Asia

view

China's worrying blue-water ambitions

[youtube:HUPVW2ep4oc#] Compared with the Rudd Government's 2009 Defence White Paper, which was criticised for what many viewed as its alarmist treatment of China's rise, the most recent White Paper, released in April this year, has become known for its considerably more relaxed take on the issue.

By Raoul Heinrichs

view

Risk and reward with Burma's security sector

Andrew Selth is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. Part 1 of this post here. The initiatives for closer ties between the West and Burma's police and armed forces summarised in the previous post have aroused the ire of the activist community, which has been quick to remind everyone

By Guest Blogger

view

What the PNG asylum seeker deal really means for Australia's aid program

In the current climate of electoral desperation in Australia, it is difficult to get a true picture of the reality of Australia's aid program in PNG because it's so misunderstood even when the spotlight isn't shining on it. Very few people actually understand that there is a genuine effort on the

By Annmaree O’Keeffe

view

Indonesia's development formula II

Part 1 of this post here. The debate Joe Studwell has advanced in How Asia Works (see Sam Roggeveen's three-part interview here) is, in fact, not that novel. Studwell is not alone in advocating industrial policy: Justin Lin, former World Bank chief economist, makes the same argument in his

By Stephen Grenville

view

West reaches out to Burma's security sector

Andrew Selth is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. One of the most striking aspects of Burma's re-emergence as an international actor has been the readiness of Western democracies to renew or strengthen ties with the country's armed forces and police. Before the advent of President

By Guest Blogger

view

Who says China lacks innovation?

OK, so China has yet to produce a Steve Jobs, but if there's hope for China moving up the manufacturing value chain, it might lie in its Pizza Hut outlets. My colleague Dirk alerts me to the Chinese phenomenon of strategically loading the bowl to make the fullest possible use of Pizza Hut's

By Sam Roggeveen

view

A more expensive Chinese lunch for Australia?

Last week, the IMF made its contribution to the ongoing debate over Chinese economic performance. The growth forecasts included in the Fund's latest Article IV Staff Report on China – which see growth this year at around 7.75% and at 7.7% in 2014 – are right up at the optimistic end of current

By Mark Thirlwell

view

'A unique and complex operation': With RAMSI in the Solomon Islands

The tenth anniversary of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) causes me to reflect on my personal ten-year anniversary. It was ten years ago yesterday that I stepped on a plane to Honiara to take up a short-term mission as DFAT Policy Advisor to the Special Coordinator of

By Jenny Hayward-Jones

view

Indonesia's development formula

I share Sam Roggeveen's enthusiasm for the iconoclastic approach of Joe Studwell's How Asia Works (his previous book on Asian Godfathers was a great read too). I also share Studwell's scepticism about the 'magic of the market', his views on the IMF, and his admiration for the achievements of the

By Stephen Grenville

view

PNG reacts strongly to asylum seeker deal

Martyn Namorong is a multi-award winning writer, blogger and television presenter. His initial reaction to the PNG-Australia asylum seeker agreement appeared on The Interpreter yesterday. From online postings to offline activism, a new generation of protest-hardened Papua New Guineans is making

By Guest Blogger

view

Asylum deal a nightmare for PNG and Australia

Deni ToKunai is a political commentator who writes PNG's leading political blog, The Garamut. In the public commotion and media frenzy of Kevin Rudd's announcement that a new arrangement will see Australian asylum seekers resettled in PNG, one key point has gone largely unnoticed: it was his

By Guest Blogger

view

The Anglosphere: A view from Europe

Dr Daniel Woker is the former Swiss Ambassador to Australia and now a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Gallen. I was amused and intrigued by the recent ruminations on Tony Abbott's stated views on what the 'Anglosphere' means (apparently something anti-Asian, in Hugh White's interpretation

By Guest Blogger

view

Japan's turn to nationalism? Not quite

Rikki Kersten is a Professor of Modern Japanese Political History at the ANU. Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party may have scored a thumping win in Japan's half-upper house election on Sunday, but this will not translate into carte blanche for Abe's agenda. Pundits have been quick to assume

By Guest Blogger

view

Kevin Rudd, you're not a good friend of PNG

Martyn Namorong is a multi-award winning writer, blogger and television presenter. In March 2008, Kevin Rudd made his first official visit to Papua New Guinea to build ties, the first such visit by an Australian prime minister in 11 years. Out of that visit was forged a special affinity and

By Guest Blogger

view

Rudd's PNG solution will work, but it isn't right

Dr Khalid Koser is a Lowy Institute Non-Resident Fellow and Deputy Director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Prime Minister Rudd's new asylum policy is likely to work. First, he has filled a dangerous political void. Even Mr Abbott appears grudgingly to condone the policy. The Labor

By Guest Blogger

view

Michael Hayden reveals true scale of US-China intelligence competition

Anyone remotely interested in security and intelligence issues would have to be living under a rock to have missed this recent interview with the former head of the CIA and the NSA, General Michael Hayden, by Chris Joye of the Australian Financial Review. The interview transcript is itself a trove

By Rory Medcalf

view

China links: PLA reform, finance reform, corruption, infrastructure and more

World Bank blogger: 'Short of a cataclysm in China, China is already the largest economy in the world--or will be so in 18 to 24 months. The century and a half of America as number one will have come to a close.' But Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says China is hitting the economic

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Japan: Back to the future

The exit polls from yesterday's Upper House elections confirm that Japan has returned to one-party democratic rule. The all-powerful Liberal Democratic Party again faces a rabble of small opposition parties, none with a serious chance of taking power for the foreseeable future. The Liberal

By Malcolm Cook

view

Boats, aid and the art of the possible

Retired Brigadier Gary Hogan has been Australia’s Defence Attaché in both Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Indonesia. In March 1964, the 'Year of Living Dangerously', Indonesian President Sukarno, speaking at a public rally, told the US ambassador in attendance to 'go to hell with your aid

By Guest Blogger

view

Reader riposte: US 'all in' for the rebalance?

Iain Henry responds to Sam Roggeveen's post: Biden may be insisting that the entire Obama Administration is 'all in' with the rebalance to Asia, but something is revealed by the very fact that senior US figures are offering such reassurances. If America's partners in Asia already believed that

By Guest Blogger

view

India links: School lunch tragedy, FDI, caste prejudice, China and more

BBC Delhi correspondent Soutik Biswas is following the school lunch poisoning tragedy on his blog. The tragedy also has political consequences, with the ruling Congress Party set to launch a national subsidised food project billed as 'the biggest welfare initiative since India gained independence

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Food security and Australian land

Cynthia Dearin is Managing Director of Dearin & Associates, a consulting firm focused on investment and cultural ties with the Middle East and North Africa. In the last five years the world has witnessed two major spikes in food prices, one in 2007-2008 and another in 2011. In October 2012, the

By Guest Blogger

view

Whaling debate redux

With Japan having just made its closing argument in the International Court of Justice case launched by Australia, some highlights from a debate we hosted back in March between Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson and Griffith University's Michael Heazle. First, Paul Watson: Sea Shepherd is in

By Sam Roggeveen

view

The coming Afghanistan mess

Anatol Lieven in the New York Review of Books: In one respect, we are in a much weaker position than the Soviets in 1989. They could leave behind a rather formidable Pashtun dictator, Najibullah Khan. We have committed ourselves to holding presidential elections in Afghanistan next year—

By Sam Roggeveen

view

What Australians think about America and China

In an opinion piece for the Jakarta Post, Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove writes about Australian opinions on America and China.

By Michael Fullilove

view

Interview: 'How Asia Works' part III

Below is the third part of my exchange with Joe Studwell, author of How Asia Works. Here's part 1 and part 2. SR: In your previous answer you took a swipe at the IMF for its behaviour towards Indonesia during the currency crisis, so I wonder if you could say some more about the role of

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Why does China still receive foreign aid?

Dr Philippa Brant is a Lowy Institute Research Associate. Over the weekend ForeignPolicy.com published an article by Isaac Stone Fish pondering why the US and Japan still provide aid to China, their potential geopolitical rival. It is legitimate to ask why aid is still being provided to a

By Guest Blogger

view

Israeli film festival, Sydney

My thanks to reader Markus for a link to TimeOut's coverage of Sydney's upcoming Israeli film festival (13-27 August). Among the films on show is a documentary called The Gatekeepers, about Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet. We showed you the trailer back in February. Here are trailers

By Sam Roggeveen

view

China: What about the workers?

While the worrywart commentators are focused on the slowing of China's growth (even though most forecasts still start with a '7', which doubles income in a single decade), they reinforce the drama by implying that China has run out of policy options to maintain growth. Sure, China may not be

By Stephen Grenville

view

The 'win-win' New Zealand-Taiwan FTA

On the measure of FTAs signed, New Zealand's 'Asian Century' project is doing better than that of its larger, louder neighbour. Last week, New Zealand became the first OECD member to sign an FTA with Taiwan. In 2008 New Zealand was the first OECD member to sign an FTA with Taiwan's larger, louder

By Malcolm Cook

view

China links: Democracy, Osnos, carbon trading, China Dream and more

Quite an achievement: NZ now has free trade deals with China and Taiwan. (We'll have more on this later in the week.) I've linked countless times to the New Yorker's China correspondent, Evan Osnos. Here's his farewell to the country. Kerry Brown examines the China Dream, a phrase 'that seems to

By Sam Roggeveen

view

The world's most dangerous road

The Lowari Pass must have a decent claim to this title. A fascinating glimpse of Pakistani life courtesy of Al Jazeera: (H/t Kottke

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Background for Rudd's PNG visit

With Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Papua New Guinea this Sunday and Monday to meet with his counterpart Peter O'Neill, it's useful to recall that the PNG PM gave an address to the Lowy Institute on 29 November last year. Post event, in an interview with the Lowy Institute's Jenny Hayward

By Stephanie Dunstan

view

India links: Food security, Bhutan, corruption, Australia, social media, Pakistan and more

Danielle Rajendram is a Research Associate in the Lowy Institute's International Security Program. Debate over the food security bill continues in India. Here's Devesh Kapur on the wrongs of rights, plus a tongue-in-cheek piece suggesting twenty more rights for the UPA government to legislate

By Guest Blogger

view

Interview: 'How Asia Works' part II

Below is the second part of my exchange with Joe Studwell, whose book, as I said in the intro to part 1, has tested some assumptions about economic development I've been carrying around with me for a long time. SR: Asia is home to some of the great cautionary tales of industry policy: Malaysia’s

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Gulf states: The money or the vote?

As political unrest and violence hits much of the Arab world, the Gulf states (with the exception of Bahrain) have been able to sit back more or less serenely and use their immense wealth to stave off any serious calls for political reform. This week it was reported that the Saudi Government

By Rodger Shanahan

view

Freelancing in Syria

Thanks to reader Olivia for steering me towards this breathtaking piece of writing from Italian journalist Francesca Borri on the front line in Syria. The Italian editors she describes are clearly fools for dismissing Borri's opinions; we need to hear more from her: People have this romantic image

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Asylum seekers and Konfrontasi

The Piping Shrike is an anonymous Australian blog with some of the sharpest (if not always most readable) political analysis you will see. This post from 1 July is the first analysis I've read that finds a plausible reason behind Kevin Rudd's extraordinary claim, in his first media conference

By Sam Roggeveen

view

What we know, and what we assume, about violent conflict and development in Asia

Marta Foresti heads the Overseas Development Institute's Politics and Governance Programme. Sadly, we know a great deal about violence and conflict. Yet according to recent excellent research on subnational conflicts by the Asia Foundation, when it comes to the relationship between conflict and

By Guest Blogger

view

Burma and North Korea: Again? Still?

Andrew Selth is a research fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. The US Treasury's 'designation' of Lieutenant General Thein Htay, Chief of Burma's Directorate of Defence Industries (DDI), for purchasing military goods from North Korea, surprised many. After Barack Obama's visit to Burma in

By Guest Blogger

view

Egypt: An Islamist insurrection?

Bob Bowker is a former Australian ambassador to Jordan and Egypt. The events of the past week in Egypt raise serious questions about the capacity of the political system in that country and elsewhere in the Arab world to contain, through constitutional means, the struggle between Islamists and

By Guest Blogger

view

Viral video of 12-year old Egyptian boy explaining his country's politics

As with so many viral videos, this one's a sleeper. It was recorded in October last year, but has gained significant attention just in the last few weeks and is now up to almost 1 million views on YouTube. As I listened, it occurred to me that the boy's argument makes for a nice companion piece to

By Sam Roggeveen

view

Islamists and modernity in the Arab world

Bob Bowker is a former Australian ambassador to Jordan and Egypt. Antipathy between those Arabs who engage in politics and adopt lifestyles framed within an Islamic discourse ('Islamists') and those who do not underlies much of the current political contest in Egypt. It has a fundamental impact on

By Guest Blogger

view

China's incomplete financial evolution

The spike in China's short-term interest rates over the past month sent a shiver through world financial markets, in the same way that Fed Chairman Bernanke's statements on quantitative easing startled financial markets a month earlier. In both cases the market over-reacted, reflecting a

By Stephen Grenville

view

Cambodia: After Hun Sen wins election

When Cambodians go to the polls on 28 July it's odds-on that Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) will be returned to office. This result will continue the CPP's political dominance, maintained since 1997, and will extend Hun Sen's position as the world's longest-serving prime minister. He took

By Milton Osborne

view

Protecting Australian businesspeople abroad

Nick Alexander, a former UN and Lowy Institute intern, is a University of Sydney Juris Doctor candidate. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made it an essential theme of his trip to Indonesia to refocus the Australian people on tapping into Indonesia’s extraordinary business potential rather than

By Guest Blogger

view

Reader riposte: Rudd, SBY and those boats

Christopher Lethbridge writes: The joint communiqué from Friday's discussions between Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd marks a new maturity in both the Australian-Indonesian relationship and the asylum seeker debate. Epitomised by the

By Guest Blogger

view

India links: Asian century, food security, Look East, engagement with Africa and more

Danielle Rajendram is a Research Associate in the Lowy Institute's International Security Program. How will India fit into the Asian century? The London School of Economics has been running a blog feature on the importance of India's engagement with Africa. An interesting read. Do think tanks

By Guest Blogger

view

Egypt: Coup de-fault

Overnight in Egypt the military suspended the country's constitution and removed President Mohammed Morsi from power, following massive popular protests. It is clearly a coup, even if the military has, I suspect, mounted it reluctantly: on the one hand not wanting to run the country again, on the

By Anthony Bubalo

view

John Garnaut on being a foreign correspondent

Three days after John Garnaut, Fairfax Media's award winning China correspondent, left Beijing, I was fortunate enough to catch up with him before he gave a keynote address to the Lowy Institute's New Voices conference. John describes the momentous changes he witnessed on both a professional

By Stephanie Dunstan

Contact Us

Lowy Institute

PO Box H-159
Australia Square NSW 1215, Australia
+61 2 8238 9000
reception@lowyinstitute.org

Media Enquiries

Erin Bassett
+61 2 8238 9035
+61 (0)409 461 795

Search

Institute - Top Menu

Asia

Pages

Useful Links

Contact Us

Our Location