President Xi Jinping’s February 6–8 trip to the 22nd Winter Olympics in Sochi again shows how China uses symbolism to promote its pragmatic partnership with Russia. PRC rhetoric and actions suggest that Beijing considers relations with Russia important enough to warrant pursuing a variant of... MORE

In a statement that has been widely interpreted as signifying Chinese support for the Russian position on the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on March 3 that the foreign ministers of the two countries had expressed “broadly coinciding views” in a... MORE

On February 26, Pakistani officials announced a step forward in China’s plans to construct a transportation corridor through Kashmir to the Pakistani port of Gwadar. Gwadar Port Authority chairman Dostain Khan Jamaldini briefed the Senate’s Ports and Shipping committee after attending the second meeting of... MORE

“In the event of escalation in Crimea and Ukraine at large,” reads the February 28 editorial statement by Nasha Niva, “Belarus will need national unity and restraint. All the political arguments between the [Belarusian] government and the opposition would be worth putting on the back... MORE

As the crisis in Ukraine unfolds and shows signs of escalation, Western media circles and policymakers appear to be underestimating a number of mysterious elements in Russian security thinking and its military planning and actions. These issues stem from the prolonged silence from Russia’s President... MORE

President Vladimir Putin announced today (March 4) that Russia’s ground troops, deployed across Crimea since March 1, have “reinforced the protection of our installations” (“obiekty”) on that territory of Ukraine. The Russian president’s remarks neither acknowledge nor dispute Ukraine’s sovereignty in Crimea. However, Putin depicted... MORE

On November 29, 2013, an international cargo train Chang’an (“Lasting Peace”) departed from Xi’an, the capital city of Shaanxi province in central China, and traveled westward toward Central Asia. On December 9, after a journey of more than 5,000 kilometers, the 49-car train arrived in... MORE

The two telephone conversations between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 2 and February 22 marked a dramatic deterioration of relations caused by the near-complete collapse of common ground in managing the crisis in Ukraine. The first discussion about... MORE

As of at least Friday, February 28, unmarked Russian tanks are reportedly moving through the streets of Simferopol, the administrative capital of Crimea (https://guzei.com/online_tv/watch.php?online_tv_id=4919). The crisis situation on this Ukrainian peninsula, populated by majority ethnic Russians, has been escalating for the past several days. On... MORE

In the pre-dawn hours on February 27 in Simferopol, some 50 heavily armed Russian men in camouflage uniforms without identification marks seized the parliament and government buildings of the Crimean Autonomous Republic, which forms a part of Ukraine. That squad is presumed to be Russian... MORE