Today Trends

Author: Ronald May, ANU 2022 was an election year in Papua New Guinea (PNG), so electoral politics dominated much of the first half of the year. Polling took place over three weeks in July, with more than 3600 candidates contesting the 118 open and provincial seats. This includes seven new electorates created due to a review of electoral boundaries. As in other recent national elections, polling was marred by logistical problems, inaccurate rolls and, in some parts of the country, vote buying, intimidation of voters, theft of ballot boxes and election-related violence. The previous election in 2017 was widely described as the worst in the country’s history, but some commentators saw the 2022 election as a further decline. In early August, with 99 of the seats declared after an extension of the counting process, the National Parliament met to elect a prime minister. As leader of the party with the greatest number of endorsed candidates elected, outgoing Prime Minister James Marape ...

Author: Jia Qingguo, Peking University In his online meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in November 2021, US President Joe Biden proposed guardrails for the US–China relationship. His proposal reflected deep concerns about the potential for a military confrontation due to a miscalculation or an accident. More than a year has passed since then, so have such guardrails have been established? Is the relationship between the two countries less likely to fall off a cliff than before? The answer, unfortunately, is no. Guardrail-building has largely remained rhetorical and the US–China relationship is now closer to a historic breakdown than it has been before. On 27 January 2022, China’s former foreign minister, Wang Yi, and US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, held a telephone conversation. They expressed their desire to implement an agreement their bosses had reached. That agreement called for measures to manage differences between United States and China, seek cooperation wh...

Author: James Guild, RSIS Indonesian Minister of Investment Bahlil Lahadalia suggested that Indonesia is looking into forming an OPEC-style cartel for nickel and other inputs used in battery production. Nickel is becoming a hot commodity as it is a key input in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries needed for electric vehicles (EVs) — and Indonesia has the world’s largest nickel ore deposits. Given that demand for EVs is expected to balloon in the coming years, countries rich in natural resources are exploring the most expeditious ways to capitalise on the situation. The idea for an OPEC-style cartel reflects the Indonesian authorities’ desire to leverage its control over a scarce and highly sought-after commodity. They seek a more favourable position on the global technological frontier. Indonesian officials are discontent with the relatively low-value activities of extracting and exporting raw commodities. They want more of the value added during processing and manufacturin...

Author: Scott A. Snyder, Council of Foreign Relations In 2022, North Korea exported tensions through stepped-up missile tests and threats toward South Korea. It also kept a national quarantine that prevented official imports of economic goods in place, but ultimately failed to keep COVID-19 from infecting the country. North Korea achieved a record number of around ninety missile tests of various types and ranges, including nine intermediate or intercontinental range test launches. While the number of tests increased exponentially in 2022 compared to previous years, the purpose and strategy behind the tests involved a methodical checking off of military development goals foreshadowed in January 2021 at North Korea’s Eighth Workers’ Party of Korea Congress. North Korea claimed progress toward a number of its goals, including the testing of a hypersonic gliding flight warhead and of missiles capable of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon. It made ground on developing ‘an advanced c...

Author: Kirill Nourzhanov, ANU Political turmoil and uncertainty beset Central Asia in 2022. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan faced domestic, regional and international challenges exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. This brought into sharp relief both the systemic threats to peace and stability on the ground and regional authoritarian governments’ capacity to placate if not eliminate them. Regime survival was tested in Kazakhstan when violent protests rocked the country in January last year. Kazakh authorities classified the events as a coup attempt . The government alleged criminals and terrorists, at the behest of security chiefs close to former president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, carried out the violence. Kazakhstan’s current President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, spent the rest of the year shoring up his power . He first held a constitutional referendum in June and then called snap elections in November, which he comfortably won. Despite talk about th...

Author: Julian Dierkes, UBC Mongolia’s domestic party politics, international relations and economy faced challenges in 2022. The Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) wrestled with how to govern despite having a supermajority in Mongolia’s parliament, the State Great Khural, and how to position itself vis-a-vis Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government staked its fiscal fortunes on reviving coal exports to China but faced protests on corruption allegations linked to a state-owned coal mining company. The difficulties of governing with a supermajority in Mongolia appear to be an open question. The electoral triumph of the MPP in Mongolia’s parliamentary and presidential elections in 2020 and 2021 respectively, raised concerns about the potential for democratic backsliding . There were questions about whether the MPP would revert to its former single-party ruling status and threaten Mongolia’s democracy. Yet developments in 2022 suggest that the party is unexpectedly s...

Author: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, Swedish Institute for Foreign Affairs At the beginning of 2022, North Korea’s strategic position looked bleak. The regime clung to its zero-COVID claim , leading to an almost total closure of the border with China and bringing trade to record lows . There were strong indications that China was easing up on enforcing the UN sanctions that ban it from importing North Korean coal, as well as the sanctions that prevent it from exporting oil products to North Korea. But none of this was happening fast enough for it to be economically meaningful to North Korea. As we enter 2023, North Korea faces a very different landscape — one of opportunities for economic gain without much sacrifice. Tensions between China and the United States and its allies have reached heights unprecedented since US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. Most significantly, Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine has polarised the world faster and more resolutely ...

Author: Gennady Rudkevich, Alexandria Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s modest response to it, has placed the governments of Central Asia in an unenviable position — aware that Russia does not fully respect their sovereignty and has no qualms about using force, while recognising that no one would provide sufficient assistance if they became a target of Russian aggression. Though highly reliant on Russia, Central Asian governments have good reason to seek other allies . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violated numerous treaties and used greater force in pursuit of greater ambitions than Russia’s 2008 war against Georgia. It also relied on rationales — discrimination against ethnic Russians, hyper-nationalist politicians and allegedly weak historical claims to statehood — that could easily be applied to several countries in Central Asia. Some of these arguments have been used against Kazakhstan by Russian politicians since the 1990s, including frequently in 2022. Central Asia...

Author: Soe Nandar Linn, Yangon After nearly two years of military rule, Myanmar remains trapped in conflict, facing increasing political instability and a growing humanitarian crisis. While businesses and the labour market had already been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, post-coup instability has done even more damage to Myanmar’s economy. This began with a cash shortage, rapid depreciation of the kyat against major currencies such as the US dollar as well as a sharp rise in the prices of fuel, commodities and imported raw materials. Other key constraints on businesses include the abolition of the managed float exchange rate and restrictions on foreign currency procurement imposed by the Central Bank of Myanmar, as well as frequent power cuts, armed clashes and infrastructure deficits across the country. The minimum wage remains unchanged at K4800 (US$2.30) per day, a rate that was set in 2018. The civilian government had previously planned to increase the minimum wage every...

Author: Gregory B Poling, CSIS The situation in the South China Sea is far from stable. Chinese vessels engaged in dangerous and escalatory encounters with those of other states regularly throughout 2022. But for the first time in a decade, Beijing’s control over disputed waters did not appreciably advance. The China Coast Guard (CCG) and maritime militia were deployed at the same pace and in the same numbers as in 2021. Dozens of CCG and hundreds of militia boats operated daily across the waterway, harassing Southeast Asian civilian and military vessels. But Southeast Asian governments, for the most part, held their ground. The CCG and maritime militia engaged in a series of dangerous encounters with Philippine vessels in the first half of 2022. From late March to early April, the CCG harassed a Taiwanese scientific research vessel operating in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under a joint project with the University of the Philippines. Another CCG vessel harasse...