Asia
Should Trump win, will Kim Jong-un pick up the phone?
Imagine Donald Trump does win in the US Presidential election next year. Will he expect another “beautiful letter” from North Korea’s Kim Jong-un?
Trump’s summitry bromance…
Myanmar: The last days of the junta?
The latest phase of military conflict in Myanmar pitting rebel forces against the Myanmar military, better known as the Tatmadaw, may herald a new political and security landscape…
How to stop any repeat of the Australia-China sonar incident
Soviet warships regularly sparred with Western navies during the Cold War years, conducting close-in ship-to-ship manoeuvres and pointing lasers against their foreign opponents at…
COP28: A better climate for US-China relations?
China and the United States, as the largest global greenhouse gas emitters, will play a pivotal role in securing consensus at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference,…
Ignoring those forgotten
After Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shook hands with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing this month, much was made of Gough Whitlam’s historic visit to China in…
Indonesia: The high cost of high-speed rail
The first high-speed railway in Southeast Asia began operating in October, four years behind schedule and considerably over budget. “Whoosh” railway can reach speeds of up to 350…
Southeast Asia's minerals: Opportunity knocks
Minerals produced in Southeast Asia play an important role in global supply and local manufacturing and infrastructure. The region is a large-scale producer of minerals required…
The extra bad news behind the latest Korean break-down
North Korea sent a satellite rocket up, and a key deal with South Korea came tumbling down.
The effective scrapping last week of the inter-Korean military agreement was not…
Here come the SuperApps
Southeast Asia is being transformed by the rapid growth of e-commerce. Citizens have embraced online shopping with open arms and clicking fingers. A recent study projects the…
Rise of the Redback
In August, Beijing threw a lifeline to Argentina, a serial defaulter in sovereign debt, by arranging to pay back in yuan half of a US$2.7 billion instalment of an emergency loan…