Category: SE Asia

Vietnam reaches for a homegrown tech revolution

Communist planners and private players have prioritized development of indigenous social media and computing platforms to supplant Facebook and Google By David Hutt, @davidhuttjourno Nguyen Manh Hung has been acting Minister of Information and Communications for only two months but he has already reverted to the script left by his predecessors: Vietnam needs to develop … Continue reading Vietnam reaches for a homegrown tech revolution

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Misaligned rails keep SE Asia de-linked from China

Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative has inspired a flurry of SE Asian railway-building but few of the lines are actually designed to connect to China By Peter Janssen Last month’s launch of a 70-kilometer rail line between Sisophon and Battambang in northwestern Cambodia, a region that hasn’t seen a running train since the 1975-79 Khmer … Continue reading Misaligned rails keep SE Asia de-linked from China

Understanding Duterte’s Win-Win South China Sea Model as Confirmed at ASEAN Summit in Singapore

Written by Adam Garrie President Duterte has used the ASEAN summit in Singapore to clarify his South China Sea policy which is increasingly seen as a pioneering effort in the wider world, in spite of its frequent criticisms domestically – criticisms that are often rooted in a total misunderstanding of Duterte’s goals and methods on the … Continue reading Understanding Duterte’s Win-Win South China Sea Model as Confirmed at ASEAN Summit in Singapore

Singapore-led Asean favors China over US

In a nod towards Beijing, city-state puts free trade rather than South China Sea disputes at center of regional bloc's 2018 agenda By Richard Javad Heydarian Singapore’s anticipated chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) opened on the weekend with a summit that reaffirmed the city-state’s vision of a “rules-based” regional order but … Continue reading Singapore-led Asean favors China over US

China’s Belt and Road, and implications for ASEAN connectivity

By Anushka Kapahi The ASEAN Master Plan for Connectivity (AMPC) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative have major commonalities. Both envisage transport connectivity as a way of bringing countries closer to one another, facilitating better access to trade, investment, tourism and people-to-people exchanges. Similar to the BRI project, AMPC calls for a system of roads and … Continue reading China’s Belt and Road, and implications for ASEAN connectivity