Asia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech last week from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi to mark India’s Independence Day carefully delineated his new strategic and foreign policy in the region. We can call this “nudge diplomacy”, and it stands in stark contrast to the more assertive

Air pollution is worsening in Jakarta and West Java, while tens of millions of people experienced a day-long blackout earlier this month after gas-powered electricity generators failed and significant proportions of eastern Indonesia have do not have reliable power supplies. So why does Indonesia

Tensions have risen once again in the South China Sea. For weeks, Chinese and Vietnamese coastguard vessels have been involved in a confrontation after the Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 (HD8) entered waters near the Vietnam-controlled Vanguard Bank on 3 July. The incident has upset both Hanoi

It has been a rough few months for Indonesia’s already beleaguered legal system: two cases, alike yet different, highlighting how minority groups continue to be disenfranchised across the archipelago nation.  In May, Meliana, a Chinese-Indonesian Buddhist was released on parole, having

China is changing the way Australia’s political elites think about aid. Chinese aid to the Pacific isn’t new, but in recent years, “China the aid donor” has become an unavoidable presence. In response, the Australian government is increasing the Pacific focus of its aid programs. It has also

For all the back-and-forth Hugh White has generated with his latest book, How to Defend Australia, in a national preoccupation with the China question, little serious discussion has been devoted to how to defend Australia’s southern front and cope with China’s increasing Antarctic footprint.

After a week of turmoil following President Donald Trump’s decision to impose additional tariffs on imports from China, global markets are cheerful again. Shares are recovering and currency markets have stabilised. The bond rally is fading. No new retaliatory actions have been announced by either

Barely a month after the historic handshake at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), North Korea returned to provocations by unveiling its new “strategic” ballistic missile submarine and testing short-range ballistic missiles. US President Donald Trump and North Korea Chairman Kim Jong-un had

Bangladesh is certainly not in a happy state these days. With more than 21,000 people falling prey to dengue fever in Dhaka, and the epidemic rippling out to wider regions of the country, authorities are simply unable to contain the problem. The city corporations in the capital – there are two

The United States has labelled China a currency manipulator. The move sent shock waves through markets early this week and left many speculating what may come next. Trump has repeatedly called for lower interest rates and a cheaper currency to help him win his trade war with China (and the next US

While President Donald Trump’s bull-in-a-China-shop approach to reforming international trade doesn’t appeal, it is possible that some of his objectives might make sense. This was the logic behind comments by former Barack Obama adviser Daniel Russel, suggesting that Australia

In June, a controversial statement from a UBS economist set off a firestorm in mainland China, causing serious trouble for the Swiss banking behemoth in one of its most important markets. Nationalist anger circulated on Chinese social media. The company apologised for the remarks and placed the

Separation anxiety A new call to split trade negotiation from diplomacy in Australia has once again underlined how the rise of China has unsettled traditional frameworks for making policy about economic and security interests. The divide between neo-liberal economic policy approaches

On 28 June, two suicide bombers carried out an attack in the Philippines, targeting the headquarters of 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) in Indanan, Sulu. Days later, one of the suicide attackers was identified as Norman Lasuca, a 23 year-old resident of Jolo, now considered the first Filipino to be

Over the past few months, sugar has featured prominently in India’s political and economic discussion. Countries such as Australia, Brazil and Guatemala are upset with the Indian government’s subsidies to its sugarcane farmers, alleging in a claim to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the

The name Mukhriz Mahathir – son of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad – is in the news once again, mostly by virtue of being the only child in the family to enter into politics. As a sex video scandal roils the People’s Justice Party (PKR) led by prime minister-in-waiting Anwar

Last week, as Taiwan’s presidential race gradually gathers pace before a ballot next year, opposition Kuomintang candidate Han Kuo-yu climbed a banyan tree. It was Han’s classically eccentric approach to countering an outbreak of dengue fever in the southern Taiwanese city Kaohsiung where he

For the first time since the Geneva Agreements of 1954, France has turned its eyes towards what is now termed the Indo-Pacific. The renewal of Paris’s interest in the region not only reflects a desire to tap on the wealth of rising Asia, but also Emmanuel Macron’s desire to restore France’s

In the 1970s, Australia’s main trading partner was Japan. For the first time we were dealing with a country outside the Anglosphere; not only one with a foreign language, but one commercially disciplined by an arcane process of coordination through the keiretsu system, whereby manufacturers,

If scientists are right, 85% of what comprises the universe is unseen, so-called “dark matter” material that neither reflects nor emits light. In recent times, “south-south” interactions have been somewhat analogous to “dark matter” for the West – that is, largely invisible. Studying

Last week Paramount Pictures released the trailer for its much-hyped Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. The new movie sees Tom Cruise reprise his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, now an aging fighter pilot facing the political and technological realities of a world in which there may no longer

The latest news coming out of Kuala Lumpur may alter the trajectory of Malaysian politics. On Wednesday night, 23 members of the Parti Keadilan Rakyet (PKR) central committee (half the members of this party leadership group) signed a statement rebuking party president Anwar

President Joko Widodo, best known as Jokowi, just won the presidential election and will officially start his second term in October. Much of his economic homework is still outstanding, one of the most significant how to deal with the impact of trade war between the US and China. The International

With a vote due to be called before 2021, the guessing game for when Singapore’s next general election will take place has begun. Everyone is squinting at the tea leaves, and many things can be taken as a sign. Is a recent tax rebate exercise a “red packet” designed to sweeten the ground?