China turns up heat in maritime heart of SE Asia   
  
Faced with expansive and increasingly assertive Chinese claims to control as much as 80 per cent of the South China Sea in the maritime heart of South-East Asia, ASEAN countries and major user nations, including Australia, are aligning – based on shared concerns at China’s actions. (The Canberra Times)

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Japan muddies water in South China Sea debate   
   

The ongoing wrangle over jurisdiction of the disputed South China Sea took a new turn on Tuesday with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yoshikiko Noda in Tokyo. (The Irrawaddy)

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Vietnam’s power shift  
     

Vietnam’s rapid industrialization will necessitate a shift in the way the country generates power, while balancing economic and environmental needs. (Industrial Fuels and Power)

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ASEAN responds to concerns about regional food security   
   

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has pushed food security to the top of its agenda amid continuing global concerns over the volatility of food prices and food supplies. (The Nation)

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Trade currency settlement   
   

In May, the finance ministers of Korea, China and Japan agreed to study the feasibility of using their own currencies to settle transactions among the three countries. The agreement, reached on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank’s annual conference in Hanoi, drew attention as using local currencies in trade settlements would provide huge benefits to the three neighboring countries. (The Korea Herald)

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The secret to Asia’s long-term prosperity? Improving roles of women at work           


No one can dispute the strides Asia has made in bringing strong economic growth to the region over the past decades, lifting income levels and reducing poverty in country after country. And yet, Asia continues to stand out for the relative neglect it shows to its greatest under-tapped resource: women. (The Global Asia)

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Threats to the realization of India’s potential   
   

For all of India’s many and weighty advantages and its present trajectory, a fatal stall cannot be ruled out. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, has India gone for the inherent virtue of socialism as the equal sharing of miseries to the inherent vice of capitalism as the unequal sharing of blessing? (The Japan Times)

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China’s Indian Ocean ‘String of Pearls’ is no military treat – at least for now   
   

With the Western world mired in a debt crisis, the rise of China’s military appears more threatening than ever. The recent launch of China’s first aircraft carrier will add to regional anxieties. But a closer examination shows that at least one aspect of China’s supposed military prowess – its alleged creation of far-ranging naval facilities, the so-called “string of pearls” strategy – can be discounted as fevered imagination. (The Jakarta Globe)

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Indonesia’s and global development   
   

The global economic recovery remains fragile and uncertain, as risks posed by high energy and food prices, unemployment, and uncertainty over sovereign debt in Europe and the US continue to cloud the horizon. (East Asia Forum)

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India’s South China Sea Warning   
   

An influential Chinese Communist Party-run newspaper has warned that ‘every means possible’ should be used to stop India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh engaging in exploration projects in the South China Sea. (The Diplomat)

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Has the real Najib stood up?      

Prime Minister Najib Razak announced a package of political reforms that, if implemented, can fairly be described as historical. Combined with his related efforts in the area of economic liberalization and amending the constitution of the ruling political party, United Malays National Organization (UMNO), Najib could very well be defining his legacy as a reformer. (CogitAsia)

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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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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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