Australia’s New Old-School Defense – ISN
June 5th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=100960
Australia’s new defense white paper does not rule out the possibility of major war among states, and the main focus is on China
Australia’s recently published defense white paper, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, addresses Australia’s strategic priorities for the coming two decades, mainly reacting to the rapid military expansion of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
While this in itself is not that surprising, what marks the paper is its focus on old-school great power politics and its recognition that conflict on this level is a possibility – albeit an unlikely one at this juncture. (more…)
Aung San Suu Kyi: Swimming Against the Tide – ISN
May 15th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=100283
Opposition hero Aung San Suu Kyi is faces five years in jail ahead of elections after visitor hands Burma’s junta a timely gift.
Kafka could not have scripted it better. Burma’s iconic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was due for release from almost two decades of on-off detention on 27 May. With elections scheduled for next year, her National League for Democracy would – in the unlikely event of free and fair voting – win handsomely, just as it did in 1990. That result landed Aung San her incarceration, once the military junta overturned it. Would the junta have the nerve to do the same again next year? (more…)
Indonesia: An Unlikely Success? – ISN
April 22nd, 2009
Indonesia could become a beacon for those who believe in Muslim democracies, but as the incumbent seems set to win elections, an economic downturn could provide a sting in the tail.
By Simon Roughneen in Dili for ISN Security Watch
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=99233
As Indonesia reeled from the Asian financial crisis in 1998-1999 riots, insurrection and deadly communal fighting thundered across the land. Ethnic Chinese were massacred in pogroms in Jakarta, while religious, regional and ethnic violence reared in Aceh, Sulawesi and East Timor, with the latter seceding from Jakarta’s rule. (more…)
True Colors: Thailand on the Brink – ISN
April 15th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=98969
Street protests again turn violent in Bangkok, threatening to undermine the already fragile Thai state.
Thaksin supporters outside the house of General Prem Tinsulanonda in Bangkok on 8 April 2009 (Photo: Reuters)
By Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch
In scenes redolent of 1930s Europe, for over a year now color-coded political protesters have fought street battles and blockaded government buildings, amid a battle for control of Thailand’s government. The upheaval – and the official reaction – took a turn for the worse over the past week, when the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) was driven from the streets by the Thai army following a violent confrontation in Bangkok.
Earlier, the UDD had breached a security cordon at an Asian regional summit due to be held at Pattaya, forcing the Japanese and Chinese prime ministers to flee by helicopter, and attacking Thai Prime Minister Abihisit Vejajjiva’s car.
The incident marks dangerous portent for the near future in Thailand, which was unable to guarantee security for visiting dignitaries and officials. This is a huge international embarrassment for a country that prides itself on openness to visitors, a growing trade-oriented economy and relative stability compared with neighbors such as Indonesia and the Philippines.
And all during the Thai Buddhist Songkran New Year celebrations. Traditionally, Thais splash water on each other to mark the event, but this time, the water cannon was order of the day, as the security forces sought to clear protesters off the streets of Bangkok. (more…)
In Malaysia, nothing succeeds like succession – ISN
March 31st, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=98384
A former minister says ‘democracy is looking bleak’ as scandal-tarnished prime minister takes office, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
'Selamat Jalan'. Abdullah Badawi leaves office (Saeed Khan, AFP/Getty)
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” He was giving directions to his house in New Jersey, but Yogi Berra’s famous malapropism gets right at what is happening in Malaysia these days.
With newly crowned United Malays National Organization (UMNO) leader Najib Razak set to become prime minister any day now, it seems his party, which dominates the omnipresent Barisan National (BN) ruling coalition, is trying to take both roads.
Speakers at the handover conference, including Razak and outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, made ominous warnings to the delegates about the party’s future: “We must come to our senses,” Badawi warned, blaming corruption and complacency for the party’s flagging fortunes.
The outgoing prime minister added that UMNO would perish if it continued to silence critics, jail opponents and discriminate against minority Chinese and Indians. (Malays, who are defined as Muslims by law, make up around 60 percent of the population, with Chinese and Indians comprising most of the remainder.)
After 1,000 Malaysians – mainly ethnic Chinese – were murdered in 1969 race riots, the politically-dominant Malays instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP), intended as an affirmative-action system to boost Malays economic status, by giving them preferential access to education, business grants and the like. (more…)
Northern Ireland: Fighting A Time Warp – ISN
March 14th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=97650
The murder of two UK soldiers and a Catholic policeman Northern Ireland by two IRA splinter groups threatens to set the country back decades, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
When Irish Taoiseach (or Prime Minister) Brian Cowen joins political leaders from Northern Ireland in Washington for next week’s St Patrick’s Day jamboree, President Barack Obama will hopefully show them more courtesy than he did UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week. (more…)
Southeast Asia: B-words, P-words & C-words – ISN
March 3rd, 2009
Despite refreshingly tough talk amid the global downturn, Burma remains a black mark against an ASEAN bloc maneuvering between Washington and Beijing.
By Simon Roughneen in Singapore for ISN Security Watch
Long-slated as a flaccid talking shop, ASEAN began to muster up some multilateral mojo during 2008, when it played a key role in persuading the Burma dictatorship to let international aid agencies into the Irrawaddy delta region, destroyed by Cyclone Nargis.
That belated beseeching of the jungle junta has been spun – incongruously – as proof the hitherto gummy bear bloc has teeth. ASEAN member-states have previously shied from confrontation, with state sovereignty and face-saving prioritized over alleviating human suffering and tough talk over disagreements and challenges. (more…)
Sovereign Wealth Funds: Hedging Bets – ISN
February 26th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=96985
Having bet heavily on now ailing or defunct western financial institutions in 2007-2008, sovereign wealth funds are facing a period of retrenchment.
SWFs by country/size (Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute)
By Diana Ionescu and Simon Roughneen for ISN Security Watch
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are taking stock of the global downturn, which has not only eaten into their revenue streams, but left the funds with registered losses of 20-30 percent on average, measured against their 2007 asset portfolio.
SWFs recent rise to prominence has sparked some public debate, and quite a bit of pundit and policymaker navel-gazing, with Cassandras lifting their heads to shout their fears of Gulf and Asian covert takeovers of key western banks and even utilities. Now the debate has capsized – with western governments seeking revenues to underwrite pump-priming economic interventions at home.
However, the SWFs are in turn more wary of getting involved in financial systems reeling from often unquantifiable toxic debts.
To illustrate, China Investment Corp (CIC) paid US$3 billion for a 10 percent stake in Blackstone Group just ahead of its initial public offering in June 2007. Blackstone’s shares are now around one-seventh of the value when CIC originally paid up. (more…)
Southeast Asia: U-Turns, downturns & shadow dances -ISN
January 28th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=95866
Questions about freedom of speech and democracy loom over an economically vulnerable region.
Traditional shadow puppets, or wayang kulits, perform in a shadow theater in Java. Image by © Charles & Josette Lenars/CORBIS
By Simon Roughneen in Sydney for ISN Security Watch
As Thailand’s international airports were besieged by protesters in December, the country’s recent lurch into civil discord was spun as a disastrous regression by a hitherto vibrant and competitive democracy.
Apropos, in December, former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice described the coup as a “U-turn” for Southeast Asia.
Maybe more of a full circle than a U-turn, however. Without even mentioning the ongoing tragedy that is Burma/Myanmar, Southeast Asia’s democratic progress has been piecemeal and fluctuating. During King Bhumibol’s long reign, Thailand has undergone 18 coups. As such, what has taken place in recent months is nothing new.
While new Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva took power formally after enough MPs from the ousted government switched sides, it appears that the misnamed People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters were facilitated in bringing the country to a standstill by Thailand’s military. PAD favors a partially nominated parliament in order to prevent a repeat of the self-styled “pro-poor” administration under Thaksin Shinawatra, whose admittedly corrupt government brought unprecedented gains to marginalized Thais.
Freedom of speech is under duress from state forces, even in formal democracies. Thailand retains possibly the world’s harshest lese-majeste laws, with an Australian novelist and left-wing academic jailed in recent days for allegedly criticising the monarchy’s role in recent political upheavals. (more…)
Obama wrestles the ox – ISN
January 19th, 2009
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=95464
Amid economic flux, Obama faces challenges and opportunities across Asia, with the possibility of revolutionary change in China, but state failure in Pakistan.
Chinese year of the Ox (ISN)
By Simon Roughneen in Singapore for ISN Security Watch
Just days after Barack Obama assumes office in the US, 26 January will mark the Year of the Ox in Asia. As the global downturn pushes dozens of countries into recession, Asia, like much of the world, faces a deeply uncertain 2009.
When the subprime crisis morphed into full-scale Wall Street meltdown and pan-European banking panic during in the fall of 2008, longer-term predictions about a rebalancing of global geopolitics – with the rise in relative importance of India and China in particular, and Asia in general – were taken as imminent by some.
Longer-term, this rebalancing seems inevitable. However, Obama will have to contend with a rising Asia, managing relationships with an array of economies, as well as contribute to defusing security threats on the Indian subcontinent, in Afghanistan, and with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. (more…)
