Today Trends

Author: Editorial Board, ANU A Sri Lankan debt crisis — the prospect of which has for many months hung over the country like a storm about to break — has arrived. Observers of the Sri Lankan economy have been warning of a reckoning for some time. In its regular reviews the IMF warned in 2016 of ‘unbalanced macroeconomic policies’; in 2018 of vulnerability to ‘adverse shocks’. Major tax cuts in Sri Lanka in 2019 represented a significant loosening of fiscal policy that contributed to enormous deficits as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and Sri Lanka’s tourist industry collapsed. The country is now staggering under the weight of its accumulated foreign debt. Persistent current account deficits also set the stage for a balance-of-payments crisis which has — and likely will — continue to hurt the most vulnerable citizens, as foreign exchange reserves dwindle and the supply of vital imports runs dry. With twin deficits comes twin crises for the brothers who rule Sri Lanka. President Gotabay...

Author: Chulanee Attanayake, NUS Sri Lanka is collapsing. Its economy is at a tipping point. The country is witnessing one of the worst economic and political crises in its history, with massive protests demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation. The protests were sparked by a marked decline in living standards as Sri Lankans have been battling long and frequent power cuts and a 25 per cent increase in food prices. In the weeks preceding the protests, many had to queue for hours to obtain fuel and gas, which caused four elderly people to die of heat exhaustion. Frustrated and disappointed Sri Lankans, who have been experiencing this situation for too long, began protesting in March 2022. The situation is a culmination of multiple economic and political factors which have cumulated over time. Sri Lanka has experienced macroeconomic instability, economic stagnation and a volatile business environment for decades . It has also been suffering from a twin deficit problem — ...

Author: Shuja Nawaz, Atlantic Council Imran Khan was voted out of office after only three and a half years on 10 April 2022 by a vote of no confidence in parliament. He seemed to have become totally estranged from the powerful Pakistan Army Chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who had supported his election and sustained him in power. Khan’s coalition allies in parliament deserted him and the opposition coalesced against him. His resort to legal legerdemain and use of his faithful speaker of the house and president of the country to nullify the vote of no confidence proceedings failed, as the Supreme Court unanimously voted against him. In what many thought may have been an ill-considered move, Khan ceded defeat by asking his parliamentarians to resign from their seats. Soon, Khan was back where he had started — on the streets and on the campaign trail — with massive rallies to show his strength outside parliament and demanding fresh elections. Parliament’s five-year term ends in Aug...

Author: Tanya Ogilvie-White, APLN The grim realisation that our world has changed is starting to sink in among strategic analysts. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, hot on the heels of a landmark China–Russia joint statement, is ushering in a new era of ideological competition and great power confrontation that is upending many assumptions of the post-Cold War international order. Key among these are assumptions that formal security architectures and economic interdependence can be relied upon to constrain great power aggression. Russia’s behaviour is throwing these ideas into disarray and left many to ponder the implications for future stability in Europe and the wider world. In the Asia Pacific, there could be significant ramifications for other incendiary security challenges, such as escalating arms races and the future of Taiwan. There’s a lot of work to be done to make sense of this evolving situation, but one thing is clear: we’re living in a more dangerous world ...

Author: Hyung-A Kim, ANU South Korea’s fiercely contested presidential election on 9 March resulted in a win for former prosecutor general Yoon Seok-yeol of the conservative opposition People Power Party (PPP). Yoon will become the next president after claiming victory with a razor-thin margin of 0.73 per cent, or 247,077 votes, over his rival Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party (DP). For the first time in South Korean history, a political novice has won the presidential election, dragging the PPP out of the political wilderness. The victory comes five years after the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye of the PPP’s predecessor party who was ousted by the Candlelight Revolution of 2016–17. Yoon has neither experience in the National Assembly nor any proven governing skills. He has been embroiled in many scandals involving his family members. Some conservatives also revile Yoon as a culprit for his role in indicting former conservative presidents Park and Lee ...

Authors: Anil Sigdel, SNSPA and Mani Dahal, Kathmandu On 1 March 2022, Nepal’s coalition government, led by the Nepali Congress party, finally ratified the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s Nepal compact , a US$500 million infrastructure and economic development grant from the US government. This marks the end of a chaotic five-year-long saga over the compact’s parliamentary ratification, which saw leaders turn the agreement into a political football. Anti-US forces — including communists, royalists and pro-Chinese commentators — have united to wage a rhetorical war against the MCC grant. Their deliberate social media disinformation campaigns are disrupting the developmental function of the state and eroding Nepal’s democracy. For years, Nepal has relied on US developmental aid — for instance, US assistance was critical to rebuilding Nepal after the devastating 2015 earthquake. The Nepal–US bilateral relationship played a role in Nepal’s decision to guide the MCC grant ...

Author: Takeshi Hamano, University of Kitakyushu At its 25th meeting on 1 February 2022, a subcommittee of the Japanese Ministry of Justice’s Legislative Council announced a proposal for amendments to the Civil Code. This was another step in the reform of a century-old civil code, which is sparking a debate on the role of the family in contemporary Japanese society. The proposal recommended the removal of Article 822, which gave custodial parents ‘the right to discipline children’. It also reviewed Article 772, under which a child born within 300 days of divorce was automatically recognised as a child of the former spouse and a child born within 200 days of remarriage would be considered a child of the previous spouse. In 2014, the Supreme Court of Japan supported Article 772’s presumption of legitimacy in rejecting a father’s appeal to annul legal paternity because a biological relationship with his child was denied by a DNA test. The determination of legitimacy by scientific me...

Author: Sameer Patil, ORF and Uday Patil, MAHE The world seems polarised between those opposing or supporting the Russian military campaign in Ukraine. Yet India has carefully avoided taking sides by maintaining a neutral position on the issue — the only major democracy to do so. The debate over whether India actually supports or opposes the Russian military campaign has picked up since New Delhi abstained from voting on a UN resolution calling the Ukraine–Russia conflict a humanitarian crisis. India’s stance on the issue is particularly nettlesome for the United States which, along with Europe, has sought to punish Russia for its actions by imposing severe sanctions. India has refused to budge from its position despite significant courting and pressure from the West, evident from recent visits to New Delhi by US Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh , UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and Jens Ploetner , foreign and security policy advisor to the German chancellor. With Ind...

Authors: Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Khasan Redjaboev, Bourse & Bazaar Foundation Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is devastating the lives of Ukrainian civilians and impacting the global economy. Low-income economies that were hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Uzbekistan, are the most vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and potential political unrest caused by the invasion. Significant attention has been paid to the impact of the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s economic contraction on Uzbekistan. But this analysis is somewhat incomplete — Uzbekistan’s exposure to the crisis does not just stem from the contraction of remittances coming from Russia. The greatest danger for Central Asian economies emanates from weak political institutions . The economic shock rippling from Russia to Uzbekistan is compounding the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had already spurred protectionist economic policy and threatened the reform agenda in Uzbekistan. This new c...

Author: Yohanes Sulaiman, Jenderal Achmad Yani University On 25 February 2022, Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement describing the attack on Ukraine as unacceptable — without directly mentioning Russia as the aggressor. Indonesia’s stance was unpopular and critics lambasted its unwillingness to take a stand to censure or sanction Russia. Even though Indonesia later adopted the UN General Assembly’s resolution condemning the invasion and demanding that Russia immediately withdraw, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that Indonesia was ‘pushing for resolutions that contain the aspirations of all parties in a balanced manner’. Why is Indonesia refusing to directly call out Russia’s actions in Ukraine? Analysts attributed this ambiguous stance to Indonesia’s desire to prevent antagonising Russia to attract more Russian investment in Indonesia. Public opinion in Indonesia also tilts in favour of Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a strongman ...