Author : East Asia Forum

India has played the spoiler by refusing to sign the global agreement on trade facilitation agreed at the Bali Ministerial of the World Trade Organisation in December 2013. The...

Unsurprisingly, the BRICS countries sixth annual summit in Brazil once again polarised public opinion. When the proposal for a BRICS development bank and currency swap arrangement was put forward...

The experience that Chinese leaders gain in domestic politics has a big impact on how they view and handle international issues. Many China watchers and political analysts often overlook...

Indonesia’s next president will need significant funds to fulfil election promises. But both candidates Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Prabowo Subianto have expressed caution about international borrowings. So should Indonesia...

Since the mid-2000s, the South Asian region has witnessed an incoming wave of Chinese financial assistance. In some South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, China has overtaken traditional donors...

The launch of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (in APEC’s backyard led by the United States) and (later) the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) (under the umbrella of...

The U.S. pivot to Asia has undergone considerable challenges ever since it was first announced in November 2011. Ultimately it is highly unlikely to achieve its main aim –...

While emerging Asia continues to achieve a stunning performance in poverty reduction, the gap between rich and poor keeps widening too. How sustainable is this poverty reduction in the...

The large influx of foreign workers into Singapore has begun to cause tension between immigrants and locals. The obvious solution for the Singaporean government, would be to drastically decrease...

The rising tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has led some experts to draw parallels with the Sarajevo incident, which sparked off World War I in...