Politics
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The US Aid Freeze: A Strategic Blunder That Strengthens China’s Hand in Southeast Asia
On January 20th 2025, President Trump signed an executive order initiating a 90-day suspension of US foreign development assistance programs to reassess their alignment with American interests. This was soon after accompanied by the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the government agency responsible for foreign…
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Reflecting on China’s One: Child Policy 45 Years Later
Born out of a legacy of extensive state planning, China’s one-child policy is regarded as the strictest family planning program in modern history. Formulated as an emergency measure to increase per capita living standards at its inception, the experiences of comparative countries provide strong evidence that the policy provided limited…
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Why ASEAN Should Not Do More for Myanmar
ASEAN is right not to engage in the Myanmar conflict more forcefully and should focus on its own initiatives without their problematic neighbor. Since the inception of the current civil war in Myanmar, any discussion of ASEAN’s place in the world has unavoidably been paired with its inability to resolve…
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SEATO: The Tantalizing Promise of Nato’s Forgotten Counterpart in the Indo-Pacific
The past failures of SEATO highlight the challenges of forming regional alliances in Southeast Asia and demonstrate that economic cooperation are more viable than security partnerships like NATO. With a Trump 2.0 administration increasingly focusing on China and Southeast Asia in 2025, a look at the regional alliance structure of…
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Trump’s Gaza Plan Sparks Outrage in Southeast Asia, Paving Way for Chinese Diplomatic Gains
On February 4th, President Trump declared that the United States would “take over the Gaza strip,” and “own it.” The announcement, made at a White House press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sparked global shock and condemnation. Southeast Asian countries, several of which have sizable Muslim demographics, have…
Sino-Southeast Initiative 