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: Mark Carroll, Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce
The muddy floodwaters in Thailand having receded, one of the truths to emerge will be just how important the Thai economy is in both regional and global terms.
Thailand is a manufacturing powerhouse. Countless small and large factories churn out a broad range of finished consumer goods for export, as well as component products vital to global supply chains. Read more…
Author: Choong Yong Ahn, Chung-Ang University
Since the fourth quarter of 2010, the global economy has faced serious uncertainty and a turbulent outlook.
Both the US and Europe have gloomy growth prospects due to a lack of credible medium-term plans for debt reduction in the US and the sovereign debt crisis in southern Europe. Read more…
Author: Kimly Ngoun, ANU
The conflict between Cambodia and Thailand has made headlines around the world over the past few years.
The latest dispute was precipitated by Thailand’s failed effort to block Cambodia from unilaterally nominating Preah Vihear Temple — an ancient Khmer temple located within a disputed border area — as a World Heritage site.
Read more…
Authors: John Delury and Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University
Kim Jong-il’s sudden death spurred yet another round of fevered speculation over the DPRK’s imminent demise.
Some analysts gave the North Korean state only a matter of months to live, and renewed calls on Beijing to engage in ‘contingency planning’ with Washington and Seoul to pre-empt catastrophe when collapse finally comes. Read more…
Author: Jennifer Chen, Georgetown University
Taiwan will hold its fifth direct presidential election on 14 January. But many Taiwanese will go to the ballot box without understanding the specific differences between the two leading presidential candidates.
In Taiwan, people tend to vote for the colour — blue for the Kuomintang (KMT) and green for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — rather than the strengths and qualities associated with each candidate. 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: John West, MrGlobalization
How does a Cold War organisation like the OECD respond to the end of the Cold War? Does it try to hang on to its former identity? Or does it embrace the new ‘age of globalisation’?
The end of the Cold War in 1989 represented a victory of values and ideology — the triumph of pluralistic democracy, respect for human rights and the market economy — for the OECD and its member countries. Read more…
Author: Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto
The euro crisis hijacked the G20 Summit in Cannes — even by late December Europe’s leaders still had not fully diagnosed the problem, but without an accurate diagnosis how can there be an effective prescription?
This missing link accentuates two challenges that Asian integration will face in 2012: the consolidation of regional architecture and the need for deeper structural adjustments. 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: Gavin Jones, ANU
Thailand went through its fertility transition more quickly than almost any other country, with the average number of children born to the average woman declining from about six to two in little more than two decades, between about 1970 and 1990.
Fertility rates have since gone still lower, now standing at around 30 per cent below replacement level (the level that would lead to long-run population stability). This does not mean that Thailand’s population has stopped increasing. Read more…
Author: Purnendra Jain, Adelaide University and Tokyo University
A Japanese prefectural governor does not usually resign to run for office as city mayor — with significantly less authority, power and prestige.
But these are not usual times in Osaka and flamboyant, media-savvy, highly popular Osaka Governor, Toru Hashimoto, has taken this unusual move. Read more…
Authors: Malcolm Bosworth and Greg Cutbush, ANU Enterprise
Like all good fairytales, APEC was formed ‘once upon a time’ to promote trade and investment in the Asia Pacific.
Members like Australia, New Zealand and Japan fought hard to ensure it would not become a myopic trade bloc that discriminated against and sought to divert economic activity away from others. Read more…
Author: Joseph Bosco, Washington DC
In his new book, Ezra Vogel gives Deng Xiaoping all the credit he rightly deserves for transforming China’s economic system and bringing higher living standards to hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
But he fails to note that Deng could never have succeeded without the willing and generous support from the West, especially from the US. Read more…
Author: Vikas Kumar, Bangalore
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, commentators on East Asia Forum have highlighted the moderate character of Southeast Asian Islam.
Bahrawi argues that contested interpretations of Islam are democratising Islam in Southeast Asia — but similar contests seem to be ineffective in countries like Pakistan. And van Bruinessen argues that large, resilient Islamic organisations are stabilising Indonesian democracy — but comparable organisations are failing to play such a role in other Islamic countries. So are local factors playing a bigger role in Southeast Asia than is usually suspected? Read more…
