Category: Asia-Pacific

By Ye Ruolin and Yuan Ye * SHANGHAI (IDN | China Dialogue) — With few coal reserves to call its own and winter rains too erratic to rely on hydropower, central China’s Hunan province had long faced frequent electricity blackouts, an annoyance to residents and a hindrance to economic growth. So, when an ultra-high voltage […]

Viewpoint by Alexander Kallweit Last year, President Xi Jinping announced ambitious climate targets. But China’s reluctant state apparatus struggles to reconcile high growth and climate policy, writes Dr Alexander Kallweit, who heads the office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Beijing. Previously, he led the foundation’s International Dialogue Department in Berlin. This article first appeared in the […]

By Kalinga Seneviratne* SYDNEY (IDN) — “The Core Group chaired by the UK tabled a shoddy motion based on a hostile UNHRC Report riddled with factual errors and unproven allegations going back to 2009; none of which qualifies as robust evidence,” said Lord Naseby. Conservative party member and the President of the All-Party Parliamentary UK-Sri […]

By Jutta Wolf BERLIN (IDN) — Germany is one of the most important countries for Chinese investors and ranks tenth in terms of Chinese foreign direct investments (FDI). Particularly the transport sector and the technology sector in Germany received a great number of investments from Chinese investors in recent years. Although China has recently focused […]

By Krishan Dutta BANGKOK (IDN) — A group of Buddhist economists and communication scholars from Asia are embarking on a mission to redefine the development communication paradigm using concepts from the Buddhist philosophy. A webinar held earlier this month organized by Lotus Communication Network (LCN) in association with the Institute of Asian Studies (IAS) at […]

By Press Trust of India (PTI) BEIJING (IDN) — China, which was the first to be hit by COVID-19 and the earliest to recover from the lockdown effects, has fixed a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) target of over 6% in 2021, optimistic of an economic recovery after last year’s 2.3% growth, its weakest in decades. […]

By Krishan Dutta BANGKOK (IDN) — A new report released by the Sydney-based Lotus Communication Network (LCN) on February 26 warns that Buddhism is under threat across Asia, both from within and outside, and calls for concerted action by Buddhists across the region to empower themselves. The 238-page report produced as an eBook identifies six […]

By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY (IDN) — The tech juggernaut Facebook’s shock decision to block all news feeds from Australian media outlets from February 18 in response to a proposed new Media Bargaining law, that will force social media giants to pay for news content that is posted on their platforms, has created fury among Australians […]

By Bahauddin Foizee* DHAKA (IDN) – The horrible scenes of hungry, tired and almost lifeless Rohingya refugees entering Bangladesh shocked the world in 2017. Even today, many Rohingyas are attempting to make the journey from Myanmar to Bangladesh, believing that a foreign land (Bangladesh) would be safer than their homes (Myanmar). Although they aren’t migrating […]

By Thalif Deen* NEW YORK (IDN) – When million-dollar arms sales knock on the door, human rights violations and war crimes fly out of the window. As the United Nations grapples for a reaction to the military coup in Myanmar, both China and Russia, two veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), refused […]