Today’s sources: ASPI The Strategist; East Asia Forum; Lowy The Interpreter; Observer Research Foundation
Australia
(Janet Egan – ASPI The Strategist) Australia has a narrow window to act if it wants any leverage in what comes next in AI, the most transformative technology of our era. Building data centres and enabling AI training to happen here is the best way for Australia to shape its own future. The pace of AI progress has been astronomical and shows no sign of slowing. Novel AI-discovered drugs are showing promise in clinical trials. Nations are already integrating AI into military and national security applications. And some of the world’s best software engineers are handing large portions of their jobs over to AI. Experts may disagree on exact timelines and trajectories, but there is clear consensus that significant disruption lies ahead, carrying both tremendous opportunity and risk. – Data centres are Australia’s chance to shape AI’s future | The Strategist
(Hamed Zakikhani – ASPI The Strategist) If disruption to food and energy systems has become persistent rather than episodic, Australia needs better ways to test how those systems perform under sustained and overlapping shocks. In short, it should apply stress-testing to them, much as stress-testing is routinely applied in finance and defence planning. Australia should expect persistent disruption to its food and energy systems as threats such as climate extremes, export restrictions, supply-chain threats and geopolitical tensions worsen. These threats increasingly interact at the same time, rather than emerging as single shocks. Planning built around isolated scenarios struggles to capture this reality. – Design for disruption: stress-testing Australia’s food and energy security | The Strategist
Chagos Archipelago / India
(Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy – Lowy The Interpreter) The Chagos archipelago dispute carries wider regional ramifications than the future of the UK–US military base on Diego Garcia. Mauritius has won the UK’s support for a deal over sovereignty of the disputed islands – but complications extend to interests of the Maldives, which now claims to have more legitimate rights over the archipelago. The regional conundrum caused by these overlapping claims also draws in India, with the potential to ignite fresh tensions in the Indian Ocean region. The Chagos has become a test of Delhi’s credibility in ambitions to shape the regional order. India will want to ensure its neighbours resolve their differences. The Maldives has objected to the deal hammered out for the UK to transfer Chagos to Mauritius, which would also guarantee the continued UK-US base at Diego Garcia. The Maldives insists it has a legitimate claim to administer Chagos, considering geographical proximity and the history of Maldivian kings governing the archipelago (locally known as Foalhavahi). It has also offered the US continued operations at Diego Garcia. – Chagos, Maldives, Mauritius: A headache India cannot ignore | Lowy Institute
China/Russia/Australia
(Mike Hughes and Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan – ASPI The Strategist) The Sino-Russian no-limits partnership is the driver of an anti-Western axis that seeks to weaken and reshape the global order that has underpinned Australia’s post-1945 prosperity and sovereignty. Naysayers may claim it isn’t an alliance, but it certainly is a deepening partnership that challenges decision makers seeking to safeguard Australian interests in a contested world. Economic coercion, defence cooperation and joint propaganda by China and Russia are directly shaping Canberra’s strategic thinking, including in the upcoming National Defence Strategy (NDS). This should lead to increased funding through the NDS, and not just for the four years of the budget’s forward estimates. – A coordinated trans-Eurasian threat: the deepening Sino-Russian strategic partnership | The Strategist
China/Vietnam
(Duan Haosheng – East Asia Forum) The Lao Cai–Hanoi–Hai Phong standard-gauge railway marks a new phase of Chinese–Vietnam ‘hard connectivity’. For China’s landlocked southwest, it allows maritime access to Southeast Asia amid instability in the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor. Meanwhile, Vietnam views the project as a catalyst for growth and modernisation by facilitating access to Chinese markets and supply chains. Yet Vietnam remains wary of structural dependence on Beijing. Navigating this dynamic will require a careful balancing act to synchronise Vietnam’s industrial ambitions with China’s supply chain dominance, transforming potential vulnerabilities into a coordinated regional manufacturing hub. – Vietnam and China lay the tracks for deeper trade connectivity | East Asia Forum
India
(Soumya Awasthi, Shravishtha Ajaykumar – Observer Research Foundation) The rapid expansion of digital connectivity has transformed online gaming from a niche entertainment activity to a significant digital ecosystem. Today, gaming is deeply embedded in the lives of billions of people, particularly young users connected through smartphones and high-speed internet. Around 80 percent of gamers worldwide are adults, with the largest group ages 18–34, while the average gamer is in their mid-30s. Mobile gaming has emerged as the dominant platform, with 3.6 billion players globally and serving as the most accessible entry point for young users. At the same time, online gaming platforms are emerging as spaces for malicious actors to conduct financial fraud, establish criminal networks, enhance extremist recruitment, and inflict psychological harm. India, with roughly 659 million smartphone users, is one of the fastest-growing digital gaming markets in the world. Estimates indicate that the country has over 568 million gamers, most of whom play on smartphones due to affordable data and widespread mobile penetration. This scale of participation, particularly among youth, has turned gaming platforms into complex socio-digital environments that extend far beyond entertainment. – Building a Regulatory Framework for Online Gaming in India
Indonesia/Japan
(Ayu Rachman – Lowy The Interpreter) Japan has been Indonesia’s largest aid donor for decades. Tokyo has built Jakarta’s MRT system, financed Patimban port and invested $3.1 billion annually in the Indonesian economy. Yet Japan waited nearly two years for Prabowo Subianto’s first state visit after the Indonesian president took office in October 2024. When a country makes its most patient and long-standing partner wait so long, it is worth asking why. The answer is leverage. Jakarta withheld the symbolic prize of a state visit while extracting commitments across multiple fronts, and Prabowo arrived in Tokyo this week with promises for frigates, reactor technology and trilateral security arrangements on the table – before flying directly to Seoul to sign a fighter jet deal. The question is not which country Indonesia prefers. It is whether Jakarta has thought through what it is building, simultaneously, everywhere, at speed. Across three concrete cases, the answer is not yet. – As Prabowo arrives in Tokyo, Japan and Indonesia are building faster than they are thinking | Lowy Institute
Indonesia/US
(Arianto A Patunru – East Asia Forum) Indonesia and the United States signed a trade deal on 19 February 2026 to reduce the impact of new US tariffs on Indonesian exports, offering temporary relief for sectors such as apparel, footwear and furniture. But the subsequent US Supreme Court ruling against key elements of the Trump administration’s tariff regime exposed the volatility of such bilateral arrangements. The episode has reinforced the importance of more stable regional frameworks such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. – US–Indonesia trade deal reinforces case for RCEP centrality | East Asia Forum
Japan
(Yasuo Takao – East Asia Forum) Japan entered 2026 facing a breakdown of its long-standing LDP-dominated governance model. A fragmented coalition and weakened bureaucratic authority characterise Japan’s current constrained political environment. Despite legislative fragility and limited policy delivery, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s popularity has endured, driven more so by symbolic reassurance and identity politics than by performance. Japan’s ‘politics of constraint’ stabilises leadership in the short term but risks deferring necessary reforms, thinning democratic accountability and limiting Japan’s capacity for coordinated domestic and regional leadership. – Constraint and uncertainty ahead for Japanese politics | East Asia Forum
Japan/China
(Shin Kawashima – East Asia Forum) The Japanese government under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is preparing to tighten controls over foreign residents, prompting accusations of rising xenophobia. But the proposed policies are driven more by demographic pressures, security concerns, and an underdeveloped policy framework for managing rapid social change. Japan’s shrinking workforce has made foreign labour essential, even as institutions for ‘multicultural coexistence’ remain inadequate. Security concerns arising from geopolitical tensions have shaped persistently harsh Japanese public perceptions of China. Managing this demographic shift while maintaining social cohesion and security will be a defining challenge for Japan and its evolving relationship with China. – Japan’s growing Chinese community and the future of Japan–China relations | East Asia Forum
Japan/North Korea
(Nguyen Thanh Long, Cao Nguyen Khanh Huyen – East Asia Forum) Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s call for a summit with Kim Jong-un is driven by a mix of domestic political incentives, the legacy of Shinzo Abe and Japan’s desire to regain diplomatic influence in Northeast Asia. While the initiative seeks progress on the abductee issue and regional security, North Korea’s silence and limited incentives for engagement make a breakthrough unlikely. – The domestic roots of Takaichi’s North Korea abduction overtures | East Asia Forum
Liberal International Order
(East Asia Forum) US allies are grappling with the collapse of the liberal international order, seeking to preserve existing institutions while building new platforms for cooperation. Effective middle power leadership will require expanding notions of like-mindedness to include China and countries in the ‘Global South’, as a stable and legitimate order cannot come from a narrow Western bloc alone. Deeper engagement with ASEAN-centred frameworks offers a path to get there, but will require greater political courage and strategic clarity from countries like Australia, Japan, Canada and the UK in navigating their relationships beyond Washington. – US allies between a rock and an ever-harder place | East Asia Forum
Russia/Ukraine
(David Kirichenko – Lowy The Interpreter) Throughout the war, Ukraine has relied on technology to offset Russia’s greater numbers in personnel and materiel. Aerial drones became the backbone of that effort, helping blunt assaults, guide artillery and strike deep behind the front. Now the same logic is moving onto the ground. As the kill zone expands, Kyiv is increasingly turning to unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to carry supplies, evacuate the wounded, and, in some cases, go on the offensive. This shift is being driven by necessity. Ukraine now has 280 companies developing UGVs. On large stretches of the front, the most dangerous task is simply getting in and out. Ukrainian UGVs now regularly destroy Russian drones waiting in ambush along these routes, helping protect human vehicle drivers and wounded soldiers, also being evacuated by UGVs. – In Ukraine, ground robots are increasingly going on the offensive | Lowy Institute
Southeast Asia
(Tommy Chai – Lowy The Interpreter) Southeast Asia is entering an uncertain era in which American security guarantees can no longer be relied upon. This challenge is becoming more urgent as a Taiwan contingency grows increasingly plausible – not because the region will be directly targeted, but because it will be drawn into the operational and political pressures of great-power conflict regardless of its choices. China is watching for signs of American hesitation in Iran and Ukraine before acting on Taiwan, and the PLA already treats Southeast Asia as critical to any Taiwan contingency, with its Southern Theatre Command given the job to secure its southern flank. Regardless of how Southeast Asian states position themselves diplomatically, they will face the same operational demands: whether to permit access to their airspace and waters, and whether to sustain defence partnerships that may be seen as enabling one side or the other. – After America: How Southeast Asia can defend itself | Lowy Institute
South Korea/Africa
(Liam Cowan – East Asia Forum) Eighteen months after former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol pledged to double aid to Africa, his successor Lee Jae-myung cut official development assistance and redirected spending towards AI, reflecting fiscal pressures and a shift from values-based diplomacy to supply chain security. While bilateral initiatives such as the South Korea–Africa Critical Minerals Dialogue have continued, humanitarian funding has been sharply reduced and Africa is increasingly framed in terms of its resource value for Seoul’s AI ambitions. But as mineral-rich African states diversify partnerships amid BRICS expansion and growing resource nationalism, the sustainability of this more transactional approach remains uncertain. – South Korea shifts from aid to minerals in Africa | East Asia Forum
