Asia Pacific

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has been much in news ever since China showed interest in forming a bank that focused on infrastructure projects in the Asian region. Established in 2014, the Asian lending institution has a target of $100...

The United States has dominated global economics and finance in the post-war era. But the rise of new regional institutions and agreements in Asia will pose a growing and lasting competitive challenge to US leadership in the Pacific. To adapt...

Some are calling for a new institution to manage Asia’s maritime disputes. ‘The physical contours of East Asia’, leading geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan recently wrote, ‘argue for a naval century’. Given the significance of the maritime realm in the region...

Japan should seriously consider joining the new China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), regardless of the scheme’s detractors within the country. Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the AIIB in 2013. Beijing signed up 21 founding member nations in October...

Indonesia’s Natuna Islands could become yet another security flashpoint in the South China Sea. The islands’ proximity to the disputed areas in the South China Sea, and isolation from Jakarta, makes it one of Indonesia’s most vulnerable regions. Any effective...

Suggestions that China could claim historic fishing rights within the nine-dash line misinterpret international law. While Sourabh Gupta’s arguments, outlined in a recent Forum article, relating to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Articles 62 and...

A pressing policy question facing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders at their summit in April 2015 and beyond is whether the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) can be sustained without more effective institutions. This article explores the link between...

ASEAN needs a ready and capable steward in 2015 and Malaysia looks to be in the right place at the right time. Malaysia has made clear that realising the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of the year will...

Regardless of whether or not the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be successfully concluded by its deadline of 31 December 2015, we should not be solely obsessing about its ability to deliver its ‘single market’ objective on time: the AEC...

The US State Department’s analysis of China’s nine-dash line, which it released in advance of China’s Position Paper on the South China Sea arbitration case with the Philippines, is in part conceptually and legally flawed. The US State Department’s analysis...

An embarrassing fact about ASEAN governments avoided in public policy discussions is that the capacity of most ASEAN states is quite limited — much more limited than they, and the international community, generally wish to admit. Until there is recognition...

Since its inception in 1985, there have been questions about the effectiveness of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to promote economic integration in South Asia. One of the biggest impediments to SAARC’s progress has been the continued...

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is unlikely to come into being by its December 2015 deadline due to its overambitious design and apathetic implementation. But there are still plenty of things that ASEAN can do to prepare for when the...

By the end of 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) expects to establish a single market and production base in the region. With an ASEAN overall workforce of more than 300 million people, the AEC will have strong implications in...

Things just haven’t clicked the way they should have in the Australian–ASEAN relationship. We seem far removed from the time when as Australia’s Foreign Minister I had no counterparts anywhere in the world with whom I felt more close and...