Asia Rising
Asia Rising is a podcast by La Trobe Asia that critically examines key issues facing Asia's states and societies. It features in-depth discussions and analysis on political, economic, and social developments across the region. The show aims to provide a nuanced understanding of Asia's complex dynamics.
Episodes
Tibet and Identity
China’s new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress is presented by Beijing as a policy of development and equality. For Tibetans, it represents something very different.
In this episode, , joins host Dr Ruth Gamble to discuss what the law means in practice for Tibetan language, culture, and religious life — and why those things matter so much to understanding the Tibetan situation.
Dr Densal
On the Frontlines of the South China Sea
The waters of the South China Sea - including areas the Philippines refers to as the West Philippine Sea - are at the centre of some of the Indo-Pacific’s most important maritime disputes. These waters bring together competing territorial and maritime claims, strategic interests, and the rights and interests of coastal states. They are also vital to fishing communities and populations whose liveli
Interview: From Moscow to the Pacific
Few diplomatic careers span Moscow during the invasion of Ukraine, the remote islands of the Pacific, and Canberra. Germany's Ambassador to Australia, Beate Grzeski, has lived all three - and the thread connecting them says something about how the world is changing.
In this episode, Ambassador Grzeski reflects on her journey from Deputy Head of Mission in Moscow to Germany's inaugural Special Env
Interview: Misinformation and the Origins of COVID-19
Few events in recent history have generated as much confusion, controversy, and misinformation as the COVID-19 pandemic. Five years on, the origins of COVID remain contested, and the lessons of how that debate played out carry hard implications for global health security for years to come.
Guest: Elizabeth Finkel. (Science journalist, Co-founder of Cosmos Magazine, and Adjunct Senior Research Fel
Event: The Indian Ocean Region in a Contested World
The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is fast becoming one of the world's most contested global commons. Home to critical sea lanes, energy and trade corridors, and a growing contest for influence among major and middle powers, traditional security challenges are growing and competing.
The region is especially vulnerable to cascading effects of a changing climate, warming oceans and increasing frequency
Event: Gender-Based Violence: A Global Security Issue
Security policy has traditionally been built around the state: its borders, its military capability, its ability to deter external threats. Gender-based violence rarely features, despite being one of the most persistent and predictable forms of harm in the world, in peacetime and exacerbated during conflict. Treating gender-based violence solely as a private, social, health or humanitarian issue w
Interview: China's Ageing Crisis and the Role of AI
China is ageing faster than almost any other country in history. Decades of the one-child policy, rising life expectancy, and rapid urbanisation have produced a demographic shift of enormous scale — and with it, a growing burden of age-related conditions that health systems were not designed to manage. Among the most significant is dementia, and its precursor, Mild Cognitive Impairment.
Guest: Pr
Event: Pacific Climate Mobility: Pathways to new Partnerships
For Pacific Island communities, climate change is not a future threat, but a present reality. Intensifying El Niño events, displacement, and compounding security challenges are reshaping the region, even as global attention has been diverted by energy crises and fossil fuel disruption.
Climate mobility - the movement of people in response to climate impacts - is emerging as both a critical challe
Interview: Cyber Accountability in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing digital regions in the world, with an economy projected to exceed $300 billion in gross merchandise value and over 200 million internet users. But that digital growth is outpacing the legal frameworks, institutional capacity, and cybersecurity architecture needed to govern it. And with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence accelerating both the
Event: Australia's Submarine Cable Challenge
"The seabed is becoming a battlefield," Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles warned at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May, and "we have been slow – collectively slow – to recognise [submarine cables] as the strategic targets they have become."
Some 16 privately operated submarine cables carry around 99 per cent of Australia's international data – the financial transactions, gove
Event: Screening South Asia: Cultural Bridge, Critical Lens
South Asian cinema shapes how millions of people around the world encounter the region’s cultures, languages, and identities. For many, film provides a gateway to South Asian languages and literature, and to cultural conversations that cross national, regional, and diasporic borders.
But what does South Asian cinema say about the societies it represents? Beneath the spectacle, song, and romance,
Event: Creeping Censorship in Asian Media
From digital regulation and political pressure to economic influence and self-censorship, media freedom in Asia is being shaped by a range of subtle and evolving constraints.
Rather than outright bans on reporting, many observers point to a process of "creeping censorship"—the gradual narrowing of space for independent journalism and public debate.
How are these pressures playing out across Asia
Interview: Australia's Submarine Cable Security
Almost every email you send, every video you stream, and every financial transaction you make travels not through satellites, but through a vast network of cables lying on the ocean floor. Submarine cables are the invisible capillaries of the global internet — and increasingly, they are at the centre of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific.
Guest: Dr Samuel Bashfield (Research Fellow at th
Event: The Real Costs of AUKUS
The AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom is set to reshape Australia's military and strategic future through the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. But the implications of AUKUS extend far beyond defence, with significant consequences for Australia's economy, diplomacy, industry, and foreign relations.
As the project moves from ambition to impleme
Interview: US Engagement With Pacific Island Nations
The United States has, over recent years, significantly deepened its engagement with Pacific Island nations — reopening embassies, renewing funding compacts, and positioning itself as a committed partner in a region of growing strategic importance.
Since the return of the Trump administration in January 2025, questions have been raised about the continuity of that commitment, and what a changed
Interview: The Continued Repression of Uyghurs
An escalating crisis faces the Uyghur in China. The newly enacted Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress legalises forced assimilation, erases linguistic rights, and expands state surveillance. It provides a permanent legal framework for the ongoing campaign of mass re-education camps, long-term imprisonment, and cultural erasure of China's minorities.
Guest: Yalkun Uluyol (China Researcher,
Interview: Pragmatic China and Multilateral Organisations
Over the past decade, China has launched a remarkable number of multilateral initiatives — from the Belt and Road to BRICS to a suite of so-called Global Initiatives covering development, security, and civilisation. Western analysts have tended to read these as evidence of a Chinese project to displace the existing international order.
Guest: Dr Joel Ng (Senior Fellow and Head of the Centre for
Event: Navigating Conflict in a Contested World
In an increasingly contested global environment, the international community faces growing pressure to respond to current and emerging wars and instability across the full conflict spectrum: from prevention, to managing active conflict, to post-conflict reconstruction.
Effective conflict prevention requires states to draw on a broad toolkit of policy levers, including security and defence initiat
Event: When Engineers Shape Asia
Over the past two decades, China and India have undergone one of the most dramatic expansions of engineering education in human history. In 2020 alone, India awarded 1.5 million science and engineering degrees, and China awarded 2 million.
In China, engineering now makes up a third of all university degrees, and this rate far outpaces the United States. China and India are producing engineers at
Interview: Preserving Tibetan Culture and Knowledge
Tibet's story is one of the most profound of the modern era — a civilisation forced into exile, carrying its language, philosophy, and sacred texts across the Himalayas in an act of collective survival. Preserving that heritage, while also engaging the modern world, has become one of the defining challenges for Tibetans in diaspora.
Few people embody that challenge more personally than Geshe Lhak
Interview: Ethnic Unity and Assimilation in China
China's new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress mandates Mandarin as the language of education, encourages the breakup of minority-majority neighbourhoods, and criminalises expressions of ethnic separatism — including by Chinese citizens living abroad. Critics say it formalises a decades-long push toward assimilation that has already reshaped the lives of Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian and othe
Book Launch: The Dragon's Emerging Order: Sino-centric Multilateralism and Global Responses
China’s rise is often framed as a challenge to the Western-led international order, with attention focused on how Beijing works within — and pushes back against — liberal institutions. Yet a more consequential shift is underway. China is increasingly shaping global politics through new, Sino-centric forms of multilateralism, building parallel forums that operate alongside, and sometimes beyond, ex
Event: Healthy Ageing in Asia-Pacific
Across the Asia-Pacific, people are living longer than ever before. From rapidly ageing societies in Northeast Asia to younger but fast-transitioning populations in South and Southeast Asia, countries across the region are confronting the social and economic implications of longer lives.
These shifts are generating diverse challenges — and innovative responses — as governments, communities and f
Interview: How the Media Shapes Territory in Asia
Traditional security debates focus on maps, borders, naval deployments, and treaties. But increasingly, territory in Asia is also constructed through narratives, media coverage, digital platforms, and public emotion.
Journalists are not just observers — they help shape how territory, sovereignty, and security are understood by the public and policymakers.
Guest: Dr Lupita Wijaya (Research Fell
Book Launch: Asian Crucible: Globalization, Geopolitics and the Contest for the Future
Asia’s modern resurgence has transformed the global economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty through globalization, supply chains and market integration. Yet this success has also generated new geopolitical rivalries and nationalist tensions, placing the region at a critical crossroads between continued prosperity and growing risk.
What powered Asia’s economic transformation — and are
Interview: Land and Identity in Nagaland
The far north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland has a distinct history, and the Naga communities who call it home face a range of complex dilemmas. Preserving cultural rights and traditions within the framework of the Indian state presents ongoing challenges — particularly in relation to the intricacies of land ownership and governance.
Guest: Menokhono Sakhrie (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Tata
Event: Who Won? Trade Wars and Australia
The global trading system is under growing strain. Security risks are increasing, free trade is in decline, and a new economic order is emerging in which nations increasingly view trade as a tool for gaining strategic and political advantage. Long-standing assumptions about openness, efficiency, and interdependence are being challenged by rising protectionism and geopolitical rivalry.
How will ch
Event: Enhancing Australia-Korea Cooperation in Contested Asia
Despite differing geographies and security pressures, Australia and the Republic of Korea face shared challenges arising from intensifying strategic competition and growing regional uncertainty. Both countries have an opportunity for a closer collaboration to promote regional stability and help shape a resilient multipolar order.
How can Australia and Korea move beyond defence-industrial cooperat
Interview: America and Trump's Asia Strategy in 2025
The United States — and indeed the world — is now one year into Donald Trump’s second presidency. While many developments were foreshadowed during his first term, 2025 has nevertheless been an eventful year, marked by decisions and dynamics that have had wide-ranging global consequences.
Guests:
Professor Nick Bisley (Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), La Trobe University)
Professor Bec Strating (Di
#256: Blue Security in the Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific is often described as a maritime region, but the oceans here are far more than geography. They are trade corridors, food sources, energy highways, and increasingly, sites of strategic competition. How states think about security at sea—what some now call blue security—is becoming central to regional order.
Dr Troy Lee-Brown (Research Fellow, University of Western Australia Defenc
#255: Is Russia Turning East?
Russia has long imagined itself as a great power looking westward while sitting firmly in the east. That tension—between geography and identity, ambition and capability—shapes the way it approaches Asia.
Guest: Dr Ian Storey (Senior Fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore)
#254: China's Evolving Role in Latin America
China’s presence in Latin America has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, reshaping the region’s economies, politics, and strategic landscape. From major infrastructure projects and digital ecosystems to shifting patterns of trade, finance, and influence, Beijing’s role is becoming both more complex and more contested.
Guest: Margaret Myers (Managing Director, Institute for America, China
Putin's Asia Strategy
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has upended global geopolitics — and its ripple effects have reached deep into Southeast Asia. How has the Kremlin’s “pivot to Asia” evolved under Vladimir Putin and has Russia been able to advance its economic and geopolitical interests in Southeast Asia? How did regional states react to Russian aggression against Ukraine and what explains their differing r
Conflict Prevention in the Indo-Pacific
Across the Indo-Pacific rising geopolitical tensions, democratic backsliding, and climate-related instability are increasing the risk of violent conflict. Yet far less attention — and funding — is devoted to preventing crises before they occur.
Early-warning, multi-track diplomacy, locally grounded peacebuilding, and whole-of-government coherence are all strategies that can be employed to develop
#253: How Ancient India Transformed the World
For more than a thousand years, India stood at the heart of the ancient world — a confident exporter of ideas, art, religion, science, and philosophy that travelled from the Red Sea to the Pacific.
In his new book, "The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World", respected historian and author William Dalrymple traces this extraordinary flow of culture and knowledge, showing how India
#252: China's Rapid Nuclear Expansion
Over the past decade, China has moved from maintaining a relatively modest nuclear deterrent of around 300 warheads to constructing hundreds of new missile silos and expanding toward a projected 1,000 warheads by the 2030s. This is happening alongside breakthroughs in nuclear energy and technology, positioning China as both a nuclear power and nuclear supplier on a global scale.
Guest: Dr Rajeswa
#251: Emotional Backlash and Refugee Protection
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rohingya refugees in Malaysia faced a surge of hostility. Online campaigns portrayed them as disease carriers, social burdens, and even threats to national security. This backlash didn’t just stop at refugees themselves—it expanded to target the organisations, institutions, and humanitarian norms that supported them.
Guest:
Ruji Auethavornpipat (Politics and Internat
Australia-Korea Maritime Cooperation
South Korea has unique security challenges when compared to many of its neighbours. Like many it lives in the shadow of giants like China and Russia, but the ever-present threat of North Korea is less than 50km from its capital, Seoul.
While its alliance with the United States remains important to Korea’s security and foreign policy outlook, there are many possibilities for stronger ties to allie
#250: Taiwan's Foreign Relation Challenge
Taiwan sits at the heart of the Indo-Pacific, a vibrant democracy and global technology hub whose future has major implications for regional stability. Its position is complicated by the “one China” policy and growing strategic competition, making Taiwan’s international relationships more important than ever.
Guest: Dr Chen Ming-chi (Deputy Minister in Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Recor
#249: Hu Yaobang, China's Communist Reformer
When Hu Yaobang died in April 1989, throngs of mourners converged on the Martyrs' Monument in Tiananmen Square to pay their respects. Following Hu's 1987 ouster by party elders, Chinese propaganda officials had sought to tarnish his reputation and dim his memory, yet his death galvanized the nascent pro-democracy student movement, setting off the dramatic demonstrations that culminated in the Tian
The Future of Aid in the Asia-Pacific
2025 has been a challenging year for international development. The abrupt dismantling of USAID by the United States’ Trump Administration, sucking $40 billion out of the aid system, as well as significant cuts in development budgets by the United Kingdom and European donors has massively reduced aid funding available.
This is having implications for multilateral organisations like the United Na
Asia Disrupted: Trump's First Six Months
The United States has undergone profound changes in President Donald Trump’s second term, and these are affecting the world. America appears to be rejecting the very international system it helped create, with destabilising tariffs ushering in a new era of economic nationalism that threatens to reshape the Asian security landscape.
With multiple crises demanding attention in the Middle East and a
#248: Seoul and the Power of Protest
The past year has been eventful for South Korea. They've faced security dilemmas, tensions with with North Korea, an impeachment, and an important election - all events and issues that have made headlines around the world. But if this is the view from outside of the country, what does it look like on the streets of Seoul?
Guest: Sangmi Jeong (Research Professor, Korea National Diplomatic Academy)
India-Australia Climate Resilience Partnership in the Pacific Islands
The 18 countries and territories across the Pacific are some of the most vulnerable to growing risks emerging from climate changes, especially the small island states.
Despite contributing less than 0.03% to global greenhouse gas emissions, the islands face devastating consequences, from sea level rise and loss of territory to unpredictable weather patterns to growing food and water insecurity.
#247: Who Will Succeed the Dalai Lama?
Many happy returns to the Dalai Lama who has just turned 90, but the reality that many are facing is that there may soon be a dispute over succession. The Dalai Lama’s supporters will choose their own reincarnated leader, but the Chinese government has long made it clear that the successor will come from China.
Guest: Assoc. Professor Ruth Gamble (Deputy Director, La Trobe Asia)
Recorded on 8th
#246: South Korea's Security Challenge
South Korea faces a number of security challenges, living in the shadow of states such as China and Russia, and with its capital Seoul around 50km from the border it shares with North Korea. In times of contestation and with a new government in place it has the chance to reexamine its priorities and contribution to security in the Asia Pacific.
Guest: Dongkeun Lee (Policy Fellow, Asia-Pacific Le
#245: Australia-India Critical Mining Cooperation
The Australian government has released a new roadmap aiming to bolster critical minerals co-operation between Australia and India. Crucial to the economy and productivity, the mineral trade, the plan aims to drive research and trade in both countries, but can the plan also address resource security and climate concerns?
Guests:
Ambika Vishwanath (DFAT Maitri Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe A
Book Launch: Rivers of the Asian Highlands
High in the Himalayas the waters of Asia’s eight largest rivers intersect. The rivers of the Asian Highlands are central to the world’s weather systems and activities in their water catchments have shaped the human past and will shape the future. These rivers support more than three billion people and provide water for 85% of Asia’s populations, and what happens to Asian highland rivers is of glob
#244: Great Power Contestation in the Asia-Pacific
The Asia-Pacific is an area of great power contestation, of an intense rivalry between major powers, particularly the United States and China. How influence and dominance intersect in the Asia Pacific has major implications for the politics, economies and militaries of the countries in the region.
Guest: Mike Bosack (Special Adviser for Government Relations,Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studie
Australia's Election and the International Agenda
Australia's federal election has produced a significant majority for PM Anthony Albanese. While most of the campaign was dominated by domestic issues, the shadow cast by the Trump administration's highly destabilising policies was long.
The re-elected government faces the most complex international environment in decades with the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, an America led by a mercurial Pr
#243: South Korea's Election and the World
The past six months in South Korea have been eventful - a declaration of martial law, the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, but the country continues and now there is an election on the 3rd June. The election is heated, and there are still protests on the streets of Seoul.
How the votes could go, what is on the agenda, and how this will affect the world are all topics of debate.
Guest:
Dr
#242: Australia's Election and the World
It is two weeks until an Australian federal election in which the presiding Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, will meet the challenger Peter Dutton in a campaign that has been dominated by domestic issues, but overshadowed by Trump.
Guests:
Professor Bec Strating (Director, La Trobe Asia)
Professor Andrea Carson (Journalism, La Trobe University)
Recorded on 16th April, 2025.
#241: Is China Building a Mega Dam on India's Border?
Late last year the Chinese government announced it had approved the world’s largest and most expensive, hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in the Eastern Himalaya, near its disputed border with India. The project would generate around 60 gigawatts annually, nearly three times the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, and help them meet their energy transition goals.
What they actually in
Trump and Asia: Shaping the Future of U.S.-Asia Relations
As President Donald Trump leads his second term, relationships between the US and Asian countries continue to evolve under his administration’s policies.
While there has been much focus on Europe's reactions to a more transactional leadership style in the US, less has been discussed about how it will affect trade negotiations, military alliances, and geopolitical tensions in Asia.
The United St
#240: The Arrest of Rodrigo Duterte
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on March 11, 2025, by the Philippine National Police and Interpol, acting on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The warrant charges Duterte with crimes against humanity related to his administration's controversial "war on drugs," which resulted in thousands of deaths.
Guest: Associate Professor Kerstin Steiner (La
#239: Why is the Chinese Navy Close to Australia?
Australian headlines in late February were dominated by the activities of the Chinese navy’s Task Group 107 as it progressed south along the Australian coast and conducted a series of live-fire exercises.
To the media and a segment of politicians this is a big deal, and at the very least it signals a message that China is trying to send to Australia.
Guest: Professor Bec Strating (Director, La T
#238: Climate Gentrification in the Philippines
The global south is struggling with extreme weather patterns and how to respond, with the Philippines being no exception. Since the devastation of the 2013 Haiyan typhoon, more than 15 thousand households have been relocated from the coast to Tacloban North, and this climate gentrfication has caused inequalities amongst the residents.
Guests:
Associate Professor Brooke Wilmsen (Social Enquiry,
Philippines, China and the South China Sea
For years China has claimed historical rights in the South China Sea, enforcing this by establishing the expansive ‘nine-dash line’ encompassing around 90% of the sea and challenging the maritime claims of neighbouring states in Southeast Asia.
The Philippines in particular has contested China’s claims, concerned about the implications for national security, sovereignty, sovereign rights, and mar
#237: What Does Asia Look Like Without USAID?
In his first month as the newly sworn in President of the United States Donald Trump signed a raft of executive orders, one of which was the near total freeze of all foreign aid, and the drastic reduction of the United States Agency for International Development. This move will have lasting repurcussions for the welfare of many of the world's poorest populations, not to mention the international r
The Contest for Supremacy in Global Politics
Great power rivalry is now an entrenched feature of Asia's security environment. While the United States' role in Asia looks increasingly uncertain under the new Trump administration, China has long sought its security by building dominant relationships with smaller powers in its neighbourhood.
While Australia focuses keenly on the activities of the US and China in East Asia and the Pacific, far
Turmoil in South Korean Politics
Unrest in South Korea is developing quickly. In December President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a short lived martial law. He has since been impeached, removed from office and arrested after weeks of evading arrest, potentially to face charges of insurrection. The political turmoil has shaken South Korea, where Yoon Suk-yeol has popular support.
What were the events that led to this political juncture?
#236: Myanmar's Civil War Continues
It’s been four years since the Myanmar government was overthrown in a military coup, with the promise of a swift election never eventuating. Since that time the public sentiment has soured and resistance has grown, and a long civil war is being fought within its borders.
Guest: Hunter Marston (PhD candidate, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University and an Adjunct
#235: Political Respresentation in Tibet
Its been more than 70 years since China annexed Tibet, and in that time there has been a noticeable decrease in political representation. There has been an increasing centralisation of power by Han Chinese officials, undercutting Tibetan representation in key political and administrative roles, and it’s a trend that has only accelerated under the leadership of Xi Jinping.
Guests:
Professor James
#233: Gender Inequality for Women in Japan
Many countries struggle with gender inequality, but in Japan the problem is pronounced. The gender pay gap is at 22%, and women face a number of related issues, including precarious and subordinate positions in the labour market, and the sexual exploitation in the entertainment industry.
Voices from the Contemporary Japanese Feminist Movement by Emma Dalton and Caroline Norma (Palgrave Macmilla
#232: Indigenous Knowledge in Tibetan Education
Tibet and the Tibetan Plateau are well-known as the home of an important religious and philosophical tradition, Tibetan Buddhism. However, we tend to pay less attention to the lived experiences and llfeways of the Indigenous peoples who live with this singular environment and their achievements and challenges. So how does the state education address Indigenous knowledge and that which the people g
Book Launch: The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet
There are dozens of minority languages spoken in Tibet, but that number is currently collapsing under assimilatory state policies. An increasing number of families in these communities are now passing on Tibetan or Chinese, in the hope of accessing better opportunities in education and employment.
What are the systems at work that restrict and devalue minority languages in Tibet? How can global a
#231: What the New Trump Presidency Means for Asia
Donald Trump has won the 2024 Unites States election. So what will his return to the White House mean for the Asian region?
Guest:
Professor Bec Strating (Director, La Trobe Asia)
Recorded on 11th November, 2024.
Indigeneity in Asia
What does "Indigeneity" mean in Asia? For many in these communities, an Indigenous identity can represent a way to strengthen community identities, encourage language and cultural flourishing, highlight their ancestral relationships to land and water, and push back against large states’ attempts to minoritise them.
What are the benefits and challenges of using the term in Asia? What does the gra
#230: The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet
After more than 70 years of Chinese rule, much has changed in Tibet, and one notable decline is that of language diversity. There are currently around sixty minority languages spoken in Tibet, in some cases by just a few thousand people, but that number is collapsing under assimilatory state policies.
Book: The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet by Gerald Roche, published by Cornell Univer
#229: Citizen Science on the Ganges
The Ganges River, a lifeline for millions and one of the most significant and sacred rivers in the world, faces a multitude of seemingly intractable environmental challenges.
One of the most innovative ways of both researching and shifting attitudes on the Ganges is through Citizen Science, bringing scientists and communities together to learn more about the world around them.
Guests:
Dr Prem
#228: The Decline of Western Influence
For centuries the western world has enjoyed an outsized global influence, but is that time coming to an end? In demographic, economic, military and cultural terms, we are hurtling into a far more diverse global future.
Guest:
Dr Samir Putri (Former UK diplomat, visiting lecturer at the Department of War Studies at the Kings College London)
Samir's book: Westlessness: The Great Global Rebalancin
Event: Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia
Large numbers of people in Southeast Asia seek opportunities to improve their lives either within or outside their home country. While there are many positive benefits, the risk of exploitation is high. Many find themselves deceived or coerced into situations where they are abused and forced to live and work in poor conditions with little or no pay. Some are forced into sex work or marriages again
West to East: The Global Rebalance
The West has always had an outsized influence in the world, but what if this trend is changing? The post cold-war era U.S. and European countries, which represent the foundational pillars of the Western system, have seen their power diminish. Shifts in demographics, economics, military, and cultural terms are indicating a more diverse global future. Wealth is moving from the West to the East, and
#227: Girt by Sea
In recent years Australia has drawn closer to many of its Asia-Pacific neighbours, but when push comes to shove, it continues to look well beyond the oceans and regions that surround it to the distant horizons of Europe and North America for its ultimate security guarantee'. But is there another way Australia should understand its strategic challenges and find lasting security?
Girt by Sea: Re-Im
#226: The British in Afghanistan
The catastrophic attacks of 9/11 led to successful US-led military effort to overthrow the Taliban regime and dismantle al-Qaeda’s terrorism training camps in Afghanistan. Britain took the lead in creating the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to stabilise the country and support the new government. Why did the ISAF mission fail, and what are the wider lessons from the Afghanistan war
AUKUS and Australia's Future
On September 15 2021 Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the agreement of both the US and the UK to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
Following its election in 2022 the government of Anthony Albanese made clear that that AUKUS was supported by Labor. Is there now any significant difference between the defence policies of the Coalition and Labor?
What exactly are the motives o
#225: Taiwan's Thriving Democracy
Taiwan recently saw a peaceful transition of power with the inauguration of President Lai Ching-Te, who was elected to office in January.
President Lai’s election continues the pro-democracy stance of Taiwan, and in his inaugural speech he called on neighbouring China to cease its acts of intimidation and to “choose dialogue over confrontation.”
China responded by holding a simulated blockade
#224: Modi wins a Third Term in India
The world’s largest display of democracy has just taken place, with close to a billion people eligible to vote in an election across 44 days. Narendra Modi has been sworn in for a rare third term as India’s Prime Minister, after emerging victorious in a tough election with a slim majority.
His party, the BJP, had hoped for a landslide victory, but needed to rely on a coalition to gain power.
Gue
Event: The State of Democracy in Asia
More than a billion people across Asia have voted so far in 2024, in elections in India, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and more, but outside of the main results the electoral processes and implications for democracy rarely attracted international headlines.
While voting is a key expression of democratic participation, during elections democratic ideals can be challenged. Many of these elections
The Catch ep 6: Victim's Voices
The Catch.
A podcast miniseries about modern slavery and forced labour in the offshore fishing industry in the Asia Pacific Region.
Episode 6: Victim's Voices
The final episode of The Catch
Host: Dr Bec Strating (Executive Director, La Trobe Asia)
Guest: Dr Sallie Yea (Tracey Banivanua Mar Fellow, La Trobe University)
Produced by La Trobe Asia.
