Daunting challenges call for extraordinary responses. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration has found itself on the defensive particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s sovereignty spats in the South China Sea with several Southeast Asian states came to a head in a prolonged naval standoff... MORE

Anti-Taliban leaders of the former Northern Alliance coexist uneasily with the Kabul government and NATO in Afghanistan’s north. There, China proposes to explore and develop oil and gas fields and to build a transit pipeline for Turkmenistani gas via Afghanistan to China. The coexistence in... MORE

Political reform in China since Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern Tour” in 1992 has seemed a distant if always tempting narrative for analysts and observers. The cycles of foreign hope and disappointment with Chinese leadership attest to this. The most recent stirrings of political reform discussion may... MORE

Beijing has initiated discussions with Kabul over a new transit pipeline for Turkmenistani gas, passing through Afghanistan’s north and Tajikistan to China (see EDM June 19). The proposal’s potential ramifications are far-reaching under any of the possible scenarios.•    Implications for Afghanistan post-2014:A transit pipeline to... MORE

The Chinese government and Afghan President Hamid Karzai envisage a pipeline to deliver Turkmenistani gas, via Afghanistan’s north and through Tajikistan, to China. This could become a rival or a substitute to the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, a decade-old gas transit project. Whether Karzai (let... MORE

On June 7, Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmon returned home from a week-long tour of China. The tour included a five-day state visit followed by Rahmon’s participation in the 12th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Beijing. Following the trip, the Tajik President’s office... MORE

The government of the Philippines recorded two key political and military successes in Mindanao in the first half of 2012. First, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) eliminated Abu Sayyaf leader Gumbahali Jumdail, the Malaysian and Singaporean Jemaah Islamiyah militants Zulkifli bin Hir (a.k.a.... MORE

“It is not important for China as to who will be building this railway line. The most important thing is that it is built,” Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Wang Kaiwen said recently about the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, which Bishkek and Beijing seek to implement despite... MORE

Meeting on the fringes of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Beijing on May 11, Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrohon Zarifi and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi made the usual affirmations of good bilateral relations (Xinhua, May 11). Part of a raft of... MORE

China’s Jinsha River, literally the “Golden Sands” River, could soon live up to its rich name. The approximately 2300-km long upstream section of the Yangtze River is the site of up to 25, planned large-scale (50 MW and above) hydropower projects (Caixun, May 4; Dongfang... MORE