With special guests: Kishore Mahbubani, Larry Diamond, and Donald K. Emmerson
Moderated by Douglas Bereuter

To register for this event, please click here.

This program will bring together some of the world’s leading experts on Southeast Asia and democracy to consider critical questions facing the region. Has the American model of democracy become tarnished in Asia, and is the Chinese model of authoritarian capitalism of growing appeal and significance? What are the dimensions and implications of Islamicization for Southeast Asia? What are the prospects for cleaning up notoriously corrupt party politics? Will the military ever be driven out of politics in places like Thailand and thePhilippines ? Is the American-led “war on terror” helping stabilize politics in the region, or is it exacerbating already serious problems? What do these developments mean for U.S. foreign policy and American influence in Asia?

Speakers:

Kishore Mahbubani, one of Asia ’s leading public intellectuals, is author of the forthcoming The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East; and Can Asians Think? and Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World. Now the Dean and Professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he served for 33 years as a diplomat for Singapore.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, and the newly-released The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.

Donald K. Emmerson has written or edited more than a dozen books and monographs on Southeast Asian politics, including the forthcoming Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia and Indonesia Beyond Suharto. His latest publication is titled “Challenging ASEAN” (Jan 2008). He is a senior fellow at Stanford University, where he also heads the Southeast Asia Forum.

Douglas Bereuter (moderator) is president of The Asia Foundation. He assumed his current position after 26 years of service in the U.S. Congress, where he was one of that body’s leading authorities on Asian affairs and international relations.

To register for this event, please click here. 

Time:
5:30 pm Registration/Reception/Book signing
6:00 - 7:30 pm Program

Location:
Merchant Exchange Building
Julia Morgan Ballroom
465 California Street, 15th Floor
San Francisco, California

Co-sponsored by the Asia Society Northern California, Business Executives for National Security, Stanford University Southeast Asia Forum, UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asian Studies, USF Center for the Pacific Rim and the World Affairs Council. 

In the January 27th Newsweek article, Soldier, Savior, Strongman, Crook: The death of Suharto, architect of Indonesia’s authoritarian ‘New Order,’ draws a muted reaction from the nation he once dominated, The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Indonesia, Doug Ramage, says that the death of the former president of Indonesia will have virtually no political impact. To read more, click here.

By Rajendra Abhyankar

Ambassador Rajendra Abhyankar was the Indian Secretary of External Affairs from 2001-2004 and has served as the Indian Ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxemburg, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Syria, and Cyprus. He was also the Consul General of India in San Francisco, California. He currently serves as The Asia Foundation’s Program Development Consultant in India.

Finally the US sub-prime crisis caught up with the Indian stock market. The massive fall in the Sensex (Bombay Stock Exchange) last week, and equally rapid rise the very next, sent shock waves leading the regulator to close down the market. The ripple effect of the sub-prime crisis which has taken the toll of major global investors was bound to hit the Indian stock exchange with 1200 foreign financial investors invested to the extent of over US$ 70 billion in a market size of US$ 450-500 billion. It is estimated of this nearly US$ 250 billion was in the Promissory Notes which were bound to be called when the market dipped.
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By Jaime Faustino

Jaime Faustino is an Economic Program Officer for The Asia Foundation in the Philippines.

“Accelerating growth, low inflation, low interest rates, and improving government finances.” Is that a reference to Thailand, Malaysia or another dynamic Southeast Asian country? To the surprise of many, it is the Philippines. Most know the Philippine as the “sick man of Asia” characterized by “boom and bust” economic growth since the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

What accounts for this dramatic change? The structure and drivers of the Philippine economy have changed.
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For more than six years the families of former Mayor Kahir Macapeges and his successor Mayor Nasser Imam have engaged in a notoriously bloody war that has left nine relatives and two bystanders dead and 13 others wounded. In the small municipality of Matanog in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), these political rivals have been embroiled in seemingly endless conflict over disputed 2001 election results. Throughout Mindanao, ongoing wars between families have escalated to claim the lives of more than 5,500 in the last three decades. Commonly called rido, this violent form of family feud has plagued communities and hampered broader peace efforts in the region. On January 30, 2008, members of the Macapeges and Imam families met in Davao City to sign a peace covenant and conduct a reconciliation ceremony.
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By Gordon Hein

Gordon Hein is Vice President of Programs at The Asia Foundation, overseeing environmental initiatives. Dr. Hein spent many years working on the ground in Southeast Asia.

Before the 2004 tsunami, in provinces like Phuket, Thailand, high-end luxury resorts studded the coastline, like shimmering jewels. Over the last fifty years, in order to make way for hotels, significant numbers of coral reefs and mangrove forests were damaged or destroyed. These reefs and mangrove forests are organic buffers against storms and erosions—nature’s natural walls. Yet, it is estimated that Thailand has lost more than half of its mangrove forests as result of coastal development.

Since the tsunami, studies have revealed a common trait of the hardest hit beach developments: there were little to no mangroves or coral reefs left to protect them. Those beautiful, wide beaches and their non-stop views had no shields in place; instead, they were exposed and vulnerable.
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China faces the challenge of continuing its economic development while simultaneously protecting the environment. More than 70 percent of the water in five of China’s seven major river systems is too polluted for human use, and the combined costs of air and water pollution for China’s economy is estimated at $US100 billion a year — about 5.8 percent of the country’s GDP. The Asia Foundation is supporting a pilot project to promote cleaner production in Guangdong province. Working with local economic development and environmental protection policymakers, enterprises, industry associations, suppliers, local experts and communities, the project aims to reduce the quantity of heavy metals discharged to the Pearl River. Through international and domestic study tours, data collection and monitoring, training workshops and implementation support, the project aims to introduce cleaner production models to the pilot industries and area.

Despite continued economic growth in 2007, nearly half of Indonesia’s population lives on less than two U.S. dollars per day. With recent decentralization measures, there are now greater opportunities for Indonesian citizens to participate in the policy-making process and to hold local governments accountable for delivering services. Building on decades of collaboration with Indonesian organizations, The Asia Foundation is helping to bring together their local knowledge and influence with the technical expertise of budget and policy advocacy organizations to advance pro-poor development policies. Through this initiative in provinces and districts, Foundation partners are helping local governments draft poverty reduction development plans, and encouraging transparency by monitoring budget processes and, in some cases, publishing municipal annual budgets.

By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

Bruce Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s Director for Economic Reform and Development Programs.

Senhor Arnaldo Sombico, the Elder from the enclave district of Oecussi, smiled ruefully as he spoke of the unexpected impact of Timor-Leste’s independence from Indonesia. “This independence gave me a headache!”

At independence in 2002, the domestic boundary of Oecussi District was transformed into an international border, part of the demarcation between Indonesia and the world’s youngest nation of Timor-Leste. The creation of the international border meant that crossing had to be authorized by the sovereign laws of two separate countries — and the whole panoply of passports, visas, customs, and immigration authorities and related fees and costs all came into play. The border separated members of families and set up barriers between people sharing a common history, culture, and economic endowments.
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By Katherine S. Hunter

Katherine S. Hunter was The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Timor-Leste until January 2008 and is the Coordinator for the Luce Scholars Program.

The newly independent nation of Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor) faces daunting challenges in implementing the rule of law. Until recently, most efforts have focused on the important “hardware” of the justice system: training judges and prosecutors, establishing courts, and adopting laws. With insights gained from five years of independence and the security crisis of 2006 and 2007, officials now realize that strengthening the rule of law also requires critical attention to the “software” side, including broad and regular public access to legal information resources ranging from increased availability of the text of new laws, materials that explain and highlight key provisions of the laws, and reference materials in languages commonly understood by a multi-lingual citizenry. Information needs in the justice sector are particularly acute because laws are written primarily in Portuguese, which is understood by less than 10% of the population. This means that almost no one has access to the basic Civil Procedures Code.
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