ASIAN (H)

Author: Lawrence Repeta, Seattle

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, while governments in many countries issued mandatory lockdown orders backed by penalties for non-compliance, Japan’s did not. In March 2020, the Diet amended the infectious disease control law to add COVID-19 to the diseases covered but did not provide penalties for non-compliance with government requests to limit activities. International news organisations reported that Japan’s Constitution ‘would need to be amended to impose and enforce a lockdown’.

The suggestion that effective action required constitutional change was no surprise. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been calling for change to the democratic Constitution since it was founded in 1955. One key proposal is the creation of an ‘emergency powers’ provision. But while the pandemic is a crisis that calls for emergency action, an effective response does not require constitutional change.

Article 41 of Japan’s Constitution makes the Diet ‘the highest organ of state power’ and the ‘sole law-making organ of the state’. The Diet holds the power to pass laws that limit individual freedoms to protect public health. It has done so many times. The infectious disease control law and the mental health law provide power for mandatory examinations and hospitalisations. Following the 2011 nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, then prime minister Naoto Kan issued a mandatory evacuation and other orders based on laws that grant such power.

With COVID-19 case numbers on the rise and new variants spreading, the Diet revised the infectious disease law again in February 2021. This time the revision did provide for mandatory orders backed by penalties, albeit relatively small ones. Under one provision, restaurants and bars that do not follow orders to reduce operating hours can be fined up to 300,000 yen (US$2700).

This provision was challenged in court six weeks later. The plaintiff is the popular restaurant chain Global Dining, which received an order from Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to close its restaurants by 8pm each night. The company president declared that the order violated his right to free expression and his company’s right to do business.

There are two readily apparent constitutional claims available to Global Dining and other potential plaintiffs. The first is that Governor Koike’s order improperly restricts constitutionally protected freedoms, including the right to do business. This claim is unlikely to succeed because the Diet holds the broad power described above and Japan’s courts rarely overturn Diet action.

In more than seven decades of interpreting the Constitution, the Supreme Court has held legislation unconstitutional on only 10 occasions. When the Court turns away challengers like Global Dining, it frequently rules that legislation serves the ‘public welfare’ under Constitution Article 13 and is therefore acceptable. It’s hard to imagine a more important public welfare interest than protection from infectious disease.

Another potential claim is based on Constitution Article 29(3), which requires the government to pay compensation when it confiscates private property. But the standard interpretation of Article 29(3) requires compensation only when specific parties are affected by government action, not in cases like infectious disease control where measures affect a broad spectrum of society.

In comments made on 3 May 2021, Japan’s Constitution Day, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga suggested that the government needs constitutional emergency powers to effectively address crises like COVID-19. Suga has since announced his resignation and Japan will soon have a new LDP Prime Minister. Suga was the handpicked successor to Shinzo Abe, who filled the prime minister’s shoes himself for eight long years. The leading candidates to replace Suga have not shown Abe’s evangelistic fervor for constitutional change, but they do represent the LDP mainstream and the demand for constitutional emergency powers is in the party’s DNA. The LDP’s comprehensive proposals issued in April 2012 include an entirely new provision that would grant the Prime Minister power to declare an emergency in an extremely broad range of circumstances. Since 2016, the LDP has included ‘emergency powers’ among the four constitutional proposals of utmost priority. COVID-19 pushed it to the top of the list.

Moreover, continued advocacy for constitutional change by LDP leaders is having an effect. On 1 May 2021, Kyodo News reported that more than half its survey respondents believe Japan must add an emergency clause to the Constitution to better respond to COVID-19 and other disasters.

The notion that governments should have emergency powers to deal with crises is common sense. Japan’s Diet has already passed several laws that grant such powers to the executive offices of government for use in defined circumstances. The primary effect of the LDP’s constitutional proposal would be to reallocate this authority from the Diet to the Cabinet. Unlike the Diet, which generally operates in the open and allows the participation of opposition party members, the Cabinet works behind closed doors and ordinarily excludes the opposition. Granting independent constitutional authority to the Cabinet, as the LDP proposes, would promote secrecy and could become the first step towards establishing authoritarian government.

With big majorities in each house of the Diet, the LDP–Komeito alliance holds the power to pass whatever legislation is necessary to authorise effective government action in an emergency. The important question posed by COVID-19 does not concern the Constitution — it is why Japan’s leaders have been so reluctant to employ the power they already hold through the parliament. It seems that Prime Minister Suga and others seek to deflect attention from the proper focus on this question.

Lawrence Repeta has been a lawyer, business executive, and law professor in Japan and the United States. He retired from the Meiji University law faculty in 2017.

This article appears in the most recent edition of East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Confronting crisis in Japan’, Vol 13, No 3.

The post COVID-19 is a weak excuse for changing Japan’s Constitution first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Cai Fang, CASS

Two hands run the Chinese economy, the market and the government. Market forces overwhelmingly allocate resources, after getting prices and incentives right. Government regulates competition, corrects market failures and safeguards fairness of distribution. China’s political leadership proposes and frames principal policy concepts to signal new policy directions to the people and direct various levels of government on policy priorities.

A prominent organising policy idea now is the concept of ‘common prosperity’. The Chinese leadership calls for promoting common prosperity in the course of high-quality development and building the necessary institutional structures to achieve this. The institutional structures will serve to coordinate the three domains of distribution — primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary distribution refers to income distribution among capital owners, labourers, and the government. Secondary distribution refers to government-led redistribution, and tertiary distribution engages with society through philanthropy and social responsibility.

The concept of common prosperity is not new in Chinese politics. It appeared when former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reform in the late 1970s, and at the 1992 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that declared its aim was to build a socialist market economy. The 18th and 19th Central Committee of the CPC under the leadership of President Xi Jinping included the term common prosperity in all major policy documents produced by the Party and the central government.

There is consensus around the benefits of past economic reform among the Chinese people as the gains from reform and opening have translated into improvements in living standards over the past 40 years. Yet despite growing prosperity, China has experienced periods of widening income inequality.

Prior to 1997, China’s income distribution was relatively equitable, given that reforms at the time were more focused on improving market incentives — known as breaking the ‘iron-rice bowl’, where people competed for scarce public sector employment in the absence of a strong private sector.

In 1997, the ratio of rural to urban household income was 1.833 and the Gini coefficient of nationwide income distribution was 0.398. Both indicators have since increased and reached their peaks — the rural-urban income ratio was 2.674 in 2009 and the Gini coefficient was 0.491 in 2008. In the decade that followed, the income gap has steadily narrowed, though only moderately. In 2019, the rural–urban income ratio and Gini coefficient was 2.325 and 0.465, respectively, hardly a satisfying result.

The leadership’s reiteration of common prosperity as a principal policy goal comes at the right time, for three reasons.

First, it is a logical continuation of the long-term task of eliminating poverty and nurturing the low-income to the middle-income group. From 2012 to 2020, China lifted 99.9 million rural people out of poverty, measured against a poverty rate of US$2.3 in purchasing power parity terms per day. If the elimination of absolute poverty corresponds to the goal of building a welfare society by 2020, realising common prosperity corresponds to the next goal of building a modern socialist country by 2049.

Second, there is need to tackle the challenges facing China’s economic development and social cohesion. The Chinese economy is increasingly constrained by weakening demand as its population rapidly ages. Growing the pie and dividing it fairly is the key to increasing the contribution of household consumption to economic growth.

Existing income inequality and the related entrenchment of social immobility causes discontent from low-wage workers, youth and the less-educated groups. The reassertion of common prosperity is both a credible solution to their problems and a skilful response to public opinion that favours action on combatting income inequality.

Third, it conforms to international experience and common practice. All three domains of distribution have their specific functions and appropriate tools to help reduce inequality in earnings, asset ownership and access to public services. The logical conclusion of China employing the market as the decisive mechanism of allocating resources, is that primary distribution retains its foothold, which guarantees that efficiency and incentives remain unharmed. A more dynamic economy will in turn enhance productivity and social mobility simultaneously.

China’s real per capita GDP is predicted to increase from US$10,687 in 2020 to US$23,000 in 2035. In such a span of development, according to cross-national data, the average proportion of government expenditure to GDP increases from 26 per cent to 36 per cent. This indicates a huge leap in the expansion of the welfare state which can significantly narrow the income gap.

The 19th National Congress of the CPC proposed a blueprint for the provision of basic public services. This included equal provisions for the nourishment of minors, children’s education, a decent working age wage, healthcare, support for the elderly, housing and assistance for vulnerable members of society.

Primarily using redistribution tools — supplemented by charity and social responsibility — the level of social welfare, social mutuality and social protection will all be strengthened. Inequality will be reduced as common prosperity is realised.

Cai Fang is former Vice-President and Professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The post Right time for China’s ‘common prosperity’ drive first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Allan Gyngell, ANU

Much is still uncertain about the new AUKUS ‘enhanced trilateral security partnership’. The deal for at least eight nuclear submarines to be built in Australia is described as a ‘first initiative’ but the partnership’s aims, and whether there will be a governing treaty, are not yet clear.

Nor is the practical form that engagement in other foreshadowed areas will take. For Australian defence officials wrestling with the search for an ‘optimal pathway’ to get the submarine project under way, it will be a busy 18 months as a massive list of regulatory, technological, security and workforce issues present themselves.

Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Scott Morrison each had something to prove with this agreement. Johnson was looking for a way of demonstrating that Britain had a global future after Brexit while taking over handy trade prospects from the French.

Joe Biden wanted to put the Afghanistan withdrawal behind him and show he was adding substance to his pledge to refocus US strategic energy on its competition with China and Russia. And Morrison was able to execute a Houdini-like escape from his government’s troubled French attack-class submarine project which looked likely to deliver him only political pain.

It was the British industrial dimension that determined that the partnership, for reasons that are not clear, would become a threesome. Dependent on the United States for elements of the nuclear propulsion system, Britain could not transfer the technology without Washington’s approval.

Nuclear submarines offer Australia strategic and operational benefits. They go further and faster and stay longer at sea than their conventional counterparts.

But they have one large strike against them. We cannot operate them alone. The capability they provide is only available to us if we cede a degree — quite a high degree in this case — of Australian sovereignty.

Our capacity to operate the nation’s most expensive and powerful defence asset will always be subject to US veto and the program will lead inevitably to deeper operational integration with the United States. In response to a question in Washington after the Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), Peter Dutton spoke positively about the US ‘basing and … the storage of different ordnances’.

No one is pretending that this agreement is not directed at China. For several years now, Australian policymakers have been at the vanguard of international resistance to China’s growing ambitions. The submarine deal will reinforce Beijing’s conviction that Australia is part of an integrated US co-ordinated response to — let’s utter the word — ‘contain’ China.

The conclusion China draws will be the mirror image of Australia’s own: we cannot become dependent on this hostile state and must diversify our economic interests.

So at a time of rising Australian debt generated by the COVID-19 response, and with the new submarine program certain to make heavy increased demand on defence expenditure (including in compensation to the French), the economic implications are real. The OECD Economic Survey noted last week Australia’s vulnerability to a future shock in the Chinese economy or import restrictions on additional commodities, such as iron ore.

The new agreement does not just back Australia into greater military integration with the United States, but into a more direct foreign policy alignment. During the Cold War and the war on terror, Australia was marginal to Washington’s main geopolitical concerns in Europe and the Middle East. We could, and did, go on managing our relationships around this region independently and driven by different imperatives.

Of course, that will not be impossible now, but it will be harder to disentangle our strategic commitments and our deep identification with the United States and Britain from our foreign policy interests. US expectations of Australian support in almost any contingency, whether it involves China or not, will grow.

How should Australia respond to China’s rise? Deterrence against military aggression certainly. But for the other dimensions of statecraft available to us — persuasion, shaping, multilateral advocacy, coalition building — AUKUS is not much help. France’s humiliated reaction to its dumping doesn’t augur well for our recent efforts to engage more actively with Europe in the Indo-Pacific.

So the agreement is a big Australian bet on the future of the United States, and at a more uncertain time in American politics than at almost any point in the history of the alliance.

It is true that concern about China ‘eating our lunch’, in Biden’s words, is probably the only reliably bipartisan element in US politics these days, and a sentimental attachment to Australia comes somewhere up there too.

But although it is hard to see it in the Australian foreign policy discussion these days, China is not the only issue in the world. It is quite possible that in three years’ time Donald Trump, or someone like him, will be back in the White House with policies that would be deeply uncomfortable for an Australian government.

AUKUS will be a sign to our neighbours that the Anglosphere is back. That Australia is in its comfortable place, locked down and hanging out with the family. This is a ‘forever partnership’, says Scott Morrison, assuming a perpetual alignment of interests between our three countries and forgetting chunks of Australian diplomatic history. Even America’s ‘forever wars’ lasted only 20 years.

Allan Gyngell is the author of Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942 and Honorary Professor at the College of Asia and the Pacific. This piece was originally published in the Australian Financial Review. 

The post Australia signs up to the Anglosphere first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Lindy Kanan, ANU

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a wicked policy problem that plagues governments across the world. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is no exception and has some of the highest rates of violence against women globally.

For decades, grassroots activists and development actors have thrown their hands up in the air at the lack of national leadership on the issue in PNG. Despite an absence of political will at the highest levels, champions have emerged in a handful of provinces and some progress has been made towards more coordinated sector responses in urban areas.

Over the past year, an unprecedented series of events has taken place in the GBV policy space in PNG. A bipartisan ‘Coalition of Parliamentarians Against GBV’ was formed following a ‘High Level Meeting on GBV’ in August 2020. The Coalition includes 20 of PNG’s 111 (all male) members of parliament and has been active on social media and in declaring their commitment to support change.

Subsequently in November 2020, the ‘First Annual Summit on Ending GBV in PNG’ was held and a Special Parliamentary Committee to ‘inquire into issues related to GBV’ was established. The Committee comprises seven members of parliament. It opened its inquiry in May 2021 with a call for written submissions and two days of public hearings at Port Moresby’s iconic APEC Haus.

Selected frontline workers, government officials and even the current Ministers for Treasury, Police and Community Development and Religion appeared before the Committee. The experience was uncomfortable for many public servants and politicians who were clearly not used to being interrogated about their areas of responsibility. The process provided insight into the lack of accountability mechanisms in the PNG public sector more generally.

The hearings elicited mixed emotions; viewers shared their experiences of elation, frustration and anger on social media in response to the sometimes inspirational and sometimes cringe-worthy testimonies. Those testifying could do so in person or via Zoom from different parts of PNG. The  proceedings were broadcasted live on Facebook and on big screens across the nation’s capital, Port Moresby. The accessibility of the hearings was another first for PNG.

Some may feel the attention given to GBV by some of PNG’s most influential parliamentarians is nothing short of a miracle. But it’s no coincidence that the political appetite for change has coincided with the UN’s ‘Spotlight Initiative to eliminate violence against women and girls’ which was launched in PNG in March 2020. The initiative is a partnership between the European Union and the United Nations with a funding envelope of €500 million (US$594 million), €22 million (US$26 million) of which is allocated for PNG. One activity in the program document is to set up a parliamentary committee on GBV.

The Spotlight Initiative has been received in PNG with fanfare at the highest levels. But some PNG civil society actors have criticised it as being too top-down and not sufficiently tailored to the PNG context. For example, the program outcomes, outputs and indicators are the same for all countries where it is being implemented.

Papua New Guineans have been calling for locally lead solutions to development issues and it could be argued that this donor-funded inquiry flies in the face of that ideal. Despite this, few would disagree that the inquiry represents a turning point for how GBV is dealt with at the national level in PNG.

The Committee tabled its report in parliament on 12 August 2021 with a total of 71 recommendations. The report successfully captured many of the critical needs of the GBV response system — better governance, better coordination, better data, better policing, better health services, better education, safer courts, more training, more money, more safe houses, more justice.

The challenge now will be implementing the recommendations. This is no easy feat in a nation where the majority of the population lives in rural and remote areas, where services are non-existent or difficult to access and where justice is generally administered at the community level. It’s easy to be disheartened when, in addition to these constraints, there is little money in the government coffers and service delivery is subject to corruption.

The Committee will be keen to ensure that its report doesn’t suffer the same fate as the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to GBV 2016-2025, which has done little but collect dust since it was approved by the government in December 2016.

Despite the challenges, it is important to recognise that PNG has never had this level of leadership on GBV. The police and justice system have officially been put on notice. There is a sense of optimism that, finally, politicians are listening.

Some will say that an externally funded parliamentary inquiry is not a satisfactory solution, but most will concede that it’s a better alternative to the leadership vacuum that has persisted for too long.

There have been a lot of firsts for GBV in PNG in the past year. While some people are cynical and don’t believe that Papua New Guinean politicians are capable of anything other than self-serving political manoeuvring, others hold out hope that this is the beginning of real and lasting change.

Lindy Kanan is a Senior Research Officer in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.

The post Spotlight on gender-based violence in PNG first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Lindy Kanan, ANU

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a wicked policy problem that plagues governments across the world. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is no exception and has some of the highest rates of violence against women globally.

For decades, grassroots activists and development actors have thrown their hands up in the air at the lack of national leadership on the issue in PNG. Despite an absence of political will at the highest levels, champions have emerged in a handful of provinces and some progress has been made towards more coordinated sector responses in urban areas.

Over the past year, an unprecedented series of events has taken place in the GBV policy space in PNG. A bipartisan ‘Coalition of Parliamentarians Against GBV’ was formed following a ‘High Level Meeting on GBV’ in August 2020. The Coalition includes 20 of PNG’s 111 (all male) members of parliament and has been active on social media and in declaring their commitment to support change.

Subsequently in November 2020, the ‘First Annual Summit on Ending GBV in PNG’ was held and a Special Parliamentary Committee to ‘inquire into issues related to GBV’ was established. The Committee comprises seven members of parliament. It opened its inquiry in May 2021 with a call for written submissions and two days of public hearings at Port Moresby’s iconic APEC Haus.

Selected frontline workers, government officials and even the current Ministers for Treasury, Police and Community Development and Religion appeared before the Committee. The experience was uncomfortable for many public servants and politicians who were clearly not used to being interrogated about their areas of responsibility. The process provided insight into the lack of accountability mechanisms in the PNG public sector more generally.

The hearings elicited mixed emotions; viewers shared their experiences of elation, frustration and anger on social media in response to the sometimes inspirational and sometimes cringe-worthy testimonies. Those testifying could do so in person or via Zoom from different parts of PNG. The  proceedings were broadcasted live on Facebook and on big screens across the nation’s capital, Port Moresby. The accessibility of the hearings was another first for PNG.

Some may feel the attention given to GBV by some of PNG’s most influential parliamentarians is nothing short of a miracle. But it’s no coincidence that the political appetite for change has coincided with the UN’s ‘Spotlight Initiative to eliminate violence against women and girls’ which was launched in PNG in March 2020. The initiative is a partnership between the European Union and the United Nations with a funding envelope of €500 million (US$594 million), €22 million (US$26 million) of which is allocated for PNG. One activity in the program document is to set up a parliamentary committee on GBV.

The Spotlight Initiative has been received in PNG with fanfare at the highest levels. But some PNG civil society actors have criticised it as being too top-down and not sufficiently tailored to the PNG context. For example, the program outcomes, outputs and indicators are the same for all countries where it is being implemented.

Papua New Guineans have been calling for locally lead solutions to development issues and it could be argued that this donor-funded inquiry flies in the face of that ideal. Despite this, few would disagree that the inquiry represents a turning point for how GBV is dealt with at the national level in PNG.

The Committee tabled its report in parliament on 12 August 2021 with a total of 71 recommendations. The report successfully captured many of the critical needs of the GBV response system — better governance, better coordination, better data, better policing, better health services, better education, safer courts, more training, more money, more safe houses, more justice.

The challenge now will be implementing the recommendations. This is no easy feat in a nation where the majority of the population lives in rural and remote areas, where services are non-existent or difficult to access and where justice is generally administered at the community level. It’s easy to be disheartened when, in addition to these constraints, there is little money in the government coffers and service delivery is subject to corruption.

The Committee will be keen to ensure that its report doesn’t suffer the same fate as the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to GBV 2016-2025, which has done little but collect dust since it was approved by the government in December 2016.

Despite the challenges, it is important to recognise that PNG has never had this level of leadership on GBV. The police and justice system have officially been put on notice. There is a sense of optimism that, finally, politicians are listening.

Some will say that an externally funded parliamentary inquiry is not a satisfactory solution, but most will concede that it’s a better alternative to the leadership vacuum that has persisted for too long.

There have been a lot of firsts for GBV in PNG in the past year. While some people are cynical and don’t believe that Papua New Guinean politicians are capable of anything other than self-serving political manoeuvring, others hold out hope that this is the beginning of real and lasting change.

Lindy Kanan is a Senior Research Officer in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.

The post A new era for gender-based violence response in PNG first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Christian Bachheimer, SOAS

China’s growing influence on ASEAN affairs has featured increasingly in international news. The dominant narrative is that China is deploying a mercantilist strategy to drive ASEAN acquiescence to matters of diplomatic importance for China, forcing ASEAN states to choose between China and the United States. But ASEAN’s trade in goods and investment data from China and other geopolitical alliances from 2015 to 2019 present a different narrative.

ASEAN-5 — Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam — collectively constituted 84 per cent of ASEAN’s US$3.1 trillion GDP in 2019 and accounted for over 90 per cent of its trade and investment flows. Data analysis of trade in goods for 2015–2019 reveals that the main geopolitical blocs consisting of the ‘US alliance’, ‘Atlantic alliance’ and ‘China bloc’ did not evolve as a share of ASEAN-5’s economies. The China bloc — China, Hong Kong and Macao — represented 20 per cent of trade with ASEAN-5 in 2015, and 21 per cent in 2019. 

The US alliance — Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Australia — leads trade with ASEAN-5, adding US$143 billion over five years to reach US$741 billion in 2019. The China bloc only reached US$543 billion. The Atlantic alliance consisting of the United States and European Union added US$117 billion, growing from 19 per cent to 21 per cent of ASEAN-5 trade.

ASEAN-5 is not becoming reliant on trade with China. Trade in goods as a percentage of GDP reflects economic interdependence. From 2015 to 2019, the US alliance and the Atlantic alliance maintained a level with ASEAN-5 of 29 and 20 per cent, respectively. ASEAN-5’s ratio with the China bloc decreased from 20 to 18 per cent. Only Vietnam significantly increased trade in goods with the China bloc, rising from 38 to 48 per cent. But Vietnam also boosted the same ratio with the US alliance, rising from 63 to 79 per cent.

On the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) front, China remains a relatively small player. The US and Atlantic alliances still dominate ASEAN-5’s investment landscape. From 2015 to 2019, the US and Atlantic alliances cumulatively invested US$346 billion, more than three times the US$99 billion bankrolled by the China bloc in ASEAN-5.

The average FDI inflow into ASEAN-5 stood at US$144 annually between 2015 and 2019. The China bloc increased its FDI from US$7.9 to US$21.9 billion, pushing its share of the ASEAN-5’s FDI inflow from 7 per cent to 12 per cent. Meanwhile, the US alliance increased its FDI from US$43.9 to US$70.9 billion, causing its share of ASEAN-5’s FDI inflow to rise from 37 per cent to 39 per cent. 

On the annual importance of FDI inflow as a proportion of ASEAN-5 GDP, China went from 0.4 per cent in 2015 to 0.8 per cent in 2019. The US alliance went from 2.1 per cent in 2015 to 2.7 per cent in 2019, reinforcing its position. The China bloc’s share of FDI stock grew from 6 per cent in 2015 to 8 per cent in 2019. Over the same period, the Atlantic alliance and the US alliance remained relatively constant at 37 per cent and 31 per cent respectively.

The much lauded Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not as large as has been trumpeted, despite the US$739 billion pledged to ASEAN. The BRI accounted for US$9 billion in annual investment into ASEAN-5’s US$144 billion average annual FDI inflows. For the last five years, the BRI has contributed US$4 billion to the Indonesian annual average FDI inflow of US$17 billion, and US$1.5 billion to the Malaysian average annual FDI inflow of US$10 billion. Thailand has not received any BRI investment so far, rebutting the country’s tilt towards China narrative.

While the BRI benefits select countries, it is not shifting ASEAN-5’s allegiances. The BRI also faces pushback, and is unpopular at home while its funding challenges and completion difficulties continue to accumulate. Contrary to what media reports suggest about China achieving diplomatic leverage through its oversized trade and investment involvement, China’s economic role has remained stable over the last five years.

China’s involvement in Southeast Asia should not trigger concern over a mercantile system. The China bloc’s focus on its domestic market and mounting mistrust it has faced in ASEAN countries have stalled its trade leverage, particularly as ASEAN-5 has maintained a carefully diversified trade and investment portfolio.

Competition can actually empower ASEAN-5 to extract trade concessions and investments from both sides — Vietnam is a typical case. While the economic data disproves the existence of an ASEAN dependency threat, this does not mean that China no longer poses security concerns in the region. But the link between China’s economic involvement and a security risk is weak at best. So far, ASEAN-5 has not tilted toward China.

Christian Bachheimer is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The post China’s mercantilist threat to ASEAN is exaggerated first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Adam Simpson, University of South Australia

A recent decision by Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) may offer a path to justice for the victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Myanmar. The NUG was formed by elected representatives of the parliament and others who were ousted by the February military coup. On 20 August the NUG announced that it had lodged a declaration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) accepting the court’s jurisdiction with respect to all international crimes in Myanmar since 2002.

The NUG had been considering this option since March, but this was the first formal submission by the government-in-exile under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute. The day prior to the announcement, Fortify Rights, an NGO, released a lengthy report on the legal basis for the diplomatic manoeuvre.

This announcement was significant for four reasons. First, this was a major shift in policy regarding the ICC since the former National League for Democracy (NLD) government led by Aung San Suu Kyi was openly hostile to any prosecutions under the auspices of either the ICC or the International Court of Justice. The NLD government refused to accede to the ICC under the Rome Statute or respect its rulings and repeatedly aligned itself with Myanmar’s military over the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya population in 2017.

Second, it would mean that the ICC could investigate crimes against the Rohingya in Rakhine State itself, as well as any crimes committed in ethnic conflicts within Myanmar dating back to 2002.

Since November 2019, the prosecutor of the ICC has been undertaking an investigation of crimes against the Rohingya, but the case has been strictly limited to those crimes that occurred ‘at least in part’ in Bangladesh, a signatory of the ICC. This included ‘crimes against humanity of deportation across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and persecution on grounds of ethnicity and/or religion against the Rohingya population’.

However, individuals could not be charged for crimes committed only within Myanmar.

In addition, the prosecutor was only examining events since August 2017, when the most significant wave of refugees flooded across the Bangladesh border despite historical and ongoing ethnic conflicts in the region.

Third, it would allow the court to prosecute the Myanmar military for crimes committed during the coup and its ongoing repression of the opposition. Over 1000 opponents of the regime have been killed since the coup, with over 6000 currently under arrest and another 2000 in hiding. Most of these events cannot be examined under the existing ICC case since there is no link to Bangladesh or other signatories of the Rome Statute.

Fourth, the announcement effectively legitimises the historically ignored grievances of the Rohingya ethnic minority. The previous government argued that the military operations against the Rohingya only targeted militants and were therefore justified, even while all evidence pointed to the contrary.

In early June, the NUG challenged this argument and decades of settled policy on the Rohingya in Myanmar by promising to repeal the 1982 law on ‘national races’, base citizenship on birth in Myanmar and abolish the process of issuing National Verification Cards.

This commitment of citizenship for the Rohingya was followed up by another statement on the fourth anniversary of the atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingya people, acknowledging the ‘horrendous violence, gross human rights violations and massive displacement’ experienced by the Rohingya. In another unprecedented move, a Rohingya activist, Aung Kyaw Moe, was appointed as an advisor within the NUG’s Ministry of Human Rights. These changes have reflected a broader reassessment of the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar following the coup.

While some argue that the ICC is irrelevant in bringing autocrats to justice, just a week prior to the NUG announcement Sudan informed the ICC prosecutor that former dictator of Sudan Omar al-Bashir and other ‘wanted officials’ would be extradited to the ICC.

The next step for the NUG will be to sign up to the Rome Statute, which is a complicated process. While any country acceding to the ICC is welcome, an impending ICC prosecution may inadvertently extend military rule in Myanmar because the military leadership could be concerned about future prosecution.

A contributing factor in the coup may have been Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar military Min Aung Hlaing’s concern over being prosecuted under the existing ICC case. But immunity from prosecution in an active ICC case could bring the military junta to the negotiating table.

The NUG’s announcement tightens its embrace of a federal democracy that respects international human rights norms. The more the international community supports the NUG with recognition and resources, the more the NUG will stay true to these policy commitments.

States within the international community must decide whether to accept the Article 12(3) submission and thereby implicitly accept the NUG as Myanmar’s legitimate government and international voice rather than the military junta. There have already been ‘weeks of behind-the-scenes diplomatic negotiations’ at the United Nations and elsewhere regarding the status of Myanmar’s ambassadors and diplomats abroad who have spoken out against the coup. While some of these diplomats, and members of the NUG, have defended the actions of Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya in the past, the recent efforts towards reconciliation should provide sufficient impetus for granting international recognition.

Russia and China — which would likely veto the ability of the NUG to speak for Myanmar if this were a UN Security Council resolution — are not members of the ICC and therefore have no say in the approval of representatives. This submission therefore provides an ideal opportunity to increase the legitimacy and recognition of the NUG while bolstering the international criminal justice framework for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Adam Simpson is Senior Lecturer in International Studies at the University of South Australia.

The post Myanmar’s exile government signs up to ICC prosecutions first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Shaikh Abdur Rahman, CFISS

As the world continues to struggle with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh has been able to maintain economic growth with the help of its readymade garment sector and foreign remittances. But it has also relied significantly on assistance from its development partners, including Japan.

Immediately after Bangladesh gained independence in 1971, Japan lent Dhaka a helping hand to reconstruct the war-torn country. Bangladesh and Japan started diplomatic relations on 10 February 1972. Since then, the two countries have enjoyed a fruitful and trustworthy relationship. Japan is one of Bangladesh’s largest development partners and a vital source of aid as the country attempts to graduate from least developed country status by 2026 and become a developed country by 2041.

Bangladesh’s bilateral relations with Japan range from socio-economic to people-to-people links. But the relationship can be further strengthened through signing a free trade agreement (FTA), accelerating investments in special economic zones (SEZs), cooperating on vaccine co-production and supporting each other in multilateral fora.

Over the last decade, Bangladesh has been able to maintain an average growth rate of 6.6 per cent. Japan has provided loans and grants for infrastructural development projects in Bangladesh, notably for the Mass Rapid Transit in Dhaka and Matarbari Port. Under the strategic ‘Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt’ scheme, Japan sees Bangladesh as a gateway to South and Southeast Asia. At the same time, Bangladesh is actively focusing on its ‘Look East’ policy to accelerate its economic and infrastructure development.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, mega projects including the Padma Multipurpose Bridge, Metro Rail project and Matarbari Port are moving ahead at full speed. China, India and Russia — Bangladesh’s three largest development partners — are interested in utilising Bangladesh’s strategic and economic advantages. These include the geographical location of the country at the crossroads of South and Southeast Asia and at the northern apex of the Bay of Bengal. Also, cheap labour and quality readymade garments, stable economic growth, rapidly growing investment opportunities in infrastructural development and a huge population make Bangladesh an attractive investment destination.

Japan should increase its cooperation with Bangladesh to ensure a fully-fledged development partnership. To achieve this, Bangladesh and Japan should aim to develop new economic frameworks with one another such as an FTA.

The Japanese Ambassador in Dhaka, Naoki Ito, expressed Japan’s desire to increase investments in Bangladesh post-COVID-19. Japan has proposed establishing two more SEZs in Matarbari and Mirsarai to elevate the economic partnership. But to capitalise on opportunities like this, Bangladesh needs to remove existing obstacles to international investment like complicated customs procedures and other trade and tariff restrictions.

For Japan, there are ample opportunities for high turnover in wide-ranging sectors, such as garments and light engineering, agriculture, technology, power and energy. In August 2020, Bangladesh received an annual official development assistance loan package from Japan worth US$3.2 billion. This loan was granted for the development of seven large projects including the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit, the Jamuna Railway Bridge and the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport expansion. If trade and investment barriers are removed, an entirely new landscape will exist for Japanese trade and investment.

On 5 August 2020, the Japan International Cooperation Agency signed a loan agreement with Bangladesh to provide US$330 million for COVID-19 crisis management to mitigate socio-economic impacts of the virus. With the final batch of consignments arriving at the Dhaka International Airport on 28 August 2021, Japan completed its commitment to provide 3.2 million vaccines to Bangladesh under COVAX. Japan also provided medical equipment for healthcare workers and emergency toolkits.

Along with vaccinating its citizens, Bangladesh’s government has vaccinated about 65,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals above 45 years of age inside camps in Cox’s Bazar. During the last meeting with the Japanese Ambassador on 22 August, the foreign ministry of Bangladesh requested Japan bring the Rohingya community under its program for COVID-19 vaccination.

Japan has been assisting Bangladesh to mitigate the economic and social drawbacks of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. But since 2017, Bangladesh has been burdened with the Rohingya crisis. Even after four years, there is still no sustainable solution. Whereas humanity should take precedence over narrowly defined state interests, Japan has refrained from criticising Myanmar over the Rohingya issue in international fora. Japan’s stance in favour of Myanmar has been questioned both in Bangladesh and in global media.

At the upcoming 76th session of the UN General Assembly, Japan should actively support Bangladesh in finding the best solution to the refugee crisis. Bangladesh has supported Japan in various international fora, such as when it withdrew its candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council in favour of Japan in 2014. Bangladesh also supports Japan’s aspiration to become a permanent member of the Security Council. Japan should support Bangladesh on resolving the Rohingya issue and uphold the human rights of the voiceless Rohingya community.

Projects under the ‘Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt’ are under construction. But without signing an FTA and supporting each other on the international stage, the Japan–Bangladesh bilateral relationship will not reach its full potential.

Shaikh Abdur Rahman is a Research Assistant at the Central Foundation for International Strategic Studies in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The post Deepening Japan–Bangladesh relations first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Authors: Hunter Marston, ANU and Akhil Ramesh, Pacific Forum

July was a busy month for US diplomats who have been traversing the Indo-Pacific region, reinforcing US commitment to the region in light of growing concern that Southeast Asian states are moving closer to China.

US Vice President Kamala Harris travelled to Singapore and Vietnam, following trips by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and China, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to India. Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton have embarked on a flurry of 2+2 diplomatic meetings in India, Korea, the United States, and Indonesia, in an effort to reboot Canberra’s international diplomacy.

For a region that sees China as an increasingly unavoidable and influential economic and strategic power, this newfound interest by Western powers presents significant opportunities. High-level focus on the region accords small states growing leverage in the competition between the United States and China, which they can translate into economic gains and diplomatic wins to bolster their own domestic political legitimacy.

Indo-Pacific states should embrace Washington’s newfound commitment to the region while it lasts. While Chinese loans, trade and vaccines may be welcomed as timely and much-needed assistance, all three could be weaponised as tools of economic coercion in the future. Some states have dealt with these opportunities and challenges better than others, while a couple of cautionary tales hold lessons for the rest.

For instance, in an effort to become the ‘battery of Asia’, Laos welcomed a flood of Chinese investment in hydropower dams and non-transparent special economic zones (SEZ). While this strategy enabled the inflow of significant sums of foreign direct investment, it also resulted in rampant environmental destruction and inequality, and the country now owes nearly half of its total public debt to China (much like Cambodia).

Myanmar found itself dangerously overleveraged with Chinese corporations involved in massive infrastructure projects approved by the military in the 2000s. But unlike Laos, it managed to successfully renegotiate the terms of the Kyaukphyu Port project in 2018 from US$7.3 billion down to approximately US$1.3 billion, and suspended a controversial hydropower dam in conflict-prone Kachin State. But since a coup in February, the military finds itself more reliant on Beijing for economic investment and diplomatic protection in light of international condemnation.

Similarly, Malaysia under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad renegotiated the terms of the East Coast Rail Link project in 2018 and cancelled planned oil and gas pipelines. Singapore has also successfully balanced its economic and security relationships with Beijing and Washington by hedging and cooperating with both great powers.

In South Asia, the Maldives availed over US$3 billion in loans from China for the construction of bridges and airports. Through these loans, over 70 per cent of the Maldives’ external debt was owed to China alone. This overreliance on China led to a political crisis as India stepped in to repay the debt.

While the island nation faced a macroeconomic crisis, the two major political parties accused each other of favouring one country over the other. The debt crisis, coupled with constitutional amendments making foreign ownership of land legal, led to widespread protests. China’s overbearing influence on the country became a point of contention between the ruling party and opposition, eventually leading to a change in government that was closer to India.

The Maldives’ shift in allegiances was ultimately a product of a security deal negotiated by India. In 2018, New Delhi offered US$1.4 billion in aid in exchange for the Maldives distancing itself from China. The Maldives’ debt success was only possible by bringing in a willing regional balancer to support it with alternative financing.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, has been more cautious in its initial participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Dhaka has adopted a ‘prevention is better than a cure’ approach to limit its debt exposure, selecting projects based on their economic and financial feasibility rather than near-term political advantage.

Bangladesh refrained from infrastructure financed purely by debt, and selected power and manufacturing projects over airports and ports based on their ability to generate revenue in the near future, rather than anticipated development or traffic flows in the distant future. Furthermore, a balanced and rapidly growing economy provided it with leverage to diversify its debtors. Historically, Bangladesh has had cordial relations with India and strong macroeconomic fundamentals, such as GDP growth rates and external debt, allowing it to leverage competition between India and China.

Emerging great power competition provides small states with the agency to balance their economic and strategic ties with countries vying for influence such as China, the United States, India and Japan. While member countries of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) — comprising the United States, Japan, India and Australia — may not individually rival China’s infrastructure investment, collectively they may find competitive advantages through multilateral cooperation. Japan has provided more official development assistance to the region compared with China, while Japanese infrastructure investment and US foreign direct investment across Southeast Asia have long outmatched China’s. The Quad’s pledge in March to provide vaccines to Indo-Pacific countries was a welcome announcement, particularly as regional states begin to doubt the efficacy of Chinese vaccines.

This is no simple matter of passively accepting dolled-out public goods from the great powers. As the cases of Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore suggest, small states must wield agency to find viable economic strategies that simultaneously protect states’ sovereignty by avoiding overexposure to any one powerful country.

Hunter Marston is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, University, a non-resident WSD-Handa Fellow at Pacific Forum, and an associate with 9DashLine.

Akhil Ramesh is a Non-resident Vasey Fellow at Pacific Forum, USA.

The post Great power competition and small state leverage in the Indo-Pacific first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link

Author: Daniel P Aldrich, Northeastern University

Until recently, it may have been hard for the average person to grasp how deadly and damaging disasters and shocks can be. No longer. Few anywhere in the world have emerged from the past year and a half without a strong appreciation of the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Along with COVID-19 taking more than 4.5 million lives and upending health systems, business revenue and global logistics, other acute and long-term shocks and stressors have affected communities around the world, including bushfires in Australia, North America and Europe, lethal heatwaves in Oregon, and mudslides in Japan.

Policymakers often respond to disasters by falling back on standard responses involving physical infrastructure and megaprojects. Extreme weather events such as flooding and heatwaves are among the most common disasters. In Japan, central and regional government officials have pushed for the construction of massive concrete seawalls and tetrapods to protect coastal communities.

Japan is one among many nations that instinctively turn to such solutions when seeking to mitigate climate change and rising seas. Venice relies on Project MOSE with its inflatable floodgates to reduce flooding in La Serenissima. Boston considered a US$11 billion seawall to try to reduce the impact of regular flooding during king tides.

Politicians and bureaucrats rely on the standard approach of building physical infrastructure in response to disasters for several reasons. First, physical infrastructure provides a visible, tangible symbol of ‘doing something’ for those seeking re-election. Second, cost benefit analyses can more easily estimate the outcome of a physical structure than less tangible projects. Third, the construction industry has a strong and successful history of successful lobbying for new work. Fourth, alternative, non-physical infrastructure approaches such as citizen research, community budgeting, and civic engagement come with longer time horizons.

Civic infrastructure and social infrastructure play critical roles in crisis management. Civic infrastructure is made up of bonding, bridging and linking social ties. Bonding ties are connections between similar friends and family. Bridging ties are connections to people different in some way, through institutions like schools, workplaces and places of worship. Linking social ties are vertical ties to those with power and authority.

Social infrastructure comprises the libraries, parks, nature walks, community health facilities, public schools, transportation networks and pools that help people interact and build trust and civic infrastructure. There are three critical reasons why these types of connections and infrastructure are important — perhaps even more important than the physical infrastructure communities fall back on to protect themselves from disasters.

First, strong civic and social infrastructure allow societies to overcome collective action problems. That is, challenges that require people to work together even though they may have their own interests to consider. When the 1995 Kobe earthquake triggered massive fires across the city, some affected neighbourhoods were able to self-organise to fight the fires.

Everyone has experienced a collective action problem at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when health authorities asked people to wear masks. While a relatively minor burden, mask wearing is most effective when almost everyone does it. When citizens trust the public experts and the efficacy of the advice they provide, it is easier for people to cooperate willingly.

Second, strong civic and social infrastructure better guarantee the provision of mutual aid and informal insurance during shocks when standard providers of assistance may be out of service or unable to assist. Japan’s Fukushima nuclear meltdowns showed that people with stronger ties to neighbours significantly reduced their overall levels of stress and anxiety when compared with those without such networks. Similarly, tighter knit communities along the Tohoku coast were able to help the elderly and infirm reach high ground, measurably reducing mortality.

Third, civic infrastructure serves as a critical component in disaster management is because of its ability to provide trusted information through bonding, bridging and linking social ties. While a random voice on the radio may have little influence on behaviour, people are much more likely to pay attention if a trusted friend or family member provides advice.

Before and during disasters, authorities try to push out a tremendous amount of information to motivate effective responses to crises. Before hurricanes and floods arrive, for example, officials want people in vulnerable areas to evacuate. Individuals with broader, more diverse networks are more likely to be evacuated from areas about to be hit by hurricanes than people with smaller, more insular ones. Trust between residents in Japan and authorities also helped reduce initial outbreaks of COVID-19 as people followed the health guidelines set down by the government.

In the United States, President Joe Biden’s infrastructure investment plan recognises the failing state of much of the national physical infrastructure, and observers have pointed out that Japan’s physical infrastructure also needs investment. But governments — including that in Japan, which ranks among the lowest of the advanced industrial democracies in terms of its social capital — also need to invest in social infrastructure. Japan, for example, has lower rates of volunteering than most other OECD nations. We have seen too clearly the consequences when societies lack horizontal and vertical trust.

Even in post-conflict communities such as Nicaragua and in impoverished communities in South Africa, systemic interventions can create higher levels of social capital. Through investment in bottom-up, community-driven programs such as Japan’s Ibasho program, residents and neighbourhoods can build social capital and resilience against future shocks. Through constructing and upgrading public-use facilities and through supporting non-government organisations and civil society organisations, there can be better preparation for shocks to come.

Daniel P Aldrich is Director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program and Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Northeastern University.

This article appears in the most recent edition of East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Confronting crisis in Japan’, Vol. 13, No 3.

The post The benefits of Japan’s social infrastructure and civic ties in uncertain times first appeared on East Asia Forum.



Source link