In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

On February 26, leading foreign affairs experts will participate in a panel discussion, co-sponsored by The Asia Foundation along with host Asia Society of Northern California, on the rise of Asia, America’s pivot to Asia, and what this means for the U.S. and countries in the region.

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On Saturday in Vientiane, Laos announced its full membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO is the global international organization that deals with the rules of trade between nations, with the goal of helping producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. The WTO puts it this way: WTO “agreements cover goods, services and intellectual property. They spell out the principles of liberalization, and the permitted exceptions. They include individual countries’ commitments to lower customs tariffs and other trade barriers, and to open and keep open services markets.” The process leading to approval for membership in the WTO often takes a country about five years and is a badge of marked economic achievement. For Laos, this effort has taken 15 years.

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For Southeast Asia, 2012 brought both challenges and opportunities to the region – from Cambodia’s chairmanship of ASEAN and further political opening in Burma (also known as Myanmar) to tensions in the South China Sea and the adoption of the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights (ADHR).

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Following an early ambassadorial visit and a courtesy call on President-elect Park Geun-hye from China’s special envoy Vice Minister Zhang Zhijun, Park has decided to reciprocate by sending her first special envoys to Beijing during the transition.

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Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Asia Foundation trustee, wrote in an op-ed in the Financial Times that, “Afghanistan’s future is of course uncertain. Lower levels of international support will inevitably place stress on its security forces, depress the economy…

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On January 31, Asia Foundation regional cooperation director and prominent Southeast Asia expert, John Brandon, will join experts for a discussion at the American University in Washington, D.C., on ASEAN’s progress, setbacks, prospects, and policy recommendations for 2013 and beyond. Read Brandon’s past blogs on this and more.

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Over the last several decades, Asia has become increasingly integrated with the rest of the world, its rapid development driven largely by exports to the United States and European Union. Yet, as the world’s main economic arteries shift eastward, intra-regional integration within Asia still lags behind.

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When President Obama made his first post-election international trip last month to Southeast Asia, his message was clear: as Asia becomes the driver of global politics in the coming decades, the U.S. is strategically reorienting its presence in the region. But the U.S. is not the only one that recognizes a need for reorientation – Asia itself does too.

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While the Asian Century is most often used to describe the global shift of economic power to Asia, Asia’s rise is also significant in the area of development cooperation. Asian countries have emerged as game changers in the aid arena, challenging traditional notions of aid, reshaping global aid architecture…

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Last week, ADB Managing Director General Rajat M. Nag appeared in a candid conversation with Asia Foundation President David Arnold at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. The two discussed Asia’s rapid growth, the widening gap between rich and poor…

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