In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

I sat cross legged on the floor of a single room house at the end of a bumpy dirt road, drinking bitter green tea and looking at the faces of the men around me as they told us about their lives. The family’s few belongings were neatly stacked under the beds and family photos were pinned to the white walls. We – a group of public health researchers – were sitting alongside a group of young Vietnamese heroin addicts, several of whom were HIV positive, hearing a few of the stories behind the statistics on drug use and HIV here in Vietnam. These young men, mostly under the age of thirty, have watched many of their peers die from drug overdose or from AIDS, and have felt their own lives crumble around them.

Contracting HIV/AIDS from infected needles is an urgent problem facing countries all over the world and, in Vietnam, HIV/AIDS in Vietnam cannot be separated from injection drug use, primarily of heroin. While the overall prevalence of HIV is under 1%, the rate among drug users is estimated to be 32%, with rates as high as 66% in some provinces. Sharing needles and unsafe injecting is the cause of 50 to 60% of HIV cases here.

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With its GDP growing at an average of 6-7% annually since 2000, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a country on the move. Not very fast when compared to its rapidly-burgeoning neighbors China and Vietnam, but fast when compared to its historically languid pace.

In meeting after meeting with senior Government officials and representatives of the international community during a recent visit to Laos, our hosts often stressed that Laos is no longer an isolated, landlocked country; rather, “Laos is a ‘land-linked’ country!” they enthusiastically declared.

Historically, being landlocked has been regarded as a disadvantageous position. Landlocked countries are cut off from sea resources such as fishing, and more importantly, have no access to seaborne trade, which makes up a large percentage of international trade. Thus, coastal regions tend to be wealthier and more heavily populated than inland areas. In the case of Laos, this disadvantage is strikingly apparent, as Laos is the only landlocked country in the whole of Southeast Asia.

Yet the Lao government is determined to transform this traditional limitation by promoting the perception that Laos is a land bridge, providing the most direct overland transport routes between its seaboard neighbors.

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In May of last year, Silvano Jino and Sarangerel Chuluunbaatar were convicted under Mongolia’s Criminal Code Article 113 for trafficking Mongolian women to Macau; they were sentenced to over 10 years in prison. This was the first trafficking in persons case that resulted in a conviction under Article 113 in nearly a decade, and it is an example of the Government’s commitment to pursue perpetrators aggressively.

Between the early 1990s and 2006, only half a dozen cases of trafficking were prosecuted and adjudicated by the Mongolian courts. Of these, only one resulted in a conviction under Article 113, which carries relatively stiff penalties. The other cases were presented under Article 124, Organized Prostitution, which carries relatively light sentences of between one and three years imprisonment.

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The presumptive presidential candidates are taking the global stage. Senator John McCain has traveled to Colombia, Mexico, and Iraq. This summer, Senator Barack Obama embarked on travels to Europe, Israel, the West Bank, Iraq, and Afghanistan. However, east of Afghanistan, lie some of the most strategically important countries to U.S. foreign policy — and they are missing to date from both candidates’ itineraries.

Whoever wins in November will inherit a decent hand to play in Asia; the region is not currently in crisis. Our relations with the great powers there — Japan, China, Russia, and India — are generally solid. Asian economies have sustained robust growth despite the current U.S. slowdown. Counter-terrorist efforts in Southeast Asia have produced some impressive results. Six Power Talks have succeeded in putting a cap back on North Korea’s plutonium program, albeit at a higher level than in 2002.

Despite this, the region deserves greater attention.

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The election of a new American president is an event of great importance not only to the United States, but to the entire world. Asians from all walks of life have been following the 2008 presidential primaries with great interest and admiration. The world has seen a democratic process where neither wealth nor pedigree ” race nor gender ” are obstacles to securing America’s highest office. Asians are looking at the November 2008 election with great anticipation and are curious about the next American president’s foreign policy toward a multi-polar world where countries like China, India, and Russia are increasing their power and influence. America’s 44th president will face many challenges once in office. Read more.

Han Sung-Joo, Tommy Koh, and C. Raja Mohan are the co-chairs and authors of the Asian Views of U.S. foreign policy in Northeast, Southeast and South Asia, featured in the forthcoming volume, “America’s Role in Asia: Asian and American Views”. An advance, electronic version of the report will be available on Friday, August 22nd at www.asiafoundation.org. The published volume will formally debut in Washington, DC on September 10th. For more information, please contact Amy Ovalle at aovalle@asiafound.org.

Ambassador Han Sung-Joo is currently the Chairman of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies; Tommy Koh is the Ambassador-At-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, and Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies and the National Heritage Board; and C. Raja Mohan is currently a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Every four years, America’s Role in Asia brings together a distinguished group of Asian and American policy experts, current and former diplomats, and scholars to develop recommendations for U.S. policy toward Asia. The program reflects The Asia Foundation’s view that if workable solutions to common problems are to be found, perspectives from both sides of the Pacific must be heard and shared.

America’s Role in Asia examines critical bilateral and trans-national issues in U.S.-Asia relations through a series of candid, high-level workshops in Asia and the U.S. These discussions culminate in a published volume, America’s Role in Asia: Asian and American Views, written by the participants. The goal is to provide policymakers with concrete recommendations on how to address challenges and opportunities in Asia”from stability on the Korean peninsula, conflict in Afghanistan, and the global war on terror; to energy security, environmental degradation and Asia’s political and economic architecture, trade, and investment.

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This report, recently featured in the Straits Times‘ article, “Indonesia’s Political Miracle“, is designed to take stock of developments in Indonesia and identify ways of enhancing our bilateral relationship. The authors, Andrew MacIntyre and The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative, Douglas Ramage, provide important insights based on their deep understanding of the subject. A central theme of the paper is that Indonesia has become a normal country, the world’s third largest functioning democracy, with a very lively, engaged parliament. Indonesia’s transformation of course poses challenges for Australia. In some ways, vibrant democracies are harder to deal with than dictatorships. The authors’ core message in this Strategy is that it’s the consolidation of Indonesia’s democratic governance that we should focus on as we improve our bilateral relationship and pursue our interests in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia”Pacific.

After living in the Philippines for 27 years, I spend a good deal of my time explaining the country to foreigners. Over the last few weeks, however, I have found myself explaining events that concern one group of Filipinos to other Filipinos. The hot issues at the moment ” the ones everybody is now talking about in this country ” are ones I care deeply about. As I told Carol Arguillas of MindaNews in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week, “I’m worried that an exclusive focus on peace efforts makes it harder to draw in others who are concerned with better elections, better governance, development, etc. Peace can be profitably pursued in the broader context of good governance and development rather than in a narrow focus.”

So, let me talk some about the broader connections among the four words in my title: Peace, Elections, Autonomy, and Development.

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For further information please contact Mr. Ichal Supriadi, ANFREL Mission Director, at ichal@anfrel.org.

Accredited by the Philippines’ Commission on Elections (COMELEC), the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) deployed 22 international election observers representing seven Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand) to observe regional elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). On election day, 11th August 2008, observers were deployed in all ARMM provinces, including Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Shariff Kabungsuan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi. A total number of 443 precincts (polling stations) were observed. The ANFREL observers have been in the Philippines since 1st August 2008. The mission was conducted in the ARMM in partnership with the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), 16 Muslim civil society organizations, and the Darul Ifta Assembly of the Philippines, with support from The Asia Foundation and the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency.

The executive summary can be read here. In sum, the ARMM elections were generally conducted with less violence. The new systems were certainly a welcome improvement over the manual system in previous elections. That the COMELEC accredited and welcomed both local and international observers demonstrate an openness to further strengthening Philippines democracy.

President Bush’s stop to Seoul en route to the Beijing Olympics is a reminder that a once-firm security alliance with South Korea faces continuing difficulties over North Korea’s nuclear development, American beef imports to South Korea, and ratification of a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. But despite these difficulties, there is potential to refashion this relationship into a dramatically expanded partnership in the service of our mutual regional and global interests.

American and South Korean interests have converged and now expand well beyond the narrow focus on security interests that emerged as a result of the Korean War. South Korea’s successful economic modernization and its political consolidation into a vibrant democracy underscore the attraction of South Korea as a key Asian partner. South Korea has developed the economic, political, and security capacity to be considered as a first-tier partner in promoting both regional and global stability”as evidenced by South Korea’s contributions to peace operations in Timor-Leste and Iraq.

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