Asia-Pacific – Page 54 – IDN-InDepthNews

Asia-Pacific2016-04-112023-07-10

Oh China, Please Come Back Ye…

Analysis by Dr Palitha Kohona*

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (IDN) – As Sri Lanka, with an administration now in power for over one year, begins to confront complex domestic and international challenges, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe undertook a visit to Beijing.

Unthinkable just a few months ago with orchestrated anti China rhetoric flooding the media, he joined other world leaders who had already lined up outside the gates of Beijing seeking manna from the Middle Kingdom. At the conclusion of the visit on April 10, he spoke effusively of the potential for cooperation between the two countries.

So what caused the change? The visit was billed as an initiative to reassure the Chinese that Sri Lanka remained a reliable global partner, it is a welcoming destination for Chinese investors and tourists, and it will honour its contractual obligations to Chinese concerns made by the previous administration and it may have achieved at least some of its goals.

Asia-Pacific2016-04-012023-07-10

Nepal Between the Dragon and the Elephant

Analysis by Shastri Ramachandaran

MUMBAI (IDN) – Yet another South Asian country, Nepal, is falling for the charms of China. The language of this new dalliance, regardless of where it may lead, is causing unease in India. Arriving in Beijing on March 20 for a week-long visit, Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli said that his country’s relationship with China was “as high as the Himalayas”, which he said symbolised friendship.

In what could be a red rag to New Delhi, Oli called China an “all-weather friend”, a term loaded with China’s value for Pakistan as a deterrent against India. China-Pakistan friendship, however, has moved to a higher realm — that of “iron brothers forever”, as Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored on his first state visit to Pakistan in April 2015. The parallel with Pakistan does not end there.

Asia-Pacific2016-03-242023-07-10

China’s Release of Mekong Waters Reflects an Environmental Crisis

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the fifth in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

SINGAPORE (IDN | Lotus News Features) – China would like to project the release of Mekong River waters from its dams in March to “assist” drought-stricken farmers and fisheries further downstream, especially in Vietnam, as a magnanimous gesture from a friendly neighbour. But that action is in fact the reflection of a greater environmental and political crisis that is brewing in the region.

China announced middle of March that in response to a Vietnamese request, it will discharge from March 15 to April 10 water from the Jinghong hydropower station on the Mekong River in Yunnan province to the lower reaches of the Mekong River to alleviate drought in Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Asia-Pacific2016-03-052023-07-10

India and China can Rescue Asian Century from Oblivion

BEIJING (IDN | INPS) – One term which gained currency in the millennium’s first decade was ‘Asian Century’. The term represented a promise, a prospect and a goal; and, invariably, was used with optimism. For a while, it was as evocative as the term ‘21st century’ was in the 1980s, replete with visions of new vistas of life, living and development far removed from the poverty, deprivation and tribulations suffered by the world’s oppressed majority in the 20th century.

When the 21st century was actually upon us, much of the romantic yearning for it had ceased. Similarly, invocation of ‘Asian Century’ ceased to resonate with the aspirations it brought to mind. It came to be used less frequently, especially in capitals such as Beijing and New Delhi.

Asia-Pacific2016-03-042023-07-10

Jade Industry Key to Democratic Reform in Myanmar

This article is the third in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

SINGAPORE (IDN | Lotus News Features) – As a new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi takes over in Myanmar this month (March), reforming the country’s jade mining industry and ensuring that the benefits flow to the people and the national coffers would be the litmus test of its democratic credentials.

Many people tend to conclude that having a free and fair multi-party election and a long serving government being overthrown by the peoples’ verdict is the ultimate test of a country’s flowering of democracy. But, in today’s globalized economic system that by itself is not enough.

Asia-Pacific2016-02-062023-07-10

Migrant Workers Help Singapore Students Gain a Global Perspective

SINGAPORE (IDN) – Government statistics show that in this affluent Southeast Asian nation, one in three workers are migrants. They build the modern infrastructure, clean the buildings, cook and serve in restaurants, look after the children and elderly at home, while often being paid very poorly and treated shabbily and looked at suspiciously by the locals.

Beginning with the 2013 Little India riots where hundreds of Indian workers attacked police vehicles to the recent arrest of 27 Bangladeshi workers suspected of having links to Islamic terrorist groups, there has been much tension in the community with regards to migrant workers. As one law student put it: “We only find out about migrant workers through second hand sources which does not really say who they are.”

Asia-Pacific2016-01-292023-07-10

Sri Lanka Turning Anew into a Geo-Political Battle Ground

SINGAPORE (IDN) – On January 8, 2015 when President Mahinda Rajapakse’s former Cabinet colleague Maithripala Sirisena defeated his old boss in a shock election result campaigning on heralding a non-corruptible ‘yahapalana’ (good governance) regime, people of Sri Lanka took a deep breath, some with euphoric expectations and others with fears of war and terrorism re-visiting the now peaceful island.

Mixed reviews of the anniversary in local newspapers agree that there is a better climate of freedom especially in the media. But it is another question whether democracy and media freedom could eradicate corruption from the political system.

Asia-Pacific2016-01-292023-07-10

Sri Lanka Turning Anew into a Geopolitical Battle Ground

By Kalinga Seneviratne* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

Asia-Pacific2016-01-192023-07-10

Digital India Has Much To Attract China

By Shastri Ramachandaran* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

BEIJING (IDN) – Although India and China are politically, culturally and economically different, the two countries have much more in common than the border and Buddhism. India’s economy, for one, is very much on a China-like trajectory. That has been so since the economic reforms piloted by Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister after P V Narasimha Rao became India’s Prime Minister in 1991.

Asia-Pacific2016-01-172023-07-10

Beijing Stresses One-China Principle As Taiwan Elects First Female President

HONKONG (INPS | Pressenza) – Taiwan News reporting on Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide win says the good lady promises reforms, general cooperation and an aim to establish stability after she was elected Taiwan’s first woman president on January 16.

Tsia got the highest percentage of the vote any candidate has ever had since such direct presidential elections were first held in 1966.

Also, at the same time, she can also look forward to the first-ever absolute majority the DPP has ever held in the 113-seat Legislative Yuan – parliament. At this juncture it seems the DPP could hold a total of 68 seats.