A recent survey of regional elite opinion shows a surprising lack of regional concern about the country’s ongoing conflict. The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s annual State of Southeast Asian survey dropped last week, heady times for an overstretched columnist. Not so positive, however, if you’re busy battling a barbarous military junta and are looking around for a bit… Continue reading Southeast Asians Don’t Really Care About the Myanmar Crisis
Although the Visegrad Group (V4) as an intergovernmental platform of Central European countries has the potential for effective dialogue with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), given the current political divisions inside of the V4, fragmented diplomatic activities of Central European countries in Southeast Asia prevail for the time being. The EU and ASEAN… Continue reading Central European–Southeast Asian Cooperation: Promises and Pitfalls
The nations of the region are all experiencing shrinking workforces and rising life expectancy – in some cases at the same time. In October, The Economist ran an article with the headline, “Poor Asian countries face an aging crisis.” A regular reader of the region’s newspapers will probably get a sense of a looming demographic problem when… Continue reading What Do We Mean When We Talk About Southeast Asia’s Demographics ‘Crisis’?
In September 2021, the European Union (EU) released its very first Indo-Pacific strategy. While its assessment of the current geostrategic and geo-economic challenges is highly accurate (notably if read together with the EU’s 2019 China strategy), the Indo-Pacific strategy has been criticised for lacking specific means of implementation. Since then, the EU has been promoting… Continue reading Global Gateway Initiative: Infrastructure Cooperation With Souhteast Asia
Washington ought to be doing more to attract the region’s best and brightest. It’s not something that any U.S. administration would make too much noise about for fear of inflaming its domestic audience, especially as it’s likely to be the biggest stick with which the Republicans will strike the Biden administration come November’s presidential elections.… Continue reading In Southeast Asia, the US Should Talk Loudly About Immigration
