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 70^th 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 16^th 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?

When Kim Il-sung passed, Kim Jong-il was clearly in charge of putting together an elaborate funeral and all future celebrations. In fact, while Kim Jong-il was being groomed for succession, he helped create the personality cult of Kim Il-sung. Historians have credited Kim Jong-il with the creation of the Kimilsungia flower and virtually hundreds of propaganda films immortalizing Kim Il-sung.

Simply put, Kim Jong-un has not contributed significantly –if at all –to paving his own rise to power. Most of the birthday celebrations had already been pre-planned, leaving no real innovation required of the Great Successor and thus, depriving him of the leadership role that Kim Jong-il once played. Even the bronze statues that have been heralded as the first statue of Kim Jong-il had already been discussed by Kim with party officials pre-death.

Another glaring example of leadership ambiguity is his conspicuous absence during what media reports was a secret meeting that occurred at the “secret” camp located on the sacred Mt. Paektu last weekend, in which three of the most powerful elites (Ri Yong Ho, Kim Ki Nam, and Choe Thae Bok) met with other senior members of the North Korean military and political party to “vow loyalty” to Kim Jong-il.

On the one hand, Kim Jong-un could simply be acting as a figurehead. The real reins of power may be held by the North Korean troika, Ri Yong Ho (the vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army with operational control of the military), Jang Seong-Taek (Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law), and Kim Kyeong-hui (Kim Jong-il’s sister). On the other hand, these examples could be indicators of Kim Jong-un being unfit, unprepared, and largely seen as illegitimate for the succession. In reality, it is probably some combination of the two.

How long can this uncertainty surrounding Kim Jong-un last? U.S. officials will meet with DPRK officials next week in Beijing to discuss the nuclear disarmament and food aid deal for the first time since Kim Jong-il’s death. With the strange, shifting dynamics of power in Pyongyang and the Great Successor’s notable absences at key events, the prospects for progress seem dim, and the potential for instability increasingly apparent.

Barbra Kim is a research intern with the CSIS Office of the Korea Chair.

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.

Xi may help. He has stronger ties to the U.S. than his predecessor, Hu Jintao. He is going to spend time in Iowa, right in Middle America. The best deliverable we can hope for from Xi’s trip is to set the foundation for the United States and China to begin to understand one another better. The United States and most of China’s neighbors have had cause recently to question China’s intentions and what path it will take. Over the last 20 years, its economic ascendance in Asia has been nothing short of breathtaking as it has moved from a more ideological country to a more confident and agile newly industrialized country with economic might to spare.

As China began to test its newfound economic power—it had become the largest trading partner of most Asia-Pacific countries between the late 1990s and 2011—it triggered real concern by asserting its sovereign interests in Northeast Asia, in the South China Sea, and along its common border with India. Countries, including the United States, realized that China might want to test its new power in ways inimical to neighboring states.

As I have argued on cogitASIA previously here and here, to manage this trend and convince China that it can grow, prosper, and answer existential questions such as how to manage its energy, food, and water security for the coming decades, the United States decided to join other Asia-Pacific countries in developing regional security and economic frameworks that will encourage China to use its seat at the table to make rules along with others, and to implement and live by those guidelines.

This is emphatically not a containment strategy, as many in the media have suggested. No strategic planner with a solid grounding in history, geopolitics, or economics would believe that containment is a viable or constructive approach when it comes to China. Vice President Xi likely understands this very well already, but his American hosts will have emphasized this point repeatedly during his visit.

The United States’ friends around Asia will review the visit closely. They do not want the United States and China to enter a period of confrontation or conflict. At the same time, they would also resist the concept of too close a U.S.-China relationship in which their needs and desires could be easily overlooked by a global condominium.

An elite core of U.S. policymakers understands this strategy and the importance of the nuanced messaging needed around Xi’s visit. Current U.S. policy is to speak very directly to the Chinese, say what is meant, and follow through. U.S. officials believe this approach will provide strategic clarity to the Chinese, who are trying to understand what the Americans want.

President Barack Obama’s proclaimed “pivot” back to Asia is widely misread in China,  particularly by economic nationalists and military hawks who interpret the move as an American surge designed to slash Chinese power at its base, contain the country’s growth, and put at risk its access to energy, food, and water. This is not the United States’ design, and President Obama and U.S. leaders need to make that clear to Vice President Xi potentially China’s leader for a decade.

At the same time, China must step forward and convince the United States that it does not intend to use its new economic power and growing military capabilities to force smaller neighbors to bend to new interpretations of sovereign territory. China must convince the rest of Asia and the world that it realizes it can become a major power by playing by rules that it makes along with the rest of the world. It must demonstrate that it can achieve its security goals—including long-term supplies of vital inputs—through a rules-based market system.

Xi’s visit means much to China and to the United States. Deepening mutual understanding, or at least setting a foundation for advancing that goal, will define success in this visit. That outcome is also very important to other countries in the Asia Pacific because enhanced understanding, transparency, and cooperation is the only road to a twenty-first century characterized by peace and prosperity.

Ernest Z. Bower is a senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

India's web censorship policies have drawn unfavorable comparisons to those of China. Source: runran's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

Kapil Sibal’s recent remarks about the Indian government not making any attempts to stifle social media were designed to counter the growing furor, both online and offline, regarding the world’s largest democracy’s latest attempts at censorship. For one, Indian censors have deemed the Oscar-nominated Girl with the Dragon Tattoo “unsuitable” for public release due to director David Fincher’s refusal to cut separate scenes depicting rape, and consensual sexual intercourse. Simultaneously, the exhausting debate that surrounds Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses—which is still banned in India—continues with Rushdie’s recent forced cancellation of an appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival. While the government strenuously denies any attempts to ban Rushdie entering the country, the fact remains that even a video-conference with Rushdie was deemed far too provocative for the protesters who had gathered around the venue. And now, with the looming threat of government prosecution, several Internet companies including Google and Facebook have begun to comply with government requests to remove allegedly provocative and objectionable content from their websites.

Google’s bi-annual transparency report isn’t very flattering of the government, either. Between January and June of 2011, there were 68 government requests for a removal of 358 items, the majority of which were on social networking site, Orkut, and had been identified as being critical of the government. Google’s records state that the requests came from, “… state and local law enforcement agencies to remove YouTube videos that displayed protests against social leaders or used offensive language in reference to religious leaders.”

While the increase in content removal requests in India is hardly incongruous with an emerging global trend of internet content regulation, India’s requests stand out because the majority of them were made without official court orders. In fact, Indian laws make it unnervingly easy to remove online content. The Centre for Internet and Society recently found that in order to “remove something from the Web, one needs to send an email complaining about it to any of the string of ‘intermediaries’ that handle the content: the site itself, the web host for the site, the telecom companies that deliver the site to your computer/mobile […], etc.” The company then has 36 hours after being notified to take down the content to avoid prosecution. An underdeveloped legal framework surrounding censorship of the internet in India, or even a system of monitoring complaints in order to record and penalize frivolous ones, is concerning. When a nation legally can, and does, use the excuse of “[content] prejudicial to national integration” to stifle dissent and criticism, it increasingly threatens the basic freedoms of its citizens.

With the internet acting as the front line of discourse the world over, India’s awkward attempts to control its citizens’ activities online are shifting further and further away from the liberal democratic principles that inform the US-India relationship, and towards the cliché of “Asian democracy”, where individual freedoms and rights are secondary to societal cohesion.  High Court Justice Suresh Kait went as far as to say, in regards to the Facebook and Google court case, that if websites don’t remove offensive content, India would “like China, block all such websites.”

As U.S. Secretary of State Clinton recently noted, “When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us.” The US and India have had a smooth sailing relationship partly due to their shared values. India’s departure from upholding these common values of freedom of speech and the freedom of expression not only affects its citizens, but also an important pillar of the US-India relationship.

Ms. Ritika Bhasker is a research intern with the CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies.

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.

Here’s the other little known part of this story: Because the bank charges foreign buyers for its services, it earns a profit for U.S. taxpayers. From 2005 to 2010, the bank returned $3.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury above its cost of operations. That’s a modest contribution to deficit reduction, but it’s a step in the right direction.

The bank has targeted nine key rapidly growing markets, including Indonesia and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, to help boost U.S. exports.  Over the next five years these nine countries will spend an estimated $2 trillion on infrastructure projects in which U.S. companies could play an active role. In FY 2011, Indonesia got $695 million in Ex-Im Bank credits and Vietnam $1.4 million to buy U.S. products. This figure could increase dramatically as their economies grow if the the bank had more funds available.

Critics of the bank question why taxpayers should shoulder the financial risks associated with commercial transactions. But the risk is extremely low. Ex-Im Bank follows a rigorous risk-assessment process and arguably has done a better job of assessing risk through the years than the big commercial banks. The proof is in the bank’s track record. Borrowers have defaulted on only 1.5-2 percent of the loans backed by Ex-Im since its inception in 1934, which is why the bank has consistently earned a profit for American taxpayers.

Critics also say their opposition to the bank is a matter of principle, that governments simply don’t belong in the business of making loan guarantees. Although that is an interesting intellectual debate, businesses operate in the real world, and the reality is that numerous foreign governments provide aggressive export credit in support of their countries’ companies and exports. Without Ex-Im, potential buyers of U.S. products would simply turn to competitors in Asia and Europe who have government-supported financing. American exporters, and the millions of people they employ, would be the losers.

Congress should reauthorize Ex-Im bank. It’s a model public-private partnership that works and delivers real value to our nation. Congress needs to raise the current cap on the level of outstanding loans Ex-Im is permitted to have. The cap currently is $100 billion and the bank’s ability to backstop loans in support of U.S. exporters will end in the months ahead when this cap is reached. Given the recent growth of job-creating U.S. exports and the fact that Ex-Im makes money for the U.S. government and taxpayers, re-authorization of the bank should be a bipartisan priority.

Murray Hiebert is deputy director and senior fellow, Southeast Asia Program, CSIS.

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.

Nevertheless, potential pitfalls remain on the road ahead. By-elections will have to be qualitatively different from the November 2010 general elections; if they are not genuinely free and fair, this can cause a huge setback. Suu Kyi’s support is neither total nor unconditional; she trusts the President but not many in his government and military. The US-Myanmar equation will move forward gingerly even as Myanmar’s impatience for withdrawal of sanctions rises. Assuming the ASEAN Chair will be a morale-boosting prize, but it will come only in 2014 and the Government has much work to complete in order to earn it. As for economic reforms, they will need a much longer gestation period.

Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin has concluded a productive visit to India this week. He became the first foreign minister from his country to address a special gathering of diplomats, members of the strategic community and the media at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) in New Delhi on 25 January 2012. He asserted that reforms would be “incremental, systematic and dynamic”, claiming that the process was now “irreversible.” For the sake of his country, all well-wishers of Myanmar/Burma should hope that he is right. Lasting consensus and resilience among principal stakeholders will be the key to future developments.

Ambassador Rajiv Bhatia is a former Indian Ambassador to Myanmar and is presently Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. He can be reached at rajivbhatia@airtelmail.in

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.

I have argued elsewhere that, far from becoming a liability, Australia’s strategic relationship with the US is becoming more important. That conviction is made stronger by an important new article by Michael Beckley in the journal International Security.

Beckley notes the widespread view that the US is declining relative to China and that this owes largely to the leveling effects of globalisation. He analyses a broad set of economic, technological and military indicators to reach a conclusion which, if true, is as profoundly important as it is unfashionable; far from declining in relative terms, America is now wealthier, more innovative and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991. Here are some of Beckley’s main points:

• Estimates of China’s power tend to be exaggerated (and estimates of America’s power tend to undershoot) because: GDP correlates poorly with national power (per capita wealth providing a better indicator of surplus wealth available for broader national purposes); conclusions are often based on static single-year snapshots rather than trends over time; and China is often compared with itself (at an earlier time), rather than with America (which is itself not standing still).
• The US is not like Britain and other eclipsed hegemons but holds a unique geopolitical position owing to an unprecedented combination of material advantages; as a result it exercises ‘structural power’ – an ability going beyond the use of force or coercion to set global agendas and shape the range of choices open to other countries.
• America has its problems, including public debt and a fractious polity, but suggestions of imperial overstretch and decline are premature. Past hegemons succumbed after fighting wars against major powers on multiple fronts and spending anything between 10% and 200% of GDP on defence to do it; by contrast, the US spends a relatively modest 4% on defence and confines itself to knocking off the odd rogue regime or occasional humanitarian interventions.
• Rather than operating neutrally to close the gap, globalisation – and particularly globally networked production – may be an active political process shaped by the US to serve its interests (yes, that’s right – the conspiracy theories may be true!).
• Wealth, innovation and (conventional) military capabilities are the most vital elements of power in the contemporary international system.
• Yet, for all China’s double-digit economic growth, massive investments in education and research and rapid military modernisation, today the US is wealthier compared to China than it was in 1991, China continues to lag behind America in innovation, and (despite some asymmetric advantages) the US-China military gap is growing, not shrinking.

Not everyone will agree with Beckley’s methodology or with all of his conclusions. The relative contributions of wealth, innovation and military capability to national power, for example, are debatable. Nor is it to suggest Australia or the region should be complacent. Even if Beckley is right, misperceptions of the balance of power in Asia – on either side – can be dangerous.

Nonetheless, he has done us a considerable favour by questioning some of the glib assumptions that underpin much of the Australian debate – in particular by cautioning against the idea that raw economic power necessarily translates directly into global clout and by highlighting significant shortfalls in China’s ability to innovate (some of which Fareed Zakaria has also documented).

At least one of Beckley’s conclusions could almost have been written with Australia’s White Paper in mind:

The best that can be done is to make plans for the future on the basis of long-term trends; and the trends suggest that the United States’ economic, technological and military lead over China will be an enduring feature of international relations, not a passing moment in time, but a deeply embedded condition that will persist well into this century.

‘Whose century?’ indeed.

Andrew Shearer is Director of Studies at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

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 “21^st 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:

1. Party politics in Japan:  Prime Minister Noda – Japan’s sixth leader in as many years – heads a divided DPJ and faces determined opposition from the LDP.  His announcement in Honolulu came after 50 hours of contentious and inconclusive party meetings.

Noda has simultaneously advanced a plan to address Japan’s national debt and exploding social welfare costs by raising the consumption tax from 5% to 10% by October 2015.  In response, nine Diet members left the DPJ to form a new party that will oppose the tax increase and TPP membership.  The LDP – also divided on the TPP – has refused to negotiate with the government on the consumption tax and has demanded new elections to send the issue to voters.

While Noda has been criticized for failing to articulate the TPP’s merits domestically, he deserves credit for addressing Japan’s economic malaise and its demographically-driven fiscal crisis.  Noda’s steadfastness in the face of internal dissent and opposition opportunism is impressive, but whether it is a winning political strategy remains to be seen.  New elections or a failure of Noda’s resolve could easily set back Japan’s TPP aspirations.

2. Japanese Agriculture:  Japanese agriculture enjoys heavy protection from competition.  High tariffs – most notably the 778% tariff on imported rice – have shielded farmers from pressures to modernize and consolidate their small plots to improve efficiency.

Long suffering Japanese households would be the greatest beneficiaries of liberalized trade in rice and other agricultural goods.  However, protectionist farm interests enjoy disproportional representation in the Japanese Diet, as well as the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and a large segment of the LDP.  While public opinion favors Japan’s entry into the TPP, entrenched agricultural interests may be too great to overcome.

3. Autos:  Improved market access would make TPP membership a clear win for Japanese automakers and other export-oriented manufacturers.  Advocates of TPP participation also see the agreement as an effective antidote to the hollowing out of Japan’s manufacturing base as companies increasingly move their production out of Japan due to trade barriers and an appreciated currency.

The U.S. auto industry, however, has also come out against Japan’s participation in the TPP, complaining that non-tariff barriers are the main reason Japanese car sales in the U.S. outnumber U.S. car sales in Japan by 200 to 1.  Many in Japan, however, would argue that U.S. automakers aren’t interested in selling cars to Japan, but are primarily motivated to preserve U.S. tariffs on light trucks (25%) and cars (2.5%).

After holding up the Korea-U.S. FTA for more than three years, auto industry concerns were eventually addressed by keeping current tariffs on cars and trucks in place for several years and exempting a fixed number of American automobiles from Korean regulatory specifications.  Whether similar concessions will be workable or effective in facilitating Japan’s entry into the TPP remains to be seen.  Arranging such treatment in a multilateral framework may prove to be more difficult if each TPP country begins demanding its own carve-outs.

4. Timing:  In light of these challenges, President Obama’s goal of completing the TPP agreement in 2012 is unlikely to be met if Japan is to join negotiations this year.  Even without Japan, the likelihood of Obama making a trade deal in the run-up to a presidential election is small and U.S. officials have already begun to tamp down expectations for concluding the agreement this year. One possible outcome would be for the current parties to reach a deal in 2012 or 2013 without Japan.  Japan could then come into a “TPP 2.0” a few years from now, once its domestic and bilateral issues with the U.S. have been addressed.

Regardless of the timing, Japan’s inclusion in the TPP conversation should be welcomed.  Japanese participation, however, raises the likelihood that the agreement will include significant carve-outs for autos and rice in order to achieve an agreement that accommodates the trade politics of Washington and Tokyo.

Tim Johnson is an attorney based in Washington, DC.  He was recently based in Tokyo and Singapore where he represented clients making investments across the Asia-Pacific.  He can be reached at timothynjohnson@gmail.com.

Anwar Ibrahim's trial appeal has generated concerns about a relapse in the independence of Malaysia's judiciary. Source: udeyismail's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

Less than two weeks after Judge Zabidin Diah acquitted Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy on January 9, the spotlight has been re-focused back on Anwar and the Malaysian judiciary. On, January 20, Attorney-General Gani Patail responded to calls from lead prosecutor  Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden  to appeal the judge’s verdict.

Anwar’s acquittal had been praised both domestically and internationally. Even Prime Minister Najib Razak in an interview with the Wall Street Journal said that the verdict had provided evidence that the Malaysian judiciary was free of executive interference and further underscored that he was serious about his reform initiative.

With the appeal, critics have called the prime minister’s statements and the sincerity of his reforms into question. Coinciding with the appeal of Anwar’s acquittal, the case against Karpal Singh, Anwar’s lead legal counsel and national chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party , who had been acquitted of sedition in 2010, was reopened and his acquittal appealed by the court on the same day. Both Anwar and Karpal are senior figures in the opposition coalition.

The prosecution’s appeal of both cases not only shifts the spotlight away from Prime Minister Najib’s reform initiatives, but again raises questions about the rule of law and the state of democracy in Malaysia.

Anwar’s acquittal on January 9 had originally deflected questions about judicial interference and had seemingly put to rest the opposition’s claims that the government had politically targeted Anwar. The mounting of both appeals on the same day has reopened questions about the independence of the judiciary with a new fervor.

It is hard to pinpoint on what grounds the Attorney-General’s office is appealing the Anwar verdict; especially since the judge had found the prosecution’s DNA evidence as possibly having been compromised. The two appeals will now lend further credence to the opposition’s claims that ruling coalition is politically persecuting Anwar. Analysts argue the appeals may in turn further bolster support for the opposition leading up to national elections due before March 2013.

Observers are not sure how independently the judiciary operates in Malaysia these days. But the appeal will likely detract from the prime minister’s reforms and will allow the opposition to charge that the government is persecuting its opponents and using the courts to weaken the opposition ahead of the upcoming elections.  The appeals will also make the environment around the upcoming elections more volatile and unpredictable.

Anwar spent six years in prison on earlier sodomy charges before a judge overturned his conviction in 2004.  The new charges were filed against Anwar in the current case shortly after the opposition coalition lead by Anwar resulted in the ruling party losing its two thirds majority in Parliament in elections in 2008.

Blake Berger is a researcher with the CSIS Southeast Asia program covering Malaysia.

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?

Economics and foreign policy are two sides of the same coin, an excellent point made by Goodman.  Without major Asian economic players in the TPP negotiations, it is difficult to see how the U.S. government can link its diplomacy with its economic agenda.

None of the speakers talked about the East Asia Summit (EAS),which the United States joined for the first time in November.  The EAS has all of Asia’s big economic players, is where the U.S. government is pursuing its regional security interests, and has an economic agenda.  In short, the EAS has the markets and the link between diplomacy and economics.

The EAS has a vision of an East Asian Free Trade Agreement and, eventually, a Comprehensive Economic Partnership.  China has advanced the former; Japan the latter. In November, the EAS established working groups on goods, services, and investments. All EAS members have free trade agreements (FTAs) with ASEAN, except for the United States and Russia.  These working groups are to identify common elements of these existing FTAs with a view to creating the new East Asian FTA.  Meanwhile, China, Japan, and Korea have agreed to meet in January to begin discussions on a three way FTA.  Unimaginable until recently, an FTA linking Asia’s largest trading nations would most likely drive the EAS trade agenda.

U.S. officials explain that they will pursue U.S. security interests in the EAS and use APEC and the TPP for economic issues.  It is not clear why decoupling security and economic interests is the best way to advance U.S. interests in the region. Using these venues made sense before the United States joined the EAS.  Now, however, the U.S. administration has the opportunity to use economic leverage to advance security issues – in the way that the United States helped Europe.  Agreement by EAS on new trade rules increases the likelihood that those rules could be injected into the World Trade Organization.  That would be better for everyone.

James Wallar is senior vice president, International Group of Nathan Associates.  Wallar previously served with the company as an advisor in the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta and before that held various positions in the U.S. Treasury Department.

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.

Now, following Secretary Clinton’s December visit to Myanmar and the restoration of diplomatic ties, the United States and India have an opportunity for closer engagement on Myanmar. Taken in the context of the U.S. “pivot” toward Asia, there is a growing consensus in Washington that the United States should consider democracy and human rights issues in the context of other common interests with India, such as supporting Myanmar’s “strategic flexibility” vis-à-vis China and developing its ability to contribute to economic prosperity in Southeast Asia. Accordingly, Secretary Clinton suggested the United States would no longer stand in the way of some types of World Bank and IMF assistance in Myanmar. Under current U.S. law, allowing more substantive assistance would necessitate a lifting of current sanctions with a phased approach starting with the more recent “JADE Act” of 2008. The United States should also engage India as a close dialogue partner on political developments both bilaterally and at the UN Security Council where India is currently a member.

As events unfold in 2012, the United States and India would be well advised to engage more closely on the significant political changes currently underway in Myanmar. Doing so will not only enhance the U.S.-India partnership and India’s role as a leader in regional security, but will also send a strong signal to the rest of Asia of Washington and New Delhi’s ability to more closely coordinate on an area of common strategic interest.

Dr. S. Amer Latif is a Visiting Fellow with the CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies and Nicholas Lombardo is Program Coordinator for the Wadhwani Chair at CSIS.

Anwar's release surprised regional observers. Source: BugBitesandCo's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

In an unexpected move, Judge Zabidin Diah on January 9 abruptly acquitted Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy charges, finally ending his politically-charged two year trial. In handing down his verdict, the judge said the DNA evidence was mishandled and could have compromised and said that the prosecution’s evidence did not corroborate the charges leveled against Anwar.

Most observers assumed that a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion, including Anwar himself. The surprise acquittal will have wide-ranging implications for Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government, Anwar’s opposition coalition, and for Malaysia as a whole.

Anwar’s acquittal has the potential to deflect some criticism away from the Najib’s administration. The opposition has long claimed that the trial was orchestrated by the ruling UMNO coalition and that Najib’s government interfered throughout the trial. Now that the case was thrown out, those criticisms may ultimately fall on deaf ears. Following the verdict, the government’s information minister, Rais Yatim, said that the outcome demonstrates that Malaysia’s judiciary is independent and “proves that government does not hold sway over judge’s decisions.”

While the acquittal allows Anwar to remain at the forefront of the opposition movement, it might ultimately dampen its momentum and the strength of its criticisms. A guilty verdict and a long prison sentence would have galvanized the opposition and lent credence to its criticisms of the Najib administration, especially on the heels of the government’s harsh crackdown on protestors during the July Bersih 2.0 rallies in Kuala Lumpur. Instead, Anwar’s acquittal and Najib’s series of recent reforms, including his pledge to abolish the Internal Security Act, will likely placate some of the anger directed at his government. This will make it harder for the opposition to draw voters and may prompt the resumption of divisions within the fragile opposition coalition as their common rallying points lose some salience.

Beyond short-term electoral prospects, the ultimate winners in Anwar’s acquittal are the people of Malaysia themselves. An independent judiciary is essential to ensuring the rule of law and democracy in any country. If the Anwar verdict is any indication, Malaysia’s much-maligned judiciary may be becoming more impartial. This might suggest two important changes in Malaysian politics: — first, the ruling party may be less able to use the courts as a tool against its opponents, and second, politics in Malaysia may be become more open and transparent.

Blake Berger is a researcher with the CSIS Southeast Asia program covering Malaysia.

North Korea from space at night. Geopolitical uncertainty is high for the DPRK's neighbors, China and South Korea. Source: DoD DMSP Satellite image in the public domain.

Kim Jong-il’s sudden death has introduced a new element of uncertainty into the security dynamics in Northeast Asia.  In recent years, quiet discussions have undoubtedly taken place in all of the region’s capitals, as well as in Washington DC, about the challenges that Kim’s passing might pose.  Nevertheless, no country is well prepared for the power transition in North Korea.  Moreover, suspicions among neighboring countries run deep and all are monitoring each other as closely as they are monitoring developments inside the hermit kingdom.

There are several possible scenarios for North Korea’s future.  A smooth succession that brings to power Kim Jong-il’s anointed successor, his youngest son Kim Jong-un, cannot be ruled out.  Reportedly not yet thirty years of age and with a weak power base, Jong-un is unlikely to be able to take over the reins of power immediately, however.  Experts speculate that a cabal of elders led by Jang Song-taek, Jong-un’s uncle and vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission, perhaps joined by Kim Jong-il’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui, will wield real power while preparing young Kim to eventually assume the helm. The process could yield an outcome largely the same as the North Korea that exists today—a closed, militarized state with starving people and nuclear weapons that periodically takes belligerent actions against South Korea—or produce a younger, bolder leadership that opts to implement economic reform and become more integrated into the rest of the world.

If the leadership succession fails, internal rivalry could lead to major instability that sends refugees fleeing across North Korea’s borders and creates doubts about effective control of nuclear weapons facilities.  Stabilizing the country and eliminating the threat of insecure weapons of mass destruction could require external intervention and assistance.

Early indications suggest that the succession is proceeding as planned. Kim Jong-un was named head of the funeral committee for his father and visited the Kumsusan mausoleum, where the body was lying in state.  Official propaganda is heaping effusive praise on the son in an effort to unite the population behind the “great successor.”  The opacity of the country makes it difficult to detect signs of a power struggle in its early stages, however.  Therefore, countries should prepare for various contingencies.

The transition offers an opportunity to persuade North Korea to abandon its isolation and failed policies.  The U.S., South Korea, and Japan should signal Pyongyang that a decision to completely abandon its nuclear ambitions and pursue reform will be met with positive gestures.  If there is a chance for positive change in North Korea, it should not be missed.  China, North Korea’s closest ally, can play a key role in ensuring stability while encouraging the country’s new rulers to ponder a new course.

At the same time that countries work to increase the possibility of a brighter future for North Korea and its people, planning must ensue for the possibility of regime collapse.  In a worst case scenario, turmoil could result in widespread starvation and civil war.  Timely outside assistance, including provision of food and medical supplies as well as security forces to restore order, would be critically important, but in the absence of advance coordination, would be delayed at the potential cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.

The U.S. and South Korea have been consulting and preparing their militaries for the task of locating and securing WMD sites north of the 38th parallel.  The United States has actively sought to engage China in a dialogue about cooperative responses to a North Korea collapse since Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in 2008, to no avail.  Beijing has worried that even quiet discussions on potential North Korean instability would become known and inflict damage on its fragile relationship with Pyongyang.  China has also been suspicious of U.S. intentions on the Korean Peninsula, fearful that the U.S. backed regime change and wary that the U.S. and South Korea planned to reunify the peninsula with total disregard for Chinese interests.

Launching such a dialogue is now not only necessary, it is urgent.  The U.S., China, and South Korea should candidly discuss the various possible scenarios that could take place and how they can cooperate to promote mutually favorable outcomes.  Each country should be prepared to take steps to address the fears of the others.  China should be assured that the U.S. would not use a collapsing North as a pretext to station troops in the northern part of the country; that nuclear weapons would be removed from the peninsula; that if reunification takes place, a reunified Korea would be friendly to China and its economic interests would be protected; and that the enduring US-Korea alliance would not be used to harm Chinese interests.  South Korea should be assured that China would not send troops to prop up a failing regime and that in the event of regime collapse, Beijing would not seek to prevent reunification.

Against the background of Chinese suspicions about the Obama administration’s intentions in its “pivot” to Asia, including strengthening US regional alliances, reshaping US force posture in the region, encouraging regional states to express concern about Chinese activities in the South China Sea, and promoting an ambitious plan for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that sets the bar for entry so high that Beijing cannot hope to join anytime soon, coordinating with the U.S. to discuss future contingencies on the Korean Peninsula will undoubtedly be difficult.  China’s leaders should be emboldened to proceed, however, with the knowledge that successful management of all possible scenarios that may arise in North Korea will ensure an enduring peace and stability in Northeast Asia that will benefit everyone and will bolster US-China relations at a critical moment.

U.S. Navy lookout watches the horizon in Asia. U.S. engagement will face stiff tests yet has significant opportunities in 2012. Source: U.S. Pacific Fleet's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

The biggest challenge for the United States in Southeast Asia in 2012 will be to focus and follow through. The biggest opportunity is supporting real political reform in Myanmar and thereby strengthening ASEAN.

In 2011, President Obama and his foreign policy and national security teams made a compelling case that the United States was pivoting toward Asia. He said the Asia Pacific region will be the center point for new economic growth and security concerns in the first part of the 21st century. Asian allies and strategic partners were encouraged by those words, backed up by actions including American leadership in trade with the Transpacific Partnership negotiations and the US attending the East Asia Summit for the first time, announcing new basing agreements in Australia and following through with strong and consistent focus on resolving South China Sea disputes.

While 2011 was an impressive year for advancing U.S. goals and engagement in Asia, partners in the region are anxious about whether the United States can sustain the new level of commitment it has staked out. Most Asian countries have sought a more robust US presence in the region to help convince a rising China to engage in regional frameworks that will result in the collective development of rules around trade and security. They want a China that asks the question what it “should” do instead of what it “can” do.

China’s actions in the South China Sea and in maritime areas in northeast Asia in the past year have triggered atavistic anxieties among its neighbors. Accordingly, Asia is concerned about the United States’ financial capability to sustain and expand its presence and questions whether the political bandwidth can be sustained in an election year.

In the United States, the natural inclination of politicians in an election year is to focus almost exclusively on issues that will get them re-elected. Foreign policy, trade and national security issues rarely rank high on that list, and campaign professionals assiduously steer their candidates away from these topics.

This will present a real challenge for the Obama White House to remain focused and follow through on its commitments to Asian engagement. This White House has already demonstrated its sensitivity to foreign travel and potentially alienating its labor base with trade agreements. Alarming new levels of partisanship coupled with brinksmanship on budgetary issues in Congress will present additional threats to sustaining the U.S. commitment.

Key members of the Obama foreign policy and national security team are likely to leave their posts in 2012. Losing Asia focused leaders like Hillary Clinton will present a major challenge for the president.

If the United States falters so early on in its self-proclaimed new focus on Asia, allies and partners in the region will be forced to ask questions and explore hedging strategies that could undermine the vast potential for new security partnerships, growing trade and investment, and strengthening regional architecture.

The biggest opportunity for Southeast Asia in 2012 is the chance for Myanmar (or Burma) to emerge from the darkness of five decades of repression and self-exile from engagement with the global community. Myanmar’s progress is important to Southeast Asia, for the grouping has been dragging the draconian country around like a ball and chain since it joined in 1997. Substantial actions have backed up the rhetoric of the government, including the release of many political prisoners, reform of laws limiting use of the internet and restricting the media as well as free association. In addition, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest and she and her party are allowed to run in by-elections planned for early 2012.

Myanmar’s reforms offer the United States a substantial opportunity to deepen engagement in ASEAN and supports the administration’s strategy to use ASEAN as a foundation for building new regional trade and security architecture that will encourage China to come to the table and work with its other Asia Pacific countries to establish rules governing trade and security that will promote regional peace and prosperity, and deconflict areas of concern such as the South China Sea.

Additionally, political reform in Myanmar is indicative of a trend of continued empowerment of people and voters across Southeast Asia. Should this trend hold, regional governments will be compelled to accelerate campaigns against corruption, advancing political reforms and strengthening institutions. These steps augur well for a just and sustainable governance infrastructure in Southeast Asia. Over the coming decade, this trend towards empowerment and governance may have more impact on China than Chinese economic momentum has on Southeast Asia.

Ernest Z. Bower is a senior adviser, director of the Southeast Asia Program, and director of the Pacific Partners Initiative at CSIS.

North Korea as we know it is over. Whether it comes apart in the next few weeks or over several months, the regime will not be able to hold together after the untimely death of its leader, Kim Jong-il. How America responds — and, perhaps even more important, how America responds to how China responds — will determine whether the region moves toward greater stability or falls into conflict.

The transition comes at a time when the United States has been trying to get nuclear negotiations back on track. Those efforts have now been replaced by a scramble for plans to control loose nuclear weapons, should the regime collapse.

And yet Washington remains powerless. Any outreach to the young Mr. Kim or to other possible competitors could create more problems during the transition, and would certainly be viewed as threatening by China. Since Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008, the United States and South Korea have been working on contingency plans to deal with just such a situation, but they all thought they would have years, if not a decade.

The allies’ best move, then, is to wait and see what China does. Among China’s core foreign-policy principles is the maintenance of a divided Korean Peninsula, and so Beijing’s statements about preserving continuity of North Korea’s leadership should come as no surprise. Since 2008 it has drawn closer to the regime, publicly defending its leaders and investing heavily in the mineral mines on the Chinese-North Korean border.

But even as Beijing sticks close to its little Communist brother, there are intense debates within its leadership about whether the North is a strategic liability. It was one thing to back a hermetic but stable regime under Kim Jong-il; it will be harder to underwrite an untested leadership. For Xi Jinping, expected to become China’s president over the next year, the first major foreign policy decision will be whether to shed North Korea or effectively adopt it as a province.

All indications are that Beijing will pursue the latter course, in no small part because of a bias among its leadership to support the status quo, rather than to confront dramatic change. And yet “adopting” North Korea could be dramatic in itself. China may go all in, doling out early invitations and new assistance packages to the young Mr. Kim, conditioning them on promises of economic reform.

While some observers hope that Kim Jong-il’s death will unleash democratic regime change, China will work strongly against that possibility, especially if such efforts receive support from South Korea or the United States. Given that Beijing has the only eyes inside the North, Washington and Seoul could do little in response.

Yet even China’s best-laid plans may come apart. The assistance may be too little, too late, especially given the problems the new leadership will face. A clear channel of dialogue involving the United States, China and South Korea is needed now more than ever.

None of this will be easy. For China, the uncertainty surrounding North Korea comes against the backdrop of Mr. Obama’s “pivot” to Asia and assertion that the region is America’s new strategic priority. This has already created insecurities in Beijing that will make genuine dialogue with the United States even more challenging — and thus all the more necessary.

Victor Cha is a senior adviser and holds the Korea Chair at CSIS. Dr. Cha is the author of the forthcoming book “The Impossible State: North Korea, Past, and Future.”

Much thought has been devoted to the choices and chances confronting Australia because of potential tensions between the US alliance and the trade bonanza with China. How diabolical would it be, however, if Australia manages to align itself against China both in its traditional alliance stance but also in a new regional trade structure?

Ponder that proposition for a moment: Australia lines up against China on trade. Almost impossible, surely. Well in a strange way, it is happening.

Plenty of editorial ink and political blather has been devoted to Australia cranking up the alliance with the new military basing deal announced during the Obama visit. Less attention is being given to the political and diplomatic meaning of Canberra’s embrace of America’s trade vision.

TPP Countries encircle the Pacific, with one large exception. (Map courtesy of DFAT.)

Australia has blithely signed up to a US design for Asia Pacific trade flows which is potentially sweeping, yet also legalistic and discriminatory. And by discriminatory, read this as meaning ‘No China’. An Australia that once promised never to do any trade deal that shut out Japan is now happily accelerating towards an agreement that excludes China — and might just shun Japan, too, if Tokyo can’t scramble on board.

It is an odd way to be structuring for the Asia Century, yet such are the possible incongruities that attend the effort to build a Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

On the sidelines of the APEC summit in Hawaii, the nine TPP leaders (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam) announced the ‘broad outlines’ of an agreement ‘to establish a comprehensive, next-generation regional agreement that liberalizes trade and investment and addresses new and traditional trade issues and 21st-century challenges.’ The big bang was the claim that the deal will be done in the next 12 months.

What also grabbed attention was Japan’s announcement that it would like to get on board the TPP; although given Japan’s past refusals to tinker with some of its own economic rigidities in exchange for trade deals, Tokyo’s ability to accept the US demands intrinsic to the Partnership must be questioned.

One irony of the TPP announcement (or, re-announcement, as the leaders did something similar the previous year) is that it happened at an APEC summit. In the first decade after APEC’s creation, there was a mighty battle at the heart of the institution between American visions of an exclusionary trade pact and the Australia-Japan embrace of non-discrimination that traveled under the title of ‘open regionalism.’

Not the least of the peculiar effects being contemplated here is how Canberra seems to be giving in to the US lawyers who masquerade as trade negotiators while abandoning the important benefits Australia has long drawn from open regionalism’s explicit rejection of discrimination.

Ponder the history for a moment. Paul Keating was the Prime Minister who in 1992 promised: ‘Australia would not be party to any trade arrangement which was directed against Japan.’ At the time, Keating was making an important point that was also a statement of the obvious. Japan then stood at the centre of Australia’s trade interests in the same manner that China does today. And when Keating spoke, Tokyo and Canberra were still glorying in their joint creation of APEC as a vision of open Asia Pacific economic cooperation that greatly enhanced their national and regional interests.

Today, Julia Gillard could not adopt the Keating position. If the US idea of the TPP arrives, it will be a structure that is most emphatically directed against China. That is one reason why Japan is scrambling towards joining. Ernie Bower sees a real competition under way between the US and China to define how Asia’s economic integration will proceed:

The US-led model is deep and requires massive political commitments by governments to legally bind themselves and reform current regulations and practices. The China-led model is relatively shallow and easier for governments to join. It is high-profile, with nonbinding agreements expressing general intent and some specifics around tariffs, but it includes little on other commercially important rules and regulations.

A lot of traps and rough terrain stand in the way of the TPP aim to complete negotiations by the end of next year — not least the minor matter of the election of the US President. But even making the Partnership effort raises all sorts of questions about who is in and who is out and what the end point might look like.

Peter Drysdale headlines it as the ‘economic containment’ of China and judges: ‘Whoever dreamt up this strategy has been thinking in the corner of a little box unrelated to geo-economic-political-security reality.’ What is a Trans-Pacific dream that does not manage to recognise China, India and Indonesia?

Well, it is a vision driven by a US view of intellectual property rights and labour and environmental standards. That is the arena that the trade negotiators of Washington know so well. But while the lawyers are doing their work, the politicians may not be paying proper attention. As Shiro Armstrong argues, the central strategic challenge for the TPP must be whether China is in or out: ‘The biggest risk of the TPP is political: that it might divide the region strategically between its members and the rest, with China being on the outside.’

China on the outside? A strategic divide? For Australia, this should be both a bizarre proposition and the nightmare scenario. Instead, it is at the centre of Canberra’s trade policy for 2012. It would be a diabolical way to align alliance and trade interests.

Graeme Dobell writes the Canberra Column for The Interpreter, the blog of the Lowy Institute.

Star of the DPRK in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il's death is a pivotal moment for the security of Northeast Asia. Source: John Pavelka's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

Until this weekend, any expert assessment inside or outside the US government would have stated that the most likely scenario for a collapse of the North Korean regime would be the sudden death of the isolated leader Kim Jong-il. After Monday’s revelation by North Korea’s state television, we now face that uncertain scenario.

This is a watershed moment. It is not at all clear that the plan to hand power to Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong-eun, can be carried out successfully. Kim Jong-il had 14 years to prepare to take over from his father, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. Kim Jong-eun has had just three years since his father had a stroke. He is not even 30 years old.

He has had little preparation in cultivating his own followers. He has no new ideology to associate with his rise to power. I could not think of less ideal conditions – in a North Korean context – under which the so-called “Great Successor” could be given the reins of power. The plan was to surround Jong-eun with elders, including Kim Jong-il’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui.

Now, however, there are rumours that Kyong-hui is also unwell. This leaves the young son and his uncle, Chang Sung-taek, Kim Kyong-hu’s husband, which is not exactly the dream team to lead the North out of its morass.

Moreover, there have been rumours that the military has been unhappy with the promotion of the young son in September 2010 to a four-star general because he has never served in the army.

The power transition in 1994 was difficult. This one is arguably even harder, and more likely to fail. So what can Washington do? Basically, watch, wait, and prepare.

The US and South Korea have developed military plans for contingencies involving North Korean instability. The first step would be to raise the alert status for the US and South Korean combined forces that maintain peace on the peninsula.

While no military actions are warranted at the moment, the first sign of instability within the North will immediately raise questions about what it might do with its nuclear weaponry, as well as with its conventional military forces.

China is the only country that has eyes inside North Korea. The US and South Korea have been appealing to China to engage in a dialogue about possible instability in the North since Kim Jong-il suffered a suspected stroke in 2008.

Beijing has been reluctant but now may have little choice in the matter. Chinese statements thus far have predictably urged calm and the preservation of stability. Beijing is already on record expressing support for the leadership transition, but presumably this was on the assumption that Kim junior would take power years from now, not today. Despite Chinese statements of support for North Korea, debates still rage about whether to keep supporting the broken country, and these can only intensify with Kim’s death. Does the next Chinese leadership, under Xi Jinping, truly want to go “all in” and fully adopt North Korea as another poor north-eastern province? It is a big burden that we cannot simply assume China would embrace.

Now, Washington, Seoul and Beijing must co-ordinate and ensure that they are operating from the same information as they try to decipher what comes out of Pyongyang.

The moment is dripping with irony. Just last week, the US was engaging in painstaking diplomacy with the North Koreans on food aid agreements and recovering the remains of prisoners of war, as a prelude to returning to the negotiations on denuclearisation. These bits of diplomacy constituted small bites of the apple. We are now talking about a whole new apple.

Approaching the post-Kim Jong-il leadership is not advisable, in part because we do not know who is really in charge. Contacting the young son could do more to alienate him within his own system of anti-American military generals. Establishing contacts with others involved in politics or the military could emasculate the young leader’s authority and set off unknown and destabilising dynamics.

We do not know North Korea’s future after Kim Jong-il. But if this decrepit regime were to finally collapse under its own weight, there are a host of factors analysts would be able to point to – including economic decay, food shortages, an unstable leadership transition and an increasingly restless population – which could make the Dear Leader’s death the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Victor Cha is a senior adviser and holds the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS.) His book, The Impossible State: North Korea’s Past and Future, will be published in 2012.