Asia
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TRAVERS MCLEOD. Australia will rue its decision on global migration compact
“Step up or step aside.” This was former Indonesian foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda’s warning to Australia and Indonesia, as Co-Chairs of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons, and Related Transnational Crime, in January 2016. Continue reading »
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JEREMY SALT. Yes, What About Yemen? (American Herald Tribune, 13.11.18)
After the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, many are asking ‘But what about Yemen?’ Yes, indeed, what about Yemen, but what about Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Somalia? What about Egypt in 1956, what about Iran in 1953 and what about Palestine from 1917 to the present day? Continue reading »
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PETER VARGHESE. Australia and India: Navigating From Potential to Delivery.
In July I submitted to then PM Turnbull a report he had commissioned on an India Economic Strategy out to 2035. Continue reading »
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Australia has normalised relations with a China-led future (Australian Financial Review, 21.11.18)
The Australia-China relationship is almost back to normal. The speed at which it has recovered has surprised. It has taken two statesman-like speeches by the former Prime Minister and his successor, and the appointment of a new Foreign Minister as previously suggested in this column. The anticipated imminent visit by PM Morrison to Beijing will Continue reading »
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ADAM WAKELING. Tokyo Trial: how an Australian judge sentenced a Japanese leader to death (ABC NEWS).
“Accused Hideki Tojo, on the counts of the indictment of which you have been convicted, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East sentences you to death by hanging.” Continue reading »
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ROHAN FOX, MATTHEW DORNAN. China in the Pacific: Is China engaged in “debt-trap diplomacy”? A repost from November 12 2018
Recent media coverage has touted the rise of Chinese aid and lending as a threat to Pacific nations’ sovereignty and to the West’s influence in the Pacific. China, so the narrative goes, is aggressively lending to smaller nations who do not have the capacity to pay back the loans. Some commentators have even described such lending as Continue reading »
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Decoupling the US from Asia (ANU East Asia Forum).
Maybe US Vice President Mike Pence didn’t mean to fire the opening shots in a new Cold War with China in his 4 October speech at the Hudson Institute, but the global policy community can be forgiven now for taking the proposition seriously. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The Geopolitics of Lombrum Naval Base
It is difficult to find a strong, rational strategic argument for Australia’s to return to Lombrum Naval Base (or HMPNGS Tarangau) on Manus Island. Of course, not all of Defence’s activities have strictly military objectives or relate directly to the defence of Australia and in the Southwest Pacific Defence cooperation has been a major component Continue reading »
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TONY KEVIN. The diplomatic disaster that was APEC Port Moresby
There is still a lot we do not know about how and why the APEC Summit just ended in Port Moresby was such a diplomatic disaster, from which APEC may not readily recover anytime soon. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. What is History?
President Macron’s warning against growing nationalism and the need to ensure the preservation of values, as against unalloyed selfishness in international relations, was an important way to mark the Centenary of the end of the First World War. Trump was present, but certainly not listening. The show was not about him and, he couldn’t find Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Will Japan’s Love Affair with Nuclear Power be Resurrected?
On Friday 11 March 2011, a tsunami knocked out emergency generators at Fukushima Dai-Ichi, resulting in melt-downs in three of six reactors, covering the countryside in eastern Honshu with radiation. Some isotopes were short-lived, others will be around much longer. Seven and a half years later, an endless torrent of sea water continues to be Continue reading »
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DUNCAN GRAHAM.Jerusalem and a Free Trade Agreement with Indonesia
Now here’s the weirdest thing about the way we handle policy with the neighbours: Canberra politicians are proven fumblers and bumblers when dealing with big Muslim-majority Indonesia. Yet at the Australian National University just a ten-minute bike ride across the lake are some of the world’s foremost experts, able to inform, advise and Continue reading »
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RICHARD McGREGOR AND JONATHAN PRYKE. Australia must tread carefully in its Pacific contest with China. (SMH 9.11.2018)
If you want a glimpse into the future of Australia’s relationship with China, with all the elements of competition and co-operation, and tensions and bridge-building, then this week is a good place to start. Continue reading »
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TONG ZHAO. Why China Is Worried About the End of the INF Treaty.
The U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty reflects Washington’s long-standing concern that the treaty constrained its ability to counter China’s fast-growing missile forces in the Asia Pacific. This article was published by Carnegie Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy on the 7th of November 2018. Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. What is it to be with China – cooperation or conflict? A response to Peter Jennings of ASPI.
In a prominent article in The Weekend Australian’s ‘Inquirer’ section on 3/4 November, headed “Canberra alone must control our China ties”, the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, castigates the Victorian government, a large delegation of leading Australian businesses and the Australian Technology Network of Universities for having the temerity of engaging Continue reading »
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Beijing’s spin on Xinjiang camps is not fooling anyone.
Communist regime has offered a string of justifications for its inhumane treatment of the Uyghur people. This article was published by UCA News on the 6th of November. Continue reading »
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DAVID HUTT. Timor-Leste developing closer ties with China.
Southeast Asia’s newest and poorest nation needs funds that Beijing is poised to provide to fuel what some see as Dili’s misguided oil and gas ambitions. This article was published by Asia Times on the 2nd of November 2018. Continue reading »
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DUNCAN GRAHAM. Troubled by truth telling in Indonesia
Does the present government really understand Indonesia? Or want to? Ministers get detailed briefings from diplomats in Jakarta squirreling away in our biggest embassy, plus wisdoms from academics close to home. Continue reading »
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MACK WILLIAMS. New Cold War: Just how independent can Australia be ?
As renewed discussion grows pace in Australia about being less dependent on the United States in any Cold War against China how realistic is that option? For one thing we would need to loosen some of the linkages which have embedded us so deeply into the US defence machine through the US Indo Pacific Command Continue reading »
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Rohingya refugee crisis hits Myanmar’s economy (UCANews, 30.10.18))
While the Rohingya crisis and the escalating problems in Kachin and northern Shan State are grabbing headlines, Myanmar’s sagging economy and the withdrawal of investment by Western nations threaten to hit the largely impoverished nation the hardest. Continue reading »
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Preventing Mass Atrocities
Tyranny is not restricted to any particular religion, culture, civilisation or gender. Political rule based in terror rather than citizen’s welfare, safety and security is a universal moral failing. The Westphalian system of sovereign states spread from Europe to cover the whole world after decolonisation. Because it was seen to have sanctified the ability of Continue reading »
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JAMES O’NEILL. Australia and its Israel Embassy: What are they thinking?
According to recent media reports, the Liberal candidate in the Wentworth (Sydney) by-election, former diplomat David Sharma said he “was open” to the idea that Australia’s embassy in Israel could be shifted from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In a separate tweet he went further and said Australia “should consider recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Continue reading »
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MOHAMAD BAZZI. How Saudi Arabia wins friends (New York Times, 29.10.18)
After the Khashoggi murder, the kingdom has fallen back on the tactic of wielding its oil wealth to buy loyalty. Continue reading »
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VICTOR MERRICK. Anwar Ibrahim — is he for real?
Malaysia’s prime minister-in-waiting shows signs of irritability as reformist mask starts to slip. This article was published by UCA News on the 23rd of October 2018. Continue reading »
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Time to ground Australia’s China fear in facts (AFR 29.10.18)
As December draws near, thoughts turn to annual anniversaries and remembrances. This December marks the 51st anniversary of one of the more bizarre events in Australia’s political history. On December 17, 1967, then prime minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Portsea beach. He was alone at the time and the surf was rough. He Continue reading »
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DUNCAN GRAHAM. Putting the zing into statecraft
Foreign affairs (the political version, not dalliances abroad) is seldom a synonym for fun. The standard photo has a line of suits trying – and failing – to look human.Their media statements, labelled ‘communique’ to maintain the mystique, are triumphs of euphemism, so bland they make laundry lists sound like Hamlet. Few would bother to Continue reading »
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RENA PEDERSON. Target the Generals, Not “The Lady” (American Interest 11.10.18)
Despite the outcry, Aung San Suu Kyi does not deserve most of the blame for the tragedy unfolding in Myanmar. The Nobel Foundation got it right. Continue reading »
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Farewell to Nuclear Arms Control? (Asia Global Online, 25 October 2018)
The United States has affirmed strategic competition with both Russia and China as the central organizing principle of its national security policy. The announcement on October 20 by President Donald Trump that the U.S. would withdraw from the 30-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because of alleged Russian violations might be a key plank of that Continue reading »
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BOB CARR. Chinese Australians are the silent minority on foreign policy (Australian Financial Review, 25.10.18)
Imagine the crucial byelection had not been in Wentworth but in another Sydney electorate, Barton. Instead of a 12 per cent Jewish population, it is one with a 34 per cent Chinese population. And imagine that, in the context of this byelection and after lobbying by the Chinese community, the federal government had announced it Continue reading »
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REG LITTLE. Australian universities and China.
Comment on Australian universities and China needs to correct the universal Western oversight of the reality that China’s past, present and future can only be understood in the context of its unique classics and millennia of recorded history. Continue reading »