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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Reforming SOE’s      

Indonesia is at a fascinating crossroads. On the one hand, the country can choose a path toward long-term sustainable development, and on the other, high but potentially short-term growth rates. In the real world, to be in two places at the same time is impossible, but Indonesia aspires to do just that. (The Jakarta Globe)

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US-China power play puts heat on ASEAN   
  
The one-page guidelines agreed to last month are unlikely to arrest the deepening security dilemma among key claimants. They reportedly referred only to the possible implementation of uncontroversial ‘joint cooperation activities’, they are characteristically non-binding, and they required Southeast Asian state to drop their long held assertion of ASEAN’s right to develop a common position on the issue vis-à-vis China. (East Asia Forum)

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Poverty and growth in the Philippines   
   

Despite the Philippine economy having enjoyed one of its best growth periods in recent years, the poverty continues to rise, putting a strain on achieving the Millennium Development Goal targets the country has vowed to achieve come 2015. (East Asia Forum)

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Test awaits Mr. Noda’s Cabinet  
  

New Prime Minister Yoshikiko Noda inaugurated his Cabinet Friday. Its lineup and the composition of the Democratic Party of Japan leadership point to his utmost efforts to ensure unity in the ruling party, which has suffered from conflict between forces supporting former DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa and forces opposing the spread of his influence. The Cabinet lineup does not seem strong enough to give out a clear message as to what kind of nation the new administration would like to build. (The Japan Times)

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Putting Yingluck’s populist foreign policy in perspective      

The Yingluck’s Shinawatra administration has initiated the country’s first large-scale populist foreign policy, with a purported emphasis on common Thais. Included in the government’s policy statement as one of its 10 top priorities is the betterment of people’s knowledge of common border problems and of the impact of globalization, all with the aim of forging a consensus on foreign policy. (The Nation)

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Burma’s new leader could emulate B.J. Habibie  
  

Comparisons are often made between Indonesia and Burma; two Southeast Asian nations where the militarization of politics, democracy struggles, their achievements and transitional phases, have defined their people’s recent histories. (The Jakarta Post)

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Can China defend a “core interest” in the South China Sea?  

De´ja` vu surrounds reports that Beijing has claimed a ‘‘core interest’’ in the South China Sea. High-ranking Chinese officials reportedly asserted such an interest during a private March 2010 meeting with two visiting U.S. dignitaries, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and the senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, Jeffrey Bader.              (The Washington Quarterly)

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Idul Fitri: Festivity of charity and forgiveness      

Here comes Idul Fitri again, when more than 15 million people go on mudik (homecoming) to celebrate the day of forgiveness. After a full month of fasting, Muslims will celebrate the post-Ramadhan (Idul Fitri) festivities. Borrowed from Arabic, id means to be back and al-fitri means pure, nature, or disposition, suggesting a kind of “back-to-nature” status. According to Islam, a newborn is clean without any original sins. Islam teaches that naturally and biologically a newborn has the disposition to be good. (The Jakarta Post)

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