Indo-Pacific

China is brimming with optimism about the Taliban in Afghanistan. But a bombing that killed scores of people, including 13 American troops, outside the Kabul airport on August 26 has led many to distrust the Islamic group’s promise to not let anyone use the land-locked country’s soil to target another.

As part of a series of reports from different countries in the fall of 1946, Christianity and Crisis published articles by M. Searle Bates and Henry P. Van Dusen on China. These reveal the situation of Christianity in the country and America’s foreign policy challenge in East Asia.

This month the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a new report that documents religious freedom violations occurring in North Korea.

Recent coronavirus outbreaks have led Vietnam to impose harsher restrictions to protect the health of citizens. But COVID-19 has also enabled the socialist government to ramp up its persecution of Christians.

In a discussion hosted by the Hudson Institute between Staquf and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the speakers shared their concerns and reflections of what it would mean to pursue a free and open Indo-Pacific.

With the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ideals, Muslims, Christians, and Dalits have been targets of increasing persecution at the hands of both the state and local mobs.

China-Africa relations is a case in point where Africa has become a prime testing ground for expanding the political outreach of the Communist Party of China.

In this week’s episode, the editors discuss Paulina Song’s article about the US travel ban on North Korea, a 1946 article explaining why the July 20 plotters tried to assassinate Hitler, and Mark Tooley’s book review focused on Henry Adams’ pessimistic view of America.

The North Korea travel ban is an unfortunate policy that has caused separated families much pain and has prevented humanitarian organizations from operating at their full capacities. However, if we want separated families to be reunited for good—not just for Korean Americans, but for South Koreans and others as well—and for the humanitarian crisis in North Korea to end, we must set our policies to resolve the main problem, not just the symptoms.