By Karl F. Inderfurth and Chinmaya R. Gharekhan

The 68-nation London conference at the end of this month will focus on the future of Afghanistan, against the backdrop of major new military commitments by the United States and NATO, promises from the international community of increased civilian assistance, and pledges of new anti-corruption measures from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

But assuring Afghanistan’s future will require more than a military and civilian surge and better Afghan governance. A diplomacy surge is also required. Specifically, in the words of a recent statement signed by 20 former foreign ministers led by Madeleine K. Albright, “there needs to be a regional solution to Afghanistan’s problems.”
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By Najla Ayubi

“I operate daily under extremely dangerous situations in the south and southwest regions of Afghanistan, especially in Helmand Province. While there, I am expected to be completely covered in a Burqa and am advised to not carry a women’s style handbag or laptop bag. My phone should be off so that it is never heard ringing. Shaking hands with men is a taboo and talking directly about women’s rights could be punishable by death. However, the secret behind my success is that I am educated and have established contacts with local elders – and I abide by all these conditions. This is why I am able to run my development projects successfully,” said an Afghan woman who recently spoke to me on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
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By Mohammad Bashir and Alma Freeman

At the foot of the Khyber Pass, Peshawar is on the front lines of Pakistan’s war against militants. In one recent month, 221 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded in bombings. Many more lives have been lost on the trek from Peshawar through the Pass to reach Afghanistan’s Jalalabad.

It is this route that containers of 15,000 books – sent from a warehouse in San Leandro, California – must take to reach Kabul, and finally to outlying areas throughout Afghanistan. The route is fraught with great travel obstacles – bureaucratic, logistical, and physical challenges abound – and perseverance is a necessity, as reaching Kabul can take from three to four months.
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As we head into a new decade, what do you see changing in Asia? The Asia Foundation is looking for compelling photos from readers that exemplify change – large or small – in Asia: whether on your travels, in your country, neighborhood, or on your street; socially, economically, culturally, or in global affairs. In one month, The Asia Foundation will select five photos, which will then be turned over to our Facebook fans for a final vote. The selected photo will be featured on the homepage of The Asia Foundation’s global website and in our 2010 Flickr Photography Contest album. Visit our Flickr page to learn how to participate.

Photo by Karl Grobl.

By Nilan Fernando

Sri Lanka’s presidential election will be held on January 26, 2010. The race has been more competitive than people expected. The incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), elected in 2005, is battling for a second term against the former army chief, General Sarath Fonseka, who together with the president and his defence secretary defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 and ended Sri Lanka’s three-decade-long civil war.

General Fonseka entered the race in early December as a joint opposition candidate bearing a grudge against the president and defence secretary after feeling personally slighted by them after the war. Fonseka was encouraged to run by Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the main opposition party the United National Party (UNP), because his own chances of winning were slim. Mr. Wickremesinghe is hindered by the fact that he was the architect of the unsuccessful peace process with the LTTE from 2002 to 2004. The peace process is so discredited and Mr. Wickremesinghe so closely associated with it that a Wickremesinghe-led UNP could not hope to mount a serious challenge to the popular war president. Opposition leaders were grateful that Fonseka was available, none more than Mr. Wickremesinghe.

A campaign poster for the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Photo by Karl Grobl.

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By Gillian Yeoh

On January 12, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti and devastated thousands of lives. The panic, the sorrow — and the desire to help — are all too familiar, given the many disasters that have occurred in recent years all over the world. But we can draw on lessons from each of these catastrophes as we plunge into the recovery phase.

My organization, Give2Asia, has served as a leader in U.S. philanthropy for short-term and long-term recovery in times of disaster. Our recent work has supported survivors of the 2008 China earthquake, Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 and typhoons Ketsana and Parma in Southeast Asia this past year.
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By Edward Reed

Korea’s immediate commitment of $10 million in assistance to Haiti and the response by corporations and the Korean public is impressive.

Clearly Koreans want to help, but how can they be sure that their aid will be most effective?

In an emergency of this scale and complexity, and in a relatively limited area, the most important thing is coordination among the aid providers. Korea should work closely with the United Nations and other major donors to ensure that assistance is provided in an integrated and coordinated way. [Read a recent Washington Post op-ed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for more on the UN's role in the disaster.]
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China’s Ambassador to the United States Zhou Wenzhong spoke to a packed room of 350+ yesterday at a World Affairs Council event, co-sponsored by The Asia Foundation, on the future of U.S.-China relations. In an atmosphere of increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, due in part to recent reports of wide-scale cyberattacks, the ambassador referred to the relationship between the two countries as “one of the most dynamic and influential bilateral relationships in the world.” The Ambassador praised President Obama’s trip to Beijing in November to meet with China’s President Hu Jintao, and said, with the signing of the Sino-U.S. joint statement, the two leaders “have pledged to work together to build a cooperative China-U.S. relationship for the 21st century and to steadily build a partnership to address common challenges.”  The audience challenged the Ambassador’s upbeat remarks with some tough questions on Google in China, the environment, human rights, and China’s relationship with an increasingly unstable North Korea. The Ambassador spoke just up the street from The Asia Foundation, in the Gold Room at the Fairmont Hotel.  Below are some of the Ambassador’s responses to questions the audience posed.
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College students might know Chegg.com from the ubiquitous orange delivery boxes that have sprouted up across 6,400 college campuses over the last three years. Others might think of the company as the “Netflix” of textbook rental companies, having dominated the niche market by saving students more than $100 million dollars at over 6,400 colleges. And now, Chegg.com wants to help those that need books in Asia.
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By Michael Finnegan

The Republic of Korea (ROK)’s pledge to return to Afghanistan after more than two years of absence can be viewed in several ways – as a domestic political breakthrough, as a recognition of Korea’s interests in the world, or as a reflection of an evolving alliance with the United States. Perhaps it is all of these and more. The full motivation for the decision and specific plans to implement the mission will not be clear until the Lee Myung-bak administration explains its rationale and plans for deployment to the Korean people. As he does so, President Lee Myung-bak should avoid the mistakes of past Korean administrations by clearly articulating South Korea’s national interests and strategic rationale for the deployment.

Read the full piece published in the January Center for U.S.-Korea Policy newsletter.

Michael Finnegan is a Senior Research Associate at the National Bureau of Asian Research. He was a panelist at a Center for U.S.-Korea Policy-Brookings conference earlier this month.