ASEAN is now 53 years old. All dialogue partners now pay ritual obeisance to “ASEAN centrality,” yet ASEAN’s relevance is still regularly questioned.

As chief cabinet secretary in the Abe administration, Suga Yoshihide was adept at recommending the right people for the right cabinet posts. What do Prime Minister Suga’s cabinet picks tell us about his foreign policy?

For all the concern this year that political tensions between Australia and China might harm trade and investment, this isn’t the most acute stress in the bilateral relationship. Compared with the battering that people-to-people ties are receiving, the current economic dramas rate a distant second.