Read if time:
Robert Kaplan has written a new book, Monsoon, on this increasingly important region. Go here for the text-only version of an interview with Foreign Policy magazine.
We will discuss several states in the region, with an emphasis on ethnic groups, resource competition, and alliance formation.
The following are optional - read what you like if there is time:
China is a multi-ethnic state dominated by the Han ethnic group. Among the areas of tension are Xinjiang, home of the Uighur people, and Tibet. Here are two NY Times articles that shed light on current Tibetan attitudes. Go here for article one on Tibetans who are "fed up" with peace, and go here for a piece called "The Terrified Monks," both by Nick Kristof.
This piece on the BBC site looks at the Uighur question.
The ethnic angle is fascinating since SE Asia, for instance, is home to dozens of ethnicities and tribes. Here is the web site of the Kachin resistance group, which has been fighting a guerilla war for independence against the totalitarian Burmese government for many years.
Apart from North Korea, Burma is the most repressive regime in East Asia. Go here for an interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize winning human rights leader who has recently been elected to Parliament in a stunning concession by the ruling military junta.
