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China has got a new commander for the Western Theatre Command. Gen Zhang Xudong is new to the theatre and obviously is getting in to the picture of his area of operations. He has to prove himself to the Chairman of Central Military Commission, who was not happy with the previous incumbent for not being able to rein in India in time, and for allowing the standoff to spill over to winter and beyond. The prolonged standoff is not in the interest of China as the world at large is calling it a stalemate.

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The flames of hate were fanned by the 45th President of the US. However, other players may be active as well, including a few countries that look upon the US as an impediment to their goals.

On the 1^st of December, 2020, the Chinese news channel, CCTV-13, tweeted out a 30-second clip that showed the Chang'e 5 lander landing on the moon's surface. The clip ends with the lander casting a shadow on the moon's surface, perhaps fittingly, as China raises its stakes in the 'Global Space Race 2.0'.

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India has just begun its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. This is a critical time in the history of the United Nations as it has failed miserably to forge international cooperation to combat Covid-19, the greatest existential threat faced by mankind. The clamour for reforms will heighten, even though much cannot be expected to happen. But this is the time that Indian diplomats posted to our missions to the UN in New York, Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi have to be at their best.

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Should Joe Biden revert to the China-friendly policies of the Clinton era, voter backlash against the Democratic Party would be severe.

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One of the priorities of President Joe Biden is to deal with the threat from Iran on account of its fast-developing nuclear capability. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was brought in place by President Obama to get Iran to suspend weapon development for at least 15 years was made inoperational by President Trump by withdrawing from the deal and re-imposing economic sanctions on Iran.

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Alarm bells that should have sounded decades ago began to reverberate in a meeting hall in Naypyidaw on 4 March 2014 when the Bangladesh prime minister, Sheikh Hasina informed her counterparts from the BIMSTEC nations that an increase in one degree Celsius in the earth’s climatic system—as a result of global warming—would submerge a fifth of Bangladesh.

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Despite the influence of known GHQ Rawalpindi proxies in the Biden camp and less so in the Trump set-up, it will no longer be possible for any administration to untangle the two interlocking DNA strands that form the India-US partnership.

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The Chinese comment on the India-US ‘2+2 Dialogue’ and the signing of the last foundational agreement BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) that the Sino-Indian border is a bilateral matter between India and China  is the height of irony because it was China which generated US interest in the Himalayas and made India walk into  an American embrace. China made the border issue with India a touchstone of the new geopolitics in the post-Covid-19 era.

In the 21^st century, political borders appear to be blurred denting the Westphalian understanding of the concept ‘nation-states.’ With the increase in the internet communications, a new generation seems to be carving their own identities which are different from national identities.