Blog
The blog echoes the remit of the RSAA, covering current affairs, culture, travel, exploration and recent history from the Levant to East Asia.
Opinions expressed in posts are those of the contributor, not of the RSAA.
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Faxian and China’s Efforts to Court Sri Lanka
Marcus Andreopoulos is a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation and a Subject Matter Expert with the Global Threats Advisory Group at NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme Having elected a new president and government at the end of last year, Sri Lanka looks set to chart a new course in its approach to foreign policy. Since…
South Yemen: Gateway to the World?
Karen Dabrowska is a journalist and writer focused on the Middle East South Yemen could be the Hong Kong of the Middle East. Centred on the strategic port of Aden located on the southern tip of Arabia there is tremendous potential for the development of a free trade zone or a special economic zone, a…
Kazakh-Afghan Relations: The Competition for Trade and Connectivity in Central Asia
Eldaniz Gusseinov is a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Haydar Aliyev Center for Eurasian Studies and a Columnist for Daryo In recent years, the relationship between Kazakhstan and Afghanistan has been changing significantly, driven by stronger economic and diplomatic ties. A major turning point came in December 2023 when Kazakhstan decided to remove the Taliban from…
ASEAN in 2025: Malaysia’s Narrative in the South China Sea
Fikry A Rahman is Head of Foreign Affairs at Bait Al Amanah and Vasey Fellow at the Pacific Forum and Karisma Putera Abd Rahman is Senior Analyst for Foreign Affairs at Bait Al Amanah Malaysia has always taken a non-confrontational approach to managing incursions, encroachment, and provocations in the South China Sea. While this stance has…
The Invention of Everything: Joseph Needham and the Rediscovery of Chinese Science
Sean Paterson is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society living in Guangzhou In 1620, the great polymath Francis Bacon published his magnum opus, the Novum Organum. Among an early draft of the scientific method, he considered three inventions that had, in his own lifetime, turned the world upside down. ‘It is well to observe…
How do Qatari Humanitarian Diplomats Navigate Complex Political Landscapes?
Mona Hedaya is a Research Fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Qatar When we think of Qatar, images of gleaming skyscrapers and world-class sports events might come to mind. But there’s another side to this Gulf state making waves globally: its humanitarian diplomacy (HD). How does such a small nation make…
Remembering the Amu Darya
Oscar Fraser Turner is Co-Founder of Project Amu Darya which aims to record an oral history of the Amu Darya River Dusk fell across the muddy river. Somewhere in the bushes, the shrill howl of jackals serenaded the dying light. As their calls quietened, everything else grew louder – the hum of critters, the gurgle…
Maldives Strategy in the Indo-Pacific
Dr Athaulla A Rasheed is a former diplomat for the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is now an academic in the Department of Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University President Dr Mohamed Muizzu’s October 2024 visit to India has heightened the developing relationship between Maldives and India. This favours the Indo-Pacific strategy that seeks to…
At Kazan BRICS Summit, Russia’s Eurasian Identity Looms Large
Eugene Chausovsky is Senior Director for Analytical Development and Training at the New Lines Institute Leaders from across the globe descended upon Russia on October 22-24 for the annual BRICS summit, which has emerged as one of the premier gatherings of the non-Western world. Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the heads of state of the…
Gaza by the Sea: Palestine’s Cultural Flagship
Mahmoud Muna is a bookseller and cultural activist in Jerusalem and co-editor of Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture As I write, it has been a year since Israel launched unparalleled destruction against Gaza, in a war on Palestinian people and Palestinian culture that is in explicit violation of the Fourth Geneva…
The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island will Dictate the Global Future
Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London. He is the author of the newly published book The Taiwan Story. In mid-October 2024, the second occurrence of military exercises around the coast of Taiwan, which the Chinese call `Joint Sword’, have apparently just concluded. The…
Following the Great Mongolian Road: Biocultural Diversity and Intangible Heritage in the Mongolian Gobi Desert
Simon Phillips is an ethnobotanist with the Centre for Biocultural Diversity, University of Kent and Chris McCarthy is a Silk Road Scholar and Conservationist At a dry river bed in the Mongolian Gobi desert near the Chinese border, camels slowly drink water from holes dug by nomadic herders to the water table a little below…
The Struggle for Safe Drinking Water in Coastal Bangladesh
Dr Sonia Ferdous Hoque is an Environmental Social Scientist, working as a Senior Research Associate in Water Security and Society at the University of Oxford When you think of coastal Bangladesh, picture a vast, flat landscape where the land meets the sea in a delicate balance shaped by both human intervention and nature’s forces. This…
Politics and Religion: Sectarianism in the Middle East
Professor Simon Mabon is Director of the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation (SEPAD) project at Lancaster University’s Richardson Institute and Chair in International Politics On 12 January, US and UK militaries struck targets across Yemen in an effort to prevent Houthi attacks against ships passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis, a violently intolerant Islamist group…
Ismaili Tradition and its Global Communities in the Modern World
Wafi A. Momin is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Ismaili Special Collections Unit at The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London The Ismailis form a branch of Shia Islam and, though numerically much smaller in comparison to the Ithna‘ashari (‘Twelver’) brand of the Shias, are among the most prosperous and progressive of the Muslim communities…
No Change for Turkmenistan
Anabel Loyd has spent much of her adult life travelling in search of the lost, forgotten or obscure. She has been a regular columnist for the Indian Telegraph for many years and has a particular interest in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Indian history. I have spent much of the past four years, literarily…
Mongolian Archaeology Tomorrow
Dr Joshua Wright is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. He is a landscape archaeologist with a research focus on East Asia. A national museum focused on Chinggis Khaan opened in Ulaanbaatar in 2022. In November of 2022, the National University of Mongolia hosted a conference to open their…
Asia’s Stock Markets, From The Ground Up
Herald van der Linde is the author of Asia’s Stock Market: From the Ground Up, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in finance at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist. “Asia stock markets rallied as earnings rise” or “Asian stocks sink as COVID spreads” are commonly found headlines on newspaper’s…