Ashok Sharma, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Barack Obama’s weeklong visit to Asia took in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. His trip was supposedly focused on economic issues and in particular on enhancing trade links across the…
“Visit Malaysia Year 2014” was expected to bolster Malaysia’s growing Chinese tourism market: Malaysia’s third-largest. Last October, commemorating four decades of close relations, Chinese president Xi…
While China’s dramatic economic and trade impact on Africa has caught global attention, there has little focus on its role in education. But there are important questions raised by China’s education push…
The idea that there is a “land grab” taking place in developing nations began with the publication of a report, Seized!, by the NGO Grain. This rang an alarm bell about large-scale land acquisitions…
For countries that promote themselves as tourist destinations, China has - for some years - been the new Japan. Two decades ago, tourist towns such as Australia’s Gold Coast put up bilingual signs and…
ABC International has reasons to be proud of its recent “landmark” deal to provide ABC content in China. The deal, which will see the establishment of an online portal, also seems to make it harder for…
As a young university student, I first visited Guangzhou during the mid-1990s and found it a gloomy and unsettling place. The third world, undoubtedly. When I went back again in 2010, it was transformed…
The news that the ABC is to establish an ‘online portal’ in China that will allow it to ‘represent and sell media content across China’ has been greeted with understandable enthusiasm by the ABC. The ABC…
Recent analysis by Morgan Stanley suggests China may be approaching a so-called “Minsky moment”. A Minsky moment, named for American economist Hynan Minsky, is when debt-induced financing becomes unsustainable…
Prime minister Tony Abbott’s diplomatic and trade mission to northeast Asia can be hailed as a success. Overall, it met its main objectives. The trip has strengthened the already deepening relationship…
Chinese media coverage of the missing flight MH370 is acting as a proxy for the country’s positioning as a rising diplomatic power with expansionary ambition in the Asian-Pacific. Since the flight was…
Prime minister Tony Abbott has cast his visit to China as not just aimed at doing a deal but being a friend – while simultaneously stressing he is anxious to advance negotiations for the free trade agreement…
“If you want to know the future of the world,” Yu Keping says, pouring green tea into a big red mug, “please understand China.” He pauses. “But if you want to know China, please understand the Chinese…
As Prime Minister Tony Abbott shifts his Asian tour focus to China, it seems likely the threshold for formal approval on Chinese investment in Australia will be raised to A$1 billion. But any move to open…
Despite the misgivings of the sceptics, prime minister Tony Abbott’s high-profile, potentially high-risk trade mission to northeast Asia could be a triumph. The free trade agreement (FTA) with Japan is…
We are in the coal business. If you want decent hospitals, schools and police on the beat we all need to understand that. – Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, June 2012. It was a rare moment of unscripted…
Despite impressive economic growth rates over the last decade, a third of Laos’s population still lives below the extreme poverty line of US$1.25 per day. Most of the extreme poor Laos are ethnic minorities…
Prime minister Tony Abbott will be hoping the Japanese leg of his ambitious trade trip to northeast Asia can replicate the success of securing a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea. The close relations…
When Malaysian Airlines flight 370 failed to arrive, authorities at first concluded it had crashed in a relatively shallow part of the Gulf of Thailand. As the days passed more countries dispatched ships…