Today is a public holiday in South Africa – Human Rights Day. There’s a certain irony in spending the day focusing on China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vladimir Putin, knee-deep in a human rights disaster.
What one makes of the Ukraine crisis increasingly maps on where one lives. This is made clear by a remarkable new set of polling data recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations ...
Category: ASEAN
WEEK IN REVIEW: Japan Will Upgrade Ties With ASEAN Later This Year To “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
Japan will upgrade its ties with the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN later this year to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" -- joining both the United States and China at this level. Tokyo is moving quickly to strengthen its ties in the region in response to heightened tensions with China and ...
Cambodia PM: If We Don’t Rely on China for Development Assistance, Then Who?
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wrapped up a three-day visit to Beijing on Friday that included meetings with his counterpart Li Keqiang and President Xi Jinping. The Cambodian leader went to Beijing with a big wish list that he's
China, Russia, and Myanmar: Symptomatic of a Weakening ASEAN?
By Saniya Kulkarni According to reports the annual ASEAN summit, which takes place today in Phnom Penh, is prioritizing the issue of rising violence in member state Myanmar following the 2021 coup which resulted in a military junta displacing the elected government ...
Backgrounder: How Chinese Infrastructure is Reshaping ASEAN Trade
Even as China's territorial wrangles with some of its South China Sea neighbors show no sign of letting up, Chinese infrastructure is taking its trade relations with Southeast Asia to new levels. In particular, ambitious new land-sea corridors are credited for ...
Blinken Calls on China, ASEAN to Put Pressure on Mynamar Junta
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged China and members of the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to collectively pressure the military government in Myanmar to return to democracy. "It is incumbent on China and in ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Xi Bets on Global South in Moscow
Chinese State Media is Predictably Downbeat About the Summit
It is widely acknowledged that China will feature prominently during this week’s U.S.-ASEAN summit. For that reason, it’s interesting to track how the summit is being covered in the Chinese state press. The most prominent response so far was penned by ...
Which Issues will Dominate the U.S.-ASEAN Summit?
U.S. officials are coming to the ASEAN summit eager to emphasize the region’s importance, and to rebalance perceptions that it is currently mostly focused on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Cross-cutting issues like climate change are sure to occupy some of the ...
Why Africans Should Keep an Eye on the U.S.-ASEAN Summit
Nobody would blame Africans for not focusing on this week’s summit between the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN.) After all, the continent is dealing with a few prior priorities: creeping debt distress in key states largely ignored by the international community, ...
Biden-ASEAN Summit is Back On, Cue Chinese Complaints
A summit between the United States and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN) is back on. The White House announced that President Joe Biden will meet with leaders from the group on 12 and 13 May. This follows the recent ...
Against Debt Trap Allegations as Financial Crisis Worsens
As Sri Lankan society buckles under an economic crisis fueled in part by an enormous debt burden, China is pushing back against allegations that it stranded the desperate country in a ‘debt trap.’ Mass protests took place across ...