Asia

Charles writes: In reply to Raoul Heinrichs\' three-part piece (1,2,3) on China\'s aircraft carrier, the assertion that China\'s acquiring of an aircraft carrier is for status, or navy nationalism, doesn\'t sit right with me. By all projections, China is going to be massive by 2050:

The official Chinese conversation with Australia can now easily range over the problems of university administration or middle class obesity to security in Asia and the remaking of multilateral institutions. All those topics got a run on Friday when China\'s Ambassador to Australia, Chen Yuming,

It was only hours after the ramp ceremony for Australia\'s previous casualty in Afghanistan that the horrible news began to filter in: another Australian soldier was dead, shot and killed by a rogue solider from the Afghan National Army. This morning, a second soldier was revealed to have

Don\'t get me wrong: I\'m not arguing that a European should be the next head of the IMF. Just that realpolitik makes that outcome inevitable. Regardless of fairness, logic, the re-balanced world economy, natural justice, the moral case, past promises, or the competence of the candidates, the

Having spent much of the past two decades seeking to exploit the limitations of aircraft carriers, why has China embarked on its own carrier program? The first and arguably least likely reason is that it represents the first step in an effort to challenge the US for sea control on the open ocean.

Grappling with the huge questions posed by China is producing a plethora of responses from the Australian polity.  Prime Minister Gillard goes to Beijing seeking \'mutual respect\' and claiming Australia\'s right to be \'clear and robust\'. The Treasurer talks up the Asia Century being

Greta Nabbs-Keller is writing a PhD at Griffith Asia Institute on the impact of democratisation on Indonesia’s foreign policy. Readers of last Friday\'s edition of The Australian may have been struck by the juxtaposition between an opinion piece by Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, in which he

\'Dancing on the Heads of Snakes\', the title of Victoria Clark\'s book about governing in Yemen, says much about last night\'s third refusal by President Saleh to sign a GCC-brokered agreement for him to step down in thirty days\' time. Saleh has gone through the motions of negotiating and

Ralph Evans writes: A comment on Roger Shanahan\'s piece on the Gulf Cooperation Council and the possible accession of Jordan and Morocco. Jordan is near the Gulf, but Morocco is about as far as Hong Kong is from Sydney. And Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria all lie in between Morocco and

Last week\'s announcement by the Gulf Cooperation Council that it was accepting membership applications from two new members, Morocco and Jordan, raised a few eyebrows.  At first glance, the choice appears a bit strange. While Jordan at least has a common border with Saudi Arabia,

Just found this on an annoyingly addictive site called The Best of YouTube. (Don\'t click on this link if you want to be productive.) The ceremony reminds me of a passage in John Keegan\'s masterly A History of Warfare: ...over the course of 4000 years of experiment and repetition,

Nic Maclellan works as a journalist and researcher in the Pacific islands. For more than two decades, Australia has been promoting trade liberalisation and structural adjustment in the Pacific islands, including — in late 2009 — negotiations for the PACER-Plus trade

In the 1990s, Australia\'s leaders assured the nation it would not have to alter its society or institutions to engage with Asia. Adjust the diplomatic settings, of course, and learn the languages and ways of the region, but Australia could attend the Asian party dressed as it was. Ownership

What lessons you draw from the political unrest we are observing in the Arab world depends to a large degree on where you stand. In the West, the focus has been on the dissatisfaction of the Arab youth bulge, the power of social media to rally activists, the demands for personal and political

Michael Barr is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Flinders University. Singapore went to the polls on 7 May 2011 and delivered the ruling People\'s Action Party (PAP) Government its worst result since 1963, both in terms of the proportion of votes and the number of

It\'s not often that Lebanon can look out at the region and consider itself an island of stability in a sea of political turmoil. But while members of the Mubarak family go on trial, the former Tunisian leader Zein al Abidin ben Ali enjoys exile in Saudi Arabia, Muammar Qadhafi is subject to

Stephan Fruehling is a lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU. The Interpreter has carried several informed and informative contributions on Libya, especially on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. But for the decision to intervene, R2P was only one

The news about bin Laden\'s death came while I was en route to Beirut on a research trip. In the short time I have been here it has been interesting to see how the story of the death has been portrayed on western vs Arab television.  On BBC, Sky and CNN there has been nothing but bin

There is an interesting bit of detail in the killing of Usama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In January this year Pakistani intelligence arrested the Indonesian extremist, Umar Patek, one of the organisers of the 2002 Bali bombings, in the same town (although details of his arrest

Raffaello Pantucci is a Visiting Scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Stepping into North Korean territory was not quite as dramatic as I thought it would be. The small huts straddling the demarcation line between North and South Korea in the Joint Security Area are small plots of