Since a United Nations General Assembly Resolution vote in November 2012, Palestine has had the status of a state within the UN system. It is not a full member state but, like the Holy See, a non-member observer state. Australia – after a heady debate within the Gillard cabinet – abstained on that vote. The State Continue reading »
Defence and Security
Allow me to come clean: I worry every time Max Boot vents enthusiastically about a prospective military action. Whenever that Washington Post columnist professes optimism about some upcoming bloodletting, misfortune tends to follow. And as it happens, he’s positively bullish about the prospect of Ukraine handing Russia a decisive defeat in its upcoming, widely anticipated, sure-to-happen-any-day-now spring Continue reading »
As the new Australian Labor government took power following the 2022 election, its China policy barely changed and the “China threat” narrative continued unabated. I did not vote for the Labor party to see Australia’s government channelling the ousted Morrison Government! The very worst outcome for Australia would be to engage in a war against Continue reading »
Misunderstanding China has a long and distinguished history. Much of that misunderstanding has been generated by western media going right back to the Qing dynasty. The Australian ‘Times’ correspondent of the era George Ernest Morrison was unable to speak Chinese and so depended on Sir Edmund Backhouse as a source of primary information. Sir Edmund Continue reading »
Documents publicly available make it clear that Saudi Arabian government officials assisted the two 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Midhar, who crashed an airliner into the Pentagon. Newly released testimonies further reveal that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was aware of the activities of the two hijackers before the 9/11 attacks and suggest that Continue reading »
Labor’s ability to seamlessly follow in the Coalition’s strategic footsteps is showing welcome signs of weakening as opponents of AUKUS and the submarine deal find their voice. By any measure, Anthony Albanese and his government have been a disappointment. True, Albanese has an authentic, anachronistic and atypical backstory, but that hasn’t stopped him from displaying Continue reading »
A multipolar world is being forged by the Global South. Tectonic shifts are taking place between the “collective West” led by the United States and the “Global South” with China in this camp. Hong Kong’s predicament is that it lies on a fault line of the geopolitical plates. Political transitions are never easy for the Continue reading »
Mainstream media frequently describes Taiwan as “an island that the PRC claims, but has never ruled”. This has given rise to an increasing perception of Taiwan as a separate sovereign entity. In both historical and legal terms it is not. Most countries and the United Nations Organisation have long accepted that Taiwan, despite being internally Continue reading »
In 2016, President Obama visited Hiroshima. He was the first US President to do so since the bombing in 1945. He said that he would not be apologising for the dropping of the bomb and would not try and second-guess President Harry Truman’s decision. A repost from May 27, 2016 The widely accepted moral justification Continue reading »
America and the West are more isolated from the rest of the world than at any time since WWII. From May 22–23, the Toda Peace Institute convened a brainstorming retreat at its Tokyo office with 16 high-level international participants. One of the key themes was the changing global power structure and normative architecture, with the Continue reading »