Stepping into a New Year with hopes of peace and prosperity.
Welcome to the new year as the old one wrapped itself. Melange wishes all of its prestigious readers, partners and associates a happy and prosperous ‘New Year’. We hope that the new year proves to be a year of lasting peace, well being and global prosperity. While the year 2017 brought about numerous surprising and world changing events, it was also full of continuing developments from the past years. Owing to the strengthening friendly relations between the already strong friends China and Pakistan, Melange dedicates the year 2018 as the year of Pakistan-China Friendship.
On its very onset, the last year saw the inauguration of the nationalist right wing Donald Trump as the President of United States. United Kingdom decided to quit European Union as a result of a surprize referendum, the process of which is still going on to finalize the Britain’s exit from EU, referred to as Brexit. Scotland reached on the verge of declaring independence from the United Kingdom but the resultant referendum couldn’t yield majority votes. Yet another referendum justify Spain in political unrest due to the outcomes of a separatist referendum in which Catalonia voted to seek independence from an important European country.
While the unrest remained unaltered over the controversial South China sea, other events in the Asia-Pacific kept shifting the strategic balance in the regional dynamics of Asia. The aggressive ultra-nationalist leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un moved his country closer to a war with the global powers after it announced the successful testing of ballistic Nuclear Missile whereby the country conducted a total of six Nuclear tests including most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile.
The global strategic dynamics continued to imbalance during 2017 as Turkey moved its shift from the superpower America to its near neighbour Russian Federation after a bid to impose military coup in Turkey was foiled on the before handed intelligence from the Russian agencies. Turkey blamed the conspiracy upon the US where the self exiled opponent General Gullen resides presently. The major shift has greatly affected the strategic relations between Turkey and US as the former has recently signed a defence deal with Russia to buy the state of the art anti-missile system. Restoration of ties between Turkey and Russia will cast a healthy impact upon the aggravated situation in the Middle East where the war in Syria has entered its 7th year and except the usual talks, there are no signs of a peaceful settlement so far.
Talking of the Middle East, the islamic countries alliance has seen a split over various issues after the Saudi Led war in Yemen which was primarily targeted at Houthi rebels in the tribal regions but it has now engulfed almost the whole of Yemen. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has cut its ties with Qatar and has successfully convinced its allies in replicating the move. Saudi arch rival Iran had already signed the deal for using its nuclear technology for the civilian purposes, therefore the threat of a yet another war has been repelled however the sanctions imposed by the global community havent been fully lifted which serves as a factor for discontentment among the Iranian rows.
The political and economic state of affairs in and around South Asia seems quite optimistic. The grand plan of China’s economic and regional connectivity with the rest of the world, One belt-One Road (OBOR) has picked the pace and numerous countries have demonstrated strong interest to join the network of roads, rails and maritime routes for trade and regional integration. One of the most important components of OBOR, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has seen the potential participation of the Central Asian States as almost all of them have expressed a strong interest in being a part of corridor which will not only multiply their foreign trade but will also help them cut the transport cost. These developments are destined to prove fruitful for Pakistan in the long run after its deep sea port, Gwadar becomes fully operational.
The year 2018 is hoped to bring peace and prosperity through economic affluence in the world, however, the detrimental power struggles across the globe need to be curtailed for the common well being of humanity. The global powers need to work collectively for ensuring a peaceful, prosperous and a happy new world.