The World Bank has made a volte-face on industrial policy. Southeast Asian countries will need to consider the new policy, but calibrate it across vastly different national contexts.
Category Archives: Commentaries
ASEAN in 2026: Great Expectations, Limited Effectiveness
ASEAN remains central to regional diplomacy, but it continues to be bogged down by structural limitations.
Trump 2.0 Hollowing US Human Connections to Southeast Asia
The US’ human and intellectual connections to Southeast Asia are gradually being undermined.
The Myanmar Crisis and the Challenge of Maintaining ASEAN Consensus
It is time for ASEAN to truly reckon with the meaning and practice of consensus-seeking, on issues where its eleven members stand far apart.
From Fragmentation to Cohesion: Charting a Course for Philippine Maritime Security Governance
How can the Philippines’ decision-makers on maritime security reduce their ‘seablindness’?
The Economic Fallout from the Thailand-Cambodia Border Conflict
The Thai-Cambodian conflict has exacerbated economic losses on both sides.
Gender Reassignment in Kelantan: Complex Questions Arising from Institutional Inflexibility
The prosecution of an individual in Kelantan for undergoing gender transition underscores system inflexibility which ignores the higher objectives of sharia.
Piloting Pragmatism: Vietnam’s Aircraft Diplomacy through the COMAC Deal
Vietnam’s tilt towards the use of Chinese-made COMAC aircraft represents more a calculated experiment than a strategic pivot.
Cyberfraud in Southeast Asia: A New Battleground for the US and China?
China and the US have reasons to work together to tackle the scourge of cyberfraud in Southeast Asia. The problem, however, is that their geopolitical rivalry gets in the way.
From Partnership Expansion to Strategic Coherence: Vietnam’s Next Foreign Policy Challenge
Vietnam’s pursuit of Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships has long been part of its foreign policy calculus. The challenge now is maintaining coherence across this wider network.