Ear to Asia

Myanmar is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis dating back to the military coup of February 2021, which toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered a massive popular uprising that has been met with a brutal junta-led crackdown on protesters and the civil disobedience movement. Thousands of civilians have been killed, thousands more detained and tortured, and severe restrictions have been imposed on internet access, media freedom, and civil liberties...

With a history of conflict with large powers such as China and the United States, Vietnam now pursues a carefully calibrated foreign policy of multi-alignment and hedging to balance its strategic interests. The Southeast Asian nation has been working towards greater economic integration into global markets, yet it’s also using active diplomacy, seeking an expanded network of partners, to offset China's military and economic might...

Although the rising popularity of the political far-right in Western liberal democracies has shifted Australia’s security gaze away from Islamic terrorism, two decades of terrorism countermeasures has left scars on Muslim communities down under and elsewhere...

With the housing sector on the brink, high youth unemployment and slower than desired GDP growth, 2023 is shaping up to be an annus horribilis for China’s economy. Since many of its current economic woes are due to the lingering effects of its zero-COVID policy, it should come as no surprise that Western media are portraying this state of affairs as the consequence of overreach by Xi Jinping and the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party...

Cambodia has for decades been aligning itself ever closer to China, with substantial economic and political consequences for the Southeast Asian nation – and with geopolitical implications for its neighborhood and beyond. China's economic influence in Cambodia has been huge, with large-scale Chinese investments and infrastructure projects fueling growth and development...

India faces a daunting task in providing adequate healthcare for its 1.4 billion people. While it can boast world-class hospitals and skilled medical staff, there remain stark disparities in healthcare access and quality, particularly in rural areas. Meanwhile, as India’s public healthcare system is criticized as antiquated and inefficient, the rapid growth of private providers has left millions unable to afford care and millions more financially ruined by medical bills...

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's victory in Türkiye’s 2023 presidential election extends his two-decade reign by another 5 years yet raises important questions about the country's domestic politics. Despite his handling of a struggling economy and the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake, Erdoğan prevailed in a runoff election that highlighted deep political polarization...

As Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr begins his second year as president of the Philippines, how is his administration impacting the lives of ordinary Filipinos? The controversial term of Marcos’ immediate predecessor Rodrigo Duterte was marked by a brutal war on drugs that led to widespread extrajudicial killings as well as attacks on activists, media and dissenting judicial figures...

In May 2019, Taiwan broke barriers by legalizing same-sex marriage, becoming the first in Asia to do so...

While China asserts its right to some 90% of the South China Sea, its claims variously overlap and conflict with those of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines -- themselves no strangers to past maritime disputes. In fact, countries across the Indo-Pacific have had to find ways of resolving or at least learning to live with disputed maritime borders...