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Australia hosts its second home-based summit with ASEAN leaders in Melbourne this week at a time when, more than ever, it wants and needs ASEAN to be an effective anchor for the security order in Asia. Yet ASEAN is still striving to resolve its internal divides and leadership deficit to strengthen its leverage in regional and global affairs. The summit celebrates the 50 th anniversary of Australia’s dialogue partnership with ASEAN and seeks to advance Australia’s new strategic economic strategy towards Southeast Asia to 2040. Like the rest of East Asia, ASEAN and Australia are trapped at the epicentre of what sometimes seems unstoppable geopolitical tensions — notably those between the United States and China. With globalisation having diffused political and economic power, no single country can unilaterally secure its resilience and sovereignty. Strength and security must instead be found in cooperation, based on a comprehensive approach. With new economic and environmental th

If minilateralism is the ‘way to get things done’ in the Indo-Pacific — whether in the security, diplomatic, defence or economic spheres — then what Japan and Australia, as two leading ‘middle powers’ in the region, want to get done is an important question. Though much of the focus on minilateral arrangements is on their security and defence roles, Japan and Australia have a strong interest in using minilateralism to boost regional cooperation in the nexus between economics and security. The economics-security nexus refers to the use of economic tools — such as trade, investment and foreign aid — to pursue security-related or strategic goals . All countries engage in such practices, to some extent, but they are particularly used by major powers. Japan and Australia both share a common interest in preventing countries from using coercive economic practices to extract concessions, punish others or expand their influence and shape the regional economic order. Both countries have be

In Mongolia, the economy continues to recover from COVID-19, partly due to the completion of underground construction at the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine and record-high coal exports. In domestic politics, constitutional amendments were passed that will see Mongolians vote for an expanded parliament in June 2024. During the summer of 2023, the Mongolian government received a flurry of international visitors and Mongolian officials went on multiple overseas visits, reinforcing the sense of renewed engagement with the world under Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh. This shift was not only due to Khurelsukh’s initiative but also due to renewed interest from OECD countries, recognising the geopolitical challenges posed by Russian aggression and US-China and EU-China confrontations for Mongolia. For over 15 years, the Mongolian government has banked on the riches that will ultimately arrive from the Oyu Tolgoi operation in the form of the government’s 33 per cent equity stake, but a

On 13 January 2024, Taiwan conducted its Presidential and Legislative Yuan elections. The elections, especially the presidential election, were seen as a watershed event amid increasing global attention on tensions in the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan’s positioning as a key battleground in United States–China strategic competition. Election night delivered a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) victory in the presidential election . The DPP candidate, Lai Ching-te, won with 40.1 per cent of total votes , coming ahead of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). But the election cannot be chalked up as a success for the DPP as despite winning the presidency, the party lost its control of the Legislative Yuan. In the legislative election, the KMT emerged as the largest party with 52 seats ahead of the DPP’s 51. With two KMT-leaning independents also winning seats, the KMT essentially controls 54 of the 113 seats. The TPP emerged from the legislative election as the kingma

Judging by its macroeconomic indicators, the Indian economy performed well during 2023. In January 2024, the country’s National Statistical Office estimated that the growth in India’s real GDP would be 7.3 per cent during the 2023–24 financial year — the highest among the major economies. This estimate is higher than the IMF’s December 2023 projected growth of 6.3 per cent. Even if the IMF’s projections prove accurate, India’s GDP would still expand at least two percentage points more than China’s. Substantially higher levels of capital formation are driving India’s growth during the 2023–24 fiscal year. The government prioritised capital spending in its recent budgets and supported the state governments for doing so. As a result, gross capital formation increased by over 11 per cent during the 2022–23 fiscal year and is expected to expand by over 10 per cent during the 2023–24 fiscal year. The private sector’s response to the government’s investment push has been inadequate, co

Timor-Leste’s last political cycle had two electoral episodes — the presidential elections in 2022 and the parliamentary elections in 2023. In both elections, the public vehemently rejected the main tenets of former president Francisco ‘Lu Olo’ Guterres’ term and returned candidates to key state positions aligned with the revival of conventions established with independence. When the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste became an independent state on 20 May 2002, a long period of Portuguese colonial and Indonesian neo-colonial rule drew to a close. The emerging nation made a unique decision: to build a democratic polity alongside state-building and reinforcing a national identity. This was all the more extraordinary as Timor-Leste had no memory or tradition of any form of democratic governance. The configuration of the democratic institutions created ‘rational-legal’ legitimacy through free, fair and regular elections based on universal suffrage. Yet, charismatic and traditional form

Middle powers such as Australia and Japan have leveraged minilateral relationships to achieve shared security and economic objectives. But since the minilateralism pursued by Canberra and Tokyo has largely been a response to the rise of China, this raises the question of how Beijing practices minilateralism and what this might reveal about the effectiveness of the Japanese and Australian approach. The appeal of China’s approach in the Global South should give Canberra and Tokyo pause. Australian and Japanese minilateralism, while containing governance and economic elements, is widely perceived as being dominated by ‘hard security’. This means that their minilateralism has less appeal to developing countries, since it does less to support the lives of the vulnerable through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Australia and Japan must uncover ways to engage with these countries outside traditional security issues. The Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative is the most obv

Pacific Islanders, stewards of the world’s largest ocean, are staring down the dire effects of climate change as ocean warming, severe cyclones and mass coral reef bleaching jeopardise their livelihoods. The United Nations’ International Seabed Authority (ISA) has been charting a course to balance interests among all stakeholders — mining companies, investors, scientists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and nations around the world — in the pursuit of critical metals and the equal distribution of benefits. The drive to develop this new source of key energy transition metals found in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a deep abyssal plain midway between Mexico and Hawaii, is greatly influenced by the global shift away from fossil fuels and toward green technologies. The area has large deposits of nickel and cobalt-rich polymetallic nodules, resources in heavy demand as virtually all the world is involved in the quest for a net zero future. ISA, founded in 1994, has upheld i

The rise of minilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific has attracted worldwide attention as it appears to be a response to the region’s changing balance of power. Yet such groupings can come with their own challenges, particularly when they bring together countries with distinct or only partially converging strategic outlooks. This is especially the case with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, which brings together Japan, Australia, India and the United States. Unlike the US–Japan–Australia Trilateral Strategy Dialogue (TSD), which is likely to strengthen the US strategic position and the alliance system by connecting allies with each other, the Quad represents a looser consortium of ‘like-minded’ states. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster created initial contact in the maritime sphere between the would-be Quad powers. In 2007, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed the Quad, but meetings were later suspended due to a lack of momentum. But as each cou

Myanmar remains fundamentally damaged by the military coup that took place in 2021. Nearly half of the population has been forced below the poverty line. Meagre growth of  2 to 3 per cent  in 2023 does little to claw back the double-digit economic contraction inflicted by the junta. Many factors are impeding   a more robust recovery, including weak consumer demand due to low employment and high prices. Businesses suffer from perpetual shortages because of  foreign currency constraints , depressing exports and hiking inflation.  International asset freezes and sanctions, such as the United States’ designation of two state-owned banks  in mid-2023 , are designed to impede the military and its close associates. The blacklisting of Myanmar by the Financial Action Task Force in  October 2022  has disrupted  regime access  to the international financial system, damaged Myanmar’s reputation and deterred investment. Sanctions on state-owned banks have also caused further monitoring and r