By Carl Thayer The Hainan provincial government’s announcement last December that foreign ships transiting through waters within the nine-dash line area claimed by China must get permission from the relevant Chinese authorities is a major escalation of China’s claims in…
Who is he? Vu Duc Dam is a newly appointed deputy prime minister of Vietnam. In this capacity, his portfolio encompasses social and cultural issues and science and technology. His most recent post was head of the Prime Minister’s Office,…
Who is he? David Shear is currently the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, a posting he has held since 2011. From 2009 to 2011, Shear was deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.…
By Jonathan London Vietnam retains a one-party political system in which basic freedoms are systematically curtailed. And yet politics in the country have suddenly become fluid, animated by the intensifying and unprecedentedly open competition that has emerged within and around…
By Donald Camp Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan on the Brink and Back by Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution Press: Washington, DC, 2013, ISBN-13: 978-0815724087, 220 pp., Hardcover $21.58, Kindle $15.37. Bruce Riedel’s comprehensive history of U.S. relations with India…
The airline industry in Southeast Asia has boomed in recent years as a result of rapid economic growth and a rising middle-class. Low-cost carriers have captured a large part of the emerging air travel market by offering a variety of…
By James Wallar Provisions on competition policy have increasingly been embedded in regional trade agreements. So it was no surprise last September when negotiators for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a free trade agreement currently negotiated between ASEAN…
Myanmar hosted the 27th Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) from December 11 to 22, marking the third time the country has hosted the games and its first time doing so in 44 years. The SEA games is a biennial multi-sport…
By Yuko Nakano A year has passed since the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan won a landslide victory in the election of the House of Representatives and Shinzo Abe was elected as Prime Minister. In his inaugural speech before the…
By Kyle Springer Reform-minded Vietnamese and foreign investors were disappointed when Vietnam’s National Assembly passed a new constitution in late November without making any changes on the dominant role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the economy. The reaffirmation of the…
On December 18, 2013, CSIS Simon Chair in Political Economy Matthew P. Goodman testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on “Economic Engagement in the Asia-Pacific Region,” as part of a Senate hearing series on the U.S. rebalance policy.…
Ongoing political unrest in Thailand has imposed serious economic and political costs on the country. Although Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has called for snap elections to be held on February 2, the opposition Democrat Party has yet to decide whether…
