Today Trends

Author: Jiao Wang, University of Melbourne On 16 March 2023, Beijing released an official plan to reform Party and state institutions. This document lays out plans to address deficiencies in the ability of the Chinese government’s own institutions to lead the nation’s development. Part of the 2023 plan is to reform and restructure the financial regulatory framework. According to the plan, a central commission for finance will be established as the Central Committee’s own decision-making institution — designing, coordinating and overseeing the country’s efforts to achieve financial stability and development. It will replace the existing State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee. This is Beijing’s way of enhancing its authority over a financial sector that has become a source of turbulence in recent years. A new national regulatory body, the National Bureau of Financial Regulation, will also be set up. It will oversee consumer rights protection and regulation of t

Author: Editorial Board, ANU Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is nothing if not a political survivor. A player in every political regime in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge, his 38 years in office exceeds Soeharto’s 30-year official tenure as the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Mahathir Mohamad’s cumulative 24 years as the Prime Minister of Malaysia, or Ferdinand Marcos’ 21 years as the President of the Philippines. The special case of Brunei’s absolute monarch aside, Hun Sen represents the last Southeast Asian incarnation of a type of long-ruling strongman once common in the region, but now mostly found only in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. It goes without saying that this longevity can’t be credited to Hun Sen’s knack for retail politics. After he consolidated his rule in the 1990s, Cambodia settled into a form of so-called ‘competitive authoritarianism’ dominated by his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). After a close call in the disputed 2013 elections, Hun Sen’s to

Author: David Hutt, Central European Institute of Asian Studies At a mass rally on 1 July 2023, with campaigning underway for Cambodia’s upcoming general election, Prime Minister Hun Sen symbolically handed over the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) flag to his eldest son — Hun Manet — who is expected to soon succeed him as premier. While Norodom Sihanouk is remembered as Cambodia’s ‘King Father’, Hun Sen will presumably want to go down as something akin to the ‘Prime Minister Father’. As Hun Sen’s myth-making goes, he was the person who finally brought peace and stability to Cambodia, ending the country’s three-decade civil war in the 1990s. And he brought a measure of prosperity to Cambodia — a famine state when he took over. Cambodia’s GDP per capita rose from US$247 in 1993 to US$1625 in 2021. He has also defended Cambodian sovereignty. The degree to which Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985, is solely responsible for these developments is debatable. But Cambodia h

Author: Abul Rizvi, Canberra After 12 months in office, a massive blowout in net migration and two major reviews, the Anthony Albanese government will, in 2023 and 2024, embark on a significant overhaul of immigration policies that will bring down Australia’s net migration from its current peak. From 1 July 2023, the government has undone a range of COVID-19 policy settings. These were implemented by former prime minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal–National coalition government due to pressure from business lobby groups desperate for labour. The most significant was former immigration minister Alex Hawke’s decision to provide international students with unlimited work rights . That decision drove a record surge in offshore student visa applications in 2022 and to date in 2023. From 1 July 2023, international students’ work rights are restricted to 48 hours per fortnight from a previous 40 hours per fortnight. This will impact over 610,000 students currently in Australia. The financi

Author: Fabio Figiaconi, Vrije Universiteit Brussel The Italian Navy has announced that preparations are underway to send the flagship aircraft carrier Cavour , along with its battle group, to the Indo-Pacific between late 2023 and early 2024. In April 2023 another Italian ship, the Morosini , began a multi-month deployment to the region. These developments are part of what has been branded as the ‘ Italian Pivot ’ to the Indo-Pacific. While Italy’s traditional geostrategic area of reference is the ‘ enlarged Mediterranean ’, the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific from an economic and geopolitical standpoint has piqued Rome’s interest. Italy does not yet possess an articulated Indo-Pacific strategy. But a document released by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 2022 underscores how Rome’s involvement in the Indo-Pacific theatre is already longstanding. Present and future initiatives are meant to be multilateral, inclusive and substantially in line with the Eu

Author: Kazuhiko Togo, University of Shizuoka Russian paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, which started at night on 23 June from Rostov-on-Don as a ‘March of Justice’ towards Moscow, lasted only one day. But some observers claim that it may signal the beginning of the end of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship, which has now lasted 23 years. But evidence does not support this view. Russia’s Federal Security Service immediately found out about the mutiny, and at 10am on 24 June, Putin made one of his strongest statements ever — rebuking the plotters of the mutiny as ‘traitors’. Partly through the intervention of Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus, Prigozhin halted his march in the evening of 24 June and was sent to Belarus. Kremlin sources explained that Putin made two vital decisions on that day. He decided that ‘Prigozhin has to be neutralised away from the war in Ukraine’, but also that a ‘civil war where Russians kill each other must absolutely b

Author: Seth Hays, APAC GATES In 2023, the EU Parliament debated the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, China publicly commented on draft generative AI rules and US industry leaders — including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — called for robust AI regulation. The European Union, China and the United States may set the benchmarks for AI governance but Asia’s middle powers could shape a regulatory framework that benefits them. Asia’s middle powers should coordinate their efforts through an AI governance centre of excellence. Given the speed of technological change in AI and the strategic significance of the digital economy to intra-regional trade in Asia, the exchange of regulatory best practices and challenges among countries in the region is critical to formulating beneficial AI regulations. Multilateral agreements — including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — include provisions on e-commerce, data

Author: Ernils Larsson, Uppsala University Marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights have become widely discussed in Japan following the G7 summit in Hiroshima and a recent decision in favour of same-sex marriage by the Nagoya District Court. The movement for marriage equality is experiencing popular support not seen before, with numbers in favour of reform in popular polls far surpassing those against, especially with younger generations . Support for marriage equality is widespread among Japan’s political parties, with the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) being the only major party against reform. While the party sponsored a recent ‘LGBT understanding promotion bill’, by the time it was passed by both houses the text had been diluted to the point where members of Japan’s LGBTQ+ community considered it close to meaningless. Among the factors contributing to the LDP’s reluctance to openly support the country’s LGBTQ+ community is the reliance of the LDP on suppor

Author: Walter James, Temple University The G7 Meeting of Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers held in Sapporo, Japan in April 2023 showcased agreements expanding renewable energy. There were commitments to increase offshore wind capacity by 150 gigawatts and solar energy by more than one terawatt by 2030. But some provisions were watered down because of disagreements between Japan — the 2023 G7 chair — and other members. Japan’s recalcitrant stance towards deep decarbonisation reveals a schism between its approach to the energy transition and that of the West. The schism has implications for decarbonisation in the developing economies of Asia. Japan’s stance on the clean energy transition risks locking Asia into fossil fuels for decades to come. A gulf between Japan and other G7 members emerged on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power and road sectors. The United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany proposed 2030 as an explicit timeline for phasing out unabated c