The Chinese government is known for its heavy-handed censorship of the country’s Internet, now with a user base of about 665 million. After the blockage or shut down of a series of social media accounts, commercial websites, text messaging applications, online libraries and cloud computing... MORE

During the November 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Beijing was not only an impressive host, but also a generous financial supporter of a number of China-centered initiatives. The largest economic package during the APEC summit went to the second China-Russia mega deal of the... MORE

The United States’ muted profile in mineral-rich, landlocked Mongolia receded even more in 2014. Indeed, the US has largely stood by while Mongolia deliberately integrated its faltering economy closer with its two neighbors, China and Russia. Last year, top-level Mongolian officials met with Chinese President... MORE

Uzbekistan is conveniently located at the center of Central Asia and borders on all Central Asian countries as well as Afghanistan; moreover, it lies in relatively close proximity to the various prodigiously developing markets of Asia. Nonetheless, Uzbekistan has been slow to embrace or champion... MORE

North Korea’s suspected role in the November 2014 cyber attack on Sony Pictures, a Japanese-owned film studio in Hollywood, has once again dragged China into a discussion of its role in and responsibility for preventing or limiting North Korea’s provocations. Recent revelations of desperate North... MORE

President Xi Jinping has marked his two years in office by masterminding a thorough loyalty drive among the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is deemed the princeling’s primary power base. On the ideological front, Xi and his lieutenants have played up the imperative of the... MORE

In studies of Chinese expansion in the near seas of East Asia, one topic that has been almost entirely ignored is the concept of jinglue haiyang, recently endorsed by the Party-state as a facet of China’s maritime power strategy. The word jinglue is not in... MORE

First revealed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the vision of the New Silk Road has since become a cornerstone of China’s public diplomacy. The idea of establishing two logistics corridors—the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road—has also gained... MORE

While concerted anti-piracy measures, undertaken since 2008, have steadily decreased the number of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden, those in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) attract growing attention. Geographically, the GoG designates the vast Atlantic coast stretching from Angola to Senegal. The growing... MORE

The Islamic State, established by the self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in June, has received unprecedented support from the Islamic world, spanning from the Middle East to the far corners of Southeast Asia. The Islamic State’s influence has reached the Indonesian shores as well, where... MORE