Asia

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has initiated a major overhaul of the Defense Security Command, a military intelligence unit, in the wake of revelations about its politicisation during the impeachment process last year of former president Park Geun-Hye. This scandal has roiled

The border separating North and South Korea remains one of the most heavily armed in the world. Surrounded by thickets of barbed wire, Korea’s misleadingly named Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) stretches about 250 kilometres across the peninsula. It is monitored ceaselessly, a stark reminder of the

Last week, the South Korean Blue House announced preparations for another  summit – what will be the third – between President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong-un in the northern autumn. Both Seoul and Pyongyang have sent ministers to discuss topics

With Imran Khan poised to form a government in Pakistan, the policy his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party will adopt towards China, especially the US$62 billion China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is a focus of intense discussion.     China’s interests have special

Facebook’s farcical entry into, and withdrawal from, the Chinese market in July appears to confirm a widely held view of the Chinese state’s power to police its online spaces. We like to think of China’s internet as not only bordered but also tightly controlled, subject to the

It started as soon as Xi Jinping had secured power over the party-state of China. First he was selected to head the Communist Party in November 2012, and then, in what was a mere formality, he was endorsed the following March as President of China. Along the way, he also became Chairman of the

One recent Saturday in August, in the middle of a heatwave with the temperature hitting 35 degrees, 70,000 women gathered in the streets of Seoul. The numbers were unprecedented, but the action wasn’t. They have been staging regular rallies since May, in what has been called the biggest recorded

China’s Xi Jinping this year crafted a constitutional amendment removing the two five-year term limit on the presidency of China, essentially making himself China’s President for life. Around that time in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) carried out

About 76% of Singapore’s population are ethnically Chinese, making it the only majority-Chinese country outside of China, Taiwan, and the cities of Hong Kong and Macau. But as Amy Qin’s New York Times article on Chinese influence creeping into Singapore began circulating on social media,

Malaysia is not usually a country that comes to mind when one thinks of where the geopolitical initiative lies in the Asia-Pacific. That accolade goes first to China, of course, the rising power in the region, and second to Japan, the state most capable of leading any regional counter-initiative

Last week, an Australian leader visited Dili for the first time in five years. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spent 36 hours in Timor-Leste as part of a four-country diplomatic trip around Southeast Asia. The dispute over whether a pipeline should be built to transfer Greater Sunrise gas to the

Last month, Thailand’s military government sought the extradition of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra from the UK. A year ago, Yingluck had been due in court to face charges of dereliction of duty while in office. She failed to show. She was found guilty in absentia and handed a five

The reaction to this week’s announcement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of a US$113 million infrastructure fund is that it was more than a tad underwhelming. When set against potentially upwards of US$1 trillion in financing for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI

Moon Jae-In has been president of South Korea for fifteen months so far. On the whole, he is a marked improvement on his predecessor, Park Geun-Hye. President Park was, of course, impeached and removed. For that alone she will go down in the history books as a poor president. Bizarrely, Park

On 17 July, the Supreme Court of India was moved to condemn the recent spate of lynchings across the country as “horrendous acts of mobocracy … which cannot be allowed to become ‘the new normal’”. The justices had gone straight to the heart of the matter. The loss of so many innocent lives

In 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced the term “rule of law in international relations” to describe the Chinese government’s vision for the interaction between states within the international order. He said: We should jointly promote the rule of law in international

Sri Lanka’s ethnic tensions remain predictably grim nearly a decade since the end of the country’s brutal 26-year civil war. The Special Rapporteur’s report is another reminder that Sri Lanka’s coalition government has performed terribly. A new report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the

Imran Khan’s impressive election victory in Pakistan marks the first time in country’s 70-year history that a relative outsider will govern on a democratic mandate. While he is dubbed the military’s and judiciary’s favourite candidate, Khan’s political struggle is enough reason to

Last week, rumours began swirling around Beijing about possible factional infighting within the Chinese Government involving President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. The rumours seemed troubling, with Chinese commentator Li Yee saying:  Online reports last Friday

There’s a quirk on Cambodian social media that initially stumps the uninitiated – comments on articles that comprise simply a string of 7777s or 4444s.  Until recently, a rousing speech posted to Facebook by former opposition leaders Sam Rainsy or Kem Sokha – the first in exile,

Beyond concern for the undoubted human costs of the collapse of Xepian-Xe Nam Noy dam in Laos, this event once again focuses attention on the long-term effect of the massive expansion of hydropower in the Mekong Basin. This event once again focuses attention on the long-term effect of the massive

Talks with North Korea have rarely been out of the news in recent months. While much of these dealings can be questioned, at least one outcome is now essentially beyond reasonable doubt. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pledged to dismantle North Korea’s main rocket engine test site during his

There are at least two schools of thought vis-à-vis the ongoing debate about the perils and opportunities associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). On the one hand, BRI hawks remain highly sceptical, focusing on supposedly nefarious geopolitical objectives behind China’s

Last month, a secret deal was revealed between Taiwan and Australia to send asylum seekers from Nauru to Taiwan for medical treatment. In Australia, the news has added to the controversy surrounding offshore detention centres, a crucial debate given reporting of yet another