Asia
Moon’s Eurasia: opening up North Korea, serving Seoul’s interests
Bringing sustainable peace to the Korean Peninsula. Improving South Korea’s long-term economic prospects. Helping Seoul to shape regional geopolitics. South Korean President Moon…
US-China tensions: is this about economics or security?
The administration has recognised that the true challenge China presents is not fundamentally one of a rising power threatening to replace an established power. Instead it is the…
Answering the question: should South Korea accept refugees?
South Korea has denied refugee status to the hundreds of Yemeni asylum seekers, most of whom are male, that arrived in Jeju in the first half of 2018.
Public opinion in South…
What went wrong? Taiwan fails to legalise same-sex marriage
Like in Australia, the debate about foreign interference in Taiwan usually centres on the shadowy intentions of China. But a very different source of overseas influence is blamed,…
Playing the hostage card: the Meng Wanzhou & Michael Kovrig cases
On 1 December, as President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping were meeting in Buenos Aires to discuss a mounting trade dispute between the United States and China, Sabrina…
Competing shades of saffron in Indian politics
The Indian city Ayodhya recently once again turned into a saffron fortress.
The BJP seems set to fight the 2019 elections by rallying its factions and allies to assert the…
Meng Wanzhou: China’s “tantrum diplomacy” and Huawei
As Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou sits in Canada, awaiting potential extradition to the United States, her case underscores two themes that have become evident…
How Australia should deepen ties with India
Ties between India and Australia have always been a little constrained – and unsurprisingly so, as traditionally there has been little to connect the two countries. For its part,…
Separating the Philippine state from the church
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is a very different leader than his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III.
Duterte has expressed his love for Xi Jinping. Aquino took China to…
Xi Jinping in 2018: Any closer to the truth?
In 2016, I published a study of Xi Jinping, CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping (I B Tauris). This book has subsequently been reissued in paperback, and in 2018 I did a shorter…