CIAO DATE: 01/2015
Volume: 30, Issue: 4
January 2013
Faceoff: China/India (PDF)
David A. Andelman
For the better part of three millennia, China and India have developed independently, intersecting only at the rarest of moments across a divide of some of the world’s most forbidding geography. Today, they rank as the world’s first and second most populous nations, but with political, social, and economic systems that place them sharply at odds. A centrally planned and managed nation controlled by a single political party has seen an economic explosion of activity and growth north of the Himalayas; to the south, a vibrant, if often cacophonous, multi-party democracy has broken out of its long lethargy to assume a leadership role in technology and innovation.
Map Room (PDF)
Brahma Chellaney
Asia faces a dilemma. The continent has the lowest global per capita freshwater resources, less than half the global annual average of 222,480 cubic feet per head. At the same time, Asia has the fastest growing demand for water in the world. Asia can in no sense remain the engine of global economic growth without addressing its water crisis.
The Big Question: Which Country Will Emerge as the Leading Power? (PDF)
Rory Medcalf, James Nolt, Yanzhong Huang, Arvind Gupta, Gisa Dang, Steven Lewis, Sophia Ling
Two of the world’s giants—the first and second most populous nations—share a single continent, but vastly different visions of their region and the world. China and India each have a legitimate claim to hegemony, to leadership, and to a shared or competitive future. We asked our panel of global experts which nation would emerge as Asia’s leading power in the future.
India Through Chinese Eyes (PDF)
Li Xin
BEIJING—Between dawn and dusk, on the 18th floor of a glass-walled office tower in the north fourth ring road of Beijing, thousands of editors working for Sina, a portal that includes Sina Weibo’s 500 million users, survey a myriad of news sources, snatching more than 10,000 items to display on its site. It is China’s most popular news portal and largest aggregator. Its news section, with its vast audience, plays a major role in shaping the nation’s media consumption.
ANATOMY: Higher Education (PDF)
The two leading universities in China and India, Peking University and India Institute of Technology-Bombay respectively, represent two vastly different approaches to education and life. Both require students to take highly competitive exams.
China Through Indian Eyes (PDF)
Nazia Vasi
Shaped by disparate political, economic, and social forces, and starkly divergent histories, China and India, though neighbors, have arrived at a point where their young people, as well as their leaders, have developed individual paths toward each other and the world. For a host of reasons, the two nations remain at odds 30 years after both economies and societies truly opened to global markets and outside influences.
Timeline: 1959-Present (PDF)
To understand the modern trajectory of Sino-Indian relations, World Policy Journal has focused on key political moments that have come to de fine the two countries' shared history. We begin at a pivotal moment-
the Tibetan Uprising, a brief flare of con flict shortly before the Sino-Indian War, which many view as the
sharpest geopolitical dispute between the two nations. Then we march through the 1960s and 1970s, when nuclear proliferation placed a heavy burden on a relationship otherwise improving under the twin pivots of regional security and financial imperatives. Our timeline shows a shift from direct military con flict to diplomatic and economic struggles for power. Though geopolitical issues, especially over critical resources like water and energy, will strain Sino-Indian relations in the future, we end our timeline with an uncertain, but promising economic trend, and new measures that may build con fidence between Asia's two giants.
Myanmar: Choosing Sides (PDF)
Megha Bahree
NAYPYIDAW-In September 2007, India and China, Myanmar's two principal neighbors, stood by valiantly as the ruling junta brutally suppressed protests over increased fuel prices, led by pro-democracy groups and Buddhist monks. At least 13 were killed and thousands arrested.
Nepal: Dictated By Geography (PDF)
Kunda Dixit
KATHMANDU-"A yam between two stones" is how Nepal's founding monarch, Prithvi Narayan Shah, described the Himalayan kingdom he forged out of dozens of feuding principalities in the 18th century. Even 250 years ago, it was evident to the country's founder that his new nation had to contend with the geopolitical influences of its two powerful neighbors-China to the north and British India to the south.
Bhutan: Between Two Giants (PDF)
Sherpem Sherpa
THIMPHU-A short walk past the shops lining Norzin Lam, the main street in Bhutan's capital Thimphu, reveals most of the merchandise on display is "Made in China"-shoes, silk, toys, heaters, and kitchen utensils. While diplomatic relations between Bhutan and China have yet to be established, the market in the capital city is already flooded with Chinese-made goods. Bhutanese are fast adopting Chinese products and cuisine.
Voice for Democracy in China: A conversation with Yeliang Xia (PDF)
For years, Professor Yeliang Xia has served as an economist of distinction in China-a protégté of Justin Yifu Lin, the first avowed Chinese communist to serve as chief economist of the World Bank. Professor Xia has taught for decades at Peking University-the preeminent institution in China for social and economic sciences. With close ties to Wellesley College in the Boston suburbs, he also serves as a prime example of the fine line that so often divides academic discipline from freedom in China.
Game of Hope: Pool Betting in Nigeria (PDF)
Andrew Esiebo
I BADAN—An aging Nigerian man, who has never left his home town, describes the operations of the British football’s Premier League in vivid detail. A blind man smiles as he holds a crackling transistor radio to his ear, the commentary of a live game blaring into the room. A local driver, a retired construction worker, a desperate breadwinner—these are just some of the characters who cluster around the Oje Pool House in Ibadan. This city of nearly 2 million, Nigeria’s third largest, where the savannah and the jungle meet, is just 90 miles inland from the sprawling port of Lagos.
Kimberley's Illicit Process (PDF)
Khadija Sharife, John Grobler
ANTWERP-Somewhere between Africa's diamond mines and the dazzling diamond bazaars of Dubai and Antwerp, a Belgian company called Omega Diamonds has constructed a financial triangular trade, where at least $3.5 billion worth of diamond profits simply vanished between 2001 and 2008. And, if Belgian investigators are to be believed, there was little anyone could do about it.
Rapping the Arab Spring (PDF)
Sam R. Kimball
TUNIS-Along a dusty main avenue, past worn freight cars piled on railroad tracks and young men smoking at sidewalk cafés beside shuttered shops, lies Kasserine, a town unremarkable in its poverty. Tucked deep in the Tunisian interior, Kasserine is 200 miles from the capital, in a region where decades of neglect by Tunisia's rulers has led to a state of perennial despair. But pass a prison on the edge of town, and a jarring mix of neon hues leap from its outer wall. During the 2011 uprising against former President Zine El-Abdine Ben Ali, prisoners rioted, and much of the wall was destroyed in fighting with security forces.
Norway's Choices (PDF)
Bjørn Stærk
OSLO- On a summer day in 2011, a car filled with a 2,000-pound fertilizer bomb exploded outside a government building in Oslo. The bomb was well placed, but badly timed. Many employees were on vacation. Others had left for the day. Labor Party Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose office was in the building, was out. Only eight were killed-relatively few for a bomb of that size.
Brazil's Health in Black and White (PDF)
Fernanda Canofre
BRASILIA-Juan Merquiades Duverge Delgado was born and raised in Guantanamo, Cuba. In a region where most of the economy is based on cotton and sugar crops, his father supported the family with a blue-collar job. Juan's mother stayed at home. As is the story across much of the three Americas, Juan's Cuba was built through the miscegenation of natives, colonizers, immigrants, and slaves. His mother's ancestors came from Puerto Rico; his father's came from Cuba. Juan is black.
Coda: The Imperial Presidency Gone and All But Forgotten (PDF)
David A. Andelman
There was a time, in the not-too distant past, when the Office of the President carried with it all but unprecedented powers. Not unlike the great emperors of old, a president could launch wars, proclaim peace, even change the course of history. In a democracy or an oligarchy, in political systems far removed in every other respect from the traditional dictatorship, presidents still wielded all
but unfettered power. No longer.