loans have supported national regional strategies such as the plans for developing the western and central parts of the country. These loans greatly facilitated development in the recipient areas in sectors such as education, healthcare, and the environment, including projects like the Heihe-Beian highway in Heilongjiang, local road development in

The first three batches of yen loans saw a significant increase in scale. The first batch (1979-1983) amounted to JPY 330.9 billion, with an interest rate of 3% and a 30-year repayment period, including a 10-year grace period. The second batch (1984-1989) was announced during Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone’s visit to China in 1984, with a loan

Donald Trump’s comments during his 2024 campaign trail, together with his actions during his first presidency, suggest doom and gloom for the global climate agenda – and a severe retardation of climate action during his upcoming second term But new factors determine the global landscape compared to 2016, offering a more nuanced set of possibili

By 2021, censorship online and offline – often in the form of harsh sentences meted out to online critics – had damaging ramifications for BBC Vietnamese Roundtable output, reducing the number of people from Vietnam brave enough to continue participating to less than 10 people. The latter included two well-known dissidents, Mr Nguyen Huu Vinh a

The reforms initiated in the late 1980s brought a change to Vietnam’s media environment. Since 2000, a new media strategy not only opened the country to foreign media, including the BBC, but also envisaged international integration of Vietnam into the world by combining three strategic objectives of “security, development and influence”. The