Central Asia & Caucasus Data

China has staked roughly US$145 billion in investments and construction contracts across the Middle East, while Iranian oil alone accounts for 13–14% of its imports. Yet Beijing maintains no permanent military presence in the volatile region, with its only overseas base in Djibouti, thousands of miles away. The result is a structural mismatch at the The post China’s Middle East billions still woefully reliant on US gunboats appeared first on Asia Times.

The discovery of a suspected Chinese unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) in the Lombok Strait is not a routine maritime incident. It is a breach of Indonesia’s strategic space. Found by a local fisherman inside Archipelagic Sea Lane II (ALKI II), the device — marked with “CSIC,” linking it to China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation — points The post Indonesia can’t stay silent on China’s UUV incursion appeared first on Asia Times.

US President Donald Trump’s rapid and dramatic turn from threatening to kill “an entire civilization” in Iran on the morning of April 7, 2026, to announcing a two-week ceasefire later that day left many observers with a sense of whiplash. While it is difficult to predict whether the ceasefire between the US and Iran will The post Too many players, too many grievances for one ceasefire to hold appeared first on Asia Times.

Japan’s pacifist constitution is often cited as a constraint on what the nation of 123 million and the world’s fourth-largest economy can and cannot do militarily. The latest crisis in the Middle East has made that harder to ignore. As disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz continue, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized US The post Japan’s unsustainable pacifist delusion appeared first on Asia Times.