Asia and Pacific
Police massacre threatens Philippines peace deal
The best chance for peace in Muslim Mindanao in the Philippines has just noticeably faded.
The deadly clash in the early morning of Sunday 25 January between the Special Action…
Is China slowing down? Not much
The Wall Street Journal:
China's economic growth slowed to 7.4% in 2014, downshifting to a level not seen in a quarter century and firmly marking the end of a high-growth heyday…
Freedom of the press in Fiji under pressure
Fiji held its highly anticipated election in September 2014, but does that make it a democracy?
There's much more to a functioning democratic system than people putting a mark…
A Chinese canal in Nicaragua?
There is pride in Hong Kong that a local private company is pushing ahead with perhaps the world's largest-ever civil works project, the 280km long, 500m wide Nicaragua Canal…
Book review: The China-Pakistan Axis
In 1965, a Pakistani military delegation traipsed to Beijing in hope of replacing equipment they'd lost in the previous year's war with India.
Premier Zhou Enlai, meeting the…
Australia must push for regional adoption of Arms Trade Treaty
On 24 December 2014, two decades of campaigning and several years of negotiations culminated in the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) entering into force as an internationally legally…
Is China fragile?
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is a parable for unanticipated risk: the possibility of 'unknown unknown' events that no-one sees coming.
In a new essay, The Calm…
South China Sea: Jakobson and Glaser are both right
There has recently been a touch of disagreement on this site between Linda Jakobson of the Lowy Institute and Bonnie Glaser of CSIS about the motivations for China's actions in…
The US has abandoned a constructive strategy towards North Korea
On 2 January the US announced additional bilateral sanctions against North Korea, adding embargoes on three entities and 10 individuals. The stated reason was the alleged North…
What I got wrong in 2014, and what I got right
January should be called pundit accountability month. On websites such as this, we make all sorts of predictions and forecasts, or we identify structural trends or leadership…