Glum and Glummer in Japan   

When the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) kicked the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) out of power in 2009, there was some sense of hope amongst the Japanese that things would change. If nothing else, the Japanese hoped that the DPJ would bring new ideas to tackle some of the country's ongoing problems. Reality soon proved otherwise. Not only has the DPJ quietly abandoned many of its campaign pledges, it has proved just as incapable at resolving ongoing problems. Seventeen months into a DPJ-led Japan, Prime Minister Naoto Kan faces a number of domestic problems that threaten his government's survival. The unfortunate result is another expected turn of the revolving door that is the Japanese premiership. (Asia Pacific Bulletin)

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Why the Next Asian Tiger Remains a Cub   

For nearly two decades, Vietnam has been seen as a likely successor to the “Asian tigers,” a handful of countries including South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore that successfully and spectacularly industrialized during the late twentieth century. In the 1990s, it was widely thought that the Asian tigers’ success was due to their Confucianism—and since Vietnam was as Confucian as the four Asian tigers, the country was fully prepared for an economic take-off. Although today belief in the Confucianism thesis has faded and Vietnam has yet to tell a success story, the country stays high on the radar screen of international investors. (Asia Policy)

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Asia’s fragile oil dependence on the Mideast   

The prospect of continuing Mideast political instability is widely portrayed as a geostrategic problem for the West, particularly the United States. For years, the U.S. has worked with a de facto coalition of authoritarian Arab regimes to contain Iran and protect Israel. The "people power" protests in Tunisia, Egypt and other parts of the region challenge this arrangement. But the rippling unrest and uncertainty in the Middle East also expose the heavy dependence of China, Japan, India, South Korea and other leading Asian economies on the flow of oil from the volatile Persian Gulf.                            (The Japan Times)

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China’s role in running the world economy   

China’s emergence as the second largest economy in the world, and on some reckoning an economy that is already nudging America for the top spot, inevitably raises questions about how this remarkable and rapid shift in world power will affect the global economic order as we know it and what role China can now be expected to, and will, play in running the world economy. (East Asia Forum)

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Subtle shifts in party politics   

The 11^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam was held from 12-19 January 2011. In a political system where radical changes in politics within a short time are usually not expected, attention should be paid to the drifting sands of the river, which might eventually led to long term changes in the political landscape. In this regard, a few developments at the Congress are worthy of note. (The Institute of Southeast Asia Studies)

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ASEAN's expanding role in conflict settlement   

ASEAN’s often claimed political utopia, that its members had never fought an open war was shattered to smithereens during the three-day (February 4-6) fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border. (The Nation)

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Tipping Point in the Indo-Pacific   

The U.S. response to China’s challenge has been cautious and uneven. Both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations have approached the issue from a position of risk aversion and with a belief that the broader Sino-American political relationship, one increasingly based on economic considerations, is more important than maintaining the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. In part, this attitude has derived from a longstanding and undeniable American advantage in military strength, but it has also been a default position given the numerous other demands on U.S. foreign and security policy since 9/11.                (The American Interest)

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Will ASEAN thrive in 2030?   

What will the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) look like in the year 2030? As a durable and successful regional grouping in the developing world, ASEAN is a force for stability and cooperation in Asia. But can we take its longevity and success for granted? (The Jakarta Post)

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Trans-Pacific Partnership – has its momentum come?

The fifth round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be held in Santiago de Chile next week. This is the first, out of the five rounds scheduled for 2011, which are expected to produce a draft free trade agreement (FTA) among 9 out of 21 APEC countries (2006 original P4 countries - Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, and Brunei, plus the five newcomers - the United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, and  Malaysia). While the prospective TPP members are all in the APEC, it is not officially this grouping’s initiative. Even though since its inception in 1993 APEC has been more of a policy coordination forum than a free-trade aspiring grouping, TPP negotiators have been widely using this organizations experience for advancing the goal of regional economic integration.

Northern isles long part of Russia's Far East strategy   

Russia's plans to strengthen its military presence in the Northern Territories may seem like a direct response to recent comments by Japanese officials over the disputed isles. But Moscow has long positioned the four islands northeast of Hokkaido within its security and economic strategies for the entire Russian Far East. (The Asahi)

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