Miller Explores Impact of War in Ukraine on Asia
Manjari Chatterjee Miller, currently a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and on leave from the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University where she is an Associate Professor of International Relations, published an op-ed in Hindustan Times on the divisions in Asia caused by the Ukraine war. This is the fifteenth of Miller’s monthly columns in Hindustan Times.
In her article, titled “The Ukraine war will impact Asian politics,” Miller explores the political, diplomatic, and economic impacts the war in Ukraine has had on Asian countries and the ramifications for the future order of the region. While the war is confined to Europe geographically, Miller argues that Asian countries are already feeling the impacts of the conflict, and more are to come. Economically, countries have been hard hit by trade restrictions and increased commodity prices forcing them to find alternative providers; politically, the region is divided in condemning Russia’s actions and has raised concerns over their own territorial sovereignty; and diplomatically, the conflict has the potential to restructure order in Asia.
An excerpt:
The US, the European Union, and Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and Singapore worry that if Russia succeeds in violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and faces little consequences, it will embolden China vis-a-vis Taiwan, as well as other areas in the Pacific that China lays claim to. Beijing is acutely conscious of this worry – Chinese ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, recently wrote in the Washington Post, declaring that China supports the concept of territorial sovereignty but that (directly contradicting President Vladimir Putin’s claims), unlike Ukraine, Taiwan is an internal affair. India may think that Taiwan’s territorial integrity matters less for its security interests than for the US, but it should certainly think about the future implications for its own border territories which China also lays claim to as inviolable territory.
The full article can be read on Hindustan Times’ website.
Manjari Chatterjee Miller is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Currently, on leave from the School, she is serving as a Senior Fellow at CFR where she focuses on India, Pakistan, and South Asia. She works on foreign policy and security issues with a focus on South and East Asia. Her most recent book, Routledge Handbook of China–India Relations (Routledge & CRC Press, 2020), is a comprehensive guide to the Chinese-Indian relationship covering expansive ideas ranging from the historical relationship to current disputes to AI. Learn more about Professor Miller on her Pardee School faculty profile.