Australia’s decision to manufacture US missiles highlights tensions between our foreign policy stance and our trading interests. Two new books throw light the problem.
The current US-Australia strategic relationship requires an enemy – a “common danger”. As a result, Australia doesn’t seek cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region, it arms itself instead.
Threats, censorship and a climate of self-censorship are commonplace for journalists in the Pacific region.
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Anxiety about China’s rise is unlikely to abate any time soon – Australia needs to remain calm and realise the region is changing rapidly.
The incoming head of the Australian Defence Force, Lt-Gen Angus Campbell (left), understands the importance of Australia’s relations with its nearest neighbours.
AAP/Andrew Taylor
The incoming Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Campbell, will need to focus his attentions on an array of conventional and non-conventional security concerns in the Indo-Pacific.
A plastic bottle trapped on a coral reef.
Tane Sinclair-Taylor
Coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific have been deluged with an estimated 11.1 billion pieces of plastic waste, increasing the risk of coral disease more than 20-fold.
From an Australian perspective, Donald’s Trump Asian tour could hardly be more important.
Reuters/Yuri Gripas
Expectations for Trump’s engagement with the region may be low, but the same could not be said for the stakes at a time of considerable uncertainty and risk.
China’s conventional military assets are intimidating enough, but its latest technological advances could transform the military balance in its neighbourhood.
Mike Pence and Malcolm Turnbull meet at Admiralty House in Sydney.
AAP/Jason Reed
The message from the US vice-president was that the US would stay the course and, if anything, act more assertively in preserving stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
Climate change is already delivering more extremes of wet and dry to the Pacific region.
EPA/FRANCIS R. MALASIG
Scott Power, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Brad Murphy, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Christine Chung, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; François Delage, Australian Bureau of Meteorology e Hua Ye, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
New research shows that global warming has already begun to exacerbate extremes of rainfall in the Pacific region – with more to come.
Asia is home to the world’s largest known stateless group, the Rohingya.
Reuters/Rafiquar Rahman
US presidents over the past 25 years have had varying views of the alliance with Australia. While none have questioned its value, commitment has not been even across the board.
Is it too soon to dig the TPP’s grave?
Carolyn Kaster/Reuters
The world’s informal settlements are growing at an unprecedented rate, with about one in four urban dwellers living in slums. We need to rethink how we view and deal with these people and places.
Australia’s 2016 Eurovision contestant Dami Im performing with Conchita and Guy Sebastian in Sydney earlier this year.
SBS
Australia has struggled to forge cultural ties with the Asia-Pacific region. But SBS’s deal to develop an Asian Eurovision could change this - there is more to the event than music, costume reveals and wind machines.