Asia

Lock the doors When the China trade numbers were released on Tuesday, you could hardly blame Australia’s 2500 winemakers if they locked themselves in the cellar with a nice bottle of red. They certainly have plenty to drink. Only three months ago, Chinese customers drank 50% of Australian red

When China began three days of military exercises in the South China Sea’s Gulf of Tonkin back in January, some observers speculated that Beijing was testing the new Biden administration. Harsh words from Beijing accompanied the exercises, with China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin

In February, the United Kingdom became the first nation to formally apply to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the 11 country free trade deal spanning Asia and the Pacific. But the UK isn’t the only horse in the race. So far, eight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 “

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-

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

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

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