Oceania

The “ASEAN-Australia Summit” was held in Melbourne on 4-6 March this year and was dubbed “special” because it was the 50th since its inception. It should be noted that Australia was the first external partner since the founding of this association in the late 1960s of the last century, which now includes all (except Papua New Guinea) of the countries of Southeast Asia. The three days of events culminated in the adoption of the lengthy (11-page) “Melbourne Declaration – A Partnership for the Future”. In one way or another, the document touches on almost all the major issues…

Japan is currently facing a number of serious political and economic challenges, forcing the country’s political-military leadership to respond accordingly. On January 30, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida presented an extensive policy report on the Japanese government’s plans for 2024 at the regular session of the country’s parliament, which meets once a year.  In the foreign policy section, Fumio Kishida outlined the following trunk lines…

A recent op-ed appearing in Foreign Affairs titled, “The Taiwan Catastrophe,” helps paint a clear picture of US motivations behind its growing confrontation with China and the increasingly unrealistic nature of Washington’s desired outcome. The premise of the op-ed is built on a now declassified top-secret memo by US General Douglas MacArthur in 1950 describing Taiwan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” essential not to protect the continental United States, but to preserve US primacy over Asia-Pacific thousands of miles from US shores…