Australia’s financial connectedness with the Asia-Pacific region lags behind its deepening economic, diplomatic and cultural ties with the region, according to this report by the Australian Centre for Financial Studies. The report finds that while the Asia-Pacific region represents roughly two-thirds of Australia’s global trading relationships, it still accounts for less than one-third of Australia’s...

Overview: Australia’s neighbours in the Asia–Pacific are building high-quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics research capacities and infrastructure. As a consequence, Australia’s technological advantage in the defence domain is eroding. To recover that advantage, our policy should be to make the most of the knowledge, capability and capacity in Australia’s civilian science and innovation sector...

The demand for synthetic drugs in East and Southeast Asia and Oceania continues to rise, while rapid economic integration is creating new opportunities for transnational criminal groups to expand the illicit drug trade, warns the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in this report released by the Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and...

In 2015 the relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) seems at near rock-bottom. This presents fundamental challenges to the US rebalance strategy and threatens to undermine the security and stability US allies rely on. This new paper by two of America’s leading Asia scholars is drawn from their newly released book on...

This report assesses the implications of China’s assertions of control over the South China Sea for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and offers ideas for how the United States can work with Southeast Asian nations to stanch coercive behaviour.