Today Trends

Author: Rui Graça Feijó, University of Coimbra In the past few years, everyday life in Timor-Leste has been disrupted by the multiple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conditions were imposed on the exercise of public liberties, the composition of government and the dynamics of political life were challenged, economic performance weakened and the wellbeing of the population suffered. Rather than being a localised phenomenon impacting only public health, the effects of COVID-19 were felt widely, inducing social and political change. Timor-Leste quickly realised that it was ill-equipped to deal with COVID-19. The public health service was poorly managed and lacked both the necessary equipment and the resources to fight the disease — in early 2020 there was only one ventilator in the country’s main hospital. A strategic decision was taken to sever most links with the outside world to prevent the virus from entering the country. For most of 2020, this proved successful , with only a fe

Author: Tomohiko Satake, NIDS Economic security, or keizai anpo , dominates the current Japanese strategic debate. Since 2019, the Japanese government has rapidly put in place new positions, organisations and bills related to economic security. According to Takayuki Kobayashi, Japan’s newly appointed minister for economic security, the term refers to securing ‘the Japanese state and national interest through economic measures’. To achieve this objective, the Japanese parliament passed the Economic Security Promotion Act in 2022 to strengthen supply chain resilience, protect critical infrastructure, develop emerging technologies and prevent technology outflow. Japan’s new national security strategy — to be published by the end of 2022 — will likely incorporate these elements. It is not the first time that Japan has recognised the economy as an integral part of its security. In the mid-1970s, Japanese politicians, intellectuals and businesspeople began to discuss the need for ‘compr

Authors: Gan Shiz Yee, Muhamad Hairul Nizam bin Abd Hamid and Farizah Mohd Hairi, University of Malaya Malaysia has implemented various tobacco supply and demand reduction strategies to curb the tobacco pandemic since ratifying the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005. Despite its efforts, smoking prevalence only declined slightly over the last two decades, notwithstanding a recent survey that showed that 85 per cent of Malaysian smokers would like to quit. The increase in the proportion of adolescents (13 to 17 year olds) using modern smoking products — also known as electronic cigarettes or vapes — from 9.1 per cent in 2016 to 9.8 per cent in 2017 is of great concern. Prevention is better than cure. Thus on 27 July 2022, Malaysia’s former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin introduced the Control of Tobacco Product and Smoking Bill 2022, which includes the Generational Endgame (GEG) measure. This prevents those born on or after 1 Januar

Author: Mely Caballero-Anthony, NTU In 2021 the Sixth Assessment Report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that climate change is rapid and intensifying in every region of the world. The Indo-Pacific is widely known as the region most exposed to natural disasters, with climate change causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events. It is particularly exposed to rising sea levels with its archipelagic countries, small island states and large coastal population centres, while extreme heat is impacting large geographic areas and densely populated urban settlements. The region faces huge challenges not only in dealing with the geophysical effects of climate change, but in terms of fragility risks such as adaptation capacity, lower economic development and governance. For countries in the region that have ongoing domestic conflicts, the economic and cultural effects of climate change, such as the forced displacement of vulnerable groups and c

Author: Editorial Board, ANU For some, a multipolar world is something to cheer for. Yet no balance of global geopolitical power is intrinsically better than another. Indeed, the world has overall gotten a pretty good deal out of Pax Americana, and there’s no reason to assume that whatever order replaces it would be much of an improvement. The shift towards multipolarity is nonetheless a reality to be managed — not least by the United States, whose political elites and general public have never known anything but global economic and military pre-eminence, and who aren’t well-practised in imagining how US interests and values can be preserved in a world in which less liberal and less-developed countries, particularly China, have a far greater political, economic and military role. The United States’ struggle with this predicament, and the hazards it creates, is old news. But it was in 2022 that the United States truly, emphatically put itself on a course of confrontation and compe

Author: Gary Clyde Hufbauer, PIIE In December 2021, most Americans were looking forward to a quiet and prosperous 2022. COVID-19 cases were down, the stock market was up and jobs were abundant. What could go wrong? Many things did. Geopolitical trauma came first. After a chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, it seemed that US involvement in foreign wars was drawing to an end. Yet on 24 February 2022, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. The ground battle then morphed into a proxy war between NATO and Russia. US President Joe Biden was quick to declare that US boots would not join Ukrainian soldiers, but he was equally quick to dispatch US armour and CIA advisors. By the close of 2022, NATO weapons manned by Ukrainians had successfully pushed Russian forces out of the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Kherson, and back towards Ukraine’s eastern border. But battlefield success was coupled with global economic distress , as energy and food price

Author: Edmund Malesky, Duke University Vietnam’s policymakers can congratulate themselves on a stellar economic performance in 2022. The country will conclude the year as the best-performing economy in Asia, largely due to its ability to attract foreign investment relocating from China. As other emerging markets seek to recover from the damage wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, many leaders are looking to emulate Vietnam’s model. While it is tempting to attribute Vietnam’s success to a perfectly executed template, the true story is both more mundane and achievable — prior reform efforts positioned Vietnam to take advantage of a serendipitous turn in international politics. Vietnam’s foreign investment attraction in 2022 was impressive. At least 11 Taiwanese companies in Apple’s supply chain have relocated to Vietnam and negotiations are underway for increased production of tablets and smartphones. Lego opened a US $1 billion plant in Binh Duong province that will include cutting-

Author: Greg Raymond, ANU Two scandals converged in November 2022 in Thailand, forming a perfect storm that threatens the government party Phalang Pracharat’s already shaky prospects at the upcoming 2023 national election. The scandals have also illuminated a growing problem that has remained largely out of Thai news headlines in recent years — the nexus between Chinese capital, crime and Thai politicians. The government was forced to back down on a proposal that intended to increase foreign investment by lifting Thailand’s longstanding prohibition on foreigners owning land. A united front opposed to the measure, including fellow Phalang Pracharat member Pareena Kraikupt , deployed one of the most potent rhetorical weapons in Thailand’s political arsenal — that of khai chat or selling out the nation . Thai police also announced they had conducted raids in Bangkok and arrested a Chinese national who was using fake Thai identity cards and in possession of cash, luxury cars and pr

Authors: Robyn Klingler-Vidra, KCL and Yu-Ching Kuo, Kaohsiung US and Chinese policymakers are inflicting incisive blows on each other. The Biden administration is less bombastic in speech than its predecessor while being louder in its policy actions. Yet restrictions that aim to slow China’s rise to the technological frontier of semiconductor technology may unintentionally help it marshal investment and effective business strategies. Former US president Donald Trump ramped up the trade war with China. Trump’s policy was quickly labelled a failed attempt to get ahead in the race for technology supremacy — especially in semiconductors — since it was divorced from economic reality. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a shortage of semiconductors, which escalated the chip war and technological decoupling . This divergence — and the tension accompanying it — has only grown. The US–China chip war did not begin with Trump. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech in 2015 where

Author: Fengming Lu, ANU The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s congresses often represent important historical milestones, yet they are highly performative. The Party’s General Secretary and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political report on 16 October 2022 comes nowhere near to clearly identifying policy direction like a party manifesto would in a liberal democracy. But other hints shed light on where China’s policies are headed after the 20th CCP Congress. Personnel appointments are one good indicator. Xi’s control of the new Politburo and its Standing Committee is unprecedented and beyond any observer’s prediction before October. An executive team of proteges and loyal technocrats ensures that Xi can double down on his policy agenda with little resistance at the central level. Local implementation will continue to be a problem as long as Xi relies on a multi-level hierarchy of agents who are better informed and whose interests are not necessarily aligned with his. Self-interested