Sudestasiatico.com

Maritime disputes between China and Vietnam have entered a dangerous new realm: psychological warfare. Tit-for-tat provocations, including marine patrol deployments in disputed areas in the South China Sea and Beijing’s decision to include territories it claims on maps printed in its national passports, have intensified in recent months, adding new destabilizing variables to an already volatile situation.

The South China Sea has become the epicenter of a whirlwind of escalating territorial disputes among six countries in the region – Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Now, with pressure on new Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chairman Brunei and freshly appointed Secretary General Le Luong Minh (from Vietnam) to find [...]

The Mekong is at risk. The world’s 12th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia, vital for millions of people living in Tibet, China’s Yunnan province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam is threatened by the energy needs of the South East Asian region. China began to build its first dam on the Mekong River in [...]

The 18th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) closed its doors on 24 July and the overall positive results seem to have satisfied the 27 delegations (the ten ASEAN members and the 17 dialogue partners such as Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, US, the EU, Russia and India) who met in Bali. Nevertheless, despite the fact that [...]

In the last several weeks, China and Vietnam have been accusing each other over the disputed islands situated in the South China Sea. The last episode to rekindle tensions between the two former enemies occurred 26 May, when Chinese patrol boats intentionally severed a seismic cable towed by a Vietnamese survey vessel

The question remains open, casting a shadow over the future of millions of people in South East Asia. Yet there seems to be nothing the main political forum of the region can do about it. When the leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) gather for a summit in Jakarta, the very controversial issue of a giant dam planned on the Mekong river, high up…

‘‘Myanmar sta cercando di muovere verso democrazia, stabilità nazionale e sviluppo”, e’ il messaggio del primo segretario dell’Spdc (State Peace and Development Council, il governo birmano), Tin Aung Myint Oo durante l’incontro con Li Changchun, membro dell’Ufficio politico del comitato centrale del Partito comunista cinese (Pcc), avvenuto a Pechino. Il rappresentante birmano, a capo di [...]

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission ASIA: A general view of the conditions of women in Asian countries International Women’s Day–2010 Today the world is looking to women for change in what remains a situation that offends human rights on a daily basis. In its work as a listener and voice to claims [...]