Asia

Last Wednesday the People’s Liberation Army-Navy launched the first of its new air warfare ships, designated the Type 055 destroyer. At approximately 10,000 tons displacement and 180m in length, this is not a small ship, and for good reason. It is intended to provide the air defence for an

Last weekend marked the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the UK to China, with Xi Jinping making his first trip to Hong Kong as President to hail the occasion. On Saturday night, Hong Kong's skyline was lit up with red and gold fireworks to mark the event. But not all were in a

In responding to recent media coverage of Chinese communist party influence over Australia’s institutional infrastructure ('Where have all the grown-ups gone on China policy?', Australian Financial Review), former Ambassador to China Geoff Raby makes an important point. The issue is not the

A decade after the handback of Hong Kong in 1997, most analysis was positive. The period up to 2007 had had its up and downs – the calamitous impact of the Asian Financial Crisis that began in1997 for instance, and the rows over Article 23 law forbidding subversion, which led to mass protests and

Earlier this month Panama established formal ties with the People's Republic of China (PRC) immediately after severing diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC), as Taiwan is officially known. The question that is now being insistently, even fastidiously, asked is which state will be the

Last week the Indian warships INS Kamorta, INS Shivalik and INS Jyoti arrived in Western Australia’s port city of Fremantle to participate in a bilateral exercise. The military drills came close on the heels of a controversial decision by New Delhi to reject Canberra’s request for observer

Following his recent speech at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis was asked a question about North Korea. This excerpt from his answer should be of interest to Australians, among others: We obviously work very, very closely with the United Nations Command.

Several days ago some very upsetting footage surfaced online of a woman being hit by car in the central Chinese province of Henan. She was ignored by passers-by as she lay injured on the road, and then hit again, this time fatally. The incident - not the first of its kind - has caused a resurgence

On Monday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano announced that Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is planning a trilateral conference with the Philippines and Malaysia to discuss the situation in Marawi City. Several Malaysian and Indonesian terrorists have been killed in the

South Korea at last has a new president, Moon Jae In. Moon is a liberal, and that has absorbed much of the political discourse since his inauguration. There is anxiety on the right that he will strike a generous deal with North Korea. Similarly, there is discomfort on the American side with Moon’s

Taiwanese media has branded the youth of Taiwan with a new collective name: ‘the naturally independent’ generation (天然獨 or 自然獨). A typical member of the ‘naturally independent’ generation would be born after 1980, identify as Taiwanese (as opposed to Chinese), and would view

Much has been said about US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East but it’s worth remembering that only a few weeks earlier a mirror image of Trump’s Middle East tour took place in China. In mid-March, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

As most readers of The Interpreter already know, last weekend the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) hosted the 16th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore (SLD17). Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull provided the keynote speech. US Defence Secretary Mattis gave a much-anticipated

Summit risks A subtle tussle over priority for Asia’s two nascent new trade groupings is under way with some potentially significant implications for Australia’s summit of South East Asian leaders in Sydney next March. Most South East Asian countries are placing a high priority on achieving

Almost exactly 57 years ago, as a junior Australian diplomat, I accompanied a Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme engineer to what was then the remote town of Kratie in northeastern Cambodia. His brief was to undertake a preliminary survey of the Sambor region - just to the north of Kratie town -&

After decades of strained bilateral relations, Australia’s defence ties with Myanmar are gradually being restored. The office of the Defence Attache (DA) in the Australian embassy in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), which closed in 1979, was reopened in 2014. This coincided with a port visit by HMAS

The shocking siege in Marawi City in the Philippines island of Mindanao this past week represents the apex of heightening violence between Islamic militants and counter-terror forces, alongside inevitable strong-arming from President Rodrigo Duterte. The declaration of martial law amid the bloody

People often argue that America’s alliances in Asia are a decisive advantage in its contest with China for regional strategic primacy. China’s only ally, they say, is North Korea, while America has an entire alliance system encompassing many key regional states, as well as a wider circle of

One year has elapsed since Tsai Ing-wen was inaugurated on 20 May. This article assesses her administration’s performance in three specific foreign policy areas - cross-Strait relations, relations with the US, and relations with the broader international community - and briefly touches on her

The imprisonment on blasphemy charges of Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as Ahok, has been a blow to hopes that his earlier success in public office represented the emergence of a more pluralist politics in Indonesia. There is little question that the accusation that Ahok had