The demonstrations that broke out on the streets of central Seoul on May 2 surprised everyone who should have been in a position to anticipate them. The staff of South Korea’s new president, Lee Myung-bak, had no notion of the depth of the emotions, the possible scope of the protest or its duration. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul and the U.S. military command—with their far-reaching networks of contacts and large staffs with the capability of scrutinizing Korean Web sites—were equally in the dark about the demonstrations, the forces behind them and their underlying causes. Both the Blue House, the center of presidential power in South Korea, and the U.S. government believed the outburst was a passing phenomenon, one from which the country, the government and U.S.-Korean relations would quickly recover before moving on to weightier matters.

Pity President Lee Myung-bak, who has fallen on hard times. After riding a strong wave of voter support into office, he began his five-year term in late February full of confidence, energy and big plans befitting Korea’s first “CEO President.” Leading his country’s conservative party back into power after their decade in the political wilderness, Mr. Lee moved quickly to toughen the South’s policy towards Pyongyang, lay out an ambitious economic growth agenda, call for a shake-up of Korea’s English-language education system, propose building a “grand canal” linking Korea’s major rivers, and put strengthening frayed relations with the United States at the top of his foreign-policy agenda.

It's been well over a year since Korus—the proposed U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement—was signed, sealed and delivered. But it has yet to be approved by the United States Congress, and as of this writing, it has also not yet been approved by Seoul’s National Assembly, though supposedly it was to have an easier ride there. The alleged obstacles in both capitals are well-known. From Washington, the complaints include not enough beef and cars, while Seoul is focused on too much supposedly tainted American beef today and fears of too much rice tomorrow. But those specifics mask the real story, especially in Washington, of what’s wrong with these FTAs and why they’ve already hit so many rough spots on the road to passage.

If forced to choose the single biggest threat to Asian economic stability today, it’s fairly certain that regional investors and policy makers would answer with a single voice: “inflation.”

A piece I wrote for the review last year (“Shattering Shipping Myths,” June 2007) might have seemed overly pessimistic at the time. I sketched out a scenario where demand for manufactured goods from Asia and China fell off steeply as a result of a property bust in the United States, as food and energy costs rose further. Events have unfolded faster than I expected, largely because shipping demand in Europe slowed quickly and there was a sharp decline in U.S. inbound volume. The one bright spot has been a healthy rebound in U.S. exports.

It’s back to the future for Malaysian politics. Ten years ago, Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim challenged the economic policies of his boss Mahathir Mohamad, and was brought down by accusations of sodomy. A defining image of this conflict was Mr. Anwar appearing in court with a bruised face as the result of a beating by the country’s police chief.

The general election of December 2007 promised to settle the turmoil that has enveloped Thai politics for almost three years. But six months on, the situation is as divided and emotional as it was on the eve of the September 2006 coup which overthrew the government of Thaksin Shinawatra.

A temple complex near the Thai-Cambodian border has pitted not only the two countries against each other but also Thai opposition political parties against the government of Samak Sundaravej. At the heart of the dispute is whether Thailand should accept a map that demarcates the border around the temple, which Cambodia wants to have listed as a World Heritage Site with Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

They have been called the “Fifty Cent Party,” the “red vests” and the “red vanguard.” But China’s growing armies of Web commentators—instigated, trained and financed by party organizations—have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet. They set out to neutralize undesirable public opinion by pushing pro-Party views through chat rooms and Web forums, reporting dangerous content to authorities.
Posted July 4, 2008

On June 18, the Japanese and Chinese governments announced that they had reached a limited agreement providing for joint development of the Shirakaba/Chungxiao gas field in the East China Sea, a first step to solving one of the trickiest problems dogging the Sino-Japanese relationship. Two weeks earlier, Tokyo announced that Beijing had requested Japanese aid for earthquake-stricken Sichuan Province, and did not exclude the possibility that the aid could be delivered by Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces (ASDF) transportation aircraft. Although the Japanese government ultimately sent the aid on civilian aircraft—in no small part because China asked Japan to reconsider in response to public opposition to Japanese military aircraft flying in Chinese skies—the request showed the extent to which the damage to the relationship incurred during the tenure of former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been repaired.

For over a year, U.S. officials have been complaining to their Chinese counterparts about the shipment of Chinese-made or Chinese coproduced weapons to Iraqi insurgents and to the Taliban in Afghanistan, largely via Iran. The requests to stop the flow of arms into the hands of insurgents who are killing U.S. and coalition troops has fallen on deaf ears. Far more than just the latest irritant in U.S.-China relations, Beijing’s arming of these insurgencies fits into the long-term trend dating back to the Korean and Vietnam Wars of using proxy conflicts to bleed the American superpower.

In 1998, the air quality in Beijing was ranked the third worst in the world for a metropolitan area, and a self-declared war on air pollution was launched in the city. Based on reported improvements in air quality and a commitment to hold a “green” Olympics, Beijing was awarded the 2008 games in July of 2001. Today, with the Games less than two months away, the Chinese government has claimed nine continuous years of air-quality improvements, but in reality, pollution levels have not decreased at all. Instead, China has cleverly hidden its inability to reduce pollution. And while recently announced emergency measures may help cover-up years of inaction in time for the opening ceremonies on Aug. 8, China’s dissembling about its environmental crisis is helping no one.

by Tarun Khanna

Passing the Buck on Burma