Today Trends

Author: Andrew L Oros, Washington College The trend of Asian populations growing and moving to cities — providing cheap labour, demand for modern infrastructure and high economic growth — has reached a turning point with China now joining countries with shrinking populations in the region. Still, the ageing and shrinking countries of Northeast Asia are likely to continue to be Asia’s major powers for the foreseeable future, but will link in new ways to Asia’s still-growing states.   Asia’s dominant economies — China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan — are together experiencing unprecedented rapid population ageing. It was only in 1999 that any major country had ever reached a median age above 40, with Japan at 40.4. Japan continued to have the highest median age in the world in 2021 at 48.4, and its neighbours are close behind. In contrast, the majority of the world’s population lives in poor countries with young median ages — including several Indo-Pacific states such as India, Ind

Author: Silvia Menegazzi, LUISS On 7 December 2022, Egypt ratified its participation in the New Development Bank (NDB) — a multilateral development bank (MDB) established in 2015 under the direct guidance of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). Egypt followed after the admission of Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay in 2021. The NDB aims to ‘ mobilise resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS countries and other emerging economies and developing countries’. The bank has partnerships with fellow multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank and key national and global institutions including the China Construction Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Since its foundation, the NDB has signed 35 Memorandums of Understanding with various institutions, such as national development banks, enterprises and academia. As of 2015, the NDB has approved 84 pr

Author: Jeremy Youde, University of Minnesota Duluth The devastating 2022 floods in Pakistan highlight the interplay between natural disasters, climate change and population health. Months after the flooding ended, as many as 8 million people still live near contaminated flood waters, prolonging their exposure to potential pathogens. Between June and October 2022, more than 10 per cent of the country flooded. Over 1700 people died, nearly 12,000 were injured and more than 2 million were left homeless. The damages and economic losses caused by the floods total more than US$30 billion. A combination of factors created the conditions for such extreme flooding in Pakistan. The British Red Cross estimates that the 2022 summer monsoon rainfall was three times higher than the 30-year average. Increased surface temperatures led to extreme heat waves , which caused Pakistan’s glaciers to melt earlier and in a larger volume. Deforestation has removed the plant life that stabilises soil

Author: Bich Tran, University of Antwerp Vietnam and Indonesia agreed to delimit their respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) on 22 December 2022 after 12 years of negotiations. The agreement provides hope for the strengthening of the region’s commitment to international maritime norms and principles encapsulated in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The two countries previously had longstanding and overlapping EEZ claims in the waters surrounding the Natuna islands in the South China Sea. After agreeing on the Indonesia–Vietnam  continental shelf boundary  in 2003, Vietnam wanted to use the same boundary for their EEZ delimitation. But Indonesia wanted the median line between Natuna island and Con Dao island — about 178 nautical miles from the Indonesian island of Kalimantan and less than 89 kilometres from Vietnam’s coastline respectively. Vietnam contended that the use of the island–island median line was unfair. The two sides finally agreed o

Author: Fan Yang, Deakin University China has prioritised the implementation of digital technology in the health sector in recent years. In November 2022, China proposed the digitisation of national health information by 2025 as part of its five-year National Health Informatisation Plan . Globally, digitisation has been used as a solution to issues such as labour shortages, healthcare privatisation and health record management. The Australian government, for example, has supported the development of a range of digital initiatives for enhancing the cost-effectiveness of the public health sector. As digitisation is being led by tech companies, the public health sector is becoming more complicated by the intersection of public and commercial interests. There is growing awareness of issues related to data governance and bioethics in digital health. Concerns have emerged about the potential for digital technologies to exacerbate health inequality and the influence that corporations

Authors: Rumela Sen, Columbia University and Naresh Gyawali, Kathmandu TS Eliot warned in his 1925 poem that the world ends ‘not with a bang but a whimper’. Almost a century later, this seems to be an apt description of Nepal’s struggle to maintain hope amid disillusionment and despair. The first decade of the 21st century saw Nepal emerge from a decade-long civil war, abolish the monarchy and sign a historic peace deal that brought the Maoist guerrillas into the peaceful electoral process. Popular enthusiasm ran high for democracy. Nepal backpedalled on these tremendous gains in the second decade. Intense political and ethnic feuds brewed over the drafting of the constitution. It took eight years, a massive earthquake and an ensuing humanitarian crisis to finally expedite its adoption. Still, Nepal’s political instability remains in the third decade. As Nepal was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic amid limited testing and a tenuous health infrastructure, the parliament was dis

Author: Yan Liang, Willamette University It was a bleak year for the Chinese economy in 2022. Strict zero-COVID measures and regulatory crackdowns on the real estate sector and digital platforms slowed economic growth significantly. The annual real GDP growth of 3 per cent was significantly lower than the official target of 5.5 per cent. Chinese President Xi Jinping has indicated that the economy is the top priority in 2023. Economic recovery in China hinges on reviving consumer demand. Exports and investment were the principal driving forces of demand in 2022, but they are unlikely to continue on the same trajectory. Export growth contracted in November 2022 due to falling external demand and a weaker global economy as a result of high inflation and monetary tightening. US efforts to ‘ friend-shore ’ or ‘near-shore’ manufacturing could further undermine China’s export production. External demand is projected to continue falling in 2023 and private investment growth has been dampen

Author: Yusaku Yoshikawa, JIN Corporation In 2019, the Japanese government introduced the Work Style Reform Law which sought to increase diversity in the workplace and improve working conditions. But reform has not been sufficiently discussed in one of the industries that needs it the most — agriculture. The agriculture industry in Japan has suffered a dramatic decrease in labour , with the number of farmers decreasing by 50,000 per year. The majority of them are small-scale farmers with side jobs, who are also ageing at an advanced stage. It has been a challenge for the sector to attract young farmers. In 2021, 52,300 farmers joined but nearly two-thirds of them were over 50 years old. The turnover rate of agricultural workers is also higher than in other sectors. The most common reasons for changing jobs are discontentment with working conditions, long labour hours and low incomes. Despite some efforts being made to improve the working conditions of agricultural workers, suc

Author: Chansambath Bong, Asian Vision Institute Taking the baton for the third time as the ASEAN chair in 2022, Cambodia’s diplomatic tenacity was tested by the war in Ukraine, Myanmar’s political upheaval, cross-Strait tensions, COVID-19 and US–China competition. Despite this precarity, Cambodia steered ASEAN through geopolitically choppy waters. The outlook for 2023 promises to be similarly exigent for Cambodia’s foreign policy. Sitting at the heart of Southeast Asia, Cambodia will continue to hedge between external powers to protect its sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign and security policy. Two countries that matter immensely in this formula are Japan and China due to their roles in Cambodia’s socioeconomic development . Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Prak Sokhonn wrapped up his first foreign trip of 2023 to Japan, where he met Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and discussed ways to deepen bilateral ties, which were upgraded to a comprehensive strategic

Authors: Adam Simpson, University of South Australia, Thomas Kean, International Crisis Group, and Susan Park, University of Sydney In the two years since the military coup in February 2021, Myanmar’s natural environment has deteriorated as the embryonic legal and regulatory regime that was emerging during the decade of political and economic reforms has unravelled. Gold mining has significantly increased, particularly in Kachin and Shan States , causing extensive social and environmental problems. The military has issued new mining permits while informal or illegal mining has also proliferated, causing deforestation, erosion and flooding while also damaging fisheries by polluting waterways with toxic sediment. Kachin State is also emerging as a key site for highly polluting rare earths mining . While the illicit export of rare earth elements across the border to China has been occurring for years, export activity has boomed since the coup. Attempts by previous governments to regu