Author: pstaniland

I have very few consumer vices, but do love sensibly priced, high quality Japanese precision gadgets (in addition to Canon photo gear, I drive a Subaru and own Casio/Seiko/Citizen watches). After wandering through Olympus and Fuji mirrorless cameras after following my my first photography with a Canon XTi DSLR, I’ve ended up back as a Canon user, both for film (Canonet QL17 and A-1, the latter using FD mount) and digital (RF mount). The Canon Museum is a lot of fun to surf, and PhilipReeve.net has a nice guide to vintage FD lenses.

Along these lines, this is a fun interview with the developers of the new Canon RF 45mm f1.2 (Google-translated from Japanese), followed by a set of images by photographers:

“Hagiwara: However, it was still too early to release a reproduction of the EF lens as it was. So we decided to plan a reproduction of the “FD55mm F1.2AL.” It was Canon’s first lens to use an aspherical lens. After examining the design, we realized that it could be made much smaller, so we started by searching for documents about the “FD55mm F1.2AL” within the company. . . .

Hagiwara: However, the project remained as a proposal and lay dormant for several years, and as the RF lens lineup was completed, we decided to restart it as a reproduction of the EF50mm f/1.2L USM. . . .

Abe: We wanted to meet both the demands of ease of use as a modern product and the taste of depiction due to aberrations, so we carefully considered the balance of image quality. We tried out not only EF lenses and the FD lenses mentioned earlier, but also lenses from the Serenar era (interchangeable lenses from the 1950s) [Paul note: the Serenar 50/1.8 is a really lovely Leica screw-mount lens], looking for a compromise. . . . .

Abe: In the end, we settled on a modern version of the EF50mm f/1.2L USM. Some people who love FD lenses or lenses from the Serenar era may find the blurring lacking. Instead, we ensured that it meets modern quality standards and is comfortable to use. We believe we have achieved a good balance that allows you to casually enjoy shooting at f/1.2 while also being able to experience the unique characteristics of the lens.”

This is a valuable piece in Prothom Alo arguing that with India’s decline in power in Bangladesh, China is moving up. Also notes how foreign affairs are playing out on the campaign trail:

“Ahead of the election, the BNP and its closest rival, the Islamist Jamaat‑e‑Islami, have accused each other of courting foreign interests, with Jamaat alleging the BNP is too close to India, and the BNP pointing to Jamaat’s historic ties with Pakistan, India’s old enemy.

“Not Dilli, not Pindi, Bangladesh before everything,” Rahman, the BNP leader, told a recent rally, referring to New Delhi and Pakistan’s military headquarters in Rawalpindi.”

Plus US policy is making life easier for China:

“”China is steadily building its influence both in the open and behind the scenes, benefiting from the crisis in India-Bangladesh relations,” said Constantino Xavier, a senior fellow at New Delhi think tank Centre for Social and Economic Progress.

“China has also been able to capitalise on declining U.S. engagement and Trump’s tariff war, positioning itself as a more credible and predictable economic partner.””

This is a summary – from the August 1968 monthly political report from the Indian High Commission in Colombo – of disagreements within the Sri Lankan left over the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. I had to google “Keuneman revisionist clique” – apparently it was what the pro-Moscow, electorally-inclined faction of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka was called by its left critics. For a really deep dive, this 1974 book by an “anti-revisionist” Sri Lankan Marxist regularly uses the term, while also highlighting “the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party alone warned against placing faith in the fraud of bourgeois parliamentary democracy” and lamenting how “Khrushchov [sic] usurped power by means of a palace revolution and embarked on the treacherous course of modern revisionism, abandoning the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism.”

This is an interesting new piece by Malkasian recently out in the Texas National Security Review:

“This article examines the history of war and society during the Cold War in the Middle East and parts of South Asia—two regions linked by geography, history, and culture. Few other regions have been so touched by war, or so fixed the attention of world leaders. Two themes run through the article. The first is how politics, technology, society, and culture changed the conduct of war. The second is how the conduct of war changed politics, society, and culture. The overarching argument is that a combination of pressures spread forms of war—namely, guerrilla warfare and terrorism—that put the use of force in the hands of the people. This democratization of violence complicated the consolidation of state authority and was intertwined with the return of Islam as a political force. If war after 1945 for the United States and Europe became, to quote Michael Howard, “an affair of states and no longer peoples,” then in much of the Middle East and South Asia, it became an affair of peoples as much as states.”

I recently joined the Chicago Council on Global Affairs as a nonresident senior fellow in Asia Studies. I’ll continue to also be affiliated with the Carnegie Endowment’s South Asia Program, but I was excited to also join up with my “hometown” think tank during a period of revitalization and expansion for the Council. My first piece for the Council is now up, on US-India relations under Trump – go forth and read!

This is an amazing sale from Cornell University Press (and I don’t just say that as a Cornell author and editor!); information below:

One of the fascinating big questions of contemporary politics is understanding the nature and intensity of future US-China security/economic competition – are these countries fated to intense competition or is there space for de-escalation? This has big implications for India in particular, which seemed somewhat-comfortably ensconced as a strategic partner of the US in managing China’s rise – until Trumpism hit. A US-China rapprochement might leave India on the outside looking-in as the “G2” set rules of the Asian – and global – order.

Two recent pieces offer different potential answers to how structurally-ordained US-China competition is. Mira Rapp-Hooper in Foreign Affairs writes:

” Despite his attempt to court Xi, and Xi’s own desire to take maximum advantage of Trump’s overtures, any truce will probably be temporary. China is highly unlikely to adjust its global aims, and there are many ways an attempted détente could unravel. Trump and Xi may want to calm the waters in the short term. But structural realities mean that U.S.-Chinese competition is here to stay. . . .

But the laws of international relations are ruthless. No matter what happens at their meeting, China’s ambitions will still pose the same long-term risks to American interests, American allies, and American power. The question is whether the bipartisan architects of Washington’s China consensus will act swiftly enough to protect the system they helped create.”

On the other hand, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which does the gold-standard polling work on American attitudes toward global issues, is now finding that there has been a major shift in US public opinion toward China; Craig Kafura summarizes key findings:

“the bipartisan embrace of US-China competition no longer holds among the public, with partisan differences in perceived threats from China and disagreements on current US-China trade policy. While Republicans continue to favor limiting China’s rise, as well as reductions in trade, and view US-China trade as detrimental to US national security, Democrats have moved in the other direction. Driven by shifts among Democrats and Independents, a majority of Americans now favor a policy of cooperation and engagement with Beijing, oppose higher tariffs, and oppose cuts to bilateral trade. . . .

Since the first Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy, US-China relations have been defined by the framework of “Great Power Competition.” The administration of President Joe Biden continued this approach, framing its strategy as “invest, align, compete”—investing domestically, aligning with allies and partners, and competing with China—while also cooperating with China where interests might align. The second Trump administration has leaned heavily into the competition side of that approach, imposing high tariffs on Chinese goods and escalating the Biden administration’s attempts to cut China off from high-tech semiconductor imports. Yet the American public is moving in a different direction. The public is moving in favor of cooperation and engagement with Beijing, is less concerned about China’s rise as a threat, and is less likely now to prioritize limiting China’s influence around the world. 

In a sharp reversal from 2024, a majority of Americans (53%) now say the United States should undertake friendly cooperation and engagement with China, while 44 percent prefer a policy of actively limiting the growth of China’s power. This is the first time since 2019 that a majority of Americans have preferred a policy of cooperation and engagement with China.”

Much is to be determined – US public opinion may simply be reacting against whatever Trump is up to, and more responsive to elite cues, partisan swings, etc rather than reflecting a deep, “true” underlying attitudes. But American opinion is worth paying attention to: Washington’s strategic consensus may not represent the public’s.