The Singapore meeting starting Monday – the second Asean summit this year – will be Mahathir’s first since he stunned Asia by defeating his protégé Najib Razak in May elections to reoccupy the political hot seat he held from 1981 to 2003. Diplomatic observers are hoping the firebrand nonagenarian, a self-professed regionalist, will inject some vigour into […]
Singapore, this year’s ASEAN chair, faces some tough tasks. It must lift confidence in the organisation and inject the inspiration it needs to overcome a ‘midlife crisis’ while encouraging favourable conditions for continued economic growth. And it must do this in a time of geopolitical turbulence while trying to balance relations with the great […]
ASEAN is ever beset by existential angst. The ‘A’ in ASEAN stands for Angst as well as Association. Regard this as more description than criticism. The Angst-Association of South East Asian Nations always has lots to worry about. Angst and anxiety are rational responses. The questions are constant: can the association hold together? Can it actually […]
Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations unveiled with fanfare another road map to a common community for the next decade even as the bloc missed targets for economic integration this year. Read Here – Bloomberg
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the biggest trade agreement in history, reducing tariffs and other forms of protectionism in a dozen countries making up about 40 percent of the global economy with economic output of almost $30 trillion. The White House estimates it will eliminate 18,000 tariffs on U.S.-manufactured goods, while giving everyone from Vietnamese shrimpers to […]
A dozen Pacific-rim nations agreed to an historic pact that would cut trade barriers on items ranging from cars to rice, setting up a potentially contentious ratification vote before a skeptical U.S. Congress. After a week of final talks in Atlanta, an agreement was announced on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact more than five years in […]
ASEAN’s leaders are worried about what history tells them about the future of Southeast Asia. The fears about the lessons of history are a discordant note as ASEAN steps up to a great moment in its history—the creation of an economic, political-security and social Community in December 2015. Read Here – The National Interest
If I were to write about a new power rising in the East, one whose population of 633 million is the third largest in the world after China and India, and 100 million more than either the European Union or the whole of North America, you might expect to have heard quite a lot about […]
Last week as the U.S. Federal Government shut down, President Obama canceled his planned trip to Indonesia and Brunei, where he was to have attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Bali. Some foreign policy analysts have argued the canceled trip will inflict serious damage to the United States’ position in Asia. Read Here […]
For all the flurry of recent activity in ASEAN–India relations, the status of the relationship remains decidedly mixed. Read Here – The Diplomat
looking beyond borders 