In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

President Obama’s meetings this week with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan focused on the immediate security crisis – the eroding situation in Pakistan and the continued threat of the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. But chances for lasting and effective cooperation between Washington and the beleaguered governments in Kabul and Islamabad will require more than intense leadership summits.

It will also require rebuilding of trust and persuading presidents Zardari and Karzai and their compatriots that Washington can balance its military and counterinsurgency know-how with a deep and sustained interest in the security and well-being of their societies.

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Within hours following an April 14, 2009, United Nations Security Council presidential statement condemning North Korea’s missile launch, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) foreign ministry responded by stating that “six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence, never to recover,” and that the “DPRK will never participate in such six-party talks, nor will it be bound any longer to any agreement of the talks.”

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On March 6, 2009, over 30 villagers in Mingyue Village at Anxian of Sichuan – near the epicenter of the devastating 2008 earthquake – gathered at the village committee’s meeting room. They were coming together, almost a year later to join their first participatory planning workshop to discuss how to re-start productive activities in this earthquake-affected community. Representing all of the 485 households in the village, participants included village leaders, women’s organizations representatives, and ordinary villagers. Some of them just finished rebuilding their houses that had collapsed in the earthquake, while the rest were still in the process of rebuilding. However, most of them had one problem in common: rebuilding their homes was costly, most of their money, if not all, was now gone, and they were having difficulty resuming agricultural activities. They all knew it was unlikely they would get government support any time soon to assist them in rebuilding their livelihoods. Anxian was one of the 10 worst hit counties in China, according to the central government; the local government’s initial focus was on reconstructing the country’s major infrastructure facilities in the county.

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Korea is well known for the massive and frequent street demonstrations organized by various civil society groups to bring pressure on the government over issues of the day. Last spring, we witnessed the sight of hundreds of thousands of Koreans marching with candles almost every night for two months to protest against importing beef from the United States. Many smaller demonstrations take place every week at the Seoul City Hall Plaza. Less well known, however, is that these public demonstrations are increasingly becoming part of non-governmental groups’ strategies to bring about changes in public laws, regulations, and processes. These strategies have sometimes borne fruit. As a result of this interplay between a very activist civil society and a large government bureaucracy, Korea’s public governance has gradually become more transparent, accessible, responsive, and service-oriented.

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On Monday, Nepal’s Prime Minister, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (also known as Prachanda), resigned from his post after a confrontation with the president. Following the dramatic May 4 announcement, Dr. Sagar Prasai, The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Nepal, told Bloomberg News, “A national unity government is the only viable option. It is very difficult for an alternative government by other parties and without the Maoists to be formed.” Read the full Bloomberg News story, “Nepal’s Premier Resigns Amid Row Over Army Chief.” Dr. Prasai can be reached at sagar@taf.org.np.

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The Asia Foundation’s “Election Season: Nepal” video series documents events surrounding the country’s 2008 election, during which Prachanda’s CPN-Maoist party won a plurality of seats in Nepal’s Constituent Assembly. The Foundation’s video footage was shot during the build-up to the elections. Watch the series on YouTube, including “Part One: Campaign” that shows Dr. Prasai as he walks through a motorcycle rally for the Communist Party of Nepal (UML), and “Part Six: Polls Close” in which Dr. Prasai visits the poll observer’s headquarters on election eve as reports from observers across Nepal come in.

Schools and homes collapsed, and 80,000 people were left dead or missing following the May 12, 2008 earthquake in China. In addition to leaving millions of people surviving in shattered communities across Sichuan Province, the quake is now marked as a turning point for Chinese philanthropy.

Prior to the earthquake, philanthropy in China was a concept and activity relegated to the ultra wealthy within the country, and to corporate philanthropy from domestic and international businesses. However, the earthquake changed all of that – beginning with a groundswell of support from tens of millions of Chinese people from all walks of life, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid.

At the end of April, in preparation for the earthquake’s one-year anniversary, I joined trustees, staff and donors of Give2Asia for a visit to China, including a tour of the earthquake-affected areas, followed by a series of discussions in Beijing to consider the future of Chinese philanthropy.

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On May 12, 2008, an earthquake struck central China leaving more than 86,000 people dead and missing and some 15 million homeless. In the year since this disaster, the Chinese government has undertaken the enormous task of rebuilding homes and schools through an innovative twinning approach, allocating rural and urban areas hit by the earthquake to various provinces and cities across China to assist in the reconstruction. The goal is to complete the rebuilding of rural homes and schools by the end of this year.

The progress in reconstruction is a major achievement, but there has been something else of equal significance, and that is progress in the government’s approach to disaster management. It is markedly more open than it was during major natural disasters in the 1990s, in terms of providing information about reconstruction and in terms of coordinating and cooperating with the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and community groups on disaster relief and management. The government plans to mark the one year anniversary of the earthquake, known in China as “5-12,” with events to raise public awareness about disaster preparedness.

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