In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends the ASEAN Regional Forum in Phuket, Thailand. Established in 1994, the forum is an official, multilateral dialogue of 27 countries to address peace and security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. ASEAN realized if it was to remain relevant in the post-Cold War era, it would need to ensure that it could contribute positively to Asia-Pacific security discourse and that ASEAN would be part of all Asia-Pacific security deliberations. In this regard ASEAN has been successful, but its critics charge that the dialogue has failed to move beyond just talking about security challenges to actually taking collective action in addressing them.

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Recently, the Prime Minister of Thailand and more than 400 other people – including government officials, military personnel, representatives from foreign embassies and NGOs, academics, and a large contingent from the southern-most provinces of Thailand – assembled with great anticipation at the King Prajadhipok’s Institute (KPI) in Bangkok. The big draw was overwhelmingly the presentation of a peace plan, including seven concrete recommendations for achieving sustainable peace in the country’s troubled southern-most provinces.

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In the space of 10 minutes early last Friday morning, in a dreadful flash, Indonesia was pulled back to an era that most would prefer to forget. The two bomb attacks that took place within minutes of each other on Friday, July 17 at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in Jakarta killed nine people and wounded over 50.

For many Indonesians and members of the long-term international community alike, there was a terrible sense of déjà vu. From 2000 to 2005, Indonesia experienced almost yearly terrorist attacks, including the infamous Bali bombing in 2002 that killed nearly 200 people, and an attack on the very same JW Marriott hotel in 2003.

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This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the first visit by a senior Obama administration official to India in an effort to urge an “exciting new approach” to relations between the two countries. While there, Secretary Clinton engaged in discussions on clean energy technology and women’s rights, and signed a deal allowing the sale of sophisticated U.S. defense technology to India.

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In a recent piece on Foreign Policy.com, The Asia Foundation’s Yeling Tan and Ann Florini, a professor and director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, challenge the traditional norms in ranking countries for their openness and transparency, and present surprising scenarios of two new contenders.

“Western countries no longer have a monopoly over the definition and value of openness and disclosure. India’s grass-roots approach champions transparency as a critical means of empowering the poor. China’s state-driven approach wields transparency fundamentally as an alternative (rather than a prerequisite) to democratic reform.” Read the full piece here.

“The premise underlying the question of what do we do if North Korea says no is that we are still waiting for a North Korean answer…. It is North Korea’s pursuit of escalation that has foreclosed dialogue possibilities for now as Pyongyang, for a variety of domestic and international reasons, attempts to lock in its nuclear status as a fait accompli.

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These days, few good news stories reach the international and Afghan press. The process of re-building a nation’s infrastructure, its government systems – and the physical and emotional strength of a fragile citizenry – can be incremental and painfully slow.

In Afghanistan, citizens complain about the lack of government services, lack of leadership, and widespread corruption. Findings from The Asia Foundation’s 2008 “Survey of the Afghan People” show that there is a clear trend towards greater pessimism in the country and that 66 percent believe that the government is not effective in countering corruption. This is compounded by peoples’ general lack of trust in the government and of those from outside of their communities. This mistrust contributes to a divide between the people and their government, and between regions and ethnic groups.

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Decades of heavy investment in “supply side” rule of law initiatives in Asia and elsewhere have yielded limited results. Programs focused on training judges and other court officials, introducing modern case management systems, and reforming court procedures have not consistently translated into improved access to efficient and fair justice institutions for ordinary citizens, and particularly not for the poor, women, and other vulnerable groups. Frustration with these disappointing results has led to increased attention on legal empowerment as an alternative approach.

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Earlier this month, The Asia Foundation’s office in Timor-Leste released the results of a landmark opinion poll conducted over the past year: “Law and Justice in Timor-Leste: A Survey of Citizen Awareness and Attitudes Regarding Law and Justice – 2008.” Designed to inform policymakers about progress in the justice sector and to increase citizens’ access to justice, the Foundation’s second nationwide perceptions poll convened focus groups to compare citizens’ perceptions of law and justice today to their perceptions in the 2004 survey. The surveys are the only records of their kind available for longitudinal comparison of the establishment of rule of law in Timor-Leste. Read the full survey.

Tonight, Asia Foundation Pakistan and Afghanistan expert Jon Summers addresses the World Affairs Council, uncovering the lesser-known aspects of Pakistan’s complex story: its dynamic, rising middle class, educated elite, vibrant civil society, and hardworking workforce determined to reach their economic potential. According to Summers, while the nation suffers from dire short and long-term challenges – including ongoing terrorist threats and attacks, an estimated 3 million displaced people now living in temporary camps, and sobering statistics on poverty, illness, and illiteracy – there is far more to the story. For more on Pakistan’s economic development, read “Drivers of Change”, a study supported by The Asia Foundation that examines the causes of Pakistan’s ongoing development challenges, as well as potential solutions to address their root causes.