Author: Michel May, Waseda University
As bright as the future may seem for China, crucial reforms are needed in order to maintain its current rate of economic growth and prevent the Chinese economy from falling over like a house of cards.
Some of the most imminent challenges that China faces in the near future include environmental pollution, income inequality, uneven development between rural and coastal areas, and a risky financial system. The central government has already identified these problems, and reforms are now in place — including those contained within China’s twelfth five-year plan announced in March 2011. Read more…
Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum
China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, is set to make a hugely important visit to the US next week, prior to succeeding President Hu Jintao as China’s next president later this year.
The visit will set the stage for interaction between the next generation of Chinese leaders and American political leadership and help to shape how the most important bilateral relationship in the world will be managed over the medium-term future. Read more…
Author: Yasmi Adriansyah, ANU
Indonesians have reason to be both optimistic and pessimistic coming into 2012. The question is: which outlook is more likely to prevail?
In his New Year message, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) requested that all Indonesians work to maintain order. Read more…
Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU
On 14 January, Taiwan’s incumbent president, Ma Ying-jeou, won a second term in office, obtaining 51.6 per cent of the popular vote while Tsai Ing-wen, his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent, managed 45.6 per cent.
Ma’s party, the Kuomintang (KMT), thus retained control of the Legislative Yuan, securing 64 of the 113 seats. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW Canberra
In selecting his first cabinet and party executive line-up in September 2011, the most important motivation for Japan’s Prime Minister Noda was intra-party harmony.
His ministers were largely selected to appease political strongman Ichiro Ozawa, who maintains a well-deserved reputation for either running parties or destroying them. Read more…
Author: Vidya S. Sharma, Melbourne
The political fortune of Pakistani cricketing superstar-turned-politician Imran Khan is on the rise.
Since he founded his Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or Movement for Justice (MJP), in 1996, Khan has remained a fringe player. Read more…
Author: Doan Hong Quang, World Bank
Consensus-based policy making is a salient feature of Vietnam, where important decisions are collectively made.
Consensus is needed not only for the formulation of a reform vision but also for the elaboration and implementation of this vision. Read more…
Author: Robert Ayson, Victoria University of Wellington
Visitors to New Zealand during the uneventful general election in November 2011, which returned John Key’s National Party to office, would be forgiven for thinking things were running smoothly.
This was helped by the fact that a few weeks earlier, New Zealanders gained the greatest prize they could wish for. This was not a Nobel Prize for their leading scientists; nor a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, which Mr Key’s government wants to secure; nor the competent hosting of the Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland, which came and went without much trace. Read more…
Author: Vikas Kumar, Azim Premji University
Recent developments in Myanmar have generated considerable optimism about the country’s long-impending democratisation.
But will democracy foster ethnic reconciliation, essential for Myanmar’s domestic stability? Read more…
Author: Jacqueline Menager, ANU
Contradiction is a mainstay in Burmese life. In downtown Rangoon, a giant new Toshiba TV screen hangs over the street, while rickety cars and taxis from the 1970s whir past below. Crumbling colonial-era buildings are mixed with shiny new Chinese-funded monoliths.
But nowhere is the country’s inherent contradiction more apparent than in the developments of 2011. Primarily, the new parliament’s formation must be juxtaposed against resumed violence in border regions. And we must decide which of the two dynamics to take as the year’s prevailing reality. Read more…
Author: Prajak Kongkirati, ANU
On the surface the general election of 3 July 2011 may look like any other Thai election, but both its timing and context set it apart as historically significant.
Incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called for elections on 11 March 2011, even though his government had until the year’s end to finish its term. Read more…
Author: Somchai Jitsuchon, TDRI
That Pheu Thai (PT) Party won Thailand’s general election was hardly a surprise, even to its principal political opponent, the Democrat Party.
What was surprising was the overwhelming majority it won. Read more…
Author: Shaun Breslin, University of Warwick and RIIA
The idea that there is a coherent and distinct ‘Chinese model’ of political economy has gained attention in recent years — especially as financial crisis elsewhere has undermined confidence in the (neo)liberal models often associated with Western interests and objectives.
To be sure, there are many in China and elsewhere who argue the crisis has actually highlighted key defects in China’s development model.
Read more…
Author: John Warhurst, ANU
The debate as to whether Australia should become a republic or remain a constitutional monarchy is at a paradoxical stage.
A majority of leading Australians in the private and public sectors support the change from a constitutional monarchy under the British crown to an Australian head of state. But many citizens remain undecided, after rejecting this constitutional change by 55 per cent to 45 per cent at a national referendum in 1999. Read more…
Author: Renu Kohli, ICRIER
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) hands-off exchange rate strategy has resulted in a missed opportunity to curtail inflation.
Intervention in the foreign exchange market would have helped counter inflation; but the RBI has failed to grasp such a dexterous policy tool. Read more…
