Asia

Speaking before a crowd at Tiananmen Square that gathered in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping triumphantly declared that the goal of building China into a “moderately prosperous” society had been completed. Though without a clear measurable

Australia’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update was, by the standards of such publications, a hard-hitting document. It had a particularly strong focus on grey zone activities, seen as increasingly troubling the Indo-Pacific and involving “military and non-military forms of assertiveness and coercion

My university campus sits amid several Olympic venues and the international media centre, down by the ports on Tokyo Bay. From my tenth floor office, I can observe the construction of the second Olympic flame plinth and across the port, the island where canoeing events will be held. On the other

Since mid-May, Indonesia has faced a massive surge in Covid-19 infections with the number of reported positive daily cases increasing fivefold. As of the most recent update from the World Health Organisation, Indonesia has recorded more than 2.5 million positive cases since the pandemic began and

Before the pandemic, Thai island Phuket offered visitors the perfect blend of sun, beach and seedy-but-fun nightlife as one of the region’s best-known tourist destinations. Now, it offers visitors something much more novel: a quarantine free holiday. As of the start of July, fully vaccinated

With the advance of the Taliban in parts of Afghanistan and the withdrawal of coalition forces, the question of how to help Afghans who worked intimately with Australian forces has become a significant media and political issue. Former Prime Minister John Howard, who dispatched Australian troops to

After more than four decades of reform and opening up, the centenary celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were an opportunity for the Party-state to proclaim the success of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. President Xi Jinping’s speech on 1 July made no bones about China

A worsening third wave of Covid-19 is a cruel new blow in Myanmar, still reeling from the human costs of the coup on 1 February, and with a military junta more focused on combatting dissent than combatting the virus. Thousands of new cases have arisen since late May, and the Delta, Alpha and Kappa

This week, Chinese multinational technology giant Tencent shut down hundreds of accounts on WeChat linked to LGBTQ groups. Suddenly millions of queer people in China were confronted by a blunt message on their favourite social media accounts: In response to related complaints, all content has been

On the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi Jinping reiterated the longstanding Chinese goal of strengthening science and technology to help achieve national rejuvenation. China’s advances in areas such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and facial recognition have already

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab made a whirlwind trip last week to Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore – three key nations that figure prominently in the UK’s post-Brexit trade calculations. Raab boasted the Cambodia visit was the first to the country by a British foreign secretary in

With the passing of former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, the country’s political future becomes even more uncertain in the run-up to an election next year.     The former president passed away on 24 June, aged 61. His death comes as the Philippines grapples with

The face of New Delhi’s political heart, Lutyens Delhi (named after the British architect Edwin Lutyens who designed it) is a place of broad boulevards, imposing red sandstone buildings, flowing fountains and wide swathes of green space. Built between 1911 and 1931, the area was intended to be the

In recent months, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has raged against the cultural influence of South Korea, calling K-pop a “vicious cancer” permeating North Korean society. This push against South Korean popular culture is nothing new for the regime. In fact, K-dramas and K-pop have long been

Phyu Phyu Oo and Sara Davies Conflict-related sexual violence has been a feature of fighting in Myanmar for decades – a crime explicitly singled out by the UN Secretary General since 2012. In most cases, Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, is identified as the perpetrator of the crimes. Multiple

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un delivered an important speech last week during a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea – the first substantive response from Pyongyang on the prospects for United States-North Korea relations since the Biden administration completed its North Korea policy

“China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy.” Or so said a Chinese government official speaking to an Australian reporter in November 2020. This comment came with the now infamous “14 grievances”, a list of what the official said were the obstacles to improvement in

India’s second wave of Covid-19 has been brutal on its people. During the first wave, images emerged of a mass exodus from the major cities with countless people walking – sometimes more than 700 kilometres – back to their villages, many not surviving the journey. Now it is happening again.

In his first overseas trip as US President, Joe Biden has flagged he intends to rally European allies in a critical “battle between democracies and autocracies”, and “make it clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight”. Biden is not the only one in

After a long period of uber-bipartisanship in the handling of China relations, Labor has opened a clear line of attack on the Morrison government.   Last month, at the Canberra launch of Nine columnist Peter Hartcher’s new book, The Red Zone, shadow foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said

During the 1970s and 1980s, when international terrorism was capturing global headlines and exercising the minds of governments and security experts, there were heated arguments over how to describe this kind of political violence. It was more than just a theoretical exercise, as a rigorous

There is an anxious wait for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to effectively intervene in Myanmar’s political crisis caused by the February 1 military coup. The Myanmar state is functionally failing. The country is spiralling into chaos with rising urban armed violence, civil war, a

Joe Biden is about to fly to the United Kingdom on his first foreign visit as US President. Biden will attend the G7 summit in Cornwall from 11–13 June, head to Belgium for summits with NATO and the European Union on 14–15 June, then meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland the

For years, Indonesia has been plagued by so-called “elastic laws” – a set of bills that can see a person indicted for violating poorly defined provisions, such as defaming an individual or group, religious blasphemy, committing treason, or inciting public disorder. Activists have pointed out