Today Trends

Author: John Harley Breen, Dublin The United Kingdom is in discussions to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), with UK trade officials stating that rapid progress on talks could see London acceding to the 11-member trade bloc in 2022. The United Kingdom’s decision to join CPTPP falls under the UK government’s ‘ tilt ’ towards the Indo-Pacific — a cornerstone of the ‘Global Britain’ agenda. The Global Britain agenda seeks to rebalance UK foreign policy and to pursue independent trade opportunities shaped by national security concerns, while offsetting the economic costs of Brexit. London believes that CPTPP membership will address some of these concerns while offering economic benefits. Acceding to the CPTPP demonstrates London’s deepening engagement and support for like-minded governments in the Indo-Pacific through a bloc committed to trade liberalisation. Since departing from the European Union, the United Kingdom has underta

Author: Min-Hua Chiang, NUS East Asia Institute Taiwan’s economy has outshined most others in the last two years. While the COVID-19 recession was hard most everywhere else, Taiwan’s economy enjoyed a moderate expansion of 3.1 per cent in 2020 and likely expanded by 6.1 per cent in 2021 — the highest growth recorded since the global financial crisis rebound 12 years ago. Taiwan’s economic expansion is an outlier amid the pandemic. Vigorous exports explain Taiwan’s outstanding economic performance. Pandemic travel restrictions triggered greater global demand for information and communications technology products. With the gradual return to normal in 2021, Taiwan’s exports of other manufactured products such as metals, plastics, chemicals and textiles all grew significantly. China remained Taiwan’s largest export destination last year, but the growth of exports to the United States (30 per cent), Europe (37 per cent) and Southeast Asian countries (32 per cent) outpaced export growth

Author: Sujeev Shakya, Beed Management 2021 was a year of political upheaval and continued global disconnect for Nepal, but it was also a year of economic recovery. Nepal saw the fury of COVID-19 in May 2021 when it reeled under a shortage of oxygen and medical supplies, queues at cremation centres and thousands of lost lives. By the middle of December 2021 nearly 12,000 people had died of COVID-19, more than had died as a result of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015. When 2021 began, it was unclear whether caretaker Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli — who had just come to office after parliament was dissolved in December 2020 — would last. In February 2021, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict that had let to Oli’s prime ministership. In May, the President Bidya Devi Bhandari again ordered the house to be dissolved. Parliamentarians who opposed this move took their case to the Supreme Court which overturned the President’s decision, warned the President not to meddl

Author: Michael Rose, ANU In May 2022, Timor-Leste will mark 20 years of renewed independence. No one could say that the past two decades have been smooth for Asia’s youngest nation, and 2021 was no exception. Over the past 12 months, its people have faced fire , flood and pestilence. But while there is cause for sadness looking back at 2021, there is also room for pride. A year that brought more than its share of problems to Timor-Leste was also one in which its people showed their determination to overcome them. Even in a year defined by disaster the April floods stand out. Over Easter torrential rains associated with Cyclone Seroja swept across the region, leaving at least 45 dead, thousands homeless, and two things very clear. One is that although floods are nothing new in Dili, the urbanisation, erosion, population growth and climate change that exacerbate the threat they pose is becoming more pronounced. Prior governments could have heeded calls to mitigate this through

Author: Xunchao Zhang, University of Wisconsin-Madison If you access any Chinese state media or pro-state social media published in late 2021, you will be bombarded with attacks on US President Joe Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’ and relentless insistence that China is the world’s largest democracy. Beyond the fear of geopolitical containment, it is puzzling why China cared about Biden’s democracy summit. It is not initially clear why China would insist on being a democracy when claiming democratic status risks falling into a rhetorical trap. While most Western media dismisses China’s claim to democracy as simply a cynical propaganda ploy, some ‘ democratisation optimists ’ in the West have suggested that China’s reaction to Biden’s summit shows China’s commitment to some vague notion of eventual democratisation. These observations miss the point. China’s reaction to the summit — clinging onto the concept of democracy — largely reflects a lack of a conceptual alternative, geopolit

Author: Soe Nandar Linn, Yangon Myanmar’s transition from military government to a civilian-led democracy that began in 2011 has failed. The country’s administration and economy have been paralysed since February 2021 when the military junta seized power from the civilian government. The junta stated that widespread electoral fraud in the November 2020 general election justified the coup, although election observers found the election was free and fair. The pro-democracy party, National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of elected seats in the national level bicameral parliament and subnational parliaments. Myanmar had already experienced institutionalised corruption, multiple ethnic armed conflicts, poverty, an unstable regulatory environment, mismanagement of extractive industries and human rights abuses under the military dictatorship for 50 years before 2011. Since 2011, the country’s economy and living standards improved through a range of political, econo

Author: Arrizal Jaknanihan, Gadjah Mada University With its strongman leader and pro-China outlook, analysts remain doubtful about Cambodia’s pledge to ‘strengthen ASEAN centrality’ under its chairmanship in 2022. The prospect of reinforcing an ASEAN-centred region, as envisioned by the ASEAN’s Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, is also being questioned. It is true that the Outlook has various shortcomings, including a lack of actionable policy . It is also premised on the flawed assumption that existing ASEAN-led platforms are sufficient to stabilise tensions in the Indo-Pacific. And as geopolitical feuds continue to intensify, the document remains vague and includes no detailed framework to link the different Indo-Pacific visions of ASEAN’s partners. The five-page document does not include a roadmap for implementation, making it little more than an aspirational statement . Still, much of the criticism of the Outlook is based on incorrect assumptions about how ASEAN operates. As vete

Author: Editorial Board, ANU When, how, and why do domestic politics shape Southeast Asian states’ relationships with China? This is almost a trick question — not only the diversity of Southeast Asian political systems, but the multiplicity of interests that bear upon foreign policy within individual states makes mockery of the idea of ‘domestic politics’ as a single, coherent force. A more manageable question might be: to what extent does public opinion set the terms on which Southeast Asian governments work with China? If only it were easy to know exactly what Southeast Asian publics think about China. And then to know what influences their thinking. In Japan or Australia where the public is regularly interrogated on these questions, public opinion is hardly unfiltered from state and other interests. In Southeast Asia, the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s State of Southeast Asia survey is an invaluable snapshot of elite opinion, but isn’t necessarily an accurate barometer of th

Author: Richard Javad Heydarian, Manila Over the past five years, bilateral relations between China and the Philippines, a United States treaty ally, have undergone a tremendous transformation. In the words of a top Chinese diplomat , what we have witnessed, especially under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, is a ‘golden age’ in bilateral relations. But in his twilight months in office ahead of the May 2022 presidential elections, the Filipino president — who is constitutionally confined to a single six-year term in office — has adopted a dramatically divergent tone on China. During the recent China-ASEAN Summit, Duterte abhorred purported harassment of Philippine resupply missions in the South China Sea by Chinese vessels. Amid the latest flare up in maritime tensions over the Second Thomas Shoal, Duterte openly warned , ‘this does not speak well of the relations between our nations and our partnership’ and called on the Philippines to utilise legal tools to maintain peace in t

Author: Gregory Poling, CSIS The situation in the South China Sea continues to deteriorate — military tensions are rising, Southeast Asian states are losing space to exercise their rights, fisheries are sliding closer to collapse and China is undermining its goal of regional and global leadership. Facing regular coercion, China’s neighbours are growing increasingly disillusioned about its long-term intentions and, alongside international partners, are strengthening their objections to Beijing’s claims. China significantly increased its coast guard patrols and military exercises in disputed waters from 2020, and dangerous harassment of Southeast Asian oil and gas operations by Chinese law enforcement and retaliatory seabed surveys became the new normal. Then in January 2021, Beijing passed a law strengthening the China Coast Guard’s (CCG) authority to enforce maritime claims, by force if necessary. The law may be ambiguous, but its tough language and vast scope raised anxieties.