When Joko Widodo came to power in 2014, he promised as Indonesia’s seventh president to usher in a different style of politics to anything the country had seen before. He exuded humility. The son of …
Articles by: "Donald Greenlees"
Just over 20 years ago, a letter from Australian prime minister John Howard to the president of Indonesia, B.J. Habibie, set in motion a chain of events that would lead to East Timor’s passage to …
In September 2014, as revelations from the Edward Snowden affair roiled Australia–Indonesia relations, the late Sabam Siagian, Jakarta’s ambassador to Canberra between 1991 and 1995, offered the kind of frank appraisal of the bilateral relationship …
Out went the old guard, and in came the old guard, in Malaysia’s elections on 9 May. Locals and foreigners celebrated this event as a new political awakening. It’s a sign of how far things are …
As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations marks its 50th anniversary today, its 10 leaders should pause from the inevitable self-congratulation to reflect on the organisation’s failings as well as its successes. ASEAN has notched …
In the court of domestic and international public opinion, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is guilty of a level of corruption and abuse of office not seen in Southeast Asia since the days of the …