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 »
USA
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So is a graph or chart. All provoke questions and new ideas. The above chart clearly portrays China’s economic rise as seen by it winning over and hosting top companies in competition with the United States. It also conjures up some interesting questions… Item Continue reading »
Australia’s obsession with every little political twist or swing in the US seems to grow with each day, with the latest event to gain saturation coverage being the first presidential debate of the current American political cycle. The event was shown live on the public broadcaster, though it is highly debatable whether an Australian audience, Continue reading »
President Bongbong Marcos played down the ramming of a Filipino Navy boat by a Chinese coastguard on 17 June. Calling it an accident, not amounting to an armed attack, when the photos showed otherwise. It was an embarrassing afterthought for a Head of State. The incident at Second Thomas Shoal has clearly breached Article IV Continue reading »
China and the Philippines are battling over control of contested waters in the Pacific. So far there has been no shooting, but there have been casualties. And the Biden administration has committed Americans to go to war if even one Filipino dies—or so Manila apparently believes. That would be madness, of course. The Philippine archipelago 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 »