Category Archives: Asia

Australia sticking its neck out for the US on the issue of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei will not stop America from striking a trade deal with China that could result in Australian exports suffering

The toughening of China’s policies in the South and East China Seas is widely regarded as a defining characteristic of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy. But while it is true that the PRC has become more assertive in its maritime disputes … Continue reading →

The Chinese Australian community warmly thanks Prof Bob Carr for speaking out for the Chinese Australians and giving a detailed analysis of China panic over a period of more than 2 years.  Prof Carr’s suggestion of  a community response based … Continue reading →

Indonesia goes to the polls on 17 April, with the same presidential candidates as five years ago: the incumbent, Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi), a self-made former furniture exporter and former governor of Jakarta, and Prabowo Subianto, a former general … Continue reading →

The alphabet of election campaign hyperbole runs from Absurd through Fatuous and Stupid to Zero (as in logic).  Most statements are ephemeral for the nonsense spruikers know little is taken seriously once the losers are trampled by the triumphant. But in Indonesia pledges … Continue reading →

The ban on Huawei itself isn’t the problem, but the way that some arms of the government rubbed China’s face in it.

 In this week’s budget the Australian Strategic Policy Institute received an enormous increase in government funding from $3.528m in 2017/18 to $20m in 2018/19.( Budget Papers -3.1.2 Grants ,Tables 39 and 40) .If the grant is for more than one … Continue reading →

Under a remarkable young woman New Zealand is discovering deep resources of kindness and compassion. In the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre people touched by the tragedy built mountains of flowers and in their thousands attended rallies in support of … Continue reading →

Special Advisor to President Moon assesses the Hanoi Summit as not a failure but a setback. China and the ROK continue to agree the need for a US:DPRK agreed roadmap to move past the present stalemate towards the longer term … Continue reading →

Like the assassination of Olof Palme in Sweden in 1986, the 9/11 attacks in the US, and the murderous rampage of Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011, March 15 will mark the day New Zealand lost its innocence and entered … Continue reading →

The award of this year’s Weary Dunlop Asialink medal to one of our most distinguished Asian-Australians seems to me an opportune moment to revisit the question of whether we as a nation are making the most – in terms of … Continue reading →

Telecommunications company Huawei legal action against the US Government’s ban on their involvement in 5G roll-out is a counter attack on claims that their involvement would impact national security.  Exaggerated fears about cyber threat are part of a US campaign … Continue reading →

There has been much speculation about what Kim wants and what happened at the summit. When dealing with characters like Trump and Bolton anything is possible but Kim is much more focussed and any consideration of current events should never … Continue reading →

The sudden cancellation of the joint statement on February 28 at the end of the Trump-Kim Summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, was one of the most complex and contradictory historical events in my memory. Of course the adlib briefing by Donald … Continue reading →

The Trump-Kim summit began and  ended in Hanoi on 28 February with Donald Trump peremptorily terminating his discussions with Kim Jong-un. According to media reports, Trump claims Kim demanded the lifting of all US-imposed sanctions in exchange for closing the … Continue reading →

CANBERRA – The cameras are gone, the lights have dimmed, the scribes have filed their reports and returned home and Hanoi has faded from host of a potentially life-and-death summit to being merely the capital of a booming Southeast Asian … Continue reading →

NPR’s Steve Inskeep speaks with Ramesh Thakur of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University about the latest conflict between India and Pakistan.

 Every time Jiro Oshima wants to see his siblings, he must travel to North Korea.

Hanoi marked the 40th anniversary of its bloody 1979 border war with China with unprecedented candor, a revisionist reflection of declining contemporary ties

Americans seem to be afflicted by a curious historical amnesia. The facts are indisputable. The number of non-nuclear countries to have been attacked and invaded by the United States since 1945 is legion. Conversely, not one country with the bomb … Continue reading →

On 8 February 2019, Thai Raksa Chart (a Thai political party aligned with exiled, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra) made the bombshell announcement that it was nominating King Vajiralongkorn’s elder sister, Ubolratana, as its candidate for prime minister. Late that … Continue reading →

Amidst the fear of political interference of the Chinese government there is often a reference to one organ of the Chinese State, i.e., the United Front (UF). In some Australian news stories about the China, UF is sometimes dangled to … Continue reading →