Asia

The week-long 'Shutdown Bangkok' campaign turned violent over the weekend, with two attacks marring otherwise peaceful protests. A grenade attack on protesters near the historic Victory Monument on Sunday wounded 28 people. While on Friday, at Banthat Thong Road, another grenade attack wounded 35

The attempt on Monday 13 January to shut down Bangkok, orchestrated by the People's Democratic Reform Committee led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former Deputy Prime Minister and member of the opposition Democrat Party, does not seem to have achieved its objective. Moreover, through the soft policing

It's been 17 years since the US and India last engaged in tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. That was in 1997,  when Delhi kicked out two US intelligence officials (one, reportedly, the CIA’s Deputy Head of Station) and the US responded in kind. One has to go back much further, to 1981, for the

In my concluding thoughts on a report compiling four workshop papers about tensions in the East China Sea, published by the Lowy Institute on 7 January, I note that it is impossible to predict the consequences of the vicious tit-for-tat cycle which Beijing and Tokyo have fallen into over the past 16

The Christmas/New Year period has been busy for those who watch Chinese military developments. For pure symbolic power, it was impossible to beat the first publicity photos of a Chinese carrier battlegroup, featuring not only China's sole carrier, the Liaoning, but various powerful escort ships (see

As you have already seen courtesy of a piece by new contributor Robert Kelly on three things that won't happen in Northeast Asia this year, we've decided to invert the January ritual of making predictions about the coming year. So here's my short list of things that won't happen in 2014, for good

It’s the time of year for predictions, but rather than looking at what might happen in Northeast Asia in 2014, let's flag some events that, although they might or should happen, probably won’t happen. 1.    There will be no Sino-Japanese war The analogies of China to Wilhelmine Germany

Yesterday Peter McCawley noted that revelations of Australian spying on Indonesia are threatening to damage bilateral trade talks. Today, more evidence that the Snowden leaks are having direct economic consequences: Brazil has announced that Swedish firm Saab will fill an order for 36 fighter

The Weekend Australian carried a ‘well-sourced’ article defending our listening in on Kristiani Herawati, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's wife. Quoting the usual ‘well-connected insider who asked not to be named’, it argues that she was a legitimate target because she was

At the beginning of last week it appeared that the row with Indonesia over intelligence issues had quietened down. Prime Minister Abbott had sent what was doubtless a carefully drafted letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The welcome indications, after a day or so, were that SBY felt the

William Hobart is an intern in the Lowy Institute's International Security Program. Rationalist explanations for war in the East China Sea. India’s expertise at maintaining the Russian-made Su-27 and Su-30 ‘Flanker’ jets is not only providing revenue, it’s deepening military ties with the

[youtube:VQDtWzqQSks#t=28] There's so much discussion out there about China's rise, its territorial quarrels with neighbours and the risk (some would say inevitability) of eventual conflict between the great powers that we rarely step back to think outside the terms of this power struggle. What if

On 20 December the Indian Air Force (IAF) will induct the country's first indigenous fighter jet, the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), in Bangalore. The Tejas has been many painful years in the making. It was first seriously mooted in the 1980s, the first technology demonstrator came in 1995,

Australia and Papua New Guinea enjoy a special relationship – one of mutual affection, shared history and shared geography. Today, as they have for more than two decades, ministers will meet at the Australia-PNG Ministerial Forum to build even closer ties for the years ahead. The Australia-

Over the past two weeks, five of India's states have gone to the polls. Held less than six months ahead of general elections, due by the end of May next year, this round of assembly elections arguably provides an indication of the forces that will shape elections at the national level. The centre

In a televised address on Monday morning, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra announced that Thailand's House of Representatives had been dissolved. The move is a bid to ease the pressure of protests against her government, led by former deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban (pictured), who took to the streets

Various Indian newspapers have reported that Indian Defence Miniser AK Anthony has written to all the country's political parties requesting their opinions on the creation of a long-mooted Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) post for the armed forces.  This might appear to be an arcane point of

Dr Anna Powles is a Senior Lecturer in Security Studies at Massey University. Jose KL Sousa Santos served as an advisor to the Timorese President and Government and was a security analyst with the UN Integrated Mission to Timor Leste. The standoff between Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and ex-

An uncertain calm has descended on Bangkok. This follows more than a week of increasingly violent protests in what has marked another chapter in the long-running saga of the Shinawatra family's rule. The calm began when embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra instructed the security services

In October, the New Caledonian Committee of Signatories to the Noumea Accord quietly released a document which will have important consequences for Australia and the South Pacific region. At first glimpse, the discussion paper, Reflexions sur l'avenir institutional, would be easy for those

Kien Choong writes: I wonder if Crispin Rovere speaks authoritatively as an expert in Chinese history or is simply pontificating. My modest understanding of Chinese history is that China has rarely been militarily dominant outside its borders, with much of its history trying to keep the '

I am happy to fess up for making quite a lot of noise about Tony Abbott's depiction of Japan as Australia's 'best friend' in Asia. And I have to admit that there are comments from leading figures in previous governments which are not a million miles far from that lofty mark. For example, during

The current street demonstrations in Bangkok are best understood as a continuation of a political upheaval dating back to 2006 and the ousting of the elected caretaker government of Thaksin Shinawatra by an army coup. Subsequent events, most notably the Yellow Shirt occupation of Bangkok's airports