Asia

Lina Alexandra is a researcher at the Department of International Relations, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta. This post is part of the New Voices series. In December 2010, the Indonesian Foreign Minister was asked what kind of role Indonesia would like to

Armed with your questions, David Cohen and Peter Martin from Sinocentric speak to Peking University political scientist Pan Wei. Part I can be found here. From Megan Fennell: Can China learn from Western countries in its process of political reform? Actually, the West has a lot of

It is not often we hear Papua New Guinea described in public by a federal politician as a top foreign policy priority and a country with which Australia has a joint destiny. Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop did just that in an excellent speech to the Lowy Institute\'s

The current round of deaths the Assad regime is inflicting upon the Syrian population should illustrate the hollowness of the concept of Responsibility to Protect (R2P).  While one could hardly disagree with the concept of R2P, the conditions necessary for its implementation exist so

Shashank Joshi is a PhD candidate at Harvard University and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. This post is part of the New Voices series. Over the past twenty years, India has become reacquainted with greater Asia. The story is well-known; it runs from the

Geopolitics wasn\'t meant to be easy. But former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser does himself, China and sensible strategic analysis a triple disservice in this recent Asia policy speech at the Australian National University. The short version — an equally ill-structured blog post 

Jeffrey Wilson argues that the China market, while big, is not that big, so our economy would get by OK without it. He concludes that we need not worry too much about having to choose between the America and China. He suggests, therefore, that we need not be too anxious about the risk that US-

Europe rolls out the red carpet for China, while the US too often sees China through a red mist. Building on that image from The Economist, Australia is peering through the red dust of a resources boom to make sense of a giant relationship that must become a partnership.  Some of the

Robert Ayson, Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University, Wellington, writes: Graeme Dobell\'s draft for an Australia-China pact recognises the gap in Australia\'s growing stable of bilateral concords: it does not have one with its leading trade partner, with the

It\'s rare that an institution with as dull a title or vague a mandate as the Association of South-East Asian Nations Regional Forum makes headline news. But tomorrow\'s meeting of the ARF in Bali is likely to do just that. It will be a critical test of Asia\'s ability to manage maritime security

I have been hesitant to use my long-ago experience in Vietnam as a basis to enter the debate about Australia\'s role in Afghanistan, not least because of the great differences between the two countries. But General Peter Leahy\'s suggestion that Australia is pursuing the wrong Afghan strategy and

Dr Nicholas Farrelly is a Southeast Asia specialist at ANU. In 2006 he co-founded New Mandala, which deals with Southeast Asian regional affairs.This post is part of the New Voices series. In June 2011 a 17-year ceasefire between the ethnic minority Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the

While Australians have been rightly charged with apathy about the momentous changes taking place to our north, there is a growing wealth of expertise on Asia among the young professionals and scholars of this country. On Friday 8 July, the Lowy Institute hosted its 8th annual New Voices

Crispin Rovere is part of the APLN Secretariat, and a PhD Candidate at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU. Views are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of APLN. A recent survey shows 67% of South Koreans want US tactical nuclear weapons (withdrawn in 1991)

One joy of the ANU China Update series is that they bring out the book of the conference the day before the annual talkfest takes place. Ross Garnaut claims it\'s the only conference in the world to achieve this feat. Thus, rather than risking the chills and fogs of Canberra this week, you

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. It is being reported that the Australian Government has finalised its controversial asylum deal with Malaysia. Under the original

Dr Giora Eliraz is an Associate Researcher at the Harry S Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In his article, \'Indonesian democracy: The myth of \'98\', Stephen Grenville argues that my post, \'Indonesia\'s role in Egypt\'s democratisation

In the analysis that has followed the election victory of Pheu Thai, led by Yingluck Shinawatra, commentators have repeatedly identified the support that she and the party received as coming from \'the rural and urban poor\' (see The Australian and various articles in The Economist as examples

What to make of the mess that the Australia Network tender process has become? Yesterday, Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham, who has been assiduously probing the progress of Australia Network tender in Estimates hearings, moved that all the reports and briefings prepared by the \'assessment

Stephan Fruehling is a lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Program, ANU. Hugh\'s post continues a fruitful debate about the Asian order, US policy and the rise of China. I think the future of Asia should not, and does not have to be, a new Cold War — but a

The depressing reality is that a clear-cut election victory in Thailand may not settle anything. The people have voted decisively but the popular voice is far from decisive. Politicians still tear at each other, the King totters slowly towards his grave, the military and the elite agonise, and

Much is made in counterinsurgency theory of the importance of \'separating the insurgent from the population\' as a means to deny them sources of refuge and reinforcement. But when viewed from the perspective of reintegration, this idea is inadequate, because it presents insurgent and