Why China Presents Itself As a Vanguard of Free Trade (Richard Javad Heydarian, The National Interest)

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-china-presents-itself-vanguard-free-trade-18541

China rolls out the red carpet for Rodrigo Duterte (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/10/china-rolls-red-carpet-duterte-161024134807797.html

Duterte and China (Richard Javad Heydarian, Council on Foreign Relations)

http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/10/27/duterte-and-china/

Duterte Shakes Up Philippine Foreign Policy (Richard Javad Heydarian, CFR)

The Philippines’ controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, has once again grabbed global headlines with his inflammatory statements. This time, he reportedly invoked Hitler to underscore his commitment to continuing a‘shock and awe’ campaign against illegal drugs, which has provoked global outcry. In response to a chorus of international condemnation, senior Philippine officials were quick to dismiss Duterte’s latest off-the-cuff remarks as a joke that should not be taken literally. Recognizing his mistake, the president himself apologized “profoundly and deeply” and clarified that there “was never an intention to derogate” the Holocaust.

http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/10/03/duterte-shakes-up-philippine-foreign-policy/

Duterte’s strongman populism is working (Richard Javad Heydarian, East Asia Forum)

Less than three months into his term, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is confronting a paradox of power. Duterte has amassed enough political capital to radically reform and revitalise the country’s emaciated institutions. He has swiftly expanded his grip on the Philippine political system, making him arguably the country’s most powerful president since the fall of the Ferdinand Marcos regime.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/10/04/dutertes-strongman-populism-is-working/

Barack Obama's pivot to Asia in tatters (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/09/barack-obama-pivot-asia-tatters-160922122523631.html

Assessing Duterte’s Diplomacy (Richard Javad Heydarian, CFR)

http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/09/15/assessing-dutertes-diplomacy/

Can China Really Ignore International Law? (Richard Javad Heydarian, The National Interest)

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-china-really-ignore-international-law-17211

The day after: Enforcing The Hague verdict in the South China Sea (Richard Javad Heydarian, Brookings)

It was an unequivocal rebuke of China’s expansive maritime claims and increasingly assertive posturing in adjacent waters. An arbitral tribunal, constituted under Article 287, Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), handed the Philippines a landmark victory against its giant neighbor. Most experts anticipated a favorable outcome, but few predicted its breadth. Not only did the tribunal exercise jurisdiction on almost all of the Philippines’ arguments, it also ruled favorably on the most thorny and consequential items, particularly China’s doctrine of "historic rights."

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2016/07/25-day-after-south-china-sea-heydarian

China's peripheral diplomacy disaster (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

Like never before, China's territorial assertiveness is rattling its neighbours and decades of fruitful relations.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/06/china-peripheral-diplomacy-disaster-160627122242539.html

China Is Slowly Turning the South China Sea Into Its Own Territory (Richard Javad Heydarian, The National Interest)

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-slowly-turning-the-south-china-sea-its-own-territory-16554

The Philippines under President Duterte (Richard Javad Heydarian, Brookings)

Over the past few years, the Philippines has emerged as one of China’s staunchestcritics, particularly over the festering maritime disputes in the South China Sea. The dangerous standoff between Manila and Beijing over the Scarborough Shoal in mid-2012 torpedoed almost four decades of constructive bilateral relations. Since then, high-level communications channels have been effectively frozen, with both Filipino and Chinese officials often adopting confrontational rhetoric against each other

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2016/05/23-philippines-duterte-heydarian

Rodrigo Duterte: A new era in the Philippines (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born," Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci once said. Three decades after the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship, which left deep and lasting wounds on an impoverished nation, the Filipino people are once again clamouring for "change".

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/05/rodrigo-duterte-era-philippines-160511101236269.html

The Philippines' autocratic nostalgia (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting," Milan Kundera once wrote.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/05/philippines-autocratic-nostalgia-160501132538064.html

Asia’s New Battlefield: The Philippines’ South China Sea Moment of Truth (Richard Javad Heydarian, The National Interest)

A specter is haunting Asia—the specter of full Chinese domination in the South China Sea. Latest reports suggest that China could soon move ahead with building military facilities on the Scarborough Shoal, a contested land feature it has occupied since 2012. This would allow China, according to a Mainland source, to “further perfect” its aerial superiority across the contested waters. By building a sprawling network of dual-purposes facilities, and more recentlydeploying advanced military assets to its artificially created islands, China is inching closer to establishing a de facto Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area. Integrating the Scarborough Shoal into its burgeoning defensive perimeter across the South China Sea will not only give it an upper hand in the contested waters, but also allow China to place the Philippines’ capital and industrialized regions within its strategic reach.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/asias-new-battlefield-the-philippines%E2%80%99-south-china-sea-15985

The new Japanese assertiveness in Asia Pacific (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

Before his triumphant return to power in 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for the creation of a "democratic security diamond" with major allied nations such as the United States, Australia, and India.

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The Obama Doctrine: Middle East out, Asia in (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference," the 20th-century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once famously wrote. Arguably, this very much sums up the United States President Barack Obama's foreign policy doctrine and his valuation of American priorities in various regions.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/obama-doctrine-middle-east-asia-160322101315077.html

Trump and the post-American Asia (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

Trump and his legions of supporters have made a mockery of US claims to exceptionalism and global leadership.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/trump-post-american-asia-160306130154044.html

Turning over a new leaf in Japan–Philippines relations (Richard Javad Heydarian, De La Salle University, East Asia Forum)

Historically, the United States has been the Philippines’ leading ally. Under a series of landmark agreements Washington served as the de facto guarantor of Philippine national security for almost a century. But in recent years Japan has rapidly upgraded its security cooperation with Manila. Today, Japan is the Philippines’ top provider of development aid, leading trading partner, leading foreign investor, and, next to the United States, a major source of maritime security assistance. And just recently, the two Asian countries inked a defence agreement that allows Tokyo to supply Manila military technology and equipment, such as surveillance aircraft. The Philippines is the third country, and the first in Southeast Asia, to have signed such agreement with Japan.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/03/05/turning-over-a-new-leaf-in-japan-philippines-relations/

China's aggressive posture in South China Sea (Richard Javad Heydarian, Al Jazeera)

The South China Sea disputes are rapidly descending into a quagmire, with potentially explosive ramifications. Shortly after United States President Barack Obama concluded a high-profile summit with Southeast Asian leaders, China reportedly deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system to the Paracel chain of islands, which is also claimed by Vietnam.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/02/china-aggressive-posture-south-china-sea-160221074036883.html