Today Trends

Authors: Shada Islam, College of Europe, Dr Yeo Lay Hwee, EU Centre, Singapore and Bart Gaens, Finnish Institute of International Relations The 13th Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) on 25–26 November 2021 confirmed ASEM’s ambitions to become the ‘institutional home of connectivity’. The summit issued an outcome document on ‘the way forward on ASEM connectivity’, describing connectivity as the basis for regional economic integration by facilitating the exchange of information and improving the planning of activities. The summit chair’s statement emphasised quality infrastructure investment in line with agreed international standards. These are good initiatives, but they are not enough to ensure that global connectivity actors work together transparently to fund much-needed infrastructure projects in Asia and Europe — rather than fund damaging and wasteful geopolitical rivalries. As a next step, ASEM should kickstart work on a multilateral framework for connectivity, accompanied by a conne

Author: Kevin Rutigliano, Thammasat University On 26 October 2021, US President Joe Biden attended a virtual US–ASEAN summit meeting — the first time in four years that the United States engaged at the highest level with the 10-member bloc. During his speech, Biden said that Washington is committed to the central role ASEAN has in the Indo-Pacific region. He also announced plans to provide US$102 million in spending to expand the US–ASEAN strategic partnership, which will go toward economic, climate, health and education programs. The United States had not met with ASEAN at the presidential level since former president Donald Trump attended a meeting in Manila in 2017. Biden’s attendance and remarks at the summit signal that Southeast Asia is a higher priority for the current administration. But Biden will need to deepen trade ties with the region to convince ASEAN countries that the US commitment to Southeast Asia will be long-lasting. Washington has continued to build up secur

Authors: Emirza Adi Syailendra, ANU and Leonard C Sebastian, RSIS International relations of the Asia Pacific since the end of the Cold War and the era of US unipolar domination has focussed primarily on cooperation. This has anesthetised policymakers to the reality of a new era of intensifying political, economic and military competition, which necessitates strategies like AUKUS. Yet when it comes to Indonesia signalling regarding AUKUS, the ‘Indonesian way’ involves subtlety. The critical question is whether Australia and the United States can read and interpret Indonesia’s tacit signals and the threshold of its support. Given that Indonesia is a democracy, views among its elite vary , ranging from anxiety to ambivalence. Still the absence of any outward expression of hostility signals an implicit consensus: AUKUS does not impinge on Indonesia’s wider regional interests. The five-point statement on AUKUS issued by Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry did not criticise the creation of

Author: Baogang He, Deakin University On 9 December 2021, US President Joe Biden will hold the ‘Summit for Democracy’, where he will likely repeat his emphasis on a battle between democracies and autocracies in the 21st century. Biden’s aim to promote democratic renewal around the world is admirable, and China needs to tame its authoritarian tendencies. But framing US–China strategic competition in terms of democracy versus autocracy is a poor strategy. This false ideological dichotomy inhibits sophisticated analysis. It will intensify global polarisation and fuel geopolitical competition at a time when international solidarity is desperately needed to deal with climate change and other shared challenges. There is some truth to Biden’s categorisation. The conflict between Washington and Beijing is about political values and the ways in which society, economy, trade and technology are managed. Yet Washington and Beijing share many similarities. Both have implemented top-down develo

Author: Peter McCawley, ANU The use of coal needs to be cut back as quickly as possible. Activists in developed countries are calling for new regulatory controls over global finance to curb investments in coal. They have pointed to recent announcements by China promising to end the financing of foreign coal-fired power plants as a clear sign that coal is on the way out in Asia. But another view — heard mostly in large developing countries — is that the transition to a green world will take time. Voices from these countries who oppose environmental controls on international finance argue that, for the time being, coal is still needed to promote development . These different views reflect different priorities. Proponents of the ‘end coal now’ lobby are concerned with the global climate change agenda. Their main concern is not with current living standards, but with living standards after 2040. Proponents of the ‘steady transition’ lobby agree that global climate change goals are imp

Author: Editorial Board, ANU Aspirations for greater autonomy and self-reliance are driving significant changes to Seoul’s political and security postures amid intensifying regional tensions, and serve as a backdrop as South Koreans elect their next president in early 2022. While North Korea tends to crowd coverage of the Korean peninsula, Seoul pursues a robust, nuanced but increasingly complex foreign policy. The United States is eager to corral the South into its alliance of democracies to forge a buffer against China’s rise. But South Korea, less convinced of the dangers of a rising China, continues to do what it has for hundreds of years: pirouette between greater powers, a move the Koreans have sought to master again and again. Anxieties about shaky US leverage and influence on the Korean peninsula were manifest during the Trump years, revealing greater daylight between Washington and Seoul than perhaps either side cared to admit. Now, under the Biden administration, middle p

Author: Hyung-A Kim, ANU With less than four months to South Korea’s presidential election on 9 March 2022, the contest is turning into a quasi-life-or-death round of Squid Game amid scandals involving the ruling Democratic Party’s (DP) frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, former governor of Gyunggi province, and the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) frontrunner Yoon Seok-youl, former prosecutor-general. Both Lee and Yoon are campaigning on fairness and justice, prompting political cynicism especially among young people. A recent Gallup survey (over 2–4 November 2021) suggests that 57 per cent of respondents reckoned that ‘it is better to elect an opposition candidate to replace the government’. At the same time 33 per cent thought that ‘it’s better for the ruling party candidate to be elected to maintain the current administration’, a 24 per cent gap — the largest in Gallup surveys since the inauguration of the Moon Jae-in administration. But in the very same survey, in answer to a fr

Author: Shafi Md Mostofa, University of Dhaka Bangladesh is once again under the spotlight in the international media for violating minority rights. In October 2021, there were attacks on at least 80 of the 32,000 makeshift temples at the Durga Puja, the biggest annual Hindu festival. Over 3600 attacks on religious minorities took place between 2013 and 2021. These attacks included the vandalism and arson of 559 houses and at least 1678 temples, idols and places of worship. The immediate cause of the recent violence was the defamation of the holy Quran , which was placed on the knee of the Hindu god Hanuman. The masterminds behind these attacks have an agenda of political opportunism and economic benefits. They are not motivated by Hindu or Islamic religious beliefs, but by criminality. Some claim that these anti-government forces strategically attack minorities to put pressure on the government. Counter-narratives purport that the government takes advantage of this c

Authors: Moez Hayat, University of Brunei Darussalam and Ryan Ashley, University of Texas at Austin The recent House of Representatives election in Japan marked Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s first major test. While his ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a modest loss of seats, it still emerged strong enough to govern on its own right. While media attention has focussed on the implications of this partial rebuke to LDP rule, its oft-overlooked coalition partner, Komeito, increased its presence in the lower house from 29 to 32 seats. This small but significant electoral victory demonstrates that Komeito remains a powerful actor in Japanese politics. Komeito is a unique religious-inspired political force in Japanese politics. The party has its origins as the political arm of Soka Gakkai , a new age Buddhist-revivalist sect known for its evangelist views. In 1970, the precursor to the present-day party distanced itself from Soka Gakkai to assuage criticism tha

Author: Thang Nam Do, ANU In his speech at 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh announced that the country would aim for a net-zero emission target by 2050. With this move, Vietnam has joined the group of about 140 countries that pledged to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. Numerous challenges remain. Harmonising domestic economic development and global environmental commitments is not an easy task. In developing countries, the demand for increasing emissions along a traditional development trajectory is high and the resources to switch to a new greener pathway are often limited. Vietnam’s CO2 emissions rose to 282 million tonnes in 2019, second only to Indonesia in Southeast Asia. Its total annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are projected to increase by 7 per cent this decade under the business-as-usual scenario. Per capita CO2 emissions rose to 2.9 tonne