The world Welcome to the last ‘ASPI suggests’ of 2017. Let’s kick things off with a look back at the year. The New York Times has published a list of its most-read stories of 2017 …
At the start of 2017, many feared that the European project would experience a near-breakdown within the next year. The United Kingdom had decided to leave the European Union, the United States had elected a …
The tri-border area (TBA) between Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia in the Sulu and Celebes seas has witnessed a spate of increasingly audacious hijackings since March 2016. By the end of June 2017, 23 actual …
China’s ambition to shape the future of the internet received a helpful boost last week, courtesy of the CEOs and top executives from the most influential companies on the planet, including Apple, Google and Facebook. …
Andrew Colvin had two key concerns when the prospect of a new department of home affairs first emerged. ‘A Home Affairs portfolio makes a lot of sense in this country’, the Australian Federal Police commissioner …
Foreign government efforts to undermine Australian democracy have been making headlines in the past few weeks, but we’re missing things. In announcing new legislation to ban foreign political donations, Prime Minister Turnbull told us: ‘Foreign …
It is 50 years since the Six-Day War—the June 1967 conflict that, as much as any other event, continues to define the Israeli–Palestinian impasse. After the fighting was over, Israel controlled all of the West …
The beat Drugs in flames The Pakistani Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) held its 2017 drug-burning ceremony in Islamabad. In the presence of national officials and international representatives such as the UN Office of Drugs and Crime …
As I outlined in part 1, America and, by extension, Australia are losing their military-technological edge in the Indo-Pacific. A new type of great-power competition is emerging throughout the region—one that involves a race to …
China has defied expectations yet again. President Xi Jinping, the chief of the Chinese Communist Party, was widely expected to face his toughest test so far in October, when the CCP convened its 19th National …
On 29 November, after a 10-week hiatus, North Korea conducted another missile test. It was a new vehicle, the biggest yet seen, and it performed flawlessly, demonstrating that it could probably deliver a warhead to …
The US has been pregnant with recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital at least since 1995, when Congress endorsed the position that ‘since 1950, the city of Jerusalem has been the capital of the State …
Last weekend, Air Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto became the new Indonesian military (TNI) commander. It was one of the fastest confirmation processes in recent memory—Tjahjanto was nominated by President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo on 4 December and …
For outsiders, even governments, e-diasporas are a new and much-needed channel for communication with migrant groups and their nations of origin. E-diasporas present risks and opportunities for migration management, workforce planning, diplomacy, political engagement and …
A revolution is needed in how the Australian Federal Police fights crime as increasingly tech-savvy criminals and terrorists outstrip the skills of law enforcement agencies, says the force’s commissioner, Andrew Colvin. ‘The environment is changing …
The tragedy of Donald Trump’s announcement of US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is that it didn’t go far enough. It could, and should, have been a package along these lines: The US recognises …
Sea state Japan and China have agreed to implement a ‘hotline’ to avoid clashes in the East China Sea. No official agreement on the details of the mechanism has yet been reached, but the Japan …
As Tokyo—and towns and cities across Japan—look ahead to 2018, they are dusting off long-neglected civil-defence infrastructure and nuclear-attack procedures. Schoolchildren are practising the kinds of nuclear-safety drills that I endured during my childhood, at …
What are the mega-trends across the cyber landscape in the Asia–Pacific? The ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre’s new report, Cyber maturity in the Asia–Pacific region 2017, distils the major trends from a year’s worth of …
In the last year, the single most pointless wound inflicted by the US on Asia, not to mention itself, was its abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In one fell swoop, the once great free-trading nation …