Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte might be facing an international court charged with crimes against humanity, but the central place of powerful clans in Philippines politics is likely to endure, writes Cleo Anne A. Calimbahin.

Duterte in the Hague: Rivalries and Realignments in the May Elections

A scarcity of good opportunities at home is encouraging many young Southeast Asians to look to live and work abroad. Melinda Martinus argues that ASEAN needs a more coordinated approach to tackle the growing challenge.

ASEAN Can Help to Address Brain Drain in Southeast Asia

In David Armstrong’s Asian media review this week: AI, green appliances to lead shift to consumption economy. Plus: Myanmar resistance rewrites rules of insurgency; Trump closes agencies that cover China, Cambodia abuses; Widowo works on extending his influence; Japanese PM’s popularity plummets; New church for Phnom Penh, 50 years after Pol Pot devastation

Beijing gambles on plan to boost people’s spending – Asian Media Report

India won’t easily relinquish a deep-seated preference for protectionist policies in the face of increased US trade barriers, but New Delhi needs to offer some concessions while seeking a strategic access deal to the American market, writes Shashi Tharoor. 

India’s trade dilemma

Amid concerns over China’s rise, European countries are turning their gaze to Asia. Former diplomat John McCarthy says regional players like Japan and Australia must work with the Europeans to ensure the new Biden Administration gives more policy weight to the region, and especially Southeast Asia. 

Europe's back

This year the United Nations marked the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). But, as Professor Emeritus Ramesh Thakur, a renowned expert on nuclear control regimes, notes there is little to celebrate and even less to be optimistic about as the risks of nuclear war persist, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Some bold new thinking is required. 

Crisis and stability in nuclear triangle 

A dangerous assumption has long been made, perhaps innocently, in Canberra’s formulation of China policy that sufficient Australia literacy is in place in China to avoid disastrous misunderstanding and miscalculation, writes Diane Hu. 

China Australia literacy

Indonesia’s presidential candidates have had little to say on foreign policy. But whoever is sworn-in as President this year will face one of the most challenging international environments to confront a new Indonesian administration.

Indonesia missing debate

While the warming China-Russia partnership poses challenges for the Western-led international order, India faces its own dilemmas in how to handle relations between an old rival and an old friend, write Arun Sahgal and Anshita Shukla. 

China Russia India

The rise of China necessitates the rise of Australian knowledge of China. As David S. G. Goodman writes, this knowledge is vital to our economic prosperity and national security.

China studies Australia future

Australia once had a vibrant cultural relationship with China. Michael Keane asks, could its revival help ease current diplomatic tensions? 

Can culture help

China’s 'Asian way' is an all-embracing idea and a coded language to discredit other countries’ actions that are deemed harmful to China’s strategic interests, writes Hoang Thi Ha. 

Building peace

A year after Australian academic Sean Turnell was arrested in Myanmar following the military coup, his fate within a politically controlled and opaque judicial system remains uncertain. Charlotte Galloway argues fresh diplomatic approaches might be required to secure his release. 

Bring Sean Turnell home

A calibrated engagement strategy helped end Myanmar’s military dictatorship in 2015 – the same is required today. 

Biden flawed Myanmar policy

At this week's US-China summit in San Francisco, the growing threat posed by the 'nuclear tinderbox' in Northeast Asia must not be ignored, write Susan Thornton and Joel Wit. 

Biden Xi North Korea

An annual survey of elite opinion in Southeast Asia points to the necessity and opportunity for Australia to lift its engagement with its immediate region. Asialink adviser Chen Chen Lee and Catherine Hooton argue that by working with like-minded powers Australia can expand ASEAN’s geostrategic options and help them avoid a binary choice between China and the US. 

Australia's strategic opportunity

Australia’s China problem—official contacts frozen and many of our exports under siege—is now gaining attention far beyond our shores. As former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans AC writes, much of the world, given stark evidence of the economic havoc that China’s displeasure can wreak, and of the ugly depths to which its 'wolf warrior diplomacy' can descend, is trying to understand both how we fell into this hole, and whether we can climb out of it with our dignity intact. 

Australia China problem

With the trajectory of China’s economy — and many other dimensions of its power — shrouded in great uncertainty, finding the right policy response requires a more contested and open debate, writes Jane Golley. 

Australia's China policy

Australia still needs to invest in a credible self-defence policy because in foreign and strategic policy there are no 'forever' friends or allies, writes Asialink Chair and former Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Varghese. 

AUKUS good plan B

While the arrest of a former president of the Philippines on international criminal charges might be a weak restraint on the conduct of incumbents, Sol Iglesias argues that at least it demonstrates the limits of impunity.

Asialink Insights

Duterte in the Hague: Rivalries and Realignments in the May Elections

ASEAN Can Help to Address Brain Drain in Southeast Asia

Beijing gambles on plan to boost people’s spending – Asian Media Report

India’s trade dilemma

Duterte in the Hague: Rivalries and Realignments in the May Elections

ASEAN Can Help to Address Brain Drain in Southeast Asia

Beijing gambles on plan to boost people’s spending – Asian Media Report

India’s trade dilemma