Today Trends

Authors: Ross Buckley and Mia Trzecinski, UNSW For almost 80 years, the US dollar has dominated the global financial system. Its pre-eminence survived the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s and has even risen since the COVID-19 pandemic . The United States has long enjoyed the many benefits that flow from this privileged position — continuous capital inflows, lower foreign borrowing costs and the power to sanction other nations. But with the development of new monetary technologies and the sanctions imposed on Russia’s central bank in 2022, this could be set to change. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) have the potential to disrupt dollar dominance and transform the mechanics of the global financial system by providing faster and cheaper ways to settle international trade and financial transactions. CBDCs are a form of digital currency issued by the central bank, either for use by the general public (retail) or by businesses (wholesale). Wholesale CBDCs

Author: Kerry Brown, King’s College London 2022 was dominated by three issues for China. The first was the ongoing struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic. The second was the build up to and outcome of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress held in October. The third was the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. All three threw up unexpected challenges, with sustained impacts throughout 2022 and beyond. With regards to COVID-19, China’s year was one of unexpected change. In the early months of 2022, draconian lockdowns saw citizens enduring near household imprisonment as local authorities strove for zero transmissions. While the rest of the world relaxed their public health measures and moved towards a more tolerant approach, largely through the use of vaccines and public health campaigns, China’s strategy was different. Shanghai, perhaps the most dynamic and open of Chinese urban areas, saw empty streets and silent public spaces over March and April. The l

Author: Paul Green, University of Melbourne On 1 September 2022, Thailand introduced a new Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa program. The program offers a 10-year renewable visa and a range of tax and non-tax benefits to four distinct categories of foreigners. These are wealthy global citizens, wealthy pensioners, work-from-Thailand professionals and highly skilled professionals. Thailand’s Board of Investment reckons the LTR program will attract wealthy, ‘high-potential’ and talented individuals, who in turn will stimulate economic growth , through innovation, investment and domestic spending. Thailand’s government has set a target of attracting one million foreigners into the program over the next five years. This target seems overly optimistic. The LTR visa enters a highly competitive global industry of long-term and second-home visa programs because of its focus on attracting wealthy global citizens. But it is difficult to envisage why applicants would invest at least US$500,000

Author: Faizal Bin Yahya, NUS 2022 saw big tech companies retrench thousands of workers globally. The trend highlights that the era of cheap capital flooding the market and fuelling accelerated growth is over, as rising interest rates kick in to tame inflationary pressures. Many high-growth tech companies hired too aggressively during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet the unprecedented demand for digital goods and services. Instead of hiring contract workers for greater flexibility in workforce management, companies overcommitted by hiring full-time workers with inflated salaries and compensation packages. In Singapore, internet company Sea aggressively hired engineers by offering to double their salaries in comparison to their competitors. Sea had 67,300 employees at the end of 2021 — a 99.1 per cent increase from 2020. Waves of layoffs began in Southeast Asia. In Singapore, which hosts 80 of the world’s top 100 tech companies, job openings in the tech sector fell from 9200 in Jul

Author: Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits, Erasmus University Rotterdam Sri Lanka entered 2022 beset by economic crisis and political upheaval. The economic crisis culminated in Sri Lanka defaulting on payment for the first time. This led to the government being completely cut off from most sources of international funding, including from official multilateral and international commercial sources. The government’s effort to blame its debt default on the lost revenue from tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increased fuel prices resulting from the war in Ukraine did not carry much weight. One analyst stated that ‘this is the most man-made and voluntary economic crisis of which I know’. Although many Sri Lankans did not understand what default meant, the effects of the crisis were keenly felt. The foreign currency crunch that followed progressively restricted imports of food, fuel, fertiliser, medicine and other essentials. By August 2022, the annual inflation rate had reached nea

Author: Anthea McCarthy-Jones, UNSW Canberra The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has recently identified the Pacific as a transit point for drug trafficking routes. It stated that the ‘drug situation in the Asia Pacific has both evolved and deteriorated in recent years despite cross-border travel restrictions and lockdowns put in-place during the pandemic’. Drug trafficking poses significant challenges to global security. The level of organisation that enables these crimes to take place has a conspicuous transnational dimension that draws on the resources of a range of actors operating across vast geographical areas. Cooperation — rather than competition — has allowed these actors to form fluid networks that facilitate the movement of drugs to and from black markets around the world. In February 2022, the Lowy Institute described the Pacific as a ‘drug highway’ that provides infrastructure for the production, trafficking and transhipment of methamphetamine, heroin and co

Author: Yose Rizal Damuri, CSIS The connection between economic integration and political security has long attracted attention. Integration through intensive trade and investment relations has led to greater interdependence and made conflict more costly, helping states to maintain peace and stability. But interdependence can also increase the risk that geopolitical tensions might turn into open conflict. The situation in East Asia and the Pacific resembles the first case. The last open conflict in Southeast Asia took place in 1979 with China’s invasion of Vietnam. Despite its deep security and geopolitical fissures, Northeast Asia has been free of open conflict since the Korean armistice was signed in 1953. This peace has been built through greater trade and investment relations among economies throughout the region. Trade among countries in Southeast Asia has been growing at an average of 11 per cent per year in the past three decades — higher than GDP growth in the region over

Author: Martin Weiser, Seoul South Korea is widely considered a successful democracy — but there is still a severe lack of freedom when it comes to anything related to North Korea. 70 years after the Korean War, visiting North Korea is prohibited, as is any communication with it. An online firewall prevents access to North Korean electronic media. Because printed periodicals were imported and put into a library run by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification (MOU) the impact of internet censorship received little attention. But no new North Korean print publications have reached the South for three years now. This has effectively cut off South Koreans from most basic information on the other half of the peninsula. Fearing transmission of COVID-19, North Korea halted most trade — including the export of print publications — in early 2020. A handful of websites, which are all censored in South Korea, and the main North Korean state TV channel, KCTV, aired via satellite, have become the

Author: Sharon Seah, ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute Cambodia assumed the ASEAN chair in 2022 with the theme ‘ASEAN ACT: Addressing Challenges Together’. Act, it certainly did. The chair started with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s high-profile visit to Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw in January. But Myanmar’s problems proved difficult to crack — even with a leader typically sympathetic to enforcing state control. 2022 quickly spiralled with challenging international crises beyond ASEAN’s control. To Cambodia’s credit, ASEAN deftly steered itself through politically turbulent waters. The war in Ukraine saw divergent positions of member states as ASEAN came under intense pressure for its weak stance on Ukraine. ASEAN eventually released the ASEAN–EU commemorative statement — in which ‘most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine’. Despite its perceived closeness with Russia and China, Cambodia’s national position evolved from refusing to take sides to Hun Sen taking a phone ca

Author: Kathryn Robinson, ANU Gender equality was a key aspiration of the popular movements that led to the toppling of Indonesia’s authoritarian New Order regime 24 years ago. The catchcry of that euphoric moment — pemberdayaan , or empowerment — encompassed women’s rights. The years following the fall of Suharto, known as reformasi , have brought gains for women. But progress has been mixed. Since reformasi , women activists have aspired to increase their voice in directly elected parliaments at national, provincial and district levels. After the first direct elections in 1999, only 8.8 per cent of seats in the national parliament were won by women. This led to demands for the 2003 law on elections to adopt a gender quota. This required parties to ensure that women comprise at least 30 per cent of candidates on party lists for multi-member electorates in national, district and provincial parliaments. Direct elections where gender quotas apply have been held for district and prov