Asia
China’s growing interest in the Middle East
Much has been said about US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East but it’s worth remembering that only a few weeks earlier a mirror image of Trump’s Middle East…
Commentary
US manoeuvres in the South China Sea are not provocative
Originally published in the Financial Times
Aaron L Connelly
Four Corners sees the Party-state in all the shadows
Last night ABC TV aired a Four Corners/Fairfax Media investigation into China’s power and influence in Australia that promised to uncover 'how China's Communist Party is secretly…
What Chinese media thought of the Shangri-La Dialogue
As most readers of The Interpreter already know, last weekend the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) hosted the 16th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore (SLD17)…
Vietnam’s free trade pitch to the US
It was trade, not China's manoeuvring in the South China Sea, that was top of the agenda when Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc met US President Donald Trump on Wednesday…
Economic diplomacy brief: TPP 11 vs RCEP, Asian banks and economic nationalism
Summit risks
A subtle tussle over priority for Asia’s two nascent new trade groupings is under way with some potentially significant implications for Australia’s summit of South…
Mindanao: In the face of a new, united threat, Duterte courts unorthodox alliances
The conflict in the Philippines’ city of Marawi has now claimed the lives of 100 people, and President Rodrigo Duterte is committed to his May 23 imposition of martial law for the…
A dam at Sambor: Another Mekong domino teeters
Almost exactly 57 years ago, as a junior Australian diplomat, I accompanied a Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme engineer to what was then the remote town of Kratie in…
Competition for influence in an integrated Asia
Since 1991, leadership of the international order has been a monopoly: the US has been the only game in town. But, as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in Beijing earlier…
Incident at Three Pagodas Pass
After decades of strained bilateral relations, Australia’s defence ties with Myanmar are gradually being restored.
The office of the Defence Attache (DA) in the Australian…