Permatang Pauh, Malaysia—Anwar Ibrahim’s impressive victory in the Permatang Pauh by-election brings the possibility of a new government for Malaysia closer—if only by a little. "This is the people's victory," Mr. Anwar told a crowd of supporters after winning more than 66% of some 47,000 votes cast. "Permatang Pauh has given a clear signal to the leadership of this country. We demand change. We want freedom. We don't want to live with corruption and oppression."
Posted August 27, 2008

The Punjab has spoken. The provincial assembly in Lahore was the first assembly to call upon President Pervez Musharraf to resign or endure a no confidence vote in the national parliament by an overwhelming majority of 321 to 25. This was the beginning of the end for Mr. Musharraf, who will likely resign in the next few days, once his safety is guaranteed, either inside Pakistan or in exile abroad.
Posted August 16, 2008.

Media reports say the Chinese people overwhelmingly support the Olympic Games and the government. Yet last week, long-term residents evicted from their homes clashed with neighborhood guards near Tiananmen Square, and two men in western China killed 16 paramilitary troops. In late spring and summer, there were bus bombings, police killings, and large-scale demonstrations across China. One protest attracted an estimated 30,000 citizens. In light of the antigovernment turbulence in the country, should we believe that the Chinese people are truly enthusiastic about the Games?
Posted August 15, 2008

The 2008 Olympics are a grand banquet of global diplomacy, and even though there are no policies to reconcile or joint statements to negotiate, these leaders can still serve their citizens well by demonstrating a healthy balance of national pride and appreciation of other countries’ athletes and cultures. Nationalism, in particular, is an insidious problem in Northeast Asia, and we can either fan its flames by trumpeting medal counts, obsessing exclusively over our own nation’s athletes, and using the Olympic stage to promote national goals, or we can at least try to embrace some of the fundamental principles of Olympism.
Posted August 9, 2008.

Twenty years have now passed since Burma started its struggle for democracy in what is famously known as the “8-8-88 Movement.” It was a nationwide uprising calling for the removal of the military dictatorship and a restoration of the democratic government.
Posted August 8, 2008

Intersection of the Beijing Olympics with the Chinese public’s well-organized response to the Sichuan earthquake has sparked extensive speculation that China may be on the cusp of a major political reform. Some believe it could even be a step or two closer now to democratization. Sadly, such speculation does not consider certain crucial facts in the current trajectory of Chinese political development, which is by no means democratic.
Posted August 7, 2008

The eyes of Japan’s political world may be upon Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo as he deliberates on whether to reshuffle his cabinet before the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet, scheduled to begin in late August or early September (the Fukuda government and the ruling LDP are also deliberating on this question). No less important, however, is the opposition DPJ’s leadership election, which was released scheduled for Sept. 21, with the campaign officially opening on Sept. 8.
Posted July 30, 2008

I had been at Columbia University for three years, studying Latin and Greek as an undergraduate, when I became interested in Tibet. After the riots in Tibet this spring, I wanted to know more about the thinking of Tibetans, and I was able to meet the Dalai Lama shortly afterward, a meeting that I found impressive and informative. So, together with a Singaporean Chinese student at Columbia, Kiat Sing Teo, I asked the Dalai Lama’s office if we could bring a larger group to meet him. This time we wanted to include Tibetan students as well as Chinese, so the two sides would get to know each other as well as the person whom some officials in my country have described as "the wolf in monk’s clothing."
Posted July 30, 2008

In an appearance at the annual Asean summit, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the Burmese junta’s plan for the gradual restoration of democracy to Burma as a “mockery which is going nowhere.” While this may have grated on some of the participants as not sufficiently diplomatic, it is the cold, hard, indisputable truth. Lest anyone forget, it has been 18 long years since Burma’s 1990 elections when the National League for Democracy and its allies won 82% of the parliamentary seats, and were never allowed to take office.
Posted July 25, 2008

On a recent night in Yarkand, a town in the southwest of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, I spied about a dozen members of the People's Liberation Army wielding clubs resembling baseball bats near my hotel. While the soldiers looked more bored than menacing, they served as a reminder that Xinjiang is, and will remain, part of China.
Posted July 23, 2008

A suicide bomb attack earlier this month in Islamabad on the first anniversary of the storming of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) complex by government troops indicates that the honeymoon period between militants and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is over. The July 6 attack killed at least 19, most of those policemen, and wounded scores more.
Posted July 16, 2008

Beijing is taking draconian measures to clean up for the Olympic Games. In the past week, 300,000 high-emission or yellow-labeled vehicles, mainly freight trucks, have been banned from the city until Sept. 20 to ensure a “green” Olympics. Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing municipal environmental protection bureau, announced the auto restrictions in an attempt to ensure acceptable air quality for the Olympic athletes. Beijing residents are familiar with such bans but how they will cope with such a long-term ban is difficult to imagine.
Posted July 11, 2008