Asia
Commentary
A symbolic, stabilising step is one thing – but do Australia and China have enough shared interests for progress?
Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping’s meeting comes in a world where the geopolitical dynamics have changed too much for a ‘reset’ to occur. Originally published in The Guardian.
Economic diplomacy: Charging up old ties with Jakarta
Mining mates
The lexicon of strained language to accommodate the endlessly complicated relationship between Indonesia and Australia is coalescing around a new phrase for…
The city that throbs with fury
Malang won’t stop grieving, defiantly and messily. Normally this would rile authorities, but their tolerance of the banners of hate draping the historic East Java city suggests…
“Big differences to manage”: Albanese and Xi put a value on diplomacy
At one level, the meeting was mainly symbolic, Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping smiling and warmly shaking hands on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali after years of top-level…
Malaysian Chinese community to shape national poll
Despite having lived there for centuries, the Malaysian Chinese community, which makes up 22.6 per cent of the Malaysian population, has often been cast by Malay nationalists as…
Putting food at the heart of China-Indonesia relations
As regional leaders gathered for the ASEAN summit in Cambodia last week, a sideline meeting also took place with China. For all the talk about regional rivalries amid growing…
Refugees may become victims of Malaysia’s electoral politics
Campaigning is well underway for Malaysia’s general election, set to be held on 19 November. In the leadup to the high-stakes poll, Malaysia’s government has made the…
CCP: Who makes up the party
Over summer in Australia we’re featuring selected articles from the past year. This was originally published 15 November 2022.
These first three charts, taken together,…
North Korea: unpredictably predictable
North Korea has been launching missiles again. In the first week of November alone, there were more than 30 dispatches, one day the busiest ever – clocking up 23. A salvo flew…
In defence of Indian women celebrities
In an era when “boycott culture” has firmly taken root in the Indian film industry – threatening the success of big-budget pictures and smaller movies alike should they run afoul…