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Soon after his 2014 election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a new policy to promote regional connectivity. India is now one of four powers that has responded to China's BRI. Six years on, Delhi's cross-border connectivity policy needs a reset.

Multilateral Matters is the quarterly publication of the Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS), analyzing the most recent developments regarding multilateralism by our team. It covers articles on relevant economic and political issues as well as programmed and latest publications from the research center. The objective of the newsletter is to promote the research being done by our centre, raising awareness of the many events that we hold on a regular basis.

Looking back at 2018, a wave of powerful political developments opened a new page in Armenia's civil rights movement. Eventually culminating in a change of government, this transition of power in Armenia became known as the "Velvet Revolution," mainly due to the lack of violence and peaceful handover of power. As the early months of 2018 consolidated the success of the Armenian Velvet Revolution, the country was also elevated in the eyes of the world, gaining international attention and interest. Currently, Armenia is passing through a hectic period of domestic reforms, which are penetrating into the economic, social, legal and political layers of the system. The fact that the Velvet Revolution was a bottom-up, non-violent civil resistance movement offers cautious optimism for a successful and deeper democratization process, shepherded and supported by Armenian civil society. Meanwhile, it is due to the new government's genuine commitment to the democratization process that suggests the further success of the Velvet Revolution.

As the US-China trade war intensifies, there have been numerous reports and analyses suggesting that Vietnam is the greatest beneficiary of this fallout, with companies based in China either diversifying or shifting their production operations out of the country and into Vietnam. According to Japanese investment bank Nomura, Vietnam's economy has been boosted by almost 8 per cent because of the shift in production resulting from the US-China trade war. 1 A report published by the Financial Times (UK) separately showed that Vietnam's exports to the United States saw the biggest increase among 40 key exporting countries to the United States in the first four months of 2019, with US$20.7 billion of export turnover to the American market – an increase of nearly 40 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.2 At the G20 summit, US President Donald Trump called Vietnam "almost the single worst abuser" of trade policy, emphasising Hanoi's emergence as the big winner so far in this trade war. The fact of the matter is that the US-China trade war has not only opened up economic opportunities for Vietnam, but also highlighted the constraints that the country has to grapple with. These constraints limit Vietnam's ability to fully capitalise on the opportunities that come by.

ASEAN FOCUS is a bimonthly publication providing concise analyses and perspectives on ASEAN matters.

ASEAN FOCUS is a bimonthly publication providing concise analyses and perspectives on ASEAN matters.

In a span of a month, Malaysia first ratified the Rome Statute and then withdrew from the International Criminal Court that the treaty governs. This episode reveals how the Malaysian royalty and the opposition were able to pressure the Pakatan Harapan government, as well as the challenges the government continues to face one year into its tenure.

Access to finance remains to be a major challenge for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines despite the implementation by government of several policies and projects to address it. In 2016, MSMEs account for 99.6 percent of the total 911,768 establishments and produced 4.9 million jobs or 63.3 percent of total jobs in the Philippines. Within this sector, 90 percent are micro enterprises—those with assets of up to PHP 3 million; 9.5 percent are small enterprises—those with assets valued from PHP 3,000,001 to PHP 15 million; and 0.4 percent are medium enterprises—those with assets valued from PHP 15,000,001 to PHP 100 million. In other economies in Southeast Asia as well as in the rest of developing Asia, MSMEs also comprise the majority of registered firms, an average of 96 percent in 2015.