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Jul 12, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Darren Lim |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Paul Chambers
Author: Darren J Lim, ANUThe study of hedging emerged because the traditional security concepts of balancing and bandwagoning are insufficient for understanding how smaller states are responding to US–China rivalry. While there is no scholarly consensus on a definition, hedging offers an alternative approach to categorising the foreign and security policy choices exhibited by Southeast Asian countries.
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Jul 8, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Richard Katz |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Paul Chambers
Author: Richard Katz, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International AffairsJapanese automakers are risking a repeat of the decline of Detroit’s big three automakers — Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — because of their resistance to electric vehicles (EVs). Nearly 40 per cent of Americans who bought Teslas had switched from Japanese brands, primarily from Toyota and Honda.
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Jul 7, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Wanning Sun |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Paul Chambers
Authors: Haiqing Yu, RMIT University and Wanning Sun, UTSThere is a common misperception that WeChat is a trap for the Chinese diaspora. Yet, this is a simplistic view. While WeChat is essential to political communication and opinion curation among Chinese diasporic communities, the dynamics of opinion curation and user agency both on and off the platform are much more complex.
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Jul 6, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Tianlei Huang |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Paul Chambers
Authors: Nicholas R Lardy and Tianlei Huang, Peterson Institute for International EconomicsThe US and Chinese economies are closely interconnected, but their ties are eroding. Despite record levels of US–China bilateral trade in 2022, the trading relationship is becoming less interdependent. Rising tensions between Washington and Beijing are driving US and Chinese investors away from each market. Perhaps the most consequential aspect of US–China decoupling is in technology.
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Jul 6, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | John Quiggin |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Paul Chambers
Author: John Quiggin, UQAustralia’s purchase of nuclear submarines under the AUKUS agreement has been framed in terms of the jobs that would be created in submarine construction, rather than the security benefits that would flow to Australia from their deployment some decades hence. This is a longstanding tradition. Because defence is an essential function of any national government, military spending has rarely — if ever — been subject to benefit-cost analysis.
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Jul 5, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Hosuk Lee-Makiyama |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Paul Chambers
Author: Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, ECIPE‘A nation can be transformed’. With those stately words, US President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in August 2022. Despite the fractured state of US partisan politics, the Democratic Party guided the largest energy subsidy in US history into being with a new national ethos for greening the economy while tilting global competition in the United States’ favour.
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Jul 5, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Yusaku Yoshikawa |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Gary Clyde Hufbauer
Author: Yusaku Yoshikawa, JIN CorporationIn April 2023, the Japanese government approved a new draft amendment to the Special Zones for the Structural Reform Act. The amendment allows corporations to own agricultural land nationally, based on requests from municipalities, and could be a first step to increasing agricultural productivity in Japan. Before the amendment was made, corporations could only own agricultural land in government-designated National Strategic Special Zones.
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Jul 4, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Cheng-Chwee Kuik |Shreya Sharma |Nick Mulder |Gary Clyde Hufbauer
Author: Cheng-Chwee Kuik, National University of MalaysiaCan Southeast Asian states continue to hedge as US–China rivalry intensifies? To answer this question, a distinction must be made between the desirability and feasibility of ‘hedging’ — an active insurance-seeking behaviour aimed at mitigating risks and cultivating fall-back options under uncertainty. Wanting to hedge is a matter of desirability, but whether a state is able to do so is an issue of feasibility.
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Jul 3, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Aristyo Rizka Darmawan |Nick Mulder |Shreya Sharma |Gary Clyde Hufbauer
Author: Aristyo Rizka Darmawan, ANUSince its announcement in September 2021, AUKUS has been hotly debated both in Australia and Southeast Asia. Speculations among Australia’s neighbours on AUKUS’ potential consequences stem in part from a lack of prior consultations. Australia needs to take into account three important issues if AUKUS were to bring peace and stability to Southeast Asia.
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Jul 1, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Wanning Sun |Nick Mulder |Gary Clyde Hufbauer |Martina Baradel
Authors: Haiqing Yu, RMIT University and Wanning Sun, UTSWeChat is a news-sharing and content-distribution platform where people can easily share opinions and information. Despite the concerns about censorship, individuals and organisations have used the platform as an effective marketing, communication and publicity tool. This has created a need to adopt a more nuanced approach to the issue of censorship to consider its social, economic as well as cultural utility.
