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.
Contributions
Got a subject you would like to post about? Please contact us for a copy of our editorial guidance. Publication is at the RSAA’s discretion
The Crisis of Responsibility to Protect in Myanmar: Failing to Prevent and Respond to Atrocities
Dr Noel M Morada is a Visiting Research Professor at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Conflict Resolution, Atrocities Prevention and Human Security, Chulalongkorn University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland and Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Working Group at Global…
Sufism in the 21st Century: A Living Tradition
Dr Ines Aščerić-Todd is a Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures at the University of Edinburgh Sufism – Islamic mysticism – encompasses a set of beliefs and practices used by many Muslims as a way of drawing closer to God and attaining personal experience or knowledge of the Divine. Sufism has a long history…
Religious Regulations in Malaysia and their Implications: Lessons from Mentega Terbang
Dr Choong Pui Yee is a senior lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at University Malaya. She teaches ASEAN studies and security issues in Southeast Asia. In January, a director and a producer of the Malaysian fictional film Mentega Terbang were charged with “wounding the feelings” of others under Section 298 of the Penal…
Filipino Migrants as Agents of Change
Dr Mina Roces is a Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture at the University of New South Wales This year marks fifty years since President Ferdinand Marcos signed the labour code that sent Filipino workers all over the world leaving around ten million/ ten percent of the population as migrants today. Since then, migration has…
Majapahit: The Most Powerful Empire in Asia That Most People Have Never Heard Of
Herald van der Linde is the author of Majapahit: Intrigue, Betrayal and War in Indonesia’s Greatest Empire and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist As diplomatic showdowns go, this summit was without parallel. In a grand pavilion in the magnificent grounds of the royal palace of Singasari in eastern Java, an envoy from Kublai Khan, probably the…
China Rising, Latin America Swooning
Professor Chris Alden (Director of LSE IDEAS) and Professor Alvaro Mendez (Director of the LSE Global South Unit) co-authored China and Latin America: Development, Agency and Geopolitics The rising fortunes of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) over the last decades launched an economic and social transformation every bit as consequential as the onset of…
South Korean Grand Strategy
Dr Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Relations at the University of Bradford South Korea, in the 21st century, is facing a complex security environment as one of the few liberal democratic states persistently threatened by its neighbour and, therefore, a frontline state in the the emerging geopolitical configuration of the region. The persistent conflict…
Will Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin survive?
Dr Punchada Sirivunnabood is Associate Professor of Political Science at Mahidol University in Thailand After eleven months as Prime Minister of Thailand, real-estate tycoon Srettha Thavisin, backed by the Pheu Thai-led coalition, has not yet successfully implemented any policies promised during his campaign. These include Pheu Thai’s signature 10,000 baht digital wallet, the Thai soft…
“Our (First) Man in Pyongyang”
Dr J E Hoare is an academic and historian specialising in Korean and Chinese studies and was formerly a career diplomat in the British Foreign Office. In London on 12 December 2000, Sir John Kerr, the Permanent Undersecretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Kim Chun Guk, head of the European Department of…
Pyongyang Prospect
Glyn Ford is a former member of the European Parliament and author of Talking to North Korea (2018) and Picturing the DPRK (2024) North Korea’s nuclear programme is the symptom of weakness, not strength. Pundits confuse David with Goliath. The reality is that Pyongyang is comprehensively out-spent, out-gunned and out-resourced by its southern alter ego. Seoul’s military budget dwarfs…
Less Than a Decade to Decide What to do about Hong Kong?
Matthew Hurst is a doctoral student at the University of York researching the Sino-British negotiations over the future of Hong Kong during the 1980s and ’90s. The past can be a poor indicator of the future. Anyone looking to history books as if they were a crystal ball is likely to find themselves disappointed. In…
Heritage Tourism, Sustainability and Community in AlUla
Co-authors Richard Wilding and Elisabeth Dodinet have spent their careers working with intangible cultural heritage, Richard as a writer and filmmaker in the Middle East and Elisabeth as an archaeo-ethno-botanist conducting research on aromatic plants. Speaking via Zoom from an office in the town of AlUla in northwest Saudi Arabia, three young women talk excitedly…
China has yet to prove itself a sea power, just look at the Red Sea
Andrew Ward is a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy and is currently a Hudson Fellow at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Centre where he is researching the early Cold War and its relevance for today’s power dynamics at sea. Building a navy is insufficient to become a sea power. By some measures, the People’s…
Our Man in Mongolia: Charles Binsteed, an Agent of the British Empire in Mongolia
Sue Byrne is an independent researcher specialising in Mongolia. Who would have thought that a twenty-six year old British Army Officer would be the first European to enter Urga in February 1912 mere weeks after the Bogd Khan’s declaration of independence? The young man was Charles Binsteed, who had taken Extra Regimental Leave beyond empire…
Mongolia’s Upcoming Elections: a Turning Point?
Bolor Lkhaajav is an international relations researcher and writer Over the last decade, Mongolia has experienced tremendous political, economic, and social transformation. The 2024 parliamentary election will be a turning point in Mongolia’s democracy, governance, and how Ulaanbaatar engages the world in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment. The 2024 parliamentary election will be one of…
Douglas Carruthers and the Outer Mongolia Expedition of 1910-1911
Douglas Carruthers, born in London in 1882, was an explorer and naturalist who went onto become a member of the Royal Central Asian Society (precursor to the RSAA). As a boy he was desperate to be able to explore Africa, Central Asia and the ruins of the ancient world, all of which he managed to achieve before he was twenty-six. As a young man he travelled through Arabia, represented the British Museum while travelling across Africa, followed the course of the Congo River and explored Central Asia.
The Future of the Wild Camel
Kathryn Rae is the Founder and Managing Trustee of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation and Dr Anna Jemmett is their ecologist with a PhD in the study of the Wild Camel The critically endangered wild camel, Camelus ferus, хавтгай, 野骆驼, inhabits the desert ecosystems of Mongolia and China. In China it survives in the Gashun Gobi, Lop…
Mongolian Peacekeeping as a Foreign Policy Tool
Tsogtgerel Nyamtseren is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Studies, Mongolia and a former member of the Mongolian Armed Forces On 6 February 2023, a devastating earthquake struck southern and central Türkiye. In response to the disaster, many nations sent teams of rescue professionals to save lives in a race against time. The Mongolian military forward medical team…