Articles By Claude Arpi
China: Harmony or chaos?
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 24.3 Jul-Sep 2009 | Date: 12 Jan , 2011
China suffers from a superiority complex. This is not new. Genetically, it must have been there for ages, but in recent years due to the rapid economic development, the tremendous advances in the...
China dictates development on Indian territory
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 10 Jan , 2011
As reported several times on Claude Arpi blog, during the past months, the Chinese have been constructing mega infrastructure projects (roads, airports, five-star hotels) on their side of the...
The end of Shangrila
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 31 Dec , 2010
As the year comes to a close, one could ask: What was the most depressing news during 2010? There were so many contenders for this description — from the shoddy preparations for the...
France & Nuclear Disarmament between vision & realism-III
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 24 Dec , 2010
The second part of the speech is consecrated to disarmament. It is probably the most detailed account by a French President When international security improves, France draws the consequences....
France & Nuclear Disarmament between vision & realism-II
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 23 Dec , 2010
People are ‘reproducible’ the Great Helmsman is said to have stated. That day, Nehru understood that India and China were not brothers, though Mao was at his charming best, when Nehru left...
France & Nuclear Disarmament between vision & realism-I
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 22 Dec , 2010
The question of nuclear disarmament has always given rise to diverse, if not opposite reactions. Commentators have described the positions of different nations (and sometimes within the same...
Chinese Incursions and India's Flawed Response
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 16 Dec , 2010
Chinese incursions are making headlines in the Indian Press. It is good. Not because the Chinese persist in trespassing into Indian territory, but because the media bring some light onto such...
Tibetan Villagers 'relocated' by dam construction
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 13 Dec , 2010
Earlier, I had mentioned that the new dam built by the Chinese near Lhasa. More news on this front: it seems now that some 4000 farmers will have to be ‘relocated’. What is strange in...
WikiLeaks and Indian secrets
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 07 Dec , 2010
We live in the WikiLeaks era when no official document is considered too secret to be put out in the public domain by whistleblowers. It’s only a matter of time before India’s archive of...
Indo-French Friendship to Partnership-III
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 05 Dec , 2010
Obstacles to Indo-French Relations: At the outset, it is necessary to point out that today no major political differences darken the sky between Paris and Delhi except, of course, the unexpected...
Indo-French Friendship to Partnership-II
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 23.1 Jan-Mar 2008 | Date: 04 Dec , 2010
Phase 2: 1971-1990: The Office of the Historian of the US State Department which has recently released the declassified documents of the Nixon Administration terms the policy of the US President...
An Analysis of China's White Papers on Defense
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 24.2 Apr-Jun 2009 | Date: 28 Nov , 2010
Have you ever heard of the term ‘Informationization’? The word is used 48 times in the new White Paper (WP) on Defense1 published by The Information Office of State Council of the People’s...
China: Friend or Foe?
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 22.4 Oct-Dec 2007 | Date: 24 Nov , 2010
Year 2008 will be a special year. It is a leap year and for the first time in modern history, China will organize the Olympic Games. One remembers that in ancient Greece, this was a time for...
Return of Jiang
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 24.4 Oct-Dec 2009 | Date: 23 Nov , 2010
China has the most opaque political system in the world. The only way to guess what is going on behind the walls of Zhongnanhai (residences-cum-offices of the top Chinese leadership) is to watch...
China : Is it enough to just watch?
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 13 Nov , 2010
Foreign Minister SM Krishna says he is ‘watchful on China projects near border’. According to newspapers’ reports: “India asserted that it keeps a ‘constant watch’ on all developments having a...
France pitches for India to join military operations overseas
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.4 Oct-Dec 2010 | Date: 20 Oct , 2010
“I earnestly hope that the modernisation of India’s Mirage 2000 fleet will be executed by Dassault, Thales and MBDA.” Mr. Hervé Morin was born on 17 August 1961 in Pont-Audemer, Eure...
The African Talibans
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 15 Oct , 2010
The visit to India of Mr. Jean-David Levitte, the ‘sherpa’ of President Sarkozy, during the second week of October was hardly noticed. Monsieur Levitte is a very powerful man. In France, each...
The train in Tibet and the Clouds over Himalayas
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 13 Oct , 2010
NEW China has no money problem. When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited debt-laden Greece last week he promised to double trade in five years and buy Greek bonds when Athens returns to...
Strategic Aspects of Climate Change-1
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Vol 25.3 Jul-Sep 2010 | Date: 06 Oct , 2010
A misplaced paranoia A couple of months back Islamabad went hysterical again. India as usual was the target. This time it is not about Kashmir or the fate of the Muslim population in India, but a...
China's core interests
By: Claude Arpi | Issue: Net Edition | Date: 30 Aug , 2010
Have you heard of ‘Core Interests’? No, it has nothing to do with ‘organising’ the CWG, IPL auctions, mining in tribal areas or OBC vote banks, though it is true that in India ‘core’...