Today Trends

Authors: Alice Dawkins and Xiaoyi Kong, Lydekker Australia’s recent attempts to regulate tech giants has done little for the long-term prospects of its national innovation ecosystem. As South Korea shows, there are other ways to achieve these goals. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission wants to put the genie of bullish big tech companies back into the bottle. In early 2021, the first of many regulatory efforts culminated in eyebrow-raising negotiation tactics from defensive industry incumbents. Australians seem to have accepted that most consumer-facing technology are inevitably the terrain of global giants, almost all US-based. Australia started the 21st century with an enviable position globally in science and innovation, but has accepted its tech importer status over the last two decades. It does not have to be this way. Australia only has to look as far as South Korea, where leading search, navigation, e-commerce and messaging providers are largely all locally ...

Author: Scott Simon, University of Ottawa On 7 May, Taiwan’s Constitutional Court made a ruling in Interpretation 803 about laws pertaining to hunting by Indigenous people. Activists had hoped the ruling would be a decisive legal case like Australia’s Mabo Case , which overturned the doctrine of terra nullius , or Canada’s Delgamuukw Case , which upheld Aboriginal title. Taiwan’s Indigenous activists expected the Court to uphold the 2005 Indigenous Peoples Basic Law , which promises Indigenous self-government and autonomy, supports traditional biological knowledge, permits hunting for cultural or subsistence purposes and respects Indigenous peoples’ choices about resource utilisation. The case began in 2013, when Bunun hunter Tama Talum went hunting to obtain meat for his 92-year-old mother, bringing her back one serow and one muntjac. Arrested and convicted for illegal weapons possession and poaching, he was sentenced to prison for three and a half years. His appeal in 2015 was ...

Author: Sigit S Nugroho and Keoni Indrabayu Marzuki, RSIS On 24 April 2021, Indonesian authorities declared that the Nanggala -402, an Indonesian Navy submarine that went missing while conducting a naval exercise on 21 April, had sunk. Despite an intensive search and rescue operation involving naval assets from Singapore, Australia, India, Malaysia and the United States, the search team was unable to locate the submarine. Its wreckage was later discovered on 25 April at a depth of more than 800 metres below sea level. All 53 personnel on board, including the Navy’s submarine unit commander, perished. This tragedy is arguably the Indonesian Navy’s worst peacetime loss, and raises important questions for Indonesia’s defence policymakers. A thorough and independent investigation to identify its primary cause is urgently needed, as a form of accountability to the perished crew and to prevent a similar tragedy from happening in the future. The Nanggala had previous issues with faulty ...

Author: Yasuo Takao, Curtin University The Japanese government’s approval of a plan to discharge treated radioactive water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean has unilaterally reversed a decade of nuclear safety reform in Japan. Although providing information to foreign embassies in Tokyo and online social networks, the Japanese government has failed to allay domestic concerns and rising international pressure. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) proposes to use an Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to remove all the radionuclides from the wastewater except tritium — which poses the lowest health risk. It will then dilute the tritium concentration until levels are safe enough for release into the Pacific Ocean. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and TEPCO, with the backing of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other experts, claim that this ‘dilution and discharge option’ is technically feasible and safe. Sinc...

Author: Melissa Conley Tyler, INDSR One of US President Joe Biden’s aims is to show that ‘ America is back ’ by rebuilding relationships with allies and partners. But he faced an uphill battle in Taiwan where, unlike other parts of Asia , the majority supported Donald Trump. Following the November 2020 election, a quarter of the Taiwanese population were pessimistic about Biden and ‘pro-Trump mania’ continued with rallies , ‘stop the steal’ campaigns and conspiracy theories around Hunter Biden . Based on his historical record and campaign, there was widespread concern that Biden would be soft on China. Only 6 per cent of voters for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party thought the US–Taiwan relationship would improve under Biden. But interviews with Taiwanese insiders show that Biden is winning them over. Biden made a good impression from day one, inviting Taiwan’s diplomatic representative to his inauguration . The visit to Taiwan by former US senator Chris Dodd — know...

Authors: Alexander R Arifianto, RSIS and Yohanes Sulaiman, Jenderal Achmad Yani University Since gaining independence in 1945, Indonesia has subscribed to the principle of a ‘free and active’ ( bebas aktif) foreign policy, which emphasises neutrality and non-alignment. Despite this approach to great power rivalry, Indonesia has enjoyed good bilateral relations with the United States from the time Washington formally recognised Indonesia’s independence in 1949. The US–Indonesia relationship weathered several periods of tension. The first was during the 1950s. Fearing that the Communist Party would take over Indonesia without any action from the Indonesian government, the United States decided to support the PRRI/Permesta rebellion of 1958. The relationship deteriorated further after a major diplomatic spat between Indonesia and Malaya over the status of Sabah and Sarawak. The spat led to military confrontation between 1963 and 1966. It was only after Suharto deposed President Su...

Author: Editorial Board, ANU The Tokyo Olympic Games are set to kick off in less than one month. The decision to proceed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic is steeped in controversy. But Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have demonstrated a stubborn resolve, despite public opposition in Japan and pandemic-associated risks. Controversy is nothing new in Tokyo’s history with the Olympics. In 1936, against the backdrop of the Mukden Incident in 1931 and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations a few years earlier, Tokyo unexpectedly became the first non-Western city to be awarded the right to host the 1940 Games. But after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan’s military government announced that it was forfeiting its role as host. In 1964, Tokyo got a second chance. This tremendously successful Games saw Japan celebrate its return as a member of good standing in the international community after its de...

Author: Ben Ascione, Waseda University After a one-year postponement, the Tokyo Olympic Games are set to begin on 23 July. The Japanese government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have emphasised that they will hold a ‘safe and secure’ Games. But the Japanese medical community and public question the wisdom of this decision as Japan and much of the world still battle the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of COVID-19 in Japan has worsened since the IOC decided in March 2020 to postpone the Games by 12 months. Back then Japan had just over 1000 COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths. As of late June 2021, Japan has nearly 800,000 cases and over 14,500 deaths. Nearly 40 per cent of Japan’s infections and one-third of its deaths came in January and May during its third and fourth waves. Hospitals in cities like Tokyo and Osaka were pushed beyond capacity as the number of people requiring inpatient treatment for COVID-19 spiked. Leading medical experts , Japanese doctors unions , 60...

Author: Corey Wallace, Kanagawa University Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics have cast a shadow over Japan’s COVID-19 response . Critics — including a former Japanese prime minister — questioned whether the government’s lacklustre early response to the outbreak and its ‘ risky ’ cluster-based strategy were a product of political considerations concerning the Games . A former health minister even asked whether under testing and ageing Japan’s more than 90,000 annual pneumonia deaths conveniently obscured the true impact of COVID-19. The Abe administration publicly denied such claims — with some justification. Sentinel reporting suggests that Japan’s early adoption of mask wearing, social distancing and ‘self-restraint’ ( jishuku ) reduced viral transmission in 2020, including for influenza . Japan’s low PCR test positivity rate for COVID-19 sat at around the World Health Organization’s 5 per cent indicator of sufficient testing throughout 2020 and wa...