The island’s current political status is as good as it gets, and any further military partnership with Washington will deliver only diminishing returns. Say what you like about Taiwan’s new leader William Lai Ching-te, but he really did ask for it. Days after his inauguration, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted live drills around the Continue reading »
Asia
ABC TV’s Landline programme has declared that “Australia’s dairy industry is licking its lips at the prospect of increased demand from Indonesia.” The cow cockies’ cliched hopes are based on the applauded pledge by Indonesia’s incoming president and former general Prabowo Subianto to give 83 million school kids free feeds and milk. The salivators are Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: TikTok stage of Sino-US rivalry ‘dangerous’. Plus: Human trafficking the curse of cyber-crime; Election body tells Modi to stop dividing society; Junta’s conscription campaign flagging; Xi, Putin give West the big finger; Thailand’s dugongs casualties of climate change. Asian newspapers reacted poorly to Joe Biden’s recent imposition of higher tariffs Continue reading »
Taiwan’s new leader, Lai Ching-te, delivered his inaugural speech on Monday, comprehensively expounding his stance on “Taiwan independence”. Unlike his two predecessors, Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen, Lai failed to clearly refer to the 1992 Consensus and the one-China principle, indirectly indicating his rejection of both crucial notions. Instead, Lai unabashedly referred to the notions Continue reading »
The ABC is running jolly programmes on and for the Pacific as part of a government policy to counter Chinese influence. But in a closer, bigger and more important region already eyed by Beijing the national broadcaster and its paymaster offer indifference and ignorance. Or is that arrogance? The flagship of the international service ABC Continue reading »
How did the Vietnamese prevail at that world-historical moment? The answers shed light on the world we see outside our windows now. I had the most salutary email the other day, a reviving lift amid these, humanity’s darkest days, surely, in the memory of anyone living. It was from George Burchett, an Australian painter who Continue reading »
The disparity is vast and immoral. Emotional language touches souls, but in Indonesia it should also grab economics and politics. The new government could demand reform. It wont. We’ll call her Siti. Real name usage might threaten the uni graduate’s fragile job as an English teacher at a government school. She earns less than Rp Continue reading »
Hong Kong appears to hang on every word from Beijing and eagerly awaits instructions on how to move forward, and therein lies the city’s biggest danger. When Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 under the formula of “one country, two systems”, naivety and over-optimism pervaded the city, the mainland and beyond with the Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: Government must persuade public on nuclear subs. Plus: Violence against women an Asian tragedy, too; Beijing, Manila clash over shoal agreement; West hastening loss of supremacy; Modi’s attacks show worry about poll; Hong Kong should promote its common law system. Readers of Asian media stand a good chance of understanding Continue reading »
In an essay entitled “Australia’s Choice” published in Australian Foreign Affairs in 2022, the leading Singaporean commentator on international relations, Kishore Mahbubani, highlighted how Australia needed to choose whether to be “a bridge between East and West in the Asian Century – or the tip of a spear projecting Western power into Asia” It transpires Continue reading »