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Mar 12, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Dan Slater |Noriko Tsuya
Author: Editorial Board, ANUConfusion, miscommunication, lies, crude posturing, finger-pointing— last month’s ‘balloongate’ was the contemporary US–China relationship in microcosm. As Paul Heer writes in the first of this week’s two lead articles, ‘[w]e now know that this rapid sequence of events reflected a rush to judgement and action before the facts were clear’.
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Mar 9, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Dan Slater |Noriko Tsuya
Author: Ricardo C S Siu, University of MacauOn 26 December 2022, the Chinese government officially lowered the severity of its COVID-19 pandemic classification from ‘pneumonia’ to ‘infection’. Shortly afterwards, the country’s zero-COVID policies were withdrawn and strict pandemic-control measures, including travel restrictions, were largely relaxed from 8 January 2023. Macau then embarked on a tourism recovery journey after a three-year-long meltdown.
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Feb 26, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya |Abdul Rahman Yaacob
Author: Editorial Board, ANUIt’s now been a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. In response to an unprovoked act of aggression, Western countries imposed a sweeping set of sanctions designed to force the Russian army back behind its own borders. These included disconnecting Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank communication system, export controls on technologically advanced goods and the freezing of Russian reserves held in overseas central banks.
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Feb 26, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Ken Heydon |Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya
Author: Ken Heydon, LSEThere is a paradox with economic sanctions. They tend to command widespread support within the sanctioning country yet frequently fail to change the behaviour of the targeted country. Despite twenty years of sanctions, North Korea can now make a nuclear strike anywhere within the United States. It also supplied infantry rockets and missiles to the Russian private military group Wagner in November 2022.
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Feb 24, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Andrew Blakers |Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya
Author: Andrew Blakers, ANUIn 2021, Australian company Star Scientific signed an agreement with the Philippine government to develop green hydrogen as a fuel source. This agreement joins a long list of similar agreements around the world. But the number of large-scale hydrogen projects that have progressed from agreements into development is rather short. Vastly more investment is pouring into solar and wind energy than hydrogen.
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Feb 23, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Ronald Tundang |Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya
Authors: Bryan Mercurio and Ronald Tundang, CUHKIndonesia has vast potential. Despite numerous setbacks since its independence in 1945 — including the 1997 Asian financial crisis — the country is now the largest Southeast Asian economy and a member of the G20. Traditionally an agrarian economy, Indonesia is transitioning towards more services and manufacturing employment. These efforts have been promoted by strong government intervention.
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Feb 21, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya |Gregory Poling
Authors: Darryl Tan, BowerGroupAsia, Luzile Satur, University of Cologne, and Mirjam Le, University of PassauOver the past few years, ASEAN member states have faced food security issues. The twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war disrupted food supply chains as it impacted the flow of migrant workers who keep the agricultural sector running and constrained global output of wheat and fertiliser.
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Feb 20, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya |Gregory Poling
Author: Jose Ma Luis Montesclaros, NTUSince 2013 India has allocated subsidised grains for its poorer populations under the at a cost of approximately US$24 billion annually. In April 2020, the government allocated additional grain as COVID-19 food aid at an additional cost of approximately US$47 billion, known as the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). The PMGKAY program was hailed by an IMF report as critical to preventing a significant increase in extreme poverty in India.
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Feb 19, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya |Gregory Poling
Author: Editorial Board, ANUThere’s no question that the risks of political and economic fragmentation that come with great power rivalry in Asia make the task of re-energising Asia Pacific regionalism an urgent priority. What requires more concerted thinking is where to find the new political coalitions capable of providing the leadership that a renewed regional effort will need — and how to define and articulate the interests that will be key to binding those coalitions in a common purpose.
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Feb 18, 2023 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Dushni Weerakoon |Noriko Tsuya |Gregory Poling
Author: Kevin Nielsen M Agojo, City University of Hong KongBarely a year into his administration, Philippine President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr has undertaken a major reorganisation of state security institutions. Marcos Jr appointed General Andres Centino as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), a position that Centino held under former president Rodrigo Duterte.
