Author: Kerry Brown, King’s College London

For China, the story for its economy in 2015 simply reinforced what was already becoming apparent through 2014. GDP growth was slowing, and the political capital the Communist Party could collect from lauding this one statistic was diminishing. Read more…

Author: Ganeshan Wignaraja, Asian Development Bank

Economic forecasting is always difficult. The American economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously said ‘we have two sorts of forecasters: those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know’. Yet, while some sceptics assert that economic forecasts are of little value, they are useful for governments and firms to develop their plans and budgets for the year ahead. Read more…

Author: Ghulam Ali, Peking University

After a dramatic end to 2014, Pakistan has gradually moved towards greater political and economic stability. This has been largely due to its successes in reducing terrorism, which injected new hopes about the country’s ability to handle crises. Read more…

Author: Gilbert Llanto, PIDS

The Philippines has performed well in the past few years relative to its peers. It demonstrated great resilience to exogenous shocks that would have undone less capable economies. But will it be able to sustain its positive economic position? Read more…

Author: Andrew Sheng, Asia Global Institute

2015 in the Asia Pacific will be remembered as a year of shambolic shifts towards a more multipolar economic and political order. The United States alone can no longer shape global destiny but will have to share power with allies and rivals, even as regional powers find themselves threatened by their own challenges. Read more…

Author: Chungshik Moon, ANU

2015 was a challenging year for South Korea’s democracy. Since the inauguration of the Park Geun-hye government in 2013 there have been a number of incidents that raise serious questions about the soundness and maturity of South Korea’s democracy. Read more…

Author: Bill Standish, Canberra

The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government has finally admitted that PNG’s revenue surge has ended. As long as PNG’s mining boom lasted, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill could build parliamentary support by allocating constituency funds to each member of parliament’s (MP) district. So how will restricted funds impact upon O’Neill’s political position and the stability of the government? Read more…