Politics

Recent protests against the Covid restrictions show that the CCP’s mantra of “serving the people” is a double-edged sword. The platitude lends ideological ammunition and justification for people to retaliate, and may also give far leftists fodder for accusing the party of abandoning their original mission. Rather than a nameless “the people” which can be manipulated politically, perhaps it is time to think of the people as each and every person whose rights need to be safeguarded.

South Korea’s new Indo-Pacific strategy underscores the country’s ambitions to be a “global pivotal state”. Seoul seeks to effect a careful balance: inclining towards the US-led grouping advocating a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, while at the same time engaging China.

Researcher Peng Nian notes that China’s efforts to strengthen its relations with ASEAN through building a “community with a shared future for mankind” could ramp up as its borders reopen. While it may take time for the ASEAN member states to open their arms again to China, progress is far from being at a standstill.

While Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s 3-5 Jan visit to Beijing reaped economic opportunities, it was also a missed opportunity to leverage the 2016 arbitral award, says Philippine academic Charmaine Misalucha-Willoughby. The onus rests on the Philippines to keep the West Philippine Sea on the agenda, and there are several steps the Marcos administration should keep in mind in doing so.

The beleaguered construction and murky progress of the proposed Bangkok-Nong Khai high-speed railway are emblematic of deeper problems underlying Thailand’s and China’s infrastructural ambitions.

Delivering the keynote address of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s Regional Outlook Forum 2023, Singapore’s former Foreign Minister George Yeo spoke about the ways that ASEAN’s weakness is also a strength in the transition to a multipolar world.

The recent elections in Fiji resulted in the first democratic transition since 2014 after three opposition parties narrowly voted for a pro–Western coalition government with Sitiveni Rabuka as the new prime minister. The election outcome also has geopolitical implications considering the growing US-China confrontation in the Pacific and the renewed US re-engagement in the South Pacific with a focus on Fiji.

After its elections in November 2022, Nepal is now led by a new coalition government formed by parties of the Left Alliance. However, volatile relations and power struggles especially between the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) and the Maoist Centre could mean difficulties in making decisions and implementing policies. The top leaders also have different ideas about foreign relations and great power politics.

China is reopening after three years of it zero-Covid policy, but the ongoing development raises fundamental questions about the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, says East Asian Institute senior research fellow Lance Gore. The project needs to be grander, if it is to provide some universal significance for the Third Axial Age. Among other things, it might be worthwhile for China to pay attention to developing the personal and social levels of the nation, and to sow the seeds of building a healthy, mature society.