AsiaGlobal Voices

The military coup in Myanmar sent a political ripple through Thailand, its next-door neighbor, not because of any immediate influx of political asylum seekers (yet) but for the similar fate the two countries share. Nearly seven years after Thailand’s 2014 coup, which is unlikely to be the last, junta leader Gen Prayut Chan-ocha is still in power, albeit as prime minister of an elected government after elections in March 2019.

Thais, particularly those supporting democracy could not help but feel sorry about what is happening next door and consider what they can do about it. They are aware that Burmese were quick to denounce the coup in droves, despite the more ruthless reputation of the Burmese military generals compared to Thai generals. Politicians, academics, doctors, nurses, stars, models and flight attendants protested. In Thailand in 2014, too few people were willing to come out to denounce the coup. Spreading on social media after the Myanmar coup was this comment: “If Thais don’t fight, we will remain like slaves. If Burmese don’t fight, they will remain like Thais”.

It is now up to young Thais to decide what kind of neighbors they would like to be, what kind of people-to-people relations they want to have with those in Myanmar facing military suppression. Will it be one of apathy, selfish ASEAN non-interference, or that of empathy and solidarity? Will Thais simply sit and watch the suppression of political rights in Myanmar unfold and say it is just like domestic violence next door so let them sort it out – or will they do what they can to help stop the rape and abuse? The past few days have been encouraging, but this is just the beginning as more are being arrested in Myanmar for taking a stance against illegitimate military rule.

The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, which ruled Taiwan under martial law for nearly four decades, continues to produce the most absurd political performances at the most inappropriate of occasions. Instead of behaving maturely under a democracy, they chose to humiliate themselves by throwing pig guts in the parliament to raise the issue of food safety and to protest the government’s decision to allow meat imports from the US. The KMT continue to prove themselves completely incapable of adapting to Taiwan's democracy. Their political judgment remains inferior.

Taiwan is small, and its economic development depends on foreign trade which must comply with international rules. While the government has the responsibility to ensure the safety of food and meet global standards, in a free market, the consumer should ultimately have the freedom to choose what food they wish to consume. In a free market, nobody can force you to consume anything.

American meat will be imported in compliance with international food safety standards. The KMT consistently exaggerates and more and more behaves inappropriately in depriving Taiwan consumers of the right to choose. The KMT want to dictate whether Taiwan people can consume American produce or not.

The future of Singapore's transportation sector will depend upon innovation and sustainability. Over the next 50 years, a major challenge facing Singapore will be how to provide clean, economical and reliable energy.

Singapore’s governance advantages include a focus on long-term planning. In 2020, the government launched a sustainable transportation vision, which included the phasing out of all internal combustion engine cars by 2040. The enhanced vehicle emission reduction tax plan implemented from January 1, 2021, will further narrow the price gap between electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles.

The government also announced a three-year incentive to encourage consumers to purchase electric vehicles. They plan to expand the electric vehicle charging network to 28,000 charging stations by 2030. In addition to electric vehicles, hydrogen and liquefied natural gas are also designated as important sources of future energy to meet the needs of heavy vehicles.

To popularize electric vehicles, Singapore requires the corresponding infrastructure, including a robust national power grid. The government must also continue to control vehicle growth through measures such as quotas and land-use restrictions, while increasing the use of car-sharing services. In addition, the government should use data and digital technology to expand and improve the public transportation system, while encouraging more people to abandon private cars. This would support the government's goal of ensuring that by 2030 80 percent of Singapore households will be within a 10-minute walk to a subway train station.

As Singapore intensifies its efforts to promote low-carbon and sustainable transportation, the government should establish an energy ecosystem, formulate corresponding regulations to meet specific needs, and work to reshape the commuter experience. Most important is the need for the government, industry, and consumers to work together to identify trends that meet society’s changing needs.

The British government issued invitations to India, South Korea and Australia to participate in the G7 summit in 2021 and form a so-called "Democracy 10" (D10). Although there has been no mention of China, many are speculating that responding to the “China challenge” will be a key issue addressed at the summit.

The G7, which is dominated by the US and Europe, is full of differences which cannot be resolved, even with Joe Biden taking office. The differences will become unavoidable challenges.

First, the US and Europe have completely different perceptions of the world situation. The Trump administration’s judgment of the international situation was extremely pessimistic and perceived the world as facing fierce economic and political challenges. Europe, however, still optimistically believes in the benefits of international cooperation.

Second, there is an inconsistent view of security. The Trump administration listed China and Russia as strategic competitors. Europe, meanwhile, believes the main security threats facing the world are transnational issues such as terrorism, infectious diseases, and climate change.

Third, the US emphasizes hard power while Europe stresses soft power. Biden supports strengthening the US military. Europe, however, believes that it should exert regulatory power in international affairs rather than pursue military force.

The main objective of the US is to maintain its hegemony, while Europe is more concerned about the peaceful environment needed for its own development, upholding its values and taking care of the concerns and interests of its allies. On the issue of competition with China, these two approaches clash. The three Indo-Pacific countries invited by the UK to the G7 summit also have their own unique views, making it even more difficult for this improvised alliance to form an “anti-China” consensus.

Many commentators complain that, with the pandemic-stricken economy “in the ICU”, now is exactly the wrong time to push painful reform. But if not now, when? Few nations ever accept harsh medicine unless they are forced to by a crisis. Reformers come out better in the end. Today, developed nations are offering stimulus packages to ease the shock of the pandemic, but they are running up debts that will slow growth in the future.

Meanwhile, India is one of the many emerging countries that, lacking the funds for more stimulus, are instead pushing reforms which are likely to boost productivity and growth. India’s reforms encompass the controversial agricultural reforms, the new privatization push, and the broad shift in spending away from subsidies and other freebies to capital investment.

Indonesia’s reforms are as ambitious, including looser labor laws, tax cuts, deregulation, and most recently a push to open up the financial sector. The Philippines lowered its corporate taxes from among the highest to among the lowest in Asia, and will emerge more competitive. Brazil, a chronic over-spender, has imposed caps on its deficit and is working to meet them by downsizing a wildly generous pension system and streamlining bureaucracy by making it easier to fire public workers and cut their benefits.

By comparison, there is nothing particularly harsh about how the Indian government is treating its patient. When the sugar rush of stimulus fades, the effect will not be felt equally. Nations that exercised restraint and prioritized economic reforms are likely to see their growth prospects continue to improve. Those that spend heavily to ease the pain are likely to pay for it in higher debts and slower growth. This was the lesson of 2008 and every major global crisis: Seize the opportunity to reform, or it will never happen.

The first doses the country is receiving from the COVAX facility are due to arrive. A small rollout of our vaccination program has been rehearsed and is ready to execute.

However, according to a government survey, only three in ten residents of the National Capital Region are ready and willing to accept inoculation. Vaccine hesitancy may be the largest hurdle confronting our effort to achieve herd immunity in some form.

There are many reasons for the high degree of vaccine hesitancy. One major reason is anxiety about the economic costs of dealing with possible side effects. Recall that when we began testing in scale, some infected persons sought to avoid testing because if they were found positive, they could lose work days. A few even escaped from isolation facilities and needed to be tracked down by law enforcement agencies.

The national government, local governments and private enterprises have agreed to procure the vaccines and make them available for free. If we charged real costs for buying and deploying the vaccines, too many will seek to avoid inoculation. On top of providing the vaccines for free, it now appears some coverage for contingent costs needs to assured. Everything must be done to ensure a soft landing for the vaccination program.

The fewer hurdles, physical and financial, to accessing the vaccines, the better. Those in charge of the vaccine rollout should not want in creativity to assure access to the vaccines will be as painless as possible. The vaccination program can be trickier than it seems at first glance. We are working with a limited cold chain and we have never before had to inoculate so many people in so short a time. Expect some mishaps here and there. What is important is that we perfect the system as we go along.

Recent social movements have seen the youth rush to the front line. Now, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and shifts in the political and legal environment, social movements have temporarily cooled down. This provides a chance to consider whether Hong Kong youth are really so rebellious.

Social scientists have long studied whether young people are more rebellious in contemporary society. Generally, the youth of each generation hold different characteristics depending on their collective memories and values. In February 2019, researchers at the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies analyzed polling data from 1998 to 2017 on attitudes towards government performance. They found that only from 2010 onwards did Hong Kong youth’s evaluation drop to levels significantly lower than that of the adult group. This coincided with the continuous wave of social movements led by young people over the past 10 years.

A political scholar has described how the recent wave of social movements in Hong Kong is a result of decades of political transformation and social reforms. This has cultivated a "defensive" civil society where citizens may not usually actively participate in politics, but once they feel a sense of crisis, they will fight back.

The analyst made two further observations: First, feelings of threat and danger were high, with everyone reacting to some desire to hold on to some of value of Hong Kong. Second, a feeling of "relative deprivation” emerged from the sense of powerlessness in light of sudden, profound changes within society. While these observations are not specific to the youth, they can help us better understand the motivations of Hong Kong’s youth as they marched on the streets in 2019.

The China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) has finally been reached, illustrating three key points:

First, the completion of the negotiations means that China-EU cooperation has transformed from a rivalry in the industrialized era to a broad partnership in the post-carbon and digital age. The agreement will help European companies better enter the world's fastest-growing market and participate in fair competition. It will also provide the same guarantee for Chinese companies operating in the EU.

Second, the agreement shows that ideology can be a productive force. The EU is aware that ideology in the traditional sense has not brought substantial benefits. Instead, the EU has become a victim of confrontation between China and the US and between Russia and the US. Drawing lessons from history, China and the EU eliminated ideological interference, cooperated pragmatically and hedged against global uncertainty. Furthermore, ideological differences can be resolved through conversation rather than confrontation. 

Third, the agreement illustrates that while both China and the EU both respect relations with the US, they will neither wait for nor be subject to the US. The EU desires to be a geopolitical player rather than merely a chessboard. The EU has chosen to reduce its dependence on American technology and work with China to develop future multilateral investment and trade rules.

While the European side initially attempted to push various demands on China, an agreement was successfully reached. This shows that the EU has become more and more pragmatic in the face of the strategic anxiety produced by global changes. The end of the Trump era combined with the completion of the China-EU investment agreement, the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership have created some much needed optimism for a global economy suffering under the strains of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The Covid-19 vaccine being administered by the government of India raises safety and efficacy concerns, stemming from a rushed approval process. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended that all state governments pursue criminal action against individuals and organizations spreading “unfounded” or “misleading” rumors that “create doubt” about the vaccine’s efficacy.

Given the government’s lack of proactive transparency on safety issues with respect to the vaccines’ approval, public scrutiny serves an important function. The evolution of a nebulous category of “fake news” has become the bedrock of curtailment of free speech. Where restrictions are vague, overbroad, and punitive, they create a chilling effect on free speech and have been held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

A report has documented 55 instances of targeting of journalists during the lockdown. State governments have used the garb of epidemic disease control to prosecute persons for reporting on mismanagement of the pandemic, corruption and the lack of state support for migrant workers and others affected by the pandemic. The only purpose of these “fake news” laws has been to advance narratives of effective governance during the pandemic.

No democratic government can be considered effective if it fails to be transparent and accountable. Effective government function necessarily requires adequately engaging with and scientifically responding to both valid criticism and unscientific misconceptions to build robust public discourse. When criminal law is relied on to place gags on valid questions and there is a failure to communicate all necessary information to the public, the government violates the principle of informed consent – a crucial tenet of healthcare. “Minimum government, maximum governance” has unfortunately translated into minimum government transparency and maximum public penalization.

US President Joe Biden’s treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has emphasized her commitment not to interfere with the US dollar. Her statement has given rise to various interpretations. It could be an initial signal that Biden's economic policies will tend to be pro-market and that market forces will determine the value of the dollar. 

Yellen has probably already anticipated the second interpretation. The commencement of vaccination in the US raises optimism about a faster-than-expected economic recovery in the second half of this year. This has triggered discourse about the US central bank gradually reducing its bond-buying program to sustain the nation’s economic recovery. The two policies above, if they are really implemented, will undoubtedly shake the global market. 

The first-round impact will work directly on the commodity markets. The volume of trade will fluctuate in accordance with the dynamics of US dollar. If the dollar strengthens, exporters will suffer, and importers will benefit.

How about Indonesia? If both US economic policy scenarios prove correct, Indonesia will face a flight of foreign capital, which in the short term will depreciate the rupiah. Imports of raw materials, equipment and machinery will shrink, which will further affect production capacity. If the US economy quickly recovers, Indonesia can seize export opportunities and offset the pressure for the rupiah’s depreciation. 

Indonesian products can fill the role of Chinese products that are subject to high tariffs. Indonesia's share of non-oil and gas exports to the US ranks second after China. In another scenario, Chinese products that should be destined for the US will be transferred to other countries, including Indonesia. In addition, North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America are wide open to become potential markets for Indonesian products. 

It has been a crazy week in Wall Street, where the entire financial services industry of the United States, including the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, is located. The place has become the epicenter of a populist revolt being waged by small “amateur” retail investors against those they perceive to be the grand manipulators of the financial markets – hedge fund managers, brokerage firms, gigantic investment houses, and their enablers in the mainstream media.

These insurrectionists of the stock market are mobilizing an army that is driven not mainly by profit but by a passionate resentment against the rapacious few that make money at the expense of everyone else. Their most hated targets are the so-called “short-sellers” – professional investors that make their money from driving down the value of certain stocks by dumping them and then buying them back at a lower price.

Mostly young people who have basically known no other reality but that of the digital world, the stock markets’ new warriors are leveraging their mastery of the internet to challenge the power of the entrenched financial oligarchy. It is easy to mock this development as nothing but the fanciful protest of a digital generation that is out to remake the global order using the virtual weapons at their disposal. 

I am not so sure. If one can imagine a global anarchist movement rising up against entrenched hierarchies – brought together and empowered by an online communication system, and able to operate synchronously across time zones, geographic boundaries, and functional domains – it’s not difficult to see in this stock market revolt a portent of something more encompassing and radical than the “reset” of the capitalist system that the Davos thinkers have in mind.

This is the first year since the start of the national registration system that the death rate has exceeded that of births. The birth rate in Korea for the past two years has been 0.9, lowest among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations. It is clear that Korean women do not want, or are unable, to have children and society must try to understand the cause of the problem to solve it.

In a Korean society, there is incredible pressure to stick to “normal” family structures, consisting of a formal union between a man and woman. Every other form of family such as single parenthood, divorced or informal cohabitation is deemed inappropriate and subject to prejudice. Imagine a person seeking employment having to make known to a prospective employer that he/she is not married but has a child. The immense pressure and opprobrium would discourage child-rearing despite the nation’s desperate need for more children.

Even in “normal” families with children, child-rearing is no easy task and is especially cumbersome in a society built on competition and conformity. According to the ministry of Health and Welfare, there were over 40,000 reported cases of child abuse and 42 related child deaths in 2019 alone. Korean society obviously not only needs more children but also a better system to take care of existing children and their parents.

Considering all this, it is outrageous to find “advice” on the Seoul Center for Pregnancy website for pregnant women to be considerate of their husbands’ lack of cooking skills when the mothers go to hospital and to brace themselves for losing weight after giving birth. It really is no surprise that Korean women are not having babies.

Yazhou Zhoukan (“Asia Weekly”) is a Hong Kong-based magazine read by Chinese intellectuals all over the world. While mainland authorities have banned subscriptions, it has always taken a middle path approach, respecting the “one country, two systems” principle, even with the challenging political situation in Hong Kong. It has tried to present both points of view on cross-strait issues.

The latest issue has generated controversy as it depicts Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in royal garb from the Qin Dynasty, smiling on a throne, with her administration characterized as a “dictatorship”. This has prompted a ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokeswoman to claim that the publication is a mouthpiece for the Beijing government. Is this claim true?

Yazhou Zhoukan uses the words "Republic of China" in news reports without quotation marks. This alone shows that the mainland authorities respect Hong Kong’s freedom of speech and press. The DPP, however, continues to claim that the media is actively suppressing Hong Kong’s freedom and democracy. Ironically, in the latest issue, Yazhou Zhoukan interviews DPP politicians to discuss Tsai’s governance. Yet it is considered pro-Communist. 

Under the more-and-more restricted political environment in Taiwan, criticizing the government has become dangerous. As a result, most intellectuals have been silenced. Not only has the Chung T’ien Television News channel been shut down, but from February 1 this year, the publishing of books authorized by mainland publishers will first need to be approved by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. The DPP cannot allow people in Taiwan the freedom to criticize only the Communist Party of China. They must also guarantee the freedom to criticize the DPP. 

With Switzerland, Singapore co-chairs the Friends of the COVAX Facility initiative. COVAX is the Global Coronavirus Vaccine Global Access, a multilateral mechanism led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure the fair global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. So far, 190 countries and economies have signed up, and nearly two billion vaccine doses have been obtained. The US and Russia have not joined.

Singapore has supported this initiative from the very beginning, contributing US$5 million (S$6.64 million) in December. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has encouraged countries to focus on establishing partnerships to promote vaccine multilateralism as this is essential for coordinating international response plans. Singapore looks forward to cooperating with the European Commission and like-minded countries, as well the WHO and other partners, not only in developing vaccines but also in distributing them to all countries fairly and quickly.

The emergence of vaccine multilateralism is a response to vaccine nationalism. The People's Vaccine Alliance (a coalition of organizations and activists, coordinated by Oxfam and UNAIDS, aimed at campaigning for a “people’s vaccine” for Covid-19 that would be freely available to everyone everywhere as a global common good) has warned that rich countries are hoarding excessive amounts of vaccines, several times more than their citizens. The population of wealthy countries accounts for only 14 percent of the world's population yet they now have 53 percent of the most promising vaccines, with Canada, the US and the UK holding the most doses. Meanwhile, in the world’s 67 poorest countries, only 10 percent of the population are expected to be vaccinated before the end of 2021.

Covid-19 is a common enemy of mankind and only when the entire population of the world is immune can everyone be safe. The facts show that vaccine multilateralism is the best way forward.

Perhaps history is but a repetition of people in hardship scapegoating each other. This psychology may help explain why conspiracy theories flourish at the turn of every crisis and disaster. In the US alone, there is a wide variety of allegations ranging from Bill Gates purposely spreading the coronavirus so that he can profit from vaccines to microchips secretly being implanted in serum. Despite the craziness, a whopping 30 percent of Americans believe in such stories. This may be just about humans trying to survive an unreasonable crisis.  

Be that as it may, for ordinary citizens, the responsibility to ensure a cohesive functioning society falls on the people of governing class and the media. In a crisis, they have a duty to calm the general population’s uneasiness and fears and work together to bring back reason and a sense of normalcy. 

On the streets these days, however, it has become all too easy to overhear outrageous conspiracy theories centered on politicians and probably spread by politicians to serve their ambitions. People talk and believe that Covid-19 has been purposely left to spread so that the long-awaited timing of the vaccines will coincide with a by-election. Others believe that social-distancing measures will be tightened only after the president’s artist son finishes his exhibition. 

More outrageous than these theories is the shamelessness of the governing class in using division and scapegoating for political gain. The media exaggerate unfounded theories to gain traffic. The political class uses the crisis to defame others and score political points. These are all sad examples of how our system is failing miserably. The thriving coronavirus politics is more tiring than the pandemic.