In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

“The great trends of urbanization, globalization, climate change, and demographic change in China as elsewhere are going to pose enormous pressures and challenges on the system. They are going to pose problems for the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese State to handle, and the solutions will impose costs on some sectors of society as [...]

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Days following the conclusion of China’s 60th anniversary celebration of its founding, Premier Wen Jiabao brought a high-powered delegation to Pyongyang to mark the 60th anniversary of Sino-DPRK ties and to facilitate a dialogue on North Korea’s nuclear issues with Kim Jong Il. This exceptionally large delegation of Chinese senior officials received Pyongyang’s version of [...]

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For close to two decades, I have worked in Asia and Africa on programs that support elections and democracy, and nowhere but Thailand have I heard democracy itself disparaged so frequently. It is common in Bangkok to hear prominent academics question whether the average Thai is educated enough for democracy, while pundits in the media [...]

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Its clear blue waters, lush greenery, and sunny skies provide a tranquil setting for daily life in the many islands of the South Pacific. However, this natural beauty can be deceiving – the Pacific Island Nations are prone to some of the world’s worst natural hazards – cyclones, tsunamis, droughts, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. [...]

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While delivering needed assistance to people in the North is the first-order objective of South Korean NGOs, closely related is the objective of contributing to reconciliation between South and North. NGOs could contribute to reconciliation by reducing misunderstanding, deepening trust, and providing alternative channels for communication that can operate when governmental channels are constrained. Civil [...]

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The global financial crisis has increased the number of desperate job seekers and prompted many to take greater risks for new income opportunities. In Vietnam, a source country for human trafficking, there are some who take advantage of the country’s opening borders resulting from the last two decades of political and economic reform. Alas, men [...]

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