Beijing’s overemphasis on stability risks damaging government’s legitimacy      

Weiwen policies were often successful when first applied earlier in the Hu-Wen era. Involving carrots as well as stick, weiwen is thought of in public security circles in China as a more nuanced set of policy instruments than the repressive yanda (“strike hard”) measures of the past. (The Jakarta Globe)

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Vietnam and the Philippines: Assertiveness in the South China Sea      

At a time when Chinese power is inchoate, Vietnam and the Philippines are becoming increasingly assertive in the South China Sea. China has tried both the ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ approach, and neither has been successful. (East Asia Forum)

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Burma’s neighbors can help it escape the past      

The advent of military rule in 1962 set Burma on a path of political and social experimentation that created both economic instability as well as structural rigidity. These features continue to characterize the economy of present-day Burma. (The Jakarta Globe)

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US Military/Security Paper on China – Messages for India and APR      

The Pentagon annual report to the US Congress Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2011” released to the public in August this year is a lesson how meticulously the Americans study China. Of course, more sensitive issues are not discussed in the open report, but there are pointers that need to be picked up by India and other Asian countries and reflect on them actively on a larger canvas. (The South Asia Analysis Group)

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Asia’s new global crisis      

The renewed global economic slowdown is putting pressure on Asian countries to review their export-based growth model and their vulnerabilities to the inflows and outflows of capital. (The Malaysia Star)

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Is China’s economic miracle a mirage?      

Doubts are beginning to be heard about how sustainable is China’s economic miracle, particularly the relentless emphasis on exports and investment spending by hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and local governments. Beijing, of course, has its supporters, including banker turned academic Stephen Roach, non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia as well as a faculty member of Yale University, who asserts that China is different, bigger, special, the superpower that will defeat all the odds. (The Japan Times)

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Deep Danger: Competing Claims in the South China Sea       

The waters of the South China Sea are dotted with hundreds of atolls, reefs, and small islands—only one of which has sufficient fresh water to qualify, under traditional international law, as capable of supporting human habitation. Nonetheless, these land features and the 1.35 million square miles of water that surround them are the subject of competing territorial claims by China and Taiwan (whose claims appear to encompass the entire South China Sea and all of its land features) and by five Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, though Indonesia’s claim is limited to waters at the sea’s extreme southern tip).                                                  (The Viet-Studies/The Current History)

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