Letter from the Editors
Across Asia, people and governments are struggling.
Welcome to the February 2021 issue of The Diplomat Magazine!
Across Asia, people and governments are struggling. In China, the government struggles to keep intact the festive mood surrounding the Beijing Olympics, in the face of criticisms of its human rights record and questions about its fitness as an Olympic host. In Tajikistan, people struggle to live modern lives without electricity as winter sets in. In Myanmar, the resistance against the military regime struggles onward, a year after the coup. And in Afghanistan, as the Taliban struggle to attain recognition for their government, the country’s people struggle for recognition of their own in the eyes of the world.
In February 2022, Beijing will host an Opening Ceremony for the Olympics for the second time in 16 years. Yet the world has changed in many ways since 2008, when Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics, explains Susan Brownell, a professor of anthropology at University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of the book “Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China.” The 2008 Beijing Olympics was seen as China’s “coming-out party”; today, China’s colossal role on the world stage is no longer in need of proof. One thing remains the same: In the lead-up to both Olympics, there was talk of boycotts due to China’s human rights violations. But Brownell notes that, while the advocacy has been louder this time around, the results have actually been less impressive. Like it or not, China has only become more integrated into – and integral to – the world since 2008.
Every year as autumn falls and winter approaches, many Tajiks living outside of the country’s two largest cities contend with regular – though rarely officially announced – blackouts. Tajikistan-born freelance journalist and researcher Sher Khashimov outlines the effects of electricity rationing in the country, from lost productivity to the stress of cramming a modern life into a few hours of power. Khashimov also addresses the political and structural factors that make winter power outages a tradition, and the worsening of conditions expected as climate change robs Tajikistan of its greatest source of energy: the water stored in its glaciers and harnessed by its dams.
On February 1, 2021 the Myanmar military rounded up the country’s elected civilian leaders and seized complete power once again. A year later, as Allegra Mendelson explains, the anti-military resistance has made progress, but it’s not been enough to unseat the junta. Mendelson, a Cambodia-based journalist focusing on post-coup Myanmar, notes how the strength and persistence of the resistance surprised the military (and the world), but without greater support, the situation is likely to deteriorate and the violence worsen.
Six months ago, the Western-backed Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani collapsed in the blink of an eye. Just as swiftly, the Taliban installed themselves in Kabul and proclaimed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to the world. As Institute of War and Peace Studies (IWPS) researcher Maryam Jami explains, while no country has yet officially recognized the Taliban’s government, some countries have found ways to continue to recognize, and work with, Afghans and Afghanistan. It may seem like a pedantic rhetorical question, but it’s one of real importance to Afghans whose lives in the world are on hold: Can the international community continue to recognize Afghanistan without recognizing the Taliban?
We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.