Kabul, Afghanistan

This is the fifteenth in a series of articles that looks at China’s borders. As China has grown in the last 30 years, so have the often complicated relationships it has with its many varied neighbors. In this article, we take a look at Afghanistan.

By Andy Scott

Sept. 23 – At one time, Afghanistan was center for some of the world’s most important civilization. The arts and sciences thrived, cultivation and advanced farming techniques turned the plains around Kabul into a great bread basket. Then in 1219, the Mongols came. They left a devastating path of destruction that that the country has never quite recovered from. Since then, the land has become one that has inevitably been in between, acting as a bit player in The Great Game, and a staring role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, Afghanistan once again played host to world powers. Situated as it is in Asia, it is something that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the fourteenth in a series of articles that looks at China’s borders. As China has grown in the last 30 years, so have the often complicated relationships it has with its many varied neighbors. In this article, we take a look at India.

By Nazia Vasi

Sept. 15 – China and India, half of the world’s population, continue to move closer and closer to one another; but it’s often hard to tell whether the proximity will result in an embrace or a donnybrook. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the thirteenth in a series of articles that looks at China’s borders. As China has grown in the last 30 years, so have the often complicated relationships it has with its many varied neighbors. In this article, we take a look at Pakistan.

By Joyce Roque

Sept. 12 – On August 14, 1947, the state of Pakistan was born. Like all births, it would prove to be painful, messy and jarring affair. The subcontinent was effectively ripped at the seams into a Muslim East Pakistan and a Hindu West Bengal after 89 years under the British Raj.

National assets like the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service, railways, central treasury and other administrative services had to be divided accordingly. The divorce proved chaotic. It is one thing to divide a nation on paper but another thing to fracture lives. People suddenly found themselves living at the wrong side of the partition.

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This is the twelfth in a series of articles that looks at China’s borders. As China has grown in the last 30 years, so have the often complicated relationships it has with its many varied neighbors. In this article, we take a look at Bhutan.

By Joyce Roque

Sept. 8 – Bhutan shines like a jewel wedged between China and India. It remains one of the most mysterious places on earth -the land of stunning mountain ranges where mystics and monks have long searched for spiritual enlightenment.

The country’s name comes from the Bhutanese term, Druk Yul, or “Land of the Thunder Dragon.” Bhutan is the only Vajrayana Buddhist nation in the world. Its policy of cultural isolation has served well to preserve much of its traditions and religious teachings leading some people to refer to it as the last Shangri-la.

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