- Asian foreign policy experts believe regional influence will shift to China, according to a CSIS Survey of 400 regional policy wonks and 'strategic elite'. But a majority of US and Chinese experts disagree.
- Southeast Asia's promising democratisation is today going backwards, says Josh Kurlantzick in a Council on Foreign Relations paper (a summary here).
- After banning the three-finger salute, Thailand's military government is using glamorous 'army girls' to win hearts and minds.
- Anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar looks set to hurt foreign business, as monks are call for a boycott of Oreedoo, a Qatari telecoms firm.
- In the same vein, doctored pictures of Aung San Sui Kyi wearing a headscarf created uproar after circulating on social media and being posted by the wife of the country's Deputy Minister for Information.
- Min Zin looks at Myanmar's changing political landscape in a NYT op-ed:
The unprecedented chasm between the monkhood and the people is for now a source of tension and turmoil. But it augurs well for the country’s political and social development in the long term. The advent of a countermovement to Buddhist extremism suggests that the people of Myanmar are emancipating from traditional elites and taking a major stride toward modernity and democracy.
- A lesson for dispute resolution in the South China Sea? An RSIS paper by Indonesian Ambassador to the EU Arif Havas Oegroseno looks at the recent Philippines-Indonesia Agreement on the South China Sea claims.
- China's MFA has outlined a clearer and historically-based position on its Paracel Island and South China Sea claims this week (in Chinese), including, it contends, Vietnamese violations of the UNCLOS agreement.
- Reforms will decide Vietnam's ability to resist economic dominance by China, says John Lee in an ISEAS perspective paper.
- A video aired on Vietnamese TV of a Chinese vessel pursuing two Vietnamese boats and ramming one, leading to its reported sinking: