After campaigning tirelessly throughout the majority of her adult life in hopes of bringing democracy to her country and after spending nearly fifteen of those years under house arrest for espousing her views, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s icon of hope and political freedom, has unofficially won a seat in the country’s parliament. An official […]
The 2012 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit will take place April 3rd and 4th in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. As the new chair of the regional bloc for the 2012 year, Cambodia will have an opportunity to show off its capital city’s latest developments, both socioeconomic and political. The streets are already being decked […]
Last month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed, in an article for the Foreign Policy Magazine, ‘America’s Pacific Century’! This week, President Obama will be laying the foundation through a series of multilateral meetings involving Pacific Rim countries. He will start with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Hawaii (Nov 12th-13th), and continue at […]
A new study by The Economic Strategy Institute (ESI), commissioned by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, called “The Evolving Role of China in International Institutions”, takes a thorough look into China’s growing influence in international organizations. The report contains two truisms, ten trends, seven recommendations, and a number of case studies on China’s […]
In the latest issue of Foreign Policy Barbara Crossette writes about how India is the real “headache” in Asia. She refers to India as the “elephant in the room” that no one seems to be talking about. The piece is extremely critical of how India handles its international relations, and calls it “an international adolescent, […]
On the eve of its 63rd Independence Day, India has signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The agreement that took around six years to negotiate will eliminate tariffs on some 4000 products by 2016. India also signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with South Korea earlier this […]
At the recent ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, before the the 25 nations present, officially confirmed a substantial shift in U.S. foreign policy when she stated: ‘On behalf of our country and the Obama administration, I want to send a very clear message that the United States is back, that we […]
I wrote before that – Future political integration is dependent on ASEAN resolving its many territorial disputes. There is still a high level of nationalism in the region; member-countries are suspicious of each other due to centuries of conflict, followed by colonial isolation. These disputes were recently surveyed on Capital Hill, by Richard P. Cronin, […]
Human Rights Come to ASEAN? On Monday, in Phuket, Thailand, ASEAN laid out plans to formally adopt the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AIGCHR) at its regional meeting in October of this year. The commission will have a mandate for greater human rights education, information dissemination, and inter-regional capacity building. It will be be […]
Is Aung San Suu Kyi’s star power waning after nearly two decades of political and social isolation under house arrest? What affect is this having on the countries democracy movement? These questions are explored in a recent New York Times article. There is no way to tell how representative this person is, but… “I […]
Notwithstanding the paralysis of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round and the current global economic recession, bilateral and regional trade deals have continued to progress in Southeast Asia. Over the last decade, ASEAN has negotiated free trade agreements (FTA) at breakneck speeds, signing deals with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It is also in the […]
In his inaugural speech, President Barack Obama asserted that the United States remains “the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth.” No matter how powerful a nation is, however, its priorities still need to be rearranged and sometimes compromised, especially when dealing with key allies and partners. This much was evident by U.S. Secretary of State […]