Author: Neville Maxwell, ANU

Malcolm Fraser recently cautioned against viewing the development of China’s military without considering the broader context in which it takes place.

This warning is appropriately applied to past experience as well. Read more…

Author: Ron Duncan, ANU

Does the recent upturn in grain prices, or more generally food prices, signal a permanent reversal of the long-term downward trend in the real prices of foodstuffs?

This question seems to underlie most comments on the recent food price increases — and, incidentally, commentary on the 2006–08 upturn in primary commodity prices. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, EAF

There has been a vast change in Indo-American relations in the past decade, spurred by US interests in attending to its strategic vulnerabilities in the Indian Ocean because of the fragilities in its dealings with India in the past, India’s desire to come in from the cold in developing its civilian nuclear capabilities, and India’s unequivocal commitment to economic globalisation.

In the background, this rapprochement was linked to putative concerns about the rise of China, although, no matter how much some might have wished it to be, that issue was never central to the historical watershed that has now taken place in Indo-American ties, although, certainly, there were great expectations of burgeoning US-India defence ties. The strategic importance of the Indo-American relationship clearly stands independently of either country’s approaches to China. Read more…