https://www.scmp.com/rss/142186/feed Deep Kisor Datta-Ray is the author of The Making of Indian Diplomacy. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Disinformation scarred campaigning in elections in the Indian state of Karnataka, which culminated in an illegitimate minority government. Its unmaking by covert surveillance, money politics and an opportunistic alliance of sworn enemies is no consolation. Such odious tactics are democracy’s leitmotif globally, as Brexit and Donald Trump’s election demonstrate. In combination, they suggest that democracy is not fit for purpose, especially in developing nations, particularly since there is a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2148249/india-proves-democracy-no-longer-fit-purpose-while-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2148249/india-proves-democracy-no-longer-fit-purpose-while-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 29 May 2018 07:38:32 +0000 The fact that Li Keqiang made India his first port of call as premier was imbued with significance. It was given definition when he told his hosts that "world peace … cannot be a reality without strategic trust between [Asia's giants]". In highlighting the connection, Li exposed India's need for "strategic trust" - that is, abiding and overall confidence - in China's leadership. There is no better way of engendering trust than for Li to fully engage the concerns of India's diverse polity. That... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1245224/boosting-trade-can-help-restore-trust-between-india-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1245224/boosting-trade-can-help-restore-trust-between-india-and?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The recent dramatic escalation in the age-old border dispute between India and China highlighted a recurring fragility in a relationship on which Asia's future stability hinges. The speed with which tensions were eased is, however, pregnant with possibilities, for it indicates that diplomacy at the highest levels can find lasting solutions to inherited differences. Trade, which has grown to around US$70 billion, is the most powerful sinew that entwines the two Asian giants. Though imbalanced in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1236925/diplomacy-only-path-china-india-border-dispute?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1236925/diplomacy-only-path-china-india-border-dispute?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Though the future of some of the world's poorest will be shaped by New Delhi's mining polices, they are already responsible for the waxing and waning of international fortunes. Stakeholders are wary of Indian decision-making, for its ethic is cloaked by byzantine politics and regulations. India's geology is similar to mineral-rich Australia. India's aluminium ore deposits are among the biggest in the world, and they point to the country's natural wealth. Aluminium indicates why India can become... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1127167/investors-should-keep-faith-indian-mining?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1127167/investors-should-keep-faith-indian-mining?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Contrary to popular opinion, the rape and resulting death of an Indian student is not due to the dead hand of tradition, but, rather, its neglect. Ironically, the explosive outrage - justifiably - manifested by India's English-speaking bourgeoisie is symptomatic of the malaise. Though heinous, the crime has yet to sensitise India's middle class to a chilling fact: not only is rape commonplace (Delhi alone has seen a 17 per cent rise since 2011, despite most remaining unreported) but normally is... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1119976/india-must-look-back-its-traditions-stand-scourge-rape?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1119976/india-must-look-back-its-traditions-stand-scourge-rape?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Western Indologists might dismiss an Indian's condemnation of China's proposed sale of two nuclear reactors to Pakistan as crude nationalism. This would be delusive and, if anything, demonstrates the unconscious cultural hubris of outsiders who persist in insisting that Asians operate using foreign categories. It is not geopolitics or nationalism that provokes criticism but the deal itself and the mechanics of its promulgation. Together, they make a mockery of the morality that must underlie... https://www.scmp.com/article/720809/sino-pakistan-nuclear-deal-fails-moral-test?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/720809/sino-pakistan-nuclear-deal-fails-moral-test?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000 India has unveiled a fancy new symbol for its currency. Replacing the staid 'Rs', the new keyboard-compatible symbol reduces four keystrokes to one. The new symbol is also designed to distinguish India's rupee from the clutter of other countries that also use the word - or some variation of it, like Indonesia's rupiah. Its wide use is a legacy of times when Indians ventured east to trade, and left behind their culture. But India must do more than merely make the rupee artistically... https://www.scmp.com/article/720170/poor-need-real-rupees-not-symbols?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/720170/poor-need-real-rupees-not-symbols?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:00:00 +0000 On the eve of India's celebrations marking its diamond jubilee as a republic recently, a strategic partnership was formed with South Korea. Yet another example of the multilayered and multifaceted international relations system being crafted by India, the partnership is a fitting reminder of the civilisational dynamic of Indian foreign relations. India's approach to international relations is motivated by a world view radically different from the European view of 'us' and 'them'. First... https://www.scmp.com/article/705160/policy-smooth-out-diplomatic-bumps?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/705160/policy-smooth-out-diplomatic-bumps?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:00:00 +0000 It was a singular honour for India that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh was US President Barack Obama's first state guest. Singh enjoyed a special relationship with former president George W. Bush and many doubted whether this would continue with his successor. Obama's personal gestures of goodwill, gushing about Indians, and recognition of India's nuclear status, seemed reassuring. Yet it remains to be seen whether Washington will take the steps to convert form into substance and push... https://www.scmp.com/article/700501/can-obama-convert-form-substance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/700501/can-obama-convert-form-substance?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Despite Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's befuddlement by what he calls 'a certain amount of assertiveness on the Chinese part', he and his aides have taken the unprecedented step of demolishing dominant notions about Sino-Indian relations, the nature of international competition and the security of the bulk of humanity. The comments also highlight a deeper malaise shaping thinking about Asia. It is that Asians are incapable of learning from the West's futile cold war, and that India... https://www.scmp.com/article/699788/demolishing-myths-chinese-threat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/699788/demolishing-myths-chinese-threat?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Within hours of India and the United States signing landmark deals on defence, technology and end-user protocols, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab - the surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks - stood in court to give a four-hour confession. It was a potent reminder that, as the most powerful social units in the world craft complex international agreements to further security through trade, the greatest challenge to nations today arises from disaffected gunmen acting on distorted ideologies. Kasab's... https://www.scmp.com/article/687490/more-security-just-affluence-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/687490/more-security-just-affluence-india?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assurance that the nation's economy will grow 9 per cent promptly saw the stock market surge to a new high. The prospect of growth and the creation of new markets upon which growth depends has produced, not for the first time, a heady elixir. It is market mania and underpinning it is the belief that markets are the solution to India's considerable problems. In Britain, the recession has induced a gradual return to forms of state control. But, during a... https://www.scmp.com/article/683648/magic-markets-turns-out-be-alchemy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/683648/magic-markets-turns-out-be-alchemy?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:00:00 +0000 By returning to the helm Manmohan Singh, whose entire career has been about providing freedoms and opportunities to some of the poorest people alive, India's electorate sends a clear message to the world: India wants the stability to enable it to engage the global community to solve local concerns. The message is reinforced by the dramatic increase in Congress' electoral haul to just over 200 seats. Yet the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remains the party of opposition with some 160 seats.... https://www.scmp.com/article/680651/indians-pin-their-hopes-good-dr-singh?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/680651/indians-pin-their-hopes-good-dr-singh?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 May 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Though riddled by undemocratic forces and frequently predicted to be on the verge of extinction, the world's largest democratic exercise is under way, defying expectations while posing the question: why does Indian democracy survive? Contrary to standard democratic theory, it is India's undemocratic core that furthers democracy. By allowing undemocratic and tribal loyalties that predate democracy to thrive, and by incorporating them, Indian democracy offers a new set of freedoms that... https://www.scmp.com/article/677473/contradiction-key-indias-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/677473/contradiction-key-indias-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Despite its tremendous success at the box office and the Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire has not been enthusiastically received in India, where the movie is set. Instead, it sparked controversy because it is set among the vast Indian underclass instead of the new and aspiring middle class or the super-rich. The storm highlights a little-examined and much deeper malaise than poverty which scars modern Indian's psyche. Indians are notoriously sensitive about how foreigners perceive them. The... https://www.scmp.com/article/671320/slumdog-reaction-more-disturbing-story?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/671320/slumdog-reaction-more-disturbing-story?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:00:00 +0000 If the freedom to legitimately and safely transfer goods, knowledge and ultimately one's self are the aims of globalisation, then the Indo-US agreement on nuclear commerce - due to be inked by US President George W. Bush tomorrow - is an encouraging message to people in Asia and Africa who lack all three. Ironically, it also signals the end of a process initiated by a president whose foreign policy is largely reviled and pushed through by a prime minister criticised for being... https://www.scmp.com/article/655291/nuclear-deal-marks-birth-knowledge-economy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/655291/nuclear-deal-marks-birth-knowledge-economy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:00:00 +0000 With the clockwork regularity befitting a nation aspiring to modernity, India will celebrate the 61st anniversary of independence on Friday with the usual stirring ceremony harking back to the nation's mixed ancestry. But this might be the last time that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - the man who has almost singlehandedly revived India - is at the centre of the celebrations. With elections looming, Dr Singh might have to pay the price for imaginative policies decisively implemented. He did... https://www.scmp.com/article/648870/raising-indias-pulse-without-selling-its-soul?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/648870/raising-indias-pulse-without-selling-its-soul?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Out of the failed World Trade Organisation talks has arisen a new arena for Sino-Indian co-operation. For the second time in recent history, India and China defied the west and forged a common stance on a vital international issue. The first was global warming; this time it was food. Underscoring the historic rivals independently arriving at the same conclusions is their refusal to accept a series of food myths disseminated by industrial-scale western agribusiness intent on undercutting the... https://www.scmp.com/article/647804/india-and-china-thwart-agribusiness-monster?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/647804/india-and-china-thwart-agribusiness-monster?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000 India's parliament has voted to go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal. It allows Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to develop a stable energy source for some of the world's poorest people and simultaneously shatters the west's policy of 'nuclear apartheid'. But the politics of the vote reveal that Indian democracy is threatened by big business and corruption. Allegations have surfaced that all major parties tried to buy rival parliamentarians. The going rate? US$3 million. Members of the... https://www.scmp.com/article/646453/nuclear-deal-reveals-indias-fragile-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/646453/nuclear-deal-reveals-indias-fragile-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 India has unveiled for the first time a national policy on tackling climate change. Unlike the Group of Seven industrialised nations, which continues to evade concrete policies, the Indian document outlines a comprehensive plan, draws on the market efficiency that comes naturally to the private sector to meet its targets and once again illustrates that Asian policies emerge from local values and concepts. Launching the plan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh articulated the culture which produced... https://www.scmp.com/article/645654/indias-local-route-fight-climate-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/645654/indias-local-route-fight-climate-change?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took his coalition government to the edge of the political abyss last week in an attempt to go ahead with the heavily contested Indo-US nuclear co-operation agreement. He emerged victorious, but it is perturbing that a matter on which hinges the energy-security of some of the most deprived people in the world should be debased to the extent of being decided by the horse trading that India's head count politics entails. Dr Singh handled the complex game of... https://www.scmp.com/article/644492/singh-gets-nuclear-deal-despite-horse-trading?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/644492/singh-gets-nuclear-deal-despite-horse-trading?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 India's civilian expedition this week and next, to the edges of the Line of Actual Control on the Khatling glacier which separates two Asian giants, is not just a message to China. It also symbolises the clash between man's aspiration for a better future with the modern concept of borders. Imposed on Asia by colonial powers, borders limit movement, constrain economies and become focal points for disputes. Former Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh says territorial definition is a western... https://www.scmp.com/article/642937/borders-hindrance-asian-development?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/642937/borders-hindrance-asian-development?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:00:00 +0000 When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke in Beijing of a 'historic need' for India and China to work together, he was looking beyond the border dispute that has plagued relations for half a century to freeing millions of the world's poorest from disease and economic deprivation. Paradoxically, this goal, and not any misplaced nationalistic or protectionist sentiment, forced him to decline Chinese requests for a free-trade agreement. Though a quick resolution of the border dispute is... https://www.scmp.com/article/623336/chinese-trade-india-remains-one-way-street?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/623336/chinese-trade-india-remains-one-way-street?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000 The world changed this year. For the first time in recorded history, India and China are the drivers of the global economy. The implications are profound, though not recognised as yet by the world's premier economic club, the Group of Seven, which seems more and more to control a wheel detached from the rudder. The two Asian powers, devoid of western aid, transformed without mimicking the developed world and prevented the west spiralling into recession. However, the west risks splitting the... https://www.scmp.com/article/618027/g7-leaders-can-no-longer-deny-india-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/618027/g7-leaders-can-no-longer-deny-india-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarkably short visit to Russia reiterates British statesman Viscount Palmerston's dictum that a nation has no permanent friends or foes when formulating foreign policy, only permanent interests. India's abiding interest remains eradicating poverty and ensuring security for one-third of humanity. However, Russia's once-pivotal role in realising these ambitions has diminished with the re-emergence of China and improved relations with the US. New Delhi's ... https://www.scmp.com/article/616392/when-interests-old-friends-diverge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/616392/when-interests-old-friends-diverge?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:00:00 +0000 There's the suggestion of elitism in the fact that just 475 out of 150,000 candidates have survived a gruelling, year-long examination process in India. Now they will join the ranks of the technocracy managing the nation's tryst with modernity. But this elite is actually drawn from the base of Indian society - small towns in the grip of feudalism and tradition. Their escape from rural India is in part due to policies designed to transform the social composition of India's bureaucracy and... https://www.scmp.com/article/610693/india-finds-new-elite-grass-roots?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/610693/india-finds-new-elite-grass-roots?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Oct 2007 16:00:00 +0000 A new generation of politicians is the best guarantee that India's rapidly expanding economic and military networks will be used to improve stability and create prosperity in the region. They are internationalists by birth, education and inclination - and they are held accountable by democracy. In parliament sit about a dozen young MPs who will become the leaders of the ruling Congress and opposition Bharatiya Janata parties. They understand the aspirations of a young population - the... https://www.scmp.com/article/607447/young-gandhi-shows-india-way?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/607447/young-gandhi-shows-india-way?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:00:00 +0000 India will mark the moment of colonial liberation today by focusing on an Oxbridge educated prime minister moving through a series of rituals inherited from the British. The spectacle encapsulates an argument raging at the heart of modern India. Structured around a delusive myth of purity, it is an argument fraught with danger whose resolution will define India's identity and shape its destiny. On one side, fatalists argue that Indians might have won temporally but can never shake off the... https://www.scmp.com/article/604248/illusion-indian-purity-fraught-danger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/604248/illusion-indian-purity-fraught-danger?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Two years in the making, India and the United States have unveiled a 22-page nuclear agreement that makes history. What Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf overlooks is that the deal between the only superpower, which is also the world's leading nuclear weapons state, and the only declared nuclear power yet to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is not about bombs. It is about powering India into the future. It is about reducing global warming. It is about cutting back greenhouse... https://www.scmp.com/article/603538/test-match?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/603538/test-match?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:00:00 +0000 The Australian defence minister's assurance that screening of migrants at ports of entry will not be race-based is symptomatic of a cleavage in international society that no one talks about. It is not the Clash of Civilisations but the great divide along racial lines. It is in this context that the incarceration of Mohammed Haneef - an Indian citizen - in connection with the London and Glasgow terror plots must be viewed. Just as Haneef must be regarded innocent until proven guilty, India... https://www.scmp.com/article/601636/justice-must-be-colour-blind?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/601636/justice-must-be-colour-blind?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:00:00 +0000 With a clockwork regularity befitting a nation aspiring to modernity, India has once again completed its yearly ritual of university admission. The process exposes the rot within a society that combines modernity with high materialism. By neglecting the social freedoms that, together with political and economic freedom, constitutes modernity, Indians have become the most suicidal people on the planet. Economic success is taking its toll on India's social stability. Preserving it calls for... https://www.scmp.com/article/600926/matter-life-and-death-ponder?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/600926/matter-life-and-death-ponder?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:00:00 +0000 In calling on India to abandon its policy of non-alignment and join the United States in reforming the international order, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice failed to grasp the limited aims of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's diplomacy. The focus has shifted. It is no longer about the great powers, but about rejuvenating India. 'Non-alignment,' Dr Singh says, 'is to think independently about our options, to widen our developmental choices.' Internationally, it involves creating... https://www.scmp.com/article/600093/indias-multihued-diplomacy-push?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/600093/indias-multihued-diplomacy-push?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee's just-completed tour of Southeast Asia is the latest manifestation of a strategic shift in India's diplomacy. Designed to build on Indo-Singaporean ties, Mr Mukherjee asserted that his aim was not to contain China. To this end, he cited President Hu Jintao's claim that there is enough space for both countries to 'grow together' stressing the 'together'. Nor is his diplomacy motivated by external pressure. Rather, the desire to embrace the Association... https://www.scmp.com/article/598359/indias-syringe-capital-injection?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/598359/indias-syringe-capital-injection?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:00:00 +0000 A coherent Sino-Indian response to European and American demands at the Group of Eight summit indicates the possibility of the Asian giants taking joint action to combat poverty globally. They repudiated the developed world's attempt to curtail growth in developing countries, a move that was seen as penalising them for the problem of greenhouse gas emissions that they certainly did not create. However, this embryonic Sino-Indian partnership is threatened by hawks on either side eager to take... https://www.scmp.com/article/596674/border-dispute-threatens-embryonic-alliance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/596674/border-dispute-threatens-embryonic-alliance?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's apology for his nation's wartime sex abuse in China, Korea and elsewhere will encourage those who are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery by demanding a formal apology. The sentiment is understandable and reparation should be made, wherever possible. But the assumption that a simple 'sorry' absolves past injustice makes light of slavery and exploits history to distract attention from today's wrongs. The slavery debate is... https://www.scmp.com/article/587743/going-beyond-sorry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/587743/going-beyond-sorry?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:00:00 +0000 By integrating policy with a sense of social reality, Britain's prestigious Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce might prompt a rational assessment of the modern use and abuse of drugs. Anthony King, a professor at Essex University and the author of a recent society report, blames drug policies on 'moral panic rather than a practical desire to reduce harm'. Now Britain is following other western nations, like Canada and Sweden, in rethinking a century and a... https://www.scmp.com/article/584821/phobia-no-basis-drug-policy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/584821/phobia-no-basis-drug-policy?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:00:00 +0000 Once upon a time, Britain exported imperial rule; then the English language. But colonialism became unfashionable, and the Indians, Australians, Kiwis and Americans made English theirs. Now Pax Britannica trades in that ultimate symbol of snobbery, the hallowed public school. The decision by Haileybury - the school founded by the East India Company, where philosopher Thomas Malthus taught would-be administrators - to develop a school in Kazakhstan marks a new variant of the 19th-century... https://www.scmp.com/article/582877/new-british-empire-mind?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/582877/new-british-empire-mind?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:00:00 +0000 China's anti-satellite missile test might appear to mark a dramatic about-face from its decade-long denunciation of weapons in space. Arguably, however, the controversy would never have occurred if the US had heeded international calls - China's voice being the loudest - for a treaty to protect space. That bid having failed, Beijing's move must be seen as a defensive response to American intransigence. Significantly, India, regarded as China's key Asian competitor, is not worried. In contrast... https://www.scmp.com/article/579241/wrestling-spectre-arms-race-space?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/579241/wrestling-spectre-arms-race-space?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:00:00 +0000 China's mighty Yangtze River has been tamed. At 2.25km, the wall that now spans the river marks the beginning of the end of the Three Gorges Dam project. It is the largest construction undertaken by mankind since the Great Wall of China. But instead of being lauded, this achievement has been dogged by criticism. The original western charge that the dam was an extravagant indulgence in national ostentation that would cause untold damage to humans and nature has yielded to the allegation that a... https://www.scmp.com/article/550163/out-old-modernity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/550163/out-old-modernity?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 May 2006 16:00:00 +0000