Dangerous flash points in Asia include the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea conflicts (such as the clashes between China and the Philippines) that have become hot issues to debate at international level. Besides that, the Gulf of Thailand might be the next geopolitical flash point.
These conflicts occur when people claim ownership of the world’s limited resources to fulfill their unlimited needs. The UN established peacekeeping missions based on three principles; consent of the parties, impartiality and no use of force (except in self-defense and in defense of the mandate).
Whereas the peacekeeping missions are proposed to help nations to find appropriate solutions that aim at dealing with difficult situations and achieving peace, it seems like a peaceful life is difficult to obtain because of unpredictable and turbulent circumstances in the world.
To fulfill unlimited human needs, some nations (especially superpowers) tend to expand their maritime boundaries, which enable them to gain access to mineral and biological resources, as well as maritime gateways. Actually, all nations (and all people) are equal. They have the right to live in peace and a no-harm rule should be implemented. Although the world’s limited resources are available, they should not harm other states to satisfy their unlimited needs.
Instead of making war, they should resolve problems through negotiations with accountability to reach an agreement and they should become partners in various issues, such as climate change, landslides, air pollution, biological resources and transportation.
Being partners would support peacekeeping rather than nations being competitors or enemies.
Phathara-on Wesarat is head of the bachelor of business administration program in the department of humanities and social sciences at Prince of Songkla University in Thailand.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS