New Zealand – part of the post-war alliance with the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia – has been openly reluctant to embrace the bloc’s pivoting security focus to Beijing, as tensions over trade, technology and ideology have strained relations between China and the West. Read Here
Australia’s current South China Sea policies are under strain from two sides. On the China side, Beijing will not agree to any Code of Conduct that is consistent with the arbitral tribunal ruling it rejects. If the ASEAN member states agree to such a Code of Conduct, Australia cannot support it. Read Here | Lowy […]
No middle power in Asia is as important as Japan. This is especially true in Southeast Asia, where Japan is not only a leading source of infrastructure investments and overseas development assistance (ODA), but also enjoys tremendous good will among both opinion leaders as well as the broader public. Read Here | Japan Times
Who owns the Australian outback is a vexed question. The true answer is First Nations peoples, whose ownership stems back 60,000 years. The legal answer is more complex. It’s a mess of titles – freehold, pastoral leases, crown leases, public land, native title and land held by Aboriginal trusts. Read Here | The Guardian
Australia is often blamed for putting all its eggs and everything else into one basket then shipping the lot to China. Those who worry about Beijing’s resultant leverage over Australia may feel vindicated after the travails of 2020 and 2021, but the trade war rooted in geopolitics hasn’t net-net hurt the Australian economy or its […]
It may be that in today’s world, when a superpower conflict could destroy much of mankind, China and the US will avoid a war over Taiwan. But the two sides are engaged in a game of chicken, which can escalate quickly and unpredictably, with fear of humiliation making it difficult to back down. Read Here […]
New Delhi has a long road ahead of it. Pakistan will likely oppose and undermine any Indian engagement with the Afghan Taliban. Amidst this highly volatile and uncertain situation, the possibility of a proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan is very much possible Read Here | The Diplomat
The fate of Myanmar, though, will not be determined around a table where the people of Myanmar are not represented. Myanmar’s protestors remain resolute in rejecting the military’s attempted coup. Meanwhile, the military has stated that it will only recognize ASEAN’s mediation role once the “situation returns to stability.” Read Here | The National Interest
The still-unresolved Ladakh crisis has created a new strategic reality for India, marked by renewed political hostility with China, and an increased militarisation of the Line of Actual Control. This new strategic reality imposes unequal costs on India and China. Read Here | Lowy Institute
Are the dams on the upper Mekong a far-sighted effort to secure a supply of water and electricity against future need? Or, considering the devastating downstream social and environmental effects of these dams, are they part of a strategy to develop a “hydraulic empire,” maintaining regional power through control over access to water, while also […]
looking beyond borders 