A simple question about what China has been doing to its neighbours keeps recurring: How is that smart? The question came up in dozens of conversations at the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific …
A few millennia after recording the basic tenets of hard-edged power politics and creating the historian’s craft, Thucydides has popped up in the South China Sea. Malaysia’s Prime Minister has dipped into the historian, philosopher …
The theme of last year’s Shangri-La dialogue was the need to build trust and confidence. As Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, said then: ‘If trust is lost, all is lost’. Well, trust is lost. This …
The Japanese Prime Minister came to Singapore to announce Japan will have a military and security role in Asia’s future. Shinzo Abe told the Shangri-La dialogue: ‘Japan intends to play an even greater and more …
If Australia’s 2009 Defence White Paper was a red rag to China, then the 2013 White Paper looks more like the white flag of surrender. Trust a journalist to thrust that wonderful juxtaposition of colour …