Asia and Pacific

I have a few nicknames, but one of my more irregular ones, used by some Lowy colleagues, is \'totally pointless and unacceptable\'. I can thank a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman for that. Qin Gang used the expression to describe a paper I wrote on China\'s aid program (a paper which has

Does Australia have a strategy for dealing with the new Asia, especially the rise of China and India? This question is central to the Australian Government\'s recently-announced Asia policy review. Either we have a plan, in which the case the review can test, inform and refine it, or we don\'t

It\'s hard not to be impressed by the diplomatic entrepreneurship of some Pacific Islands countries. Just when the China-Taiwan diplomatic truce appeared to be closing off one income stream, the region has become a hotbed of competition over the recognition of Russian-backed breakaway states. 

To express the zeitgeist and schadenfreude of Oceania this week leads to only one topic – football. Australia didn\'t really engage with the tax summit in Canberra because its attentions and emotions had been spent on the two grand finals at the weekend. Concurrently, the rugby fest thunders

Commodore Frank Bainimarama once famously told an Australian journalist that he did not trust the Fiji people. Apparently the Australian government doesn\'t trust them either. The Fiji people currently have no forum in which to have their voice heard, but on the one occasion they have

The Australian relationship with Indonesia is being changed and challenged by the wonderful reality that these two extraordinarily different nations now share some central values. Indonesia and Australia largely agree on the golden norms of the modern global system, ranging from democracy and human

Prime Minister Gillard has announced an Asia White Paper, but Greg Sheridan and Crikey, in its daily editorial, are impatient. The PM doesn\'t need a White Paper to tell her that there are some obvious shortcomings in our approach to Asia, says Sheridan: At school and university

If there is a conceptual shift on display in yesterday\'s White Paper launch, it is from Australia\'s firm attachment to the construct of the Asia Pacific toward the \'Asian Century\'. The country that invented APEC (well, co-invented with Japan) is readjusting the settings. It was Treasury that&

I am in Almaty with Konrad Muller, where we are beginning a three-week journey examining Kazakhstan\'s relations with China. This is part of a new project looking at how key states in West Asia perceive their rapidly expanding economic ties to China. Initially, we are focusing on Saudi Arabia and

Peter McCawley, currently based in Jakarta, is a Visiting Fellow at the Indonesia Project, ANU, and former Dean of the ADB Institute, Tokyo. The response of the Indonesian Government to the explosion of a bomb outside a Christian church in Solo on Sunday has been swift.&

It is becoming popular to use the word \'rivalry\' when describing relations between China and India. Recent spats between the two powers over Indian oil exploration and an alleged maritime encounter in the South China Sea certainly highlight the potential for dangerous clashes of interests

The big annual AUSMIN meeting, where Australia\'s defence and foreign ministers get together with their US counterparts, has just concluded in San Francisco. This year\'s talks marked the 60th anniversary of the Australia-US alliance, and the communiqué is rich birthday fare. The

Nina Markovic, a PhD candidate in Political Science, Centre for European Studies, Australian National University writes: A month before the Women in Political Science Caucus meeting at the Australian Political Science Association conference in Canberra, Roger Shanahan\'s piece on the Lowy

Politicians and political parties the world over dismiss opinion polls when the results are inconvenient and embrace them when the results show support for their policies. So I wasn\'t surprised to see some of the reactions to the results of the Lowy Institute\'s Fiji Poll. I was personally

A piece by The Diplomat\'s Washington correspondent Eddie Walsh appeared online today quoting me on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It says that I think the F-35 is probably more capability than we need against Southeast Asian air forces. However... ...\"if the adversary is

Today we are launching Talib or Taliban? Indonesian students in Pakistan and Yemen, which looks at whether Indonesian students studying at Islamic institutions in Pakistan and Yemen pose a risk in terms of future patterns of extremism in Indonesia. The report is based on fieldwork in

There\'s a good chance you have never heard of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Below, in another of my interviews from Tuesday\'s Lowy Institute Pacific Islands and the World Conference is the SPC\'s Director-General, Jimmie Rodgers to explain all about its work, and the challenges

Interview with Tang Qifang, Southeast Asia specialist at the foreign ministry-affiliated China Institute of International Studies by Peter Martin and David Cohen. Peter and David are conducting a series of interviews with Chinese academics and journalists, using reader-submitted questions. Part

Reader David has responded to my call for tips about the latest Asian cinema, directing me to a trailer for a new Taiwanese war epic, Seediq Bale. Here\'s part of the synopsis from the official website. And, a warning: the trailer is not for the squeamish. Wei Te-Sheng’s epic film WARRIORS

The Interpreter likes to alert you to new films with a political, strategic or economic bent. But we\'ve had a lamentable record on cinema from and about the region the Lowy Institute knows best. Herewith, trailers for two new films on Southeast Asian themes, the first a biopic on

Vinod Daniel is a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute and CEO of IndHeritage. Now that Anna Hazare has ended his twelve day fast, and his version of the Jan Lokpal bill has been agreed to as the basis by both houses of the Indian Parliament, we all should be delighted. Any one promoting anti&

At the Lowy Institute New Voices conference last Friday, Hamish McDonald, of the 6.30 with George Negus program, made an uncomfortable comparison. While England\'s press covers French, German and wider European politics, very few in the Australian press do the same for Indonesia, Malaysia,

This photo, courtesy of Indian milblog Broadsword, shows three sleek and modern destroyers in various stages of completion. Perhaps this appearance is deceiving, but when you look at the wider scene, you do ask yourself how they ever build such advanced vessels among the