Asia

While the world is watching Malaysia, trying to explain the unexpected victory of Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) in last month’s elections, what is actually more important is the massive clean-up currently underway in the country. By clean-up, I mean a near-total replacement of all key

Efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to influence Australian politics have made headlines since 2017. In recent months, similar attempts have been at the centre of German debates. While geographically distant, Australia and Germany are well suited to address this challenge jointly,

China is rising! This remarkable event, which is hardly surprising because the process has been underway for at least forty years, is causing great excitement in Australia and elsewhere. In some circles, China’s strong economic growth and international activities have 

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating once recounted describing to an American admiral the sound a US aircraft carrier would make in a major fight: “Glug, glug, glug”.  Keating’s words reflect the scepticism of many analysts about the vulnerability and cost of

The Trump–Kim summit last week in Singapore was a nothingburger – not good or bad, just nothing new really at all. After months of hype, including grossly inflated talk of CVID (complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament) and a Nobel prize, US President Donald Trump’s meeting with North

In recent weeks, Northeast Asia has enjoyed an unprecedented season of summitry. Spurred by a common desire to curb the North Korean nuclear threat, key leaders from the region have held historic bilateral talks with Kim Jong-un in close succession. Despite the fact that a concrete denuclearisation

In 2018, Vietnam and Australia marked the 45th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations by upgrading their ties to a strategic partnership. On this occasion, however, it is hard not to reflect on the disparity between the Vietnamese diaspora and homeland. Almost 45 years after the

As analysts and pundits rake through the breadcrumbs dropped after the Trump–Kim summit in Singapore, one thing is for certain: the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) is happy. The relationship between China and North Korea has been described as “as close as lips and teeth

China’s huge infrastructure investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have the potential to change the strategic dynamics of the entire region. The BRI’s “flagship” project is the US$62 billion China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that is planned to run from one end of

North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un scored a huge diplomatic victory on Tuesday when he finally got the chance to hold a summit with US President Donald Trump, a feat his grandfather and father never achieved. In addition to the credit Kim and Trump received for their courageous acts, South

The Singapore summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump has all the drama of a Hollywood production, including glimpses the world is getting of the entourage travelling with the North Korean leader. One of the most visually striking elements of this entourage has been Kim’s phalanx of

Like most Korea observers, in the lead-up to the Trump–Kim summit I have been inundated with questions from journalists and friends alike. Does Kim Jong-un have any actual intention to denuclearise? Would Donald Trump settle for anything less than complete, verifiable, irreversible 

Barely six months ago, Australia’s debate on North Korea featured Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speculating about invoking the ANZUS treaty in case of war, and discussion on The Interpreter between Hugh White and Rob Ayson about what conflict with a nuclear-armed

Last month, Indonesia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community was buoyed by a decision to remove the phrase “same-sex” from the article on fornication in the proposed Criminal Code (KUHP) bill, amid a raft of contentious legal changes that have sparked much debate

After the G6 The last time the world’s rich club lost a member was when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 – although the former Soviet Union was always a difficult fit. But the Group of Seven leaders’ summit beginning Friday in Canada faces a much more existential question: what future does it

Perhaps the biggest casualty of the current state of India–Pakistan relations has been Kashmir, where issues regarding territory, autonomy, and cross-border confrontations have been a long-standing flashpoint between the two countries. Recent times have seen total disregard&

What are we to make of the relationship between religion and politics in Indonesia? Is Indonesia becoming more intolerant, or is intolerance becoming a more politically mainstream tactic? Following the mass rallies against then Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in late 2016, and

Beijing’s islands-building in the South China Sea and their militarisation, replete with surface-to-air missiles, is near complete. With guile, threat, and coercion, China can now seize control of one of the main transport arteries of Southeast Asia, making a mockery of

The theme of geopolitical competition which ran through the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue was appropriately expansive for the debut of the US Indo-Pacific strategy as outlined by US Defense Secretary James Mattis. Given that Singapore will host the Trump–Kim meeting in just over a week

According to the caricature in the popular media, Chinese international students in Australia are devoted agents of the Chinese Government. They are “brainwashed from birth” and, in this compromised state, pose a threat to Australian universities and the values they espouse. In this context,

It might surprise the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to learn they’ve short-changed themselves on amphibious capability. Sam Roggeveen wrote on The Interpreter recently (“Why China isn’t planning to storm Taiwan’s beaches”) that “China’s navy has grown dramatically over the past two

More than 1800 children aged between one month and six years old languish in Indian jails, growing up with their imprisoned mothers. The plight of these guiltless children has long been known in India, but recent investigations by a human rights lawyer in the state of Odisha, on

Marsha Harini is an Indonesian student who has lived in China for the past seven years. She graduated from one of the international schools in Shanghai, spent a year learning Mandarin at a university in Nanjing, and is currently completing the third year of a bachelor’s degree at Wuhan

On Sunday, two US Navy warships sailed through and near the Paracel group of islands claimed and occupied by China in the South China Sea. This was Washington’s latest freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) to counter what it claims are Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation