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What Really Glimmers Behind the “Day of the Shining Star”

Feb 21st, 2012
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By Barbra Kim

Propaganda artwork of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il. Source: Joseph A Ferris III's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

North Korea’s recently deceased ruler, Kim Jong-il, received a 70th birthday celebration that will go down in the history books…literally. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) officially renamed February 16, “Day of the Shining Star,” following a tradition Kim set for his father and predecessor. The founder and “Eternal President” of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, has his birthday named “Day of the Sun.” – currently North Korea’s two biggest holidays.

The week-long birthday celebration –replete with the unveiling of bronze statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il riding on horses, the 16th annual Kimjongilia festival (a display of 30,000 potted Kimjongilia flowers), the standard military shows of soldiers marching in goose step, and an ice sculpture festival –can be seen to serve a double function.

First, these public events immortalize Kim Jong-il as they did his father. Second, they cement the legitimacy of the ruling Kim family, and consequently, the legitimization of Kim Jong-un’s succession.

Moreover, the overall tone of this week contrasts starkly with the breast-heaving, hair-renting, sobbing view of inconsolable North Koreans during their memorial service for Kim Jong-il last December. The pre-planned, flashy, celebrations can easily be interpreted as a politicized move by the regime to show the masses that there is a brighter future ahead. But the question that may have gone unnoticed is: who really runs these celebrations? (more…)

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Who is Xi?

Feb 16th, 2012
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By Ernie Bower

Vice President Xi meeting with U.S. Speaker of the House Boehner. Source: Speaker Boehner's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

Earlier this week, China’s vice president Xi Jinping arrived in Washington for a high level visit. To some, Xi—and China—mean everything to the United States. These observers view Asia’s risks and opportunities through the China prism. This narrow Sino-centric perspective is not strategic, however, nor is it practical. Understanding China, its rise, and what it wants to be is a core requirement for a successful and enduring U.S. approach to Asia, but it is not the whole game.

In fact, a balanced approach to Asia takes China into account but puts emphasis on other key relationships such as U.S. treaty allies in the region, strategic partners such as India and Singapore, and comprehensive partnerships such as with Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Vietnam.

Deepening ties across the Asia Pacific will take time, dedicated resources, and a retooling of U.S. foreign policy, national security, and military infrastructure. It will also require a new political script in the United States, one in which the leader of this country makes the case for Asia’s primary role in the United States’ economic and security future. America needs to begin to relate to Asia—not only politically from Washington, or financially from New York, or culturally from San Francisco and Los Angeles: it must connect at its center. Americans need leaders who can explain why Asia is fundamentally important to U.S. jobs, savings, economic growth, and security. (more…)

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Congress Should Top Up Ex-Im Bank

Feb 1st, 2012
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By Murray Hiebert

The political debate has been heated between those who want to slash federal spending to reduce the national debt and those who want to increase spending to spur the U.S. economy and create jobs. Here’s a step that would help achieve both goals: reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

Ex-Im Bank is a relatively little-known federal agency that provides loan guarantees to companies in other countries that want to buy U.S. products. Ex-Im Bank guarantees enable foreign companies, to get affordable loans from commercial lenders, without which they could not buy U.S.-made products such as heavy construction machinery, airplanes, fire trucks, high-tech medical equipment, and clean energy technology and services.

Ex-Im loan guarantees have had an outsized impact on U.S. exports, economic growth, and jobs. In 2011, Ex-Im supported more than $40 billion in exports that helped create or support some 290,000 U.S. jobs. Ex-Im has played a key role in reviving U.S. manufacturing and boosting exports to Asia – one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy in recent years. More than 80 percent of the bank’s transactions support thousands of small businesses across the country. (more…)

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Video: Ambassador Chan Heng Chee on The Singapore Conference @ CSIS

Jan 31st, 2012
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Watch Singapore’s Ambassador to the U.S., H.E. Chan Heng Chee discuss the upcoming high level conference on Singapore-U.S. relations held at CSIS in Washington, D.C. with Southeast Asia Program Senior Fellow Murray Hiebert. To learn more about the February 8th Conference, click here.

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Myanmar @ End of January 2012

Jan 27th, 2012
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By Rajiv Bathia This post was released in the ICRIER Wadhwani Chair  India-U.S. Insight Newsletter here. Re-posted with permission.

Myanmar’s Tatmadaw (military) strategists and pundits who gave the finishing touches, some two years back to their 2003 plan to bring about controlled political change, have ample reasons to celebrate the extent of success achieved so far.

Each arm of the triangle of Myanmar’s politics comprising the Government, NLD and ethnic minorities, has registered progress as compared to the situation prevailing in January 2010. Government-NLD relations have improved considerably, with Suu Kyi and her other party candidates ready to participate in April by-elections as a prelude to entering the Parliament. Following the release in batches of a sizable number of political prisoners, new winds of freedom are blowing in the land. The Government has concluded ceasefire agreements with several insurgent groups, the Karens being the most important of them all NLD and other political forces continue to back national reconciliation, while being conscious that nothing substantial can be achieved in a hurry and the Government remains the indispensable interlocutor and planner of future moves.

Likewise, the country’s relations with the international community look more promising than ever before. An unending series of high-level visits has lent new legitimacy and prestige to President Thein Sein’s government. He now plans an early tour of ASEAN capitals. Foreign travels by Suu Kyi are also likely to begin in the coming months. Sanctions by the US and EU are under review even as the EU has already lifted visa restrictions on top leaders. Purse strings for aid flows are getting loosened. Western corporate leaders are also beginning to consider anew investment prospects. (more…)

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Whose Century?

Jan 26th, 2012
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By Andrew Shearer This post originally appeared on The Interpreter. Re-posted with permission.

Source:Jennikokodesu's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

Dr. Ken Henry and his team are busy preparing the Government’s White Paper on ‘Australia in the Asian Century’, due to be released in the middle of this year.

In Australian academic, business and media circles there is breathless excitement about the rise of China (and the US decline they assume as its inevitable corollary). But one of the points I would make to the White Paper team is that it would be a major error to write out the US (as the White Paper’s title seems to imply), and that we may yet prove to be living in the Asia Pacific century, or indeed the Indo-Pacific century.

Following President Obama’s November visit and his historic address to the Australian parliament, a number of influential academic, business and political figures expressed concern about moves (supported by both the major parties) to strengthen further the Australia-US alliance.

In essence, their concern was that stationing a relatively small number of US Marines in Australia’s north for half the year might feed the concerns of our largest trading partner that we are part of a US-led strategy to ‘contain’ it.

To the extent that anyone thinks current US policy really resembles Cold War containment, this reflects woeful ignorance of US strategy during the Cold War and now. But their argument also rests on an assumption that America has had its day and that China’s burgeoning gross domestic product will translate directly into predominant power which Australia has to start heeding, now. (more…)

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Two Months after APEC: Key Issues for Japan and TPP

Jan 25th, 2012
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By Tim Johnson

A rice farmer in Asuka, Japan. High import tariffs on agricultural products are one of several challenges to Japan's TPP entry. Source: filmmaker in japan's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

At the APEC summit in Honolulu last November, Japanese Prime Minister Noda announced that “Japan will enter into consultations toward participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.”

While “consultations toward participating” is hardly the firmest of commitments, the statement was hailed as “bold and historic” by U.S. officials and “remarkable, courageous and far reaching” by a former WTO chief.  Trade watchers are generous with praise because Japan’s inclusion would elevate the TPP from a modest trade agreement among the U.S. and an assortment of small and mid-sized countries to an ambitious regional deal that includes two of the world’s three largest economies. Japan is America’s 4th largest trading partner and its GDP is more than two times that of the other eight TPP partners combined. While most recent trade agreements in Asia have been limited in scope, the TPP is expected to address so-called “21st Century” issues, such as regulatory convergence, supply chains and state owned enterprises.  TPP partner countries hope that such a high-standard multilateral agreement can evolve into an APEC-wide Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) and further trade liberalization worldwide.  Japan’s inclusion on these terms would advance this vision significantly.

The next step toward Japan’s entry into TPP negotiations consists of the ongoing bilateral consultations with each of the TPP partners.  Their bilateral consultations with the United States will carry the most weight and may pose the greatest challenges.  As the debate on the inclusion of Japan in the TPP gets underway, some key issues are taking shape: (more…)

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US Should Join Efforts to Negotiate East Asian FTA

Jan 23rd, 2012
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By James Wallar

Market in Shanghai. Would EAS serve as a broader platform for U.S. trade focus than TPP? Source: d'n'c's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

CSIS took another great initiative in launching the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) series on January 6.  It is important that this series not fall prey to a Washington-centric focus. The first session, which began with a keynote address by Michael Froman, deputy national security advisor for international economics, ran the risk of doing so, but this was avoided by the brilliant presentations by Matthew Goodman, senior economics advisor at the State Department, and Susan Schwab, former U.S. Trade Representative, who lifted the veil on the broader Asian context.

Few would dispute that the U.S. government needs to be engaged in Asia, where more than half the world’s growth is generated and where U.S. political security interests loom large. The U.S. government’s Asia “pivot” is a welcomed and necessary redirection of the U.S. administration’s energies.  The question is whether the TPP is a sufficiently robust platform for the United State’s Asian engagement.

“Where are the markets?” was Schwab’s rhetorical question. Countries participating in the TPP negotiations account for a small share of U.S. trade.  China, India, Korea, Japan, and Indonesia, where the real markets are, are not yet part of the TPP. The speakers at the CSIS conference did not give comfort that any of them would be welcomed to join soon.  We were informed that the TPP negotiations will continue apace. Which countries will want to join an agreement that they have not been involved in shaping to reflect their economic interests? (more…)

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Video: A Second Term for President Ma

Jan 20th, 2012
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Bonnie Glaser, a Senior Fellow with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, sat down with our Japan Chair Michael Green to discuss the implications of President Ma Ying-jeou’s victory during Taiwan’s January 14 elections.  Bonnie describes how Ma’s re-election will affect future cross-strait relations, Beijing’s perspective on the result, domestic political developments in Taiwan, and what a second Ma administration entails for U.S. policy.

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Opportunity in Myanmar for U.S.-India Strategic Coordination

Jan 19th, 2012
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By Amer Latif & Nicholas Lombardo

Bagan sunrise in Myanmar. Sustained political reform in Myanmar represents an opportunity for U.S.-India strategic engagement. Source: druidabruxux's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

With the recent decision by the United States to restore full diplomatic relations with Myanmar, prompted by the country’s nascent political reforms and release of political prisoners, 2012 is set to be a pivotal year for Myanmar’s relations with its neighbors and with the West. In recent months, Myanmar has hosted Thailand’s prime minister, foreign ministers from Indonesia and Japan, and historic visits by U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and British foreign secretary William Hague. Naypyidaw, sent a parliamentary delegation to Delhi in mid-December to study the rules and practices of the Indian parliament, signaling its interest in alternate democratic processes, and India’s army chief, General V.K. Singh, visited Myanmar for bilateral consultations this past week. The gradual changes in Myanmar also provide an opportunity for closer policy collaboration between United States and India in the year ahead.

Until recently, Washington and Delhi have historically taken divergent approaches to relations with Naypyidaw (the capital was Yangon until 2005). While the United States has aimed to isolate Myanmar politically and economically with sanctions directed at the military junta’s human rights abuses and suppression of democracy, India shifted away from a similar stance during the 1990s after becoming wary of losing influence with Myanmar vis-à-vis China. Delhi and Naypyidaw have cooperated since then on areas of mutual strategic interest including infrastructure development, counterterrorism, military-to-military relations, and science and technology training.

Yet, as Indian ambassador Rajiv Bhatia points out in a recent ICRIER publication, the United States has criticized India in the past for its approach to relations with Myanmar’s government. During President Obama’s state visit to India in November 2010, Bhatia notes, the president called out India in a speech to parliament for often avoiding issues of democracy and human rights violations “in international fora.” He urged India to accept expanded international responsibilities commensurate with its role as an emerging power, including the condemnation of violations in Myanmar. (more…)

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