Asia
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TREVOR WATSON. Hong Kong and Beijing – two cities, one fearful regime.
Millions of students, blue collar workers and professionals poured into the streets of Hong Kong in protest over proposed legislation that would allow people to be extradited for trial in China. Continue reading »
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MACK WILLIAMS . North Korea : The tangled web becomes more so !
That the past few months have seen no real progress towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula is not all that surprising given the swirling global environment demanding priority attention for President Trump and other key stakeholders. Post mortems of the failed Hanoi Summit have revealed some significant divisions within both sides. Trump persists in Continue reading »
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KISHORE MAHBUBANI. A ‘yellow peril’ revival fuelling Western fears of China’s rise (East Asia Forum)
Do we arrive at geopolitical judgements from only cool, hard-headed, rational analysis? If emotions influence our judgements, are these conscious emotions or do they operate at the level of our subterranean subconscious? Any honest answer to these questions would admit that non-rational factors always play a role. This is why it was wrong for Western Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. What a Morrison Government could do on China.
The Accidental Morrison Government needs now to face up to Australia’s most important foreign policy challenge: how to restore relations with China. Under Turnbull/Bishop’s mismanagement, the relationship plumbed its lowest depth since diplomatic relations were established 47 years ago. Doing so won’t be easy and will require substantive policy changes, not merely a re-packaging of Continue reading »
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BOB CARR. Making a multilateral Belt and Road (East Asia Forum)
Between 2012 and 2030, China will add 850 million people to its middle class. This is unprecedented in human history, even exceeding the numbers of the European, North American and Japanese industrial revolutions. It is the biggest rolling back of poverty within any nation. China deserves to be taken seriously and have its international personality assessed Continue reading »
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MARTIN WOLF. The looming 100-year US-China conflict (The Financial Times)
Donald Trump’s unnecessary fight for domination is increasingly being framed as a zero-sum game. Continue reading »
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MURRAY SAYLE. On Tiananmen Square – June 1989
On May 13, with Gorbachev’s visit imminent, the students began a hunger strike in seven-day relays. How did the regime react? The People’s Liberation Army sent one thousand quilts; the Chinese Red Cross brought water, salt, and sugar for the hunger-strikers; and Mayor Chen’s own Beijing municipality set up portable toilets. Students were taken to Continue reading »
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KOICHI NAKANO. The Leader Who Was ‘Trump Before Trump’ (The New York Times)
Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has taken a decidedly authoritarian turn. Continue reading »
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Tiananmen anniversary revisited
Readers of my generation will recall the horror story told to the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus on 10 October 1990 by a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl. ‘Nayirah’ claimed to have witnessed invading Iraqi troops storming a Kuwaiti hospital, ripping 15 babies out of incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor. On Continue reading »
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JONATHON MANTHORPE. Trump’s shambolic Japan visit and America’s decline (Asia Times)
The age of the United States dominating in Asia is drawing to a close, and the president is leading the way Continue reading »
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IAN JOHNSON. China’s ‘Black Week-end’ (New York Review of Books, 27 June 2019)
The Last Secret: The Final Documents from the June Fourth Crackdown edited by Bao Pu Hong Kong: New Century Press, 362 pp., HK$158.00 When Chinese law professor Xu Zhangrun began publishing articles last year criticizing the government’s turn toward a harsher variety of authoritarianism, it seemed inevitable that he would be swiftly silenced. Sure enough, Continue reading »
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ANTHONY PUN: The Battle of Huawei escalates with new fronts opening.
President Trump has upped the ante on the US-China trade war by opening several new fronts in the Battle of Huawei. These fronts are designed to kill Huawei off by banning Tech companies in supplying essential chip hardware. This has caused cancelling of software licences (Google Android) and non-purchase of Huawei equipment. With these new Continue reading »
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PETER DRYSDALE. Getting the Australia–China relationship right (East Asia Forum)
There’s no more important issue for Australia at this time in the history of its international economic and foreign affairs than to get the relationship with China right. It’s an issue that went through to the keeper during the election. But for the new Morrison government, forging a viable, credible strategy in its dealings with Continue reading »
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JAMES LAURENCESON, MICHAEL ZHOU. Small Grey Rhinos: Understanding Australia’s Economic Dependence on China (Australia-China Relations Institute)
Australia lives with an acute ‘fear of abandonment’. In security terms this fear has underpinned Australian foreign policy settings for decades. Recently, doubts about the reliability of the United States as Australia’s security guarantor have sent Australian government ministers on a mission to convince America that ongoing – and expanded – engagement with Australia’s Continue reading »
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STEPHEN ROACH. What comes next in the US–China trade war? (East Asia Forum)
The escalation of tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China is now in the danger zone. Surely, reason will ultimately prevail. At least that is the common refrain in the echo chamber, especially in light of the dark history of earlier trade wars. Continue reading »
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NATHAN GARDELS. “Huawei to Hell” recalls Toshiba threat. (The World Post 11.5.2019)
The US was able to coerce Japan on trade, but China will be much harder to coerce. Continue reading »
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CLIVE KESSLER. A Malay game of thrones (East Asia Forum)
As in earlier constitutional struggles in 1983 and 1993, Malaysia’s federal government under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is confronting the royal power and claimed prerogatives of the traditional rulers of the federation’s nine sultanate states. Continue reading »
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DUNCAN GRAHAM Hungry for a result in the Indonesian election?
The differences are stark. When Labor lost Bill Shorten quit and said: ‘Now that the contest is over, all of us have a responsibility to respect the result, respect the wishes of the Australian people and to bring our nation together.’ In Indonesia police are preparing for mass protests when the official results of the Continue reading »
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JOHN McCARTHY. Time to Focus on Foreign Policy for the Sake of Australia’s Future (Asialink).
Australians face a set of decisions in foreign policy arguably more important to us than any national decisions since the Second World War, writes John McCarthy, former ambassador to Washington, Tokyo, Jakarta and New Delhi. How we navigate them could even have existential implications. Continue reading »
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DAUD BATCHELOR. Sacrificing national interest in Australian Embassy move
In today’s geopolitics, Australia must balance relations with its largest trading partner China and key defence ally, the United States, at a time of spirited jousting. Maintaining good relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also becomes essential with expanding Chinese power. Significantly, ASEAN has a dominant 67% majority Muslim population. Continue reading »
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JEFF KINGSTON. Filling the post-Heisei void (East Asia Forum)
Emperor Akihito is a tough act to follow. He is known as the people’s emperor because he brought the monarchy closer to the people by sharing the pain of those displaced by disaster and advocating on behalf of the vulnerable and marginalised. This included people suffering from Hansen’s disease as well as the mentally and Continue reading »
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BOB CARR. Australia could be the big loser in a US-China trade deal, not that Donald Trump seems to care (South China Morning Post)
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 Continue reading »
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ANDREW CHUBB. China’s assertive maritime policy is older than Xi (East Asia Forum)
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 under Xi, China had already been on such a trajectory since 2006. Many changes in Continue reading »
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ANTHONY PUN. A response from the Chinese Community Council of Australia (CCCA)
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 on the Jewish model is a great suggestion and plans can be made to initiate Continue reading »
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TIM LINDSEY. Indonesia goes to the polls: rematch or replay? (University of Melbourne, 15 April 2019)
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 who was once a son-in-law of Soeharto, the authoritarian former president who ruled for three Continue reading »
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DUNCAN GRAHAM. Indonesia – after the count – chaos?
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 by the former champion of the 1998 ‘People’s Power Revolution’ are causing deep disquiet. Continue reading »
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ELAINE PEARSON. China’s Efforts to Curb Australia’s Academic Freedom: What Universities Can Do.
There’s been a vigorous debate of late in Australia about the extent of Chinese government interference in domestic politics. Less has been said about what occurs on our university campuses. Pressure from the Chinese government comes in numerous ways, including censoring discussion topics, putting students from China under surveillance, and threatening those who participate in Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Wresting China diplomacy back from the securicrats.
In the fading days of the Morrison Government, two important decisions are likely to be overlooked. Both came last week. One was to establish the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations and the other the appointment of a new Ambassador to China. Continue reading »
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BOB CARR. Real diplomacy could have avoided China’s coal revenge (Australian Financial Review, 3 April 2019)
The ban on Huawei itself isn’t the problem, but the way that some arms of the government rubbed China’s face in it. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The anti- China ‘think tank’ receives farewell largesse from the Coalition
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 year why is it all lumped together in 2018/19. Is it because ASPI fears that Continue reading »
