🧵on Xi in SE Asia: What's remarkable about Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia this week is... nothing at all. It's a typical example of China's neighbourhood diplomacy, engaging on a regular basis with Southeast Asia at the highest levels. 1/ Outside analysts often try to divide the region into countries that are aligning with or against China. Cambodia and Laos are often, wrongfully, portrayed as "vassals" of China, while Vietnam and the Philippines are depicted as standing up to or pushing back against Beijing. 2/

🧵Our Indonesia poll has some important insights for Washington & Beijing. Overall, Indonesians are wary of both great powers, but are more concerned about China. However, they don't see the world through a binary US-China lens, as many in the West do 1/ interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/indon… Indonesians clearly see China as a rising threat to their security. In fact, they see China as the biggest country threat to their security over the next decade. But the US is not too far behind, followed by Australia, a key part of the US alliance system in Asia. 2/

🧵From the US to China, many states are trying to woo Indonesia. Just see how many high-profile visitors flew to Jakarta during the pandemic. But few outsiders think about how Indonesians see them. Our new Indonesia poll provides some great insights 1/ interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/indon… The first major insight from our nationwide, face-to-face poll of 3,000 Indonesians was that Indonesians feel confident and optimistic about the direction of their country but are wary of great powers, the US and China, & don't see the world through lens of binary geopolitics 2/

🧵Few will miss Carrie Lam as she resigns as Hong Kong leader after five torrid years. My 2018 interview with her was one of the strangest encounters I've had with a senior official-& I've met the weird & wonderful. She just kept putting her foot in it 1/ ft.com/content/d81d82… When I asked her which leader she most admired, she told me: “You may say that it’s shoe-shining but I have to say I find President Xi more and more charismatic and admirable." Even if she felt she had to say it, why flag up the shoe-shining? Not a good image to leave. 2/

Why did Myanmar coup surprise many foreign analysts & diplomats, even though the generals telegraphed their intentions? Partly it's because predictions are hard, esp about the future. But there's another important factor behind what spies might call an intelligence failure 1/ When intelligence agencies fail to foresee a major event/issue, like a coup or revolution (or Saddam's absence of WMD), there's a tendency to view it as a problem of intelligence collection. If only they had better or more accurate information, they could have seen it coming 2/

Two recent @ISEAS analyses on Vietnam's Communist Party highlight key differences with China's Communist Party, (both claim to be "as close as lips and teeth"). Interesting to compare how Marxism-Leninism has developed in both places after rapid econ growth of last decades THREAD Olga Dror's paper on opposition to a new push to build Ho Chi Minh statues shows how the VCP has struggled to re-frame its traditional propaganda and ideology for a modern era of high growth, ambitious young people and widespread social media iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/upl…

This is a pretty clever piece of PR by Hong Kong protesters, trying to rouse support ahead of Sunday's planned global rallies. It's far smarter than anything the HK govt or Chinese state media is able to push out. Here's why (THREAD) The video promotes the impression that the democracy movement is still united. It depicts the frontliners, peaceful marchers, schoolkids holding hands and overseas supporters as one, erm, united front. This is the idea of "climbing the mountain together, making your own effort"

(THREAD) Over the last few years I've had many conversations with business people in Hong Kong about how they see the growing pressure on the city's autonomy and freedoms. These chats inspired today's @FT big read (1/) on.ft.com/2AMuKwX Pressure has come in many forms from the abductions of bookseller Lee Bo and billionaire Xiao Jianhua by mainland Chinese agents to legal interventions by Beijing and the Hong Kong govt's own creative use of vague colonial laws and administrative measures to curb opposition (2/)

1. Nearly 70m Chinese children have been "left-behind" by their parents as they seek work in faraway provinces, many in the factories of Guangdong. Unicef says many of these children, while brought up by grandparents, lack adequate care and support (thread) 2. It's a huge social problem & it's also an economic one, as some parents are reluctant to continue migrating for work because of the pain of separation. This is happening as China's workforce starts to shrink and many younger people no longer want to work in factories.