Today Trends

Author: Mahir Abrar, American International University-Bangladesh The government of Bangladesh has launched a crackdown on the Islamist advocacy group Hefazat-e-Islam. It follows violent protests against the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan. India is a vital ally to the government of Bangladesh. The protests embarrassed the government, which was ready to celebrate both independence and the centenary of the birth of Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — also the father of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The protests were led by Hefazat-e-Islam but saw participation by students in Dhaka. Government offices and private property were burned down in Chittagong and Brahmanbaria in Eastern Bangladesh from 25–27 March 2021. Seventeen protestors died in clashes with law enforcement agencies. Hundreds of activists and top leaders of Hefazat-e-Islam have been detained. Hefazat-e-Islam is an

Author: Martin Weiser, Seoul South Korea has a free speech problem bigger than its recent ban on sending leaflets into North Korea. North Korea’s official autobiography of Kim Il Sung was sold to the public within South Korean borders by a small publishing company in Seoul, Minjok Sarangbang, since February. A month after this was noticed by the press, the police raided the establishment on 26 May. This is despite the fact that the eight-volume text, first released in Pyongyang in 1992, which covers the late leader’s life from childhood until 1945, is available for free online on North Korean websites. Those websites are, not surprisingly, censored in the South. The problem for Minjok Sarangbang is that Article 7 of the 1948 National Security Law practically forbids the distribution and possession of North Korean material in South Korea with a maximum sentence of seven years. Despite attempts to pare back the wide scope of this law after South Korea became a democracy in 1987

Author: Songshan (Sam) Huang, Edith Cowan University While Australia has managed the COVID-19 pandemic exceptionally well, hard border closures led to substantial losses  in its tourism sector. Australia is ranked among the top 10 most affected economies in terms of tourism revenue loss. A Deloitte report on Australia’s tourism recovery outlined three scenarios, with even the most severe scenario anticipating some international travel bubbles emerging in 2021. Every sign indicates the real situation may be worse than this scenario. Halfway through 2021, there is no indication that the pandemic will end soon. Recent upsurges of COVID-19 cases and deaths in India have put Australia back on high alert and interrupted the country’s travel bubble arrangements with New Zealand and Singapore. Ongoing challenges with interstate travel and slow vaccination progress don’t bode well for the recovery of Australia’s tourism industry. Tourism plays a key part in the Australian economy. In 2

Author: Cheol Hee Park, SNU On 13 April 2021, the Japanese government announced plans to dispose of the wastewater stored at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean over a period of 30 years. The plant has about 1000 wastewater tanks that can hold up to 1.37 million tons of contaminated water. Currently, 1.25 million tons are being stored, which accounts for about 90 per cent of the total storage capacity. The tanks are expected to fill up by the autumn of 2022, which prompted the Japanese government to adopt the least expensive option — disposing the wastewater into the sea, starting from 2023. The United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remain sympathetic to the Japanese decision, saying that it meets the international standard. On the other hand, China and South Korea have voiced concerns about the decision. They are distrustful of and dissatisfied with the sudden decision made by the Japanese government. The difference is starkly high

Author: Chen Gang, NUS Climate change is a grave challenge for global governance and human survival. Yet due to the exorbitant cost of reducing carbon emissions, few powers have demonstrated political and economic leadership until recently, when a number of major carbon emitters — the United States, China , the European Union, Japan and South Korea — announced their carbon neutrality pledges. The European Union first committed to carbon neutrality, which might have spurred others to follow suit. China is the world’s largest carbon emitter, accounting for about 28 per cent of global emissions. Beijing has been in a defensive mode since the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit when it came under increasing international scrutiny and pressure for its fast-growing greenhouse gas emissions. China and the United States — the latter being the world’s second largest emitter — have long used the other’s inaction as an excuse for not capping their own domestic emissions. But since President Xi Jin

Author: Azmil Tayeb, Universiti Sains Malaysia The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government ordered Movement Control Order (MCO) 3.0 from 1–14 June 2021 to bring down the fast-rising number of positive COVID-19 cases. Two days before the MCO, Senior Minister Ismail Sabri announced that businesses could no longer use permission letters from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry that allowed them to operate as ‘essential services’. To remain open, businesses would instead need to apply for fresh permission letters from ministries that oversee their operations. But on the first day of MCO 3.0, the PN government turned around and again designated the Ministry of International Trade and Industry as the sole authority responsible for approving business applications to operate as essential services . Ismail Sabri translated his frustration into a widely circulated meme that showed him closing the door to his office with a caption ‘ I have closed the front door but …’. It was an ap

Authors: Htwe Htwe Thein, Curtin University and Michael Gillan, UWA The military coup in Myanmar in February has reversed or put at risk a decade of gradual economic progress. In the last decade, the Myanmar economy benefited from significant economic and political reforms , achieving above 7 per cent annual growth, reduced poverty and a significant increase in international investment. These gains are being unwound by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and, more so, by the coup, with the World Bank forecasting a 10 per cent contraction in GDP in 2021 and the UNDP warning of a possible doubling of the poverty rate. While there has been attention in the international media on the potential economic impact and effectiveness of international trade sanctions , the biggest economic impacts so far have been driven by internal factors. The anti-coup civil disobedience movement (CDM) drew in millions of public and private sector workers who refused to work until democracy is restored

Author: Shihoko Goto, Wilson Center Even as the Biden administration continues to tout cooperating with allies to ensure stability in the Indo-Pacific, the United States is unlikely to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) anytime soon. With little appetite in Congress for the United States to sign new trade deals, US economic strategy in the region will focus on confronting Chinese challenges — efforts alongside like-minded countries that Washington will continue to lead. But this strategy might be less effective when new trade and investment partnerships are brokered without the involvement of the United States. The first major hurdle that must be overcome to pave the way for the United States to potentially join the CPTPP will be reauthorising the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which expires on 1 July 2021. TPA allows the White House to submit a trade agreement for an up-or-down vote in Congress without any amendments being mad

Author: Anne Booth, SOAS In January, Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik) published the first results from the 2020 population census . While these initial figures are still preliminary, they raise important questions about Indonesia’s demographic and economic future. The data shows that Indonesia’s total population sat at 270.2 million in September 2020 after an annual average growth rate of 1.25 per cent in the decade 2010-2020. The population of Java is also continuing to grow but at a lower rate than the national average, so its share of the total population has fallen to 56 per cent. Most importantly, between 1971 and 2020 there has been a sharp decline in the percentage of the population under 15 (from 44 to 23 per cent) and a rapid growth in the 15-64 age group (from 53 to 71 per cent). These changes were the result of falling fertility and falling mortality, as well as an increase in migration between island groups. It seems clear that Indonesia is still in the ‘s

Author: Wendy Su, UC Riverside Though film industries are market-based and profit-driven, they cannot escape the constraints of the political structures, ideology, or cultural value systems in which they are situated. Nor can they be removed from diplomatic relations and geopolitics. So, as US–China relations reach their iciest point in decades, Hollywood and ‘Chinawood’ are caught in the middle. The Hollywood–China relationship has alternated between a competitive and collaborative dynamic over the last four decades. In the 1990s, Hollywood’s near monopoly of the Chinese film market caused a crisis in China’s domestic film industry. Renowned art house filmmakers, such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, decided to take Hollywood’s approach and began producing commercially viable genre films. This resulted in domestic Chinese films generating record high box office revenues. By the early 2000s, China had used Hollywood resources to modernise its film industry. Up to mid-2017, the partne