Today Trends

Author: Hideki Tomoshige, CSIS At the G7 Hiroshima Summit in May 2023, leaders declared in a statement on economic resilience and economic security that they would strengthen supply chains for critical goods, including semiconductors, through global partnerships.   This commitment reaffirms Japan’s efforts — starting in 2021 — to revitalise its domestic semiconductor industry, reduce its dependence on other countries for critical goods and build a resilient supply chain.   Two key elements of Japan’s semiconductor strategy for 2023 include strengthening domestic manufacturing capability and fostering research and development (R&D) for next-generation semiconductor technology through international collaboration. This ambitious approach aims to transform Japan’s semiconductor industry and demonstrates the government’s determination to revive its semiconductor ecosystem.   The Japanese government aims to increase domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity by ...

Author: Ken Heydon, LSE The World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its 13th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi in February 2024. There is much at stake and success is not guaranteed. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has identified the key areas that will require close attention if MC13 is to succeed and fulfil the promises of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) — food security, fisheries subsidy disciplines, the development dimension of trade, dispute settlement reform, intellectual property rights and e-commerce. Each of these topics warrants attention — and each raises difficult issues. Key issues include addressing purchasing power difficulties of the poorest communities, gaining additional acceptance of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies and helping countries that lose support as they graduate from Least Developed Country status. Other issues include addressing the US conviction that the WTO Appellate Body jurisprudence is openly hostile ...

Author: Salihin Subhan, UBC Malaysia’s August 2023 state elections have left the country’s political landscape in a precarious equilibrium. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim kept the opposition at bay, but his unity government — an alliance of political forces anchored by the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition and the former long-time ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (National Front) — lost ground, mainly in Malay-majority constituencies. Although the spectre of the disintegration of Anwar’s governing coalition looms large, several factors—including the anti-hopping law, internal division within the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and support from key factions—make it less likely than under the previous Pakatan Harapan government. In 2020, intra and inter-party fighting within the Pakatan Harapan coalition led to the defection of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) from the coalition as well as the departure of a group of lawmakers from the Parti Keadilan Rak...

Author: Mathis Lohatepanont, University of Michigan On 22 August 2023, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand after 15 years in self-exile. He was taken straight into custody from the airport to serve out a sentence for previous corruption convictions. A little over a week later, Thaksin submitted a request for a royal pardon, which was granted in the form of his jail sentence being reduced from eight years to one. Thaksin’s desire to return to Thailand was well known. He has previously announced over twenty attempts to return, and his sister Yingluck Shinawatra’s infamous attempt to grant him an amnesty during her premiership in 2014 triggered the military coup that shut his Pheu Thai Party out of power for nine years. Ironically, it was the Pheu Thai’s first election loss in two decades at the May general election that created the conditions for Thaksin to return. The victorious Move Forward Party’s controversial proposals to reform Thailand’s monarchy a...

Author: Editorial Board, ANU In 1956, the then US Senator John F Kennedy published Profiles in Courage , a series of case studies on statesmanship of US politicians. Apart from becoming an instant bestseller, the book served its intended purpose of establishing Kennedy’s reputation as an intellectual, winning him a Pulitzer Prize, and carrying the implicit message that Kennedy’s presidency would be marked by similar feats of putting the national good over political expediency. Not a bad legacy for a book whose drafting, to put it diplomatically, was a group effort — a fact which itself serves as a reminder that myth-making and leadership tend to go hand in hand in the making of great statesmen. As the John F Kennedy Presidential Library prepares to award South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida with an International Profile in Courage Award, it’s worthwhile to consider whether the long-term payoffs of the two men’s efforts to break through pol...

Author: Seong-Hyon Lee, Harvard University South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has introduced a profound shift in the country’s foreign policy, aligning it more closely with the United States. Yet this bold strategic redirection has not necessarily translated to an uptick in his domestic approval ratings. Yoon — devoid of a foreign policy background — took the reins of the presidency in 2022. Conventional wisdom suggested he would hone in on domestic matters. Surprisingly, he charted a foreign policy course markedly different from South Korea’s immediate past, in a clear tilt towards the United States. Yoon’s foreign policy direction contrasts starkly with that of his predecessor, former president Moon Jae-in — whom Yoon labelled as ‘pro-China’ in his public statements. Yoon once remarked that ‘most South Koreans, especially younger ones, don’t like China even though President Moon’s administration pursued pro-China policies’. He spelled out his stance to the New York Times in S...

Author: Nilanjan Banik, Mahindra University Indian gig workers toil hard to make ends meet. Taxi drivers, delivery people, plumbers, electricians, are all part of a platform-enabled gig economy. But the life of semi-skilled gig workers is very different than that of high-skilled gig workers involved in consulting services such as accounting, economics and finance. The latter group typically already has conventional jobs. The gig work for them is just another option, and their bargaining power is greater as a result. Wages are higher and life is good . But semi-skilled gig workers often find themselves on the wrong side of the aggregators. With unlimited working hours, ever-lowering minimum wage rates, absence of social security payments and arbitrary deletion of workers from the platform, life can be worse. In July 2021, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) filed a petition before the Supreme Court of India , arguing that aggregators such as Ola, Uber and Zo...

Authors: Antonio M La Vina, Ronald U Mendoza and Philip Arnold P Tuano, Ateneo de Manila University President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr delivered his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) on 24 July 2023, with a little over a year under his belt. Unlike his predecessor, he emphasised science, the rule of law, the importance of the justice system, the need to protect constitutional rights and the importance of defending the nation’s sovereignty. While Bongbong still emphasised the continuation of certain policy directions, such as combatting illegal drugs, maintaining strong macroeconomic fundamentals, boosting infrastructure (under the ‘Build Better More program’) and recovering the country’s economic growth path after the pandemic — all these seemed to reflect a policy recalibration that appeared to favour evidence-based approaches. The Marcos administration increased the focus on community-based treatment, rehabilitation, education and reintegration, to curb drug depend...

Author: Vannarith Chheang, NTU The ASEAN–Japan relationship today is almost unrecognisable from that of 50 years ago when riots against the visits of former Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka to Southeast Asian capitals were emblematic of its troubled state. Japan’s current benign role in ASEAN belies what has been a powerful alignment of interests and influence assiduously developed over the ensuing decades important to the relationship’s success. The question is how these foundations fit the present relationship. The 50th anniversary of the ASEAN–Japan dialogue underscores the strong ties that have been built in the intervening decades. But a fast-evolving, multiplex world order, with new centres of power and increasingly complex interactions, poses a number of challenges to the relationship going forward. Intense geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China presents unprecedented challenges for ASEAN, and Japan will need to cooperate with heightened awareness and...