Heads up: disaster aid isn’t always “just humanitarian.” In “A Tale of Two Quakes,” Su Mon Thazin Aung and Zhao Yiran draw a stark contrast between the world’s rollout of support after Nepal’s 2015 earthquake and how Myanmar’s 2025 quake barely made ripples in international aid. Spoiler: it’s not because Myanmar didn’t need help — it’s politics, perception, and power. Regime legitimacy, geopolitics, and how “worthy” a country appears all tilt the scale in who gets rescued first. 💡 Read more to see how humanitarian aid can be deeply political.

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Su Mon Thazin Aung is a Visiting Fellow with the Myanmar Studies Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.  

Zhao Yiran, is a graduate student in the Contemporary Southeast Asian Studies programme at the National University of Singapore and currently studying is a PhD student in the School of International Relations, Xiamen University.