East Asia Forum
China is making Mekong friends
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping took over power in 2012, Southeast Asia has become a focal point of China’s geopolitical ambitions. Instead of the clandestine and illegal tactics seen under Mao Zedong, the current strategy combines two major approaches: building Chinese-led institutional mechanisms and buying ...
Trump and China: implications for Southeast Asia
Before his inauguration, Chinese specialists judged that Trump, as a pragmatic businessman, could be ‘shaped’ to align with Chinese interests and would ultimately be easier to deal with than Clinton. President-elect Trump soon upended these sanguine expectations with a few gestures, comments and tweets. After ...
The next chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
The future of trade and cross border commerce in Asia and the Pacific and the US role in Asia’s economy were put in doubt by Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic agreement. The TPP was the economic arm of ...
East Asia’s agreement to keep the world economy open
What the Trump administration will ultimately do to the shape of the global trade regime is difficult to foretell but there’s no question that it will change it forever, even if there is strong global push-back against Trump’s threat to unravel trade agreements and carry ...
Vietnam’s vision for a renewable energy future
In recent decades, Vietnam’s demand for energy has increased along with its rapid economic development. This surge in demand could provide the impetus to develop Vietnam’s emerging renewable energy industry. In comparison to other more traditional energy sources such as oil and coal, renewable energy is ...
