Tributes have been flooding in for former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, the reformist statesman who played a leading role in integrating China’s economy into the global system and charmed neighbouring countries with his candid diplomacy. In a deeply personal tribute posted on social media, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim described Zhu, who died on Wednesday at the age of 97, as “a good friend”. The pair worked together to strengthen economic ties between the two countries, building a...

Welcome to Open Dialogue, a series from the South China Morning Post where we bring together leading voices to discuss the stories and subjects occupying international headlines. In this edition, we invited a leading Chinese scholar of South Asian affairs and a former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador to China to reflect on the deep fault lines in India-China relations. They debate whether the biggest barrier is history or politics, clash over the border, Pakistan and India’s ties with the...

As President Xi Jinping prepares for summit talks with Donald Trump in Washington next month, the United States is closing one of the few remaining openings between the two countries by targeting scientific research. This field has been one of the most durable links in the US-China relationship, but a series of new security-related restrictions on federally funded collaborations with Chinese institutions mark the latest, and arguably most consequential, step in a years-long shift away from...

A Republican-led congressional committee focused on US competition with China has issued a public call for American academics to come forward if they think they missed out on jobs in favour of “applicants from China”. “Are you an American student, postdoctoral researcher, or academic who believes you were denied a research position, laboratory opportunity, or postdoctoral appointment because preference was given to applicants from China?” the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition...

The China-India-Pakistan triangle has never been short on danger, but Islamabad’s new defensive alliance has added another variable to an already volatile situation. Last week, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia signed a pact in Mecca in which they agreed to treat an armed attack on one as an attack on all. The three governments have described it as defensive and not directed at any particular state. Analysts said its main significance for India lay less in whether it would be invoked, but in how...

The grand security bargain between the United States and Gulf countries is widely perceived to be fraying, creating what analysts see as an opening for Beijing to expand its presence in the region. For decades, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states relied on Washington’s defensive shield, while it in turn relied on them for access, energy and influence. Riyadh’s decision to sign a mutual defence agreement with Turkey and Pakistan is the clearest sign yet of that shift. Signed this week in Mecca,...