APAC Insider

In a footnote to my entry Tuesday I mentioned that China had overtaken Germany to become the world’s largest exporter. The news comes on the back of the implementation of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area agreement, which went into effect January 1.But

I wrote a couple of months back about how it was going to be interesting watching India’s Bharatiya Janata Party try and bounce back from its electoral thumping at the hands of the Congress Party last May. Well, since then, the BJP has selected a new

It’s always big news when a national airline goes bankrupt, and especially so in an economy the size of Japan’s. But one of the interesting things in the case of Japan Airlines is what it might be saying about a shift in the government’s strategy.As

Two interesting, related articles I came across today–one an analysis one a news item. The first was a piece’ >a piece in the Economist’s Banyan column, looking at how China’s smiling diplomacy is starting to look a little strained. It essentially m

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak may profess to have a vision of ‘One Malaysia,’ but it’s looking like an increasingly strange interpretation of harmony and unity. Supposedly (depending on who you listen to) secular Malaysia has a majority Muslim

I mentioned late last month the importance of China-Pakistan ties and their implications for India. So it’s worth also mentioning growing defence ties between India and Russia. Asian Defence has an interesting post on an Indian delegation to Siberia

First of all, a Happy New Year to all of our readers. We have some exciting plans for The Diplomat this year, including changes to the site to better accommodate our growing network of correspondents and contributors, as well two blogs on APAC’s two

One of the most interesting relationships in the Asia-Pacific is that between China and Pakistan. Ties between the two tend to get overlooked, with much of the focus of Pakistan-related commentary falling on its ties with the United States. But a rep

Trying to think of something Christmas appropriate that didn’t have a painfully tenuous link to Asia-Pacific news was a little difficult, but I think I’ve managed.Actually the story underscores a more general point that numerous commentators and anal

It’s always struck me that the danger for governments with too compliant a media is that when they try to bring their message to the international stage, they’re unprepared for the critical thinking they’re likely to be exposed to by the internationa

Having yesterday lambasted poor media coverage of Asia overseas, I’m also happy to say there’s still some very good, thoughtful and informative stuff out there as well.A few pieces caught my eye on Afghanistan today. One is the second part of a serie

the photo that accompanies it and you see a collapsed apartment block.It’s a striking picture. Unfortunately it was taken 10 years ago, when Taipei was hit by a devastating earthquake that claimed more than 2400 lives. I appreciate editors are under