Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Grace Guiang, Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation Inc.
The Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines Trilateral Maritime Patrol (Indomalphi) implemented its first joint patrol in June 2017. Almost a year since signing the trilateral framework in August 2016, the recent attack by the Maute group in the Philippines emphasised the urgent need for cooperation. Read more…
Author: Stephen Levine, Victoria University of Wellington
For much of 2017, the New Zealand election was looking to be ‘boringly predictable’. All this changed on 1 August when the Labour Party’s then leader Andrew Little announced his resignation. Within hours, his deputy Jacinda Ardern — having only been in that position for a few months — had been confirmed as the party’s new leader. In a sign of the New Zealand public’s inattention to the details of parliamentary life, she became ‘an overnight sensation’ after nearly nine years as a Member of Parliament. Read more…
Author: Arthur Stockwin, University of Oxford
Most international attention on East Asia today is sharply focused on North Korea’s nuclear and missile developments. But this does not mean that we can neglect the significant developments taking place in Japan’s domestic political landscape. Since winning the December 2012 elections, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has maintained a commanding majority in the national Diet, and Abe himself is sometimes called ‘all-powerful Abe’. Read more…
Author: Jonathan Bogais, University of Sydney and Thammasat University
In recent weeks, extreme violence perpetrated by the armed forces of Myanmar (the Tatmadaw), Buddhist nationalist militias and Buddhists generally against Muslim Rohingya in the state of Rakhine has killed an estimated 1000 Rohingya and displaced 430,000. The UN has described the violence as ethnic cleansing. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
Although not unanticipated, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s dissolution of Japan’s lower house and call of a general election on 22 October still surprised many given the difficulty in finding any convincing explanation for why the election should be held more than a year early. Read more…
Author: Michael Kugelman, Wilson Center
In a speech on 21 August announcing his new US Afghanistan strategy, US President Donald Trump minced no words. ‘We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting’, the US president declared. ‘But that will have to change, and that will change immediately’. Read more…
Authors: Ron Matthews, Defence Academy of the UK, and Xiaojuan Ping, NUS
Is China’s arms export strategy really a success story? The first question is to establish whether there has been dramatic growth in China’s arms exports, emulating the success of its broader commercial exports. While the picture is not equivocal, there are signs that something is indeed happening. Read more…
Author: Yuki Tatsumi, Stimson Centre
Constitutional revision has always been a top priority for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, throughout his political career. Abe has consistently focused on revising Article 9 of the constitution in a way that would allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defence. Read more…
Author: Naing Ko Ko, ANU
Ever since Aung San Suu Kyi inaugurated her ‘national reconciliation’ government, Myanmar’s leadership has been heavily criticised for silence on the army’s atrocities against minorities — in particular, the Kachin, the Shan and the Rohingya. Read more…
Author: Jeremy Douglas, UN
Public security authorities in China are increasingly engaging with law enforcement, justice and UN agencies from Asia and beyond to improve cooperation against transnational organised crime. The Interpol General Assembly taking place in the last week of September in Beijing is a part of this intensified effort. This contribution is helpful and should be welcomed. Read more…
Author: Frank Tudor, Perth
As the US administration contemplates building a physical wall along the Mexican border and a metaphorical wall with the rest of the world, it will be seen to be moving against globalisation and losing interest in the global order. Read more…
Author: Editorial Board, East Asia Forum
With the China border dispute resolved, Shinzo Abe’s trip to Delhi successful and the Trump administration looking for a win with India, after three years Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is sitting pretty.
Or is he? Read more…
Author: Amitendu Palit, ISAS, NUS
It has been more than three years since Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a spectacular victory in the parliamentary elections in May 2014. But Modi’s term to date has been a mixed record. Read more…
Author: Ernesto Gallo, UCL and Domenico Giannino, London Metropolitan University
After the much-hyped March Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in Beijing, Chinese, Russian and Central Asian heads of state met again in Astana in June for the annual Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) Summit. Read more…
Author: Vinod Saighal, New Delhi
Analysts across the world have begun to justify North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s brinkmanship on the grounds that he is securing the longevity of his regime against any action that the United States might take. As long as Kim knows that China will not join hands with the United States in taking him out, he will keep upping the ante — thumbing his nose, so to say, at the United States. Read more…
