Asia Watch Archive

On October 27, Indonesia’s flag carrier, Garuda, carried more than 100 passengers from Jakarta to Surakarta — about a 500-kilometre journey — on Indonesia’s first commercial flight fuelled, in part, by palm oil. State energy firm PT Pertamina produced the palm-oil-based jet fuel, also known as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), designed to reduce carbon emissions.

Some ultra-wealthy Chinese nationals are moving themselves — and their fortunes — abroad to avoid increasingly rigid restrictions, including oftentimes opaque charges of financial improprieties, according to a recent analysis published by The Guardian.

China has stepped into the diplomatic spotlight by offering to mediate the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Israel has rebuffed Beijing’s overtures, arguing that China’s long-standing pro-Palestinian leanings undermine its claims of neutrality.

On October 22, Philippine Coast Guard vessels collided with Chinese ships in the disputed South China Sea, resulting in a renewed diplomatic row.



The incident took place within the Philippines’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. Its coast guard and supply ships were reportedly en route to BRP Sierra Madre — a deliberately grounded warship in the Second Thomas Shoal meant to buttress the country’s territorial claims against those of China.

On October 14, Australians went to the polls to vote in the country’s first referendum in 25 years. The referendum asked voters if they supported amending the country’s constitution to recognize the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as the First Peoples of Australia and creating a parliamentary advisory body known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, or simply “the Voice.”



Sixty-one per cent of voters opposed creating the Voice, with all six states rejecting the proposal.

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting representatives from roughly 130 countries this week for a two-day Belt and Road Forum, marking a decade since Beijing launched its signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a vast infrastructure and energy network connecting Asia with Africa and Europe through overland and maritime routes.

At around 11 p.m. on October 9, the Mung Lai Hkyet camp in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State for internally displaced persons was attacked, leaving at least 29 people dead, half of them children.



The camp, set up in 2011 following the collapse of a ceasefire agreement between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the military, is home to about 850 people who fled the junta. The KIA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups, is the armed wing of the Kachin Independence Organisation, an ethnic political group fighting for self-rule in Kachin.

 

Critics of China’s human rights record tried to score a symbolic victory on Tuesday in the vote for 15 members to the 47-member UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

A run-off election in the Maldives on Saturday unseated incumbent president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih of the Maldivian Democratic Party. His challenger, Mohamed Muizzu of the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), got 54 per cent of the votes in a contest that saw 85 per cent voter turnout. It was the country’s fourth democratic election since it brought an end to a three-decade-long dictatorship in 2008. After Saturday’s results were announced, Solih conceded the election and congratulated the president-elect.

 

In its semi-annual 2023 Economic Update released on October 1, the World Bank downgraded its economic projections for ‘Developing East Asia and the Pacific,’ a group of countries and jurisdictions including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, among others.

For weeks, Lee Jae-myung, leader of South Korea’s Democratic Party (DP), the country’s main opposition party, has been at the centre of an unfolding political drama.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Laos’s gross government debt has reached 123 per cent of its GDP. Half of that debt is owed to China, which has funded a handful of large-scale infrastructure projects across the country.

China, already seeing a slowdown in domestic demand, is now being criticized for its challenging business environment.

Canada’s diplomatic relationship with India went into a deep freeze this week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated on Monday that there are “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government were involved in the June 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.

A September 12 public opinion poll by Pew Research Center shows that robust majorities of respondents in South and Southeast Asian societies support a strong role for religion in their country’s institutions and national identities.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 13, sparking concerns over a potential arms deal between the two pariah states. Both countries are subject to heavy international sanctions.

On Tuesday, the dispute settlement mechanism under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) was finally put to the test. The CPTPP’s first formal trade dispute saw New Zealand argue that Canada’s dairy tariff-rate quota (TRQ) allocation measures undermine the market access afforded to New Zealand under the CPTPP.

On September 5, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began his six-day tour across Asia. Stopping first in Jakarta, Trudeau met Indonesian President Joko Widodo and participated in the ASEAN Summit. During the summit, ASEAN members and Canada adopted the ASEAN-Canada Strategic Partnership, which will see both sides “collaborate in strategic areas of mutual interest.”

On August 12, six of Malaysia’s 13 states held assembly elections, with the results largely reinforcing the status quo. The outcome was a relief for Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s multi-ethnic coalition, made up of Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional (PH-BN), which retained support in the states of Selangor, Penang, and Negeri Sembilan.



Perikatan Nasional (PN), the nationalist opposition coalition, made inroads in the three other states, winning by a significant margin in Kedah and Kelantan, and claiming all seats in the northern state of Terengganu.