Tag: Asia

A quiet Tiananmen Square anniversary shows China’s ability to suppress history

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Tiananmen Square is a vast space in the center of Beijing with monumental, communist-era buildings along two sides and the mausoleum of Mao Zedong, who founded the communist era in 1949, on the south end.

University students occupied this symbolically important site in the spring of 1989. Their calls for freedoms divided the party leadership. The decision to send in troops marked a decisive turning point in the evolution of modern China, keeping the party firmly in control as it loosened economic restrictions.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/05/a-quiet-tiananmen-square-anniversary-shows-chinas-ability-to-suppress-history-00388845

China helps Russia pull ahead in lethal drone war race with Ukraine

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Russia is catching up to Ukraine in drone production thanks to greater financial resources, production lines far from the front lines and especially help from China, a senior Ukrainian official told POLITICO.

“Chinese manufacturers provide them with hardware, electronics, navigation, optical and telemetry systems, engines, microcircuits, processor modules, antenna field systems, control boards, navigation. They use so-called shell companies, change names, do everything to avoid being subject to export control and avoid sanctions for their activities,” said Oleh Aleksandrov, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service. “Yet officially, China sticks to all the rules. Yet only officially.”

Beijing has repeatedly denied supplying any drones or weapons components to Russia, calling Ukrainian protests “baseless accusations and political manipulation.” But Aleksandrov said Russia has a critical dependency on the supply of Chinese spare parts for both tactical and long-range drones.”

…

“Pavlo Palisa, a former top military commander and now deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said in a statement that so far this year, 80 percent of the damage to Russia’s equipment and personnel has been done with drones. In May alone, Ukrainian drones destroyed 89,000 Russian targets.”

…

“Kyiv says that its access to new drones has been curtailed by China, while Beijing has placed no such restrictions on Russia.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/china-russia-lethal-drone-war-race-ukraine-war-invasion-manufacture-putin-tech/

Fireside Chat With Stephen Kotkin & US House Select Committee on China | Hoover Institution

Posted on by Lone Candle

Asking what Xi wants is the wrong question because the appetite grows in the eating. Even if Xi just wants to dominate East and Southeast Asia right now, once China has gained that, their appetite will grow and they will want more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aQfzDs7RzI

Why America Shouldn’t Underestimate Chinese Power | Foreign Affairs Interview

Posted on by Lone Candle

Scale matters. China has more scale than the U.S.. This makes allies important. With allies, the U.S. can surpass China in scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqyMVZhJHcE

India vs. Pakistan (and China)

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Last month, there was a terrorist attack in India-controlled Kashmir that killed 26 tourists. Yesterday, India conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, saying the strikes were retribution for the attack.

The strikes may not have been as successful as the Indian military had hoped. “At least two aircraft were said to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, according to three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses who had seen the debris of two,” reports The New York Times. “Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.””

…

“”The scale of the strikes went far beyond New Delhi’s response to previous attacks in Kashmir it has blamed on Pakistan, including in 2019 and 2016, which some analysts said meant the risk of escalation was higher,” reports Reuters. But “the last time India and Pakistan faced off in a military confrontation, in 2019, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed,” reports The New York Times.

There’s also, of course, the China factor: Pakistan now gets lots of its weapons from China, whereas India is more reliant on the West; relations between India and China have soured in recent years, while China and Pakistan have gotten much closer.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/07/india-vs-pakistan-and-china/

India strikes deep inside Pakistan, Pakistan claims 5 Indian jets shot down, in major escalation

Posted on by Lone Candle

“India launched military strikes on targets in Pakistan, both countries said on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it had shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of wider conflict.

India’s missile strikes early Wednesday morning targeted “terrorist infrastructure” across nine sites in Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it said. They came in response to a massacre by militants of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago, that New Delhi blamed on its neighbor.

Pakistan said at least 26 people were killed in Wednesday’s strikes – including women and a three-year-old girl – and 46 wounded. The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the strikes as “an act of war” and Islamabad has vowed to retaliate.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/india-launches-strikes-deep-inside-011639841.html