This month, we explore how Australia and Papua New Guinea’s Pukpuk Treaty is redefining defence cooperation through identity-based integration, while the IMF–World Bank meetings in Washington reveal how financial governance continues to constrain Global South autonomy.
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Read MoreWritten by Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat
Indonesia’s foreign service, though respected in ASEAN, has not fully kept pace with the demands of a world where China is central to trade, technology, and security. Without a cadre of China specialists embedded across government and academia, Jakarta risks responding to events rather than shaping them.
Read MoreThis month, we spotlight the mounting pressures reshaping the Indo-Pacific: Beijing’s use of Martyrs’ Day as both a tool of domestic loyalty and an international signal of resolve highlights how nations are navigating turbulence on two fronts. Across the region, domestic instability — from popular protests to fragile governments — is constraining states’ ability to adapt to intensifying great power rivalry.
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Read MoreThis month, Zsuzsa and Richard are joined by Stefania Benaglia. Together they discuss the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, focusing on India’s role and strategic positioning. They also explore the evolving dynamics between the European Union and ASEAN, highlighting the latest developments in interregional cooperation.
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Read MoreWritten by Emanuele Ballestracci
Italy cannot rival the hard-power presence of France or the UK, nor does it aspire to. Instead, it has constructed a pathway based on economic cooperation, private-sector activism, and steady institutional ties, which over time create the trust needed to expand into political and security spheres.
Read MoreThis month, we spotlight India’s partnership with the Philippines, demonstrating sovereignty-sensitive maritime cooperation, while New Zealand’s expanding role in space highlights how smaller states assert strategic influence in high-tech domains.
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Read MoreWritten by Eerishika Pankaj and Rahul Karan Reddy
The concern Beijing has with an India-Philippines strategic partnership lies in its signalling of the rise of layered, maritime-centric, military cooperation emerging in China’s periphery — designed to reinforce a rules-based order and deter unilateral changes to the status quo in the global commons.
Read MoreWritten by Yun Kyung Kim
Korea and Japan now have an opportunity to redefine their roles — not as competing spokes but as co-architects of a trilateral framework that can anchor stability in the Indo-Pacific. For Washington, embracing this shift means sharing agenda-setting space with allies to maximise American interests and maintain primacy.
Read MoreWritten by Andrew Gordan
Global digital finance will also increasingly become entangled with broader structures of major power competition, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. Anxiety about Chinese economic influence in Oceania has likely driven India to pitch the Pacific Islands on digital infrastructure, inking an agreement on DPI with Fiji in November 2024.
Read MoreThis month, we spotlight Taiwan’s sweeping drone procurement drive — a decisive shift in defence strategy that underscores its push for self-reliance and asymmetric deterrence. We also track shifting regional dynamics, from landmark defence exercises in Australia and a new AUKUS treaty, to South Asia’s turbulent politics, Southeast Asia’s evolving alignments, and Europe’s role in the Indo-Pacific.
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Read MoreWritten by Dr Apila Sangtam
Crucially, reinvigorating key connectivity initiatives such as the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway would serve as both a symbolic and practical demonstration of India’s commitment to regional integration.
Read MoreThis month, Zsuzsa and Richard are joined by James Crabtree. Together they examine how recent developments in the Middle East are (re)shaping Europe's relationship with Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific region. They also explore how key Asian powers are responding to perceptions of Europe's shifting role on the global stage.
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Read MoreWritten by Aniello Iannone
France now joins a growing list of Indonesia’s strategic partners. It was a strategic moment in which a major European state and a rising regional middle power found common ground in their shared search for autonomy.
Read MoreThis month our briefs examine shifting US engagement: new Pacific travel restrictions threaten Washington’s influence, while South Korea’s pragmatic diplomacy may clash with a potential Trump foreign policy reset. Across the region, leaders face a volatile mix of economic strain, diplomatic frictions, and intensifying rivalries — from South Asia’s post-crisis diplomacy to renewed tensions in Southeast Asia and growing unease in East Asia.
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Read MoreWritten by Arun Teja Polcumpally
To safeguard its internet infrastructure, India must invest in indigenous undersea cable maintenance capabilities, including commissioning Indian-flagged vessels for rapid response within its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
Read MoreThis month we cover the India-Pakistan flare-up that reignited nuclear concerns, followed by a burst of regional diplomacy. Our briefs examine how China and India are turning foreign policy into a tool of domestic control — through maritime coercion in Beijing’s case, and treaty-based pressure from New Delhi.
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Read MoreThis month, Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy and Richard Heydarian are joined by Stephen Nagy to unpack the significance of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Southeast Asia. Together, they explore what this heightened diplomatic outreach reveals about Beijing’s evolving regional strategy—and what it means for the Indo-Pacific at large, including Europe’s strategic positioning.
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Read MoreWritten by Dr Selçuk Çolakoğlu
As the economic centre of gravity shifts from the North Atlantic to the Pacific, Turkey's increasing emphasis on its Asian identity is a strategic move to benefit from the economic rise of East Asian countries and organisations.
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