Once upon a time the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken booked a nice hotel room with a Queen bed and invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to share it with him. Continue reading »
International Relations
Cheng Lei, who was imprisoned in China for three years, says Australians should not overreact over every bilateral issue with Beijing. Freed Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who was imprisoned in Beijing for three years, has urged Australians to avoid taking simplistic or extreme views about China. The former anchor at Chinese state-run TV network CGTN Continue reading »
Readers of P&I may recall my earlier papers on the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), and their recent forays into the Middle East quagmire. Some may have thought that this is a positive development, perhaps humanity is enlisting international law which will finally bring some common sense to Continue reading »
‘Realist’ strategic thinking has got us where we are today. Unfortunately, even the brightest and best are succumbing to its hopeless and destructive logic. Continue reading »
"This case has … a serious chilling effect on public-interest journalism, and sends a terrifying message to any sources sitting on evidence of abuses by the government and its agencies."
In Southeast Asia, hedging is a pragmatic policy that maintains options and mitigates risks. While some ASEAN states, like the Philippines, are aligning more closely with the United States, most are pursuing a more inclusive and selective approach to partnerships, ensuring concurrent engagement with China and the United States. This approach is more desirable in Continue reading »
Russia is not Putin, though you’d hardly know it in current media coverage. Nor is it an autarky. On the contrary, for centuries Russia has interacted with both the East and the West, whose influences have shaped, and confounded, the country’s sense of identity. The US policy of isolating Russia is not only perpetuating the Continue reading »
China Matters has gone, and that is a tragedy. Australia lost a valuable think tank that could provide policy advice at a critical juncture of Australia-China relations. The implementation of the government hatchet job is set out in detail in Margaret Simon’s extended article, Red Flags, in the latest Monthly, and in Hamish McDonald’s article Continue reading »
The US election is being watched with trepidation in South Korea. Should President Joe Biden be re-elected, Seoul would likely see continuity in the relationship and a continued strong US-South Korea bilateral alliance. But a victory for Donald Trump is fraught with peril. He could throw the alliance into turmoil, try to make South Korea Continue reading »
The champers toasting the release of Julian Assange was delightful after many years of struggle against his clearly unjust indictment and years of imprisonment. I am sure we all enjoyed sipping it. After the excitement and sweetness has assuaged however, a certain bitterness still remains, a cold realisation just what his plea bargaining signifies. Of Continue reading »