Asia
China has Honiara onside but hasn’t yet won over Solomon Islands
In September, the Solomon Islands government led by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare severed its 36-year diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and switched to…
India: Navigating the straits of capability
Early in the new year, India’s defence industry witnessed a rare moment of glory when the domestically developed light combat aircraft made its first-ever landing on the navy’s…
In India, the link between sexual violence and economic slowdown
At the moment, two of the big stories in the Indian headlines are the country’s persistent economic slowdown and the announcement that the perpetrators of the notorious 2012 bus…
Commentary
As Wuhan virus spreads, Taiwan has no say at WHO
Chinese pressure keeps Taipei out of international organizations—putting everyone at more risk.
Originally published in Foreign Policy.
Japan has struck low in climate ambition
Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has repeatedly pledged that his country would lead global efforts to address climate change. Increasingly, however, Japan is facing scrutiny…
Reports of China’s economic death are greatly exaggerated
“CHINA’S GDP GROWS AT SLOWEST RATE IN 29 YEARS” bellowed the Financial Times headline last week. Never mind that this rate was still three times faster than OECD growth. The past…
The real winners in the trade war might be found in Southeast Asia
After more than a year of tit-for-tat tariffs in the US-China trade war and generalised anxiety about the cost to the world economy, it is remarkable that foreign direct…
In Timor-Leste, failed budget sparks a political crisis
In an extraordinary development, the government’s revised budget for 2020 failed to pass Timor-Leste’s parliament last Friday, despite the governing alliance having an outright…
Expect more hype, little progress on North Korea this year
Two years ago, US President Donald Trump agreed to negotiate with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, opening a wave of speculation, if not exuberance, that some kind of…
No end in sight for Germany’s troubles with Huawei
It was supposed to be a routine technical procedure: upgrading telecommunications networks from the old fourth-generation (4G) standard to the newest fifth-generation (5G)…