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Kalinga Seneviratne
Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lankan born journalist and international communications scholar. He is the author of GeoPolitics and the Media in Asia and the Pacific: Pulling in Different Direction.
The island nation could benefit from the expertise of Beijing and New Delhi, which would do well to help Colombo resist Western influence.
The port has become a thriving transshipment hub in the Indian Ocean particularly for vehicles, with a turnover of 700,000 units a month.
Ebrahim Raisi, the first Iranian leader to visit Sri Lanka since 2008, says the project marks his country’s ability to share knowledge with other nations.
Boracay’s indigenous Ati people have been pushed to the margins and are fighting to retain agricultural land that developers claim is better used for tourism.
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Australia’s agreement with Tuvalu may provide younger locals with a migration pathway but is seen by older islanders as an encroachment of sovereignty.
Fiji’s once thriving rice industry has been affected by changing policies and supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic.
Grace Road Church has been accused of being a cult and its leaders charged with abuse, but its companies have also had a major impact on Fiji’s economy.
Ukraine’s request to address the G20 was refused amid speculation the US had dropped the cause in favour of a “ferocious” courtship of India, which could prevent a rising Brics bloc from challenging the West.
Having been used for nuclear tests and dumping by the US and French, the Pacific islands deeply oppose Japan’s plan and see it as a ‘nuclear legacy’ issue.
India was feted when it offered cheap medicines, a heart hospital, research institute, desalination plants and its IT and solar expertise – with no mention of defence issues. This could be a template for great powers seeking engagement with small nations.
The warm embrace Lula da Silva received in China is the latest sign of relations that could speed up moves within the BRICS countries to create a new global economic architecture, creating greater distance for the Global South from the influence of the IMF and the World Bank.
The Dalai Lama’s ‘middle way’– not going to extremes – does not demand independence from Chinese rule but urges a high degree of autonomy. Beijing considers the spiritual leader to be a separatist.
It’s been six months since Gotabaya Rajapaksa escaped his beleaguered nation for a few weeks of calm and PM Wickremasinghe became its president – but with the Rajapaksa clan still around, experts wonder how much power Wickremasinghe really has.
Ranil Wickremesinghe only gained the presidency through horse-trading and with Western help, writes Kalinga Seneviratne.
Thousands of Indians were taken to Fiji by British colonialists to be sugar cane workers; their descendants are now under threat, as they own little land, there’s far less sugar production, and Chinese businesses are arriving.
With the country’s two biggest parties suffering major losses, the new Labor government will need the support of independent MPs to pass legislation. The independents who have taken the election by storm are mostly women with a strong focus on green policy and greater government accountability.
Vaccine inequity is prolonging the pandemic by allowing room for the virus to mutate and spread, experts say. IP rights for vaccines must be lifted not only for humane reasons, but also on social justice grounds.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison faces heavy criticism for proposals that appear focused on keeping fossil fuel firms and domestic voters happy. His government relies heavily on rural farming and mining communities for votes, making aggressive climate policy unlikely.
In fighting the ‘war on terror’, the West has seen its democratic rights and freedoms eroded. With much of the international community fed up with the West’s weaponising of human rights, China is pushing back with its own definition of democracy.
The allegations of biowarfare surrounding this pandemic should prompt a review of the Biological Weapons Convention and states’ compliance with it.
Descendants of indentured Punjabi labourers have turned a small pocket of rural New South Wales into a wealthy farming community.
Beijing’s partners in Europe and Southeast Asia command much attention at the Belt and Road Forum, but there is much China-backed development in Central Asia – and much concern over whether Kyrgyzstan will pay back the billions it has borrowed.
Beijing and Canberra have been quick to deny that politics is behind the delays that have hit Australian coal imports. To sceptics, it’s a case of protesting too much.
