Programs & Projects

The North Asia Program

The China and East Asia Program

The China and East Asia Program conducts research on the politics and foreign policy of China and its immediate neighbours in Northeast Asia: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and the Korean peninsula. The program is renowned for its particular focus on China’s domestic politics and how this helps to shape its external behaviour. From 2020, the Institute’s extensive research on Southeast Asia – including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Myanmar – is now incorporated in a dedicated Southeast Asia Program. Each Program also commissions work by other scholars on the broader region. To complement their written research, Lowy Institute experts hold a robust series of dialogues and events on the politics of the region, independently and in partnership with other organisations.

Photo: Jung Yeon-Je-Pool/Getty Images

Experts
Latest publications
News and media
Malaysia's next 50 years (part 1): Domestic ethnocratic concerns
The MH370 tragedy has left us with many enigmas, but it has also revealed to the world a fact Malaysians have always known: an administration produced by an ethnocratic system…
Abbott to sign security pact with Japan, but what will he offer China?
Media reports predict that Australia and Japan will sign a historic defence and security pact when Prime Minister Tony Abbott visits Japan this weekend. If this news is accurate,…
Another false dawn in Cambodia?
As the National Assembly resumed sittings in Phnom Penh this week, with only members of the CPP government in attendance because of the continuing boycott by elected members of…
Mekong summit unlikely to halt Lao dams
The second Mekong River Commission Summit will take place in Ho Chi Minh City on 5 April, with the participation of the prime ministers of the four member states (Cambodia, Laos,…
New Lowy Institute fellow Aaron Connelly on Indonesia's election
This week the Lowy Institute welcomed Aaron L Connelly as a research fellow in the East Asia Program. Aaron's research will focus on Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. Prior…
China links: Dirty air, Mongolia, Latin America, Chinese Dream and more
Some Chinese see uncomfortable parallels between Crimea now and Mongolia in 1945. China's rapidly increasing investment, trade and loans in Latin America may be entrenching high…
Crimea referendum stirs old insecurities in China
China's Central Propaganda Department issued a directive on Monday ordering mainland media not to link the Crimea referendum to the country's own separatist hot spots. China…
China links: Myanmar, NPC, censorship, Paralympics, responding to Crimea and more
Adam Minter: Chinese critics accuse Malaysia of acting like, well, China.   China has won 783 medals at the Summer Paralympic Games, and zero at the Winter Paralympics.   Barry…
How Jokowi got his start in politics
Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo is the man of the moment in Indonesian politics. A furniture retailer by trade, two years ago he was a little known small town mayor in central Java. Today…
China links: People's Congress, Hong Kong, Xi Jinping's reforms, corruption and more
Cheng Li of Brookings believes there is cause for optimism that Xi Jinping can deliver on economic reforms. One local official recalls brutal treatment he suffered under the…