Today Trends

Author: Tsuyoshi Minami, Shanghai Normal University Japan has been advancing its military modernisation program for several years. The driving motivation appears to be China , which aims to build a ‘world-class’ military by 2050 . Japan’s 2021 defence white paper says that trends in the development of the Chinese military ‘have become a matter of grave concern’ to Japan and the region. Despite significant investment in its Self-Defense Forces (SDF), Japan has been slow to adapt to drone technology. Although armed drones have proven efficiency in conflict, Japan hasn’t acquired any yet ; it only has reconnaissance drones. One reason that Japan has yet to introduce military drones is distance. Japan is an island country, hundreds of kilometres from the Asian continent. Low-cost drones cannot fly across the sea and have therefore been perceived as limited in terms of Japan’s national security, especially in naval warfare. But military drones, including low-cost ones, are becoming a

Author: Rahul Nath Choudhury, ICWA In 2020, India changed its foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations to allow investments of up to 74 per cent in the defence manufacturing sector under its automatic route, which was previously limited to 49 per cent. This is an important decision for a sector that is struggling to attract investment. Investment in India’s defence manufacturing sector, which was previously limited to public companies , was opened up in 2001 allowing 100 per cent domestic private sector participation and up to 26 per cent FDI. Initially, foreign capital was only allowed through the government route, and both domestic and foreign firms were subject to compulsory industrial licensing. India has since raised the FDI limit to 100 per cent while now allowing 74 per cent under the automatic route, with the remainder through the government route. India depends on imports for more than 70 per cent of its defence requirements . The country spends around 3 per cent of i

Author: Andrei Lungu, RISAP There is growing speculation and alarm about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan after Beijing sharpened its rhetoric towards the Taiwanese government and increased its military manoeuvres around the territory. The Biden administration is worried that if Chinese leaders are overconfident in China’s growing power and assume Washington’s decline , they might decide to invade Taiwan. The US government has taken numerous actions to clearly signal its capacity and commitment to defend Taiwan. Growing diplomatic engagement with Taiwan , increased military manoeuvres , joint statements alongside Japan , South Korea and the G7 , as well as developing a common response to a war over Taiwan with Japan and Australia are all part of this new framework. Although these actions intend to decrease the risk of military conflict by strengthening military deterrence, they are unlikely to achieve it. This is because Beijing’s Taiwan calculus — which has alway

Author: James Laurenceson, UTS More than one year after Chinese authorities began using trade to punish Australia over political disagreements, it seems Beijing has been able to inflict only limited damage. Canberra may be entitled to feel a sense of quiet assuredness, but it is important to understand exactly why this was the case — and how the costs could mount up in the future. The big problem for Beijing was that it found it impossible to instruct Chinese steel makers to import iron ore from sources other than Australia — viable alternatives were simply unavailable. Developments outside China’s control, like natural disasters in Brazil, then sent mineral prices to record highs. This factor alone saw the total value of Australia’s exports to China in the first half of 2021 smash the previous record by 36 per cent. Of the dozen or so Australian goods that China did close its market to, many could be diverted elsewhere. Some local commentators have taken this as evidence that t

Authors: Jayaprakash Murulitharan, University of Cambridge, Helena Varkkey, University of Malaya and Matthew Ashfold, University of Nottingham Malaysia The almost annual haze in southern Southeast Asia originates from both natural and anthropogenic forest fires in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Forests are cleared for small-scale and commercial agriculture, which is often linked to key economic sectors like oil palm and pulpwood. The ‘slash and burn’ method is a cheap and quick way to prepare land for cultivation. If done on peatlands, this method involves drainage, making the area extremely fire-prone. Carbon-rich peat fires often extend underground where they are hard to control. Regional hot and dry weather patterns prolong the fires and transport smoke haze across borders. The 2015 Southeast Asia haze was estimated to have caused between 40,000 and 100,000 deaths across the region. While the 2019 episode was less severe, the World Bank estimates that Indonesia — where most

Author: Connor Fiddler, GWU When thinking about Chinese foreign policy, it is not unusual to conjure up images of stoic generals or ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats bent on representing their country’s nationalistic pride. Even if this picture is not inaccurate, it is incomplete. While China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) conducts traditional state-to-state diplomacy, the lesser-known International Liaison Department (ILD), a foreign policy agency under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee, conducts ‘ quiet diplomacy ’. Formed in 1951, the ILD is responsible for party-to-party diplomacy. Historically that almost exclusively meant foreign communist parties, but today it includes parties of varying ideologies. While often neglected by Western media, the ILD is a critical Chinese foreign policy institution that needs to be understood and studied. During the early years of the People’s Republic of China, the ILD mainly focussed on maintaining good relati

Author: John Wright, US Air Force A daily barrage of US–China military alarms fill inboxes and news feeds. While many of these reports genuinely attempt to understand this rivalry, more often than not they create fear, confusion and uncertainty. It is important to brush past this overwhelming ‘fog of more’ and get back to basics. To understand the US–China military rivalry it is important to grasp its main cause — conflict stemming from two competing grand strategies. China wishes to assert its own brand of leadership and reclaim its regional hegemonic crown. The United States prefers no regional hegemons at all, and especially not one that does not share common values and respect for the current rules-based order. These grand strategies are integral parts of both states’ efforts to survive. They are not ‘worldviews’, ‘ideologies’ or ‘wish lists’. They are measurable, tangible goals that come with advantageous security consequences for one state at the expense of others. Each stra

Author: Editorial Board, ANU Natural capital is an essential input into all economic activities but, as the enormous consequences of climate change and environmental degradation attest, it’s rarely properly valued. Natural capital is the tolerable temperatures, breathable air, drinkable water, healthy land, and the complex ecosystems that maintain them. By undervaluing the role that natural capital plays in economic activities, markets underestimate the risks from environmental damage to growth and human welfare. The devastating consequences of not properly pricing the cost of carbon emissions into the allocation of capital by financial markets are now a major global threat. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report last week was a huge wake-up call, especially to big polluters like China and the United States as well as climate-laggards like Australia in Asia and the Pacific. In the lead up to the Glasgow COP26 Climate Summit this November, it’s pu

Author: Adam Triggs, Accenture and ANU More than US$16 trillion worldwide is currently sitting in government bonds yielding negative real returns. Meanwhile, the world needs at least US$35 trillion of sustainable investment to avoid the 1.5 degree increase in global temperatures that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns is now imminent. To make matters worse, the substantial environmental and economic benefits from sustainable practices like lowering carbon emissions, improving land management and other environmental good practices often go unrewarded by the financial system, even though the returns to society are high. These paradoxes are caused by markets that are missing for the environment and natural capital. For too long, the world has relied on directionless governments and the unreliable promises of corporate social responsibility and shareholder activism to manage the environment and natural capital and deliver the investment needed to avoid climate chan

Author: Srinivas Goli, UWA On 19 July 2021, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh proposed a new population policy, the Population Bill 2021 . The core objective of the bill is to ‘control, stabilise and provide welfare to the population of the state by implementation and promotion of [a] two-child norm’. The bill aims to do so through a set of incentives and disincentives for having children. A target-based approach to fertility decline through sterilisation-based incentives (or disincentives) has existed in India for a long time. But as a signatory to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, the country agreed in principle to move away from a coercive incentive-based approach and to instead emphasise rights-based approaches. These included extending reproductive health care services to achieve population stabilisation and development. What might have prompted Uttar Pradesh to reinstate a coercive legal approach? In its introduction chapter, the draft bill