Dear Friends,
I hope this finds you very well and off to a positive start in 2023.
I have two announcements; my new book Teardrop Diplomacy: China's Sri Lanka Foray, published by Bloomsbury, will be released this month, February 2023, in India and by March in all other countries.
Second, the Millennium Project in Washington DC launched the South Asia Foresight Network(SAFN) in January 2023, a dedicated network for South Asia. As the Executive Director of the new network, it is my pleasure to invite friends and scholars with interest in finding synergetic solutions to many challenges in South Asia. click here to find out about your country director and join our network.
Let me thank you for all the support given for my work in 2022 and, especially, the time spent reviewing my forthcoming book and the valuable comments sent for the Teardrop Diplomacy from Europe, India, Australia, Japan, the US and Sri Lanka. Click to read the reviews.
In Teardrop Diplomacy, I examine how Sri Lanka, the teardrop-shaped island in the Indian Ocean, is facing its worst political–economic crisis since independence.
Teardrop Diplomacy will give the reader a better understanding of the underlying political and social distress in everyday life in Sri Lanka and what brought the fragile state to this political and economic disaster within a short period of three years. This is a lesson for many developing nations, especially those under debt distress in the post-pandemic environment.
Here is what Dr C. Raja Mohan had to say about Teardrop Diplomacy.
"Few places in the world capture contemporary global strategic trends more sharply than Sri Lanka. In Teardrop Diplomacy, Asanga Abeyagoonasekara delineates the disastrous rise of the strong-man rule in Lanka, its intersection with China's power projection into the Indian Ocean, and Beijing's rivalry with Delhi and Washington. Tear Drop Diplomacy is a must read for all
students of the Indo-Pacific."
Dr. C. Raja Mohan, Asia Society Policy Institute, Delhi.
As always, you can keep up with my latest writings, appearances, book talks and analysis at www.asangaabey.com and find me on social media.
Thank you for subscribing to my mailing list, if you are receiving this newsletter and have not subscribed, I invite you to join today. Thank You!
Warm Regards, and I wish you all the best for 2023!
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
