Disinformation Trackers Say Myth-Spreading Sites Doubled After Russian Invasion Began

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The number of websites spreading Russia-Ukraine disinformation has more than doubled since Russia's unprovoked invasion was launched in late February, says a New York-based group that rates trustworthiness across media.

NewsGuard said on August 9 that its experts have identified 250 websites publishing disinformation related to those two combatant states, versus 116 in March.

It said digital platforms like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok have imposed "temporary measures in some countries against well-known Russian propaganda outlets such as RT and Sputnik News, after the European Commission prohibited distribution or advertising support for these Kremlin-funded and operated propaganda sites."

US-China rivalry dividing the world in two

MANMOHAN S SODHI And CHRISTOPHER S TANG

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has elicited a strong response from China: days of simulated attack on Taiwan with further drills announced, plus a withdrawal from critical ongoing conversations with the US on climate change and the military.

This strong reaction was predictable. President Xi had earlier warned President Biden not “to play with fire.” Of course, if Pelosi’s visit hadn’t gone ahead, the Biden administration would have faced a strong reaction from both parties in Congress for not standing up to China’s threat to Taiwan or human rights issues regarding Tibet and Xinjiang, not to mention Hong Kong.

So where does it leave trade between the world’s two leading powers?

Consider the not-too-distant past. The US supported the Republic of China against Japan in the Pacific war of 1941-45. When the Chinese leadership fled to Taiwan in 1949 following the victory of Mao Zedong’s communists in the Chinese civil war, Washington continued to recognize the exiled regime as China’s legitimate government, blocking the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from joining the United Nations.

The Chinese Roots of Hybrid Warfare

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“What is modern war? What should the army be prepared for? How should it be armed”? These are the questions General Valery Gerasimov raised in Voeynno-Promyshlenny Kurier (The Military-Industrial Courier) in 2013, and to which many attribute the foundation for the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine. More importantly, the article laid the theoretical foundation for Russia’s development and later its use of hybrid warfare.

Yet neither Russia nor Gerasimov were the first to ask these questions or to see the strategic imperative to adapt the strategic military doctrine to a new age typified by economic interdependency, technological interconnectivity, and the importance of sub-state as well as supra-state actors in aiding or hindering nation-states’ security.

Rather it was two Chinese military theorists, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, whose Unrestricted Warfare, published in 1999, who first asked the very same questions and presaged Gerasimov by more than 10 years in seeing that the First Gulf War had marked the end of the era of “might makes right” and that the world had entered into a new era of “unrestricted warfare”, one in which the network hacker, financial and trade transactions (or lack thereof), and the media have all become weapons of modern war, e.g. the means for a country to protect and realize its self-interest. As Qiao and Wang wrote: “All friendships are in flux; the only constant (in international relations) is self-interest”.

Taiwan Can't Be Allowed to Become Another Ukraine

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN

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Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. In reaction, China launched its biggest military exercises ever in the region and fired multiple missiles over the island. This belligerent response shows why Pelosi was right to visit. The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine reminds us that free world cannot stand by when an authoritarian bully threatens a neighboring country.

The visit by the speaker of the House was the highest profile by a U.S. politician in two decades. During the intervening years Taiwan has become a beacon of liberty in the region. According to the Freedom House Index of political rights and civil liberties, Taiwan ranks second in Asia and joint 16thin the world—alongside Germany and Iceland. It was one of the only countries to improve its score during the pandemic. Democracy has become core to Taiwan's identity.

It’s time the free world commits to the defense of Taiwan

Lin Fei-fan

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China’s bellicose response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) historic visit to Taiwan proves the paramount necessity for the international community to be vocal about its support for Taiwan — now more than ever.

Since Pelosi’s visit, China has escalated tensions through unprecedented and disproportionate military actions, economic coercion and diplomatic sanctions. The shift is severe enough that some analysts have called it the most dangerous development in the Taiwan Strait since the 1996 missile crisis.

In Taiwan, threats from China have been a part of daily life for decades. But at this moment, we face a deeper, existential question: Can the world really afford to lose Taiwan, an integral member of the world’s liberal democratic order?

After Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China made a major national shift from Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength, bide your time” approach to a new strategy that actively and aggressively pursues the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” International policies such as the Belt and Road Initiative and debt diplomacy have extended China’s influence in developing countries. Internally, the Chinese Communist Party has cracked down on domestic rights protection and democratic movements, including those in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

Long-Range Missiles? Special Op? Regardless, Crimean Air Base Blasts Are A 'Real Quandary' For Russia

Todd Prince

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New or modified Ukrainian-designed missiles? Shipborne, U.S.-made HIMARS? Armed drones? Ukrainian special forces? Sabotage?

While the preponderance of evidence points to a Ukrainian operation, there is still no clarity on exactly what caused a series of blasts that sent plumes of black smoke rising from a Russian naval air base on the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

The explosions at the Saky Air Base on August 9 destroyed at least nine military aircraft, including Su-30SM fighters and Su-24M bombers, as well as a few buildings that may have contained ammunition and fuel, an analysis of satellite imagery by Schemes, an investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, indicated.

Officially, Ukraine has been silent about the cause of the blasts, but anonymous Ukrainian military sources told media outlets, including The New York Times, that Kyiv was behind it. And whatever sparked the conflagration, Ukraine is making the most of it with gloating, trolling social media posts -- such as one from a Defense Ministry account mocking Russian vacationers in Crimea to the tune of the 1980s pop hit Cruel Summer.

The Realist Underpinnings of China’s Taiwan Strategy

Corey Lee Bell

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China’s aggressive response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei has prompted criticism, and no small measure of alarm, both within and beyond the region.

It included dispatching People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) jets across the median line separating Taiwan from China, and China’s military engaging in a concurrent series of drills in six separating locations on each side of the island – the closest less than 12 nautical miles from Taiwan’s shore. The high-risk exercises involved firing munitions around and over the island, some of which allegedly landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, and temporarily cutting off flights and maritime routes, representing a hostile demonstration of China’s capacity to rapidly effect an embargo on the island.

China has now concluded the drills, but its military warned that it would continue to conduct “regular patrols” in the Taiwan Strait.

Notably, China’s actions outstripped any seen during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96, which also saw exercises and missiles fired near the island and resulted in the disruption of commercial shipping and flights. The upscaled response reflects the severity of current tensions – not to mention the extent to which China has been emboldened by decades of enormous advancements in the capacity of its military.

Tracking the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis (Updated August 12)

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As U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan on August 2-3, China responded with forceful and coercive military, economic, and diplomatic measures. Developments are still unfolding, but the large-scale and unprecedented military exercises taken by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) far exceed the operations China engaged in during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis that took place in 1995-1996. Chinese escalation has precipitated the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, leading to international calls for China to immediately halt its military activities.

This page tracks and analyzes key developments as they occur and will be updated regularly. Click the links below to jump to a specific section of the page:Timeline of Key Chinese Military 

Timeline of Key Chinese Military Activities

Prior to Speaker Pelosi’s Arrival

In the leadup to Speaker Pelosi’s travel to Taiwan on August 2, the PLA took a series of actions to demonstrate its resolve and willingness to escalate, with the hope of deterring Speaker Pelosi from setting foot on the island and backing up China’s increasingly stern public warnings with action. This included military drills and operations across multiple theater commands, including to the north, west, east, and south of Taiwan.On July 28, China began testing Taiwan’s defenses by sending unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over Taiwan’s Dongyin Island, a well-defended Taiwan outpost that is part of its Matsu Islands located close to mainland China. This marked the first time that China has sent drones over Taiwan’s airspace.

I wrote NATO’s lessons from Afghanistan. Now I wonder: What have we learned?

John Manza

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It has been one year since the collapse of Afghanistan, and while the world has moved on to other issues, it’s important to remember the key lessons of that conflict—if for no other reason than to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.

As assistant secretary general for operations at NATO, I was responsible for writing the Alliance’s lessons of Afghanistan in late 2021. While the full document remains classified, the key lessons themselves are not. In fact, they’re obvious to any student of national security, conflict, or international affairs.

First, the Alliance fought in a strategically irrelevant place against the wrong enemy. Second, although driven by good intentions, allies expanded the scale and scope of the mission well beyond the strategic level of interest. Third, NATO sought to build security forces that were badly out of step with Afghan culture and technological capacity. Finally, the allies fooled themselves and their publics about the conditions on the ground.

The uncomfortable economic truth behind Xi Jinping’s Taiwan threats

Jeremy Mark

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China’s response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taipei—launching missiles and conducting aggressive naval and air exercises—has changed the military status quo in the waters surrounding Taiwan. But Beijing’s economic actions—barring imports of various Taiwanese food products, as well as ending Chinese exports of sand—appear designed to leave cross-strait trade largely undisturbed.

This imbalance highlights the uncomfortable truth facing Chinese leader Xi Jinping as he turns up the heat in the Taiwan Strait: Both countries’ economies stand to lose if the situation continues to escalate. While Taiwan, powered by its world-leading semiconductor industry, is experiencing solid growth, China’s economy is poised on a knife’s edge—its vaunted economic “miracle” undermined by a real-estate crisis and Xi’s “zero-COVID” policies.

With an Eye on Tibet, China Reacts Warily to Warming U.S.-Nepal Ties

Sudha Ramachandran

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Introduction

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya’s three-day visit to Nepal in May evoked a strong reaction from China. During the visit, Zeya, who is also President Joseph Biden’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, met with an array of high-level Nepali officials, including Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba as well as Nepali human rights activists. She also visited two Tibetan refugee settlements in Nepal where she interacted with refugees and enquired about their problems (Kathmandu Post, May 22). Zeya had arrived in Kathmandu after meeting the Dalai Lama, senior officials of the Tibetan exile government as well as officials and representatives of the Tibetan refugee community in India (The Hindu, May 18).

The Chinese response was swift. The U.S. “should stop meddling in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Tibet-related issues, and offer no support to the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai clique,” People’s Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a press conference (PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 19). At the 14th meeting of the Nepal-China Bilateral Consultative Mechanism, which was held a few days after Zeya’s visit, Chinese officials reportedly expressed their misgivings over her engagements to their Nepali counterparts (Kathmandu Post, August 4). Then in July, Liu Jianchao, the head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) visited Kathmandu, where at meetings with leaders of Nepal’s major political parties, he asked them to reaffirm their commitment to the ‘One-China’ policy (Nepal Foreign Affairs, July 14).

Elon Musk's article in China Cyberspace, exclusive digital version & translation

Yang Liu

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As previously announced by Pekingnology, this newsletter will offer you an exclusive digital version of Elon Musk’s essay in China Cyberspace, a monthly magazine run by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the central agency for internet control and regulation.

Musk’s piece was carried in the fourth issue of the magazine, published in July, under the column “Global Vision”.

Below is the original text and translation of Musk’s essay.

Believing in technology for a better future

Thank you for the invitation from China Cyberspace magazine. I am pleased to share with my Chinese friends some of my thoughts on the vision of technology and humanity.

相信科技创造美好未来

感谢《中国网信》杂志的邀约，很高兴能与中国朋友分享我对科技与人类愿景的一些思考

Road to nowhere: China’s Belt and Road Initiative at tipping point

Adnan Aamir, Marwaan Macan-Markar

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The drive to Pakistan’s port of Gwadar takes seven and a half hours from Karachi via the Makran coastal highway. Much of the 600-km route is deserted, with no restaurants, restrooms or even fuel stations. On a recent journey, around 200 vehicles in total could be counted during the entire drive.

Arriving in the city on Pakistan’s Indian Ocean coast, Chinese and Pakistani flags are ubiquitous, and Chinese-financed construction projects loom, but the city is spookily devoid of economic activity. Near the seafront, broad avenues are curiously empty of vehicles. Inside the city center, the roads are narrow, congested and covered with foul smelling drain water, with few multistory buildings aside from the Chinese-built port compound.

It is hard to visualize Gwadar as the launch pad of a new global paradigm, but that is what Beijing would have the world believe.

Dynamics of Assertiveness in the South China Sea

Andrew Chubb

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Located in the heart of Southeast Asia and linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the South China Sea comprises a varied set of geographic spaces that are subject to multiple layers of dispute. Grasping the dynamics of contestation in the South China Sea, therefore, requires consideration of what types of actions the contestant states have been taking, when, and where. How have states advanced their claims over the vast, resource-laden maritime geographies of the South China Sea? To what extent has contestation over these maritime spaces taken place physically on the water versus actions in the diplomatic or domestic administrative domains? Have salient energy or fishery resources been the most likely issues to prompt assertive moves, or have security, administrative, or political concerns predominated? Parallel time series data measuring changes in the behavior of the three most active claimants in the South China Sea shows that the answers to these crucial questions vary for the three claimant states across different time periods and geographies. The result is a dynamic picture of how power has overtaken proximity as the key factor shaping the course of the dispute—one that can be explored interactively in the accompanying online Maritime Assertiveness Visualization Dashboard (MAVD).

Enabling a More Externally Focused and Operational PLA

Roger Cliff and Roy D. Kamphausen

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Although the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is not yet a global, expeditionary force on par with the US military, the former has nevertheless significantly expanded its ability to operate abroad. To better understand the PLA’s capabilities to conduct overseas missions, this volume examines China’s military relations with Europe, Africa, and Latin America; the country’s military activities in the Indian Ocean, polar regions, and Pacific Island countries; and the emerging roles of the PLA Rocket Force and Joint Logistic Support Force.

The authors of the chapter on Europe find China’s military relations in the continent consist primarily of port calls, joint exercises, seminars, and high-level officer exchanges. In addition, China continues to produce weapon systems that were licensed by European countries before the EU’s 1989 post–Tiananmen Square embargo on arms sales to China. Furthermore, Beijing attempts to acquire European military technology through a variety of other means.

The vast majority of China’s military interactions with Africa, by contrast, consist of senior officer and personnel exchanges; only a small fraction are exercises or port calls. In addition, significant numbers of African military personnel continue to be educated at China’s institutions for professional military education.

Taiwan’s reunification countdown has begun

UWE PARPART AND DAVID P. GOLDMAN

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China’s People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command said in a statement on Monday (August 8) that joint drills in the sea and airspace around Taiwan were continuing.

The notice did not specify the precise location of the exercises or when they would end. Whether the six danger zones for the August 4-7 exercises remain in effect is unclear. The PLA never officially announced the end of the war games.

The announcement will likely leave US officialdom as clueless – or at any rate pretend-clueless – as was betrayed by their statements when Taiwanese officials said Chinese aircraft and warships had rehearsed an attack on the island on Saturday.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby complained that the Chinese “can go a long way to taking the tensions down simply by stopping these provocative military exercises and ending the rhetoric.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China’s actions over Taiwan showed a move from prioritizing peaceful resolution toward the use of force.

US-China rivalry dividing the world in two

MANMOHAN S SODHI And CHRISTOPHER S TANG

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has elicited a strong response from China: days of simulated attack on Taiwan with further drills announced, plus a withdrawal from critical ongoing conversations with the US on climate change and the military.

This strong reaction was predictable. President Xi had earlier warned President Biden not “to play with fire.” Of course, if Pelosi’s visit hadn’t gone ahead, the Biden administration would have faced a strong reaction from both parties in Congress for not standing up to China’s threat to Taiwan or human rights issues regarding Tibet and Xinjiang, not to mention Hong Kong.

What Does India Want from Russia?

SUSHANTA MALLICK, BRIGITTE GRANVILLE

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LONDON – If there was a prize for the most quotable comment on international relations so far in 2022, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar would be in the running. Responding to criticism of his country’s neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war at a security forum in Slovakia in June, Jaishankar said that “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.

Like most major crises, the war is shedding stark light on our era, and India’s response to it is particularly illuminating. India’s current foreign policy does more than just exemplify how the conflict has intensified deglobalization trends. It also highlights the paradox inherent in the country’s increasing emphasis on “strategic autonomy” as the world fragments into rival power centers: the United States and its alliance system versus China and its major satellite, Russia. The essence of this paradox is that India’s quest for self-reliance – keeping its distance from the principals of Cold War 2.0 and seeking advantage from diverse relationships – entails multidimensional international engagement.

What Was Different About the Latest Gaza Fighting?

SHLOMO BEN-AMI

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TEL AVIV – The Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated and impoverished parts of the Middle East. It is also one of the most beleaguered places on Earth, ruled by the Islamist Hamas, crushed by an Israeli (and Egyptian) blockade, and exhausted by clashes with Israel. So far, fighting between Gaza Strip militants and Israel has done nothing to deliver progress toward a political settlement that might release Gaza’s residents from what is effectively an open-air prison.

But there is some reason to hope that the latest flareup of violence – now halted by a fragile ceasefire – will be different. Israel’s recent military campaign, Operation Breaking Dawn, targeted the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest militant group. And for only the second time – the first being during Israel’s Operation Black Belt in 2019 – Hamas did not join the fight. Instead, it merely condemned “Zionist aggression” against Palestinians – 44 of whom were killed, including 15 children and four women, some by Islamic Jihad’s own misfired rockets – and mourned the conflict’s “righteous (Palestinian) martyrs.”

With an Eye on Tibet, China Reacts Warily to Warming U.S.-Nepal Ties

Sudha Ramachandran

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Introduction

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya’s three-day visit to Nepal in May evoked a strong reaction from China. During the visit, Zeya, who is also President Joseph Biden’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, met with an array of high-level Nepali officials, including Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba as well as Nepali human rights activists. She also visited two Tibetan refugee settlements in Nepal where she interacted with refugees and enquired about their problems (Kathmandu Post, May 22). Zeya had arrived in Kathmandu after meeting the Dalai Lama, senior officials of the Tibetan exile government as well as officials and representatives of the Tibetan refugee community in India (The Hindu, May 18).

The Chinese response was swift. The U.S. “should stop meddling in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Tibet-related issues, and offer no support to the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai clique,” People’s Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a press conference (PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 19). At the 14th meeting of the Nepal-China Bilateral Consultative Mechanism, which was held a few days after Zeya’s visit, Chinese officials reportedly expressed their misgivings over her engagements to their Nepali counterparts (Kathmandu Post, August 4). Then in July, Liu Jianchao, the head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) visited Kathmandu, where at meetings with leaders of Nepal’s major political parties, he asked them to reaffirm their commitment to the ‘One-China’ policy (Nepal Foreign Affairs, July 14).

Chinese Military Rehearses ‘Joint Land Attack’ Invasion of Taiwan

Kris Osborn

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Using the term “island attack drills,” a Chinese-government-backed newspaper says the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is flying bombers, fighter jets, and surveillance planes in preparation for a possible so-called “joint land attack and long-range air strike” invasion of Taiwan.

However, while the phrasing and language of joint warfare operations may sound ominous, it is far from clear to what actual extent Chinese military forces are capable of “joint” multi-service operations. Such an ability, which the U.S. military has also been laboring to attain, is technologically complex and dependent upon an ability to align data and messaging formats, connect separately engineered communications nodes across multiple domains and vast distances, and process shared information at relevant speeds. The extent to which China can do this might well indicate just how well the US military would perform in a major warfare engagement. Should the United States be well ahead of China in this capacity, such a technological imbalance would favor success for the United States in various combat scenarios.

The U.S. Army's Next War Has Already Begun

Christopher D. Booth

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The U.S. Army’s most important focus should be to understand how it is most likely to be used and in which environments. Throughout its history, the Army has regularly engaged in small wars and will likely continue to do so. David Kilcullen offers a compelling argument that most conflicts will occur in highly-networked mega-cities located on the littorals, many of which will be “feral cities.” Intervention in these spaces may be undertaken for various reasons ranging from humanitarian aid to peacekeeping to counter-insurgency, and involve low-to-medium intensity conflict. The Army must therefore prepare for what former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Charles C. Krulak described as the “Three Block War” scenario. Fighting in open terrain is a historical anomaly common only to the past several centuries; instead, siege warfare and wars in cities have been the norm, to which modern war may be returning. Before becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley predicted that the Army would likely have to fight in urban areas. As a result, it needed to change how it organized, trained, and equipped itself as it was not postured for this mission.

Is Iran Grooming Al Qaeda as its New Proxy in Afghanistan?

Farhad Rezaei

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On August 1, 2022, an American drone strike in Kabul killed Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of Al Qaeda Central. News stories noted that Zawahiri went into hiding in the tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan after Operation Enduring Freedom in 2002. This narrative omits the fact that Zawahiri spent a considerable time in Iran, where his heir apparent, Saif al Adel, still lives. Having harbored Zawahiri and Adel, the Islamist regime in Tehran stands to increase its influence among the broadly dispersed units of the terror group, which still subscribe to Osama bin Laden’s vision of waging war on the West.

Iran’s connection with Al Qaeda dates to bin Laden’s arrival in Sudan in 1991, where the Saudi terror entrepreneur set up camps to house and train Arab jihadists returning from the Soviet-Afghan war. Although bin Laden was a Sunni Salafist, Ahmed Vahidi, the then head of Quds Force (QF), the foreign operations division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was keen to enlist him to fight against Saudi Arabia and the West. The IRGC-QF helped run training camps in Sudan, where Egyptian jihadists affiliated with Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) had a strong presence. Lebanese Hezbollah was also involved in training bin Laden’s group in a dedicated camp in the Beqaa Valley. Vahidi was rewarded when in 1993, Al Qaeda fighters participated in the battle of Mogadishu against the American-led peace force. After suffering casualties, the Clinton administration withdrew, ending active American involvement in Africa.

Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Massoud: There is ‘no other option’ but to fight on against the Taliban

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One year after his country fell to the Taliban, Ahmad Massoud isn’t giving up his fight.

At this time last year, as the militant group swallowed up vast swaths of Afghanistan, the son of famous anti-Soviet resistance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud pledged during an exclusive Atlantic Council interview that he’d seek talks with the Taliban.

Now, however, Massoud says the group remains uninterested in either dialogue or reforming its backward ways. That’s why his fledgling military alliance, the National Resistance Front (NRF), is pressing on with armed resistance.

What International Financial Actors Need to Learn From Sri Lanka

Frances Rachel Morrow-Nguyen

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Sri Lanka is currently facing its largest economic crisis since independence, and its largest political crisis since the end of the civil war in 2009. Soaring inflation (54.6 percent in June), lengthy power cuts, and shortages of fuel and food led to protests. The protests, in turn, led to the resignation and flight of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He left behind him $7 billion in debt repayments due this year, and only $2 billion in foreign reserves, with some estimates of the latter going as low as $250 million. The present crisis is mostly the result of economic mismanagement, but also crippling debt and bad luck.

Sri Lanka’s strategic position in the Indian Ocean at the crossroads of major shipping routes to South Asia, East Asia, and the continents of Europe and America, and its closeness to India, has made it ripe for competition amongst Chinese, Indian, and Western governments and development banks. In the rush to purchase political influence and coastal areas that could be used for connective and military infrastructure, Sri Lanka accumulated a level of debt it could not service.