Why was Japan adamant that the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games should go ahead in the face of COVID-19?

The New Colombo Plan has celebrated its first five years funding Australian students to study and work in the Indo-Pacific. As a high-profile Australian Government program, what has it achieved? And what do we know about its wider impact?

Australia has made significant strides in the representation of women in diplomacy. Has there been a similar trend across Asia? Does this support Australia’s diplomacy in the region?

How can those in the development community best communicate with policymakers and experts from other fields?

Over the last two months, the government has been requesting submissions on the future direction of Australia’s aid program. How does aid help Australia engage with Asia?

There is still much work to do for both Indonesia and Australia in order to strengthen their relationship, notably in building trust between two countries.

As Widodo arrives in Australia for a state visit, hosted by the third prime minister he has dealt with since coming to office in 2014, the importance of leadership connections again will be on show.

From January 2020, Vietnam chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and simultaneously holds a seat as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. That is good news for Hanoi but also a big challenge for Vietnam.

Australia and China cooperating in the Pacific Islands? At first glance it seems absurd. The concept of Australia and China cooperating in their engagement with Pacific Island countries may seem ambitious. But Ministers for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne and Wang Yi discussed becoming “cooperation partners” in the Pacific when they met in Beijing.

In 2019, Morrison outlined his views on the Indo-Pacific as a region of utmost importance. In reviewing Morrison’s foreign policy stance, it is useful to compare with other leaders in the region.

The East Asia Summit doesn’t get nearly the attention of the G20 or APEC Summits. It is leaders-led, it is inclusive, it has a broad remit, and it has some of the right conditions to be the region’s premier forum for dialogue. But can it achieve this? Read the latest from Melissa Conley Tyler and Rhiannon Arthur.

We spend our days looking at short-term economic indicators, such as the Reserve Bank’s decision on the cash rate or whether Australia has entered a recession. This means we don’t pay enough attention to the longer-term trend: that Australia’s economy is inevitably in relative decline compared to its Asian neighbours.

As China marks 70 years of communist rule, Beijing will benefit from absorbing the lessons of history in its relations with Southeast Asia. An early foreign policy that saw the People’s Republic try to impose its views on southern neighbors left a legacy of years of mutual suspicion and acrimony that lingers in some quarters today.

As the People’s Republic of China turns 70, a key question that countries around the world are grappling with is how China views the international order. Whether or not you agree, it’s worth understanding how China’s foreign policy elite see these issues.

For a while last week the Brisbane suburb of Toowong was the top news story in South Korea. How did this happen? And what does it mean for Australia’s engagement in the region?

The Hong Kong protests have Xi Jinping in a bind. For all the talk of China’s power and the power of the president-for-life within China, he has faced no good choices in the Hong Kong crisis, writes Donald Greenlees.

Vietnam has steadily emerged to become one of Southeast Asia’s economic powerhouses. In the process, the Communist state’s effort to embrace capitalism has produced some stellar personal successes, writes Donald Greenlees.

Former Australian Ambassador John McCarthy says Australia now faces the challenge of forging a national consensus on an external security policy that reflects our self-confidence and maturity as a nation.

Western governments, including Australia, will find it increasingly hard to stay on the sidelines of this bitter fight for Hong Kong's future as the Special Administrative Region counts down to the end of China's 'one country, two systems' guarantee in 2047, writes Donald Greenlees.

Australia’s options for defending itself are in the news with the release of Hugh White’s How to Defend Australia. Will it shake up thinking? Or is it too hard to change the way we do Australia’s defence because there is no appetite for change?

With a marked increase in the number of women representing Australia at senior levels in DFAT, there are many other areas where the lessons from DFAT’s Women in Leadership Strategy can be applied.

The terms of the debate might be finally settled, but the contest will go on and on, writes Melissa Conley Tyler.

Indonesia have quietly backed away from plans to buy Russian-made fighter jets. So what role did US sanctions have on the decision? Asialink Senior Advisor Donald Greenlees analyses the latest episode of Indonesia pitted between great powers.   

Marise Payne’s experience in defence and security has been obvious, but what more will drive her diplomacy, asks Asialink Director of Diplomacy Melissa Conley Tyler.

Attempts by opposition forces to de-legitimise Widodo’s victory could leave a lasting scar on Indonesia’s young democracy, writes Donald Greenlees.

Narendra Modi won a stunning victory to be re-elected, but the big question, says Professor Ramesh Thakur, is whether a second term reveal a business-friendly leader capable of creating the necessary million new jobs every month, or a divisive cultural nationalist?

AANZFTA: the ASEAN–Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, which turns 10 years old in 2019. What has AANZFTA achieved? And what lessons does it have for other regional negotiations such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)?

There are dangers as well as benefits in keeping the election campaign away from foreign policy, as the Australian public will find out after election day.

With tensions sharpening ahead of the formal announcement of Indonesia’s election results on 22 May, the government has started to crack down on threats of unrest by radical Muslim supporters of defeated candidate Prabowo Subianto.

Australians face a set of decisions in foreign policy arguably more important to us than any national decisions since the Second World War, writes John McCarthy, former ambassador to Washington, Tokyo, Jakarta and New Delhi. How we navigate them could even have existential implications.

Field research on Asian comedians’ views of Australia reveals some surprising commonalities, writes Asialink Director of Diplomacy, Melissa Conley Tyler.

At the conclusion of one Indonesian election, it might seem strange to contemplate the next, but the 2019 presidential election signposts a significant transition in politics that will be evident by the time the nation votes again in 2024, writes Donald Greenlees.

At the third event in the This is Not a Drill series, our expert panellists confront a hypothetical public health emergency. Join Ali Moore's crack team as they devise a plan to protect the population and stem panic in the face of pandemic.

This short guide for Australian business takes a snapshot of our critical regional neighbour ahead of the approaching general election.

We travelled to six countries to meet six remarkable women. Now available to view online, this series first broadcast across the region on ABC Australia.

The South China Sea has become one of the region’s biggest potential flashpoints – but, hypothetically, what could happen if Australia were dragged into a conflict between rival powers?

Increased positive profiling of women in office will result in the increase of positive perceptions of women in political leadership says Asialink Diplomacy Director, Erin Watson-Lynn.

As global realignments take place threatening to leave Australia out in the cold, new research finds that we’re increasingly out of step with our nearest neighbours.

By Professor Tony Milner

By Professor Tony Milner

By Hamish McDonald

By Tejpavan Gandhok

By Bruce Gosper

By Ben Simpfendorfer

By John Denton

By Huw McKay

By Professor Gary Hawke

By Peter Baxter

By Dewi Fortuna Anwar

By John Brumby

By John Buckley

By Professor Tony Milner

By C. Raja Mohan

By Tejpavan Gandhok

By Tim Lindsey

By The Hon. Alexander Downer

By Michael Smith OBE

By Maurice Newman AC

By John McCarthy AO

By Dennis Haskell

By Geoffrey Garrett

By Multiple Authors

By Professor Nancy Viviani

By Trevor Wilson

By Alison Carroll

By Peter Cai

By Colin Heseltine

By Professor Ann Capling & Heather Ridout

By Richard Woolcott AC

By Greg Sheridan

By Ross Cottrill

By Stephen Howes

By Hamish McDonald

By Ron Huisken

By Howard Dick

By Rowan Callick