October 2024
- Opinion
- US Votes 2024
Trump or Harris, America’s Asia trade strategy won’t change
Whoever wins next week’s election, Asia’s international economic diplomatic challenge remains the same: to keep the global multilateral trade enterprise alive.
October 2023
- Opinion
- World elections
Jokowi takes a huge gamble with son’s political elevation
An Indonesian court’s decision to open a loophole allowing the president’s son to participate in February’s election is unlikely to stand as a great moment in national jurisprudence.
- Updated
September 2023
- Opinion
- World politics
Pheu Thai puts populist face on Thailand’s discredited establishment
The governing Thai party is risking a lot with its alliance with the remnants of the junta government. It could all just end in yet more political instability.
August 2023
- Opinion
- World elections
What to expect from Jokowi’s likely successor
Prabowo Subianto is well-placed to gain the presidency he has long coveted. If he wins, Indonesia is set for a reckoning with the legacies of its authoritarian past.
April 2023
- Opinion
- World elections
Politics in soccer have cost Indonesia dearly
Indonesia’s hosting of the U-20 FIFA World Cup was supposed to be a boon for tourism as the economy recovers from the pandemic. Instead, the tourism industry is set for $370 million in losses.
- Updated
March 2023
- Opinion
- World elections
Dangerous divides bedevil South-East Asian democracies
Elite co-operation and consensus-building between elections paper over deep and abiding social divisions. But those divisions are still alive in Malaysia and Indonesia.
January 2023
- Opinion
- World elections
Why Australia needs to deal with Indonesia as it is
With Indonesia drifting in the global tide of illiberal politics and the Australian media drawn to the bad-news stories stemming from this, the rhetorical scaffolding of the bilateral relationship needs refreshing.
August 2022
- Opinion
- World politics
Widodo needs to make G20 agenda resonate on the home front
The Indonesian president has invested a good deal of political credibility in the success of the summit and failure would now be a national embarrassment.
ASEAN’s operation offers a guide to Pacific nations
The Pacific can learn from the challenges ASEAN faces as it feels the heat from increasing competition between China and the United States in the region.
July 2022
- Opinion
- World politics
Economic crisis will test Sri Lanka’s new old guard
Sri Lanka will soon enough find out whether putting a member of its discredited political establishment in charge of steering the country out of the crisis is going to work.
May 2022
- Opinion
- World politics
Marcos win confirms return of ‘disciplinary state’ to South-East Asia
Election results in South-East Asia’s big three electoral regimes suggest the benign technocracy of a previous generation of leaders has fallen out of fashion.
- Updated
November 2021
- Opinion
- Democracy
The lifeblood of Philippine democracy is under threat
It’s disturbing that one of the key pillars of political life in the Philippines - its traditionally vibrant and critical media - has been under such pressure in the Duterte era.
August 2021
- Opinion
- Coronavirus pandemic
Nothing-to-see-here strategy hides grave crisis
The scale of Indonesia’s pandemic crisis is a failure of leadership, but President Joko Widodo’s government is caught in a cycle of spin.
- Opinion
- Coronavirus pandemic
Vietnam is paying for its early virus success. Sound familiar?
Vietnam has joined other many other Asia-Pacific countries in becoming a victim of its own success. With infection rates low, there was little urgency to vaccinate.
July 2021
- Opinion
- World politics
Muhyiddin keeps Malaysian politics in lockdown
A pick-up in the country’s vaccine rollout should give the PM an overwhelming incentive to keep buying time — ideally by using extended emergency rule to keep politics, as it were, under lockdown.
May 2021
- Opinion
- Myanmar coup
ASEAN is yet to shine on Myanmar
It was immediately apparent in the aftermath of the February coup how much was at stake for ASEAN’s relevance and credibility. As violence continues on the streets, this remains the case.
April 2021
- Opinion
- Populism
Duterte moves to shore up his post-election influence
The Philippines’ populist leader is likely to pull out all the stops to aid the victory next year of a political ally, who would allow him to retain influence and protect him from accountability for his abuses of power.
March 2021
- Opinion
- Political unrest
Politics gets personal in Malaysia
Malaysia is starting to look more like the south-east Asian standard than it ever has: a modernising economy paradoxically beset by the politics of personalism, patronage and arbitrary rule.
- Updated
January 2021
- Opinion
- Emerging markets
Indonesia’s Teflon president rides out the pandemic
What stood out in Indonesia’s pandemic year was the resilience of the political status quo amid an endless first wave of COVID-19.
August 2020
- Opinion
- Corruption
No end to Malaysia’s political games after Najib’s courtroom downfall
The Malaysian public is stuck with games of three-dimensional chess between – and within – teams of politicians who are UMNO men who missed out on the power they sought through that party.