Author : East Asia Forum

China’s unprecedented growth since reforms began in the late 1970s has been accompanied by an equally transformative process of urbanisation. China’s urbanisation rate increased from 17.9 to 54.8 percent...

Malaysia’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal reached a crescendo in July 2016. The US Attorney General claimed that more than US$3.5 billion belonging to 1MDB was ‘allegedly misappropriated by...

At the end of the twentieth century, China was an observer of global governance, on the sidelines of the G7 and not yet a member of the World Trade...

The G20 has become the key vehicle for implementing and promoting global economic governance. China is set to host this year’s G20 summit in Hangzhou on 4–5 September. What...

Without networks within the military, and having no effective power over the political parties, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has been constrained in his political manoeuvres. To combat this, Jokowi...

Analyses of state responses to the South China Sea arbitral award often frame the issue as a binary choice between a rules-based or power-based approach to international relations. However,...

After over 20 years of sanctions and international pariah status, Myanmar has begun to come in from the cold. It has taken the 2010 elections, a new ‘civilian’ president...

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) judgement on the South China Sea ruled that there is no legal basis for Chinese ‘historical rights’ within its claimed nine-dash line. China...

Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) victory in the 2014 presidential election was celebrated as it represented a major step forward for democracy in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. Jokowi’s rise to...

Water and energy are indispensable inputs to modern economies. However, in China these are both under threat. China’s per capita quantity of fresh water is only one-quarter of the...