Asia Politics

This Very Short Introduction looks at Pakistan as one of the two nation-states of the Indian subcontinent that emerged in 1947. Pippa Virdee reaches into the ancient past to demonstrate the influence of trajectories of human settlement and civilization on Pakistan's contemporary political arena, and shows how the longer continuities between the land and its peoples are as important as the short-term changes in the political landscape. She considers Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, everyday life, popular culture, languages and literature.

Xi Jinping verfolgt knallharte Interessen: die Formung einer Welt mit China an der Spitze. Deutschland spielt derzeit dabei nur eine nützliche Nebenrolle. Das zu erkennen, sollte uns nicht frustrieren, sondern motivieren! Wenn wir Schlüsseltechnologien, Infrastruktur und Digitalisierung vorantreiben, Entscheidungen in Politik und Wirtschaft beschleunigen und vor allem zwei Verhaltensweisen ablegen: unsere Unentschlossenheit und unser Harmoniedenken – dann können wir wieder Verhandlungspartner auf Augenhöhe werden.

22 December 1949: A conspiracy that began with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi culminated in the execution of the Ayodhya strategy. Late that night, a little-known sadhu, Abhiram Das, and his followers entered the Babri Masjid and planted an idol of Rama inside it. While it is known that the Hindu Mahasabha had a role in placing the idol in the mosque, the larger plot and the chain of events that led to that act have never been subject to rigorous scrutiny. Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K. Jha bring together the disparate threads of the buried narrative for the first time.

China ist Boomland, längst einer der Motoren der Weltwirtschaft. Innenpolitisch blieb das Land dabei immer autoritär, außenpolitisch zurückhaltend. Doch unter Xi Jinping, dem mächtigsten Staats- und Parteichef seit Mao, erfindet sich der autoritäre Staat neu, in offener Konkurrenz zum Westen. China marschiert nun selbstbewusst in die Welt, gleichzeitig gewährt sich sein System ein Update mit den Instrumenten des 21. Jahrhunderts: Peking setzt auf Big Data und künstliche Intelligenz wie keine zweite Regierung.

What motivates suicide bombers in Iraq and around the world? Can winning the hearts and minds of local populations stop them? Will the phenomenon spread to the United States? These vital questions are at the heart of this important book. Mia Bloom examines the use, strategies, successes, and failures of suicide bombing in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and assesses the effectiveness of government responses. She argues that in many instances the efforts of Israel, Russia, and the United States in Iraq have failed to deter terrorism and suicide bombings.

Maverick environmental writers William J. Kelly and Chip Jacobs follow up their acclaimed Smogtown with a provocative examination of China’s ecological calamity already imperiling a warming planet. Toxic smog most people figured was obsolete needlessly kills as many there as the 9/11 attacks every day, while sometimes Grand Canyon-sized drifts of industrial particles aloft on the winds rain down ozone and waterway-poisoning mercury in America. Vivid, gonzo prose blends first-person reportage with exhaustive research and a sense of karma, describing the horror of "Cancer Villages", spellbinding "peasant revolts" against cancer-spreading plants, and much more....

At the beginning of the 21st century, China is poised to become a major global power. And though much has been written of China's rise, a crucial aspect of this transformation has gone largely unnoticed: the way that China is using soft power to appeal to its neighbors and to distant countries alike.

On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area.

Arguing that North Korea is little more than a carefully constructed Chinese puppet state, the author looks into the heart of this "rogue nation" and finds the Chinese behind much of the terrorism and nuclear weapons manufacturing on the Korean peninsula.

While America is still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, a high unemployment rate, and a surge in government debt, China's economy is the second largest in the world, and many predict it will surpass the United States' by 2020. President Obama called China's rise "a Sputnik moment" - will America seize this moment or continue to treat China as its scapegoat? Mainstream media and the U.S. government regularly target China as a threat. Rather than viewing China's power, influence, and contributions to the global economy in a negative light, Ann Lee asks, "What can America learn from its competition?"

Dos cronistas argentinos viajaron a la península coreana sin cruzarse –uno al norte, el otro al sur– y contrastaron visiones sobre cómo se vive el último capítulo de la Guerra Fría. Corea del Norte llevó la idea del comunismo a un insólito sistema cuasi monárquico basado en la sacralización del líder, instalando una sociedad disciplinaria que encaja con el modelo panóptico de control teorizado por Foucault.

Daniel Wagner, a veteran current affairs analyst and Asia expert, has been traveling to China since 1986, has visited the country dozens of times, has worked with some of its largest Chinese financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and has published scores of articles on China since the 1990s. In this book, he examines why the Chinese government acts as it does on the international stage and the impacts it has had, and will have, on countries around the world in the future.

China's reform era is ending. Core factors that characterized it - political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth - are unraveling.

Viceroys is the story of the British aristocracy sent to govern India during the reigns of five British monarchs. It is also the story of how the modern British identity was established. British history from the Hundred Years War onwards gives an impression of how the British were seen. It is a misconception or, more kindly, a British view. Until the 19th century the British did not have an identity readily recognised throughout the world. Even the Elizabethans were never established other than as great individuals. From 1815, an image of Britain as the first superpower was built that would make do until even the 21st century.

In the sphere of future global politics, no region will be as hotly contested as the Asia-Pacific. This is where authoritarian China is trying to rewrite international law and challenge the democratic values of the US and its allies. No other Asian country can take on China alone. The US too may be ill-equipped for the job at hand. If China does get away with seizing and militarizing waters here, what will it do elsewhere, and who will be able to stop it? Asian Waters breaks down the politics - and tensions - seen through this region for years.

Wer steckt hinter den Unternehmensgiganten aus China? Sie erobern die Weltmärkte, positionieren China als digitale Supermacht und prägen die entscheidenden Zukunftsindustrien. Gleichwohl wissen wir fast nichts über sie. Wie ticken Chinas Bosse? Wer steckt hinter den immer mächtigeren und aggressiven Unternehmensgiganten? Was sind das für Leute, die in Frankreich Weinberge und in Europa Fußballvereine oder Immobilien kaufen?

In Cambodia in the 1960s, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge declared war on their own people, enslaving and slaughtering anybody who disagreed with them. Sichan Siv knew he would soon be a target - ending up, perhaps, as one of the millions of anonymous human skeletons buried in his nation's Killing Fields - so he heeded his mother's pleas and ran. Captured and forced to perform slave labor, Siv feared that he'd be worked to death or killed. But he never abandoned hope or his improbable dream of freedom - a dream that liberated him.

In Will Africa Feed China?, Deborah Brautigam, one of the world's leading experts on China and Africa, probes the myths and realities behind the media headlines. Her careful research challenges the conventional wisdom; as she shows, Chinese farming investments are in fact surprisingly limited, and land acquisitions modest. Defying expectations, China actually exports more food to Africa than it imports. Is this picture likely to change?

There are more than 320 million Chinese between the ages of 16 and 30. Children of the one-child policy, born after Mao, with no memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre, they are the first net native generation to come of age in a market-driven, more international China. Their experiences and aspirations were formed in a radically different country from the one that shaped their elders, and their lives will decide the future of their nation and its place in the world.

Through a lyrical narrative of her journey to Tibet in 2007, activist Canyon Sam contemplates modern history from the perspective of Tibetan women. Traveling on China's new "Sky Train", she celebrates Tibetan New Year with the Lhasa family whom she'd befriended decades earlier and concludes an oral-history project with women elders.