Asia

Could India be heading towards a dystopian future, with severe environmental decay and massive unemployment leading to social collapse? There are rumblings of such a bleak outlook. A major global anti-poverty NGO said it at Davos in January, while in recent weeks, social media has been alight with

It has been an unusually intense time for elections across Southeast Asia in the past year with both a stunning upset and more predictable returns of incumbents. But the striking thing from a quick tour of some of the main battlefields is how the general absence of clear policy reform debate in

Japan’s upper house election is set to be held this weekend but has attracted little media attention internationally. Doubtless this is because the House of Councillors is a less consequential body of Japan’s parliament, the national Diet, than the lower house, the House of Representatives,

Book Review: Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor (Penguin, Lowy Institute, 2019) Richard McGregor has written a dazzling account of the first six years of the Xi Jinping era and what he sees as the “backlash” to Xi’s increasing authoritarianism domestically and assertive foreign and

The agonising and often exhausting wait for the monsoon has long inspired India’s writers and poets. But it’s the country’s farmers who know all too well the impact a delayed or indeed a failed monsoon can have on millions of lives. The monsoon is India’s life-giver, its rebirth and its

China has become more and more active in Antarctica in recent years – both in research and in the international framework of agreements known as the Antarctic Treaty System that has successfully seen the frozen continent devoted to peace and science for decades. China is

The third meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korea Chairman Kim Jong-un has come and gone, again without much substantial progress, but its symbolism has continued to dominate Korea watchers’ assessments of the event. Trump last month became the first sitting US president to set

China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) continues to attract much comment. To some, it is a threat – proof that China’s aim is to extend Chinese global influence. To others, it is a useful contribution to global capital flows. Where does the balance lie between these two views? Just

This week Japan has formally recommenced commercial whaling for the first time in over 30 years. A small Japanese whaling fleet left port on 1 July after the Japanese government announced that it had set a quota of 227 whales for the remainder of 2019. The quota is made up of 150 Bryde’s whales

Even a few hours in Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon by the locals, will give you a feel for how much the Vietnamese economy is booming. The international airport completed in 2007 can handle 17 million passengers a year, the city’s first metropolitan train line is under construction, and

China is sparing no efforts in promoting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which, as Beijing claims, aims to enhance regional connectivity between China and countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and even the Pacific. The role for SOEs is a two-way process. SEOs could affect China’s

The end of the Ramadan fasting period is marked by a week-long holiday in Indonesia. In Jakarta, this means that almost half the population leave the city to travel back to their hometowns and villages to celebrate Idul Fitri with their families. Usually, this exodus is marked by a noticeable

It’s official. We live in the Indo-Pacific. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations released a joint statement this week in Bangkok during its annual summit called the “ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific”. It defines the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions as a single interconnected region

Among many interesting findings in this year’s Lowy Institute Poll, one new question produced a particularly striking result given Australia’s debate over how to navigate the looming tech cold war between the US and China. 44% said “protecting Australians from foreign state intrusion”

Recent reports of a rapid diminishment in the size of the glaciers that feed the great rivers of Asia, including the Mekong, have received wide coverage, not least because they are accompanied by striking visuals. What is happening at the other end of the river in the Mekong Delta has garnered

In a recent column in Foreign Policy, a slightly bewildered Stephen Walt asked two related questions: (1) Why do we not have better answers to major, overarching questions about international affairs? (2) What are five of “those very important things about the world nobody knows?” Walt rattles

Bangladesh is in the process of transforming itself from the global poster-child of poverty into a middle-income country with one of the strongest economies in Asia. This creates opportunities for Australia that should be pursued as part of a more comprehensive engagement with the country.

Rare earth minerals have emerged as the latest front in the escalating US-China trade war. Nearly a decade after the Chinese government controversially suspended rare earth exports to Japan during the 2010 Senkaku dispute, similar threats are now being made if the bilateral trade dispute with the US

On Saturday, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she would suspend consideration of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill (“the Bill”). The Bill would have, among other things, allowed mainland Chinese authorities

On Wednesday, the Hong Kong police opened fire at tens of thousands of young protesters who had gathered outside the Legislative Council in the city centre of Admiralty hoping to stop the second reading of the controversial extradition bill with China from taking place. Young people equipped

On 2 June, two days before the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, I was in Singapore covering the Shangri-La dialogue, the Asia Pacific region’s biggest security forum, at which Beijing upgraded its representation this year with a delegation led by Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe

This year’s Eid-al-Fitr festival has been a bleak affair for Sri Lanka’s Muslims in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings. The steep increase in retaliatory Islamophobic attacks has struck fear into the hearts of the Sri Lankan Muslim community. As if that was not enough, 11 Sri Lankan

In the months leading up to his dramatic return last year as Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad had positioned himself as a strident critic of his predecessor’s approach to China. Mahathir went so far as to accuse former prime minister Najib Razak of selling Malaysia’s sovereignty to

Last month in The Interpreter, I argued that inter-Korean status quo is deeply persistent. US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have tried all sorts of tactics in the last 28 months to change things, yet nothing seems to work. In 2017, Trump reached to the limits of