Linking up with Asia

Asia:NZ research director Dr Andrew Butcher regularly sifts through the latest research reports, news articles and opinion pieces on Asia. He pulls out some highlights from his latest batch of readings.

3 May 2012

The US-Sino relationship dominates discussions in the Asian region and the Brookings Institute doesn’t offer a rosy perspective in this new report.

Movie director James Cameron has just bought land in New Zealand, but he’s making movies in China.

Australian Ron Huisken goes to the (strategic) ballet with the US.

And China’s children toured Europe, came away knowing how to use a knife and fork but also much more, as this report illustrates.

21 March 2012

New Zealander Tanya Ogilvie-White proffers her view on the nuclear security pacts that New Zealand needs to sign, in this New Zealand Herald article.

It is well-known that demographic changes – particularly an ageing population – present significant challenges for Western countries. But Asian countries too face population decline, as Peter McDonald argues. 

Statistics New Zealand has recently put out a helpful and accessible guide on the use of demographics in policy-making and analysis, which you can find here.

And, on The Economist’s new blog, Analects, the ‘occupied’ movement in China takes a very different form to similarly named movements elsewhere in the world.

1 February 2012

Asia:NZ trustee Prof Manying Ip has recently written an article looking at contemporary transmigration patterns among Chinese migrants to New Zealand during the past two decades. The article appears in this round-up of Migration in the Modern Chinese World, put out by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

Further discussion on New Zealand’s changing demography can be found in this article on the New Zealand Herald website.

Ralph A Cossa and Brad Glosserman, from the Pacific Forum CSIS, give their overview of events in the Asia-Pacific region last year, covering the death of Kim Jong-il, the US' “pivot” toward Asia, the East Asia Summit, APEC and Clinton’s visit to Myanmar.

While we’re on the topic of the US “pivot”, ISIS Malaysia’s Dr Tang Siew Mun (who’s currently writing a piece for Asia:NZ on the NZ-Malaysia bilateral relationship) gives his take on the American “return” to Asia.