China in South Asia
Return to article
How the Maldives Can Navigate Successfully Between India and China
In January 2025, the Maldivian foreign and defense ministers made high-profile visits to New Delhi. Occurring against the backdrop of an administration that initially rose to power on an anti-India platform, these visits signal a striking recalibration of Maldivian foreign…

Assessing China’s Growing Footprint in Nepal
In early December 2024, Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli paid an official visit to China — his first bilateral visit abroad after becoming prime minister for the fourth time. Oli’s visit to Beijing was keenly watched by political…

Neighborhood First? Response Options to South Asia’s Nation First Policies
The recent turn in the India-Bangladesh relationship is the latest among a string of changes in New Delhi’s neighborhood that can be traced to a fresh trend of “nation first” rather than “neighborhood first” foreign policies in the Indian subcontinent.…

Speed Without Substance? India’s Hypersonic Missile and Implications for Strategic Stability
On November 16, 2024, India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) conducted a test of what it claimed was a “long-range hypersonic missile” from Abdul Kalam Island in the Bay of Bengal. The missile has a reported range of 1,500…

Maldives-India Rapprochement: Of Economic Pressures and Strategic Rebalancing
After almost a year of antagonistic rhetoric toward India and a shift toward China, the Maldives appears to be taking steps to mend and strengthen its traditional ties with New Delhi. On August 26, a high-level delegation from the Indian…

Nepal-India Relations Under New Governments: Time for a Refresh?
Nepal recently ushered in its fourth government with different combinations of parties since the December 2022 parliamentary elections when the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) (CPN (UML)) chair K. P. Sharma Oli was sworn in as the Prime…