On February 15, 1989, when General Boris Gromov followed the last Soviet troops out of Afghanistan over the Friendship Bridge to Uzbekistan, the Pudong district east of the Huangpu river in Shanghai was undeveloped farmland. Once the Soviet troops left, China − which had cooperated with the U.S., Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in supplying arms to the anti-Soviet resistance − turned inward to focus on development. As part of that effort, in 1990 Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping declared “Shanghai is our trump card,” ordering the development of Pudong.
Testing Indonesia’s commitment to UN peacekeeping
Indonesia is committed to becoming one of the top ten countries contributing to UN peace operations. With its Roadmap Vision 4,000 Peacekeepers, Jakarta aims to dramatically increase the 2,724 peacekeepers now deployed in ten UN missions by 2019.
Compared to 2014, this would be a doubling of troops deployed in only five years. This is a noble and ambitious goal of international good citizenship, but what will be the challenges on this journey?