Asia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All those countries (including Australia) that so solemnly call for a 'rules-based order' in Indo-Pacific Asia have a chance today to show they mean it. At a major gathering in Brunei, the annual ASEAN Regional Forum, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and his counterparts have an opportunity to

In Kevin Rudd's victory speech last night, he went out of his way to address young Australians: Mr Rudd said many young people had not liked or respected much of what they had seen. "As I rock around the place talking to kids, they see it as huge national turn-off," he said. "I understand

Most of us Indonesia groupies have long been nonplussed at how Australians are so luke-warm (and so ill-informed) about Indonesia, as confirmed by the latest Lowy poll. I agree with Dave McRae that we need more person-to-person links. But there are already quite a few. What about all those

This year's Lowy Institute poll reveals Australians' lack knowledge of Indonesia and a pronounced mistrust of our northern neighbour. Only 33% of Australians agree that Indonesia is a democracy, fifteen years and three rounds of democratic elections after the fall of Suharto's authoritarian regime.

Below, the final part of my interview with Kishore Mahbubani, one of Asia's most prominent world-politics commentators and author of The Great Convergence. Part 1 here and part 2 here. SR: It is sometimes said that Singaporean diplomats, of which you were one, are experts at maintaining a

Katherine Ellena is a Research Associate with the US Naval Postgraduate School and a former New Zealand diplomat. The views expressed here are hers alone. Two milestones occurred in New Zealand in the last two months with little fanfare, but with interesting implications. Firstly, in April, China

Hassan Rouhani's first-round success in the Iranian elections has sent an strong message to the regime. On the face of it, the process went well. Having ensured that the list of candidates was not going to offer any existential threat to the system, Ayatollah Khamenei needed to ensure that this

Danielle Rajendram is a Research Associate in the Lowy Institute's International Security Program. C Raja Mohan looks at what closer US-China relations would mean for India after Xi Jinping’s visit to California. What would Indian foreign policy look like should Modi win the 2014 election?

Cait Storr is a lawyer, writer and academic at University of Melbourne researching Nauru and other Pacific small island states. On Saturday 8 June, Nauru held a peaceful, indeed almost cheerful, election. Votes were cast and counted and 19 members elected to form the 21st parliament of the

Jonathan Pain is author of The Pain Report and has 29 years of international investment experience. He was born in South Africa and lived in Lesotho, Swaziland, England, Bahrain and now Australia. My first memory of racism was as a young boy in a shop in South Africa. A very elderly African