Author: Joel Rathus, ANU
The emergence of the G20 as the premier body for international economic coordination represents a major challenge for Japan. It was not immediately obvious that Japan would embrace this new forum which calls into question and has officially usurped the role of Japan’s preferred body for economic cooperation, the G8.
Rather, Japan is attempting to keep the G20 as the de facto junior partner to the G8. Japan’s chief but not sole concern is that the G20 will place China in a position which is not just formally equal in terms of status to that of Japan but actually equal in terms of influence too. Read more…
Author: Jim Taylor, University of Adelaide
Red Shirts around Thailand are saying they won’t be duped any longer by the Democrat Party and its alliance, as they were at the previous two elections.
Even with General Prem Tinsulanonda’s political machinations and his overt support for the Democrat Party, people may rise up across the country, if the right conditions are in place and meaningful reform is not carried out. Read more…
Author: Mathew Joseph, ICRIER
Food inflation is reaching new heights in India, petrol prices have seen a hike for the second time in a month and the crisis is now threatening to arrest the country’s growth momentum. But to put the blame on crop failure alone, as the government is trying to do, is erroneous.
Food inflation crossed the 20 per cent mark in December 2009 and remained at that level for several months. Read more…
Author: Maria Monica Wihardja, CSIS, Indonesia
The Asian Development Bank, along with Indonesian ministries, including the Trade Ministry and the National Development Planning Ministry, this month held a symposium on ‘Asia’s Development Agenda in Regional and International Fora’ and a consultation meeting on ‘Asia 2050.’ These themes are timely; despite its growth miracles, Asia continues to face development challenges, and its stake in the global economic recovery is high.
Asia’s success is not pre-ordained, according to Shigeo Katsu, a senior associate of the Centennial Group, at the Asia 2050 meeting. He suggests that the worst possible scenario for Asia by 2050 would see India and China become trapped as middle-income countries with poor institutions and governance, and growing inequality. Read more…
Author: Sam Bateman, UOW and NTU
Sea piracy is a major maritime security problem for East Asia. Regional countries are major shipper and shipping countries and some, especially Indonesia and the Philippines, are leading providers of international seafarers.
Northeast Asian economies, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are heavily dependent upon seaborne trade through waters at risk of pirate attack off Somalia and in Southeast Asia. Japan is situated at the forefront of moves to counter piracy in these areas, while China and South Korea have also deployed warships to waters off Somalia. Read more…
Author: Artyom Lukin, Far Eastern National University, Vladivostock
Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States went relatively smoothly and was touted by both sides as a success, despite yielding no breakthroughs.
The relations between the two powers, often billed as ‘the most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century’, remain quite difficult, even precarious. Read more…
Author: Ryo Sahashi, Kanagawa University
From territorial disputes to non-traditional security concerns, 2010 will be remembered as the pivotal year for East Asian security.
The sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeongdo reminded us of the deeply-rooted risks lying in the Peninsula. But, additionally, it has created momentum for bilateral and trilateral cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the US. Read more…
Author: Nirvikar Singh, University of California
As global water demand grows over the next two decades, India will be one of the most severely affected countries. Its potential supply shortfall could be 50 per cent of possible demand two decades from now (2030 Water Resources Group, 2009), greater than any other populous country.
The reasons behind this severe probable shortfall include rapid economic growth, relatively low per capita water availability, and an underdeveloped infrastructure, both physical and institutional. Read more…
Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University
During the Cold War the Soviet media informed its readers every year that the economic conditions of the capitalist West had deteriorated even further. If the Soviet media was to be believed the capitalist world was in continuous decline since at least 1900, so by the 1980s it was purported to have living standards similar to the Dark Ages. This was not the case, of course.
Unfortunately, when I read recent reports about the economic situation in North Korea I cannot help but think about my Soviet experience. Read more…
Author: Charles W. Freeman III, CSIS
As was to be expected, President Hu Jintao encountered increasing ambivalence among mainstream policy circles about the US relationship with China on his recent US state visit.
This is worth examination: US policy toward China has been remarkably consistent over the past 40 years. While originally conceived in a Cold War context, the fundamental thrust of that policy is to engage China and build equities for Beijing in a US-led international order in such a way as to (1) reduce Beijing’s interests in disrupting or challenging that order; and (2) encourage Beijing to contribute positively to the maintenance and strengthening of that order. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU
The precariousness of Pakistan’s future political and economic stability was highlighted no more starkly to outside observers than by the assassination of Punjab’s Governor, Salman Taseer, by his own bodyguard, offended by Taseer’s public support for review and amendment of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws. It wasn’t the assassination itself so much, vile and treacherous though that would have seemed to many, but the outpouring of support for the assassin and the hundreds of legal volunteers that offered defence of him that shocked the rest of the world so deeply.
Sometimes we feel such dismay and anger at the expressions and acts of intolerance and hatred that confront us daily, so graphically in these sharp-focused digital days, in societies all around the world that we may be forgiven for despairing that such acts will render the prospects of peaceful or prosperous life impossible for the vast majority of humankind. Pakistan is a nation that currently induces such despair. Read more…
Authors: Shuja Nawaz, Atlantic Council, and Mohsin Khan, Peterson Institute
The recent assassination of Governor Salman Taseer of Punjab in Pakistan has highlighted the ongoing and often violent battle for the future of the country.
Taseer had spoken out in favour of reviewing and amending the nation’s Blasphemy Law to make it less susceptible to abuse, especially against minorities, and to reduce punishments by eliminating the death penalty. Read more…
Author: John D. Conroy, ANU
Towards the end of 2010, the PNG government approved a National Informal Economy Policy. The rationale for this policy was presented in a recent Pacific Economic Bulletin.
It was adopted amid concern that the benefits of increasing economic activity in the resource-extraction sector — the ‘commanding heights’ of the PNG economy — will not flow efficiently or equitably to the grassroots population. Read more…
Author: Andrew Herd, ANU
In November last year the High Court of Australia handed down a decision that has potentially major ramifications for the future of Australia’s asylum seeker policy. The High Court unanimously decided that two Sri Lankan asylum seekers who had arrived on Christmas Island claiming asylum had been denied procedural fairness after being processed as offshore arrivals.
Although Christmas Island is part of Australia, and has been since 1958, the Howard government excised it and other islands across the north of Australia from the migration zone in the early 2000s. Under the Howard government, those who reached these islands were transported to Nauru or Manus Island for processing under the so-called ‘Pacific Solution.’ Read more…
Author: Peter M. Beck, East West Center, Honolulu
As the world holds its breath to learn if the Egyptian people’s amazing struggle for democracy ends with a breakthrough or a bloodbath, President Hosni Mubarak would do well to consider the South Korea option. Ultimately, Korea’s dictators and democracy were both winners.
Like Egyptians, South Koreans endured decades of American-backed dictatorship. In the spring of 1987, Korea’s military government held sham elections not unlike the ones held in Egypt last November. Read more…
