East Asia Explorer
The East Asia Explorer tracks evolving geopolitical trends, emerging security challenges, and progress towards regional integration in East Asia. It focuses on the ASEAN grouping, domestic and foreign policy developments in countries of East Asia and Oceania, great power contestation in the region, and India’s relations with ASEAN and its member countries.
In this issue, Dr. Satish Chandra Mishra unpacks the paradoxes at the heart of Indonesia’s defence policy. He stresses that despite a history shaped by military struggle and a political landscape long dominated by the armed forces, Indonesia has consistently spent less on defence than many of its regional peers. From the entrenched dual-role doctrine of ABRI to the Reformasi movement, from opaque military-owned businesses to President Prabowo’s sweeping modernisation agenda, this article traces the complex interplay of history, politics, and economics that has kept Indonesia’s defence budgets unusually low.
Dr. Pradeep Taneja examines the fallout from Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi’s remarks linking Taiwan to Japan’s security threshold, comments that have reignited tensions with Beijing and drawn in Washington and the UN. He hypothesises that while mindful of the risks of escalation with its largest trading partner, Japan is walking a fine line: urging dialogue yet standing firm in refusing to retract the Prime Minister’s words.
Jayantika Rao takes stock of Indonesia one year into President Prabowo Subianto’s tenure. She posits that from sweeping cabinet reshuffles and rapid centralisation of power to violent unrest, economic turbulence, and bold foreign policy moves, his first year has been anything but ordinary. The article traces how Prabowo has tightened his grip on domestic politics while amplifying Indonesia’s presence abroad—raising the critical question of whether the country is stepping into a new era of foreign policy activism or retracing the shadows of its authoritarian past.
To read East Asia Explorer, Vol. III, Issue 11, please see the PDF attached.
