Asia
Indonesia-China: a smart city can make for clever politics
China is one of Indonesia’s largest investors and for President Joko Widodo this amounts to a capital idea – quite literally, with his plan to move the seat of Indonesia’s…
North Korea keeps building more powerful weapons, with no end in sight
North Korean weapons tests are nothing new. Pyongyang has been conducting missile tests for years, even holding large annual parades to show off its arsenal. However, things are…
Commentary
How does Australia square AUKUS with Taiwan?
Will the nuclear submarine deal with Washington drag Australia into a conflict with China? Not if Canberra uses its diplomatic powers well. Originally published in the Australian…
What the Quad could learn from AUKUS
The latest AUKUS announcement ignited a furious debate. How should we weigh the risks and rewards of the plan for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines? Critics, from…
Great power rivalry is poisoning multilateralism
Multilateralism functions when great powers agree on certain fundamentals. Conversely, multilateralism is bound to sputter when there are deep contradictions between major powers…
Paying for a new Thai democracy
Polling daze
This year began with The Economist Democracy Index giving a striking upgrade to two of the countries which have been a longstanding deadweight on Southeast Asia’s…
Climate change, ironically, reduces the heat in the South China Sea
Australia’s decision to go ahead with the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and United Kingdom reflects a judgement that China, and more particularly…
Japan feels the pinch as fertiliser costs soar thanks to Russia’s war
For many countries, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a grave impact on food costs and availability. Grain export bans and pipeline shutdowns by Russia have resulted in a sharp…
China’s food dilemma
Despite China’s enormous population, the country has limited resources, making the security of food supplies a constant preoccupation. For older generations, including President…
China trumpets the Saudi-Iran deal, yet much credit goes to Pakistan
China’s brokering of a Saudi Arabia-Iran peace deal was presented earlier this month as a diplomatic blockbuster, a sign of the country’s growing influence in the oil-rich Middle…