Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Atsuko Mizuno, Kyushu University
The Sittwe deep-sea port in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, which was financed and constructed by India, will soon be launched. The port is one part of the Kaladan Multi-modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) in western Myanmar Read more…
Author: Celine Wang, Public Policy Research Centre
Despite growing local resentment towards foreign capital, China’s investment in Zambia’s natural resource industry is hurtling forward. Read more…
Author: Anthony V. Rinna, Sino-NK
As the United States takes the first steps to deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system on the Korean Peninsula, China and Russia have continued their vociferous objections. Read more…
Author: Michael Clarke, ANU
On 15 February, three ’knife wielding’ Uyghur ‘terrorists’ attacked a residential compound in Pishan township, Khotan Prefecture, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), killing five people. Immediately after this attack, Chinese authorities conducted mass anti-terrorism ‘oath-taking rallies’ on 16 and 17 February in the regional capital, Urumqi, and the major southern cities of Kashgar and Khotan. Read more…
Author: Arnaldo Purba, ANU
In light of hugely expensive infrastructure projects and diminishing urban housing affordability, the Indonesian government recently announced that a new land tax package is under discussion. Besides increasing state revenue, the new policy is expected to suppress speculative land buying with the intention to ease land prices. Read more…
Author: Dong Dong Zhang, ANU
Amid China’s seemingly relentless economic rise, why has its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centralised power under Xi Jinping? Answering this question requires an understanding of the sense of impending crisis that has plagued the CCP leadership in recent times. Read more…
Author: Mathew Davies, ANU
The democratisation of Myanmar, culminating in the National League for Democracy’s assumption of power in early 2016, was meant to mark a step forward for the Rohingya. The hopes of the international community, Myanmar’s partners in ASEAN and the Rohingya themselves have been bitterly disappointed. Read more…
Authors: Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto, and Tom Westland, IHEID
Domestic financial liberalisation and market opening have progressed at different speeds in Asian economies over the past four decades. In the wake of financial crises, more attention has been paid to sequencing domestic reforms to financial markets with reforms to deepen integration through trade and investment. Read more…
Authors: Mieczysław P Boduszyński and Tom Le, Pomona College
Former US president Barack Obama sought to move the United States away from what he saw as costly, distracting and unwinnable entanglements in the Middle East. Instead, he pivoted his foreign policy efforts towards Asia where he believed that US military, political and economic engagement could reap much greater rewards for the country. Read more…
Author: Editors, East Asia Forum
This month’s state elections in India saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi greatly consolidate his political clout.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory was overwhelming in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest state with over 220 million people — were it independent UP would be the fifth most populous country in the world. Read more…
Author: Arun Swamy, University of Guam
This month’s Indian state elections provided a major boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In addition to the election in India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), elections were held in four small states from every region of the country — Uttarakhand in the north, Punjab in the northwest, Manipur in the northeast and Goa in the southwest. Read more…
Authors: Jonathan Balls, University of Melbourne and Pawan Singh, Deakin University
The unexpected landslide victory this month in India’s Uttar Pradesh state elections by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP party has fuelled a debate about whether politics is changing in North India’s populous heartland state. Read more…
Author: Kyaw Zeyar Win, PRIY
For decades, Myanmar’s elites have identified the Muslim minority Rohingya community as a source of existential security threat. This long lasting policy of treating the Rohingya as outsiders (or ‘others’) has cultivated perceptions of the Rohingya people as ‘enemy others’. This is also the reason why, regardless of leadership or regime change in Myanmar, the conflict appears unending.
Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Recent developments in North Korea’s nuclear missile capabilities suggest that it will soon join the ranks of nuclear-armed states outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, along with Israel, India and Pakistan. Read more…
Author: Steven Yet, University of Toronto
On 26 March 2017, Hong Kong will choose its next chief executive. In December 2016, the city’s current but unpopular leader CY Leung announced that he would not seek re-election just two days ahead of polls for the Election Committee Read more…
