International relations
-
If the US and UK have any shame, they will welcome Palestine as a UN member State
This week, the U.S. and U.K. have the chance to correct decades of their blatant geopolitical errors in the Israel-Palestine conflict by welcoming Palestine as the 194th United Nations member state. More than any other countries, the U.S. and U.K. have wrecked the Middle East through their non-stop meddling and imperial arrogance. This week they Continue reading »
-
Biden, Netanyahu and the golden rule
International politics is frequently conducted in a way that bears little or no resemblance to how it is reported in corporate and state media, nor as it is understood in academic circles. Continue reading »
-
Knowledge and understanding deficit: The dire state of China Studies
Disgraceful gaps have emerged in our knowledge and understanding of Asian countries. This capability is essential to successful navigation of the future, as Peter Varghese and Joseph Lo Bianco have noted. Continue reading »
-
Australia and Japan should calm tensions in the South China Sea
Geopolitical tensions are rising again in the South China Sea. President Biden’s trilateral meeting with PM Kishida from Japan and President Marcos to discuss military strategy to contain China’s perceived “coercive policy” will not help calm the waters. Continue reading »
-
The West now wants ‘restraint’- after months of fuelling a genocide in Gaza
The Middle East is on the brink of war precisely because western politicians indulged for decades every military excess by Israel. Continue reading »
-
Australia’s leadership is destroying the very fabric of this country
Some days I wake up and don’t recognise the country we have become. It is not the country I grew up in. It is not a country I can be proud of. It is not a country that has a bright future under current leadership. Continue reading »
-
Why does Australia want to be so suicidal?
Australian leadership is no longer an embarrassment at UNFCCC COPs. Nonetheless, Australia’s participation in the fossil fuel industry, including through new projects, is not putting us on the fastest path to net zero. Will we miss our “brief and rapidly closing window” to secure a liveable future? Continue reading »
-
Japan’s abductions myths have kept a nation in poverty for decades
How can it happen that person who probably does not exist can keep an entire nation, North Korea, in poverty for more than twenty years, and the rest of us under prolonged nuclear threat. Continue reading »
-
What’s next for China-Australia relations?
CGTN Radio host Liu Kun interviews Ambassador Tony Kevin, Ambassador Geoff Raby and Dr. Zhao Hai on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent trip to Australia and broader China-Australia relations. Continue reading »
-
Yemen’s Indian Ocean checkmate
Ansarallah has single-handedly disrupted global shipping power dynamics. Yemen is launching attacks against Israeli-linked vessels deep into the Indian Ocean to cut off the last waterway route to the occupation state. Continue reading »
-
Fatal shame: Can Australia seize the anchor of history?
Australia, with its brief white history, once had an opportunity to be positively exemplary among nations, conscious and remedying of its colonial and penal acts and origins. It had fewer mistakes to wipe, and more physical riches to value and to share. Yet in a very short time that opportunity and those resources have been Continue reading »
-
Egypt sells out Palestinians for $10 billion loan package
Despite public protestations, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is helping Israel transfer 1.4 million Palestinians from Rafah to tent cities in the Sinai Desert. Continue reading »
-
We need a People’s Tribunal on Palestine and Gaza
As the UN Security Council finally overcomes the US’ calculated protection of Israel’s aggression in order to pass a ceasefire resolution in Gaza; the failure of the UN, the US and western media to give us the full and true story of the Palestinian tragedy has become clear. We cannot rely on compromised bodies such Continue reading »
-
Paul Keating’s meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the evolution of bilateral relations with China
Paul Keating’s report on his meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi brought back memories of an hour long one on one conversation I had with Jiang Zemin, who in 1987 brought a trade mission to Sydney. He was the Mayor of Shanghai at the time. Continue reading »
-
The empire slowly suffocates Assange like it slowly suffocates all its enemies
The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met. Continue reading »
-
Russia: A steel wall against the West
In 1942, a Finnish sound engineer Thor Damen, secretly recorded 11 minutes of a conversation between Finland’s Commander-in-Chief, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim and Adolf Hitler, without the latter’s knowledge. Continue reading »
-
A Republican victory in 2024 will be a climate disaster
After the Super Tuesday results signalled Trump would become the Republican presidential candidate in November, a first promise was that “We’re going to drill baby drill.” One of the most important reasons to watch American politics this year is that a Trump victory will push the world faster towards catastrophic climate heating. Continue reading »
-
Gaza is the holocaust reborn
Gaza now resembles Berlin at the end of WW2. A bombed out ruin, littered with the decomposing bodies of innocent civilians, entombed in the rubble of their homes. The way is now cleared for Israel to take possession of all of Gaza. To forever banish the Palestinians from their traditional homeland. And the world watches Continue reading »
-
China is chastised for its new boundary in Tonkin Gulf
China is one of the most misunderstood and maligned nations when it comes to what it does and does not do in the South China Sea, and that it claims almost all features. China’s nine-dash line controversial claim in the South China Sea is actively challenged by five other coastal states in the region including Continue reading »
-
Geopolitical grand larceny and its risks
One of the Ten Commandments says, with awkward bluntness: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Predictably, some are inclined to read certain qualifications in to this prohibition. As it happens, this sort of adaptive-thinking underpins arguments made in a recent article in the leading US journal, Foreign Policy. Continue reading »
-
A prayer for democratic revival in Indonesia
The quick count of Indonesia’s recent elections indicates the winner is previously disgraced Prabowo. Accusations abound of voting fraud, vote buying, court-rigging, and corruption within the electoral commission, and many friends are despairing of Indonesia’s retreating democracy. I share that concern, but I can see a potential different interpretation of the facts. My prayer, and Continue reading »
-
Que sera sera: “Australia will be Australia; China will be China.”
Penny Wong has a new mantra for Australia China relations. Continue reading »
-
A terrorist state and a declining US empire wage genocide
Hamas is the excuse for the Israeli attack on Gaza. The real intent is to expel all Palestinians not just from Gaza but from the West Bank as well. Continue reading »
-
Australia’s moment of choice: illegal war on show in 2003 Cabinet papers
What has changed since 2003? Nothing, except for the worse. Australian governments continue to accept the US enemies as their own, and shoot whoever the sheriff says. Continue reading »
-
The US-dominated International Order is collapsing
History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.” Continue reading »
-
Do China’s leaders fully grasp foreigners’ concerns about the country?
Beijing has been slow to address the visa and e-payment woes of foreign travellers, and some officials remain complacent about the exodus of foreign investment. Continue reading »
-
Australia’s middle power self-image is undermining the country’s security
Australian governments routinely assert that the country is respected as a “middle power” in regional and global forums. Meanwhile scholars increasingly agree that the middle power concept is more fantasy than reality. In Australia’s case, the uncritical assumption of the middle power self-image, by many politicians and commentators, is undermining the country’s security. Continue reading »
-
Biden’s plan for sea-borne aid to Gaza is incredibly stupid
March 7, Evening, Washington D.C. : Joe Biden announces an incredible plan to provide a route for aid into Gaza, with no American ‘boots on the ground’. Continue reading »
-
Six peculiar ‘Peak China’ myths we all should question
In recent years, there has been a notable shift among certain Western politicians, media outlets and think tanks regarding their perspective on China’s developmental trajectory. The once popular theory of an imminent collapse of China, famously asserted by Gordon G. Chang over two decades ago, has finally begun to lose traction. Continue reading »
-
Gaza’s agony: the hinge point in the loss of Western dominance
The scale of deliberate Israeli cruelty against the Gazan people over the past five months is still difficult for Australians to absorb. But internationally, a key political fact has clearly emerged: that Israel, the US and their supportive Western allies (like Australia, to our nation’s shame) have now shredded any moral standing on the issue of Continue reading »