Southern Asia

The election of Imran Khan represents a turnabout in policy in South Asia in ways few expect. Khan will close the door on America’s longtime policy toward the Caspian Basin, a policy of dominance, regime change and military colonization. That policy will die a needed and painful death.
First of all, where no Pakistani leader ever could before, Khan will reach out to India. India’s Modi continues to push for strong suppression of Muslims in Kashmir and a wartime footing against China.

The eleventh elections, held on 25 July of this year, in the lower house of parliament (the National Assembly of Pakistan) attracted a great deal of attention from the international media as well as experts on world politics. The results of these elections can have a profound effect on both, the situation in Pakistan and the political environment that surrounds it.

From June 19 through 24 of this year, the prime minister of Nepal, K. P. Sharma Oli, accompanied by ministers of the economic block of the government was on an official visit to China, at the invitation of his Chinese colleague, Li Keqiag.

Tens of millions of Pakistani people will rush to polling stations on July 25 to determine the future of the country’s supreme legislative body – the lower house of parliament also known as the National Assembly (NA), which has a total of 342 seats, 272 of which are filled by direct elections. Simultaneously with the parliamentary elections, local legislative bodies will be renewed.
Like five years ago, a total of three political parties are setting the tone for Pakistani polling:

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, visited India on February 15-17, and talked with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The visit is noteworthy for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the fact that it took place at all.
For it was a significant foreign policy initiative, taken by one of the two ‘pariah states’ which, along with ‘revisionist states’ were seen, until recently, as the source of the main national security threats facing the ‘leading global superpower’.

It seems as if the political temperature in the Indian Ocean region is not going to ‘settle down’, as we predicted a week ago, but has already started to rise. That is demonstrated by the worsening situation in the Maldives, which is taking on the character of an internal political crisis, although in this case there has been an external element in this crisis right from the beginning.

There have been two standout events in India’s foreign policy in the first month of 2018: the 3rd ‘Raisina Dialogue’, held in New Delhi from 6-18 January, and the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit, held on 28 January, also in the Indian capital.

As China continues to develop its ‘One Belt, One Road’ Initiative (OBOR), its main competitor in the region, India, is working on its own international infrastructure projects. These are aimed at strengthening India’s influence in the region and providing an alternative to OBOR, which India does not wish to be a part of.

In the complex political picture that looms in the Indian and Pacific region, the various processes that are taking place in all of its geographical elements deserve attention. At the same time, it makes sense once again to designate the special significance of the sea band between the coast of the PRC and the so-called ‘First Island Line’. However, there are increasing signs of an increase in the role and region of the Indian Ocean (IOR).