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Keep up to date with the latest news and analysis on Asia with our wide range of material including books, interviews, policy documents and much more.

2023

Those worried about Australia’s sovereign capability under AUKUS miss the point. That ship has sailed

Bec Strating
15 March 2023

"Australia is already deeply enmeshed within the US defence establishment and its security planning is increasingly reliant on stability in Washington"

Source: The Guardian
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‘Very few companies are open for international students’: South Asian graduates say they need specific support to find jobs

Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh, Hannah Holmes, Sabrina Gupta
14 March 2023

"International students are a hugely important part of Australia’s university system and its economy. In 2019, before COVID, international education was worth about A$40.3 billion to the Australian economy."

Source: The Conversation
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2022

As APEC winds up, ‘summit season’ brought successes but also revealed the extent of global challenges

Nick Bisley
20 November 2022

"Every November, the annual summit meetings of Asia’s key regional institutions attracts the world’s attention. The APEC leaders’ meeting started the trend in 1993, adopting a much-derided practice of an awkward photo op where presidents and prime minister dress in “local” attire. ASEAN’s own leaders’ summit and its outgrowths, especially the East Asia Summit (EAS), are scheduled in close proximity to APEC, creating an annual “summit season”."

Source: The Conversation
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ASEAN leaders give ‘in-principle’ support for Timor-Leste’s membership. What does this actually mean?

Bec Strating
12 November 2022

"On Friday, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s member states provided a statement announcing “in-principle” support for Timor-Leste to be admitted as its 11th member. So does this mean Timor-Leste’s long wait to become a member of ASEAN is finally over? The short answer is not quite."

Source: The Conversation
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North Korea’s flurry of missile tests raises alarm – but are we seeing anything new?

Benjamin Habib
7 November 2022

"The sustained frequency and intensity of North Korea’s missile launches in recent weeks has refocused attention on the Korean Peninsula at a time when the danger of great power war seems more immediate."

Source: The Conversation
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Triumph, tragedy and climate change: telling the stories of the Sherpas of Everest

Ruth Gamble
25 October 2022

"Few communities have enjoyed the collective fame and individual obscurity of the Sherpas. This minority group, living across the high-Himalaya border between Tibet (China) and Nepal, has become famous for its many world-class mountain climbers."

Source: The Conversation
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Britain, Australia and climate cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

Kate Clayton
22 June 2022

"Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, made his first international call on the job to Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, as he flew to the Quad Leaders Meeting in Tokyo in May. During the call ‘both leaders agreed that there was strong alignment between their governments’ joint agendas, spanning across global security, climate change and trade’. Indeed, climate change is now a central pillar of the United Kingdom (UK)-Australia relationship."

Source: Council on Geostrategy
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North Korea careens from floods to drought, straining an already fragile system

Benjamin Habib
21 June 2022

"Climate change is intensifying environmental shocks in the DPRK and placing millions at risk of going hungry"

Source: NK PRO
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Marles shifts tone on China at defence summit – but the early days of government are easiest

Nick Bisley
17 June 2022

"In its first month in power, foreign policy and national security have played a major part of the new government’s activities. "

Source: The Conversation
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‘Mutual respect and genuine partnership’: how a Labor government could revamp our relationship with Indonesia

Bec Strating
23 May 2022

"During the election campaign, Anthony Albanese singled out Indonesia as a key regional partner.

The new prime minister made a point of declaring he intended his first overseas visit as head of a Labor government would be to Indonesia."

Source: The Conversation
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The Ukraine war threatens Asia’s regional architecture

Nick Bisley
21 May 2022

"In 2022, there will be great interest in Asia’s summit season because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The annual East Asia Summit, ASEAN and APEC meetings always attract attention due to the proximity of many world leaders, but the less glamorous work of the multilateral mechanisms goes on throughout the year in efforts to drive cooperation as well as to prepare for the jamborees at the year’s end."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Labor’s proposed Pacific labour scheme reforms might be good soft diplomacy but will it address worker exploitation?

Emily Foley and Bec Strating
19 May 2022

"National security has been a feature of this election campaign, but there’s been little substantive difference on key issues of foreign policy. Last week’s foreign policy debate between Foreign Minister Senator Marise Payne and Shadow Minister Penny Wong barely touched on differences in policy."

Source: The Conversation
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Cope North 2022: deepening security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

Bec Strating
4 March 2022

"In February 2022, the US, Australia, and Japan participated in the Cope North military exercises across Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Described as the US Pacific Air Forces' ‘largest multilateral exercise’, the trilateral forces jointly responded to a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) training scenario over 16 days. The exercise also included aerial combat training, with more than 2,000 sorties."

Source: 9dashline
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Correspondence: Pivot to India

Ian Woolford
1 February 2022

“But Australia should not fall prey to a brand of racist Orientalism that views the new US authoritarianism as so shocking it requires a rethink of Australia’s foreign policy, while seeing India’s authoritarian turn as par for the course.”

Source: Australian Foreign Affairs, Vol 14 (Feb 2022)
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Joining the “Barty party” in foreign and defence policy

Bec Strating Joanne Wallis
1 February 2022

"If Australia wants a role model for how to present itself to the world, the tennis champ embodies humility and grit."

Source: The Interpreter
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A viral folksong pierces the fog of Indian social media

Ian Woolford
24 January 2022

"A Bhojpuri folksong written and performed by a young woman from rural India recently went viral on social media, because of the clarity and courage she uses to critique the politics of Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to that state’s elections."

Source: NRI Affairs
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2021

What Might AUKUS Mean for Australia’s Relations with South Korea?

Rebecca Strating
21 October 2021

"Despite strong economic ties, Australia and Korea defence cooperation ties are only beginning to deepen. In June 2021, the leaders of the two countries met on the sidelines of G7 leaders meeting and declared they were working towards a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP). Ranking below the Australia-Japan Special Strategic Partnership, Australia has recently elevated relations to CSP level with a raft of other regional partners, including India, Vietnam and Malaysia."

Source: KIMS Periscope
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Islamists back at work, pushing conservative gender politics as a ‘response’ to Covid-19

Dina Afrianty
12 October 2021

"On 23 September, Indonesia’s second largest Islam-based political party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), sparked controversy by publicly recommending polygamy as part of its Covid-19 response."

Source: Indonesia at Melbourne
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US posturing on China must go beyond rhetoric

Nick Bisley
6 October 2021

"Framed as the Indo-Pacific, Asia is the Biden administration’s theatre of strategic priority. But doubts linger about Washington’s ability to match its words with deeds.

The contours of US Asia policy under the Biden administration have become clearer through the recent high-profile visits to the region by Vice-President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, on top of the launch of the AUKUS arrangements."

Source: Australian Financial Review
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WHO workers are accused of sexual exploitation and abuse. That hurts everything the U.N. does

Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
5 October 2021

"As one official told me: ‘The U.N. is not a superpower. It has only its moral authority, and if you undermine that, you’re finished.’

Last week, an independent panel commissioned by the World Health Organization released a report detailing 83 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse linked to the WHO’s response to the 2018 to 2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The alleged perpetrators include drivers, security guards, doctors, consultants and senior staff."

Source: The Washington Post
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More continuity than change in Biden’s Asia strategy

Nick Bisley
28 September 2021

"The contours of US Asia policy under the Biden administration have become clearer through the recent high-profile visits to the region by Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. While the tone is different from the bombast of the Trump presidency, these reveal much more continuity than change in Washington’s approach."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Australia faces a contested region

Nick Bisley
12 August 2021

"For a white colonial settler society with an economy strongly dependent on primary production for its export earnings, Australia’s international interests are remarkably similar to many countries in the region. It has a strong security relationship with the United States but burgeoning economic ties with the PRC. Much of its prosperity depends on international trade and capital flowing relatively freely across the international economy and it is but one of many small and mid-sized players in Asia, which has a small number of great powers. Australia is thus a useful lens through which to look at Asia’s rapidly shifting strategic dynamics and the choices countries are making in response to a regional context that is more unstable and uncertain than at any time since the mid-1970s."

Source: 9dashline
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How can Australia reset relations with China?

Bec Strating and Kate Clayton
11 August 2021

"Australia-China relations appear caught in a well-charted downward spiral. In the past year alone both countries have lodged complaints against the other with the World Trade Organisation and a freeze on high-level diplomatic relations remains in place. China has slapped tariffs on key Australian exports, while the chattering classes have unhelpfully stoked fears of a regional war."

Source: The Interpreter
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Climate change and maritime boundaries: Pacific responses and implications for Australia

Bec Strating and Joanne Wallis
28 July 2021

"Climate change has the potential to undermine the maritime resource entitlements of Pacific island states. Resource-rich maritime areas are a vital source of revenue for these states and central to their identity as ‘large ocean states’ in the ‘Blue Pacific’."

Source: Asian Insights
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Why is Antarctica Missing In Action in the Indo-Pacific concept?

Bec Strating and Elizabeth Buchanan
12 July 2021

"The widespread adoption of ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategies suggests maritime democracies are working to collectively constrain the rise of China as the geopolitical centre of gravity returns to Asia. In these Indo-Pacific narratives, the South China Sea features primarily as evidence of increasing strategic competition between the US and China and is cast as a litmus test for China’s efforts to re-write the ‘rules-based order’ in other maritime domains. Yet, China’s ‘lawfare’ activities have the capacity (and indeed intent) to erode the free and open Indo-Pacific in more places than the South China Sea. Beijing is increasing its presence in and entrenching itself to secure long-term access to resources in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean."

Source: 9DashLine
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Xinjiang Denialists Are Only Aiding Imperialism

Gerald Roche
6 July 2021

"Opposing American empire should never justify supporting perpetrators of atrocities, and yet that’s exactly what some anti-imperialists are doing with their analysis of events in China’s Xinjiang region. These pundits claim that efforts to expose human rights abuses in Xinjiang are really aimed at generating consensus for a “new Cold War” against China. It is only the latest manifestation of American denialism, and instead of challenging US empire, it only helps to cover up US government complicity in the oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang."

Source: The Nation
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Australia and New Zealand: Approaches to maritime security strategy

Bec Strating
22 June 2021

"Asia’s more demanding geopolitical environment has compelled states to rethink approaches to maritime security. The maritime domain has increasingly become a site of geostrategic competition between the US and China. Conventional maritime security issues intersect with unconventional challenges such as illegal fishing, piracy, human trafficking at sea, and climate change in complex and challenging ways."

Source: 9DASHLINE
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COVID-19, public ignorance and democratic decline: three forces chipping away at Indonesia’s poor environmental conservation

Dirk Tomsa and Ken M. P. Setiawan
16 June 2021

"Studies examining how the pandemic has affected the environment around the globe have produced mixed results.

Among some good news, for instance, lockdown measures worldwide have resulted in reduced greenhouse gas emissions and better air quality."

Source: The Conversation
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Troubled waters? Australia-Indonesia maritime boundary in the news

Bec Strating
2 June 2021

"It would not be a good example for the region should Canberra and Jakarta be unable to resolve “technical amendments”."

Source: The Interpreter
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Global civil society must promote linguistic rights for China’s Indigenous peoples

Gerald Roche
11 May 2021

"Approximately 300 languages are spoken in China, and about half are being eliminated. A major factor driving this crisis is China’s successful isolation of its citizens from transnational civil society that supports Indigenous languages in forums such as the United Nations."

Source: Melbourne Asia Review
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Beyond Xinjiang: Xi Jinping’s Ethnic Crackdown

James Leibold
1 May 2021

"The shifts in ethnic policy go well beyond Xinjiang. This is fundamental rethink of how the CCP manages ethnocultural diversity and its colonial possessions."

Source: The Diplomat
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Shared burden of a new vision for Asia-Pacific

Nick Bisley
23 March 2021

"The relief is palpable. After four years, Washington’s Asian allies have found what they hope their former partner will be. US President Joe Biden Won’t Do It shake Japan and South Korea, Hector Australian Prime Ministers or fawn on Chinese President Xi Jinpings’ strongman tactics."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission in dire straits

2020

Will the born-again Masyumi Party shake up Indonesia’s Islamic politics?

Dirk Tomsa
16 December 2020

"In early November, a group of Islamist activists led by the former leader of the Indonesian Islamic Propagation Council, Cholil Ridwan, declared the resurrection of Indonesia’s once-powerful but long-defunct Masyumi Party."

Source: The Conversation
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How Indonesian Female Journalists Take Part in Gender Activism: The Line Between Journalism and Advocacy

Monika Winarnita and Nasya Bahfen
11 December 2020

"The fight against gender inequality on digital platforms – known as digital gender activism – is a contentious issue in Indonesia."

Source: The Good Men Project
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A US led by Joe Biden will focus on Asia and China

Nick Bisley
13 November 2020

"The election of Joe Biden represents not only a repudiation of Donald Trump and his divisiveness, but an embrace of centrism and a mainstream approach to government and policy."

Source: Channel News Asia
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Biden will place Asia back at the centre of foreign policy – but will his old-school diplomacy still work?

Nick Bisley
11 November 2020

"The election of Joe Biden represents not only a repudiation of Donald Trump and his divisiveness, but an embrace of centrism and a mainstream approach to government and policy."

Source: The Conversation
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Why the Arctic is Not the ‘Next’ South China Sea

Elizabeth Buchanan and Bec Strating
5 November 2020

"The South China Sea and the Arctic are increasingly grouped as strategic theaters rife with renewed great-power competition. This sentiment permeates current affairs analysis, which features geopolitical links between the two maritime theaters. And these assessments are not resigned to “hot takes” — the linkage features at senior policy levels, too. Consider, for example, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s rhetorical question, “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” "

Source: War on the Rocks
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Scott Morrison's China policies are selling Australia short

Priya Chacko and Bec Strating
28 October 2020

"Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently declared that his approach to foreign policy is defined by "strategic patience and consistency," particularly regarding China, Australia's biggest trading partner."

Source: Nikkei Asia
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The China-US rivalry is not a new Cold War. It is way more complex and could last much longer

Nick Bisley
27 August 2020

"China-US relations have been sliding toward confrontation throughout the Donald Trump presidency. The “beautiful chocolate cake” shared by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in April 2017 seems from another era."

Source: The Conversation
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Freedom of choice: are Indonesian women caught in a policy trap?

Dina Afrianty
15 August 2020

"Women were central to the fall of Soeharto, and there is no doubt that women have continued to experience important gains since Reformasi began in 1998. Indonesia has already had a female president, and currently has a female foreign minister in Retno Marsudi and a finance minister in Sri Mulyani. They are, respectively, a world-class bureaucrat and an economic reformer."

Source: The Conversation
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Telling the China Story in Australia: Why we need racial literacy

Gerald Roche
26 July 2020

"A combination of increasing polarisation and rising racism have intensified discussions about what constitutes racist speech, and the relevance of racism to discussions about China in Australia. In order to answer these questions, we need to improve our understanding of what racism is and how it works in Australia."

Source: The China Story
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Australia lays down the law in the South China Sea dispute

Bec Strating
25 July 2020

"Australia has entered the renewed diplomatic fray about China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, clarifying, if not entirely resolving, Canberra’s previously vague legal position on the strategically important and contested waters."

Source: The Interpreter
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What Does the US Statement on the South China Sea Mean for Security in the Asia Pacific?

Rebecca Strating
24 July 2020

"The United States’ recent clarification of its position on maritime claims in the South China Sea is a small win for international law. Key questions are now, what will the US do to back up its new explicit stance, and what may it ask of its regional allies and partners?"

Source: Australian Outlook
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China is harvesting the DNA of its people. Is this the future of policing?

Emile Dirks and James Leibold
24 July 2020

"For several years now, the police and other authorities in China have been collecting across the country DNA samples from millions of men and boys who aren’t suspected of having committed any crime."

Source: New York Times
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Can Hindi Be LGBTQ-Friendly? Here’s How Language Can Free You

Ian Woolford
1 June 2020

"Every Hindi noun has a gender — masculine or feminine. A noun’s gender determines its inflection. Adjectives must agree in gender as well, and verbs change to match the gender of the subject. So the verb in the sentence “I am going”changes according to my gender: “mai jaati hoon”, or “mai jaata hoon”. On the first day of Hindi 101, my university students learn to ask after each other‘s wellbeing: “How are you?”— “kaisi ho”, if asking a female student; “kaise ho”, if asking a male student."

Source: The Quint
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US-China relations were already heated. Then coronavirus threw fuel on the flames

Nick Bisley
12 May 2020

"Even before the COVID-19 crisis upended the world, US-China relations had entered a particularly mistrustful and combative period.  While the mutual antagonism predated the Trump administration – Chinese President Xi Jinping had earlier ushered in a more assertive and ambitious approach to the world and the Obama administration recognised the limits to its engagement with China – the 45th US president took things to a new level."

Source: The Conversation
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Australia’s incrementalist hedging in a fractured order

Nick Bisley
4 May 2020

"Australia has enjoyed an international order highly conducive to its interests and values since it began to develop its own foreign policy in the 1940s. Of the array of forces that create an international order, three have been of greatest significance for Australia: geopolitical stability, a dynamic and liberal global economy and a set of international institutions aligned to its strategic and economic disposition."

Source: East Asia Forum
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This is why Singapore’s coronavirus cases are growing: a look inside the dismal living conditions of migrant workers

Sallie Yea
30 April 2020

"in recent weeks, Singapore went from global success story in its response to the coronavirus outbreak to having the largest number of cases in Southeast Asia."

Source: The Conversation
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Japan and South Korea: Two "Like-Minded" States Have Mixed Views on Conflicts in the South China Sea

Rebecca Strating
24 April 2020

"Many argue that China’s increasingly aggressive posture in the South China Sea is an attempt to unilaterally alter the US-led regional order, which includes an emphasis on freedom of navigation. In response, the US has stressed the importance of support from “like-minded” states—including Japan and South Korea—in defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and elsewhere. This characterization, however, disguises important differences in attitudes and behavior that could hinder joint efforts to push back against China."

Source: East West Centre
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Asia after the pandemic

Nick Bisley
8 April 2020

"The stabilising force of shared economic interests could be lost after the crisis, leaving the region more dangerous."

Source: The Interpreter
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Enabling Authoritarianism in the Indo-Pacific?

Bec Strating
2 April 2020

"The term “Indo-Pacific” has become increasingly present in Australian foreign policy discourses, particularly in terms of democracy promotion.  Yet perceptions of exceptionalism can have the opposite effect."

Source: Australian Outlook
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Your favourite Nikes might be made from forced labor. Here’s why.

Vicky Xiuzhong Xu and James Leibold
18 March  2020

"What’s happening to the Uighur people is not a local issue, but a global one that presents a new challenge for multinational companies and individual consumers."

Source: Washington Post
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Partition's ghosts: ‘Why are you silent?’ What the poetry of Kedarnath Singh (and Ageya) means in the times of CAA-NRC

Ian Woolford
8 February 2020

"In August of 1947, India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. The birth of these two nations was marred by unprecedented violence in the region. More than one million people were killed in one of the largest mass migrations in human history. Once-peaceful communities turned on themselves, and families with age-old ties to their ancestral homes became instantly displaced. The new borders divided more than just two nations. No matter their distance from the India-Pakistan border, individual villages were also sliced open along new communal lines."

Source: Scroll.in
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Russia and China’s Assault on the International Human Rights System

Geoffrey Roberts
6 February 2020

"Russia and China have waged a decade-long campaign to dismantle the global human rights order.
For the last decade, Western democracies and human rights activists have been locked in a bitter struggle with authoritarian great powers at the United Nations (UN). Since 2009, Russia and China have waged a systematic campaign to dismantle the international human rights system."

Source: Australian Outlook
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The weakening of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission

Jeremy Mulholland and Arbi Sanit
28 January 2020

"The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is an anomaly in Indonesia’s corrupt institutional environment. As the KPK Law 30/2002 produced one of the world’s most effective anti-corruption agencies, critics and state power-holders had duplicitously argued for the KPK to be reinvented to function as a government-friendly ‘watchdog’ focusing on corruption prevention."

Source: East Asia Forum
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‘Like-minded states’ and the liberal international order

Bec Strating
9 January 2020

"Allies and partners of the United States in Asia use ‘rules-based order’ rhetoric as shorthand for a US-led regional order. This has been a notable feature of the Indo-Pacific discourses, which have tended to establish binaries between rule preservationist states on the one hand, such as Australia and Japan, and rules-breaking rising powers on the other. While not always explicit, China is viewed as the main challenger to the ‘rules-based order’."

Source: Griffith Asia Institute
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2019

US Perspectives on The South China Sea in An Era of Strategic Competition

Bec Strating
28 November 2019

"What stance should the US take in its dealings with China in the South China Sea? Considerations such as China’s threat potential and ideological factors are important determinants."

Source: Australian Institute of International Affairs
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East Asia Summit buffeted by great power rivalry

Nick Bisley
3 November 2019

"Asia’s summit season is upon us once again. Over the next few weeks leaders from across the region will gather to discuss a vast array of issues from North Korea’s nuclear program to education harmonisation. At the centre, purportedly at least, of the many gatherings is the East Asia Summit (EAS). It brings together the leaders of the ten ASEAN members as well as from Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and India to drive cooperation to make the region more peaceful, stable and prosperous."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Forward-based enablers for Australia’s submarines: what about leveraging our Indian Ocean territories?

Euan Graham
1 November 2019

"We should not be too quick to discount the strategic value of Australia’s offshore Indian Ocean territories when they could help to stretch the legs and combat punch of the ADF’s most strategic and precious capability."

Source: The Interpreter
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The state of Islam in Brunei

Kerstin Steiner
23 October 2019

"Brunei is a politically stable country whose extensive oil and gas resources make it one of the richest countries in the world. Oil wealth arguably allows the state to control the population through financial incentives such as no income tax and subsidised petrol. But this wealth is now coming under threat with the decline of oil prices and crude reserves. Brunei experienced four years of recession (2012–2016) from which it has only marginally recovered since 2017. The perceived thread to economic growth and stability went hand in hand with an increased focus on Islam in Brunei. Still, it is very important to note that Islam has always played a pivotal role in the political landscape of Brunei."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Australia, the Indo-Pacific and China's Belt and Road Initiative

Nick Bisley
19 October 2019

"Australia's approach to the BRI reflects the gap that exists between its rhetorical embrace of the Indo-Pacific and the reality of a strategic policy that remains largely Asia-Pacific in its orientation, structure and investment."

Source: The Korea Times
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The paradoxically pacific Indo-Pacific Command

Euan Graham
16 October 2019

"While it would be unwise to underestimate the resolve of the US, particularly if its armed forces, territory or citizens were directly attacked, the historical record suggests that the bar for US military intervention in the Indo-Pacific region is significantly higher than many observers think, even in defence of allies."

Source: The Strategist
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Pacific Island nations will no longer stand for Australia’s inaction on climate change

Michael O'Keefe
16 August 2019

"If winning the geopolitical contest with China in Pacific is Canberra’s priority, then far greater creativity will be needed as meeting the Pacific half way on climate change is a prerequisite for success.."

Source: The Conversation
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Australia has too few home-grown experts on the Chinese Communist Party. That’s a problem

Euan Graham
13 August 2019

"If Australia wants to understand China as a foreign policy partner and strategic actor, some of that effort should be directed at improving our collective understanding of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)."

Source: The Conversation
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Lessons for Australia in US Marines’ new guidance

Euan Graham
12 August 2019

"The planning guidance issued by the new US Marine Corps commandant, General David Berger, is unusually forward-leaning and well written by the standards of most military doctrine. It has received a positive reaction in the US and won over sceptics because its analysis is radical and persuasive."

Source: The Strategist
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Geopolitical moves in Jammu and Kashmir have a local cost, too

Ruth Gamble and Alexander Davis
12 August 2019

"The mixed reaction to the Indian government’s planned dissolution of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, which has been approved and will take place on 31 October this year, demonstrates yet again the geopolitical complexity of the western Himalaya."

Source: The Interpreter

Responding to the biodiversity crisis: Permaculture and sustainability transition

Ben Habib and Simin Fadaee
7 August 2019

"The global corporate-industrial food system is one of the primary ways that human societies interact with the environment.  However, as the IPBES report alarmingly shows, the way we interface with ecosystems through agriculture has to change.  In response to the biodiversity crisis, we the authors advocate for the broader application of permaculture design as an integrated, holistic methodology for regenerating ecosystems and sustainable transition of the agricultural sector."

Source: Discover Society

Trump's incomplete Asia strategy

Nick Bisley
25 July 2019

"Given that Trump has long railed against what he thinks is the ‘free-ride’ that South Korea and Japan receive, many wondered what Trump might do with US policy in Asia. FOIP shows that, at least in its geopolitical dimensions, the United States is opting to maintain its long-term posture of primacy."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Australia's approach to the South China Sea disputes

Rebecca Strating
24 July 2019

"Australia shares similar interests with the United States in upholding the maritime rules-based order, yet there are important divergences that reflect differing perspectives on geostrategic competition in the Indo-Pacific."

Source: Asia Pacific Bulletin
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Despite China’s denials, its treatment of the Uyghurs should be called what it is: cultural genocide

James Leibold
24 July 2019

"The Communist Party’s calculated war on Uyghur identity is quite literally tearing families and communities apart, while the rich tradition of diversity and tolerance in China is left in tatters."

Source: The Conversation
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A fortress with no water supply: Hugh White's 'How to defend Australia'

Euan Graham and James Goldrick
18 July 2019

"In sum, How to defend Australia is an engaging read on a very important subject, but must be studied with great care, a critical eye and constant awareness that there is more to national strategy than fortress defence."

Source: The Strategist
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The unwinnable contest for Himalayan water resources

Ruth Gamble
3 July 2019

"Increasing attention is now being paid to the watershed’s degraded state. Scientists, environmentalists and locals are particularly concerned about its glaciated headwaters and its deltas. Both are experiencing accelerated climate change and biodiversity loss."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Should China help secure the Strait of Hormuz?

Euan Graham
2 July 2019

"On balance, China should be welcomed as a naval contributor to Gulf security. Yet that’s unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future."

Source: The Strategist
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Nice picture but Trump-Kim visit lacks focus on true challenge

Euan Graham
1 July 2019

"Trump and Kim’s “handshake” moment at the 38th Parallel, accompanied by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, had the feel of a hastily organised photo opportunity set against a theatrical backdrop."

Source: The Age
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Asia-Pacific's smaller states can be active players in great-power rivalry

Euan Graham
18 June 2019

"Regional fears of collateral damage from great power competition may be well founded, but the publicly-expressed concerns do not fully capture a complex push-pull interplay among the U.S., China and smaller states."

Source: Nikkei Asian Review
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How a cyber attack hampered Hong Kong protesters

Stanley Shanapinda
14 June 2019

"This disruption appears to have been coordinated to occur at the height of the protests for maximum impact, creating a chilling effect on the ability of protesters to organise and communicate."

Source: The Conversation
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Not much dialogue at Shangri-La

Nick Bisley
11 June 2019

"Shangri-La is a vast exercise in public diplomacy and as such an invaluable opportunity to take the region’s strategic temperature. With the US not using the opportunity to dial up the pressure on China, the region’s short-term future looks slightly more stable."

Source: The Strategist
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Australia, Chinese warships and the new US Indo-Pacific strategy

Rebecca Strating
6 June 2019

"Last weekend, three Chinese warships surprised Australian defence watchers by arriving in Sydney Harbour without prior public announcement. This provoked much debate on social media about how this should be interpreted: a perfectly run-of-the-mill naval operation; a sign of growing maritime cooperation; or an assertive show of maritime strength from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)?"

Source: Australian Outlook
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A sea ride with Australia's Indo-Pacific Endeavour

Rebecca Strating
6 June 2019

"When the Australian Defence Force first dispatched its flotilla known as the “Indo-Pacific Endeavour”, the then Defence minister Christopher Pyne touted the regional drills as Australia’s “premier international engagement activity” designed to “enhance partnerships”. But what lies beneath this jargon?"

Source: The Interpreter
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Is Beijing covering an iron fist with a silk glove in Southeast Asia?

Nick Bisley and Brendan Taylor
31 May 2019

"General Wei Fenghe is set to come five years after Beijing lashed out at the gathering, accusing the U.S. and Japan of ganging up against China and criticizing them of being "full of hegemony... threat and intimidation". His expected attendance suggests that Beijing has now decided to return to an event that it has seen as hostile."

Source: Nikkei Asian Review
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Scott Morrison’s biggest foreign policy test: keeping peace with both China and the US

Euan Graham
29 May 2019

"Even though Morrison has already served the better part of a year in office, it’s hard to be sure of his convictions on China. With his mandate secured, he now has both the opportunity and obligation to show his true colours."

Source: The Conversation
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Australian pilots hit with lasers during Indo-Pacific exercise

Euan Graham
28 May 2019

"Some helicopter pilots had lasers pointed at them from passing fishing vessels, temporarily grounding them for precautionary medical reasons. Was this startled fishermen reacting to the unexpected? Or was it the sort of coordinated harassment more suggestive of China’s maritime militia? It’s hard to say for sure, but similar incidents have occurred in the western Pacific."

Source: The Strategist
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US-China relations are certainly at a low point, but this is not the next Cold War

Nick Bisley
21 May 2019

"Today, China presents an increasingly confident face on the global stage. It is increasingly assertive and at times even abrasive in the way it tries to advance its interests.  But it is not yet explicitly contesting the US role in Asia or indeed the world. Rather, it is testing the US-led order to probe for vulnerability and creating new institutions to try to shape the world around it, like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative."

Source: The Conversation
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What a Shorten government will mean for the US-Australia alliance

Nick Bisley
17 May 2019

"In broad terms, a Labor government is not going to present any major challenges to the US alliance and its central role in Australian international policy. Bill Shorten’s approach, and that of his likely ministers, is very centrist on foreign and defence policy."

Source: The Interpreter
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North Korea is firing missiles again. Does diplomacy still have a chance?

Benjamin Habib
14 May 2019

"The latest missile tests are a predictable reaction by the Kim regime to its diplomatic impasse with the United States. Tiny escalations are North Korea’s stock-in-trade response in situations where it is trying to extract concessions in an unfavourable negotiating dynamic."

Source: The Conversation
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A Tale of two Huangs

Euan Graham
7 May 2019

"Singapore and Australia should actively learn from each other to improve their resilience against foreign interference. This should include more comparative and collaborative exchanges between the two countries’ home ministries and their internal security agencies."

Source: The Asia Dialogue

The Putin-Kim Summit: Nuclear Politics, Sanctions and the Infrastructure Prize

Benjamin Habib
2 May 2019

"While no agreements were signed, Chairman Kim got another opportunity to boost his legitimacy through the prestige of leader-to-leader diplomacy and President Putin to explore the possibility of dealing Russia back into Northeast Asian diplomacy and to network Russia into the East Asian economy."

Source: Australian Outlook
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PSI, minorities and the diaspora vote

Dina Afrianty and Monika Winarnita
30 April 2019

"One of the more interesting developments of the 2019 elections was the participation of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI). Established in 2014, the party aims to promote and protect Indonesian pluralism and fight for the rights of marginalised groups. It is led by “triple minority” Grace Natalie, who is ethnic Chinese, Christian, and a woman."

Source: Indonesia at Melbourne
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The Philippines Pushback in the South China Sea

Bec Strating
18 April 2019

"Philippine President Duterte has long held a conciliatory tone towards China’s presence in the South China Sea. But recently he has upped his rhetoric in response to the presence of Chinese vessels near an island claimed by the Philippines in the Spratly Islands."

Source: Australian Outlook
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Seeing what you want in Belt and Road

Nick Bisley
18 April 2019

"In the growing analysis and commentary about BRI it is becoming increasingly obvious that, whatever you may think about the benefits and costs of infrastructure building on an epic scale, it is has become a test for one’s views about the PRC and its place in the world."

Source: The Interpreter
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Prabowo cries foul ahead of Indonesian elections

Dave McRae and Dirk Tomsa
14 April 2019

"As Prabowo Subianto’s hopes of winning Indonesia’s 17 April presidential election appear to have faded, his campaign has ramped up efforts to discredit the election. This is nothing new for Prabowo — five years ago he claimed ‘massive, structured and systematic cheating’ and threatened to withdraw from the election, only to have his challenge thrown out by the Constitutional Court."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Reflections on Taiwan's strange centre periphery status in the Indo-Pacific

Euan Graham
3 April 2019

"Taiwan is central to the security and strategic geography of the Indo-Pacific, perhaps even to the future development of democracy in the region. It remains an economy of significant weight. Yet, as a “stateless” entity, it suffers from a double identity, confined to margins of the region’s international affairs. This gives Taiwan its unique dual centre-periphery status."

Source: Taiwan Insight
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Why Australia needs to understand the 2019 Indian election

Alexander Davis 
20 March 2019

"Australia’s ability to form a new and deeper relationship with India has long been marred by limited political and cultural understanding. With US President Donald Trump seemingly keen to alienate long-term alliance partners, Australia is seeking to diversify its foreign relations. Amidst the chaos within its traditional allies the US and the UK, Australian foreign policy circles are talking about India as a key opportunity."

Source: Australia-India Institute
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Responding to China’s not-so-secret influence campaign

Euan Graham
20 March 2019

"Sam Roggeveen wrote recently on the need for the government to be more forthcoming about its security assessments on China, specifically, allegations of influence and interference activities conducted within Australia. The trigger was Andrew Robb’s interview for the ABC, in which the ex-cabinet minister lashed out at Malcolm Turnbull, his administration’s China policy, and the “toxic” state of Australia-China relations."

Source: The Interpreter

Will the 2019 elections see fake quick counts again?

Dirk Tomsa
20 March 2019

"Five years ago, Indonesia experienced the most polarised election since the introduction of direct presidential elections in 2004. After an often hostile campaign characterised by aggressive rhetoric, smear campaigns and personal denunciations, tensions culminated on election day when both candidates, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Prabowo Subianto, claimed victory."

Source: Indonesia at Melbourne
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Why Australia needs to understand the 2019 Indian election

Alexander Davis
20 March 2019

"Rural distress in India directly affects Australia. In 2017, Modi swiftly announced an increase in tariffs on chickpeas and lentils to aid India’s struggling farmers. The move resulted in Australian farmers losing some $150 million worth of chickpeas that were on their way to India when the tariffs were announced and has since hamstrung trade worth over $1 billion a year to Australian farmers."

Read the full article on Election Watch.

Another fork in the road for democracy?

Dave McRae and Dirk Tomsa
8 March 2019

"Five years ago, many saw the electoral contest between Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto as a battle between good and evil. In April 2019, the two men face-off again for the presidency. This time it seems more like a case of the lesser of two evils."

Source: Inside Indonesia
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Chasing the denuclearisation fantasy: The US-North Korea summit ends abruptly in Hanoi

Benjamin Habib
1 March 2019

"Denuclearisation has been the obstacle that has kept the US and North Korea at the stage of talking about talking, halting progress on other confidence-building measures that could improve the relationship and take some of the heat out of the Korean Peninsula security dilemma."

Read the full article on The Conversation.

Kim-Trump 2.0: three observations

Nick Bisley
1 March 2019

"When we look back at this phase of Asia’s international history, these summits will bookend the date of acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons power. The US was played by a Pyongyang that sprinted to the finish line in the face of Trump’s bluster over 2017 and then disingenuously stretched out the hand of engagement. The US is now in a situation in which it has tacitly accepted North Korea as a nuclear power, and wittingly or not, has sent a clear set of signals for other aspirant nuclear powers as to how to proliferate and get away with it."

Read the full article on the Lowy Interpreter.

Continuing strains in Sino-Australian relations

Nick Bisley
21 February 2019

"Uncertainty in Australia’s China policy remains. The country is genuinely unsure about how to handle its relationship with an increasingly assertive authoritarian power that remains crucial to so many sectors of the Australian economy. While many blithely say that Australia should just diversify its trade partners, the reality is that many sectors cannot do without China. Decoupling is not an option."

Source: Asia Dialogue

Spats in the straits between Malaysia and Singapore

Bec Strating
15 February 2019

"Australia has presented itself as a defender of the international “rules-based order” in response to rising challenges facing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In particular, Canberra has directed its concerns towards China’s actions in the South China Sea and Beijing’s rejection of the 2016 tribunal ruling in its maritime dispute with the Philippines."

Source: The Interpreter
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Just how green is the Belt and Road?

Kumuda Simpson
23 January 2019

"There are serious questions about whether the BRI functions as a smokescreen for China to outsource its pollution and environmental degradation to poorer and more vulnerable countries."

Source: The Interpreter

Cracks in walls and Trump's border with Mexico

Euan Graham
10 January 2019

"How does Trump’s fixation with border fortifications sit in the context of history, and contemporary examples in other countries?  During the election campaign, Trump referenced China’s Great Wall as his historical comparison, while claiming that “ours” would be “much higher”."

Source: The Interpreter

2018

How the conservative “Anglosphere” fell in love with India

Alexander Davis
19 December 2018

"...the way in which conservative Anglospherists see India’s history leads them to profoundly misunderstand its foreign policy priorities, its international identity, and its domestic politics."

Source: The Interpreter
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Mind control in China has a very long history

James Leibold
28 November 2018

"China has built a vast network of extrajudicial internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang, where Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are made to renounce their culture and religion, and are forcibly subjected to political indoctrination. After long denying the camps’ existence, the government now calls them benign training centers that teach law, Mandarin and vocational skills — a claim that has been exposed as a disingenuous euphemism and an attempt to deflect criticism for gross human rights abuses."

Source: New York Times
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Has the world lost sight of Tibet?

Gerald Roche and Lhadon Tethong
20 November 2018

"How do we draw attention to violence and oppression when they are invisible, unspectacular, numerically small, or slow?  The tragedy of contemporary Tibet is mostly characterized by slow violence—by structures of oppression, more than events."

Source: China File
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After APEC, US-China tensions leave ‘cooperation’ in the cold

Nick Bisley
19 November 2018

"Feelings were mixed when it was announced US President Donald Trump would go to Europe for the centenary of world war one’s truce this year, instead of Asia’s summits. The signal sent that the president does not prioritise the region is unmistakable."

Source: The Conversation
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Cambodians await crucial tribunal finding into 1970s brutal Khmer Rouge regime

Rachel Hughes, Christoph Sperfeldt and Maria Elander
15 November 2018

"A day of judgement is fast approaching for two now-elderly central figures in the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. But part of the judgement due on Friday, a legal finding on genocide, also has the potential to unsettle understandings of the past in current-day Cambodia."

Source: The Conversation
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The Geopolitics of Language in the Himalayas

Gerald Roche and Lauren Gawne
9 November 2018

"Both India and China are currently growing more jingoistic at home and assertive abroad, creating an increasingly significant geopolitical faultline. However, a sole focus on the these two superstates misses important aspects of regional geopolitics. A look at the Himalayan language politics reveals both hidden actors and invisible victims in regional struggles."

Source: The Diplomat
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Melbourne joins the Belt-and-Road

Nick Bisley
1 November 2018

"Most maps of the Belt and Road Initiative, the People’s Republic of China’s signature international policy program, have sweeping arrows connecting China with almost all corners of the world. Yet even the most ambitious of these do not have any link to Australia’s most cultured city, Melbourne."

Source: The Interpreter
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India unveils the world’s tallest statue, celebrating development at the cost of the environment

Ruth Gamble and Alexander Davis
31 October 2018

"India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today inaugurate the world’s largest statue, the Statue of Unity in Gujarat. At 182m tall (240m including the base), it is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, and depicts India’s first deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel."

Source: The Conversation
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Thawing tensions in the Himalayas

Alexander Davis, Ruth Gamble, Gerald Roche and Lauren Gawne
22 October 2018

"In the last few decades, state-making projects have transformed life in the Himalaya. Infrastructure development intended for troop deployment along disputed borders has, more recently, enabled large-scale transport and extraction projects and a tourist rush in this globally influential region."

Source: The Interpreter
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The risks of a new Cold War between the US and China are real: here’s why

Nick Bisley
25 September 2018

"Today, a more common refrain is that Asia is on the cusp of a new Cold War. If it were to happen, it would mean the rivalry that has been growing is transformed into overt militarised competition that drags the region into its vortex."

Source: The Conversation
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Economic growth and ‘Trump-proofing’ – why the latest inter-Korea summit matters

Benjamin Habib
24 September 2018

"Much of the commentary in the wake of the summit has focused on what the Pyongyang Declaration means for the potential denuclearisation of North Korea. To view the summit through the narrow lens of nuclear politics would be to overlook the significance of deeper patterns that are emerging from inter-Korean détente."

Source: The Conversation
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Asia's order beyond the great powers

Nick Bisley and Rebecca Strating
3 September 2018

"Australia and Japan are two states in the region that have the right mix of wealth, technological sophistication and effective multi-dimensional diplomatic capacities to shape aspects of the regional environment. During a time when the order is in a state of flux, the challenge for Canberra and Tokyo is how they can best work together and with other partners to protect and preserve those elements of the system that serve their interests."

Source: The Interpreter
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For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

Michael O'Keefe
31 August 2018

"The challenge for the new Coalition leadership is to find a way to push through a new Pacific security agreement that caters to both Australia’s security concerns about Chinese influence in the region and the Pacific Island countries’ focus on climate change and sustainable growth."

Source: The Conversation
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Munshi for millennials: Premchand and body building tips for the 21st century

Ian Woolford
31 July 2018

"This week marks Premchand’s birth anniversary. That his work can still be found in the lanes of Paharganj 138 years after he was born is a testament to his enduring status as the father of modern Hindi literature."

Source: The Print
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Australia's rules-based international order

Nick Bisley
27 July 2018

"While the international order that has been so beneficial for Australia has been rules-based, it is not a purely rule-driven system. It sits on top of, and indeed in many respects is dependent upon, a stable and accepted relationship between power and rules."

Source: Australian Institute of International Affairs
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Australia and India: different worlds

Alexander Davis
17 July 2018

"If Australia wants to build a closer geopolitical relationship with India, it is going to have to engage more seriously and empathically with Indian international and strategic thought."

Source: The Interpreter
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Coping with the Beijing freezer

Bec Strating and James Leibold
28 June 2018

"China has long deployed a diplomatic carrot-and-stick approach, wherein states are rewarded when they engage in activities that are favourable to Beijing’s interests and selectively punished for public criticism of the CCP’s actions and intentions."

Source: The Strategist
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A group of Southeast Asian descendants wants to be recognised as Indigenous Australians

Nicholas Herriman
25 June 2018

"In 1826, an English merchant, Alexander Hare, brought a group of people from Malaysia and Indonesia as well as South Africa and New Guinea to an atoll northwest of mainland Australia in the Indian Ocean. Hare took them to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands as indentured workers, slaves and/or convicts. A year later, a Scottish rival, Clunies Ross, took over."

Source: The Conversation
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Time to denounce China's Muslim gulag

James Leibold
19 June 2018

"The Chinese Communist Party has rounded up possibly one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities in purpose-built concentration camps where they are subjected to mental and physical abuse without legal recourse."

Source: The Interpreter

China and India’s border dispute is a slow-moving environmental disaster

Ruth Gamble
18 June 2018

"Chinese and Indian competition on their shared Himalayan border is more likely to create a slow-moving environmental catastrophe than a quick military or nuclear disaster."

Source: The Conversation
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Genuine breakthrough or pause in hostilities? After the summit, the world must again wait and see

Nick Bisley
15 June 2018

"At this stage, one can only judge the atmospherics and optics of the summit. And on that basis, Beijing and Pyongyang have plainly come out ahead. Allies are unnerved by the speed with which the US has embraced Kim Jong-un and the ease with which alliance commitments can be discarded."

Source: The Conversation
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US-North Korea summit agreement is most revealing for what it leaves out

Benjamin Habib
12 June 2018

"In my preview of the historic US-DPRK summit in Singapore, I asked where Trump and Kim might find lowest common denominator points of agreement to potentially unlock a confidence-building pathway."

Source: The Conversation
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As the shaky US-North Korea summit is set to begin, the parties must search for common interest

Benjamin Habib
11 June 2018

"US President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un will meet on Tuesday for their highly anticipated summit in Singapore. For the summit to be productive, the negotiations need to converge on a lowest-common-denominator shared interest that both parties can agree on."

Source: The Conversation
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Korea’s “Season of Summits”

Benjamin Habib
29 May 2018

"The upcoming “will they—won’t they” US-DPRK summit, either by accident or by design, has the potential to re-set the strategic atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula…but only if Washington and Pyongyang can find a convergence of common interest."

Source: Australian Institute of International Affairs
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Australia’s deal with Timor-Leste in peril again over oil and gas

Rebecca Strating and Clive Schofield
25 May 2018

"In April, Australia and Timor-Leste reached agreement on their maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea. This resolved a longstanding source of contention between them.

The potential benefits of this historic breakthrough are now in peril, because the critical issue of how the shared oil and gas of the Timor Sea are to be developed remains in dispute."

Source: The Conversation
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If a US-North Korea summit does happen, we’ll have Moon Jae-in to thank for it

Benjamin Habib
24 May 2018

"In the wake of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s meeting yesterday with US President Donald Trump, it’s worth reflecting on the remarkable role he’s played in facilitating the opening for diplomacy that’s emerged this year between the US and North Korea."

Source: The Conversation
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A lesser Australia

Nick Bisley
21 May 2018

"Australia’s influence in Asia and the world is in decline. If left unchecked, this decline will continue quite rapidly over the coming decade."

Source: The Interpreter
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Why China’s ‘debt-book diplomacy’ in the Pacific shouldn’t ring alarm bells just yet

Michael O'Keefe
17 May 2018

"Australia sees threats coming through the Pacific, and not from the Pacific, and this should be the foundation of its Pacific diplomacy. If Australia continues to reflexively see threats in China’s diplomatic moves in the Pacific, it may close off just the sort of creative diplomacy needed to escape a Thucydides’s Trap."

Source: The Conversation
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North and South Korea met - but what does it really mean?

Benjamin Habib
29 April 2018

"The moving footage of South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un provided rich symbolism for the negotiations of the third inter-Korean summit, held at Panmunjom on Friday."

Source: The Conversation
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As North Korea builds a season of summits, the stakes on denuclearisation remain high

Benjamin Habib
24 April 2018

"This week’s high-stakes summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un heralds a new period of negotiations in which regional states attempt to manage a northeast Asian security environment that includes a nuclear North Korea."

Source: The Conversation
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Will Australia defend the ‘rules-based order’ in Asia?

Nick Bisley
23 April 2018

"China has become the most formidable challenge to Asia’s regional order, and to Australia’s stake in that order, since the days of Japanese imperialism. It’s not just its growing economic and military power but increasingly Beijing is experimenting with order building and it’s plainly trying to exert political influence beyond its borders."

Source: Open Forum
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The Timor Sea Boundary Agreement: An Incomplete Victory

Bec Strating
19 April 2018

"On March 6, Australia and Timor-Leste signed a landmark treaty delimiting their maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea.

The Timor Sea disputes comprise three distinct but overlapping components. The first is whether maritime boundaries should be delimited and where. The second concerns the upstream revenue split of the lucrative but contested Greater Sunrise oil and gas field. And the third, and most important, relates to where the gas from Greater Sunrise should be piped; that is, which state should benefit from the downstream revenues that come from processing."

Source: Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative
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Will Australia defend the ‘rules-based order’ in Asia?

Nick Bisley and Benjamin Shreer
18 April 2018

"China has become the most formidable challenge to Asia’s regional order, and to Australia’s stake in that order, since the days of Japanese imperialism. It’s not just its growing economic and military power but increasingly Beijing is experimenting with order building and it’s plainly trying to exert political influence beyond its borders."

Source: The Strategist
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The story of Fook Shing, colonial Victoria’s Chinese detective

Benjamin Mountford
12 April 2018

"From his home, just off Little Bourke Street, he policed the Chinese community and visitors to the area. Among his colleagues he was regarded as a “trustworthy member of the service” who could “always be relied upon” and impressed with his “intimate knowledge of the Chinese criminal class” in Melbourne."

Source: The Conversation
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Julie Bishop and the liberal ideal

Nick Bisley
11 April 2018

"Australian leaders have tended to make most of their key foreign policy speeches abroad, a point I gently made in The Interpreter earlier this year. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop responded to this criticism in the most direct way possible, by making her first major address after the Foreign Policy White Paper’s publication at my own La Trobe University."

Source: The Interpreter
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Watching on: Australia and the Korean Peninsula talks

Rebecca Strating
6 April 2018

"South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are scheduled to meet for the first time on 27 April at Panmunjom, the “truce” village on the border of the two countries."

Source: The Interpreter
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Australia’s anticlimactic ASEAN Summit

Nick Bisley
28 March 2018

"The ASEAN–Australia special summit on 17–18 March 2018 concluded with the issuing of the grandly titled ‘Sydney Declaration’. The joint statement nods to many of the issues raised at the summit including security, trade, investment, rights and people-to-people links. Yet there was something anticlimactic both about the document and the summit as a whole. There was no big breakthrough, sense of achievement or decisive initiative. The event was deeply ASEAN in that it put a high value on symbolism and process but a lesser premium on functional breakthroughs."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Why South Korea's Foreign Policy Should Matter to Australia

Rebecca Strating
27 March 2018

"The relationship between Australia and South Korea has been mostly focused on economics, but there is room for both states to improve diplomatic and defence ties, particularly given their shared strategic interests and political values."

Source: Australian Institute of International Affairs
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We need to talk about Australia’s international policy

Nick Bisley
28 February 2018

"Julie Bishop’s recent speech to the Menzies Centre at King’s College London included some interesting signalling about Australian foreign policy. As Euan Graham observes, the speech appears to be part of a broader government strategy to soften Australia’s rhetoric on China, and unsurprisingly included a plea to the UK to do more to support a “rules-based order” increasingly under strain. Oddly, ASEAN did not get the rose-tinted treatment one might have anticipated given Sydney is gearing up to host the special ASEAN-Australia summit in mid-March."

Source: The Interpreter
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Asia is set for a difficult year in 2018 – much of it centred around China

Nick Bisley
29 January 2018

"In 2017 we finally realised that the four decades of geopolitical stability enjoyed by Asian countries and societies had come to an end. In 2018, the major patterns that will come to dominate the region will become increasingly clear."

Source: The Conversation
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Why Narendra Modi is building the world's tallest statue

Alexander Davis
10 January 2018

"Modi’s ideational project seeks to emphasise independence leaders who can be appropriated to the idea of India as a specifically Hindu civilization. This draws attention away from secular leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru. The erasure of Nehru, though, necessitates a new nationalist historiography. This has added emphasis on the historical figures of Gandhi and Patel."

Source: Australian Institute of International Affairs
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2017

Mistrust of Australia is growing in China

Nick Bisley
4 December 2017

"Over the past year or so the mood in Canberra has soured toward China. Indeed, of the countries unsettled by China’s rise and its increasingly confident and assertive foreign policy, Australia is now among the most outspoken in its criticism of Beijing’s behaviour."

Source: The Lowy Institute
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Time to lower the temperature in the China debate

Nick Bisley and James Leibold
1 December 2017

"Concerns that China is attempting to influence Australian politics have resurfaced spectacularly with the release of a recording of Sam Dastyari's ill-judged comments on the South China Sea and counter-espionage tactics out of a cheap spy thriller. It will crank up the sensationalism around the China-Australia debate and underlines the fact that all is not well in the Sino-Australian relationship. As the recently released foreign policy white paper makes clear, the mood in Canberra has soured and Australia is increasingly taking a more critical line toward the People's Republic of China."

Source: Australian Financial Review
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Charting Australia’s course in an increasingly illiberal world

Nick Bisley
29 November 2017

"Foreign policy white papers are strange creatures. As the past 14 years amply demonstrate, they’re not necessary for the conduct of effective foreign policy. They are expensive and they expend diplomatic capital by signalling policy positions that might otherwise be carefully obscured. And they can become obsolete with frightening rapidity.  In some respects, they are something of an indulgence."

Source: The Strategist
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The Belt and Road Initiative and Asia’s changing order

Nick Bisley
15 November 2017

"In the two days of meetings from 8 November between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Trump’s first state visit, it appears that they did not talk at all about the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Trump’s tour reflected the tendency of his administration to see Asia entirely through the lens of bilateral ties and crises. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump have stated that the United States seeks to sustain and protect a free and open Indo-Pacific, but the inability to match that concept with either a meaningful strategic vision or substantive policy was plainly on display."

Source: East Asia Forum
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At APEC, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping revealed different ideas of Asia’s economic future

Nick Bisley
13 November 2017

"Trump said very plainly that there would be no more big agreements, and only bilateral deals based on strict and fairly narrow ideas of reciprocity. The other notable element was a direct statement that the US would no longer put up with predatory practices of other countries, such as IP theft, subsidies and not-enforced trade rules. While he did not name China as his main concern, he didn’t need to."

Source: The Conversation
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APEC, Trump and contested Asia

Nick Bisley
10 November 2017

"In the first week of his marathon Asia tour, Donald Trump has made state visits to Japan, South Korea and China. Knowing that he can be easily swayed by over-the-top hospitality, China has even billed it as a ‘state visit-plus’. Given the importance of these bilaterals, the white-hot tensions on the Korean peninsula and the crucial question of the tone and tenor of US–China relations, it can be easily overlooked that the initial reason for the president’s Asia trip was to take part in the regional summit season and, in particular, to attend the annual APEC leaders’ meeting."

Source: The Strategist
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Trump tours Asia: Reassurance in the face of neglect

Nick Bisley
7 November 2017

"On 4 November, Air Force One, the ageing 747 that carries the US president, pointed its nose north-westward as it departed Hawaii en route to Tokyo for President Trump’s first stop on a lengthy first presidential Asia tour. He will spend time with newly re-elected PM Abe, including with the families of North Korean abductees, before heading to Seoul, Beijing, Hanoi and Manila. Prompted by Asia’s annual summit season – which VP Pence promised Trump would attend during a visit to Indonesia and Australia – the trip’s purpose is to reassure allies, improve links with China and signal commitment to the regional institutional architecture, especially APEC and the East Asia Summit (EAS). In short, Trump aims to show the region that the US can be counted on for leadership as it has in the past."

Source: The Asia Dialogue

What the 19th Party Congress means for the rest of the world

Nick Bisley
18 October 2017

"Of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s many achievements in his time in office – about which much will be made in the official propaganda – one of the most surprising was the more confident and assertive approach to foreign policy that he brought about."

Be in no doubt, Xi Jinping wants to make China great again

Nick Bisley
18 October 2017

"In his Communist party speech Xi’s ambition and confidence were on display. He wants nothing less than for China to be the world’s most important country."

Source: The Guardian
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Australia's oddly absent belt and road strategy

Nick Bisley
12 October 2017

"Australia's response to BRI remains surprisingly unclear. Given the importance of BRI to Beijing, the significance of the bilateral relationship with China and the obvious economic opportunities BRI represents, why is the Australian government unable to work out either a larger strategic engagement with the program or even a reasonable set of speaking points that act as a convincing interim holding measure?"

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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As China prepares for its Communist Party Congress, what will it mean for the rest of the world?

Nick Bisley
10 October 2017

"Of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s many achievements in his time in office – about which much will be made in the official propaganda – one of the most surprising was the more confident and assertive approach to foreign policy that he brought about."

Source: The Conversation
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Shinzo Abe gambles on sending Japan to a snap election - but it may yet backfire

Nick Bisley
2 October 2017

"Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dissolved the lower house of the national parliament, the Diet, on September 28, with an election to be held on October 22. Called more than 12 months earlier than needed, the snap poll was a calculated gamble by the leader of the conservative LDP to strengthen his hand."

Source: The Conversation
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Five assumptions we make about North Korea - and why they're wrong

Benjamin Habib
28 September 2017

"As northeast Asia teeters on the brink of a conflict that could escalate beyond anyone’s control, it is more important than ever to be well-informed about North Korea, and move beyond the common caricatures of the country and its leader, Kim Jong-un. This is difficult when many misconceptions about North Korea perpetuate in the public consciousness."

Source: The Conversation
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BHU’s failure to keep students safe is unforgivable

Ian Woolford
25 September 2017

"As university faculty and staff, our primary duty is to ensure the safety of our students. If we teach them something along the way, that is a bonus. If we casually invite police on campus to rain down violence on our students, we have failed at our primary duty. This failure is not a small one. It is a failure of such magnitude that it cannot be forgiven."

Source: Scroll.in
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The Timor Sea breakthrough

Bec Strating
5 September 2017

"Last Friday, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) announced a 'breakthrough' in maritime boundary conciliation proceedings between Timor-Leste and Australia. The two parties 'reached an agreement on the central elements of a maritime boundary delimitation' and on a 'Special Regime' governing the development of Greater Sunrise and the allocation of resulting revenue.

While a number of issues remain, the PCA's announcement suggests that Australia and Timor-Leste have found a pathway for resolving the longstanding dispute about boundaries and Greater Sunrise."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Trump can't win: the North Korea crisis is a lose-lose proposition for the US

Benjamin Habib
4 September 2017

"North Korea’s sixth nuclear test confirms it is very close to perfecting a miniaturised warhead for deployment on its missile delivery systems. The 6.3 magnitude seismographic reading registered by the test blast is approximately ten times more powerful than that recorded from its nuclear test in September 2016."

Source: The Conversation
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Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambition: what is North Korea’s endgame?

Nick Bisley
4 September 2017

"North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, following soon after a series of missile provocations, tells us a great deal.

Most obviously, North Korea does not feel at all constrained by US President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and nor has it been coerced by UN sanctions. It also illustrates the acute regional tension caused by the acceleration of the isolated country’s weapons acquisition program."

Source: The Conversation
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Timor-Leste's critical window on ASEAN

Bec Strating
17 August 2017

"Amid the celebrations of ASEAN's 50th birthday last week, the question of whether Timor-Leste will soon be granted full membership lingers.

ASEAN membership is the cornerstone of Timor-Leste's foreign policy. In March 2011, Timor-Leste applied for formal membership to ASEAN while Indonesia was chair. The 2011 Strategic Development Plan envisaged Timor-Leste possessing full membership of ASEAN by 2015, with Timor-Leste playing a key role within the organisation as recognised experts in 'economic development, small-nation management, good governance and aid effectiveness and delivery'."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

ASEAN’s mid-life crisis?

Nick Bisley
10 August 2017

"On August 8, 1967, foreign ministers from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines signed the Bangkok Declaration to create the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, as it now universally known.

Fifty years on the grouping includes all southeast Asian countries, with the exception of Timor Leste. Its longevity is striking, as has been its ability to develop a clear sense of identity and purpose among its members."

Source: The Conversation
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Architecture, Poetry and Impressions of a Bendigo Chinese Doctor, James Lamsey

Nadia Rhook
1 August 2017

"Like other contemporary practitioners of colour, Lamsey had many an incentive to acquire property, and to associate his name with façades that would protect his medical and social authority against the exclusionary forces of white racism."

Source: Cordite Poetry Review
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China-India border dispute a grim sign for stability in Asia

Nick Bisley
27 July 2017

"Conflict was almost baked into Asia’s post-1945 international order. Taiwan’s contested status following the communist victory in China’s civil war, and the division of the Korean Peninsula are only the most obvious and volatile of Asia’s military hotspots."

Source: The Conversation
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Asia's dangerous new geopolitics

Nick Bisley
12 July 2017

"The first week of July is not normally one that brings great events in world politics. Around that time, the northern hemisphere normally shifts into summer holiday mode."

Integrated Asia: Australia’s biggest strategic policy challenge in 75 years

Nick Bisley
4 July 2017

"I recently argued that Asia is becoming a coherent strategic system. This system is centred on the gravitational force of China’s growing geo-economic and strategic weight but also bound together by growing trade and investment flows, and, with the Belt and Road Initiative and other institutional structures, underpinned by a nascent multilateral architecture. The once discrete systems of Northeast, Southeast, South and Central Asia are becoming the most important strategic system in world politics."

Why are so many Tibetans moving to Chinese cities?

James Leibold, Gerald Roche and Ben Hillman
26 June 2017

"China’s Tibetan areas have been troubled by unrest since 2008, when protests swept the plateau, followed by a series of self-immolations which continue to this day. The Chinese state, as part of its arsenal of responses, has intensified urbanization, hoping that economic development and cultural contact will lead to assimilation and stability. However, cities are also becoming sites of resistance to assimilation and focal points of unrest, as well as arenas for internal power struggles about what it means to be Tibetan in contemporary China."

Two systems, one headache: Hong Kong twenty years after the handover to China

Nick Bisley
18 June 2017

"Hong Kong had suffered “more than a century of  vicissitudes”. So declared Jiang Zemin on July 1, 1997, at the return of the colony to “the motherland”. Twenty years on from the handover of the British Crown colony, the people of Hong Kong are increasingly experiencing the vicissitudes of communism.."

The Australia-China Relations Institute doesn’t belong at UTS

James Leibold
5 June 2017

"Last month eight of Australia’s top journalists visited China for a week as guests of the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). They were greeted by top Communist Party officials and toured some of China’s new infrastructure projects. Some (but not all) returned to Australia singing the praises of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s showcase “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) initiative and the opportunities for Australian businesses."

Taking Asia’s temperature at Shangri-La

Nick Bisley
1 June 2017

"Every year since 2002, defence ministers, senior officials, military officers and policy experts have gathered in Singapore to take part in the Shangri-La Dialogue.

Held in the hotel of that name and run by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank, the dialogue provides a forum for government representatives from across Asia, Europe and North America to meet with analysts and experts. They gather to discuss strategic issues in the region and hopefully generate some sense of trust and goodwill in a region badly in need of those sentiments."

Source: The Conversation
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Competition for influence in an integrated Asia

Nick Bisley
31 May 2017

"Since 1991, leadership of the international order has been a monopoly: the US has been the only game in town. But, as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in Beijing earlier this month made clear, Xi Jinping has stepped up his ambitions for China’s global role. The BRI may be couched in the sloganeering of win-win diplomacy - and reflect some heroic assumptions about financial risk in emerging markets - but we should not underestimate its ambition."

Source: The Interpreter

Shinzo Abe pushes ahead on constitutional reform amid heated debate within Japan

Nick Bisley
19 May 2017

"On May 1, the largest vessel in the Japanese Maritime Self Defence fleet, the vast helicopter carrier Izumo sailed out of Yokosuka. Its mission was to escort the US naval contingent that was deployed off the Korean peninsula in response to North Korea’s missile tests. Two days later, on Constitution Day, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he intends to amend the post-War constitution to clarify the standing of the Self-Defence Forces."

Source: The Conversation
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The Belt and Road Initiative: China’s vision for globalisation, Beijing-style

Benjamin Habib
17 May 2017

"China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a multifaceted economic, diplomatic and geopolitical undertaking that has morphed through various iterations, from the “New Silk Road” to “One Belt One Road”."

Source: The Conversation
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China’s Eurasian gambit needs to be taken seriously

Nick Bisley
5 May 2017

"Later this month, 28 heads of government, plus many hundreds of others will gather in Beijing for the ‘Belt and Road’ Summit'. Leaders from Europe, Africa, and Asia will gather in the Chinese capital as part of an elaborate piece of diplomatic theatre intended to symbolise Chinese leadership of the global economy."

Source: The Conversation
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Abe’s Trumpian opportunity

Nick Bisley
27 April 2017

"One of the notable features of the Trump presidency’s first 100 days has been the difficulty that many democratic leaders have found establishing a good personal relationship with the former reality TV star. For a man purported to be charming, the meetings and conversations between key allies have often been fraught. British Prime Minister Theresa May had that awkward moment on the White House stairs, the meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel was famously frosty, while the first phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was spectacularly bad."

Source: Japan Times
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Bishop puts the ‘liberal’ into ‘liberal international order’

Bec Strating
13 April 2017

"Timor-Leste's capacity to be self-determining depends in part on its economic viability. Heavy loan or aid dependency in the future would compromise its decision-making autonomy. Ensuring future economic viability, and sharing oil and gas wealth across the community in ways that promote political order and human development, is central to securing Timor-Leste's hard fought sovereignty."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Attacking North Korea: surely Donald Trump couldn’t be that foolish

Benjamin Habib
12 April 2017

"Trump’s foreign policy team would do well to think through the logic of their escalation. A North Korean first-strike nuclear attack against the US or its regional allies makes little sense for North Korea. From this perspective, it is a strategic restraint on America’s part based on deterrence – rather than unnecessary unilateral muscle-flexing – that’s more likely to preserve regional stability."

Source: The Conversation
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Australia and India: Some way to go yet

Nick Bisley
12 April 2017

"These are good reasons for developing a close relationship with India. But much remains to be done before this can occur, particularly given that India matters much more to Australia than the other way around."

Source: The Conversation
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Learning to live with a nuclear North Korea?

Nick Bisley
3 April 2017

"Although North Korea has one of the largest militaries in the world – its army alone has more than 1 million soldiers – it is an antiquated fighting force whose principal advantage is its proximity to South Korea. Its ability to win a fight against a technologically sophisticated opponent is widely questioned. Nuclear weapons offset that weakness markedly."

Source: The Conversation
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On being allied to Trump's America

Nick Bisley
24 March 2017

"For the first time in two generations, Australians are contemplating life without the American alliance. Alternatives to this long-standing pillar of Australian foreign and strategic policy are being pitched by influential commentators, media and think tanks."

Source: Nikkei Asian Review
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We still don't know how 'America First' will play out in Asia

Nick Bisley
21 March 2017

"Not since President Nixon has the US approach to Asia been so uncertain and unclear. Tillerson had a chance to clarify matters, but this most silent of Secretaries of State did not do so. And as dependents on the US we must continue to wait to find out just what the US wants from the region. Life in Asia has fundamentally changed."

Source: The Conversation
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Bishop puts the ‘liberal’ into ‘liberal international order’

Nick Bisley
15 March 2017

"In her Fullerton lecture delivered on Monday in Singapore, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop gave a full-throated defence of the prevailing regional order."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Global pressure points: Indonesia

Nick Bisley
28 February 2017

"Jakarta’s gubernatorial election is by far the most significant political event of the year in Indonesia.  Not only is Jakarta Indonesia’s biggest and most important city, the election matters because of the part it plays in the country’s larger political process."

Source: The Conversation
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Global pressure points: China

Nick Bisley
28 February 2017

"While Xi Jinping will no doubt continue as general secretary of the party, the question is whether he will be able to install enough people loyal to him in the key decision-making bodies."

Source: The Conversation
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Julie Bishop's Washington mission: Find out who's running the show

Nick Bisley
22 February 2017

"The question for Bishop, which only first-hand experience can help answer. is whether the ‘grown-ups’ will be in charge or whether the wild-eyed revolutionaries will remain at the centre of power. A great deal depends on this for Australia and indeed the world."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

A sunset for Greater Sunrise?

Bec Strating
7 February 2017

"How the dispute will play out in the future will hinge upon whether Timor-Leste is prepared to negotiate a boundary that does not give it all of Greater Sunrise.Timor-Leste’s shift towards permanent maritime boundaries was motivated by its economic plan to build an export pipeline from Greater Sunrise to its south coast and establish an oil processing industry."

Source: New Mandala
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China set to lead on global climate politics

Nicholas Procter and Benjamin Habib
6 February 2017

"China is a world leader in green and alternative energy technologies and is thus well placed to be the dominant player in the post-carbon international economy. By contrast, the Trump administration is betting on obsolete industries of the old economy, whose market share and importance to fuelling economic activity are steadily in decline."

Source: Asia Currents
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The three factors that will drive US policy in Asia

Nick Bisley
31 January 2017

"As Asia comes to terms with a highly nationalistic president who openly embraces a neo-Nixonian unpredictability and, it is fast becoming clear, meant much of what he said on the campaign trail, it is time to prepare for a region that will become a much more unstable and dangerous place."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Timor-Leste’s maritime ambitions risk all

Bec Strating
28 January 2017

"A recent joint statement by the Timor-Leste and Australian governments announced that Timor-Leste has officially notified Australia of its wish to terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS). Both states claim an interest in the lucrative Greater Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea. The decision to terminate CMATS could have serious ramifications for Timor-Leste as its economy is among the world’s most oil dependent."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Timor-Leste runs the risk of a pyrrhic victory

Bec Strating
11 January 2017

"On Monday, a joint statement from the governments of Timor-Leste and Australia announced that Timor-Leste planned to officially notify Australia that it wished to terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS)."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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What’s behind Timor-Leste terminating its maritime treaty with Australia?

Bec Strating
10 January 2017

"If the maritime border was drawn halfway between Australia and Timor-Leste, the oil and gas fields would fall completely within Timor-Leste. Under CMATS, however, Timor-Leste negotiated a 50:50 revenue-sharing arrangement."

Source: The Conversation
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Five political leaders to watch in 2017

Nick Bisley
8 January 2017

"The world is in fluid political times, and the opportunity for emerging figures to make their mark is considerable.  Here are five political leaders from around the world who are emerging as significant talents and possible contenders for influence in 2017 and beyond."

Source: The Conversation
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2016

कितना बदला है रेणु का अंचल पूर्णिया

Ian Woolford
21 December 2016

Writing from his research site in northeast Bihar, Hindi lecturer Dr Ian Woolford discusses the question of "change" over the past decade in that region (in Hindi).

Source: BBC Hindi
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Donald Trump serves up clumsiness, inexperience and realpolitik in Asia

Nick Bisley
4 December 2016

"In three phone calls with key Asian leaders this week, Donald Trump has once again upended expectations. We may now indeed have a radical break in the US approach to the region."

Source: The Guardian
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APEC: Staggering past relevance

Nick Bisley
22 November 2016

"Even though it is the region’s second oldest multilateral mechanism, APEC continues to find relevance hard to come by. Best known for the photo taken at the annual leaders’ summit at which said leaders bond over the humiliation of donning often garish 'national attire', this grouping has never quite found its feet."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Indo-Pacific: the maritime and the continental

Nick Bisley
21 November 2016

"The Australian government must accept that an increasingly Sino-centric regional security order will mean some hard choices for the country. By describing its region as the Indo-Pacific, not only does the government miss the bigger forces at play, but it ultimately shirks that responsibility."

Source: The Strategist
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Japan’s politics is opening up to women, but don’t expect a feminist revolution yet

Emma Dalton
11 November 2016

"There’s an increasing sense of embarrassment among Japanese political leaders about the nation’s position in global rankings of female political and economic empowerment."

Source: The Conversation
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What's in store for Asia under President Trump?

Nick Bisley
10 November 2016

"The fact that Trump was light on policy detail while on the stump, and that he contradicted himself on an almost daily basis, means that we have very little to go on when trying to ascertain what a Trump presidency will mean for Asia."

Source: The Conversation
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What you need to know about Timor-Leste and Australia’s sea border fight

Rebecca Strating
31 October 2016

"For around a decade, Timor-Leste has experienced a fragile peace. Much progress has been made in its economic, social and political spheres toward development. But all this could be threatened if an agreement on Sunrise is not reached soon."

Source: The Conversation
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What does China actually want in the South China Sea?

Nick Bisley
27 October 2015

"In spite of its many activities, it is not clear precisely what it is that China wants. We can see plainly its methods of advancing its interests on a daily basis, but just what its larger strategic objective may be is uncertain."

Source: The National Interest
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Differences on liberalism provide Asia’s latest faultline

Nick Bisley
20 October 2016

"After decades of breakneck economic growth, east Asian states and societies have never been more prosperous. But the hope that this would prompt a flowering of liberalism has proven illusory."

Source: The Conversation
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Not just another local election

Dirk Tomsa
6  October 2016

"Whoever wins in Jakarta next year might well be expected to find himself in the running for a presidential or, more likely, vice-presidential ticket in 2019.."

Source: Asia Currents
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Japan's new icon for gender equality

Emma Dalton
2  October 2016

"The recent visibility of women in power in contemporary Japanese politics suggests that the appointment of Renho is much more than a token gesture by the DP to appeal to voters. Now that there is a cohort of experienced women within the system, women can reach positions of power and avoid being labelled tokenistic."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Is China a Ticking Time Bomb of Ethnic Contradictions?

James Leibold
26 September 2016

"Managed diversity is the norm in China today: a sort of museum-style multiculturalism that celebrates the country’s ethnocultural diversity in carefully staged performances while regulating real world contacts through authoritarian controls."

Time running out for Timor-Leste

Bec Strating
19 September 2016

"Development of the Greater Sunrise gas field is the key to the economic future of Timor-Leste. But an almost two decade-long maritime territorial dispute with Australia could see ordinary Timorese people pay a high price for policy failure"

Source: New Mandala
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Taking stock of Asia's summit season

Nick Bisley
19 September 2016

"With divisions among members over issues like the South China Sea as well as waning attention from key countries (particularly Indonesia and the Philippines whose leaders’ instrumental populism sees a lower value in ASEAN processes than in the past), some have sensed a rocky future for the group. At Laos and beyond we have seen that ASEAN is never so active and entrepreneurial as when it feels threatened."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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The East Asia summit in contested Asia

Nick Bisley and Malcolm Cook
1 September 2016

"East Asia is the world’s most dynamic economic region as well as one of its most challenging security environments. The EAS is a lead body that reflects these contradictory trends and while its capacity to build a new strategic order is limited it has an important supporting role to play. The challenge is to ensure that the membership can sustain interest in the benefits it can provide and to invest sufficiently for these to be realized."

Why Australia's the canary in the regional coal mine

Nick Bisley
17 August 2016

"It has been an interesting few months in Australia-China relations. Following the Ausgrid decision, accusations of drug cheating at the Rio Olympics and the response to the arbitral tribunal decision, Australia has been on receiving end of considerable Chinese chagrin. Whether in the formal denunciations of the foreign ministry, the pointed invective of Global Times op-eds, or scatological posts from countless netizens, Australia has received both barrels. While it is too early to judge whether the bilateral relationship has been substantively challenged by these events, it would be wrong to see the reactions from the PRC as merely rhetorical flourishes."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

What will Duterte mean for Philippine foreign policy?

Nick Bisley
19 July 2016

"Despite his enigmatic character, Duterte is a leader who, at least in the short term, is very likely to focus on domestic priorities."

Source: The Diplomat
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The future of Australia-Indonesia relations

Rebecca Strating
8 July 2016

"A ‘good relationship’ should not be taken-for-granted by either state; it needs to be actively cultivated across various levels of engagement.."

Source: New Mandala
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What's next for Jokowi's Indonesia?

Dirk Tomsa
5 July 2016

"Significantly though, regardless of Jokowi’s performance so far, there is currently no credible challenger in sight who might have the resources to confront him in 2019. His former rival Prabowo has largely disappeared from public view and seems unlikely to come out fighting once again unless Jokowi commits some serious mistakes that would make him vulnerable for political attacks — for example economic mismanagement or corruption."

Source: New Mandala
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Chaos in Kunming

Nick Bisley
20 June 2016

"China seems to have underestimated the extent to which key ASEAN members are frustrated by its behaviour. It also seems genuinely surprised by its inability to corral both the events and the narrative in the manner to which it is accustomed to at home."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Japanese politics still a man’s world

Emma Dalton
9 June 2016

"Japan has the lowest percentage of women’s political representation in the industrialised world. Only 12 per cent of seats in the national legislative assembly, the Diet, are held by women. This is compared to a 22 per cent world average and a 19 per cent average in Asia."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Obama marks end of an era for Asia

Nick Bisley
8 June 2016

"As the administration of President Barack Obama enters its final months, the U.S. rebalance to Asia has never seemed so visible."

Source: Nikkei Asian Review
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The morning after: Australia, Japan, and the submarine deal that wasn’t

Nick Bisley and David Envall
8 June 2016

"For reasons largely of poor diplomatic management, however, the two parties [Australia and Japan] allowed their more aspirational hopes for a major strategic relationship to get ahead of the complex realities of the biggest defense acquisition in Australian history."

Source: Asia Pacific Bulletin
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Unravelling Timor-Leste’s Greater Sunrise strategy

Rebecca Strating
4 June 2016

"The pipeline remains crucial for understanding Timor-Leste’s foreign policy approach. The government has abandoned unproductive pipeline negotiations with Australia in pursuit of a greater prize: permanent maritime boundaries that give Timor-Leste control over Greater Sunrise."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Ethnicity and the Chinese Internet: Escape from Reality?

James Leibold
19 May 2016

"Has the Internet changed what it means to be Chinese in the twenty-first century? It has certainly opened up new possibilities for performing ‘Chinese-ness’ and other forms of social/cultural identities inside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and across the globe."

Source: China Policy Institute

What’s behind Timor-Leste’s approach to solving the Timor Sea dispute?

Rebecca Strating
19 April 2016

"A weak Timorese state is not in Australia’s national interests. But, for four decades, territorial and corporate considerations have primarily defined interests in the Timor Sea. Australia also does not necessarily see oil revenues as solving Timor-Leste’s pressing social, economic or political challenges."

Source: The Conversation
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How the US Election Unsettles Asia's Regional Order

Nick Bisley
19 April 2016

"The part played by the United States in Asia's security order is hugely significant. It has been in place for the better part of four decades, yet its durability does not mean it will always be there."

Source: The Diplomat
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Love in the time of short stories

Ian Woolford
27 March 2016

"Laprek is an acronym for Laghu Prem Katha, or 'short love story.' The genre was born on Facebook, where groups of writers refined the genre to look nostalgically to the past while also considering love in the age of online status updates. Laprekars also tweet their works: love stories in 140 Devanagari characters or less."

Source: The Hindu

China's minority report

James Leibold
23 March 2016

"Uighurs and Tibetans regard the Communist Party's policy as meddlesome and an open assault on their culture and identity. Blending, for them, is viewed as a road to ethnic extinction."

Source: Foreign Affairs
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How will we pay for this big-spending Defence White Paper?

Nick Bisley
4 March 2016

"The White Paper goes to great lengths to say that the costs of the projected program have been independently verified, and we have no reason to doubt this. But it is entirely silent on how all this spending will be paid for."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Defence White Paper: Why Australia will opt for Japanese built submarines

Nick Bisley
25 February 2016

"This is a big strategic decision by Australia. It has bipartisan support but is unexplained by politicians on either side of politics. It is also the reason the J-option will prevail, whatever fig leaves the government tries to put on the "competitive evaluation process"."

Source: The Conversation
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We should think carefully about an Australian FONOP in the South China Sea

Nick Bisley
4 February 2016

"On 30 January, 95 days after its previous effort, the US Navy conducted another 'freedom of navigation operation' in the South China Sea (an operation known by the unlovely FONOP acronym)."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

North Korea tests again: the ritual of Korean Peninsula nuclear politics

Benjamin Habib
7 January 2016

"If this detonation was a hydrogen bomb test – which the US government is disputing – then it was likely less successful than the North Korean leadership may have hoped. A hydrogen bomb would be expected to register an explosive yield 100 to 1000 times larger than a fission bomb. However, the blast does not appear to have registered a sufficient explosive yield to constitute a successful hydrogen bomb test."

Source: The Conversation
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2015

Australia's air force in the South China Sea: Flying quietly and carrying a medium-sized stick

Nick Bisley
16 December 2015

"On Monday the BBC ran a story in which its reporter chartered a light aircraft to fly over China's augmentation of reefs in the South China Sea's Spratly archipelago. The  intent was to see first hand what China has been up to and to gauge the kind of reaction the flight might prompt. Predictably, the PLA Navy responded in a heavy handed way, and the story added wonderful texture to the ongoing coverage of the dispute."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

Song off the fields

Ian Woolford
13 December 2015

"There is a couplet in Aurahi-Hingana village that makes any member of the community chuckle. This village in northeast Bihar is the birth home of the celebrated Hindi author Phanishwarnath Renu. But the couplet is not his. It was composed, I am told, by the late Thithar Das Mandal, a farmer and an expert clown. When I met him in 2005, Thithar was in his 80s. He was one of the only remaining performers of bidapat nach, a Bihari song-and-drama tradition that presents the verses of the 15th century Maithili poet Vidyapati, interweaved with bawdy comedy and social commentary. The tradition has vanished today."

Source: The Hindu
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How China Sees ISIS Is Not How It Sees 'Terrorism'

James Leibold
7 December 2015

"In the wake of the Paris attacks, China is talking up its own struggle with terrorism. Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned against "double standards," while stressing that "China is also a victim of terrorism." Chinese President Xi Jinping "strongly condemned" the ISIS execution of a Chinese national, and labelled terrorism "the common enemy of human beings" at the recent APEC summit."

Source: The National Interest
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An underwhelming Asian summit season

Nick Bisley
30 November 2015

"This year's summit season reminded us that Asia now has abundance of multilateral structures. It was not that long ago that the region was bereft of opportunities for states to gather on a regular basis to improve their relations and coordinate policy. Yet, beyond the annual photo-op of leaders decked out in cliché ridden national costume, broader engagement with these mechanisms is poor."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter
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Australia and India tend the seeds of a growing relationship

Meg Gurry
21 November 2015

"The Asia–Pacific has been redefined as the Indo–Pacific, a map that now includes India and Australia. Importantly, Australia's alliance with the United States may not jar as it once did. Still committed to 'strategic autonomy', India nevertheless seems not in any hurry to end US primacy in the Western Pacific, believing it may inhibit or delay the projection of China's naval power into the Indian Ocean."

Source: Asia Currents
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How Should Australia Respond to China?

Nick Bisley
21 November 2015

"The exact nature of the regional or global order to which China aspires and their practical implications remain unclear. What kind of region does China want? What role does it see for the United States in East Asia? Is China able and willing to pay the price, both financially and politically, to craft a different regional order? And most importantly, how compatible are China's ambitions with Australia's interests and how should Australia respond?"

Source: China Matters

Washington Misreads Beijing's South China Sea Ambitions

Nick Bisley
9 November 2015

"The South China Sea has become increasingly contested in 2015. Prompted by China's extensive reclamation program, the complex and multilayered dispute has become a dominant feature in regional diplomacy and strategic dialogue. The contest has been keenly watched, not because it is likely to trigger a great-power conflict, but because of what it tells us about the broader regional dynamics of Sino-American contestation. Indeed nothing seems to illustrate Asia's period of power transition than the brash upstart defying the dominant power by building islands with strategic intent."

Source: The National Interest
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Ubud bans put the spotlight back on Indonesia's killing fields

Nicholas Herriman and Monika Winarnita
1 November 2015

"Most Indonesians we have lived with—and still associate with—believe the Communist Party had it coming. They hark back to the attempted communist revolution in 1948 during Indonesia's struggle for independence against the Dutch. The communists, they assure us, were atheists who had betrayed Indonesia during its revolution."

Source: Asia Currents
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The rise and rise of North Korea's 'money masters'

Benjamin Habib
19 October 2015

"Pressure for political change in North Korea may grow when the size of this nouveau riche class reaches a size where they may become an agitating force if their newly acquired social position becomes threatened – either by government interference or an unforeseen shock event."

Source: The Conversation
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AUSMIN and the South China Sea: US sets itself up for failure

Nick Bisley
16 October 2015

"By signaling its intent to hold freedom of navigation exercises and linking them to the AUSMIN set-piece, the US has set itself up to fail. China is not going to step back from what it has constructed, nor is Washington going to fight its most important economic partner over them."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

Decoding the landscape: finding meaning in Northeast Asia's urban green spaces

Benjamin Habib
11 September 2015

"In Northeast Asia, it is possible to find urban green spaces that reflect a variety of different ideological and cultural codings, reflecting the prevailing social forces of the historical epochs in which each green space was built."

Source: Asian Currents
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Beijing's display of insecurity

Nick Bisley
8 September 2015

"If you happened to be in Beijing on Sept. 3, one would be forgiven for thinking China was stuck in a time warp. To mark the 70th anniversary of World War II's end, the city hosted the third-largest military parade in the country's history."

Source: The Japan Times
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How civil society can improve refugee protection in the Asia-Pacific

Savitri Taylor
25 August 2015

"If the Australian government redirected the money it is prepared to spend on deterrence to the UNHCR and the civil society organisations promoting refugee rights in the region, it might be able not only to save refugee lives – its stated objective – but also ensure that refugees had lives worth living."

Source: The Conversation
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Remember the Pacific's people when we remember the war in the Pacific

Tracey Banivanua Mar
19 August 2015

"Recent media coverage of Victory in the Pacific Day has highlighted the way Indigenous peoples of the Pacific remain invisible in our public memory of the Pacific War. The wider impact of war on Pacific Island worlds should also be part of our collective memory."

Source: The Conversation
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The living ghosts of 1945 haunt Asia's rival powers

Nick Bisley
14 August 2015

"Following the devastation of twin atomic attacks, Japan announced its unconditional surrender to the Allied forces on August 15, 1945. Seventy years on from that momentous day, the war continues to haunt the peoples of East Asia."

Source: The Conversation
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Hiroshima and our cultural amnesia

Sofia Ahlberg
7July 2015

"There are remarkably few references in contemporary film and literature to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The works that do address it begin to show us the importance of reflection and giving voice to the unthinkable."

Source: ABC The Drum
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Seafood, sate, and spouses—giving and receiving among the Cocos Malays

Nicholas Herriman and Monika Winarnita
16 July 2015

"Giving and receiving play a huge role in the life of Australia's Cocos Malays. This struck home for us when returning from fieldwork in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands."

Source: Asian Currents
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North Korea's changing climate of environmental cooperation

Benjamin Habib
26 June 2015

"The North Korean (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK) government would appear to have a compelling prima facie self-interest in participating in the global climate change mitigation and adaptation project centred on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Capacity-building incentives that feed into the leadership perpetuation and state survival imperatives of the North Korean government represent the most likely explanation for North Korea's interaction with the UNFCCC. Environmental vulnerabilities matter, because they could threaten the control of the Kim government."

Source: East Asia Forum
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Why is the US upping the ante in the South China Sea?

Nick Bisley
11 June 2015

"Since March 2015 the US has hardened its attitude toward China's activities in the South China Sea. Beijing appears genuinely surprised by the shift in tone and behaviour. In the past, the US has taken a more measured approach. So why has it escalated its language and flagged risky military exercises in the South China Sea? Why does the US risk upsetting the tenor of Sino–American relations over rocks, islets and reefs?"

Source: East Asia Forum
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Modi the statesman must now sell domestic reform

Nick Bisley
28 May 2015

"On May 26 2014 Narendra Modi's BJP was swept to power with the largest electoral majority in forty years. The scale of the victory was partly a product of his astute campaigning and effective use of social media. It was also driven by profound concerns about economic stagnation, endemic corruption and a sclerotic state."

Source: The Conversation
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Kevin Andrews' Defence White Paper preview

Nick Bisley
26 May 2015

"Given that the forthcoming Defence White Paper will be the third in six years, one could be forgiven for being slightly cynical about the overarching political exercise. Labor clearly felt the messaging, both domestic and international, of the 2009 White Paper was sufficiently problematic as to warrant a rewrite in 2013. Then, upon coming to office, the Abbott Government announced it was commissioning yet another White Paper but did not really explain why this was needed beyond a vague justification for its commitment to make defence spending 2% of GDP."

Source: The Interpreter
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China's Ambition and the AIIB

Nick Bisley
22 May 2015

"It is widely recognised that China has become a world power of the first rank. On the back of its epochal economic transformation, the People's Republic must now be bracketed alongside the US as the most important entities in the international system. This reflects not just economic weight – China is the world's largest economy in PPP terms and is likely to become the largest in aggregate terms in the next few years – but also political and diplomatic heft. At global summits and regional talk-shops, such as APEC or the East Asia Summit, China's leaders are the most sought after and its actions most carefully watched."

Source: The University of Nottingham - China Policy Institute Blog

Lower the temperature in South China Sea

Nick Bisley
22 May 2015

"During oral testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 13, United States Assistant Secretary of Defence David Shear mentioned that as part of a set of military measures to respond to China's provocative acts in the South China Sea, United States Air Force B-1 bombers would be deployed to Darwin."

Source: The Straits Times
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Bali Nine response must manage power shift in Indonesian relations

Rebecca Strating
1 May 2015

"The executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in the early hours of Wednesday morning present several tricky challenges for relations between Australia and Indonesia.

The Australian government immediately announced it would recall its ambassador, Paul Grigson, and suspend ministerial visits. In a rare show of solidarity, the Labor Party and the Greens fully supported this. It is unclear at this stage if other actions might be taken."

Source: The Conversation
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The US–Japan alliance goes global

Nick Bisley
1 May 2015

"Due to continuing challenges around the TPP agreement, the public release of the revised Guidelines for Japan–US Defense Cooperation is the key policy outcome of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's spring visit to Washington DC. The rebalance to Asia is the signature feature of the Obama administration's foreign policy, with the Japanese alliance at its centre. For this reason alone the Guidelines are of importance. They also spell out a broader functional purpose and larger conceptual frame of reference for the bilateral relationship, which adds to their significance. But what signals do the Guidelines send about the strategic relationship and its purpose?"

Source: The Strategist
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Carrot and stick tactics fail to calm China's ethnic antagonism

James Leibold
28 April 2015

"For centuries the Chinese state has governed its distant ethnic frontiers with both carrot and stick. In the past, emperors proffered 'imperial grace' (ēn) for those 'barbarians' willing to submit (at least nominally) to Chinese dominion, while reserving the right of 'imperial might' (wēi) for those who resisted. The ēn/wēi stratagem continues in the People's Republic of China (PRC) today.
But recent unrest in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and elsewhere reminds us of the inherent limits of these tactics of paternalistic co-option and repression."

Source: East Asia Forum
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War anniversary promises year of difficulty for Asia's rival powers

Nick Bisley and Brendan Taylor
24 April 2015

"Australia has been gripped by war commemoration fever. The centenary of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli is dominating media, politics and public debate.

The central place of the Anzac myth in the story Australians tell about themselves makes this understandable. But this introspection shouldn't blind us to 2015 marking an anniversary of a more profoundly important event than the ill-fated efforts to seize the Dardanelles from a sclerotic Ottoman empire."

Source: The Conversation

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The 'shame' of Indonesia's widows and divorcees

Nicholas Herriman
19 April 2015

"Popular culture in Indonesia exposes divorced or widowed women to prejudice and stigmatisation.  One of the most popular and enduring images of femininity in Indonesia is the janda. The term refers to either a widow or a divorcee because, in the popular imagination, how she has become unmarried is not particularly relevant. The main point is that she is no longer married."

Source: Asian Currents

US puts Australia on the spot with zero-sum game on China's bank

Nick Bisley
19 March 2015

"Until last week, the only developed economies to have signed on to China's proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) were Singapore and New Zealand. The choices of those minnows of the global economy were not thought significant as all the major wealthy economies stayed away."

Source: The Conversation
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Indonesia and Australia? You'd better watch your language

Zane Goebel
27 February 2015

"Australian interests are intimately tied with those of Indonesia, and yet Australia continues to grapple with how to meet its needs for advanced level literacy in this relationship."

Source: The Conversation
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Why Japan has a big stake in the fate of Tony Abbott's leadership

Nick Bisley
10 February 2015

"As Prime Minister Tony Abbott dusts himself down after what might be the first of a number of challenges to his leadership, interest in Japan about Australian politics is acute. Japanese political elites are focused on Australia's fratricidal tendencies not because they enjoy blood sport, but because Japan has a significant investment in the Abbott government."

Source: The Conversation
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Why China Is Banning Islamic Veils (and why it won't work)

Timothy Grose and James Leibold
4 February 2015

"This week, regional authorities outlawed Islamic veils from all public spaces in the regional capital of China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The Urumqi ban, which went into effect on Sunday February 1 (coincidently the inaugural "World Hijab Day"), empowers Chinese police to punish violators and dole out fines of up to U.S.$800 for those who fail to enforce the prohibition."

Source: Asia Society
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2013-2014

How the East Asia Summit can achieve its potential

Nick Bisley
10 November 2014

"Asia's summit season kicks off this week with the 20th APEC 'economic leaders' meeting in Beijing. The region's political jamborees have become very cluttered of late and leaders from all of Asia's key powers may become a little tired with one another's company. After APEC they will jet to Naypyidaw to take part in the East Asia Summit (EAS) and then fly on to Brisbane for the G20. There will be plenty of opportunity for political elites to get to know one another."

Source: The Lowy Interpreter

Envoy in troubled waters

Nick Bisley and Brendan Taylor
4 November 2014

"The East China Sea has fast become one of Asia's most dangerous security flashpoints. The Japanese defence ministry reports that in the first half of this year it has had to scramble jets over 230 times in response to Chinese incursion into its airspace."

Source: The Australian

The Real China Challenge: Beijing's Blueprint for Asia Revealed

Nick Bisley
27 October 2014

"Beijing will host the APEC leaders' summit on November 10-11. Among the many set piece theatrics of the 20th edition of the leaders' meeting is likely to be an announcement about the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The Bank is a Chinese initiative intended to help finance Asia's massive infrastructure needs. Most of the region's developing economies have signed up, but the more advanced economies are not sure. While the language used to describe their hesitation is largely technical - concerns about capitalization, governance structures and processes - the underlying reason that South Korea, Japan and Australia are uncertain is strategic."

Source: The National Interest
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Australia's India gambit, the final step in wooing Asia's key players

Nick Bisley
9 September 2014

"During his first year in office, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has conducted a surprisingly energetic and focused foreign policy. Economic diplomacy is one of its principal tools with business delegations and trade agreements playing a prominent role, while the New Colombo Plan emphasises the importance of people-to-people links in advancing Australian interests. But the most important concern for the Abbott government's foreign policy team is relations with Asia's major powers."

Source: The Conversation
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Honour, prestige and restraint

Nick Bisley
4 August 2014

"Xi Jinping is the strongest and most nationalistic president China has had since Mao.  This energetic debate began with Peter Jennings taking issue with Hugh White's gloomy prognostications about where Australia's enthusiasm for closer strategic cooperation with Japan might lead. For Peter, the basic structure of the current order remains the best way of stabilising the region now and it's durable over the longer run because China's interests are served by those arrangements. In its simplest form, the central question in this debate is whether the regional status quo is sustainable over the medium-to-longer term. Hugh thinks not, almost everyone else seems to think it is — albeit with subtle differences of emphasis."

Source: The Strategist
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Tokyo's Subtle Revolution

Nick Bisley
11 July 2014

"Abe's Constitutional reinterpretation will have profound implications for the Asia-Pacific."

Source: The Diplomat
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Japan and Australia join forces in Asia's Brave New World

Nick Bisley
7 July 2014

"In his second stint as Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe seems in a hurry. His sudden fall from power in 2007 has left him with a strong sense of the need to get things done quickly. He has embarked on an ambitious reform program that appears to have finally roused the economy out of a 20-year slumber."

Source: The Conversation
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Hindi: India's new English

Ian Woolford
2 July, 2014

"Narendra Modi just returned from his first foreign trip as India's prime minister. The two-day Bhutan visit focused on mutual trade and development, but one of the biggest stories in India was Modi's use of language: Modi addressed the Bhutanese parliament in Hindi."

Source: The Conversation
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The diplomacy of hard and soft power at Shangri-La

Nick Bisley
1 June, 2014

"The Shangri-La Dialogue styles itself as the premier forum for defence diplomacy in Asia. Given the scale of the event, the number of countries represented and the media coverage, the description is probably warranted."

Source: The Interpreter
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Narendra Modi's election win won't transform Asia's strategic geography

Nick Bisley and Andrew Phillips
28 May, 2014

"The scale of Narendra Modi's Indian election win was as astonishing as it was historic. The Bharatiya Janata Party now has a majority in its own right, ending the interminable wrangling of coalition governments. More importantly, Modi himself has unparalleled scope to shape his government and India's approach to the world. Many expect, and indeed hope, that the controversial former chief minister of Gujarat will chart a much more strategically ambitious vision for India than that of his predecessor. And that he will use his famous energy to push India to become a power with the global weight and influence to match its population. Modi's early moves to engage with his South Asian neighbours, alongside his desire to strengthen maritime security through cooperation with Indian Ocean island states, offers promising early signs of his commitment to a more strategically assertive India. Likewise, his keenness to emulate East Asia's economic success will demand growing diplomatic and commercial engagement with that region (especially Japan) as India seeks out the capital and expertise needed to build up its manufacturing base."

Source: Politics and Strategy: The Survival Editors' Blog, International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS)

Shangri-La Dialogue: Beijing's Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

Nick Bisley and Brendan Taylor
27 May, 2014

"China's deployment of the HD-981 oil rig to drill in Vietnam's EEZ waters has once again ratcheted up tensions in the South China Sea. This move is seen by many commentators as the latest example of Beijing's increasingly assertive approach to its regional interests."

Source: The Diplomat
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Muted response to Thai coup hints at other nations' limited options

Nick Bisley
27 May, 2014

"Events in Thailand stand in stark contrast to the orderly transfer of power in India as army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in the country's 12th coup d'état since 1932. So far international reaction has generally been muted, with most states encouraging dialogue and calling on all parties to refrain from violence."

Source: The Conversation
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This op-ed was picked up by The Straits Times - Opinion and published on 28 May, 2014
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North Korea: an unlikely champion in the fight against climate change

Benjamin Habib
20 May, 2014

"Pyongyang is cooperating with global strategy on climate change, writes Dr Benjamin Habib. The question is, why?"

Source: The Guardian
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Australia's Challenge: Navigating the Uncertainty of the Asia Century

Nick Bisley
21 April, 2014

"After nearly seven months in office, the Coalition's foreign and strategic policy is beginning to coalesce. Abbott's remarkably successful three-country tour of Northeast Asia shows the government's approach to Asia is beginning to take firmer shape."

Source: The National Interest
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The Diplomatic Fallout from Flight MH370 Reveals a Region on Edge

Nick Bisley
2 April, 2014

"The tragedy of MH370 ought to have been a spur to put aside intra-mural differences, as was the case during the SARS crisis of 2002-03. Instead, it has shown poor levels of functional co-operation, anaemic mechanisms and low levels of trust."

Source: The Conversation
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The Ukraine crisis and Asia's international relations

Nick Bisley
25 March, 2014

"The crisis in Ukraine has caused something of a shock to the international system...That the system is in a state of flux is not news to Asia watchers. That it proved so volatile in Europe is perhaps more surprising. If old school irredentism could happen in what we thought was a geopolitical backwater, Asia's more fluid setting may be far more combustible than we imagined."

Source: The Interpreter

It's not 1914 all over again: Asia is preparing to avoid war

Nick Bisley
10 March, 2014

"Asia is cast as a region as complacent about the risks of war as Europe was in its belle époque. Analogies are an understandable way of trying to make sense of unfamiliar circumstances. In this case, however, the historical parallel is deeply misleading."

Source: The Conversation
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Human Rights in North Korea: the implications of the Kirby report

Benjamin Habib
19 February, 2014

"The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) report into human rights abuses in North Korea, released ... by panel chairman Michael Kirby, highlights the impact of the government's extreme social controls on ordinary North Koreans. Despite the attention that the UNHRC investigation has received, the report does not reveal much new information about the human rights situation in North Korea....Nonetheless, the report is valuable as a systematic and comprehensive catalogue of evidence."

Source: The Conversation
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China's ADIZ and Australia's commitment to America's Asia order

Nick Bisley
2 December, 2013

"For a long time, Australian politicians and officials have used the somewhat tired formulation that Australia does not have to choose between the US and China...But the unintended consequence of these efforts has been a degree of murkiness about just what Australia's long-term priorities are during a period of considerable change."

Source: The Conversation
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