Briefing MONTHLY #88 | September 2025

The 2025 Asia Summit, produced jointly by The Australian Financial Review and Asia Society Australia, certainly had its moments.

While there is daily coverage of China’s rise and what it means for Australia, we don’t often dwell on what China thinks about us. So, it was refreshing to hear directly from Fu Ying, Beijing’s envoy in Canberra from 2004 to 2007. “In China Australia’s image is a bit complicated … While candidly facing differences, there is a mutual respect,” she said in language that echoed the Albanese government’s mantra of agreeing when we can, disagreeing where we must. Fu suggested we needed to take care in how we disagree, and avoid “condescending criticism”.  In a memorable description of diplomatic manoeuvring, she said: “Some Australians give Chinese the feeling they would kick us under the table while shaking hands above.”

By month’s end, the focus was on New York as world leaders and their support crews gathered at the United Nations headquarters. Geopolitics is endless theatre in the age of Trump. The Asia Summit reminded us that deals, partnerships and development are also evolving swiftly in the world’s fastest growing region (see DEALS AND DOLLARS). As Michaela Browning, Brunswick Group APAC chief noted on the final panel: “It’s a struggle for all of us to get up every day and absorb what’s going on. We need more days like this.”

Finally, we’ve included a quiz this month. We don’t have any prizes on offer, just the quiet satisfaction of being well-informed.

Thanks for reading.

Emma Connors
Briefing MONTHLY acting editor

Fu’s comments at the Asia Summit came a week before tensions between Canberra and Beijing surfaced once again after Australia failed to land anticipated defence and security agreements with Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. Both were designed with an eye to countering China’s influence in the region after the Solomons Islands surprised us three years ago when it announced a security pact with China. The Nakamal treaty-level agreement would have allowed Australia to veto Chinese investment in Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure. The Pukpuk treaty would have prevented PNG from signing a similar agreement with China.

PM Anthony Albanese went to Port Moresby for celebrations marking half a century of independence for Papua New Guinea. He also hoped to sign off on Australia’s first new defence alliance in more than 70 years. Instead, he came away with a MOU after PNG’s Cabinet failed to give the green light. These “last minute jitters” are a reminder the region is in “strategic play”, according to Kurt Campbell. The Asia Group co-founder, who led efforts to bolster the American presence in the Indo-Pacific under President Biden, happened to be at the podium of the National Press Club in Canberra on the day the PNG pact got kicked down the road. “China is relentless and they use all venues of engagement to try to block and blunt initiatives like the ones Australia has initiated,” said Campbell. “The politics of the Pacific are increasingly contested, and the great game is afoot … I do not believe that China’s pattern of engagement or practices among the Pacific Islands in any way will halt or diminish.”

While the US has largely been absent from the field since Biden left the White House, Campbell insisted “key players” in the Trump administration were engaged.

With this in mind, it will be intriguing to see how the next set moves in the Indo-Pacific contest play out at the ASEAN, East Asia and APEC leaders’ meetings that run from late October into November. Malaysia is running the ASEAN show this year and PM Anwar Ibrahim is talking up Summit Season. His insistence that the world’s most powerful leaders will be at ASEAN is looking a bit shaky amid reports the China’s Xi Jinping will probably be a no-show – though it seems Xi will be at APEC in Gyeongju, South Korea. US President Donald Trump attended just one ASEAN gathering in his first term, but he has told Anwar he will be in Kuala Lumpur. It could be a regional tour after Trump and Xi agreed to meet on the sidelines at APEC.

At the UN leaders’ week in New York, the Australian contingent politely ignored Trump’s description of climate change as a “con job” as they tried to persuade Turkey to drop its bid to host the next COP. Turkey needs to walk away if Australia’s effort to host COP31 in partnership with the Pacific next year is to succeed. If consensus can’t be reached, the event will default to Bonn in Germany.

Amid the hustle and bustle of the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Albanese finally got a date for his long-awaited meeting with US President, which will take place in Washington on October 20. In the meantime, Albanese’s National Statement to the UNGA included a pitch for another term on the UN Security Council. Australia last sat as one of the 10 non-permanent members in 2013-14 and Labor and the Coalition are united in their ambition for the country to do so again in 2029-30. UN members will vote for those positions in 2028. Albanese also outlined his government’s approach to strengthen security in the Indo-Pacific, tacitly acknowledging – but not criticising – Washington’s ebbing enthusiasm for doing the same.

It was an emotional day at Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance on September 9 when Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa took over from long-serving Sri Mulyani Indrawati. The highly-respected economist was dignity personified as she farewelled the Ministry she has led for a total of 13 years over two stints, the most recent beginning in 2016. Her parting message of gratitude and patriotism was all the more remarkable given the events leading up to her forced departure.  Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto needed to make a big, public gesture after massive protests against his government and he did so by sacking his finance minister.

There has been much discussion of Indonesia’s lurch toward authoritarianism but that didn’t stop a resounding vote for Prabowo last year. People were content to back the former military commander who promised to fast track development. His vision of a “Golden Indonesia” sees the archipelago nation advancing to developed nation status by 2045. The aspiration taps into deep-rooted national values to frame a spiritual and moral journey toward prosperity. But he needs more jobs, particularly for young people. The World Bank puts the jobless rate for the 44 million Indonesians aged between 15 and 24 is 13.1 per cent, however other estimates suggest 20 per cent are struggling. A national survey last year suggested 10 million in this age group were neither working nor studying. As governments through history have learnt to their cost, when young people think the system has failed them, they often take to the streets.

As the extraordinary Gen Z uprising in Nepal this month demonstrated, Indonesia is far from the only Asian nation where many Gen Zers (born between 1997 and 2012) are angry with the state of affairs (see DATAWATCH). Perhaps it was impatience with the glacial pace of tax reform that has been so effectively stymied by Indonesia’s elites that led Sri Mulyani to venture onto thin ice by equating tax with a religious obligation. Predictably, her statement that paying government levies was the same as the zakat and waqf Islamic charitable donations provoked controversy. A house she owned in Jakarta was looted during the protests.

The demonstrators’ actions help explain why Prabowo fired his finance minister. But it’s not clear how her exit will help address the structural problems that make it so hard for university graduates and others to find jobs. Indeed, it’s easier to see how it could make things worse. A World Bank director in the years between her two finance minister stints, Sri Mulyani was a stickler for fiscal discipline in the previous government under President Joko Widodo. Prabowo, who was defence minister in that administration, did not always agree with her firm control on government spending. In the days after February 14, 2024 election victory, a Prabowo adviser said it was unlikely Sri Mulyani would continue in her role. By the time Prabowo was sworn in eight months later, he had changed his mind, perhaps mindful of the high esteem Sri Mulyani holds internationally – an impression underlined when Forbes named her 49^th on its list of the world’s most powerful women (Gina Rinehart was next on the Top 100 list at #50. Reserve Bank governor Michelle Bullock was the top placed Australian at #45 and Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake came in at #58).

But the differences were clear to see. In January, Prabowo nixed the Finance Ministry’s bid to increase sales tax across the board. Indonesia has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the region at 12 per cent (Australia’s is around 30 per cent), and it appears to be sliding further behind. As well as upsetting the apple cart on carefully planned reform, Prabowo has also redirected spending to enable his flagship school meals program. He has now enlisted the central bank’s assistance as well, with Bank Indonesia to help with debt costs on some government bonds in a new form of ‘burden sharing’, a phrase we last heard during the emergency days of COVID-19. As Bloomberg columnist Daniel Moss noted, while “machinations in fixed income don’t grab the headlines like demonstrators on the streets, this latest move is a worry given what it could lead to if boundaries get further blurred”.

On the election trail, Prabowo promised the national economy would grow by 8 per cent a year. Instead, it has continued to shuffle along at close to five per cent, the same pace it’s averaged for the last decade, excluding the pandemic years. That looks good when compared to Australia’s 1.8 per cent GDP expansion in the last financial year, but it’s not enough to get to a Golden Indonesia. Government estimates suggest the Indonesian economy needs to grow by at an average 6-7 per cent a year to hit the 2045 goal. 

As Sri Mulyani has pointed out, foreign investment is needed to fuel higher growth. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country on the planet and domestic consumption is enough to keep the economy expanding. But amid global geopolitical uncertainty, careful fiscal and monetary discipline is required to maintain a stable economic environment that will continue to tempt investors over the next two decades – and Prabowo is not known for his patience.

There was some good news for the government in recent weeks with a higher-than-expected growth in the second quarter. As BCA economists noted, the economy appears to be on track to hit the 4.9 per cent – 5 per cent range. But once again, it comes back to tax.

“The key question is how effectively this growth – particularly in consumption and investment – will translate into stronger tax revenues to support the government’s fiscal position. This is crucial, as the impetus from government spending is expected to be the primary buffer against global headwinds in the second half of the year,” the economists said in a note. Sri Mulyani would no doubt agree.

A month is a long time in Thailand’s turbulent politics, especially if you are part of the Shinawatra family. Thaksin Shinawatra, the telco tycoon turned populist leader, is locked up in Bangkok’s Klong Prem prison after Thailand’s Supreme Court ordered he serve a year behind bars. The ruling came barely a week after the country’s Constitutional Court again exercised its power to take down a PM.  This time it was Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn who was permanently removed from office after the Court found her guilty of ethical misconduct. 

Thaksin’s one-year jail sentence is the latest development in the long running saga that saw the 76-year-old living in exile until last year, back to face charges, spend a few months in jail before shifting to a hospital and then regaining his freedom – until the finding this month that he has not served sufficient time.

If the rapid fall from grace of father and daughter was not enough, the Thaksin-founded Pheu Thai party has lost its grip on power.  The Thai parliament has elected Anutin Charnvirakul prime minister, leader of the Bhumjaithai Party which has switched its allegiance to stay in touch with power over the years. Anutin served as deputy prime minister and interior minister under Paetongtarn. But he quit these posts and the Bhumjaithai Party left the ruling coalition in June due to disagreements over a cabinet reshuffle and Paetongtarn's handling of border tensions with Cambodia. The latter became the subject of the Constitutional Court investigation after her conversation with Cambodia’s Hun Sen was leaked to the media.

Pheu Thai and the progressive People’s Party are now in opposition meaning Anutin leads a minority government. He’s pledged new elections in four months’ time.

A fascinating side story is Anutin’s elevation of Suphajee Suthumpun into Cabinet as Commerce Minister. She’s spent the last decade at the hotel giant Dusit International. In recent years much of her time has been devoted to reinventing a Bangkok landmark, the Dusit Thani hotel, now part of the Dusit Central Park complex that looks over Lumphini Park. Before joining Dusit, the businesswoman ran a satellite company, and before that she spent 20 years at IBM, becoming the first woman to run the company in Thailand. Along the way she acquired the nickname Super G, a play on her first name, Suphajee. It stuck.

She’s described her new role as “unexpected and challenging”, telling local media she wants to boost exports and strengthen foreign market opportunities. She’ll need all her talents and political connections in her new role with the country’s farmers battling low prices for their produce at home and protectionist barriers abroad. One quick but difficult fix requires the re-opening of border checkpoints into neighbouring Cambodia, that are also a through point for trade with Vietnam. These are currently controlled by the military after deadly violence last month. 

Foreign investors eyeing Thailand are wary of the political upheavals but not deterred. Macquarie Group’s Asia chief executive Verena Lim told the Asia Summit that capital solution providers look for corporates “constrained in terms of balance sheet and capacity” and that’s the case in Thailand. But Macquarie won’t be going in alone. Rather than looking at the market “deal by deal”, Macquarie is targeting industrial partnerships … “because we think that is the best way to approach Thailand and mitigate the political challenges in that market”, Lim said.

The Foreign Investment Review Board has speeded up its processing but not its reporting. On September 4 it released the quarterly report on foreign investment for the three months ending 31 December, 2024. Last year the lag between activity and reporting was less than six months, with the report for the corresponding period out on June 21. 

In previous periods, Singapore has come close to eclipsing the US as our major investor. The most recent data on the source of investment proposals shows Singapore in fourth place, behind the US, Saudi Arabia and Canada. It was followed by UAE, Japan, Sweden, Thailand and China with the Czech Republic rounding out the top 10. The ranking of proposals by industry shows international investors continue to favour finance and insurance with that sector attracting $25.5 billion in approved proposals, followed by commercial real estate.

The residential real estate data tells a very different story with Asian buyers led by Chinese and Singaporeans taking out all but one of the top 10 positions – although there are a lot less dollars involved. Just over 1000 residential proposals were approved in the quarter, worth $1.3 billion.

It will be intriguing to see how this category of foreign investment is affected by the two-year ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings that came into effect on 1 April. The measure, originally proposed by the Opposition last year, was adopted by the Albanese government in the February budget. In practice, the FIRB has very rarely approved applications made to buy such properties, industry sources say, with exceptions made for people moving for work or study. ATO data shows that in 2022/23, foreign investors accounted for just 5360 residential property purchases and only one third of these related to existing dwellings.   

With the small numbers involved, the new ban is unlikely to have much impact on Australia’s housing crisis. The Albanese government has tacitly acknowledged this, saying it is just one measure among many to address the housing shortage.

It’s been two years since Nicholas Moore’s blueprint for Australian business in Southeast Asia was enthusiastically adopted by the Albanese government and there are signs of progress. This is great as we have all heard a lot (perhaps too much?) about potential.

At the Asia Summit, Trade Minister Senator Don Farrell said Export Finance Australia provided $529 million in finance to Southeast Asia in the last financial year, a 40 per cent increase on the previous year.

EFA-supported transactions in the region include a $US79 million loan to Gulf Energy in Thailand for solar and battery storage projects. The EFA has also joined with Japanese, British and Canadian companies to deliver a $US350 million finance facility for the Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank for infrastructure projects in that country. In July EFA announced a $100 million loan to Toll Holdings to expand logistics infrastructure across Southeast and South Asia. The Australian-founded Toll was acquired by Japan Post a decade ago.

Senator Farrell also gave an update on EFA’s involvement in a facility operated by Singapore’s central bank. The $2 billion Southeast Asia Investment Financing Facility (SEAIFF) made a $75 million equity investment into the Financing Asia Transition Partnership (FAST-P) late last year. The EFA has now made an additional $100 million loan into FAST-P – but this finance was delivered on EFA’s Commercial Account, not the SEAIFF.

“The EFA’s commercial account assesses opportunities independent of government, on commercial terms. When a transaction cannot be financed on our Commercial Account, or requires equity, we can consider providing support on the SEAIFF, in consultation with Government,” an EFA spokesman said.

Fast-P has not yet doled out any funds to any ventures in its target sector, the clean energy transition. EFA hopes its involvement will encourage other Australian investors and exporters to wade in as well.

Deals like the FAST-P investment and the loan to Gulf Energy will “generate returns and demonstrate to the market that there are good opportunities to invest in the region”, EFA’s chief investment officer institutional, Amanda Copping said at the Summit.

Macquarie Group already has runs on the board. The financial giant has demonstrated it can generate returns in Asia with the risk premium investors expect from this part of the world, as compared to Europe and the US. Asia CEO Verena Lim is responsible for a fund that in the last four years has made 14 divestments and returned “several billions of capital back to investors with a return that reflects that risk premium,” she told the Summit.

Macquarie has not rushed it. Its first investment in Indonesia, in telco infrastructure, came years after it started looking. “It took us 5-6 years to map out the market and work out who we would partner with,” Lim said.

Australia’s super funds are still waiting.  As Aware Super chief investment officer and Asia Summit panel speaker Damian Graham put it, “great demographics don’t always lead to great returns”. The sector is still working on “aligning conviction with good quality information”. Asia “will be a fantastic story”, Graham said. But we are not there yet – or at least our super funds aren’t.

No ivory is without cracks. No human being is perfect. With all humility, I apologise. In carrying out my mandate, duties, and responsibilities, there may have been shortcomings and mistakes.
- Indonesia’s departing finance minister Sri Mulyani, Jakarta, September 9.

We have to work according to the thinking of the Gen Z generation. What this group is demanding is the end of corruption, good governance and economic equality.
- Nepal’s new interim prime minister, former Supreme Court chief justice Sushila Karki, Kathmandu, September 14. She took the top job for six months after reaching an agreement with protest leaders after massive demonstrations that left 72 people dead.

Our foreign policy isn’t determined in Washington or Beijing or Wellington, for that matter. Our foreign policy is determined around the cabinet table in Canberra.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, UN Headquarters, New York, September 21.

We have heard a lot about the problems posed by aging populations. Many European nations, Japan and now China face a massive challenge as the ratio of working-age people to elderly goes down. In these countries, the opportunity to realise the demographic dividend of accelerated growth offered when the working age population grows faster than the dependent population has come and gone. But what happens when nations crowded with young adults can’t generate the jobs they seek?

The Financial Times pondered this question in a Big Read that looked at Gen Z on the streets. From Kathmandu, journalist Andres Schipani observed Nepal is “just the latest country to have seen the ruling elite toppled by frustrated young people”. He cited the recent demonstrations in Indonesia, the toppling of Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022, and the student-led protests in Bangladesh that forced out Sheikh Hasina last year. “The common factors in all these insurrections are ageing and entrenched political classes in Asian developing countries where the younger generation sees the spoils of growth reverting back to elites and not improving their own lives,” Schipani wrote.

Two weeks later, demonstrations in Timor Leste reinforced this interpretation of events when the country’s parliament was forced to scrap plans to buy MPs cars. The ABC reported police fired tear gas on protestors – mostly university students – opposed to the $US4.2 million plan to buy a Toyota Prado SUV for the country’s 65 MPs. The country has struggled to diversify its economy after gaining independence from Indonesia in 2002 and remains heavily dependant on oil revenues.

October 1-9: China’s ‘Golden Week’. The eight-day public holiday that spans the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day will boost consumer spending as hundreds of millions loosen their wallets. The railway networks are expected to log 209 million passenger trips over the 12 days starting September 29, up from 177 million last year.

October 4: Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party will elect a new leader following the resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. His departure comes after the LDP and its coalition party Komeito lost their majority in the upper house in July. The LDP had already ceded control of the lower house in October last year, but it still has the largest number of seats overall so the new LDP President is expected to be voted the new PM. 

October 26-28: ASEAN and East Asia Summit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.   

October 31-November 1: APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea. US President Donald Trump has agreed to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the event.

Test your Asia smarts in this month’s quick quiz and then scroll down for more information.

(1) There are 18 members of the Pacific Island Forum, including New Caledonia, New Zealand and French Polynesia. Indonesia is one of 21 countries, including the US and China, that are Forum Dialogue Partners.

(2) India was the first non-Arab State to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1974 and was one of the first to recognise the Palestinian State in 1988.The Philippines recognised Palestinian statehood on 4 September 1989. Thailand recognised Palestine in 2012. In July Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said his nation will recognise Palestine once it has a competent government.  

(3) President Lee met President Trump in Washington on Monday August 25. President Marcos met with his US counterpart in the White House on July 22. The Japanese leader last met with President Trump on the sidelines of the G7 in Alberta, Canada in June. The US President has not met Prime Minister Anwar in person this year.

(4) Timor-Leste will become the 11^th member of ASEAN at the regional grouping’s next Summit in October. Papua New Guinea wants to join the ASEAN club, but there is no timeline for this to happen. The country shares a land border with ASEAN’s largest member Indonesia, which would like to see PNG admitted, but other members have reservations.

(5) There are 195 flags flying outside the UN each week day; those of the 193 member nations and the two observer states, the Holy See and the State of Palestine.

Briefing MONTHLY is a public update with news and original analysis on Asia and Australia-Asia relations. As Australia debates its future in Asia, and the Australian media footprint in Asia continues to shrink, it is an opportune time to offer Australians at the forefront of Australia’s engagement with Asia a professionally edited, succinct and authoritative curation of the most relevant content on Asia and Australia-Asia relations. Focused on business, geopolitics, education and culture, Briefing MONTHLY is distinctly Australian and internationalist, highlighting trends, deals, visits, stories and events in our region that matter.

Partner with us to help Briefing MONTHLY grow. For more information please contact [email protected].