China's rising economic and military power is unmistakable. There is enormous concern today, in Washington and elsewhere, about the future trajectory of PRC power and policy. Chinese President Hu Jintao has repeatedly promised that his country will never be an imperial power, or pursue military hegemony over anyone.1 Obviously the true test of these statements, however, is China's actual approach to its neighbors and interlocutors. And Central Asia, which includes China's restive province of Xinjiang, home to a large and discontented Muslim population, is one place where we can see Chinese policy in action. The rioting that occurred in the summer of 2009 underscores the extent of potential unrest there and its importance to China.
When the eight states that now constitute Central Asia and the Caucasus freed themselves from the grip of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was perhaps inevitable that outside powers would rush to fill the vacuum. Of the eight at least three, the Caspian Basin states (Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan) found themselves awash in natural resources. The remaining five (Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), though less endowed materially, are strategically situated along crucial energy, trade, and logistics corridors.
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Caucasus, Tajikistan, and Soviet Union
Meera Shankar is India's ambassador to the United States. She is the first serving Indian Foreign Service Officer to be ambassador to Washington in more than two decades. Prior to assuming her post in April 2009, she was India's ambassador to Germany.
HONG KONG-Still remember "Pax Chinamerica"? As recently as this spring, China was supposed to be the de facto quasi-superpower that was closing in on the United States-and the two behemoths seemed destined to become the arbiters of a new global geopolitical and economic order. The PRC's fast-expanding status was amply demonstrated by the photo op at the London G20 Summit in April. President and Commander-in-Chief Hu Jintao, the supremo who has done more than anybody to catapult his nation to superstardom, was seated right next to Queen Elizabeth II, while U.S. President Barack Obama was somewhere in the back row.
MADRID-Spain was attacked by Islamists on March 11, 2004, but the new government that emerged from the polls three days later never learned the right lessons from that massacre. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his Socialist government argued that Spain had been attacked because of its presence in Iraq and because of the conservative government's cooperation with the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Based on this notion, they concluded that by pulling out of Iraq and distancing itself from America, Spain could insulate itself from Islamic terrorism.
BANGKOK-When the U.S. Marines and Royal Thai Air Force bands played the Thai national anthem alongside the Star Spangled Banner during the Independence Day reception at the U.S. embassy in Bangkok this past July, they unwittingly waltzed into Thailand's protracted political crisis. A host of local dignitaries on the scene were aghast that the Thai royal anthem, the customary tune of national days hosted by the various embassies in Bangkok, had been replaced by its nation-state equivalent. Letters of objection and reprimand to the editor of The Bangkok Post ensued. The U.S. embassy issued no apology for its gaffe. The pro-royal anthem advocates continued to vent their dissatisfaction in posh social cocktails and dinners. It became a storm in a teacup that typified Thailand's ongoing divisions and polarization.