SINGAPORE — The world seems like a calmer place after the G-20 meeting in Bali in mid-November.

JAKARTA — Bad news travels. Good news does not. When Afghanistan’s government collapsed recently, the whole world watched.

SINGAPORE — Death tolls don’t lie. The most striking disparity in COVID-19 fatalities to date is between East Asian countries, where the total number of deaths per million inhabitants is consistently below ten, and much of the West, where the numbers are in the hundreds.

DAVOS — No Western liberal would disagree that Donald Trump’s election was a disaster for American society, while that of Emmanuel Macron was a triumph for French society.

SINGAPORE — The world’s most important bilateral relationship, between the United States and China, is also one of its most inscrutable.

We live in troubled times, with pessimism clouding even the most prosperous parts of the planet.Many are convinced that the international order is falling apart.

Can 10 countries with different cultures, traditions, languages, political systems and levels of economic development act in concert to expand their collective potential? That is the question with which the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been wrestling for de