In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

In Hit the Ground Running, an op-ed published Monday in The International Herald Tribune, Karl Inderfurth, Former Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs (1997-2001) and a Trustee of The Asia Foundation, advised the incoming Obama Administration to forge an Afghanistan plan that takes into account current Afghan public opinion on their most pressing needs and priorities. The data can be found in The Asia Foundation’s Afghanistan in 2008: A Survey of the Afghan People. “These poll results are heartening in many respects,” Ambassador Inderfurth writes. “But the challenges Afghanistan faces today are already greater than at any time since the Taliban were ousted from power seven years ago. For that reason, it will be critical for Obama and his team to hit the ground running, with a comprehensive political, economic and military plan.”

If we want to maintain a special alliance with the United States under Obama, there is an urgent need to find shared values that both nations want to pursue.

An empire’s decline or fall depends mainly on its capacity for change and innovation. If this becomes paralyzed, the nation falls. The Roman Empire is a prime example. Of course, there are cases in history where defeat in war leads to a nation’s collapse. The end of Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany and the militarized imperial Japanese Empire are the most recent examples.

But even in these cases, they brought disaster upon themselves by institutionalizing inflexibility and uniformity which robbed them of their capacity for self-innovation and renewal. Consequently, they committed national suicide.

Read more »

There’s a lot of speculation about how President-elect Obama will organize his administration to address a truly daunting list of security challenges, including a global economic crisis, Iraq, and Afghanistan. On the list of potential crises that the Obama administration will inherit come January 20th will be the task of achieving the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

There’s already been considerable speculation regarding how an Obama administration will approach the North Korean issue, especially in Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing.  Much of that has tended toward the dramatic idea that Mr. Obama himself would seek an early breakthrough with North Korea through personal diplomacy at the highest levels. 

Read more »

In the northwest corner of central Mongolia’s Tov province, 80% of the land in Ugumuur town has been licensed to 18 Mongolian, Russian, and Chinese miners. Activity hums dusk to dawn.

Ugumuur is a boom-town but like many towns in Mongolia, it is deeply scarred by a legacy of poor mining practices in the 1990s. Citizens have been divorced from land-use decision-making, they observe environmental damage and often imported labor crowded them out of the local mining market. These are sore points with locals, who, according to one, say that they would support mining if “we are engaged and employed, and if companies reclaim land when extraction is completed.” These concerns are voiced by communities in Khentii, Hovsgol and other provinces across Mongolia.

Read more »

In early October, the Timorese art collective Gembel launched its first major exhibition in Dili, with financial assistance from The Asia Foundation. The exhibit, Recovering Lives Across Borders, featured the print works produced from successful collaborations between Gembel and two unique art groups: Taring Padi from Indonesia, and Culture Kitchen from Australia. The collection of works explored the inter-connection among the three nations, particularly in terms of environmental and social justice. The collaborations and the themes in the artworks themselves promote young Timorese as productive, vital members of society.

Read more »

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of attending a special dinner where Dr. Muhammad Yunus discussed topics ranging from the current global economic crisis to recommendations for the Obama administration. Yunus, the world-renowned founder of Grameen Bank, Grameen America, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, was accepting an award for excellence in the community from the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

Dr. Yunus said the award was important for its ability to bring attention to the problem of global poverty.  He first recognized his former students from Chittagong University who worked with him to reduce poverty in Bangladesh at a grassroots level. Yunus’s mission began with giving microloans, but he has expanded his work to improve the health and education systems in his homeland. He said, while these kinds of efforts can improve the lives of many the worlds’ poor, policy change is the key to making a widespread, sustainable difference.

Read more »

Last Wednesday morning, November 5th, I was leaving a gathering in Dhaka that featured big-screen television coverage of the U.S. election, when a cycle rickshaw driver drew up alongside me. I assumed that he had slowed to offer me a ride, but in turning toward him, I found his face lit with excitement. With a wide grin he declared, “Brother, your American election is very good.  Barack Obama President.  I am too much happy.”

This captured the near-universal reaction of the people of Bangladesh, who observed the U.S. electoral process and outcome with keen interest. Local Bangladeshi media coverage of the U.S. elections began in 1992, when Bangladeshi television broadcast evening excerpts of CNN reporting. At the time, Bangladeshis were especially struck by the presidential candidate debates between President George H.W. Bush and Governor Bill Clinton. The concept and images of rival American candidates thoughtfully debating issues of substance and then shaking hands at the close of the debate offered an enticing glimpse of a kind of political culture unknown to Bangladesh”at a time when partisan tensions were starting the bitter course that would ultimately extend to every corner of society, dividing the nation along sharp political lines.

Read more »

Inauguration Decorations in Male, Maldives

It was after 1:00 on Monday morning when I made my way out of the airport in Male, the capitol of Maldives. There was a cool tropical breeze and the smell of salt water in the air. Across a stretch of sea from the airport, Male’s skyline had grown noticeably since my last visit in 2002. I was tired after a long flight, but excited to be back to attend the inauguration of my old friend, Dr. Waheed Hassan, as the Maldives’ first elected Vice President.

Two weeks earlier, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom had lost the first democratically contested presidential election in the nation’s history, after 30 years in power.  The new president-elect was Mohamed Nasheed, known as “Anni,” a 41-year-old journalist and former political prisoner. I had read about the election, but did not know  that my old friend Waheed was Anni’s running mate, until receiving an email last week inviting me to attend the inauguration.

Read more »

“We feel that too often, we are floating with the tide, but we want to be more active, we actually want to learn how to swim,” explained H.E. Ung Huot, Chairman of the Cambodian Senate’s Commission on Economy, Planning, Investment and Environment.

In the midst of what we can now call an international financial and economic crisis, more than 140 Cambodian senators, parliamentarians, and Government officials — but also students and businesspeople — gathered in Phnom Penh to discuss economic policy reforms and learn from the experience of their neighbor, South Korea.  They gathered at a seminar organized by the Cambodian Senate and The Asia Foundation on November 6th in Phnom Penh.

Read more »

There is a phrase I hear over and over as I travel around the Irrawaddy delta in Burma (also known as Myanmar): “We have nothing left.”

Six months ago, Cyclone Nargis made landfall in this region and roared across the flat and vulnerable lands of the delta, bringing with it a massive storm surge of sea water. The wind and the water combined into a fatal and catastrophic force that wiped entire villages off the map. People drowned. Houses were demolished by the storm. Personal possessions washed away. Farms animals were killed. Fishing boats sank or were smashed to pieces in the waves. Survivors in the worst-hit areas were left with nothing.

Read more »