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Category Archives: International Affairs
ANDREW SHENG, XIAO GENG. Hong Kong’s Real Problem Is Inequality (Project Syndicate 29-8-19)
A powerful, but oft-ignored factor underlying the frustrations of Hong Kong’s people is inequality. And, contrary to the prevailing pro-democracy narrative, the failure of Hong Kong’s autonomous government to address the problem stems from the electoral politics to which the … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
5 Comments
TESS NEWTON CAIN. Australia shows up in Tuvalu and trips over (East Asia Forum 30-8-19)
On 13-16 August 2019 the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum held their 50th meeting. The theme, as chosen by their host and current chair Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, was ‘Securing our Future in the Pacific’. The leaders’ meeting … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
1 Comment
SCOTT BURCHILL. Resuscitating Sinophobia in Australia.
Sinophobia has a long history in the West, especially in Washington. It has always contained xenophobia, racism and Cold War animus in roughly equal parts. In Washington’s China, James Peck documents how since the 1950s, the national security establishment in … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
MINXIN PEI – An interview on China and Hong Kong (Project Syndicate 26-8-2019)
Many Chinese are deeply conflicted:they may not like the CPC, but they are proud of their country and resent outside criticisms.
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
2 Comments
RAMESH THAKUR. Urgent appeal to save nuclear agreements (Japan Times 25-8-19)
HIROSHIMA – The Hiroshima Round Table held its seventh annual meeting last Wednesday and Thursday. For the first time, in recognition of the uniquely dangerous international security environment since the dawn of the atomic age in this beautiful city, the … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Defence/Security, International Affairs
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QUENTIN DEMPSTER. New nuclear arms race brings higher risk of global catastrophe
The world is at its highest risk of a global catastrophe in decades, thanks to an unpredictable resumption in the nuclear arms race. Veteran defence and security analyst Brian Toohey has warned that talk of war between the West, and … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
2 Comments
HÉCTOR ABAD FACIOLINCE. Gifts of Quebradona
The Colombian wilderness has been protected from mining by the 50 years civil war with the FARC guerrillas. No investor was prepared to take the risk of its infostructure being blown up and its personnel assassinated. Now that the civil … Continue reading
Posted in Environment and climate, International Affairs
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ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit – Put not thy trust in constitutional convention
Had the English Settlement of 1688 been followed with a written Constitution Britain might not be in the pickle it is today. Then the tussle between King and Parliament had resulted in civil war. While the Royal Prerogative Powers have … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
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ARTYOM LUKIN. China and Russia’s sky-high strategy (East Asia Forum 29-8-19)
On 23 July 2019, Russian and Chinese warplanes — long-range nuclear-capable bombers accompanied by fighter jets and surveillance aircraft — conducted a ‘joint patrol’ over the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. This marked the first ever joint … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
3 Comments
CATHY WILCOX. Standing by our trusted ally. (SMH 23.8.2019)
In the face of destabilising provocation.
Posted in International Affairs
3 Comments
TOM EMBURY-DENNIS. Trump promotes claim Jewish Israelis love him like he is ‘King of Israel and second coming of God’ (Independent 22-8-19)
Outburst comes less than 24 hours after president used antisemitic trope about Jewish ‘loyalty’
Posted in International Affairs
Comments Off on TOM EMBURY-DENNIS. Trump promotes claim Jewish Israelis love him like he is ‘King of Israel and second coming of God’ (Independent 22-8-19)
GEORGE MICKHAIL. There is no freedom in a society, if there is no public order!
The French Police’s brutal force against the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) protesters since November 2018 did not attract the same ‘international’ media outrage as that directed at the Hong Kong SAR police force despite being a lot less violent than … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
7 Comments
DENNIS ARGALL. Australia’s strategic folly: lessons from Barbara Tuchman.
We arein a situation where decisions that seem simple can commit Australia to fundamental errors of strategic judgement. The decision to send a ship and a plane and headquarters staff to a new venture with the United States in the … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
3 Comments
ALI KAZAK. On the Middle East, Tim Fischer was a man of courage and integrity.
Tim Fischer belongs to a unique generation of politicians we are farewelling fast; a generation such as Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke. A generation which whether you agreed with their ideology or not you could not but respect.
Posted in International Affairs, Tributes
3 Comments
ILAN PAPPE. Israel’s latest attempt to erase Palestine (The Electronic Intifada 25-7-19)
The attempt to suppress official documentation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is not new.
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
1 Comment
NATASHA STOTT DESPOJA. Celebrating Women Humanitarians
On 19th August, World Humanitarian Day, events around the world paid tribute to the women who serve on the frontline of humanitarian responses to disasters. They are often the first to respond and the last to leave, and yet their … Continue reading
Posted in Human Rights, International Affairs
1 Comment
JAMES O’NEILL. Latest Australian Foreign Policy Venture in the Middle East a Symptom of a Much Wider Problem
The announcement by the Prime Minister that Australia would be sending a military force to the Middle East is the latest in a series of foreign policy blunders that fails to recognise Australia’s foreign policy interests.
Posted in International Affairs
6 Comments
JOHN McCARTHY. Forging a national consensus on Australia’s external security (The Strategist, 19 Aug 2019)
With the federal election out of the way, and some welcome stability in the leadership of the major political parties in prospect, Australia now faces the challenge of forging a national consensus on an external security policy that reflects our … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
3 Comments
MICHAEL PASCOE. All the way with Trump’s USA … this time into the Strait of Hormuz (New Daily, 21 August 2019)
Here we go again – joining an American military adventure created by Donald Trump, an adventure that has no end in sight.Nobody with a sense of history and Liberal Party politics can be surprised that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
3 Comments
MARTIN JACQUES HK’s future lies with China, not the West: (Peoples Daily Online 19-8-19)
As protests in Hong Kong continue, scholars and experts worldwide have expressed their concern over the city’s economic recession and rising violence. During an exclusive interview with People’s Daily Online, Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at Cambridge University, called for … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
3 Comments
JOSEPH CAMILLERI. China policy drowning in empty rhetoric – time for an informed public debate
China is in the news and rightly so. If it’s not events in Hong Kong, it’s the China-US trade dispute, or tensions in the South China Sea, Beijing’s expanding influence in the South Pacific, the prospect of a Chinese military … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
8 Comments
PETER LEWIS. When it comes to choosing the US or China, perhaps our chickens are coming home to roost (The Guardian 20-8-19)
Essential poll finds Australians less emphatically American than many would have predicted – is economic self-interest winning?
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
LOUIS COOPER. Canadian Election in October: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has problems; will it all end in tears or in a minority government?
Earlier this month – in a long-awaited decision – Canada’s federal ethics commissioner concluded Trudeau had violated an ethics law in his handling of a corporate criminal case. Commissioner Mario Dion said that the prime minister had used his office … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
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MUNGO MACCALUM. Scott Morrison voted off the Pacific islands
The Great White Father has arrived the far flung atolls of the Pacific. And, like the missionaries before him Scott Morrison is delivering the bringing of the light — a gospel of hope and salvation. Well, up to a point. … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Environment and climate, International Affairs
1 Comment
GEOFF RABY. Our China Threat is based on a fundamental error (Australian Financial Review, 19 August 2019)
Andrew Hastie’s intervention on the China Threat helpfully highlights the extent to which Australia’s intelligence, security and defence establishment (ISDE) is running Australia’s China foreign policy. In stark language he has laid out many of the assumptions that underly the … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
6 Comments
RAMESH THAKUR. Kashmir: the battleground that will shape the fate of India (CapX 15-8-19)
On 5 August, the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fulfilled a founding ambition and repeated election promise: they ended Kashmir’s unique status in India’s federal structure by scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution.
Posted in International Affairs
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Things haven’t been this bad between Australia and China in 30 years (Crikey, 14 August 2019)
The Morrison government’s increasing ties to the Trump administration is, by consequence, achieving quite the opposite of its previous goal of “resetting” Australia’s relationship with China.
Posted in Asia, International Affairs, Politics
Comments Off on MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Things haven’t been this bad between Australia and China in 30 years (Crikey, 14 August 2019)
GRACE BLAKELY. Why the rise of Boris Johnson is the last laugh of a decaying elite (New Statesman America 14-8-19)
Right-wing populism is a symptom of a crumbling capitalist order that no longer promises a better future for most people.
Posted in International Affairs, Politics
Comments Off on GRACE BLAKELY. Why the rise of Boris Johnson is the last laugh of a decaying elite (New Statesman America 14-8-19)
GREGG BRAZINSKY. How Japan’s failure to atone for past sins threatens the global economy (The Washington Post 11-8-19)
Escalating trade tensions could roil global tech market
Posted in Asia, International Affairs
1 Comment
RAMESH THAKUR. A nuclear world in disarray. (The Strategist 7.8.2019)
We are in a uniquely dangerous period in the atomic age. Geopolitical tensions have spiked in Europe, in the Middle East, on the subcontinent and in East Asia. The nuclear arms control architecture is fraying and crumbling, but no negotiations … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
2 Comments