Vietnam
Russia and Vietnam: An alliance of convenience
Russia is one of the biggest suppliers of weapons to Southeast Asia, with Vietnam alone a major customer for Russia’s arms. While it is estimated that throughout the 1980s Moscow…
Bad news for Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
The release of recent research from the Netherlands adds an additional insight into what is happening in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the country’s all-important food producing region…
Obstacles and opportunities in Vietnam-Australia ties
Australia and Vietnam officially became strategic partners in 2018, promising to expand cooperation across multiple domains. Yet economic ties have grown slowly from a relatively…
The ups and downs of the Vietnam–North Korea relationship
When the 2019 Hanoi summit ended in failure, then–US President Donald Trump generously offered his counterpart, North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un, a ride home on Air Force One…
The South China Sea map that wasn’t
On 9 September, the US embassy in Hanoi published on Facebook a map of Vietnam on a poster to commemorate the 25th anniversary of US-Vietnam diplomatic relations. At first the map…
Chinese dams and the Mekong drought
The latest reports from the Lower Mekong Basin are cause for growing concern that another period of drought will succeed that of 2019, affecting Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and…
What’s the secret to Southeast Asia’s Covid success stories?
After almost seven months, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to challenge the world, but some places seem to have managed surprisingly well. Thailand has not reported any local…
Commentary
Get behind Southeast Asia with clear policy against China bullies
Originally published in The Australian.
Southeast Asian democracies in declining health amid Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting democracies in the Asia-Pacific region in ways that demand Australian attention.
The ability to weather a crisis of this magnitude depends…