Japan does not have to speak forever with only one voice. For a remarkable moment in 2002 Tokyo’s moderates were poised to have Japan move to policies that would have ended the years of hostility to North Korea and Pyongyang’s push to acquire nuclear weapons. The move was only killed

The US and China established full diplomatic relations in 1979, but that year the US Congress wrote its own script for Taiwan. Today, what the Chinese side interprets as word games by the US may wreak deadly consequences.   As the pressure heats up over Taiwan there seems to be some

Since the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal our mainstream media experts have doubled down on the claim Beijing is expansionist. Since few of them can read or speak Chinese maybe I can help them. First of all there are two entities claiming to represent China. One is the communist government in

When the ANZUS Treaty was signed 70 years ago, Japan was considered a dangerous aggressor, and China was a friend. Scott Morrison, speaking in the House of Representatives on the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty, said the treaty dealt with the world “honestly as it is, in the hope

Elections to select a new leader for Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could finally see some clarity over Tokyo’s policy towards China. To date that policy has been muddled. The hawks under former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, are dominant in the party. And while their policy to China seems

Who rules eastern Europe commands the Heartland  Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world. — Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1904 Mackinder’s thinking, still not completely outdated,  has had more influence than is often realised. It inspired Hitler’s attack on the Soviet

ASPI – Australian Strategic Policy Institute – claims to have some of Australia’s foremost strategic thinkers working for it. Number-two ASPI staffer, Mr Michael Shoebridge, appeared on a YouTube video some time back warning about Russian plans to attack Ukraine by moving troops to the Ukrainian border, and the measures

If you thought we knew everything about the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June 3-4, 1989, think again.  Mysteries remain. Some are so significant we need to review our ideas about what was going on in China at that time. Until very recently if you typed the words Tiananmen Massacre into

Working on Canberra’s China desk, some time after the 1958 Taiwan Straits crisis, we knew already from various sources what Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg has now formally disclosed – that at the height of the crisis the US was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Quemoy, a Taiwan-held

Tokyo’s security apparatus must have followed with amazement that excellent series by Max Suich in the AFR of 16-18 May, revealing the anti-China antics of their Australian opposite numbers. A elected member of Australia’s parliament driven out in disgrace for maintaining a relationship with suspected Chinese government agents?  In Japan

The year was 1962. As Canberra’s first trainee in Chinese I had been placed on the Department of External Affairs China desk and told to monitor rising tension along the Sino-Indian Himalayan frontier. Beijing was complaining about repeated Indian frontier violations and warning there would be consequences if India went

In concert, the US and the UK in the 1960s seized the island of Diego Garcia, expelled its inhabitants and converted it into a massive airbase for the bombing of Middle Eastern and African targets. Both countries continue to defy a ruling by the International Court of Justice to transfer the

Begins:  Today our intelligence agencies and bureaucrats tell us that China is the enemy. But less than 50 years ago the same agencies and bureaucrats (or their  predecessors) were warning us that the enemy against which we had to prepare was Japan .   The story begins in the early

(Australian Foreign Minister, Marise Payne: “I have previously raised Australia’s strong concerns about reports of mass detentions of Uighurs in Xinjiang. These disturbing reports today reinforce Australia’s view and we reiterate those concerns.”)  Australian politicians have traditionally had a hard time making up their minds over China’s distant Xinjiang province.

The call is for Australia to cooperate with the US to counter Beijing’s allegedly expansionist activities in the South China Sea. But was it not the US itself, in its 1951 San Francisco peace treaty with Japan – signed and ratified by Canberra and 47 others – who in effect

Article written 2017 and regarded too controversial for the public Pearls and Irritations blog run by ex Australian Ambassador to Japan, John Menadue. Menadue now decries the pernicious influence of ASIO on Australian foreign policy: I have spent almost my entire adult as an Australian involved closely with Asia – a

Advocates of Asian language learning seem not to have realised what is needed for proper mastery of a non-European language – at the very least two years of concentrated learning and emotional experience. There are no shortcuts.  Employers cannot be expected to make use of the many half-baked language graduates