Asia

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India’s Koo plots a digital coup

Facebook might be a social media behemoth, its reach and power made apparent when Australian users saw local news rubbed off their screens from Thursday in response to new media laws, but the platform is also just one among an ever-growing online milieu. China has WeChat, the world has Twitter, and

By Aarti Betigeri

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How China is bending the rules in the South China Sea

Chinese exercises in the South China Sea last month, and the strong US response, show these disputed waters will not soon be calm. While the focus has largely been on military manoeuvres, competition in legal positions has also been heating up. Last year, both the United States and Australia risked

By Oriana Skylar Mastro

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Lowy Institute Conversations: Aye Min Thant and Melissa Crouch on the coup in Myanmar

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Ben Bland, Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, sits down with Aye Min Thant and Melissa Crouch to discuss the causes and consequences of the coup in Myanmar

By Ben Bland

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India, Canada and the new vaccine politics

The threat of wealthy countries hoarding vaccines for themselves and denying access to smaller and poorer countries has become the world’s primary cooperative concern. Yet how vaccine nationalism also attaches itself to pre-existing relationships between countries may become another part of this

By Grant Wyeth

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CCP governance comes to the South China Sea

Over the past decade, China has earned itself a reputation as a bully in the South China Sea. Its relentless coast guard patrols, frequent maritime militia operations and regular naval deployments are well documented. Using these capabilities, China harasses foreign fishing boats, disrupts energy

By Zachary Haver

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The importance of Myanmar’s pots and pans protests

The pounding of pots and pans in many parts of Myanmar at 8 o’clock every night signifies the civil outcry to the military coup that took place last week. In the early morning of Monday, 1 February, the Myanmar military detained the leaders of the ruling party (National League of Democracy, NLD)

By Phyu Phyu Oo

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Covid’s long reach upsets the economic pecking order

Passing lanes New forecasts that the Chinese economy will overtake the US in real terms much faster than expected are likely to have provided the Biden administration with a bracing context for a more coherent China policy. According to just released projections from the London-based Centre for

By Greg Earl

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Crushing dissent in a new paranoid India

The signs were always there. With a thumping majority in parliament, a nonexistent opposition and diminishing institutions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had the potential to proceed down the dangerous and desperate path of intolerance. Two months of sustained pressure from a

By Edmond Roy

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India and Australia: Beyond the three Cs

India often breezes through the window of Australia’s national consciousness, but rarely lingers. Will India once again disappear from our collective awareness, following a short summer in which we were captivated by a sublime test series in Australia? Cricket has been a common denominator

By Andrew Hunter

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India should prioritise a denial strategy in the Indian Ocean

To break the border stand-off between India and China in the Himalayas, some Indian analysts have advocated going on the offensive against China in the Indian Ocean. But that would be vague, illogical and imprudent, with little chance of success and significant risk of blowback. Instead, India and

By Arzan Tarapore

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Myanmar: Calling a coup a coup

The military takeover in Myanmar on 1 February was clearly unconstitutional, although there has been little detailed investigation of why. The US State Department announced that it regarded the takeover as a coup d'état but failed to provide a legal rationale. When is a coup not a coup

By Adam Simpson

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Pacific development outlook for 2021

Pacific nations have mostly escaped the heavy death toll and hospital bed shortages faced by Western countries battling Covid-19, but the pandemic has dealt a disproportionately severe blow to the region’s economic ambitions. But with the rollout of vaccines and economic recovery in sight in China

By Alexandre Dayant

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What APEC has to offer in 2021

It’s almost a year since the world changed. We now know that we are in for the long haul with the pandemic and that 2021 too is going to be difficult. The unseemly scramble over vaccination supplies and policy which have played out in recent weeks, particularly in Europe, is not encouraging. As

By Dick Grant

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Messages from China’s third white paper on foreign aid

In January, the Chinese government released its third white paper on foreign aid, entitled “China’s International Development Cooperation in the New Era”. It is worth taking a closer look at the Chinese-language original, which is more detailed in content than the English-language version

By Denghua Zhang

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What does America think the rules-based order is for?

This week we launched the latest project to emerge from the Lowy’s Institute’s Australia’s Security and the Rules-Based Order project, a debate feature on America and the Rules-Based Order. It’s a textbook example of constructive public debate. Each of the six expert participants

By Sam Roggeveen

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History haunts Japan–South Korea ties

The Seoul Central District Court last month delivered a verdict requiring the Japanese government to pay $US91,000 to 12 former “comfort women” who endured sexual slavery during the Second World War. The court’s ruling follows off the back of a similar decision by the South Korean Supreme

By Henry Storey

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Myanmar’s empty promise of constitutional reform

Myanmar’s political transition in 2011 was only ever a partial one. After all, the country moved from direct military rule without a constitution to a constitutional system in which the military reserved for itself unelected seats in parliament. The National League for Democracy (NLD) was

By Melissa Crouch

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A “beggar-thy-neighbour” approach keeps seafarers stranded

When a business manager is willing to spend US$200,000 to send home five employees whose contracts have expired and bring five colleagues to replace them on the spot, later telling a reporter the cost was the least of their worries, you can be sure a crisis is involved. In this case, it is on the

By Sandra Tsui

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The coup in Myanmar: What do we know?

On 1 February, Myanmar’s armed forces (or Tatmadaw) declared a one-year state of emergency, arrested State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and detained more than 50 politicians and activists. It had been just ten years since the former military regime permitted the transition to a “disciplined

By Andrew Selth

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International relations video of the year – by February

We’ll feature more analysis of the coup in Myanmar on The Interpreter in the coming days. Yet major political events such as this regularly become associated with a searing image – think the last stand of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko’s

By Daniel Flitton

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Helping Indonesia’s children in a time of pandemic

While the Indonesian government is taking important steps to improve pandemic management – appointing a new Health Minister and Minister of Social Affairs and preparing to provide a free vaccine for all – its attention is mostly focused on adults, people with underlying health conditions

By Dian Maya Safitri

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Why Indonesia seizing an Iranian tanker is purely over domestic law

The Indonesian coast guard (BAKAMLA) last week seized two oil tankers – one Iranian flagged, the other from Panama – inside Indonesia’s waters. The two tankers are suspected of conducting a cargo transfer at sea. Yet despite the obvious interest because of US unilateral sanctions on Iran, the

By Aristyo Rizka Darmawan

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Filling the gaps in ASEAN and EU cybercrime cooperation

The recent takedown of a major hacking network has demonstrated the importance of international cooperation in fighting cybercrime. Defined as criminal activity that either targets or uses a computer network or an electronic device, primarily but not always for financial profit, cybercrime has been

By Eugenio Benincasa

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China and the Australian far right

Since the start of the pandemic, China and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have become a key rallying point for a diverse array of political groups. This includes the Australian far right, which has seized on new opportunities related to China to radicalise and recruit throughout 2020. In

By Kaz Ross

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How to China, from your friends in New Zealand

It was probably only a matter of time before Damien O’Connor, not one of the leading lights in Jacinda Ardern’s second-term Cabinet, stepped into some diplomatic doo-doo. But in an interview with CNBC, New Zealand’s Trade Minister has done so in spectacular style. He gets douze points for

By Robert Ayson

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Using the Australian Open as a Tokyo test run

Focus on the upcoming Australian Open tennis tournament these last few weeks in the local media has been intense. Still, it’s possible that Olympics officials in Japan are monitoring the first tennis Grand Slam event of the year even closer than we are in Australia. As tournament organisers

By André Leslie

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Beijing’s “Wolf Warriors” score own goals

When China came for their kimchi, South Koreans knew they had had enough. Over the past several weeks, China’s state-backed Global Times has turned its crosshairs on Korea’s beloved fermented cabbage dish, running a provocative series of pieces asserting a version of the dish from China’s

By Peter T Charles

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Where in the world is Jack Ma?

Earlier this month, rumours began to swirl on both Chinese and international social media regarding the “disappearance” of Jack Ma, China’s most prominent businessman. Absent from a television episode on which he was scheduled to appear, the notable no-show has not been seen publicly since

By Elliott Zaagman

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We can’t combat China’s ‘grey zone’ war while polarised

Originally published in The Australian

By Ben Scott

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The Irrepressibles tame the Invincibles in their impregnable fortress

Bliss it was to be a cricket aficionado in Australia at dusk yesterday as the shadows lengthened at the Gabba and the players were bathed in soft golden sunlight. To be an Indian fan was pure heaven. We are resigned to heartaches as a staple diet. But once in a while, the gods smile, all is good in

By Ramesh Thakur

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Japan under Suga: The delicate balancing act

The calm but staunch assertion by China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe last month that the Japan-administered islands in the East China Sea belong to China is revealing of the challenges Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide will face in balancing Japan’s great power relationships. The “

By Alexi Heazle

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Wrong place, wrong citizenship: The tribulations of the “Two Michaels”

It has been now 772 days since Michael Kovrig, a diplomat on leave from Canada’s foreign ministry, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian business consultant living in China, were detained by Chinese authorities in apparent retaliation for the arrest ten days earlier by Canadian authorities of Meng

By Kim Richard Nossal

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Australia’s Pacific Step-up and the Quad

The growing synergy among the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue powers of Australia, Japan, the United States and India has provided a crucial impetus to the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. Bilateral ties between these four states have also seen positive growth, largely a result of “like-

By Eerishika Pankaj

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Resisting uncertainty, Malaysia is finding itself

Malaysia is in a quandary, desperately trying to figure out how to resolve political and economic questions. The fragmentation of the Malaysian market for votes is at a point it has never before experienced. In a country where ethnic politics have long dominated, there are the Malays, who are

By Shankaran Nambiar

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Boys’ love brings edgy drama to China, and a backlash

For years, Chinese television dramas were the poor cousins of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese soap operas. A 2018 Chinese remake of the Taiwanese show Meteor Garden is a good example. Following the tensions between a poor girl and four rich boys, the mainland version was unwatchable. A drama about

By Graeme Smith

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India launches its mammoth vaccine drive

India officially launches its Covid vaccination program tomorrow (16 January) in a major logistical exercise aiming to inoculate hundreds of millions of people. And with it, the hustle begins. India, just like China, will be looking to leverage the diplomatic benefit of its ability to manufacture

By Aarti Betigeri

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The cleric shell game in Indonesia

When Indonesian authorities recently banned well-known extremist group the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI) – having first arrested its leader, Rizieq Shihab – many lauded the move as a bold pushback against radicalism. But, weeks later, the world was equally stunned to learn that

By Johannes Nugroho

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America’s troubles ahead in the Asia-Pacific

Donald Trump has now become the first US president in history to be impeached twice, this time for “incitement of insurrection” for his role in last week’s violence in Washington. Yet as the US reels from the storming of the US Capitol building – civil strife which some analysts had warned

By Hadrien T. Saperstein

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Indonesia lags on renewable energy, and pays the price

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s vision to make the country a destination for foreign company investments neglects the growing demand for clean energy. RE100, a group of global companies committed to using 100% renewable energy, reached an annual total electricity consumption in

By Diwangkara Bagus Nugraha, Filda Citra Yusgiantoro

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Why North Korea wants an arms control deal with the United States

North Korea held its 8th Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party last week to set the country’s political and economic trajectory for the coming years after an uncertain 2020. One of the key items on the agenda was how Pyongyang would manage relations with the new US administration under Joe Biden

By Khang Vu

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In the defining year of his presidency, Joko Widodo faces an incredibly difficult challenge

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

By Ben Bland

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Australia's relationship with China can survive – but it won't be the same again

There can be no return to the relations of the past. The question for 2021 is how to find a new settling point. Originally published in The Guardian

By Natasha Kassam

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The China challenge: Highlights of The Interpreter in 2020

Interpreter columnist Greg Earl started the year noting the economic challenge of the two big Cs – China and climate change. A few weeks later, there was suddenly a third: corona. Roland Rajah: Australia’s tourism and education exports to China would appear most in the firing line. So it

By The Interpreter

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A missile spotter’s guide to North Korea (and beyond)

On 10 October, North Korea added to the woes of 2020 with an enormous military parade that revealed, among other weapons, what appeared to be an enormous new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). These weapons, dubbed the Hwasong

By Victor Abramowicz

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Can Modi calm the farm?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always been coated in Teflon: the kinds of policies and actions that would have brought down other leaders have barely left a dent in his impeccably tailored vests. But as it turns out, there is a chink in his armour: farmers. Specifically, 250 million of

By Aarti Betigeri

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Washington’s warped Asia policy debate

US President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to select retired Army General Lloyd Austin to be his Secretary of Defense triggered a somewhat predictable set of hot takes among US academics and commentators. Aside from questions about what his appointment would mean for civil-military relations, a major

By Dhruva Jaishankar

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When China lashed out

On the wintry night of 27 November 1950, Chinese troops suddenly descended upon the US 1st Marine Division and the 31st Regimental Combat Team around the frozen Chosin Reservoir, less than 100 kilometres away from the China-Korea border. Having failed to dissuade the United States with words from

By Frank Yuan

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Russia and China team up on the Indian Ocean

Two recent naval exercises demonstrate the potential for Russia-China cooperation in the Indian Ocean, and how the two present a much greater threat to a continued US role and influence in the region than either would individually. Last year, South Africa hosted a maritime exercise with

By Oriana Skylar Mastro

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Australia-Indonesia relations need to talk the talk

This year has been one of great tumult at Australian universities. Not least are the nonsensical proposals to axe Indonesian language programs by several universities, such as La Trobe, Western Sydney University and Murdoch. Australian universities are closing the door of opportunity to the

By Melissa Crouch

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A dilemma for Pakistan as UAE cuts off work visas

For the struggling economy of Pakistan, foreign remittances from expatriates are lifesavers, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is country’s second-largest source of remittances. In the last five years, 1.3 million Pakistanis have found jobs in the UAE. In 2019 alone, Pakistani expatriates in

By Adnan Aamir

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