Francis Pike is a historian and author of Hirohito’s War, The Pacific War 1941-1945 and Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II.
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When Russia invaded Ukraine the Indian government rapidly launched ‘Operation Ganga’. This was not a military operation, nor did it aim to supply Ukraine with weapons – it was an operation to extract the 500 Indian students stranded in Ukraine. After Prime Minister Narendra’s Modi’s video call with Putin, the Russian president ordered his invading
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Tulagi, a 1.5 square mile island in the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands, is perhaps the most remote place on the planet to have a repeat role in world history. On 4 May 1942, Emperor Hirohito’s Japanese forces landed on Tulagi – then the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate – to attempt to cut
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In the brief interlude of Chechen independence between the Russia-Chechen Wars of the 1990s, I travelled with Imran Khan from Grozny to Baku, where we were due to meet Azerbaijan’s finance minister. We had different reasons for our visit. I was interested in the business potential of the countries of the Caucasus, while Khan, a
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While the world is watching Ukraine, there is another former Soviet republic that has quietly undergone regime change. Turkmenistan’s 65-year-old former president, known, in the manner of a comic book superhero, as ‘The Protector’, stepped down in February. With Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s departure, the Mejlis Assembly duly called for elections on 12 March. As regime changes go
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The Kazakh uprising is over. The stench of burnt-out vehicles and bombed out buildings in Kazakhstan’s most populous city and former capital, Almaty, has begun to dissipate. Life is returning to normal. Banks have reopened. Salaries and pensions are being paid. The internet is up and running again. Almaty airport is expected to reopen today.
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Since the start of the new year, riots have spread throughout Kazakhstan. In the former capital of Almaty, the airport has been taken over and the mayor’s office stormed. Dozens of security forces and civilians have been killed in violent clashes while hundreds have been wounded. Is this Kazakhstan’s Tiananmen Square moment, in which the government is
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In this week’s episode: can the new Aukus alliance contain China? In his cover piece this week, James Forsyth writes that the new Aukus pact has fixed the contours of the next 30 years of British foreign policy. Britain, he says, is no longer trying to stay neutral in the competition between America and China.
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Just weeks after the denouement of the West’s misadventure in Afghanistan, Boris Johnson is again committing Britain to a risky international venture. Aukus, the naval partnership between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, appears to tie Britain to an Indo-Pacific strategy that is militarily and geopolitically flawed. In December 1941, the catastrophic sinking
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Did Chinese-manufactured fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, kill Michael Kenneth Williams, the man who played ‘Omar’ in The Wire? Within minutes of his death being announced yesterday, speculation was circulating on Twitter. New York Police Department sources have told the Daily Mail they suspect fentanyl was involved. The world only seems to notice when a celebrity
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In a parliamentary debate in early June about Covid, Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga said that Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan had been ‘imposing strong restrictions on privacy rights.’ Whether by mistake or on purpose, Suga had crossed the Rubicon of acceptable China-Japan diplomatic language by implying that Taiwan was a country. If it was
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As Britain’s small fleet, headed by HMS Queen Elizabeth, cruises towards the South China Sea, there remains a question over the nature of China’s geopolitical ambitions. When Xi Jinping came to power in 2013 it was assumed that China would follow the relatively unthreatening path begun by Deng Xiaoping. But Xi was intent on following
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The emperor has new clothes. Arriving at a meeting to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping came dressed as Chairman Mao. His light grey tunic suit, four front pockets and five buttons to the neck cut an imposing contrast to the Politburo’s Standing Committee in their familiar
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In April, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi embarked on a six-nation Middle Eastern tour to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman. ‘Belt and Road’ cooperation, economic development and the Covid pandemic were the topics of discussion. The treatment of China’s Muslim Uighur population in detention camps, which some in the
The process could get messy
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The success story of Britain’s vaccine rollout has hit its first major obstacle: five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be held up for a month. But how many of us knew it was India, not manufacturing plants in the UK or Europe, that was supplying a considerable amount of our vaccine needs? And
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It is billed as a once-in-a-generation review of Britain’s foreign policy and defence strategies. ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age’, Boris Johnson’s ‘new chapter’ for Britain, identifies two main adversaries: Russia — an ‘acute threat’ — and China — a ‘systemic competitor’. And while it nods at a geopolitical ‘tilt’ towards the Indo-Pacific, the more
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Is Antony Blinken, President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, preparing to abandon Barack Obama’s powder-puff Asian foreign policies? It is now widely agreed that Obama, under whom Blinken served as deputy secretary of state, ceded to China uncontested control of the South China Sea. Obama’s so-called ‘pivot to Asia’ was all talk and no trousers.
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In the dramatic ‘reveal’ of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, the lead character, private dick Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) violently extracts the identity of the young girl hidden in the house of Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway). Evelyn, after being beaten and thrown across the room by Gittes, explains, ‘She’s my sister and my daughter’. The penny drops
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Coup? What coup? The early morning takeover of Myanmar on Monday by the Tatmadaw (Burmese army) barely deserves the name. The word ‘coup’ suggests that Myanmar was being ruled by a civilian and democratic government before now. It was not. Although Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in ‘free’
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If you thought Donald Trump was rude to journalists, hang on to your hats. Miffed by a journalist’s temerity in asking about his health, president Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines exploded: ‘How is your wife’s vagina? Is it smelly? Or not smelly? Give me a report.’ Duterte, a 75-year-old provincial politician who revels in the
