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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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…
Conflict and Peace from the Perspective of Iraqi Roma and Gypsies
Sarah Edgcumbe is a doctoral researcher with the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews “There are no Roma in Iraq”. This was the response to an interview request I sent a non-Iraqi humanitarian professional working in Iraq in 2021. Iraqi Gypsies and Roma have been narratively erased from the Iraqi landscape during…
Azerbaijani Geopolitics and Pax-Eurasiana
Dr Ferit Murat Ozkaleli is Associate Professor of International Affairs at ADA University in Azerbaijan A soft spotlight illuminates the stage as music fills Baku’s Old Opera House. It is Uzeyir Hajibeyov’s Leyli and Mecnun, a musical adaptation of a 16th-century tragic love poem by folk artist Fuzuli. When the music meets with the singer’s…
Election in Modi’s India: Endangered Democracy
Dr Börje Ljunggren is former Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam (1994-97) and China (2002-06) On 19 April, India begins its parliamentary elections. With nearly a billion voters it’s described as the world’s largest democratic exercise, yet is also deeply unsettling. Modi’s win could signal the end of a pluralistic India that has been embraced by the…
Jakarta’s future, and its beauty, lie hidden in its kampungs
Herald van der Linde is the author of Jakarta: History of a Misunderstood City and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist, based in Hong Kong. Jakarta is a fabulous city. To many, this statement might sound odd. The city conjures up images of endless traffic jams, immense shopping malls that all sell pretty much the same…
Young Nepalis Tricked into Fighting Putin’s War
Nick Hinton is Chairman of the Britain-Nepal NGO Network (BRANNGO) and a former British Gurkha officer The Russian ‘Special Military Operation’ against Ukraine is shocking in so many ways, but perhaps one of the most egregious is the way in which young men from Nepal have been tempted or tricked into serving with Russian forces. It…
Tibet’s Place in Asia’s Future: Repression, Resilience and Relevance
Dr Tsering Topgyal is a lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Birmingham Tibetans are experiencing very challenging times both inside and outside Tibet. Under Xi Jinping’s stifling authoritarianism, Tibetans inside Tibet are being subjected to an extraordinarily heavy dose of securitised assimilationism and generalised…
Kazakhstan’s Anti-Corruption Efforts: progress, but for how long?
Photo credit: Kazakh journalist Samat Iskakov. The Light Rail Transit System aimed at promoting urban mobility has been under construction in the Kazakh capital, Astana, for a decade. Every new mayor of the capital has promised to complete the project and has received adequate funding to do so, yet it still lies unfinished. It is…
Narco-Drones: Chinese Technology and the Evolving War on Drugs
Marcus Andreopoulos – Senior Research Fellow at the International Policy Assessment Group of the Asia-Pacific Foundation and Dr Sajjan M. Gohel – International Security Director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation and Chairman of NATO’s DEEP Global Threats Advisory Group. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) stated that Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), the Chinese drone manufacturing company,…
From the River to the Sea
Matthew Teller is an author, journalist and documentary-maker who has spent many years living, working and travelling in the Middle East. In February 1971, a few years after Israel’s conquest of the Egyptian Sinai, US media reported that Israel’s defence minister at the time, Moshe Dayan, had told a group of army veterans in Tel Aviv…
Kyrgyzstan’s Wild Walnut Woods
Chris Aslan is an author who has lived and worked across Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, he lived in the world’s largest natural walnut wood and established a wood-carving workshop. The first time I visit the world’s largest wild walnut wood, I’m struck by how at home I feel, as if this were a woodland somewhere…
Who will blink first? Recognising the Taliban in Afghanistan
Sophie Ibbotson is the Chairman of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and a consultant on economic development and water conflict in Central Asia and Afghanistan. My prediction for 2024 is that the Taliban will soon be given diplomatic recognition as the official government of Afghanistan. Embassies and consulates will start to reopen, sanctions will…