• Analysis
The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a human tragedy. Measures introduced to deal with it could save lives, but are having wide-ranging economic effects and inducing economic contagion. There are already studies estimating the economic impact of the pandemic, but greater focus is needed on the transmission mechanisms of the economic contagion and in […]
• Editorial
In the late 1990s the Indonesian economy was in the midst of one of the deepest economic crises in recent global history. The 32-year authoritarian rule of former president Suharto had ended ingloriously, with no political roadmap for succession. There were various ‘Yugoslav’ scenarios of territorial disintegration. There were also ominous ethnic disputes, generating a […]
• Editorial
Malaysia has experienced a dramatic political transition with conservative political parties returning to government. The new Perikatan Nasional (National Alliance) coalition recently used legal means to grab power, making Muhyiddin Yassin the country’s eighth prime minister. The alliance includes the 1MDB scandal-tainted United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). To understand […]
• Editorial
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is an anomaly in Indonesia’s corrupt institutional environment. As the KPK Law 30/2002 produced one of the world’s most effective anti-corruption agencies, critics and state powerholders had duplicitously argued for the KPK to be reinvented to function as a government-friendly ‘watchdog’ focusing on corruption prevention. In late 2019 these arguments […]
• Editorial
A high-profile feature of current Vietnamese politics is the anti-corruption drive led by Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). As the anti-graft campaign enters its fifth year, Trong has announced that 10 more grand corruption cases will be put to trial in 2020. But should Trong step down […]
• Editorial
The South China Sea remains a focal concern within the international community, grabbing headlines and placed firmly on the agendas of many bilateral and multilateral political and academic summits. While likely to remain relatively stable in 2020, worrying developments and uncertainties are on the rise. Though negotiations over the text of the Code of Conduct […]
• Editorial
Identified by The World Bank (WB) as among the top three fastest growing economies in East Asia in 2019, Vietnam’s economy last year again demonstrated its resilience in the face of a falling Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) and dwindling business confidence globally. Compared with 3 per cent growth in world gross domestic product (GDP) […]
• Editorial
The victory of the Pakatan Harapan coalition in last year’s Malaysian general elections which saw the first-ever change of government via an electoral process raised widespread expectations for long-suppressed reform. In particular need of attention is the electoral process itself. It is widely accepted that Malaysia’s existing ‘rules of the game’ are not fit for […]
• Editorial
After he won re-election last April, Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo was eager to emphasise the liberating effects of not having to worry about re-election. In his second and final term, the President told the Associated Press (AP) he wouldn’t face the same ‘political burden[s]’ he had in his first. While those words might have […]
• Editorial
Asean cooperation arrangements and Apec are important international assets. They contribute significantly to shared prosperity and political security in the Asia Pacific by building pillars for trade liberalisation, investment, the movement of people and — most importantly — political certainty and trust. The political foundations of cooperation arrangements in East Asia and the Pacific were […]
• Editorial
After profound advances in manufacturing and services most observers now believe that Vietnam is well-positioned to meet its principal Vision 2035 goal of achieving upper middle-income status. But sustained agricultural gains are by no means assured and key agricultural officials recognise this. In 2013, the government introduced an ‘agricultural restructuring’ programme and revised the Law […]
• Editorial
Government officials and heads-of-state in Asean appears to have a collective aversion to speaking up in public about Chinese transgressions and coercion in the South China Sea (SCS). Such reticence is based on misplaced fears of Chinese repercussions and does a disservice to regional interests, undermines deterrence, and needlessly concedes leverage in negotiations with China […]