With the rise of China, so too rises Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia has slowly transformed in terms of economics, infrastructure, tourism, industry, and politically over the last two decades as Chinese influence increases and inevitably displaces US influence over the region. At its height, US influence resulted in a major war spanning two decades, engulfing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The US maintained military bases across the region, including in Thailand and the Philippines. However, when the US finally lost its war against Vietnam, it withdrew much of its military…

The word “Maldives”, for most readers will probably, firstly, mean “heaven on earth” (primarily a tourist one) and, secondly, lead to a question of perplexity: why does it appear at all (“in our crazy time”) in the publication, which discusses various aspects of the escalating situation in the geopolitical region, where the focus of the current stage of the “Big World Game” is shifting to? Nevertheless, this dwarf state with a total population of half a million people living on a group of coral islands that stretch from north…

Today’s global geopolitics is more about great power competition than any other thing. It is evident from the ongoing military conflict in Eastern Europe, and it is evident from the ways in which the US has been trying to build a global coalition against China for the past many years now. So far, Washington has achieved no substantial success. While Washington, presuming that there is a lot of potential for conflict in the region and the countries are eager to find a powerful ally against China…

On July 5, the ASEAN Working Group on Chemicals and Waste held a meeting in Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In addition to the ASEAN member states, other countries in the Asia-Pacific region also participated in the meeting. The agenda included the issue of the proper treatment and disposal of hazardous chemicals and their by-products in compliance with the provisions of the Basel and Rotterdam Conventions, which have been ratified…

Myanmar has always been a crossroads of migration routes and trade routes. Indochina as a whole is one of the most favorable places for the development of homo sapiens, therefore, since ancient times, many often not very close ethnic groups have lived on the territory of the country. It is not surprising that by present a relatively small state is a patchwork of fourteen administrative entities, in each, with the exception of the capital, there is at least one separatist armed group. Together, this entity is called the Union…

As US-Chinese tensions grow and as it becomes increasingly clear the US is unable to compete with China head-to-head in terms of development, trade, and investment, especially in regions along China’s periphery, the US is resorting increasingly to asymmetrical measures including political coercion, subversion, and even violence. US military aggression and political subversion, particularly in Southeast Asia, spans many decades. Besides the Vietnam War and the related conflicts which raged across Laos, Cambodia, and even Thailand in the 20th century, more recently…

On June 2-4, Singapore hosted another (already the 20th in a row) Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD), which is held annually by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Judging by the composition of participants and the range of issues discussed, this is one of the most reputable international expert platforms, which examines various aspects of security in the Indo-Pacific region. The very region where the focus of the current stage of the Big World Game is shifting towards. Each such Dialogue deserves attention, if only because…

Following recent general elections in Thailand, influenced heavily by years of US interference, a pro-US proxy regime is poised to take power. Even before officially taking office, the leadership of the victorious Move Forward Party has vowed to help pursue US foreign policy objectives both in regards to “rebalancing” Thailand away from China and back toward the West, as well as regarding US interference elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and more specifically, Myanmar…

In a development that will surely impact growing US-Chinese tensions, US-backed opposition parties have won Thailand’s May 14, 2023, general elections. A US-backed client regime taking power in Thailand will impact China’s Belt and Road Initiative, threaten bilateral trade and tourism, and perhaps even undermine regional security. This is particularly so should Thailand now begin working more closely with Washington over matters in the South China Sea, over Taiwan, or a number of other points of contention the US seeks to use to unify the region…

On April 30, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines, departed for a five-day trip to the United States of America. In a way, the trip served as the culmination of a number of in-depth assessments designed to probe the stance of all three significant players in the region who form the field of power in which the Philippines must somehow function. Early in January, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. traveled to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. A month later, he was welcomed in Tokyo by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. However, it should be emphasized that, in the context of the aforementioned probing process…

The issue of maritime piracy has always occupied a niche on the “dark” side of the mosaic and the multidimensional image of the modern world. History bears witness to the fact that every new stage of economic and commercial development of sea and ocean expanses, and the establishment of regular navigation, as a rule, has been accompanied by the emergence of pirate centers in the coastal areas. The state of affairs at the forefront of the fight against this criminal practice is characterized by remarkable changes at the present stage. After the last period…

Against the backdrop of growing global concern about the ubiquity of corruption and skepticism about the prospects for its eradication, there is heightened interest in “best practices” – real successes achieved by individual states in this area. The Republic of Singapore is a good example of a successful struggle to eradicate this plague in Asia. It has developed and implemented an effective strategy that has made it possible to eradicate corruption as a “way of life” in a historically short period of time and created one of the most important conditions…