In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

The mood on the street in Indonesia is probably more jubilant in many ways than in some parts of the U.S., with the news of the victory of Barack Obama as President-elect of the United States. Indonesians have long been overwhelming supporters of Obama.They say they feel a personal connection because Obama’s stepfather was Indonesian and Obama lived in Jakarta when he was a child. People here from all walks of life know about Obama — and today they say they feel pride that “their guy” is now in the White House. In fact, one of the jokes going around Jakarta today is that, “Obama was able to win against all odds after only spending 4 years in Indonesia — imagine what he could have done if he had spent his whole life here.”

Parties and celebrations were held across the city of Jakarta today — the largest among them was a public celebration held at a large mall in downtown Jakarta. Indonesia’s best rock and folks singers came out to perform, 3,000 balloons were dropped from the rafters, and people celebrated heartily.

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Almost two months ago, at the time of the U.S. Democratic and Republican political conventions, I blogged here in In Asia about being the nonpartisan commentator on the local cable news channel, ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC ” seen in the United States on The Filipino Channel).  I was delighted to be asked back to analyze the presidential election results as they came in yesterday.

Since interest in the election here in Manila  was so high, live coverage began at 5:00 am (4 pm ET).  Election returns only began to flow at 8:00 am (7 pm ET), so that’s when our part began.  Besides the anchor and myself, there was one representative each from Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad.  As Americans are accustomed to, as soon as polls closed in each state, the networks would “call” it for one candidate or the other (based on an esoteric combination of exit polls and early vote counts).

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Now that the U.S. presidential election is over, the incoming Obama administration will begin a reconsideration of American foreign policy.  Numerous urgent issues will compete for attention, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, and the parlous state of the global economy.  But consideration of these urgent matters should not come at the expense of issues that, while perhaps less immediate, are no less important.  One of these is the American relationship with Southeast Asia.

There is a widely shared view, both in Southeast Asia and in the Asian policy community in the U.S., that the United States has been paying insufficient attention to the region. In introducing the Southeast Asia section of the Asia Foundation’s recently-released America’s Role in Asia report at a press conference in Washington last month Tommy Koh, Ambassador-At-Large at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies, complained that Washington has been treating Southeast Asia with “benign neglect,” perhaps because the region has presented the U.S. with neither significant challenges nor great opportunities.

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Participants at a forum held last week in Seoul want you to steal their ideas. Organized by The Asia Foundation, and supported by KDI School of Public Policy and Management and the Korea Business Council for Sustainable Development, the group gathered from countries across Asia to discuss how to address local and regional environmental threats while enhancing development and economic growth.

In the keynote address that opened the day-long event, Terry Foecke, managing partner of Materials Productivity LLC and senior environmental consultant at The Asia Foundation, set the tone for the day. “A sustainable project incorporates ideas that are packaged for theft,” he said. “These are concepts that are so good and so obvious that people will want to replicate them.”

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On Tuesday, October 28th, the Asia Foundation released findings from its most recent public opinion poll in Afghanistan, which covers the largest population sample ever surveyed at one time in all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces. “Afghanistan in 2008: A Survey of the Afghan People” is the fourth poll conducted by the Foundation, which released previous polls in 2004, 2006, and 2007. Collectively, the four surveys establish an accurate, long-term barometer of public opinion across Afghanistan to help assess the direction in which the country is moving in the post-Taliban era.

A copy of the 2008 survey is available in its entirety on The Asia Foundation website.

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