Sean Paterson is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society living in Guangzhou Hong Kong is often referred to as ‘the gate to China’, and even today, it’s common to hear the broader Pearl River Delta megalopolis referred to in similar terms. Some might say the same of Shanghai. However, those who focus on the…
David and Sue Richardson are independent UK-based specialists in Asian textiles Just a 90-minute flight from the tourist-choked streets of southern Bali lies the fascinating and rarely visited island of Sumba, with its unique religion, its megalithic culture and its superb textiles. In the past Sumba was divided into over thirty domains, each led by…
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 Throughout April in Pakistan, shortly before tensions with India escalated into a full-blown conflict, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) momentarily reclaimed the spotlight. For a brief period, attention…
Christopher Wilton-Steer is a travel photographer, writer and the Global Lead for Communications at the Aga Khan Foundation There were perhaps 300 people waiting to cross at the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border. I estimated a six hour wait time. But, as elsewhere in Central Asia, as soon as I – a tourist – was spotted I was…
Lucas Fraser-Taliente It’s a Wednesday night in the centre of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The darkness of the small wooden stage in front of me is disturbed only by the faint blue glow of the supertitle screens. A soft white gleam emerges to illuminate the entrance of our young protagonist, Makhzum. His father, a stiff and bespectacled…
Dr Sandeep Sandhu FRSB is Head of Stakeholder Relationships at Innovate UK Business Connect and a trustee of the RSAA In a world where headlines are dominated by political tensions, territorial disputes, and trade wars, it’s easy to overlook a quieter but equally powerful force reshaping international relations: science diplomacy. At its heart, science diplomacy…
Hans Leisen & Esther von Plehwe-Leisen From the 9th to the 14th century the Khmer, the ancestors of modern-day Cambodians, reigned over a vast empire in Southeast Asia. Angkor was the capital city of this empire and is today home to countless temples that remain from that period. They are built from sandstone and brick…
Bill Hayton is the editor of the RSAA’s journal Asian Affairs and was the BBC reporter in Vietnam in 2006-7 On 30 April, Vietnam marks the anniversary of the formal end of a war. But how long did that war last? Did it begin in 1965 with the arrival of American combat troops in Vietnam,…
Amin Saikal is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at the Australian National University, Adjunct Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies President Donald Trump’s gunboat diplomacy has put Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a…
Sean Yom is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University, Pennsylvania and Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN). Far from the fires of Gaza and the battlefields of Syria, a titanic struggle for Middle Eastern democracy is playing out in an unassuming Arabian kingdom. At the head of the Arabian…
