Asia
Economic diplomacy brief: Indonesia and Vanuatu, dole woes, and IP theft
Strange neighbours
Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper makes some seemingly unremarkable points about Australia’s relationship with Indonesia: economic ties are growing;…
Vietnam’s crackdown on dissent could undermine its stability and growth
Since General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong emerged in firm control atop Vietnam’s political leadership in early 2016, Hanoi has gone on the offensive in a massive effort to clamp…
Entrepreneurial traffic in the Jakarta jam
Given the number of green helmets and jackets marking out ride-hailing app drivers amid Jakarta’s notorious traffic, it’s easy to think the digital start-ups have conquered…
The Boao confidence
President Xi Jinping’s speech to the Boao Forum for Asia, held on the tropical island of Hainan on 10 April, displayed a new skill China has been given free rein to…
Australia vs China, Europe vs Russia
The “bitter split among Australia academics” (reported in the Financial Times) with regard to attitudes towards China, and the Skripal poisoning incident that prompted an…
The many questions about China’s Vanuatu ambition
What to make of the extraordinary story in Australia’s Fairfax newspapers on Tuesday about reported discussions between China and Vanuatu that could allow the People’s…
Xi’s big bureaucratic shake-up
Beijing is shaking up its bureaucracy. Two blueprints, released on 17 and 21 March, launched a major reform which will make crucial changes to the balance between the Communist…
Borneo oil spill costs Indonesia’s poor
“We believe this is the worst oil spill to catch fire since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster,” said Fathur Roziqin Fen, Director of WALHI East Kalimantan. WALHI is Indonesia’s…
The peril of North Korea’s charm offensive
Since the first days of 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has undertaken a series of diplomatic activities whose scope and significance are rivalled only by his missile and…