In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

No sooner did I warn in last week’s blog on my way to Washington, D.C., that there is “a danger that U.S.-Philippine relations will be viewed entirely through the lens of ‘the rise of China’” than I was greeted upon arrival by the morning front-page story in The Washington Post entitled, “Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence in reaction to China’s rise.”

News that the Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence sparked controversy. However, SWS surveys consistently show that the majority of Philippine citizens feels that they benefit from military cooperation with the United States. Photo: U.S. Navy.

The article stated that “the sudden rush by many in the Asia-Pacific region to embrace Washington is a direct reaction to China’s rise as a military power and its assertiveness in staking claims to disputed territories, such as the energy-rich South China Sea.”  Immediately, other pundits piled on, agreeing that “U.S.-Philippines Relations Benefit from China’s Poor Public Image” or discussing “The Great Game:  Philippine Edition.”

Unsurprisingly, neither China nor Philippine opponents of the United States were pleased. A Global Times editorial said, “Make Philippines pay for balancing act,” and this was certainly noticed in the Philippine press. But then diplomats began to calm the roiled waters. The Joint Statement on Friday after the finish of the 2nd Philippines-United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue listed a whole host of items being discussed – well beyond a focus on China. Over the weekend, the Presidential Palace in the Philippines insisted that territorial disputes in the South China Sea (which the Philippines calls the West Philippine Sea) was not the main motivation behind the Strategic Dialogue. In turn, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a more measured statement, taking note of the report. Finally, some U.S. analysts argued that the entire “pivot” to Asia, much less specific U.S.-Philippine initiatives, were “not all about China.”

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After a series of reports emerged across the archipelago in recent weeks of children being arrested and prosecuted for petty crimes, Indonesians are raising questions about the state of juvenile justice in the country. The first was a confounding case that resonated around the globe: a 15-year-old boy from Central Sulawesi was incarcerated and tried last month after a police officer accused him of stealing a pair of used flip-flops worth about $3. Claims emerged that the boy was badly beaten by police during interrogation, and the officer who reported the minor was formally punished. The case galvanized the Indonesian public, and infuriated citizens collected over a thousand of pairs of sandals and dumped them on the steps of police stations across the country.

Days later, news surfaced of a teenager from West Timor who was put on trial for stealing bouquets of flowers from his aunt, and a Balinese teenager who was tried for stealing a wallet containing Rp. 1,000 (around 10 cents). The cases prompted similar outrage and hatched wry campaigns from a frustrated public, with citizens gathering flowers and coins to mock law enforcers for their heavy-handedness.

Juvenile inmates wait to be inspected at Indonesia's Tangerang Juvenile Prison, located just outside Jakarta. The prison is considered to have the best rehabilitation program and most spacious facilities for young detainees in Indonesia. Photo: Leo Sudaryono.

Sadly, such cases are not uncommon here. If you are a child over the age of eight, are Indonesian or just happen to be in Indonesia, and take someone’s property – intentionally or not – and are then reported to the police, there is a high chance you will be prosecuted. According to UNICEF, around 80 percent of children over age eight who were reported to police ended up being tried, with 91 percent of them spending between three months to three years behind bars. Today, there are 5,515 child inmates in Indonesia, 85 percent of whom are in adult detention facilities.

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From January 25-29, the world’s most powerful leaders from the public and private sectors gather in the Swiss town of Davos to try to agree on measures that will eventually impact billions of people across the world. The event is being held against an unprecedentedly gloomy global economic picture.

While many Asian nations have shown great resilience to the global economic crisis, the European slowdown is threatening their heavily export-dependent economies. Photo by flickr user OlliL.

The World Bank recently reported that the world economy will grow by only 2.5 percent in 2012, far below initial estimates of 3.6 percent. In Europe, leaders have yet to come up with a comprehensive solution to the eurozone crisis. As a result, World Bank forecasts for eurozone growth are now predicted to be at -0.3 percent, down considerably from a low but slightly positive 1.8 percent. In order to deal with this situation, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde recently called for a “larger firewall” against default in Greece, Spain, and Italy through a European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

While the World Bank predicts a positive growth forecast of 2.2 percent for the United States, problems in the eurozone are having an impact on U.S. growth. The Department of Commerce estimated that U.S. exports to eurozone countries dropped 6 percent in November of last year. In addition, a contentious U.S. election season could give lawmakers an incentive to move slowly on economic issues – including taxes and the budget – which could further impair the U.S. economy.

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The Economist, in its recent issue “The World in 2012,” gave this thumbnail prediction for India in the New Year: “The Congress-led government is leaking support because of widespread corruption and a patchy economic record… Nevertheless, the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will hold on until the end of its term in 2014 – not least because the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is equally tarnished. Strong internal growth and foreign demand for India’s services will propel the economy, though the rate of expansion will slow.”

A comparable prediction for the United States in the New Year would be similar, starting with the Obama administration’s own “patchy economic record” and likelihood of slow growth in 2012. Added to this would be the near certainty of continuing, highly partisan battles in Congress and the uncertainties (and risks) associated with a steady stream of foreign policy “flashpoints” from the ongoing military engagement in Afghanistan, to Iran and Iraq, to the Middle East and North Africa.

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Female entrepreneurs in Bangladesh represent a miniscule percentage of business owners (0.05 percent), according to The Asia Foundation’s 2010 firm-level survey results. Issues of concern to women business owners, such as difficulties in accessing information on regulations or obtaining loans for their businesses, are concomitantly raised in a relatively diminished voice. Yet by joining together to form a Women’s Business Forum and working with local public authorities, a group of women entrepreneurs successfully negotiated over the course of several months to improve the terms for accessing credit from a local commercial bank.

Female entrepreneurs in Bangladesh represent a small percentage of business owners. However, recent Business Forums have provide them with a voice for expressing their challenges and concerns about the business environment. Photo by Geoffrey Hiller.

Although this was a success, in many of Asia’s developing economies, this type of collaboration is difficult due to an absence of a strong, organized private sector and active civil society (whether local business associations, consumer or citizen groups, or farmers’ collectives). As a result, mutual collaboration between the private and public sector is often weak, or in some cases nonexistent. Even when the private sector’s demands for reform are expressed, they may not always be clearly articulated, due to lack of capacity, or acted upon effectively by the government.

Public-Private Dialogues (PPDs), such as the one illustrated above between the Bangladeshi women entrepreneurs and their local bank, help facilitate constructive interaction for reforms  by providing a forum for participants to identify constraints and issues that need to be improved. Issues vary widely, ranging from the quotidian (garbage collection, the need for more street lights, or better parking facilities), to the complex (onerous business licensing regulations, informal fees, improved food safety regulations, or gender-based discrimination).

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Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Interventions will be required over a long time for adaptation and mitigation. They will need to adopt different approaches to programming, while the ongoing development initiatives will need to be sensitive to climate change. One such approach is Public Private Partnership (PPP).

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and while businesses are among the causes of climate change, they are also at risk from its effects. Photo by Srabani Roy.

Despite delays in staffing the PPP Unit and implementing the Policy and Strategy on PPP that was approved in 2010, the government took a timely step for the economic growth and development. The government has also been applauded globally as one of the pioneers to formulate the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). If applied properly, PPP can be an effective approach to reduce vulnerability. Such partnerships can also ensure “climate proofing” of other projects implemented through PPP in the country.

People in semi-urban and rural areas directly depend on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and businesses for their livelihoods. On the other hand, while some businesses are among the causes of climate change (e.g., emission of carbon dioxide and similar gases), they are also at risk from its effects.

Many, if not most, of the large scale “solutions” will continue to be undertaken by the government. However, the government cannot act alone as it may not have adequate funds, skills, and capacity. Also, some interventions (e.g., building and enhancing large infrastructures) may require long implementation time if they are implemented as public-only projects.

Due to the global scale of the challenge, we need multiple actors including private sector funding and diverse sources of expertise to deliver sustainable solutions. Public funding is likely to be restricted for years to come following the financial crisis, which makes exploring alternative funding and expertise more critical than ever.

PPP models can potentially address the challenges posed by climate change in sectors like housing, communication, infrastructure, health, agriculture, livelihood, water, and sanitation. The private sector can bring innovative solutions and scale to the models for climate change adaptation and mitigation shaped by the government and civil society organisations (CSO). PPP can allow large scale projects to go forward when public sector authorities might not be able to afford them.

Read the full article originally published in The Daily Star on Jan. 7, 2012.

Shameem Siddiqi is The Asia Foundation’s senior program director in Bangladesh. He can be reached siddiqi@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On Monday, Malaysia’s High Court acquitted opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy charges after a highly publicized and controversial 2-year trial. As Malaysia looks to elections in 2013, which are widely expected to be called later this year, In Asia‘s editor, Alma Freeman, interviews Herizal Hazri and Nurshafenath Shaharuddin in The Asia Foundation’s Malaysia office for insight into how the verdict could affect elections, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s recent democratic reforms, what this says about the independence of Malaysia’s judiciary, and more.

How is Anwar Ibrahim’s acquittal being received among the public in Malaysia?  

Overall, the verdict has been received positively by the public in Malaysia. Opinions on what positive effects Anwar’s acquittal could have on the political discourse in the country vary depending on political sympathies: pro-Anwar responses generally hail it as a sign for future reforms and Anwar’s innocence in the matter, while pro-establishment responses mark the verdict as a sign of already existing judicial independence and the liberal-mindedness of the Najib administration. For the general public who are not aligned to either Anwar or Najib’s administration, the verdict presents a hope for a more transparent and mature democracy in Malaysia.

Prime Minister Najib said that the verdict exhibits the independence of Malaysia’s judiciary, and that it “will help extend this transparency to all areas of Malaysian life.” What are your thoughts on this?

It is always reassuring to know that the prime minister is focused on reforms, and there have been bold decisions made recently that could promote better transparency in Malaysia, such as the repeal of the Internal Security Act and three Emergency Ordinances, as well as the formation of the Electoral Reform Select Committee. Certainly, and no doubt, Malaysia is transforming. However, I don’t think Anwar Ibrahim’s acquittal should be viewed as an example of the prime minister’s democratic reforms efforts. This verdict came from the strength of the judiciary’s ability to be impartial in exercising its responsibility to uphold law in Malaysia.

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For much of the past two decades, many Southeast Asians have expressed frustration that U.S. policy treated their region with benign neglect or indifference, and that the United States’ attention was episodic rather than consistent.

In 2011, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. needed to pay greater attention to the Asia-Pacific, particularly Southeast Asia. In the past, many Southeast Asians have expressed frustration that U.S. policy has neglected the region. Photo by Karl Grobl.

In 2011, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. needed to make “a strategic pivot” in its foreign policy, where over the next decade the dynamic will be to downsize the United States’ presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and to invest more and pay greater attention to the Asia-Pacific, particularly Southeast Asia. In the past year, Washington accelerated its relations with Southeast Asia in a number of symbolic and important ways. The U.S. was the first non-ASEAN country to establish a dedicated mission to ASEAN in Jakarta, named and confirmed a special representative and policy coordinator for Burma (also known as Myanmar), and expanded and deepened its bilateral relations with most Southeast Asian nations, particularly Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Moreover, the Obama administration has made clear that it wants to be involved in regional architecture where ASEAN serves as the “fulcrum,” to borrow Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s word. Hence, the importance of U.S. participation for the first time in the East Asia Summit (EAS) as a full-fledged member this past November in Indonesia. By engaging ASEAN nations, both multilaterally and bilaterally, the U.S. is dispelling the widespread belief in the region that it does not have a sustained commitment to Southeast Asia and its importance in helping to address both regional and global issues.

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In 2011, Asia grappled with a host of devastating shocks, both natural and man-made. As challenging and economically harsh as they have been, they have provided an opportunity for Asia’s emerging economies to dramatically assert their economic resilience and regional influence.

Despite a suffering global economy Asia, mostly driven by emerging super-powers like China and India, has emerged as a credible long-term partner for the United States and the European Union.

Despite a global economy plagued by low economic growth, high unemployment rates, and threatening debt levels, Asia has emerged as a credible long-term partner for the United States and the European Union, shedding its long-familiar image as merely a trade partner. Driven by emerging super-powers like China and India, Asia in 2012 is more self-confident in positioning itself as a global economic, financial, and political power.

A Year of Challenges

In 2011, two major natural disasters underscored Asia’s place at the center of global trade. March’s massive 9.0 earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan and subsequent tsunami constituted the most expensive natural disaster on global record, with a total estimated cost of $235 billion, according to the World Bank. In Thailand, monsoon flooding over the past six months has resulted in approximately $45 billion in economic losses thus far. In both cases, global supply chains were severely disrupted, sending ripple effects through the global economy.

Additionally, a stagnating eurozone and anemic U.S. recovery have created market anxieties over the strength of Asia’s own recovery. While Asia’s emerging economies are still on a growth trajectory, slumping global trade tied to a potential slide of the eurozone and the U.S. economies back into recession could slow Asia’s growth significantly. At the same time, Asia’s two largest emerging economies face serious domestic challenges of their own. China may find itself face-to-face with its own real estate bubble in 2012, and critics are quick to point out that consumer spending and household consumption lag far behind overall growth. Meanwhile, India’s large fiscal deficits threaten to derail its already slowing recovery. The government now faces the stark choice of raising taxes, which may further dampen growth, or cutting popular programs for the poor.

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One of the virtues of a regular exercise at peering into a new year is that you can check your own predictions from the past year. My predictions that I made here for the Philippines in 2011 were correct in three of four instances:

• Peace talks did begin (those with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front had more progress than those with the National Democratic Front).

• The budget system continued to work as the 2012 budget was signed into law in mid-December 2011 (with the government adopting a national payroll system for government employees).

• And, of course, boxer Manny Pacquiao defeated Shane Mosely.

My political prediction, though, that there would be continued concern with factionalism in the administration of President Benigno S. “Noynoy” Aquino III, did not pan out. While there continues to be talk of disruptive internecine feuding among certain groups, there has been relatively little evidence of that beyond the walls of the palace in the past 12 months.

Some of what transpired in 2011 happens so regularly that it does not merit the term “prediction.”  As one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, when the Philippines is struck by a tragedy of the scope of the recent typhoon Sendong (international name Washi), one is not surprised but can instead try to draw lessons for future preparedness.

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