Tag: East Asia Forum

‘Make in India’s’ Muslim marginalisation (Christian Kurzydlowski, East Asia Forum)

India’s post-colonial transition to capitalism has been mirrored by marketeering slogans. Currently, it is enticing foreign capital through the ‘Make in India’ campaign, inaugurated...

Jokowi begins the fight against lame duck status in Indonesia’s G20 year (East Asia Forum)

Ahead of the Rome G20 Summit in October 2021, the G20 looked like it was in danger of losing the plot. What a relief, then, to...

Indonesia’s year of living hopefully (Haryo Aswicahyono, CSIS Jakarta and Hal Hill, ANU – East Asia Forum)

It takes a serious crisis to reveal a country’s fundamental strengths and vulnerabilities. As in all countries, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and 2021...

Another pandemic year, another election for Mongolia (Julian Dierkes, East Asia Forum)

Through a castling move in cabinet and a presidential election, the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) solidified its dominance in 2021. Persistently high COVID-19 infections...

Authoritarianism amplified in the Mekong region (Nguyen Khac Giang, East Asia Forum)

The Mekong region started 2021 with a blow as the Myanmar military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government. The coup, which ironically happened on...

Time for Vietnam to get cracking on CPTPP reforms (Nguyen Anh Duong, East Asia Forum)

Following years of effort, in 2015 Vietnam concluded negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. After the US withdrawal from the trade pact,...

Groundhog Day for Cambodia’s economic rebound (Heidi Dahles, East Asia Forum)

As 2020 drew to a close, major global finance authorities projected cautious optimism in their economic outlook for Cambodia in 2021. The profound impact...

Uncertainty ahead for Xi’s China (Kerry Brown, East Asia Forum)

In 2021 China was, and in 2022 again will be, dominated by the domestic economy, relations with the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic and...

Uncertainty continues to plague Indonesia’s economy (Siwage Dharma Negara, East Asia Forum)

2021 has been another challenging year for Indonesia as it struggles to balance the economy and public health amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While the...

Lessons from COVID-19 and the fight against the climate crisis (Nguyen Hoang Anh Thu, East Asia Forum)

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed great difficulties on the battle against sea-level rise for small island developing states. But policymakers can learn lessons in...

Huge uncertainties still surround US trade policy (East Asia Forum)

Donald Trump’s presidency signalled a decisive US retreat from free and open trade and leadership of the multilateral trading system that had fostered unprecedented...

Security not economics is likely to drive US trade engagement in Asia (Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Megan Hogan, East Asia Forum)

It was a year of transition for US trade policy in 2021. The Trump administration’s trade representative Robert Lighthizer was replaced by Katherine Tai,...

Boosting consumption to lift growth in India (Nilanjan Ghosh and Soumya Bhowmick, East Asia Forum)

The Indian economy is yet again at a crossroads. The country’s second wave of COVID-19 had repercussions across the economy and on people’s personal lives and...

South Korea’s middle power aid diplomacy (Jeffrey Choi, East Asia Forum)

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is likely to become an increasingly important part of South Korea’s middle power diplomacy in Asia. Although South Korea expresses...

Global and domestic challenges clash in Taiwan (Sheryn Lee, East Asia Forum)

Taiwan’s international profile rose significantly in 2021, as shown by a sensationalist cover page from The Economist labelling it ‘the most dangerous place on earth’ due to...

UMNO strikes back after Malaysia’s year of political melee (William Case, Al Jazeera)

For nearly half a century, Malaysia’s political dynamics were demarcated by a stable hybrid regime, an amalgam of democratic procedures, electoral manipulations, and repressive...