Asia
-
North Korea able to strike US mainland – Asian Media report
In Asian Media this week: Pyongyang using Pacific as firing range. Plus: opposing views on Asian security; democracy-vs-autocracy a false division; China’s population to plummet; Thailand’s global standing at low point; man-made threat to sea life. Continue reading »
-
Sanitising the unforgettable
I hope this article will turn out to be a short communication because my hand trembles with indignation as I write. I refer to the article “Why history does not disqualify Japan as an ally: a reply to Richard Cullen” by Robert Cribb Feb 21, 2023. Continue reading »
-
Why history does not disqualify Japan as an ally: a reply to Richard Cullen
Richard Cullen’s article, ‘Why Japan is not an acceptable military ally’, published in Pearls and Irritations (5 Jan. 2023) is an unfortunate piece of historical muck-raking. Continue reading »
-
Indonesia seeks Myanmar peace talks
Indonesia is chair of ASEAN this year and using its position to try and end the two-year crisis in Myanmar that’s already cost more than 3,000 lives. Continue reading »
-
China containment line buttressed: Asian Media report
In Asian media this week – Taiwan key to first island chain control. Plus: US fosters belief war is inevitable; why the West thinks it speaks for the world; independence anniversary but nothing to celebrate; balloon saga shows why US must act tough; nothing can live in Manila Bay. Continue reading »
-
Australia’s Taiwan nightmare
Australia has been persuaded, enticed and strongarmed into taking gravely dangerous decisions. But Australia is a sovereign state and its fingerprints are, ultimately, all over the formation of its terrible abdication of national independence. Continue reading »
-
US policies: killing our region while we sit silent
We live in an integrated and connected world, not well understood by political leaders or military moguls. Nowhere is this more important than in East Asia. Destructive action towards important neighbours who are central to our trade with the world is of course contrary to our national strategic interests. We should not sit silent. Continue reading »
-
Twisting in the wind: A view from Hong Kong
The year of the Rabbit has arrived, and Hong Kong is bouncing back with a vengeance. Continue reading »
-
Japan – failed peace state?
A little over 75 years ago, a Japan-designed Asia-Pacific community collapsed, leaving not only Japan itself but much of the region in chaos, millions dead, cities in ruins. Continue reading »
-
Timor-Leste shaping up for legislative elections
The Timor-Leste March 2022 Presidential elections gave a resounding win in the second round to Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta, and this provided leverage for Xanana Gusmão in his efforts to wrest back the executive power he apologetically relinquished in February 2015. Continue reading »
-
An agenda for regional economic and security cooperation
The connection between economic integration and political security has long attracted attention. Integration through intensive trade and investment relations has led to greater interdependence and made conflict more costly, helping states to maintain peace and stability. But interdependence can also increase the risk that geopolitical tensions might turn into open conflict. Continue reading »
-
Japan is not the most warlike nation in history
Jimmy Carter called the US ‘the most warlike nation in the history of the world,’ and said that ‘peaceful’ China is ‘ahead of us in almost every way’. Continue reading »
-
Japan’s military build-up met with suspicion, alarm: Asian Media Report
In Asian media this week: Developing world rejects nonsensical Cold War; Japan moves from ‘shield’ to ‘spear’; opinion against military build-up; court asked to review new penal code; vote-buying an investment in graft; and differing views of Xinjiang. Continue reading »
-
The tale of the Rabbit and the Tiger: China 2023
The Lunar New Year comes early in 2023, and the incoming Year of the Rabbit offers possibilities of significant changes in personal and national fortunes. Those responsible for formulating Australia’s China policy are advised to watch developments carefully and be flexible in their responses. Continue reading »
-
Killing Times: Indonesia grapples with legacy of government-organised mass murder
When is a purge a genocide? When a young Australian researcher finds solid evidence that’s long eluded international scholars, proving the minds of millions have been poisoned with lies. Continue reading »
-
Historically, it’s Japan, not China, that invades other countries
With Japan just having taken over the presidency of the Group of 7 at the beginning of 2023, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has wound up a six-day visit to Britain, France, Italy, Canada and the United States. Continue reading »
-
Japanese Ambassador breaches protocol, pushes Australia to embrace ‘China threat’
As a nation Japan would not win many Nobel peace prizes. Continue reading »
-
Does racism explain our approach to global health problems?
To suggest that China and only China needs to provide negative COVID-19 tests, tests on arrival or even a complete ban of arrivals from China is a political and racist approach to a global health problem. Continue reading »
-
The future of Korean Democracy
The German government recently arrested 25 members of a conspiratorial right-wing group plotting to overthrow the government. One of those arrested was a member of a defunct German royal family that the group hoped to install as Germany’s new leader. Continue reading »
-
2022 will go down as the year of ‘de-Westernisation’
From China’s socialist path to Latin America’s left turn and Asean’s neutral stance, more countries are quietly but firmly spurning the Western world order. Continue reading »
-
2022 the year of ‘de-Westernisation’: Asian Media Report
In Asian media this week – Indonesia to be an active ASEAN chair. Plus – South Korea’s global aspirations; Western and Asian views of the West; Anwar pledges to crack down on corruption; Softer tones in Taiwan rhetoric; Kishida’s diminishing political capital. Continue reading »
-
Patten’s propaganda: barrack-room lawyer’s phony Hong Kong analysis debunked
In legal circles, outsiders who hold forth on legal issues without understanding the law or knowing the facts are held in particular contempt. They are known as “barrack-room lawyers”, a term that originally derived from military slang. Continue reading »
-
Does the Taiwan issue have to be a ménage à trois?
The rising tension over Taiwan is not the making of either of the two Chinese parties to the dispute. After all, the fundamental problem has been the same since its inception. It was an unfinished civil war between two political factions, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, over control of the country after Continue reading »
-
Public transport system is one of Hong Kong’s wonders
Bloomberg recently reported that Hong Kong has just been ranked as having the best metropolitan public transit system in the world, ahead of Zurich, Stockholm, Singapore and Helsinki. The study on which the report was based surveyed 60 major cities worldwide. It was carried out by the Oliver Wyman Forum and the Institute of Transportation Continue reading »
-
Season’s fearings in Indonesia this Christmas
Will it be safe for Christians this Saturday night in Indonesia? The signs of the festive season used to be plastic mistletoe and corflute Santas in shopping malls. Now in East Java’s second biggest city it’s armoured cars outside churches. Continue reading »
-
The complex and differing images of jailed former tycoon Jimmy Lai
The latest prison term for former media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying will inevitably be portrayed by the Western media as further communist persecution of the city’s leading pro-democracy fighter. But many local people who lived through more than two decades of Lai’s media dominance will have a very different take. If you want a better Continue reading »
-
Asian Media Report: Japan scrapping military spending limit
In Asian media this week – Missile systems able to attack enemy bases. Plus: media question official defence line; new criminal code worries LGBTQ community; benefits of soft diplomacy; junta leaders economic illiterates; instant change in COVID rhetoric. Continue reading »
-
Kevin Rudd on The Avoidable War
Kevin Rudd lives in New York these days, but on November 18, he returned to his former hometown of Brisbane to speak about his most recent book, The Avoidable War: the dangers of a catastrophic conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China at Brisbane’s City Hall. Continue reading »
-
Indonesia bans sex outside marriage amid sweeping law changes
Lock your bedroom: The state is perving. The G20 in Bali last month was a splendid success – and not just because world leaders talked to each other proving differences can sometimes be understood, if not always accepted. Continue reading »
-
The US is focussed on its own interests, not the people of Taiwan
Taiwan’s politics is tied to that of mainland China because of the unfinished business of the Chinese civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT). Continue reading »