues. The stability in relations between Washington and Beijing during the Bush era appeared to be on test given that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were quite critical of China during their election campaigns.

• Gunjan Singh |
• March 05, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The defence forces have prided themselves in their consistent engagement with the frontiers of their profession. This is an index of their professionalism. India’s military, in particular, is rated highest on the key index of being apolitical against any peer military in the developing world. Owing to high economic growth, the military, through expanding defence budgets since the turn of the century, is also being ‘RMA enabled’. Defence cooperation with other professional militaries such as the US military and service in UN peacekeeping operations is expanding its repertoire of skills.

• Ali Ahmed |
• March 05, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

Notwithstanding calls for the establishment of an independent and international commission of inquiry to investigate war crimes committed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups during the Operation Cast Lead, a legal issue is whether the use of certain weapons by the Israeli forces is in contravention of international law.1

• S. R. Subramanian |
• March 04, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments

The related issues of H1B visas and outsourcing have once again come to the fore and could prove to be a troublesome issue in India-US relations. In his address to the Joint Houses of Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama declared that he would nullify tax benefits for American companies that outsourced their services. The same day, the US Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS) released data showing that four Indian outsourcing companies, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, and TCS, accounted for more than 10,000 of the 65,000 H-1B visas issued by the US in 2008.

• Cherian Samuel |
• March 03, 2009 |
• IDSA Comments