Authors: Melissa Conley Tyler and Samantha Shearman, AIIA
With the release of the Defence White Paper 2013 on 3 May, Australia officially has a new region, the ‘Indo-Pacific’: a strategic arc ‘connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans through Southeast Asia’.
Given the long history of linking Australian foreign policy to the ‘Asia-Pacific’, this is a significant change in terminology. How did we get to this point and what are the implications? Read more…
Author: Jin Park, Asia Future Institute
South Korea, the seventh country to join the 20-50 club (GDP per capita over US$20,000 and a population of 50 million), lies at the geopolitical centre of Northeast Asia, acting as a bridge which mediates the interests of advanced economies with those of developing ones.
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Author: Hugh White, ANU
This year, for the third time, Canberra will try to work out what the rise of China means for Australia’s defence policy.
The first try, in John Howard’s 2000 white paper, was overtaken by 9/11 and the War on Terror. Read more…
Author: Greg Lockhart, Sydney
Australia’s most recent rediscovery of its Asian links, the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, has been widely canvassed.
It argues that ‘the tyranny of distance is being replaced by the prospects of proximity’, and in the aftermath of its launch, Australian politicians, academics and journalists have echoed Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s comment that ‘we have not been here before’. Read more…
Author: Shane Zhang, USQ
Qantas has set about implementing its new Europe strategy by relocating its hub to Dubai in cooperation with Emirates. It will continue to fly to Singapore, and it says that the shift in its Europe strategy will allow it to serve Asia better as well. Read more…
Author: Emma Campbell, ANU
It might seem that the passing resemblance of Canberra to Pyongyang sealed the decision by the DPRK to reopen its embassy to Australia, but the real motivations behind the move are unclear.
The announcement was greeted with a cautious acceptance on the part of the Australian government. It should be welcomed as an opportunity to re-engage with the isolated nation. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
The facts of geography shape much that is important in a country’s external economic and political relations, and a destiny from which it often seems there is no escape. Read more…
Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU
The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper said that for Australia, ‘The tyranny of distance is being replaced by the prospects of proximity’. It is true that Australia is in the right place at the right time. Australia’s neighbourhood is the most dynamic growth centre in the global economy.
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Authors: Kent Anderson and Clement Macintyre, University of Adelaide
At a time when governments all around the world are struggling to tackle social reform and other problems, the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper takes up the massive agenda of dealing with the challenge that Asia’s rise presents in a novel way.
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Author: Tom Kompas, ANU
Fisheries play an increasingly important role in human societies worldwide.
The world fish food supply has grown dramatically over the last five decades at an average rate of 3.2 per cent per year, well surpassing the world’s average population growth of 1.7 per cent per year. Read more…
Author: Fatih Birol, IEA
The global energy map is being redrawn.
The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2012 (WEO-2012) projects that resurgent oil and gas production in the United States, which temporarily overtakes Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer before 2020, to be a key engine of change in energy markets. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Papua New Guinea has enjoyed a period of heady growth over the past decade on the back of the China-driven global commodities boom. Currently at 9 per cent, GDP growth over the past 10 years has averaged around 6 per cent. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
Events in Asia are developing at a dizzying speed. All around the world, countries and continents have been impacted by the speed and scale of the rise of China and, to a lesser extent, India.
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Author: Irvin Studin, University of Toronto
The different ‘pivots’ toward Asia by the world’s other continents suggest the ultimate winner of the Cold War was in fact Deng Xiaoping.
These pivots are all in response to the rise of China. But some are more adept than others. Read more…
Author: Elizabeth Payne, ANU
China is now Australia’s largest trading partner, and over the coming decades it will be Australia’s most important economic partner. Australia and China share a high degree of economic complementarity, especially in the minerals and energy sectors. But the opportunity presented by China faces a significant threat: Chinese business leaders and government officials increasingly view Australia as a difficult and unfriendly place to conduct business.
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