Author: Kyuseok Kim (Mick), Korea University South Korean higher education is in a state of flux in 2023. The administration of President Yoon Suk-Yeol has recently initiated a national masterplan aimed at restructuring the higher education system. This plan, aptly named RISE (Regional Innovation System and Education), is a strategic initiative designed to decentralise the...
Author: Xiaoli Guo, ANU The Russia–Ukraine conflict is like a complex and multi-dimensional chess game, and China’s emergence as a potential peacemaker has incited much debate. China’s diplomatic turnaround, from its tacit non-involvement to an assertive diplomatic role, raises questions about China and Russia’s ‘no limits’ partnership and China’s apparent reluctance to class the Russia–Ukraine...
Author: Imtiaz Gul, Islamabad Pakistan’s is witnessing yet another stand-off between former prime minister Imran Khan and sections of the senior judiciary on one hand, and the political establishment and a coalition of 13 parties that calls itself the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) on the other. Khan lost power through a vote of no-confidence on...
Author: Donald R Rothwell, ANU Australia’s AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will enjoy the freedom of navigation beyond Australian waters and freely be able to undertake Indo-Pacific patrols throughout the Pacific, Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. This is clear from any analysis of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),...
Author: Donald R Rothwell, ANU A legal foundation for AUKUS is the freedom of navigation. This raises some fundamental issues under the international law of the sea, which have mostly been sidestepped in AUKUS debates. For example, where will Australia’s nuclear-powered AUKUS submarines be able to sail? Will there be limitations on their navigation? What...
Author: Surajit Mazumdar, JNU India’s most recent corporate scandal has engulfed the Adani Group. Investment research firm Hindenburg Research accused Adani Group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud that was aided and abetted by a deliberate lack of scrutiny on the part of regulators. The scandal has once again brought into focus the murky side...
Authors: Jenny Balboa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Hosei University, and Shinji Takenaka, Japan Center for Economic Research Despite careful words from Philippine officials, the latest US–Philippines Balikatan military exercise was a response to China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea. China’s provocations had become indiscriminate — targeting both uniformed Filipino personnel and...
Author: Natasha Hamilton-Hart, University of Auckland Assessments of Southeast Asia’s economic outlook published by the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 2023 find reasons for optimism. ‘Developing’ Asia will lead the world in economic growth over the next two years. Southeast Asian economies weathered the pandemic relatively well, notwithstanding hardship due to...
Author: Editorial Board, ANU Today the global trade system faces three systemic challenges. None are new, but strategic competition between China and the United States has brought a dangerous edge to each of them. The first is the dramatic shift in the composition of international economic interaction. When the Bretton Woods system was first set...
Author: Gary Clyde Hufbauer, PIIE Speaking at the Brookings Institution in April 2023, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declared national security and industrial policy as the guiding lights for US trade. Sullivan couched his prescriptions in soft tones and catchy phrases. ‘Decoupling’ is out, ‘de-risking’ is in. The goal is to ‘forge a new...