For some time Sudan has been under great pressure from the UN and the ‘international community’ (led by the US) to grant independence, not merely self-rule, to its constituent regions, such as Darfur. The pressure has already forced Khartoum to grant Southern Sudan self-rule and the right to choose between full independence and membership of an federal Sudanese state, and has induced the rebel groups in Darfur to abandon the peace agreements they signed with Khartoum
At the very time China was engulfed in a trade dispute with the US and the European Union – centred on the large imbalance between China’s vast exports to those countries and its imports from them – Beijing has unveiled a programme to multiply its already strong economic ties with African countries, and to establish "strategic links" with them.
Even before the annual meeting of heads of member-states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) opened on June 15, officials in Washington were pulling their hair at what they perceived as a challenge to US hegemony in the vital Eurasian region.
China’s growing status as a new superpower and its role in the US-led “war against terrorism” have left Chinese Muslims to the dubious mercies of Beijing...
The presidents of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, on June 16 to reinforce their alliance against Islamic activism in the region...
Muslims in the Russian Federation and in China – who are pursuing their ‘universal right’ to self-determination in the face of horrendous opposition – were probably not surprised by the abrupt way in which moves in the UN to condemn violations of human rights in China and by Russia were blocked...
Human rights organisation Amnesty International has confirmed reports of continued repression by Beijing of its Muslim population.
China, now a member of the World Trade Organisation, has made substantial political and economic gains at the APEC summit it recently hosted at Shanghai.
Since China and Russia recently signed a treaty of friendship in Moscow, supposed by some to be a response to US president George W. Bush’s missile project, trade and military contacts between Moscow and Washington have mushroomed.
Dan Quayle, who served as vice president under George Bush senior, could not spell potato correctly; George Bush junior, now president of the United States, does not know where Prince Edward Island, the Canadian province where potatoes are grown, is.
The latest diplomatic row between the US and China is simply another episode in America’s ongoing struggle with its own belligerence on a global scale. While the corporate news media dutifully reported to satellite-viewers the tit-for-tat diplomacy...
China is an emerging superpower. For decades, the west viewed it as an enemy because of its radical ideology. Many American cold warriors still consider it so despite far reaching changes in China. These have of necessity affected its foreign policy preferences as well. Within China, old ideas have had to be discarded and new realities taken into account.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to much drum-beating in western capitals about the victory of capitalism over communism. Western commentators, intoxicated by their belief in the 'effortless superiority' of the west, made dire predictions about the imminent collapse of the People's Republic of China as well. Where caution should have prevailed, the imagination was allowed to run wild.
Following the April 23 treaty between Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in Moscow, perhaps Harvard professor Samuel Huntington should go back to the drawing board and revise his ‘clash of civilizations’ theory.
Hundreds of people are believed to have died in clashes between Uighur mujahideen and Chinese troops in Chinese-occupied East Turkestan during January and February. The fighting reached a peak during the last days of Ramadan, with particularly intense trouble reported in the town of Kuldzha (Yining).
China has succeeded in securing the full support of its Central Asian and Russian neighbours to contain the growing tide of Islamic revivalism in its north-western autonomous region of Xinjiang...
