Asia and Pacific

Former Fairfax correspondent Hamish McDonald joins the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific next year as a visiting fellow. Just over three years ago the Japanese tried to break out of the cage that looked to be condemning them to a stagnating economy, declining population, and rising friction with

Dr Emma Campbell is a Korea Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU. Failure is unequivocally the most appropriate description for the international community's cumulative efforts to bring North Korea into the international fold. Last week North Korea

Graeme Smith is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the China Studies Centre, University of Sydney and a Visiting Fellow with the State, Society and Governance Program in Melanesia Program, ANU. When I penned Are Chinese Soft Loans Always a Bad Thing? for The Interpreter in March there seemed little

Andrew Selth is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. Last Friday, Foreign Policy magazine named Burma's President Thein Sein (pictured) and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the two top global thinkers for 2012. On the same day, Thein Sein was named Asian of the Year by the

As usual, most commentary on North Korea's rocket launch last week focuses on the politics and diplomacy of Pyongyang's delinquency. But it is worth exploring the strategic implications more specifically. These are significant, but not straightforward. The apparently successful launch of a three-

Dirk van der Kley is a Research Associate in the Lowy Institute's East Asia Program. Long waits in store for train and truck-drivers: to appease concerns about Chinese dominance, Mongolia has insisted a new Chinese-Mongol coal railway is built with a different gauge. This follows Kyrgyzstan's

Dr Khalid Koser is Head of the New Issues in Security Program at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and a non-resident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. Bloggers, government officials, academics, and radio interviewers have kindly (and in one or two cases, not so kindly) responded to my paper

A rather hyperactive time lapse video of Cambodia's capital, but maybe that's fitting for the place being depicted. (H/t TDW

Douveri Henao is from the Institute of National Affairs, Papua New Guinea. I have been following with interest the debate on this blog about the Pacific's digital future. In her new paper, Danielle Cave analyses PNG's Facebook discussion group Sharp Talk. I wanted to join this blog discussion and

In October I spent a week in Port Moresby interviewing some of PNG's newly elected MPs for the Lowy Institute's Leadership Mapping Project. This work continues our earlier survey work in PNG which was interrupted by the constitutional crises in late 2011 and early this year. The elections in June

Thanks to Dr Tess Newton Cain for giving me an opportunity to delve into a few details of my recent research paper Digital Islands. Firstly and briefly, in distinguishing between telecommunications 'liberalisation' and 'deregulation' in the Pacific Islands region, I don't want to get caught up in

Andrew Selth is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and author of United States Relations with Burma: From Hostility to Hope. To long time Burma watchers, and countless others, it was an astonishing sight, enthusiastically conveyed by the international news media: two of the world's

Edward Kus is a Research Associate in the Lowy Institute's East Asia Program. Xi Jinping's (pictured) first speech to China's new 25-member Politburo took a strong stance on corruption and reinforced the Communist Party's founding ideology. Xi Jinping's public image is being burnished. See

Bravo! We might have expected that Paul Keating would go beyond the anodyne in talking about the Asian Century. But when the Asian dialogue is dominated by China, it takes special panache to repeat the radical view he put forward as Prime Minister in 1994: 'no country is more important to

Looking at the line-up of China's new leaders, two things stand out. First, Jiang Zemin, the 86-year old who was China's leader from 1989-2002, ought to be a very content man. Of the new seven-member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), three owe political allegiance to Jiang, who almost literally

Dr Peter Dean is a Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU. Hugh White, writing in response to Al Palazzo and Jeffrey Grey, has questioned the use of East Timor as an example of the limitations of the ADF to undertake operations at this time. In response I offer a quote from Dr Bob

Edward Kus helped to put this post together. Zhang Lifeng, Editor in Chief of the Financial Times Chinese language website, asked his Weibo (Chinese Twitter) followers what question they most want to ask at the 18th Party Congress press conference. See some of the more than 600 replies. the WSJ

The use of animation brings to life the story of a North Korean defector who was born inside a 're-education camp'. The interviews with former North Korean prison guards look absolutely chilling. If readers have details about where and when this film is due to be screened in Australia, please

Finally, after months of equivocation, the Lao Minister for Energy and Mining, Viraphon Viravong, announced on 5 November that the Vientiane government will proceed with its plans to build the controversial dam at Xayaburi (pictured), roughly midway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. A ceremony

Edward Kus is a Research Associate in the Lowy Institute's East Asia Program. Can't remember whether the Central Committee chooses the Politburo Standing Committee or vice versa? The 18th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party begins on 8 November. Here are some basics about China's party

Associate Professor Michele Ford is Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre. It's great to see Indonesia identified as one of five key Asian nations, and Indonesian one of four priority languages, in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, not least because I teach Indonesian