XIAMEN, CHINA—The timing was impeccable. I had just walked out of my hotel to Zhongshan Road, in the waterfront tourist district, to find lunch. In front of me, a crowd—maybe 30 people—had gathered around an irate couple on the pedestrian shopping boulevard. The middle-aged couple were holding signs and ranting. I couldn’t make out everything on the signs, but gathered they were railing against the government and the police. This can’t end well, I thought.
Posted November 14, 2008

While the financial system is worth saving, the investment banking model is not. The question of investment banking bonuses is a symptom of this and Main Street must not be asked to support firms that insist on continuing to operate as if the financial crisis had never taken place. The model has to change and the idea of investment bankers taking a pay cut is a good place to start.
Posted November 10, 2008

Vietnam's rise to join the ranks of Southeast Asia's economic "Tigers" is undeniable. Nearly 1,000 foreign direct investment projects worth nearly $60 billion have been pledged in the past 10 months. Vietnam’s real GDP growth since 1991 has averaged 7.5% annually and the people living in poverty plunged from 70% in 1986, when the Vietnam Communist Party finally began productive reforms, to 15% in 2008. But a tug-of-war is underway in Vietnam between forces that promote and impede economic development.
Posted November 12, 2008

Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur—With his good looks and fashionable clothes, 27-year-old Su could pass for an Asian pop star, or perhaps the small-time kickboxer he used to be back home. In fact, he works illegally as a waiter in a small restaurant in central Bangkok—one of an estimated two million migrants who have left impoverished Burma to seek a better life in Thailand. Fleeing poverty and sometimes brutal oppression at home, they often find themselves living in the shadows, persecuted and exploited in Burma’s wealthier neighbors.
Posted October 27, 2008

Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win visited North Korea on Oct. 27 to hold the first high-level meeting since diplomatic relations were severed 25 years ago. When the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in April 2007, the reaction was largely twofold: banal and alarmist. The banal views argued that both authoritarian states were merely re-establishing formal diplomatic relations severed after North Korean agents bombed the Martyrs Mausoleum in Rangoon in 1983, killing several members of the South Korean cabinet.
Posted November 6, 2008

Even though the American establishment is still not prepared to consider the possibility that the all-powerful U.S. military could be defeated by a handful of ragtag militants, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen's bold confession to the U.S. Congress that “America might be losing the war” and that “it was time to consider other strategic options” forced a rethink. It was inevitable that, amongst other options, initiating a dialogue with the Taliban would come under consideration.
Posted November 3, 2008

The Malaysian government has applied its Internal Security Act (ISA) several times in recent weeks in order to protect citizens from the imminent threat of . . . bloggers. That’s right. The sixty-some jihadi militants, foreign agents and ethnic “rabble-rousers” locked away without prospect of trial in the country’s infamous Kamunting Detention Center were joined recently by a handful of minor opposition figures working the Internet fringe of Malaysian politics.
Posted October 29, 2008

Now that the Bush administration has removed North Korea from the State Department’s list of states that sponsor terrorism, the regime in Pyongyang has resumed dismantling the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. But there is no reason to celebrate. To the contrary, this could be a large step towards Japan’s concluding that it needs nuclear weapons for its security.
Posted October 22, 2008

The Chinese government's Oct. 17 decision to permanently loosen regulations on foreign media freedom serves only as a cruel reminder of the official straitjacket all Chinese journalists must wear. While the new regulations guarantee the right of foreign journalists to talk to any consenting interviewee without interference, Chinese journalists remain hostage to the dictates of the state propaganda system despite Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution, which guarantees a free press.
Posted October 31, 2008

Asia is just beginning to feel the effects of shrinking export demand and capital flight while the worst of the economic crisis has yet to arrive even for the U.S. and Europe. As consumer sentiment declines, purchasing slows, and new orders shrink, most export dependent countries in Asia will feel the brunt of the downturn. The next few months will give a clearer indication of the depths of the recession as consumer spending leading into the U.S. holiday season becomes clearer and corporate quarterly results are announced. Asian countries will need to shift from financial-system intervention to more fundamental economic support measures as the crisis worsens.
Posted October 23, 2008

In the shift to ideological tendencies, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has lost the coherence it had when it was primarily a union of factions all dedicated to the simple mission of keeping the LDP in power. Ideologues existed before, but with the factions increasingly irrelevant and policy increasingly more important than patronage, the LDP’s ideologues now have policy goals that are as important as the goal of keeping the LDP in power. Can the LDP last as a party pursuing several distinct and contradictory policy agendas? Will Taro Aso or a future party leader be able to impose a uniform policy agenda on the party? Or will the next general election prove a catalyst for a party realignment that breaks up the LDP as it exists today?
Posted October 19, 2008

Fundamentally, Asia should be dramatically less exposed to the financial fallout than America or Europe. Yet it is important that Asian policy makers—and most particularly Beijing—respond to the shock of the slowdown in U.S. consumption in a constructive way. This means increasing efforts to move their economies away from excessive reliance on export-led growth. If they react in the opposite way, and engage in competitive devaluations, they will delay the long-overdue rebalancing of their export-driven economies and could spark a global trade war.
Posted October 14, 2008

China is widely believed to be immune from the economic shock waves making their way around the world from the U.S. to Europe and Japan. Although it is relatively unaffected by subprime mortgages and the credit crunch, China’s economy is actually facing a fundamental structural adjustment that has arrived much earlier than expected. Decreasing foreign demand for inexpensive manufactured goods, the misallocation of vital investment, and product safety concerns are straining China’s manufacturing base and challenging the tenuous linkages between continued economic growth and a rising middle class.
Posted October 1, 2008

We are disappointed with the decision finding against the Far Eastern Economic Review in the libel actions brought by Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Kuan Yew. It is notable that the court has determined that the public interest privilege that is available in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, is not applicable in Singapore. We are considering an appeal.
Posted September 25, 2008