Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
The whirlwind visit of President Barack Obama to Australia on the way to the East Asia Summit in Indonesia last November, many believe, forever changed the Asia Pacific strategic landscape with a re-assertion of American primacy and power in Asia.
What was the thinking behind the moves that Obama announced in Canberra and how will it shape Southeast Asia’s strategic future? Read more…
Author: Geoff Wade, ISEAS, Singapore
That US engagement with East Asia has grown in recent years is news to none.
But as the dust settles following President Obama’s announcement of the imminent stationing of US marine forces in northern Australia, it is perhaps time to assess what this development might augur for the broader East Asian region in the longer term. Read more…
Author: Wei Zhijiang, Sun Yat-sen University
After the death of Kim Jong-il in December, Kim Jong-un has officially become the supreme leader of North Korea and the supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army.
This is in addition to his position as the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Korean Workers’ Party, which was announced in September 2010. Read more…
Author: Ishrat Husain, IBA, Karachi
Pakistan’s economy remained sluggish in 2011 due to domestic political instability, energy shortages, deteriorating Pakistan-US relations, global climate change and internal security concerns.
For the fourth year in a row, GDP growth in 2011-12 will fall below its long-term growth rate. Read more…
Author: Anders Engvall, Stockholm School of Economics
On the evening of 25 October 2011 the southern Thai town of Yala was shaken by a string of 30 explosions that caused great terror and loss of life. The following day the neighbouring province of Narathiwat saw a similar wave of attacks.
This latest bombing campaign was a stark reminder from southern Thailand’s insurgency movement of the seventh anniversary of the Tak Bai massacre. Read more…
Authors: Greg Fealy and Sally White, ANU
Australia’s first academic conference on Indonesian terrorism was held at the Australian National University (ANU) early in December.
Entitled ‘Indonesian Terrorism in a Global Context’, the conference brought together researchers specialising in the study of Indonesia’s jihadists and scholars working on global trends in terrorism. Read more…
Authors: Jonas Parello-Plesner and Parag Khanna, ECFR
Last year proved a tipping point for China’s approach to the world. The confluence of Europe’s debt crisis and America’s contracting defence budget has created rising expectations that China will shoulder ever greater power burdens for international stability.
No longer can it keep a low profile in international strategic and economic affairs. Could it join America as a world policeman sooner than expected? Read more…
Author: Brad Glosserman, CSIS, Washington DC
‘No, thanks’.
That, in summary, is Hugh White’s response to the recent announcement that the US would be sending marines on permanent rotation to Darwin.
White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the ANU, one of Asia’s most distinguished strategists, and a former Australian deputy secretary of defence. And he has been making the case for strategic reorientation in Canberra for a couple of years now. Read more…
Author: Hugh White, ANU
As China’s power grows, the Asia we have known is passing into history, and a new and very different Asia is taking shape.
Barack Obama’s visit is a key moment in that transformation, because he is coming here to promote America’s view of how the new Asia should work. Read more…
Author: Alexander Vorontsov, RAS
The Ulan-Ude summit on 24 August 2011 highlighted Russia and North Korea’s commitment to overcoming the Korean Peninsula nuclear problem — and they must be credited with considerable success.
Kim Jong-il confirmed that North Korea is ready to return to the Six-Party Talks without any preconditions, and both leaders agreed to advance with the construction of a gas pipeline linking Russia and South Korea via North Korea. Read more…
Author: Sergei Sevastianov, VSUES
On 24 August, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, met with President Medvedev during a highly-anticipated visit to Russia.
And it would seem that the meeting in Ulan-Ude may have generated positive changes for security and economic development on the Korean Peninsula — and even the rest of Northeast Asia. Read more…
Author: Jithin S. George, National Maritime Foundation
Japan received bids from Boeing, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems to replace its outdated F-4 fighter jets on 27 September 2011, as part of a plan to buy 40–50 fighter jets in a deal worth more than US$6 billion.
Japan intends to add the new aircraft to its fleet by 2016. Read more…
Author: Gibson Bateman, New York
For the Tamil people of Sri Lanka’s north and east, the end to conflict has not engendered the positive changes one might have hoped for.
When President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government achieved victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, most of the LTTE leadership was killed. Read more…
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
On 7 September 2011 in Dacca, the prime ministers of India and Bangladesh signed a landmark protocol to their 1974 Land Boundary Agreement, providing for final settlement of their long-pending boundary issues.
Given that instances of territorial dispute settlement in this sovereignty-conscious region have been few and far between, this exercise in statesmanship is both commendable and long overdue. Read more…
Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University
North and South Korea held talks in Beijing last week, which means the next episode of the endless diplomatic soap that is the Six-Party Talks is approaching.
The official goal of these talks is North Korean denuclearisation. Read more…