Asia Politics

The first rule of warfare is to know one's enemy. The second is to know thyself. More than 15 years and three quarters of a trillion dollars after the US invasion of Afghanistan, it's clear that the United States followed neither rule well. America's goals in Afghanistan were lofty to begin with: dismantle al Qaeda, remove the Taliban from power, and remake the country into a democracy.

An Wei - a stubborn, hardworking peasant who has lived by his values and stood up for his convictions­ - has succeeded against all odds in the authoritarian environment of China. Despite grinding poverty, hunger, reeducation campaigns, and attacks from jealous peers, An Wei continues to inspire with his daring achievements, such as launching a democratic congress in his own village. His compelling life provides a vivid backdrop for understanding the development of modern China from the unique perspective of an outspoken citizen.

It's 1983. Scott Savitt, one of the first American exchange students in Beijing, picks up his guitar and begins strumming Blackbird. He's soon surrounded by Chinese students who know every word to every Beatles song he plays. The city's first nightclubs open; rock 'n' roll promises democracy. Becoming foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times then United Press International, Scott finds himself drawn into China's political heart.

Der lächelnde Unbekannte. China wächst weiter unaufhaltsam, ist aus der Corona-Pandemie sogar noch gestärkt hervorgegangen. Der Westen hingegen versinkt in Krise und Chaos. Mächtigster Mann der Welt ist heute nicht mehr der Präsident der USA, sondern Xi Jinping, Generalsekretär der Kommunistischen Partei und Staatspräsident Chinas. Wie funktioniert der Funktionär, der eine Machtfülle auf sich vereint wie vor ihm nur Mao? Welche Rolle spielt seine Frau Peng Liyuan, Chinas bekannteste Volkssängerin und Sonderbotschafterin der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO)?

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.

As a National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the attempt to rebuild a broken nation. With her NPR assignment finished in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn around the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the postwar government, Chayes witnessed a tragic, perverse turn of events.

Learn about how the dichotomous twins of idealism and pragmatism, of freedom and power, and of hope and fear are pitched against each other, wrestling for the future of Cambodia. This is Cambodia through the lens of human stories in what journalists and politicians have called 'gripping', 'a tour de force' and 'a must read'.

Dos costumes ancestrais às violentas reviravoltas do comunismo, a China passou, em algumas décadas, por uma das mais radicais e amplas transformações já vistas na história da humanidade. Mergulhando nas memórias familiares de três gerações de mulheres, Cisnes selvagens é o relato verdadeiro, com todos os acentos do drama épico, de uma família que tenta preservar a própria humanidade em meio à vertigem e ao horror da trajetória da China neste século.

Many studies of China's relations with and influence on Southeast Asia tend to focus on how Beijing has used its power asymmetry to achieve regional influence. Yet, scholars and pundits often fail to appreciate the complexity of the contemporary Chinese state and society, and just how fragmented, decentralized, and internationalized China is today. In The Ripple Effect, Enze Han argues that a focus on the Chinese state alone is not sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of China's influence in Southeast Asia. Instead, we must look beyond the Chinese state, to non-state actors from China.

«Creía que los arqueólogos eran unos graciosos hombrecillos que buscaban momios». Así describe Willie la profesión de su compañero de aventuras Indiana Jones en la película Indiana Jones y el templo maldito. El cine de aventuras siempre fue muy popular y exitoso, basado en un voluntario afán por el entretenimiento más que por la refl exión profunda sobre la condición humana. Dentro de este género, existe un conjunto de filmes cuyo eje central es la búsqueda de un tesoro y que forma un subgénero muy específico que es el cine de Arqueología. Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Tadeo Jones...

The Kennedy Withdrawal offers an inside look at presidential decision-making in this liminal period of the Vietnam War and makes clear that portrayals of Kennedy as a dove are overdrawn. His proposed withdrawal was in fact a cagey strategy for keeping the United States involved in the fight—a strategy the country adopted decades later in Afghanistan.

Zarifa Ghafari ist die weibliche Stimme Afghanistans. Mit 24 Jahren zur jüngsten Bürgermeisterin des Landes ernannt, versuchen Taliban, sie gewaltsam von der Ausübung ihres Amtes abzuhalten. Trotz der Anschläge setzt sie sich unermüdlich gegen Korruption, für Frieden und Frauenrechte ein. Als Vergeltung wird ihr Vater ermordet. Nach dem Einmarsch der Taliban 2021 muss Ghafari fliehen. Doch ihr Kampf geht weiter. Eindringlich schreibt sie über ihr Leben und ihr Engagement.

The Fight for China’s Future throws light on the quintessence of 21st century Chinese politics through the prism of the struggle between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s vibrant intelligentsia and civil society. This book examines Xi Jinping’s 24-hour, multi-dimensional, AI-enabled police-state apparatus and explores the CCP’s policy towards civil society.

Decoding the Virtual Dragon explains how Chinese information warfare concepts since 2003 fit into the strategic outlook, practices, and activities of the People’s Liberation Army, offering explanations directly from the pens of Chinese experts with few intermediate filters. In some cases, direct translations of key Chinese terms are offered. The Chinese authors discuss the application or relation of IW to strategic thought, the transformation plans of the People’s Liberation Army, the revolution in military affairs, and the revolution in knowledge warfare and cognition.

This landmark study of the Vietnamese conflict, examined through the lens of the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements in the rural province of Long An up until American intervention in the area, offers a human, balanced, penetrating account of war. Two new forewords by Robert K. Brigham of Vassar College and Jeffrey Record of the Air War College explore the book's enduring influence. A new end chapter offers previously unpublished scholarship on the conflict.

Is India ready to emerge as a world leader? Our times are characterized not by estranged superpowers building formidable arsenals but by engaged societies building a robust global economy. Emerging countries are redefining the geo-economic (and geopolitical) dynamic. The twenty-first century will be led, says Raghav Bahl, by a handful of Super Economies - large, prosperous countries with a high growth rate, ranking among the world’s top trading partners, commanding 15 to 20 percent of global GDP, having nuclear arms but using economic leadership to effect significant change.

In Americans in China, Terry Lautz provides a series of biographical portraits of Americans who have lived and worked in China from before the Communist era to the present. The pathbreaking experiences of these men and women provide unique insights and deeply human perspectives on issues that have shaped US engagement with the People's Republic: politics, diplomacy, education, business, art, law, journalism, and human rights.

For months during 1943 there was no night in Hellfire Pass. By the light of flares, carbide lamps and bamboo fires, men near-naked and skeletal cut a passage through stone to make way for a railway. Among these men were some of the 22,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. In camps across Asia and the Pacific, they struggled, died, and survived with a little help from their mates.

The rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. will be one of the defining issues of our generation. But to understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there–and the way the Chinese state is trying to control them along lines of identity and free expression. In vivid, cinematic detail, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom tells the stories of nearly two dozen people who are pushing back.

In An Enemy We Created, Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn debunk this myth and reveal the much more complex reality that lies beneath it. Drawing upon their unprecedented fieldwork in Afghanistan, as well as their Arabic, Dari, and Pashtu skills, the authors show that the West's present entanglement in Afghanistan is predicated on the false assumption that defeating the Taliban will forestall further terrorist attacks worldwide.