In February 2024, the Malaysian Ringgit traded at almost RM4.8 against the US dollar, marking a trough not seen since January 1998 when the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) swept through the region. Corporate governance reforms since the late 1990s have prevented Malaysia from suffering an equally severe fallout this time around. Yet, it is of little comfort to average Malaysians who have seen their disposable income shrink as import costs have gone up. The government’s shift from blanket to targeted subsidies has created more financial stress on the population. Newly appointed Second Finance Min ..read more

In January 2024, China’s National Bureau of Statistics resumed publishing official youth unemployment figures. In December 2023 the youth unemployment rate was 14.9 per cent. Beijing suspended releasing the data in August 2023 following its steady year-on-year increase, eventually reaching an official record high of 21.3 per cent in June 2023. A persistent problem of youth unemployment reflects cultural preferences and a deeper structural misalignment between an oversupply of tertiary graduates and a limited services industry that lacks the capacity to accommodate them. During China’s ‘reform ..read more

Australian university leaderships nervously await the final policy outcomes of two recent national reviews, each with significant implications for the financial health of Australia’s higher education sector, which has become one of Australia’s most important export industries over recent decades. The first of these was a migration review that exposed substantial corruption of Australia’s migration system, particularly regarding international students. The second was the Australian Universities Accord Review, commissioned by the Education Minister Jason Clare in 2022, which canvassed various i ..read more

Amid the intensification of US-China rivalry, the United States has struggled to enhance its partnerships with ASEAN, enabling China to grow its presence in the region. To this end, the Biden administration should bolster its public diplomacy with Southeast Asia. ASEAN is a strategically and economically important region that the United States cannot afford to neglect. Handling 40 per cent of merchandise trade globally, Southeast Asia is poised to become the world’s fourth largest economy by 2030. Its proximity to China and other security partners like India, Japan an ..read more

Climate change is projected to have significant, adverse effects on human lives, property and economic growth in China. Acknowledging this, Beijing updated its Climate Change Adaptation Strategy in 2022. But as the Chinese Communist Party has become hypersensitive to national security threats, climate change is now perceived as just one of the dangers to the country’s political and economic stability. Climate actions are arguably primarily driven by concerns about regime stability, not threats to individuals or the biosphere. Amid weakening economic growth, Beijing wants to revisit and streng ..read more

The landslide victory of Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia’s 14 February 2024 presidential election has been been confirmed, with Subianto officially declared president-elect by the General Election Commission on 20 March. Prabowo has proposed eight major programs as part of his election manifesto, but a free lunch program for students in Indonesia is his flagship proposal. This has been touted as a means of hastening reductions in Indonesia’s child stunting rates which, despite recent reductions, remained at 21.6 per cent in 2022. While Prabowo’s free lunch reforms aspire t ..read more

As the dust settles over the 2024 Indonesian general election, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka have claimed victory as the next president and vice president. The former three-star general and the son of the incumbent president have promised to continue President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s ambitious economic development and legacy infrastructure projects, including moving the administrative capital from Jakarta to Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN) in East Kalimantan. This relocation project is not just a political move to secure the legacy of President Jokowi. With some strategic cons ..read more

The conflict between the Marcos and Duterte families in the Philippines has taken on a dark twist. At a rally in Davao City on 28 January 2024, former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte called President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr a drug addict. Duterte’s son, Davao City Mayor Sebastian ‘Baste’ Duterte, while asking for Bongbong to resign called the president lazy and lacking in compassion.  Bongbong Marcos’ sister, Senator Imee Marcos, who has been trying to forge an alliance with the Duterte family, attempted damage control. She claimed Baste had apologised to her, only ..read more

Public polls over the past 10 years have consistently shown that more than half of South Koreans want their country to have nuclear weapons. North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal has made South Koreans want to develop their own nuclear program. Interestingly, this trend has not been affected by US security guarantees. Even the 2023 Washington Declaration, which was regarded as a significant upgrade in the United States–South Korea alliance’s nuclear extended deterrence, appears to have had little impact. South Korea’s desire for an independent nuclear arsenal is so strong that even US efforts ..read more

Germany observed its Southeast Asia Week in March 2024, hosting Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin. These visits highlighted the resolve of Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ‘traffic light’ coalition to walk the talk on engaging Southeast Asia and to pursue a de-risking strategy towards China. In 2020, Germany became a party to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia as it rolled out its first ‘Policy Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific’, ma ..read more