Opinion

Japan needs to get serious about tax reform

President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful’ budget bill will add US$3 trillion to the United States’ US$35 trillion in public debt over the next few years, further increasing the country’s 125 per cent debt-to-GDP ratio. Japan’s government debt is double that as a proportio...

Opinion

The urgent search for a new regional and global order

In the past we’ve argued that a strategic goal of middle-power collaboration in the Asia-Pacific could be ‘to co-opt the great powers into writing a new rulebook for the region that preserves the prosperity, autonomy and resilience of all in a region where China is the economic centre of...

Opinion

The urgent search for a new regional and global order

In the past we’ve argued that a strategic goal of middle-power collaboration in the Asia-Pacific could be ‘to co-opt the great powers into writing a new rulebook for the region that preserves the prosperity, autonomy and resilience of all in a region where China is the economic centre of...

Opinion

Asia as a window into the future of global politics

The first thing that undergraduate students learn about Asian politics is that there is no such thing as ‘Asian politics’ — there’s just politics, in Asia.The one consistent feature of the political landscape of our region is its diversity: almost every way of governing a soc...

Opinion

Trade war truce isn’t cause for complacency

It’s a sign of the times that US international economic diplomacy is now written about using the vocabulary of military strategy: brinkmanship, escalation, de-escalation, retaliation, retreat. Even the ‘madman theory’ got a look-in.So when US and Chinese officials shook hands on a ...