Author: Ernest Z. Bower, CSIS
For anyone watching Malaysian politics over the last five years, the message is clear – people want their political system to move on to represent a modern Malaysia and more sophisticated electorate. The old ways and anachronistic political structures, as well as some of the personalities that have become inextricably identified with those structures, are being encouraged by fed-up voters to make way for new politics.
This week has seen the start of the second trial of former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat Party (PKR), Anwar Ibrahim. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW@ADFA
On 30th December last year, the Hatoyama government launched its ‘New Growth Strategy’ (Basic Policies). It was produced by the National Policy Unit, or NPU (Kokka Senryaku Shitsu) as an interim strategy with the final version to be compiled by June this year.
Prime Minister Hatoyama admitted in early December that the NPU was ‘dysfunctional’ because of a shortage of staff, but it nevertheless produced the ‘New Growth Strategy’ in only two weeks. Read more…
Author: Peter Van Ness, ANU
In East Asia, ‘the times they are a-changing,’ and the pundits are full of speculation about what the new ‘architecture’ for the region will look like. After the Democratic Party of Japan’s historic electoral defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party in August, the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has the opportunity to take the country in new directions, but it is unclear whether it will have the vision and determination to prevail. America, the world’s only superpower, is in serious trouble, and meanwhile China is on the rise. The focus is on how relations between United States and China will work out, and a discussion of new forms of multilateralism. Often ignored in these discussions, however, is the key role of Japan. Japan is too rich and too powerful to be left out. Whatever the future of East Asia, Japan will have to be a founding participant. In my view, Japan is an indispensable power in the region.
The Japanese are worried about the rise of China, but they worry even more about how to manage their relations with their post-World War II security guarantor, the U.S. Read more…
Author: Mohamed Ariff, MIER and University of Malaya
Economic openness, through international trade and foreign investment, has brought much prosperity and progress to Malaysia, transforming it from a traditional primary producer into a modern industrialising economy. The price Malaysia has had to pay has been exposure to international ups and downs, transmitted through trade and financial channels, the impact of which can be minimised by appropriate macroeconomic policy responses.
The country has arrived at a new crossroads in the wake of the global economic crisis, prompting the authorities to seek a new growth model. Read more…
Author: Geremie R. Barmé, ANU
As the contretemps involving Google’s conflicted presence in the People’s Republic of China unfolds, it is timely to recall one anniversary that passed by all but unnoticed in 2009: that of a covert Cold War-era clash between John Foster Dulles and Mao Zedong in 1959. This overlooked anniversary is worth recalling now, since it is of particular relevance to contextualising the remarks—and the Chinese response to those remarks—that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently made regarding Internet freedom and U.S. policy in Washington on 21 January 2010 (see here for full text of Clinton’s speech).
In the speech, Clinton reminds her audience of comments that President Barack Obama made on Internet freedom during the webcast section of his November ‘town hall meeting’ in Shanghai. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
The Australia-Japan International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament released its initial report on December 15, 2009. While the reaction, in Australia at least, has been subdued, The Australian newspaper has run two substantive reactions – both somewhat disdainful. One contended that that the report consisted of little more than naive noble sentiments thrown at intractable realities while the other insisted that the report dangerously discounts essential security functions performed by a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent.
Both reactions have merit, but neither engages the real issue. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
Before entering politics — the family business — Hatoyama Yukio was a fledging academic, a Stanford-educated engineer. His background as an academic is often on display when he delivers set piece addresses. He has a penchant for abstraction, for drawing upon broad principles and shying away from the nitty gritty details of policy. This tendency is perhaps common to all leaders, but Hatoyama seems to take particular interest in how to frame policies intellectually (see his persistent use of his pet term yuai last year).
Remarkably, Hatoyama only used the term yuai once in his latest address, his policy speech for the new ordinary session of the Japanese Diet. Read more…
Author: Stuart Harris, ANU
The still highly complex relationship between China and Taiwan can be seen in the reactions of both countries following the Haiti earthquake. One Taiwanese and eight Chinese lives were claimed by the disaster, and both countries have given substantial aid (initially $4.2 million and $5 million respectively) as well as sent teams to assist with relief efforts. But so far there have been few, if any, signs of Chinese pressure to change Haiti’s diplomatic links with Taiwan.
This may be an attempt by China to live up to its role as a global power – after all, four of the Chinese casualties were members of the UN peacekeeping force. Read more…
Author: Ken Heydon, LSE
As the Doha Round flounders, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have become the centrepiece of trade diplomacy. The annual average number of PTA notifications since the WTO was established has been 20, compared with an annual average of less than three, during the four and a half decades of the GATT.
Such agreements, which now account for over half of world trade, share a number of characteristics. Read more…
Author: Ben Hillman
After the deadly riots that engulfed Tibetan areas in 2008, one might have expected that the Chinese government’s first high-level conference on Tibet policy since 2001 would generate some new ideas. Instead, China’s leadership offered more of the same. Blaming outside forces for ethnic unrest, the leadership promised to ‘fast track Tibet’s development’ to achieve ‘lasting stability’—Communist Party speak for ‘throw more money at the problem’ and ‘come down hard on unrest.’
Over the last decade the Chinese government has invested massive sums in Tibetan areas—US$46 billion in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) alone, where just under half of China’s ethnic Tibetans live. Read more…
Last week Japan Airlines went into receivership. JAL is the stately matron of Asian flag carriers so while its struggles with high costs and overheads were familiar news to the heavily business-class patrons of the old dear, it came as a shock to most of us who had loyally racked up JAL Mileage Bank points over the years – even if they did evaporate if you did not use them rather quickly!
JAL may be a leader of sorts – a prototypical example of what’s wrong with the major established international airlines today – but what’s wrong with JAL is not untypical with the challenges facing a bunch of the majors all over the world. British Airways is in trouble and other European majors have already succumbed. As Christopher Findlay explains in this week’s lead, the international system of air transport regulation might have tried to suppress the highly competitive forces that have been shaping huge adjustments in the business, but that was a loser’s game. Read more…
