Asia

There has always been something of a ghost-like quality to languorous Dili, capital of Timor-Leste with its Portuguese-era buildings and statues from Indonesian times still standing.  Nowadays, it feels that there are new ghosts in the city: imprints of a once prominent international presence

Speaking at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, the Lowy Institute’s Herve Lemahieu was asked what might happen to the distribution of power as we move from an open and consensual world order to one that is more defined by competition and zero-sum politics, certainly between the two largest

China is frequently hailed as a leader in international efforts to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, playing a pivotal role in negotiating the Paris Agreement, and pledging that carbon emissions will peak by 2030 and decline rapidly thereafter. The country has quickly become one of the

The simmering dispute between Canada and China – building since 1 December following Canada’s detention of the Huawei executive and Chinese national, Meng Wanzhou – has now apparently placed the life of a Canadian detained in China at risk. Canada has acted responsibility in dealing with the

Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential elections are due in July and there are, at best, contradictory signals about progress on the negotiations with the Taliban. Despite 2018 being one of the most violent years in Afghanistan’s post 9/11 history, last year also increased hopes on the

To TPP or not It might sound like a voice from the vault, but the New Year has begun with a fresh round of will-they or won’t-they about additional membership of the revamped Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Australia’s newish Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Mark Coulton&

There used to be thousands of them – the children of the children of the first Chinese people to migrate to Timor-Leste in the 1800s and their indigenous Timorese husbands and wives. But conflict, rejection, and the promise of a better life abroad saw the dispersed Hakka-descended Chinese-

South Korean President Moon Jae-in recently shook up his cabinet. In particular, his controversial chief of staff, Im Jeong-seok, stepped down. The growing impression in South Korea is that Moon is more concerned with relations with North Korea than with domestic issues. Certainly, it appears that

There is growing anxiety about the increased Chinese footprint in South Asia and Africa within the strategic community in the West and India. Chinese projects have raised concerns about the lack of transparency, sustainable development, and being politically motivated. This has led to pushback

It might seem odd to see a glimmer of hope for conservation of the world’s whales, at the very time Japan has announced it will unilaterally withdraw from global whaling regulations and kick-start commercial hunts in its territorial waters. Australia has branded the move “

It is January; a month that, in north India, once fell in the season of winter, but now is more synonymous with the depths of the region’s dreaded pollution season. This month, as in recent years, a brutal combination of diverse factors has continued to coalesce to produce dire air quality in its

Some have called Myanmar a struggling beauty. Without a doubt, the country is beautiful, home to a number of unique heritage sites. Yet it is also a country that claims it has been widely misunderstood. The basis to sustaining democratisation of the country is dependent on appeasing the military

How to capture a year of extraordinary diplomacy on the Korean peninsula, that started out with bragging about the size of a nuclear button to a cozy photo-op with the US President and North Korea’s supreme leader. Perhaps Khang Vu put it best, asking whether the so-called “Olympic truce”

Just as the Trump-Xi meeting at the G20 produced a glimmer of hope for mutual de-escalation, the US-China trade war has taken its ugliest turn yet. Last week, Beijing detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s Chief Financial

A series where Lowy Institute experts look back on what surprised them in 2018. For some years now I have believed that the United States is on the losing end of a long struggle with China for strategic hegemony in Asia. My position is summarised in a long article I wrote for the Financial Review

Last month, the leader of Australia’s best known anti-immigration party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, argued that not all non-white migration was a problem. Indians, Hanson said, were good migrants to Australia because they work hard and assimilate. Hanson is not the first far-right, anti-

The administration has recognised that the true challenge China presents is not fundamentally one of a rising power threatening to replace an established power. Instead it is the challenge that China poses to the fundamental principles embraced by market democracies globally: free trade and open

Like in Australia, the debate about foreign interference in Taiwan usually centres on the shadowy intentions of China. But a very different source of overseas influence is blamed, at least in part, for Taiwan’s failed bid last month to become the first Asian nation to formally legalise same-sex

The Indian city Ayodhya recently once again turned into a saffron fortress. The BJP seems set to fight the 2019 elections by rallying its factions and allies to assert the Hindutva agenda and further politicising Hindu-Muslim relations. More than 50,000 supporters of the Hindu Right,

Ties between India and Australia have always been a little constrained – and unsurprisingly so, as traditionally there has been little to connect the two countries. For its part, Australia has for decades sought to have a better relationship with India, one that extends beyond shared democracy,

In 2016, I published a study of Xi Jinping, CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping (I B Tauris). This book has subsequently been reissued in paperback, and in 2018 I did a shorter overview, The World According to Xi with the same publisher. For one reason or the other, other the last few years I have had

We are not entering a new Cold War, despite both Chinese President Xi and US Vice-President Pence finding the term a useful rhetorical tool. The Americans have decided to compete against China because they think the last two decades of cooperation has failed. The Trump Administration,

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Darwin was rightly billed as historic and “deeply symbolic”. It also delivered some substance, with the announcement of important deals on the financing of regional infrastructure and on deepening cooperation on maritime security. It did not