By Phuong Nguyen Myanmar’s upcoming national elections, expected in early November, will be an important test for its reform process. Many in Washington, in particular U.S. lawmakers and human rights activists, will be looking at the outcome of the voting…
In this week’s podcast, we take a deep dive on the difficulties in United States-Thailand relations since the May 2014 coup. We sat down with Sumitro Chair Fellow Gregory Poling to discuss the challenges that Thailand’s swerve away from democracy has created…
By Zachary Abuza The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recently released their 2014 database, which shows robust growth in defense spending throughout Southeast Asia. Though the SIPRI data only goes through 2014, when at least two countries have already…
In our latest podcast, we focus on the 26th ASEAN summit which concluded on April 27th in Malaysia. We caught up with CSIS Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies Ernie Bower to get his take on the outcomes of the…
By Gregory Poling Most observers could be forgiven for seeing the April 26–27 ASEAN Summit in Malaysia as another in a long series of head-of-state talk shops by the grouping. It did not issue any groundbreaking new declarations on the…
By Jonathan Bogais — As the November 2015 elections approach, Myanmar’s politics have reached a critical juncture. It is a moment in the nation’s complex history during which patterns of interaction between individuals, groups, organizations, and authorities are set to…
Who is he? Tin Aye is the chairman of Myanmar’s Union Election Commission (UEC) and a retired lieutenant general. A longtime military officer, Tin Aye held the position of chief of military ordnance in the previous junta government until winning…
This week we check in on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations and then explore how China’s leaders make economic policy. CSIS Scholl Chair Scott Miller joins to assess whether Congress will grant trade promotion to the executive branch and discuss…
By Phuong Nguyen President Thein Sein witnessed the signing of a draft ceasefire on March 31 between the Myanmar government and representatives of the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT), an alliance of 16 ethnic armed groups. Though the United Nations…
This week we discuss the U.S. reaction to China’s new infrastructure bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Simon Chair Deputy Director Amy Studdart describes the bank’s origins, explains why Washington’s critique of its allies for joining AIIB has proven…
