In David Armstrong’s Asian media review this week: Pakistan fears attack, India threatens ‘crushing blow’. Plus: China passes its first private-sector law; Trump needs a quick trade deal with Japan; Tariff plan: US wants to ‘reset world monetary order’; Singapore blocks foreign election posts; Bandung – when former colonies found a collective voice

Tensions over Kashmir massacre dangerously high – Asian Media Report

On the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second Indochina War, Mark Dodd visits Laos's Sacred Mountain, the scene of a forgotten battle in a country still scarred by the tragedy of war.

The Indochina War 50 years on: A forgotten battle atop Laos's sacred mountain

On the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, Carlyle A. Thayer charts the long path to reconciliation between Vietnam and its old adversaries.

Vietnam: ‘Let bygones be bygones’

Middle powers, like Australia and South Korea, have a vital role to play in an increasingly uncertain international environment, argues Shin-wha Lee. They can help preserve global institutions, promote flexible solutions, reach out to neglected partners in the Global South, and foster new coalitions to bridge ideological divides.

The new relevance of middle powers in an era of global disruption

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

While the next Australian government seeks to navigate a more complex and uncertain international environment, John McCarthy argues it should remember that to balance the power of a rising China both Australia and the US must get Southeast Asia right.

The West’s interest in a viable Southeast Asia

China is playing a long game in response to the Trump tariffs – and building the economic, military and diplomatic resources to navigate what it sees as a turbulent and increasingly hostile global environment, writes Edward Sing Yue Chan.

China’s Patient Strategy for Meeting the Trump Challenge

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

Southeast Asians welcome a strengthening of ASEAN’s political and economic influence, which has relatively declined in the past year. ASEAN must adapt and assert itself to restore confidence, writes Melinda Martinus.

Asialink Insights

Tensions over Kashmir massacre dangerously high – Asian Media Report

The Indochina War 50 years on: A forgotten battle atop Laos's sacred mountain

Vietnam: ‘Let bygones be bygones’

The new relevance of middle powers in an era of global disruption

Tensions over Kashmir massacre dangerously high – Asian Media Report

The Indochina War 50 years on: A forgotten battle atop Laos's sacred mountain

Vietnam: ‘Let bygones be bygones’

The new relevance of middle powers in an era of global disruption