Huynh Trung Dung|Chheang Vannarith
Cambodia is late to the party in ratifying the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but better late than never.
Le Hong Hiep|Moe Thuzar
The diplomatic thaw since August springs from Hanoi’s and Naypidaw’s strategic calculations. Both sides are willing to stabilise relations — without making irreversible commitments.
Nguyen Khac Giang
Vietnam is using land to pay for growth. This Long Read highlights the danger that land finance is hardening into a self-reinforcing growth model, arguing that Vietnam must make land finance more transparent, more competitive and less central to the economy’s balance sheet.
Zha Daojiong
China and the US appear to be pressurising countries to choose between their respective critical mineral and technology supply chains. The choice, however, is a false one.
Le Hong Hiep
Vietnam’s massive school consolidation aims to concentrate resources and streamline a fragmented system through centralised digital management. If classroom quality fails to improve or worsens, that would undermine the rationale for this grand project.
Stephen Olson
The upcoming Trump-Xi summit will not settle any “Grand Bargain”, but what happens to the year-long US-China trade truce will have implications for Southeast Asia.
Hoang Thi Ha
The Lianyungang Forum, which increasingly draws Southeast Asian participation, seeks to validate China’s state-centric approach to public-security governance and diffuse Chinese public-security technologies.
Jayant Menon
The Trump administration’s dogged determination to reintroduce tariffs on Southeast Asia should spur long-run measures to diversify markets and reduce reliance on the US.
Jan Robert R. Go
Younger Filipinos seem to have more nuanced attitudes towards China and encounter its soft power in different ways than their parents’ generation, but this does not mean a sea change has occurred.
Melinda Martinus
The return of smoke haze underscores a sobering reality: while ASEAN has policies designed to combat it, the problem continues to occur.