Briefing MONTHLY #99 | August 2026

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Policy debates can be so far removed from the everyday. This month we’ve heard endless commentary over migration numbers, from Minister Tony Burke’s aborted update to One Nation’s policy muddle.

This is serious stuff. But every now and then, it’s good to note what’s going on at street level and, dear reader, I am here to tell you there are great things happening with food. In NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH this month, we look at the migration of Hong Kong’s much-loved cha chaan tengs.

There are plenty of other examples of Asian imports, ranging from the nation-wide availability of Vietnamese bánh mì to growing numbers of onigiri specialists like the Otogo quick serve restaurants in Sydney’s CBD and Ultimo. Otogo founder Mitsuhiro Yashio, who migrated to Australia after training in Japan, reasons that if you offer people the same price, volume and speed of service as McDonalds, many will choose a healthier option. Amen to that.

Housing, jobs, social cohesion: all of these are important considerations but sometimes when we talk about migration and multiculturalism, we should talk about lunch. And breakfast, and dinner.

Also this month, we look at the increasingly edgy relationship between the US and South Korea, China’s economy, Indonesia’s multi-billion-dollar investment in Australian protein, and the evolution of the principles driving our foreign policy.

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Emma Connors
Briefing MONTHLY editor

Effectively a mobile strike force, the USS George Washington has been a fixture in Asia Pacific waters, a highly visual signal of US firepower that often traversed the contested waters of the South China Sea. This month, however, it headed through Singapore Strait and the Strait of Malacca toward the Indian Ocean on its journey to the Arabian Sea, where it will relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. With no end in sight to the US-Iran conflict, American military is stretched.  As Defence Security Asia put it, ‘Middle Eastern combat requirements are temporarily consuming the Indo-Pacific’s foremost naval aviation asset’.

The exit of the nuclear-powered carrier from the region came as Washington continued to pressure South Korea.  The treaty-level alliance between the two countries is becoming more transactional. The defence layer dates back to the ceasefire declared in the Korean war on July 27,1953. With no peace agreement reached, the Peninsula remains technically at war, and Seoul relies on US military assistance to deter Pyongyang. Indeed, wartime operation control of South Korean forces remains with the US. Washington now wants Seoul to spend more and do more. This month’s call by US President Donald Trump to ‘substantially reduce’ joint military exercises was the latest signal of that evolution. Modern Diplomacy concluded the alliance might survive Trump, but it may emerge ‘fundamentally different’ from the alliance Washington and Seoul have built over the past seven decades.

A scaled-back version of Ulchi Freedom Shield, one of the two main annual exercises conducted by the two countries each year, began on Monday, August 13. While US President Donald Trump hinted at overtures with North Korea, the following Friday, Pyongyang launched 10 short-range ballistic missiles after dismissing Washington’s approaches. ‘The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced,’ said Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jung Un. ‘If the US calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer.’

It’s worth noting Seoul and Washington differ in their estimates of North Korea fire power. President Trump said North Korea has 57 ‘very powerful nuclear weapons’ South Korea’s Defence Minister Ahn Gyu‑back told lawmakers the estimate is between 80 and 120.

Amid these recalibrations, public opinion toward the world’s two superpowers is changing.