IDR Blog

Taming the Dragon
Maj Gaurav Arya | 30 Nov , 2016 0 comments

All warfare is based on deception – Sun Tzu, The Art of War The Middle Kingdom has many achievements to its name, paper and gunpowder the most well known. It has been able to project an image of being inscrutable, tough, opaque and absolutely unwilling to entertain a contrary narrative. All this is true, but also true is the fact that the...

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Connecting Heavenly Tibet
Claude Arpi | 29 Nov , 2016 0 comments

The Tibetan plateau is witnessing a great deal of infrastructure development. This is not new, but the Chinese investments have taken much larger proportions in the recent weeks. According to the website en.tibetol.cn, the Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has vowed to invest 543.1 billion yuan (88 billion US dollar) “to...

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Benefitting from China’s Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s gargantuan cross-continental infrastructure project, launched by President Xi Jinping in September 2013, is not only a foreign policy initiative, but an idea linked to saving the life of Communist Party of China (CPC) which could otherwise tumble like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did...

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The Chinese Tourists Arrive on the Indian Border
Claude Arpi | 27 Nov , 2016 0 comments

While Delhi remains stuck with its ‘colonial’ system of Inner Line/Protected Area Permit system, China has opened its side of the frontier to hordes of tourists coming to the Mainland. Yesterday, China Tibet News reported that “Legbo Valley creates ‘natural oxygen bar’ tourism brand.” The catchy title is not very clear, but the...

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No ‘String of Pearls’, it’s the Dragon in the Indian Ocean
Mahendra Ved | 25 Nov , 2016 1 comment

Forget the “String of Pearls” story about how China is supposedly surrounding India on the high seas. China is not just on the sea, but also on land, in air and deeply involved in the economies of all of South Asia and beyond. Two events in India’s neighbourhood taking place on a single day, November 14, show the extent to which the...

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