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Begin New Search Political Geography Middle East Publishing Institution Lowy Institute for International Policy

11. Energy insecurity: China, India and Middle East oil

Author:
Anthony Bubalo and Mark P Thirlwell
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The rapid expansion of their economies has seen China and India become voracious consumers of energy. Oil, much of it imported from the Middle East, has become an increasingly important part of their energy needs. Both governments are conscious that this growing reliance on one of the world's most unstable regions leaves their countries vulnerable to supply disruptions and/or price fluctuations. As a result, energy security has become a key foreign policy objective and, particularly in the case of China, is shaping their approach to the Middle East. This issues brief provides an overview of current energy demand trends and raises for discussion some of the potential longer term strategic implications of this growing dependence on Mid-East oil.
Topic:
Energy Policy
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, India, and Asia

12. The 'Khmer Islam' community in Cambodia and its foreign patrons

Author:
Milton Osborne
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Apart from brief references to the arrest in May 2003 of suspected members of Jemaah Islamiyah in Phnom Penh and the later revelation that Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin) had spent six months in Cambodia before being captured in Thailand, the international media have paid little attention to Cambodia's 'indigenous' Islamic community, the Khmer Islam (Islamic Cambodians), numbering around 500,000 in a total population of 12-13 million. Generally described as 'Chams', the majority are the descendants of immigrants from the once-powerful kingdom of Champa located on the central coast of modern Vietnam. But Cambodia's Islamic community also includes the descendants of Malay settlers, perhaps 15% of the total. Members of this latter group are known as Chvea. For the most part living apart from the ethnic Cambodian population both during colonial times (1863-1953) and following independence, the Khmer Islam community played little part in politics. During the Pol Pot regime (1975-79) members of the community suffered grievously, with an estimated 90,000 dying from executions, overwork and hunger and disease out of a total of250,000. Following the fall of Pol Pot the position of the Cambodian Islamic community has attracted the interest of co-religionists in the Middle East and Southeast Asia who have contributed substantial funds for the construction of mosques, the support of Koranic schools and financing of participation in the haj. At the same time there has been a substantial growth in the interchange between members of the Khmer Islam community and fellow Muslims in southem Thailand and Malaysia. Overall, the community remains generally poor and disadvantaged and so potentially unlnerable to external influences.
Topic:
International Relations and Religion
Political Geography:
Middle East, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia

13. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza: a role for Australia?

Author:
Anthony Bubalo
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Despite its defeat in a Likud Party referendum on 2 May, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from settlements and military positions in the Gaza Strip remains very much on the Israeli national agenda. For Sharon a withdrawal would help shorten Israel's security lines, block any alternate diplomatic initiatives being forced on Israel and win important policy changes in US positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed despite Palestinian suspicions about the proposal, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza could, if executed in an orderly and coordinated fashion, ultimately help reinvigorate a moribund peace process. There remain, however, a number of questions surrounding the plan, not least of which is whom Israel would coordinate any pull-out with, and who or what would fill any political and security vacuum left by Israel's withdrawal. Solving both sets of problems is likely to require some form of international intervention. If this occurs Australia would probably find itself on a short list of countries who would both be capable of contributing to such a sensitive and complex mission and whose membership of such a force would be acceptable to Israel, the Palestinians and the United States.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Australia/Pacific