Author : East Asia Forum

It has been a rather challenging year for the Malaysian economy. Political disruptions and economic shocks have rocked the nation.  Prime Minister Najib Razak has been strenuously committed to...

The international media spent 2015 criticising South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s government and its policies, and the criticisms are visibly increasing in frequency. The topics range from history textbooks...

On 18 December 2015, the Abe administration announced details of the much-anticipated agriculture, forestry and fisheries-related supplementary budget. It contains a list of expenditure items designed to assist the...

When ‘unthinkable’ events happen, they can change the course of history. The bilateral agreement reached by South Korea and Japan over ‘comfort women’ on 28 December 2015 was one...

In architecture, there is a dictum that ‘form follows function’. The architect decides a building’s use and then designs the building for those purposes. In Vietnam’s process of economic...

Polls strongly suggest that Taiwan’s vibrant democracy will have its third change of government in 16 years when they hold elections on 16 January. The first change of government...

Bangladesh’s social, economic and political development is one of the great success stories of the past 25 years. However, today it is Bangladesh’s politically dysfunctional ‘battling begums’ — Sheikh...

During the second week of December 2015, Japan and India held one of their more productive annual summit meetings in recent memory in New Delhi. Breaking the pattern of...

The IMF decided on 30 November 2015 to include China’s currency, the renminbi (RMB), in the elite basket of reserve currencies that determine the unit value of Special Drawing...

Singapore’s ruling party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), enters 2016 enjoying the comfort of a magnificent electoral victory in the 2015 general elections. In that election — the first...