East Asia tackles energy security
Asia times - Aug 24, 2004
By Richard Giragosian
Nearly three years into the global "war on terrorism", there is still an incomplete recognition of the strategic importance of energy security. The current focus on energy security remains lacking and limited, with a rather outdated reliance on the more traditional perspective of concentrating on the risks posed by instability and insecurity in the Middle Eastern oil-producing region. The Middle Eastern theater mandates such focus for three reasons: its role as the major source and gateway for global energy, the instability rooted in the very nature of its regimes, and as the original source of the new wave of Islamist terrorism.
Yet as the repercussions of the attacks of September 11, 2001, continue to alter the global geopolitical landscape on several levels, comprehensive energy security is the integral edifice absent from the newly evolving architecture of international security. This absence is most evident in the vulnerabilities of key components of the global energy network, including troubling deficiencies in the transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the exposed weakness of pipelines.
The evolution of strategic energy security
Recognition of energy as a global security concern first garnered strategic attention in the 1970s, with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo of 1973 and the overthrow of a key regional Western ally in Iran. From the start, the initial stage of energy security was linked to the volatile Middle East and was elevated as the defining issue in relations with the region. The evolution of this geopolitical marriage of the Middle East to Western energy consumers resulted in a cumulative disregard for the fundamental signs of discord mounting in the region that eventually erupted in the backlash of Islamist terror and rigid anti-Americanism.
But with a shortsighted preference of regime stability to ensure the steady flow of oil, longer-term security was sacrificed. It is this painful lesson that defines the very nature of the region as a challenge to security and stability today. Thus the warning signs emanating from within the region were always there but generally neglected, leading to the current threats rooted in decades of dictatorship, a deficit of democracy, and looming demographic disaster.
Another lesson learned from the first stage of energy security was the danger of ignoring the domestic political, economic and social dimensions of energy security. This set of dynamic internal factors has contributed to the emergence of the Middle East as a breeding ground for global insecurity and has combined with the external dependence on Middle Eastern oil to endanger new "regions at risk".
A region at risk: Asia-Pacific
The dramatic geopolitical shifts stemming from the end of the Cold War and the global "war on terrorism" in the wake of September 11 have resulted in an abrupt restructuring of the traditionally bipolar system of global governance that has served as the norm for the 20th century. Of all the regions subject to the repercussions of this new geopolitical landscape, the Asia-Pacific region has emerged as one of the key arenas. A convergence of new factors, ranging from the threats posed by al-Qaeda to the sweeping engagement of the US military throughout the region, has endowed the region with a significantly enhanced strategic importance.
The implications for the Asia-Pacific region from within this new prism of global geopolitics and a greater reliance on military security have also been deepened by several underlying characteristics. Specifically, the Asia-Pacific has seen a pattern of increasing insecurity in recent years that has exposed the absence of any regional institution capable of forging common and cooperative security. This pattern of mounting threats has been marked by three escalating crises: the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the Asian financial crisis of 1997-99, and the recent North Korean nuclear crisis. There is also a danger of a fourth crisis, involving Chinese frustration with the intricacies of Taiwan's political ambitions.
This absence of a governing regional structure has only exacerbated the region's vulnerability within a new post-Cold War/post-September 11 threat matrix. Although there has been some attempt to address this regional insecurity through existing regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional states still lack the political will, military capability and experience to enforce security adequately in any significant multilateral approach. And as the only substantive security architecture in the region is limited to the web of bilateral security treaties centered on the United States, there is a serious need for a new security regionalism. Such an effort can link Asia-Pacific economic cooperation to a regional security process and also build on the regional powers of Australia, Japan and South Korea, each of which has been recently "deputized" by the United States. Therefore, energy security may offer the most effective avenue toward this "securitized regionalism", especially given the genuine level of cooperation and shared interests in seeking adequate and secure supplies of energy.
Such a need for regionalized security is also reflected in the less visible security challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region. These security problems are concentrated in the core of the region, in the very foundations of the still incomplete state- and nation-building process, and stem from the fragility and weakness of these states. Coupled with the economic, social and environmental issues in the region, the complexity of these threats requires a multilateral, yet regionally based approach.
The economics of energy security
In terms of pure economics, the outlook for energy security in the Asia-Pacific looks particularly troubling, with rising levels of oil consumption and an even stronger rise in demand. Some experts, such as Ji Guoxing of the Shanghai Institute of International Strategy Studies, contend that the Asia-Pacific region's dependence on Middle Eastern oil may exceed 90% by 2010. While oilfields in Russian Siberia and Central Asia do offer some short-term energy relief, the lack of existing infrastructure to facilitate the transport of this oil poses costly political and economic challenges of their own.
Aside from the dependence on imports from the Middle East, there is also a danger of tension stemming from such an oil shortage within the Asia-Pacific region itself. The growing demand for energy may strain relations between such important regional actors as China and Japan, for example, which may then engender a set of new destabilizing regional or international conflicts. But an even more immediate problem is the effect of oil-market volatility on the region, with the sharp rise in oil prices putting particular pressure on the currencies of some crude-importing emerging-market countries and the dangers of soaring current account deficits and weaker economic growth. This also threatens to impact the record of growth that has served as the driving force for Asian stability and development since the end of World War II. And while Asia is seen as the most affected region, the surge in oil prices, an increase of 48% over the past two years, also threatens other struggling oil importers.
The dangers of soaring oil prices
The danger of an "oil shock" is an important but underestimated element of energy security. In a July Financial Times article, two analysts confirmed this "link between oil prices and financial markets" by noting it "has profound implications for both energy security and economics". The market volatility further reveals the structural weakness of all commodity-based economies, not just oil-producing states. In terms of economic theory, the fundamental danger of an over-reliance on one commodity for economic growth and development has been fairly well established, articulated as the so-called "Dutch disease".
There is a further link between price rises for oil and other commodities. A broad commodity-wide pattern was revealed in the oil shocks of 1973-74 and 1979-82, as the prices for gold and soybeans doubled and wheat reached an all-time high. This pattern also reveals the deeper vulnerabilities of developing countries to this economic aspect of energy security. It also merits more attention given the grave implications for social unrest and political instability in key energy-dependent states that may result from a sustained global surge in oil prices.
Several key Asian economies are the most at risk from persistently high crude prices, with the major net importing countries of China, India, Singapore and South Korea, as well as Taiwan, being the most vulnerable. The danger for these economies lies in the impact on the current account and growth, and domestic purchasing power. This has already been demonstrated in regional currency markets, as the Singapore dollar hit near three-month lows against the US dollar and the Thai baht reached a one-year low in late July. The North Asian currencies such as the South Korean won and New Taiwan dollar are also seen at risk.
Regional energy security in the Asia-Pacific Energy security in the Asia-Pacific remains a complex and multifaceted challenge, with four main strategic issues mandating coordinated action:
1. Measures are needed to reduce Asian dependence on fossil fuel or to secure an adequate alternative supply to meet rising demand.
2. The need to address the environmental impact of the region's energy structure, as seen by the environmental repercussions from the heavy coal use in Chinese industries, for example.
3. The necessity for ensuring nuclear security in the face of regional ambitions to expand nuclear power.
4. Specific policies to improve the vulnerable regional energy infrastructure and transportation networks, as well as safeguarding vital sea-lanes and "chokepoints".
As demonstrated by the set of four strategic priorities areas listed above, regional energy security in the Asia-Pacific requires a multilateral approach. There is a potential for regional cooperation, stemming from the convergence of national interests in the face of recent transnational threats. Much of these shared interests and threats have only been revealed in the aftermath of September 11 and the ensuing global "war on terrorism".
To date, the regional approach to Asia-Pacific energy security has been focused on petroleum security, conservation and the search for alternative fuels. Specific examples of regional cooperation are largely through ASEAN, and include a Petroleum Security Agreement, requiring ASEAN member states to provide crude oil and/or petroleum products for countries in short supply.
Studies for a Trans-ASEAN Gas Transmission System and an ASEAN Power Grid have also been initiated aimed at ensuring a reliable supply of energy to the region, with some notable progress to date related to cooperation in natural gas use and energy management.
Regional energy security was formalized as a priority issue at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Energy Security Initiative Workshop on "Elements of Energy Security Policy in the Context of Petroleum" held in Bangkok in September 2001. Dr Piyasavasti Amranand, the secretary general of Thailand's National Energy Policy Office (NEPO), reported to the APEC workshop that the current imbalance among reserves, production, and consumption of oil within the region has elevated oil security as a major concern for APEC officials.
Piyasavasti stated that the total reserves in the APEC region are far less than regional demand, exacerbating the regional dependence on oil imports, especially from the Middle East, therefore, made energy security a key element in establishing economic development policies.
Thailand has long been sharing information with the Asia-Pacific Energy Research Center (APERC) and other research centers, such as the ASEAN Center for Energy (ACE), and has also implemented other measures that have substantially enhanced the energy security of the country. Strategic oil stockpiling by the Thai private sector is one of the measures, but there is an inadequate government role in developing a state-owned stockpile.
The 2001 APEC workshop also recognized the security of tanker traffic as a main concern. In an address to the workshop, APERC president Tatsuo Masuda explained that the combination of vulnerable transport from the Middle East and West Africa with the fact that tankers are getting smaller, while the number of tankers crossing the Indian Ocean to Asia triples or quadruples, necessitates a reduction of the risks posed by tanker traffic. Masuda specifically pointed to the need for pipeline infrastructure projects connecting Russia, China, Korea and Japan, as a way by which to reduce this risk.
Limits to cooperation Despite a degree of potential for regional cooperation, energy security remains hindered by the divides between the states of the Asia-Pacific. The sheer scale of diversity and scope of diverging national interests have significantly impeded even these early efforts at coordination. The absence of a recognized common goal is profound, making the pledges for joint strategic reserves and regionwide gas pipelines unfulfilled promises.
According to energy analyst Tomoko Hosoe of Facts Inc and the East-West Center, "Although the ASEAN grouping is a dynamic, populous region, its total economy and oil consumption are more on the scale of Korea's than that of Japan or China," as seen by the fact that "Japan's current oil stockholdings are large enough to supply all of ASEAN's net oil imports for more than two years". Hosoe further recognizes that "ASEAN can be important in enhancing Japanese energy security, but on the oil front, ASEAN can do very little in terms of supply to East Asia in general or Japan in particular".
The importance of strategic petroleum reserves
The role of strategic petroleum reserves in energy security has long been recognized as a crucial component to protect against unexpected shortages or disruptions of energy supplies. But adequate stockpiles have been difficult and costly to create and maintain, as the most vulnerable import-dependent economies are most often the least able to handle the prohibitive cost. The United States, as the world's largest oil importer, established a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 1975 to help prevent a repetition of the economic dislocation caused by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The US strategic reserve comprises five underground storage facilities, hollowed out from naturally occurring salt domes, in Texas and Louisiana. Oil stored at one of the sites, Weeks Island, was transferred after problems with the structural integrity of the cavern were discovered in the mid-1990s.
As an important element in US energy security, the mere existence of a large, operational reserve of crude oil was seen as an effective way to deter future oil cutoffs and to discourage the use of oil as tool for geopolitical leverage. In the event of an interruption, introduction of oil from the reserve on to the market was expected to help calm market-driven crises, mitigate sharp price spikes, and reduce the economic effects of the shocks that had accompanied the 1973 disruption. It was further held that the reserve would buy precious time for any crisis to sort itself out or for diplomacy to seek some resolution before a potentially severe oil shortage escalated the crisis beyond the parameters of state diplomacy.
The International Energy Agency
With energy security as a core mission of the International Energy Agency, there has been a significant effort to foster a communal approach to the issue, with oil stockpiling as a central element. The IEA seeks to cooperate and complement the work of regional organizations such as APEC and ASEAN, and promotes the shared goals of energy security, high economic efficiency, and a cleaner environment.
In terms of stockpiling, the IEA's Agreement on an International Energy Program (IEP) requires participating countries to maintain emergency oil reserves equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports, 7-10% restraint on national oil demand, and to participate in a crisis-allocation system through an Emergency Sharing System. Stocks of IEA net importers have decreased substantially from a peak of 160 days during the mid-1980s to 116 days by July 2001. The decrease in oil stocks was mainly due to industry restructuring, which moved to a "just in time" stockpiling. This decrease in IEA stocks is also expected to continue over the coming decade due to increasing oil imports and a lack of automatic stock adjustments within the IEA economies.
Generally, the IEA holds that stock drawdowns are one of the most concrete and effective emergency response measures. IEA stocks are seen to be adequate to handle a medium-scale disruption of short-to-medium-term duration and larger disruptions of up to 12mbpd (million barrels per day) are also believed to be within IEA control, although only for a limited duration. Industry stocks are seen as less reliable than public stocks, as they are partly needed for operating purposes and are subject to much weaker governmental control.
The ASEAN position on stockpiling
The ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement (APSA), reached in Manila in 1986, formulated an important strategic approach to containing sudden shortfalls in oil supplies. The agreement specifically established an ASEAN Emergency Petroleum Sharing Scheme for petroleum products in times of both shortage and oversupply. In cases of shortage, which the agreement defines as "a critical shortage or when at least one Member Country is in distress", the oil-exporting members of ASEAN would move to aid the affected member state or states. The assistance would be triggered by crises involving cases where the total supply is less than 80% of the normal domestic consumption requirements. Such emergency oil supplies would be limited for domestic consumption in the distressed countries, however.
In times of broader crises, where more than one ASEAN member state is affected, the agreement calls for the distribution to be initially allocated in proportion to their respective normal domestic consumption and exports for the 12-month period prior to the crisis. Since its inception n 1986, APSA has never been actually executed, although it was once nearly implemented during the Gulf War crisis in the early 1990s.
Although such formal ASEAN assistance through shared resources is important in times of regional crises, there has been a recent move recognizing the importance of establishing strategic stocks of oil as a reserve against sudden cuts or shortfalls in oil supplies. According to IEA executive director Robert Priddle, "despite the fact that for many ASEAN nations the cost of maintaining such oil inventories appears prohibitive, such an effective insurance against major economic risks is worth a considerable price".
The imperative for such stockpiling has been bolstered in recent years by the threat to world supply and transport in the wake of September 11 and unease over the implications for instability in the Middle East as a result of the war in Iraq and its postwar uncertainty. Other developments, such as an overall trend of decreasing oil stocks among IEA members for the past 15 years and a steady decline in OPEC spare capacity, have also served to reinforce the importance of such strategic reserves.
Some recent cost benefit analyses of expanding emergency oil stocks have found that, for smaller Asian oil-importing economies, a stockpile covering around 30 days of net imports is optimal. These studies have also recommended a joint stockpiling scheme sharing a common large-scale facility for the APEC region.
Within ASEAN+3 (the Southeast Asian grouping plus China, Japan and South Korea), both Japan and South Korea maintain government-owned emergency petroleum reserve stocks as a strategic protection against short-term disruption in oil supply. As members of the IEA, both Japan and Korea are required by the organization's agreement to hold stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net imports. Both the Japanese and Korean reserves are also reportedly well above that requirement.
The Japanese approach
Japan's vulnerability to disruptions in oil supplies was most profoundly exposed during the global oil crisis of 1973. That first oil crisis affected Japan greatly, both psychologically and economically, and resulted in a sharp reduction in Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) growth, from 5.1% to -0.5%. The crisis was also seen as an embarrassment to the government, with some critics pointing to its failure to foresee or contain the crisis. The shock gave a new impetus to the need for addressing the country's energy security.
By 1975, the Japanese government enacted a stockpiling law, with private requirements creating a 90-day stockpile (government stockpiling was not initiated until 1978, with a 30-million-kiloliter target, later reaching 50 million kiloliters by February 1998). A second oil crisis in 1978 renewed concerns over Japan's vulnerability, with a volatility in oil prices demonstrated by a price rise from US$13.7 per barrel to $34 a barrel by 1980.
During the relatively smaller energy crisis stemming from the Gulf War of 1991, there were no serious supply shortages, although prices did increase sharply. Through this crisis, real GDP growth declined from 5.6% in 1990 to 3.1% in 1991. In 1990, the government announced that private-sector stockpiling would be utilized, increases in stockpiling were postponed, and the private sector was allowed to reduce stockpiling by four days in January 1991 to allow a release of supply. After the Gulf War, 10 sites for a government stockpile were constructed in August 1996.
The current private Japanese stockpile operates according to a 70-day requirement and utilizes existing tanks and facilities in private companies. This private stockpiling system counts oil reserves in transportation, operation and distribution, and counts both crude oil and petroleum products. In contrast, national stockpiling, initiated in 1978-79, uses only storage tanks and counts only crude oil. The Japanese approach to stockpiling, with its priority on a private structure, recognizes a number of advantages and disadvantages to the system.
The Japanese position sees three main advantages to private stockpiling: less time and cost to meet target level; swift, flexible and effective release; and a tendency to reduce panic in the market (stockpiling as a "first aid" kit). There are also three disadvantages identified under the Japanese system: an insufficient amount, and if stock falls below 45 days, it becomes difficult to release; a significant barrier for newcomers, encouraging a need for government subsidy; and less transparency in the market, thereby making it difficult to see or measure the effects of the release.
Overall, the Japanese conclusion is that stockpiling is primarily a government concern, linked to national security, but sees private stockpiling as necessary to obtain swiftness, flexibility, and economizing. Private companies are expected to supply and release stock swiftly and flexibly, and provide accurate and timely information, especially during emergencies. For its part, the Japanese government is expected to recognize and appreciate the function of private stockpiling and provide sufficient political support to the private sector.
According to information provided by Kazuyoshi Takayama of the Nippon Mitsubishi Oil Corp, the Japanese stockpiling system can only be reduced or released ("drawn down") by the government in times of a crisis involving an abrupt disruption in supply, although there is some consideration underway of an implementation of a draw down in cases of severe price fluctuation.
Takayama also pointed to the importance of Russia's (East Siberia) vast resource potential to supply Japan and other East Asian economies. One of the most important appeals of this option is the price competitiveness of Russian energy to the Asian market, making it an important source for import diversification.
Japan's four-part strategy
In addition, Japan has also adopted a number of related measures to buffer the effects of oil disruptions and price volatility. The Japanese approach consists of four parts:
1. Diversification of energy, with a special focus on the alternative sources of nuclear energy and LNG, now accounting for about 13% and 12% respectively, and coal, once Japan's dominant energy source until the shift to oil in 1970s.
2. Sourcing diversification, to offset its high dependence on Middle Eastern oil, seeks to promote other sources of crude oil, from China, Indonesia and Mexico. Imports from these countries declined after the late 1980s because of economic constraints, mainly after the Japanese liberalization and deregulation of the oil industry. Japan also invests in producing crude oil overseas, as the share of Japanese-developed crude oil overseas is about 15% of total oil imports. Overall energy imports from the Middle East have been reduced to about 40%.
3. Energy conservation involving multiple measures: to reduce demand, improve self-sufficiency, reduce emissions, and reduce energy costs. Japan also pursues energy conservation through an improvement of energy efficiency in appliances (micro-energy conservation) and by shifting to less energy-intensive industries (macro-energy conservation). As a result of these policies and financial support, Japan's energy efficiency has improved by almost 30%.
4. Emergency preparedness. driven by experience of oil crises, Japan has established a mandatory private oil stock (currently 70 days); a government (national) stockpile of 50 million kiloliters; and a combined private and national stockpile of 160 days.
The South Korean stockpile
As the world's fourth largest oil importer, there is an acute South Korean appreciation of the need for sufficient oil reserves. The Korean stockpiling system consists of a combination of government (Korea National Oil Corp) and private reserve, with the KNOC storage capacity expected to reach 164 million barrels by 2006. As of June 2001, the KNOC capacity was 132 million barrels (65 days), comprising some 60 million barrels in the government stockpile and 72 million barrels held by the private stockpile. The South Korean government considers the drawing down of the stockpile as authorized in the event of a short-term disruption or to stabilize supply and demand.
There is also a degree of flexibility, with mechanisms allowing for a limited release of a portion of the KNOC stockpile and a temporary lease and redelivery mechanism or "time exchange", which is strictly limited for increasing the stock level. South Korea sees this joint stockpiling between KNOC and private oil producers as a strategic alliance for securing stable supply and demand. KNOC also provides the use of its unused facilities to private oil companies.
The Thai reserve
Thailand is also developing measures to prepare for emergency disruptions in supply. Although Thailand's dependency on energy imports has been substantially reduced in recent years, from 98% in 1980 to 63% in 2000, the Thai fuel import dependency is projected to increase to 70% over the coming decade (for 2000-2010). Thailand's dependency on oil imports has also followed a similar trajectory, decreasing to 55.1% in 2000 from a 1980 level of 93.6%. The Thai approach to energy security is multifaceted and includes measures to promote the development of indigenous energy resources, diversify energy supplies and utilize renewable energy, as well as pursuing greater overall efficiency.
Thailand's current total storage capacity for crude oil is roughly 28 million barrels, and for petroleum products, excluding LPG, about 39 million barrels. The total existing storage capacity, therefore, stands at roughly 67 million barrels, representing about 110 days of consumption (at 2000 levels). Although this is well above the normal working requirements of 40-45 days, Thai officials have reported that actual stocks are lower than the storage capacity. Thailand's six refineries account for nearly all crude-oil storage. For petroleum products, however, oil traders and distributors hold a significant portion of this storage capacity, with 22.2 million barrels compared with 16.8 million barrels held by the refineries.
Currently, Thailand has a limited stockpile, mandated by its Fuel Act of 1978, required to be maintained by the Thai private sector. For crude oil, refineries are required to stock 3% of annual throughput (equivalent to about 11 days), and marketers and importers to stock 3-6% of different petroleum products based on sales, to this mandatory stockpile. Leading experts estimate that for the Thai economy, the ideal stockpile would be of about 27 million barrels by 2010.
Last October, Thai Energy Minister Prommin Lertsuridej signed a memorandum of understanding with Philippine Energy Minister Vincent Perez to conduct a joint feasibility study on petroleum reserves and investment. The Thai Energy Ministry reported that the two countries have pledged to share their existing petroleum facilities under the cooperative agreement in order to strengthen their respective petroleum reserves as well as to create business opportunities.
This is particularly important for the Philippines because of a current shortage in local oil supply. This shortage, due to the government's implementation of a Clean Air Act, has prompted higher imports of refined oil to the country through Subic Bay, where Thai subsidiaries in the Philippines have been granted concessionaires for the oil depots.
The Philippines
Under the leadership of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Philippines has undertaken an economic transformation, deregulating its energy sector and offering new incentives for foreign investment. Although the Philippines was able to increase its crude-oil production from 1,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2001 to an average of 23,512bpd in 2002, the rise in production volume is still modest in relation to the country's needs. The Philippines consumed 342,000bpd on average in 2002, resulting in net oil imports of 318,488bpd.
This dependence on imported oil is compounded by a projected annual increase in oil consumption of 5% over the next several years as economic growth increases demand in most sectors. Oil demand for power generation, however, is expected to decline sharply as many aging oil-fired electric power plants are shut down or converted to burn natural gas. And with more than 90% of the Philippines' oil imports coming from the Middle East, the issue of an oil stockpile is a grave concern. The Philippines has been without any stockpile whatsoever since required contributions ended in 1998.
Indonesia also maintains oil stocks, but these reserves stem from the country's role as an archipelago, ensuring adequate supplies to its islands rather than from a strategic imperative. Thus the Indonesian stocks are not generally thought to be large enough for effective protection in times of crisis.
Conclusion
The imperative for energy security in vulnerable strategic regions as the Asia-Pacific is paramount for global stability and development. The priority of this challenge for the Asia-Pacific region is also no accident, as it is the world's fastest-growing energy consumer, with projected demand to surpass other regions steadily for some time. But it remains to be seen whether this troubled region will be able to forge a collective and cooperative approach in the wake of the daunting challenges and demands posed by the global "war on terrorism" and an increasingly destabilizing unipolar world.
Richard Giragosian is a research associate with the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
By Richard Giragosian
Nearly three years into the global "war on terrorism", there is still an incomplete recognition of the strategic importance of energy security. The current focus on energy security remains lacking and limited, with a rather outdated reliance on the more traditional perspective of concentrating on the risks posed by instability and insecurity in the Middle Eastern oil-producing region. The Middle Eastern theater mandates such focus for three reasons: its role as the major source and gateway for global energy, the instability rooted in the very nature of its regimes, and as the original source of the new wave of Islamist terrorism.
Yet as the repercussions of the attacks of September 11, 2001, continue to alter the global geopolitical landscape on several levels, comprehensive energy security is the integral edifice absent from the newly evolving architecture of international security. This absence is most evident in the vulnerabilities of key components of the global energy network, including troubling deficiencies in the transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the exposed weakness of pipelines.
The evolution of strategic energy security
Recognition of energy as a global security concern first garnered strategic attention in the 1970s, with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo of 1973 and the overthrow of a key regional Western ally in Iran. From the start, the initial stage of energy security was linked to the volatile Middle East and was elevated as the defining issue in relations with the region. The evolution of this geopolitical marriage of the Middle East to Western energy consumers resulted in a cumulative disregard for the fundamental signs of discord mounting in the region that eventually erupted in the backlash of Islamist terror and rigid anti-Americanism.
But with a shortsighted preference of regime stability to ensure the steady flow of oil, longer-term security was sacrificed. It is this painful lesson that defines the very nature of the region as a challenge to security and stability today. Thus the warning signs emanating from within the region were always there but generally neglected, leading to the current threats rooted in decades of dictatorship, a deficit of democracy, and looming demographic disaster.
Another lesson learned from the first stage of energy security was the danger of ignoring the domestic political, economic and social dimensions of energy security. This set of dynamic internal factors has contributed to the emergence of the Middle East as a breeding ground for global insecurity and has combined with the external dependence on Middle Eastern oil to endanger new "regions at risk".
A region at risk: Asia-Pacific
The dramatic geopolitical shifts stemming from the end of the Cold War and the global "war on terrorism" in the wake of September 11 have resulted in an abrupt restructuring of the traditionally bipolar system of global governance that has served as the norm for the 20th century. Of all the regions subject to the repercussions of this new geopolitical landscape, the Asia-Pacific region has emerged as one of the key arenas. A convergence of new factors, ranging from the threats posed by al-Qaeda to the sweeping engagement of the US military throughout the region, has endowed the region with a significantly enhanced strategic importance.
The implications for the Asia-Pacific region from within this new prism of global geopolitics and a greater reliance on military security have also been deepened by several underlying characteristics. Specifically, the Asia-Pacific has seen a pattern of increasing insecurity in recent years that has exposed the absence of any regional institution capable of forging common and cooperative security. This pattern of mounting threats has been marked by three escalating crises: the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the Asian financial crisis of 1997-99, and the recent North Korean nuclear crisis. There is also a danger of a fourth crisis, involving Chinese frustration with the intricacies of Taiwan's political ambitions.
This absence of a governing regional structure has only exacerbated the region's vulnerability within a new post-Cold War/post-September 11 threat matrix. Although there has been some attempt to address this regional insecurity through existing regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional states still lack the political will, military capability and experience to enforce security adequately in any significant multilateral approach. And as the only substantive security architecture in the region is limited to the web of bilateral security treaties centered on the United States, there is a serious need for a new security regionalism. Such an effort can link Asia-Pacific economic cooperation to a regional security process and also build on the regional powers of Australia, Japan and South Korea, each of which has been recently "deputized" by the United States. Therefore, energy security may offer the most effective avenue toward this "securitized regionalism", especially given the genuine level of cooperation and shared interests in seeking adequate and secure supplies of energy.
Such a need for regionalized security is also reflected in the less visible security challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region. These security problems are concentrated in the core of the region, in the very foundations of the still incomplete state- and nation-building process, and stem from the fragility and weakness of these states. Coupled with the economic, social and environmental issues in the region, the complexity of these threats requires a multilateral, yet regionally based approach.
The economics of energy security
In terms of pure economics, the outlook for energy security in the Asia-Pacific looks particularly troubling, with rising levels of oil consumption and an even stronger rise in demand. Some experts, such as Ji Guoxing of the Shanghai Institute of International Strategy Studies, contend that the Asia-Pacific region's dependence on Middle Eastern oil may exceed 90% by 2010. While oilfields in Russian Siberia and Central Asia do offer some short-term energy relief, the lack of existing infrastructure to facilitate the transport of this oil poses costly political and economic challenges of their own.
Aside from the dependence on imports from the Middle East, there is also a danger of tension stemming from such an oil shortage within the Asia-Pacific region itself. The growing demand for energy may strain relations between such important regional actors as China and Japan, for example, which may then engender a set of new destabilizing regional or international conflicts. But an even more immediate problem is the effect of oil-market volatility on the region, with the sharp rise in oil prices putting particular pressure on the currencies of some crude-importing emerging-market countries and the dangers of soaring current account deficits and weaker economic growth. This also threatens to impact the record of growth that has served as the driving force for Asian stability and development since the end of World War II. And while Asia is seen as the most affected region, the surge in oil prices, an increase of 48% over the past two years, also threatens other struggling oil importers.
The dangers of soaring oil prices
The danger of an "oil shock" is an important but underestimated element of energy security. In a July Financial Times article, two analysts confirmed this "link between oil prices and financial markets" by noting it "has profound implications for both energy security and economics". The market volatility further reveals the structural weakness of all commodity-based economies, not just oil-producing states. In terms of economic theory, the fundamental danger of an over-reliance on one commodity for economic growth and development has been fairly well established, articulated as the so-called "Dutch disease".
There is a further link between price rises for oil and other commodities. A broad commodity-wide pattern was revealed in the oil shocks of 1973-74 and 1979-82, as the prices for gold and soybeans doubled and wheat reached an all-time high. This pattern also reveals the deeper vulnerabilities of developing countries to this economic aspect of energy security. It also merits more attention given the grave implications for social unrest and political instability in key energy-dependent states that may result from a sustained global surge in oil prices.
Several key Asian economies are the most at risk from persistently high crude prices, with the major net importing countries of China, India, Singapore and South Korea, as well as Taiwan, being the most vulnerable. The danger for these economies lies in the impact on the current account and growth, and domestic purchasing power. This has already been demonstrated in regional currency markets, as the Singapore dollar hit near three-month lows against the US dollar and the Thai baht reached a one-year low in late July. The North Asian currencies such as the South Korean won and New Taiwan dollar are also seen at risk.
Regional energy security in the Asia-Pacific Energy security in the Asia-Pacific remains a complex and multifaceted challenge, with four main strategic issues mandating coordinated action:
1. Measures are needed to reduce Asian dependence on fossil fuel or to secure an adequate alternative supply to meet rising demand.
2. The need to address the environmental impact of the region's energy structure, as seen by the environmental repercussions from the heavy coal use in Chinese industries, for example.
3. The necessity for ensuring nuclear security in the face of regional ambitions to expand nuclear power.
4. Specific policies to improve the vulnerable regional energy infrastructure and transportation networks, as well as safeguarding vital sea-lanes and "chokepoints".
As demonstrated by the set of four strategic priorities areas listed above, regional energy security in the Asia-Pacific requires a multilateral approach. There is a potential for regional cooperation, stemming from the convergence of national interests in the face of recent transnational threats. Much of these shared interests and threats have only been revealed in the aftermath of September 11 and the ensuing global "war on terrorism".
To date, the regional approach to Asia-Pacific energy security has been focused on petroleum security, conservation and the search for alternative fuels. Specific examples of regional cooperation are largely through ASEAN, and include a Petroleum Security Agreement, requiring ASEAN member states to provide crude oil and/or petroleum products for countries in short supply.
Studies for a Trans-ASEAN Gas Transmission System and an ASEAN Power Grid have also been initiated aimed at ensuring a reliable supply of energy to the region, with some notable progress to date related to cooperation in natural gas use and energy management.
Regional energy security was formalized as a priority issue at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Energy Security Initiative Workshop on "Elements of Energy Security Policy in the Context of Petroleum" held in Bangkok in September 2001. Dr Piyasavasti Amranand, the secretary general of Thailand's National Energy Policy Office (NEPO), reported to the APEC workshop that the current imbalance among reserves, production, and consumption of oil within the region has elevated oil security as a major concern for APEC officials.
Piyasavasti stated that the total reserves in the APEC region are far less than regional demand, exacerbating the regional dependence on oil imports, especially from the Middle East, therefore, made energy security a key element in establishing economic development policies.
Thailand has long been sharing information with the Asia-Pacific Energy Research Center (APERC) and other research centers, such as the ASEAN Center for Energy (ACE), and has also implemented other measures that have substantially enhanced the energy security of the country. Strategic oil stockpiling by the Thai private sector is one of the measures, but there is an inadequate government role in developing a state-owned stockpile.
The 2001 APEC workshop also recognized the security of tanker traffic as a main concern. In an address to the workshop, APERC president Tatsuo Masuda explained that the combination of vulnerable transport from the Middle East and West Africa with the fact that tankers are getting smaller, while the number of tankers crossing the Indian Ocean to Asia triples or quadruples, necessitates a reduction of the risks posed by tanker traffic. Masuda specifically pointed to the need for pipeline infrastructure projects connecting Russia, China, Korea and Japan, as a way by which to reduce this risk.
Limits to cooperation Despite a degree of potential for regional cooperation, energy security remains hindered by the divides between the states of the Asia-Pacific. The sheer scale of diversity and scope of diverging national interests have significantly impeded even these early efforts at coordination. The absence of a recognized common goal is profound, making the pledges for joint strategic reserves and regionwide gas pipelines unfulfilled promises.
According to energy analyst Tomoko Hosoe of Facts Inc and the East-West Center, "Although the ASEAN grouping is a dynamic, populous region, its total economy and oil consumption are more on the scale of Korea's than that of Japan or China," as seen by the fact that "Japan's current oil stockholdings are large enough to supply all of ASEAN's net oil imports for more than two years". Hosoe further recognizes that "ASEAN can be important in enhancing Japanese energy security, but on the oil front, ASEAN can do very little in terms of supply to East Asia in general or Japan in particular".
The importance of strategic petroleum reserves
The role of strategic petroleum reserves in energy security has long been recognized as a crucial component to protect against unexpected shortages or disruptions of energy supplies. But adequate stockpiles have been difficult and costly to create and maintain, as the most vulnerable import-dependent economies are most often the least able to handle the prohibitive cost. The United States, as the world's largest oil importer, established a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 1975 to help prevent a repetition of the economic dislocation caused by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The US strategic reserve comprises five underground storage facilities, hollowed out from naturally occurring salt domes, in Texas and Louisiana. Oil stored at one of the sites, Weeks Island, was transferred after problems with the structural integrity of the cavern were discovered in the mid-1990s.
As an important element in US energy security, the mere existence of a large, operational reserve of crude oil was seen as an effective way to deter future oil cutoffs and to discourage the use of oil as tool for geopolitical leverage. In the event of an interruption, introduction of oil from the reserve on to the market was expected to help calm market-driven crises, mitigate sharp price spikes, and reduce the economic effects of the shocks that had accompanied the 1973 disruption. It was further held that the reserve would buy precious time for any crisis to sort itself out or for diplomacy to seek some resolution before a potentially severe oil shortage escalated the crisis beyond the parameters of state diplomacy.
The International Energy Agency
With energy security as a core mission of the International Energy Agency, there has been a significant effort to foster a communal approach to the issue, with oil stockpiling as a central element. The IEA seeks to cooperate and complement the work of regional organizations such as APEC and ASEAN, and promotes the shared goals of energy security, high economic efficiency, and a cleaner environment.
In terms of stockpiling, the IEA's Agreement on an International Energy Program (IEP) requires participating countries to maintain emergency oil reserves equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports, 7-10% restraint on national oil demand, and to participate in a crisis-allocation system through an Emergency Sharing System. Stocks of IEA net importers have decreased substantially from a peak of 160 days during the mid-1980s to 116 days by July 2001. The decrease in oil stocks was mainly due to industry restructuring, which moved to a "just in time" stockpiling. This decrease in IEA stocks is also expected to continue over the coming decade due to increasing oil imports and a lack of automatic stock adjustments within the IEA economies.
Generally, the IEA holds that stock drawdowns are one of the most concrete and effective emergency response measures. IEA stocks are seen to be adequate to handle a medium-scale disruption of short-to-medium-term duration and larger disruptions of up to 12mbpd (million barrels per day) are also believed to be within IEA control, although only for a limited duration. Industry stocks are seen as less reliable than public stocks, as they are partly needed for operating purposes and are subject to much weaker governmental control.
The ASEAN position on stockpiling
The ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement (APSA), reached in Manila in 1986, formulated an important strategic approach to containing sudden shortfalls in oil supplies. The agreement specifically established an ASEAN Emergency Petroleum Sharing Scheme for petroleum products in times of both shortage and oversupply. In cases of shortage, which the agreement defines as "a critical shortage or when at least one Member Country is in distress", the oil-exporting members of ASEAN would move to aid the affected member state or states. The assistance would be triggered by crises involving cases where the total supply is less than 80% of the normal domestic consumption requirements. Such emergency oil supplies would be limited for domestic consumption in the distressed countries, however.
In times of broader crises, where more than one ASEAN member state is affected, the agreement calls for the distribution to be initially allocated in proportion to their respective normal domestic consumption and exports for the 12-month period prior to the crisis. Since its inception n 1986, APSA has never been actually executed, although it was once nearly implemented during the Gulf War crisis in the early 1990s.
Although such formal ASEAN assistance through shared resources is important in times of regional crises, there has been a recent move recognizing the importance of establishing strategic stocks of oil as a reserve against sudden cuts or shortfalls in oil supplies. According to IEA executive director Robert Priddle, "despite the fact that for many ASEAN nations the cost of maintaining such oil inventories appears prohibitive, such an effective insurance against major economic risks is worth a considerable price".
The imperative for such stockpiling has been bolstered in recent years by the threat to world supply and transport in the wake of September 11 and unease over the implications for instability in the Middle East as a result of the war in Iraq and its postwar uncertainty. Other developments, such as an overall trend of decreasing oil stocks among IEA members for the past 15 years and a steady decline in OPEC spare capacity, have also served to reinforce the importance of such strategic reserves.
Some recent cost benefit analyses of expanding emergency oil stocks have found that, for smaller Asian oil-importing economies, a stockpile covering around 30 days of net imports is optimal. These studies have also recommended a joint stockpiling scheme sharing a common large-scale facility for the APEC region.
Within ASEAN+3 (the Southeast Asian grouping plus China, Japan and South Korea), both Japan and South Korea maintain government-owned emergency petroleum reserve stocks as a strategic protection against short-term disruption in oil supply. As members of the IEA, both Japan and Korea are required by the organization's agreement to hold stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net imports. Both the Japanese and Korean reserves are also reportedly well above that requirement.
The Japanese approach
Japan's vulnerability to disruptions in oil supplies was most profoundly exposed during the global oil crisis of 1973. That first oil crisis affected Japan greatly, both psychologically and economically, and resulted in a sharp reduction in Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) growth, from 5.1% to -0.5%. The crisis was also seen as an embarrassment to the government, with some critics pointing to its failure to foresee or contain the crisis. The shock gave a new impetus to the need for addressing the country's energy security.
By 1975, the Japanese government enacted a stockpiling law, with private requirements creating a 90-day stockpile (government stockpiling was not initiated until 1978, with a 30-million-kiloliter target, later reaching 50 million kiloliters by February 1998). A second oil crisis in 1978 renewed concerns over Japan's vulnerability, with a volatility in oil prices demonstrated by a price rise from US$13.7 per barrel to $34 a barrel by 1980.
During the relatively smaller energy crisis stemming from the Gulf War of 1991, there were no serious supply shortages, although prices did increase sharply. Through this crisis, real GDP growth declined from 5.6% in 1990 to 3.1% in 1991. In 1990, the government announced that private-sector stockpiling would be utilized, increases in stockpiling were postponed, and the private sector was allowed to reduce stockpiling by four days in January 1991 to allow a release of supply. After the Gulf War, 10 sites for a government stockpile were constructed in August 1996.
The current private Japanese stockpile operates according to a 70-day requirement and utilizes existing tanks and facilities in private companies. This private stockpiling system counts oil reserves in transportation, operation and distribution, and counts both crude oil and petroleum products. In contrast, national stockpiling, initiated in 1978-79, uses only storage tanks and counts only crude oil. The Japanese approach to stockpiling, with its priority on a private structure, recognizes a number of advantages and disadvantages to the system.
The Japanese position sees three main advantages to private stockpiling: less time and cost to meet target level; swift, flexible and effective release; and a tendency to reduce panic in the market (stockpiling as a "first aid" kit). There are also three disadvantages identified under the Japanese system: an insufficient amount, and if stock falls below 45 days, it becomes difficult to release; a significant barrier for newcomers, encouraging a need for government subsidy; and less transparency in the market, thereby making it difficult to see or measure the effects of the release.
Overall, the Japanese conclusion is that stockpiling is primarily a government concern, linked to national security, but sees private stockpiling as necessary to obtain swiftness, flexibility, and economizing. Private companies are expected to supply and release stock swiftly and flexibly, and provide accurate and timely information, especially during emergencies. For its part, the Japanese government is expected to recognize and appreciate the function of private stockpiling and provide sufficient political support to the private sector.
According to information provided by Kazuyoshi Takayama of the Nippon Mitsubishi Oil Corp, the Japanese stockpiling system can only be reduced or released ("drawn down") by the government in times of a crisis involving an abrupt disruption in supply, although there is some consideration underway of an implementation of a draw down in cases of severe price fluctuation.
Takayama also pointed to the importance of Russia's (East Siberia) vast resource potential to supply Japan and other East Asian economies. One of the most important appeals of this option is the price competitiveness of Russian energy to the Asian market, making it an important source for import diversification.
Japan's four-part strategy
In addition, Japan has also adopted a number of related measures to buffer the effects of oil disruptions and price volatility. The Japanese approach consists of four parts:
1. Diversification of energy, with a special focus on the alternative sources of nuclear energy and LNG, now accounting for about 13% and 12% respectively, and coal, once Japan's dominant energy source until the shift to oil in 1970s.
2. Sourcing diversification, to offset its high dependence on Middle Eastern oil, seeks to promote other sources of crude oil, from China, Indonesia and Mexico. Imports from these countries declined after the late 1980s because of economic constraints, mainly after the Japanese liberalization and deregulation of the oil industry. Japan also invests in producing crude oil overseas, as the share of Japanese-developed crude oil overseas is about 15% of total oil imports. Overall energy imports from the Middle East have been reduced to about 40%.
3. Energy conservation involving multiple measures: to reduce demand, improve self-sufficiency, reduce emissions, and reduce energy costs. Japan also pursues energy conservation through an improvement of energy efficiency in appliances (micro-energy conservation) and by shifting to less energy-intensive industries (macro-energy conservation). As a result of these policies and financial support, Japan's energy efficiency has improved by almost 30%.
4. Emergency preparedness. driven by experience of oil crises, Japan has established a mandatory private oil stock (currently 70 days); a government (national) stockpile of 50 million kiloliters; and a combined private and national stockpile of 160 days.
The South Korean stockpile
As the world's fourth largest oil importer, there is an acute South Korean appreciation of the need for sufficient oil reserves. The Korean stockpiling system consists of a combination of government (Korea National Oil Corp) and private reserve, with the KNOC storage capacity expected to reach 164 million barrels by 2006. As of June 2001, the KNOC capacity was 132 million barrels (65 days), comprising some 60 million barrels in the government stockpile and 72 million barrels held by the private stockpile. The South Korean government considers the drawing down of the stockpile as authorized in the event of a short-term disruption or to stabilize supply and demand.
There is also a degree of flexibility, with mechanisms allowing for a limited release of a portion of the KNOC stockpile and a temporary lease and redelivery mechanism or "time exchange", which is strictly limited for increasing the stock level. South Korea sees this joint stockpiling between KNOC and private oil producers as a strategic alliance for securing stable supply and demand. KNOC also provides the use of its unused facilities to private oil companies.
The Thai reserve
Thailand is also developing measures to prepare for emergency disruptions in supply. Although Thailand's dependency on energy imports has been substantially reduced in recent years, from 98% in 1980 to 63% in 2000, the Thai fuel import dependency is projected to increase to 70% over the coming decade (for 2000-2010). Thailand's dependency on oil imports has also followed a similar trajectory, decreasing to 55.1% in 2000 from a 1980 level of 93.6%. The Thai approach to energy security is multifaceted and includes measures to promote the development of indigenous energy resources, diversify energy supplies and utilize renewable energy, as well as pursuing greater overall efficiency.
Thailand's current total storage capacity for crude oil is roughly 28 million barrels, and for petroleum products, excluding LPG, about 39 million barrels. The total existing storage capacity, therefore, stands at roughly 67 million barrels, representing about 110 days of consumption (at 2000 levels). Although this is well above the normal working requirements of 40-45 days, Thai officials have reported that actual stocks are lower than the storage capacity. Thailand's six refineries account for nearly all crude-oil storage. For petroleum products, however, oil traders and distributors hold a significant portion of this storage capacity, with 22.2 million barrels compared with 16.8 million barrels held by the refineries.
Currently, Thailand has a limited stockpile, mandated by its Fuel Act of 1978, required to be maintained by the Thai private sector. For crude oil, refineries are required to stock 3% of annual throughput (equivalent to about 11 days), and marketers and importers to stock 3-6% of different petroleum products based on sales, to this mandatory stockpile. Leading experts estimate that for the Thai economy, the ideal stockpile would be of about 27 million barrels by 2010.
Last October, Thai Energy Minister Prommin Lertsuridej signed a memorandum of understanding with Philippine Energy Minister Vincent Perez to conduct a joint feasibility study on petroleum reserves and investment. The Thai Energy Ministry reported that the two countries have pledged to share their existing petroleum facilities under the cooperative agreement in order to strengthen their respective petroleum reserves as well as to create business opportunities.
This is particularly important for the Philippines because of a current shortage in local oil supply. This shortage, due to the government's implementation of a Clean Air Act, has prompted higher imports of refined oil to the country through Subic Bay, where Thai subsidiaries in the Philippines have been granted concessionaires for the oil depots.
The Philippines
Under the leadership of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Philippines has undertaken an economic transformation, deregulating its energy sector and offering new incentives for foreign investment. Although the Philippines was able to increase its crude-oil production from 1,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2001 to an average of 23,512bpd in 2002, the rise in production volume is still modest in relation to the country's needs. The Philippines consumed 342,000bpd on average in 2002, resulting in net oil imports of 318,488bpd.
This dependence on imported oil is compounded by a projected annual increase in oil consumption of 5% over the next several years as economic growth increases demand in most sectors. Oil demand for power generation, however, is expected to decline sharply as many aging oil-fired electric power plants are shut down or converted to burn natural gas. And with more than 90% of the Philippines' oil imports coming from the Middle East, the issue of an oil stockpile is a grave concern. The Philippines has been without any stockpile whatsoever since required contributions ended in 1998.
Indonesia also maintains oil stocks, but these reserves stem from the country's role as an archipelago, ensuring adequate supplies to its islands rather than from a strategic imperative. Thus the Indonesian stocks are not generally thought to be large enough for effective protection in times of crisis.
Conclusion
The imperative for energy security in vulnerable strategic regions as the Asia-Pacific is paramount for global stability and development. The priority of this challenge for the Asia-Pacific region is also no accident, as it is the world's fastest-growing energy consumer, with projected demand to surpass other regions steadily for some time. But it remains to be seen whether this troubled region will be able to forge a collective and cooperative approach in the wake of the daunting challenges and demands posed by the global "war on terrorism" and an increasingly destabilizing unipolar world.
Richard Giragosian is a research associate with the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
Asian allies reap few benefits from joining Iraq fight
scmp - Thursday, August 26, 2004
PETER KAMMERER, Foreign Editor
Asian governments have won few of the rewards the United States promised for participating in the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq.
Those which believed they have gained have actually lost through destabilising street protests, questioning of their pacifist constitutions or high oil prices as a result of the war, observers said yesterday.
With terrorists continuing to threaten members of the "coalition of the willing", some governments are finding the paybacks not worth the political cost.
Thailand, which holds parliamentary elections in five months, begins withdrawing its 443-strong contingent to Kuwait today.
Amid the threat by militants to kill kidnapped Filipinos, the Philippines last month pulled out its 80 troops and banned workers from going to Iraq.
Protests calling for soldiers not to be sent or to come home continue daily in South Korea, Japan and Australia.
Concerns heightened yesterday after an Islamic militant group suspected of links to al-Qaeda threatened to attack South Korean troops and nationals in retaliation for the latest deployments.
Unidentified assailants have fired shells at Japanese soldiers three times this week, the latest on Tuesday near the base in southern Iraq for its 500-strong contingent. No injuries were reported.
That most Asian governments continued to weather the threats and protests indicated they believed the strategic, political and economic benefits were worthwhile - even though few were so far apparent, analysts said.
Andrew Tan Tian Huat, a security expert with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, said international disarray and a fear of terrorism had prompted many countries to strengthen relations with the US.
"Only the US has the global resources to fight the war on terror, which has a very clear salience in Southeast Asia," Dr Tan said. "For that reason, it is important to maintain that relationship."
His colleague, Evelyn Goh, said Singapore had been the main beneficiary in Asia of the relationship.
A free-trade agreement, signed during US President George W. Bush's visit to the region last October, had been pushed through as had a series of security pacts, which would soon be consolidated in a framework agreement.
Singapore sent 200 troops to Iraq; all have returned.
Australia, the US' closest regional ally, has 800 soldiers in Iraq. A series of new military co-operation deals with the US were announced recently and Parliament has also approved a free trade pact. But the executive director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, believed helping with the war in Iraq had more drawbacks than benefits.
"The war has cemented an unhealthily close relationship between Australia and the US and that has meant a downgrading of Australia's relations with the region," he said.
Thai political scientist Chaiwat Khamchoo, of Chulalongkorn University, said a promised free-trade agreement with the US meant little, although American help with tracking down suspected terrorists had been welcome.
In Manila, the executive director of the Institute for Popular Democracy, Joel Rocamora, was more sceptical.
"We had help in fighting terrorists in Mindanao, but that would have happened anyway," he said. "The millions of dollars in funding the US promised has still not materialised and it probably never will now that we have been labelled part of the coalition of the unwilling for pulling our troops out."
Northeast Asian analysts were more positive. Senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Toshihiro Nakayama, said anti-Americanism and debate over whether Japan should be participating in the Iraqi war had been sidelined by concerns about North Korea's nuclear arms programme.
In Seoul, Lee Jung-hoon of Yonsei University said: "In the long run, we want our businesses to have a fair share of opportunities in rebuilding Iraq and the Middle East."
PETER KAMMERER, Foreign Editor
Asian governments have won few of the rewards the United States promised for participating in the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq.
Those which believed they have gained have actually lost through destabilising street protests, questioning of their pacifist constitutions or high oil prices as a result of the war, observers said yesterday.
With terrorists continuing to threaten members of the "coalition of the willing", some governments are finding the paybacks not worth the political cost.
Thailand, which holds parliamentary elections in five months, begins withdrawing its 443-strong contingent to Kuwait today.
Amid the threat by militants to kill kidnapped Filipinos, the Philippines last month pulled out its 80 troops and banned workers from going to Iraq.
Protests calling for soldiers not to be sent or to come home continue daily in South Korea, Japan and Australia.
Concerns heightened yesterday after an Islamic militant group suspected of links to al-Qaeda threatened to attack South Korean troops and nationals in retaliation for the latest deployments.
Unidentified assailants have fired shells at Japanese soldiers three times this week, the latest on Tuesday near the base in southern Iraq for its 500-strong contingent. No injuries were reported.
That most Asian governments continued to weather the threats and protests indicated they believed the strategic, political and economic benefits were worthwhile - even though few were so far apparent, analysts said.
Andrew Tan Tian Huat, a security expert with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, said international disarray and a fear of terrorism had prompted many countries to strengthen relations with the US.
"Only the US has the global resources to fight the war on terror, which has a very clear salience in Southeast Asia," Dr Tan said. "For that reason, it is important to maintain that relationship."
His colleague, Evelyn Goh, said Singapore had been the main beneficiary in Asia of the relationship.
A free-trade agreement, signed during US President George W. Bush's visit to the region last October, had been pushed through as had a series of security pacts, which would soon be consolidated in a framework agreement.
Singapore sent 200 troops to Iraq; all have returned.
Australia, the US' closest regional ally, has 800 soldiers in Iraq. A series of new military co-operation deals with the US were announced recently and Parliament has also approved a free trade pact. But the executive director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, believed helping with the war in Iraq had more drawbacks than benefits.
"The war has cemented an unhealthily close relationship between Australia and the US and that has meant a downgrading of Australia's relations with the region," he said.
Thai political scientist Chaiwat Khamchoo, of Chulalongkorn University, said a promised free-trade agreement with the US meant little, although American help with tracking down suspected terrorists had been welcome.
In Manila, the executive director of the Institute for Popular Democracy, Joel Rocamora, was more sceptical.
"We had help in fighting terrorists in Mindanao, but that would have happened anyway," he said. "The millions of dollars in funding the US promised has still not materialised and it probably never will now that we have been labelled part of the coalition of the unwilling for pulling our troops out."
Northeast Asian analysts were more positive. Senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Toshihiro Nakayama, said anti-Americanism and debate over whether Japan should be participating in the Iraqi war had been sidelined by concerns about North Korea's nuclear arms programme.
In Seoul, Lee Jung-hoon of Yonsei University said: "In the long run, we want our businesses to have a fair share of opportunities in rebuilding Iraq and the Middle East."
Asia faces water catastrophe: scientists
scmp - Thursday, August 26, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Paris
Updated at 11.14am:
Farmers are driving Asian countries towards an environmental catastrophe, using tube wells that are sucking groundwater reserves dry, New Scientist says.
Tens of millions of these wells have been drilled over the past decade, many of them beyond any official control, and powerful electric pumps are being used to haul up the water at a rate that far outstrips replenishment by rainfall, the British weekly says in next Saturday's issue.
The extraction is providing many countries with a lavish harvest in thirsty crops like rice, sugar cane and alfalfa, but the boom is bound to be shortlived, it says.
Indeed, water tables are falling so dramatically that within a short time, some landscapes could become arid or even be transformed into desert, it says, quoting scientists at a worldwide water conference.
In the case of India, smallholder farmers have driven 21 million tube wells into their fields and the number is increasing by a million wells per year.
"Nobody knows where the tube wells are or who owns them. There is no way anyone can control what happens to them," Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater station, based in Gujarat, said.
"When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India."
Half of the country's traditional hand-dug wells have already run dry, as have millions of shallower tube wells, causing some despairing farmers to commit suicide, he said.
In China's north plain, that country's breadbasket, 30 cubic kilometres more water are being extracted each year by farmers than are being replaced by the rain, New Scientist said.
Groundwater is used to produce 40 per cent of the country's grain.
In June, the state paper China Daily admitted that the nation "may be plunged into a water crisis" by 2030 when its population is scheduled to peak at 1.6 billion.
The tube-well revolution, whose technology is adapted from the oil industry, has also swept water-stressed countries like Pakistan and Vietnam, where precious underground reserves are likewise being depleted, New Scientist says.
"Vietnam has quadrupled its number of tube wells in the past decade to one million, and water tables are plunging in the Pakistani state of Punjab, which produces 90 per cent of the country's food."
The scientists spoke at the Stockholm Water Symposium, a conference held in the Swedish capital last week.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Paris
Updated at 11.14am:
Farmers are driving Asian countries towards an environmental catastrophe, using tube wells that are sucking groundwater reserves dry, New Scientist says.
Tens of millions of these wells have been drilled over the past decade, many of them beyond any official control, and powerful electric pumps are being used to haul up the water at a rate that far outstrips replenishment by rainfall, the British weekly says in next Saturday's issue.
The extraction is providing many countries with a lavish harvest in thirsty crops like rice, sugar cane and alfalfa, but the boom is bound to be shortlived, it says.
Indeed, water tables are falling so dramatically that within a short time, some landscapes could become arid or even be transformed into desert, it says, quoting scientists at a worldwide water conference.
In the case of India, smallholder farmers have driven 21 million tube wells into their fields and the number is increasing by a million wells per year.
"Nobody knows where the tube wells are or who owns them. There is no way anyone can control what happens to them," Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater station, based in Gujarat, said.
"When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India."
Half of the country's traditional hand-dug wells have already run dry, as have millions of shallower tube wells, causing some despairing farmers to commit suicide, he said.
In China's north plain, that country's breadbasket, 30 cubic kilometres more water are being extracted each year by farmers than are being replaced by the rain, New Scientist said.
Groundwater is used to produce 40 per cent of the country's grain.
In June, the state paper China Daily admitted that the nation "may be plunged into a water crisis" by 2030 when its population is scheduled to peak at 1.6 billion.
The tube-well revolution, whose technology is adapted from the oil industry, has also swept water-stressed countries like Pakistan and Vietnam, where precious underground reserves are likewise being depleted, New Scientist says.
"Vietnam has quadrupled its number of tube wells in the past decade to one million, and water tables are plunging in the Pakistani state of Punjab, which produces 90 per cent of the country's food."
The scientists spoke at the Stockholm Water Symposium, a conference held in the Swedish capital last week.
Influx of Han Chinese leaves Tibetans out in the cold
scmp - Thursday, August 26, 2004
REUTERS in Lhasa
Zhang Jun says his two-storey frosted glass and chrome beauty salon near the Tibetan capital's imposing Potala Palace is the biggest in town.
With his slick black moustache and chunky gold necklace, the ethnic Han Chinese dominates the front desk of Yiren Beautiful Face and Hair Centre in Lhasa , barking out orders in Putonghua to more than 90 employees, all in matching sugar-pink uniforms.
To outsiders - and to Tibetans - the stream of ethnic Chinese moving to the "Roof of the World" appears to have swollen into a flood.
Officials say the trend is natural and tersely dismiss suggestions that it is a result of an official strategy to dilute the Tibetan population. Overseas Tibetan activists say the move is equal to ethnic and cultural genocide.
Like most of his hair stylists, manicurists and masseuses, Mr Zhang hails from neighbouring, heavily populated Sichuan province . He set up shop in Lhasa nearly 15 years ago.
He is part of the Han Chinese migration, a term officials refuse to use because it does not fit the party line - that the autonomous region is part of greater China.
"I want to say that the ethnic Chinese migration does not exist. China is a unified economic body, movement around the country has no restrictions, movement is ruled by the nation's market economy," said Yu Heping, deputy director-general of the Tibetan Autonomous Region's Development and Reform Committee. "There is no such question of an ethnic Chinese migration."
Officials may also be playing a numbers game because many ethnic Han Chinese arrivals slip under the official count by failing to register for residence permits.
Officials claim nearly 90 per cent of the population of Lhasa are ethnic Tibetans.
But a Tibetan woman running a small corner snack shop shakes her head. "There's no way that Tibetans are that large a percentage here. It's more like 50 per cent," she said.
Slipping through the cracks are Han Chinese such as Mr Zhang and his brood of workers. "All of my employees are still officially registered as residents of their home towns," he said. "I'm not an official resident of Lhasa, either."
Despite the high income he earns from up to 400 customers a day, Mr Zhang's status in Lhasa is that of a lowly migrant worker.
Lhasa city officials decline to reveal population figures adjusted to account for unregistered residents. But critics say Beijing's push to develop the plateau leaves behind the group that should benefit the most - the 2.7 million Tibetans.
Inside Mr Zhang's salon, among the voices above the hum of the hairdryers - not a word of Tibetan can be heard. "We don't hire Tibetans because ... the educated ones prefer to work for the local government," Mr Zhang said. "And the ones with no education aren't suitable for working here."
Officials said Tibet needed skilled labour and investment from other regions to maintain the plateau's gross domestic product, which was 18.4 billion yuan last year.
To step up investment, the government has introduced a range of preferential tax, financial and real estate policies. Mr Zhang said his salon was built with the help of these policies but he gave few details. "The government gives us all kinds of special deals," he said.
And it is equal opportunity for those ready to set up shop.
"Ethnic Chinese, Tibetan and all other minority groups enjoy the same benefits of the preferential policies," said Wu Jilie, vice-minister of the Tibetan Autonomous Region's government.
So why aren't Tibetans jumping at the chance? "They are better at doing things that involve their traditional culture," Mr Zhang said.
But even those Tibetans who do set up a business say they are troubled by the Han Chinese influx. On the Barkhor pilgrim circuit around Jokhang Temple, stalls are being taken over by Han Chinese.
"There are too many Chinese here," said Lhatzo, a 31-year-old Tibetan with a stall in Barkhor's silver market. "Business is getting worse month to month and year to year."
She particularly resents the growing number of Han Chinese tour guides who bypass her stall to favour their ethnic Chinese friends who will hand over a fat under-the-table commission.
REUTERS in Lhasa
Zhang Jun says his two-storey frosted glass and chrome beauty salon near the Tibetan capital's imposing Potala Palace is the biggest in town.
With his slick black moustache and chunky gold necklace, the ethnic Han Chinese dominates the front desk of Yiren Beautiful Face and Hair Centre in Lhasa , barking out orders in Putonghua to more than 90 employees, all in matching sugar-pink uniforms.
To outsiders - and to Tibetans - the stream of ethnic Chinese moving to the "Roof of the World" appears to have swollen into a flood.
Officials say the trend is natural and tersely dismiss suggestions that it is a result of an official strategy to dilute the Tibetan population. Overseas Tibetan activists say the move is equal to ethnic and cultural genocide.
Like most of his hair stylists, manicurists and masseuses, Mr Zhang hails from neighbouring, heavily populated Sichuan province . He set up shop in Lhasa nearly 15 years ago.
He is part of the Han Chinese migration, a term officials refuse to use because it does not fit the party line - that the autonomous region is part of greater China.
"I want to say that the ethnic Chinese migration does not exist. China is a unified economic body, movement around the country has no restrictions, movement is ruled by the nation's market economy," said Yu Heping, deputy director-general of the Tibetan Autonomous Region's Development and Reform Committee. "There is no such question of an ethnic Chinese migration."
Officials may also be playing a numbers game because many ethnic Han Chinese arrivals slip under the official count by failing to register for residence permits.
Officials claim nearly 90 per cent of the population of Lhasa are ethnic Tibetans.
But a Tibetan woman running a small corner snack shop shakes her head. "There's no way that Tibetans are that large a percentage here. It's more like 50 per cent," she said.
Slipping through the cracks are Han Chinese such as Mr Zhang and his brood of workers. "All of my employees are still officially registered as residents of their home towns," he said. "I'm not an official resident of Lhasa, either."
Despite the high income he earns from up to 400 customers a day, Mr Zhang's status in Lhasa is that of a lowly migrant worker.
Lhasa city officials decline to reveal population figures adjusted to account for unregistered residents. But critics say Beijing's push to develop the plateau leaves behind the group that should benefit the most - the 2.7 million Tibetans.
Inside Mr Zhang's salon, among the voices above the hum of the hairdryers - not a word of Tibetan can be heard. "We don't hire Tibetans because ... the educated ones prefer to work for the local government," Mr Zhang said. "And the ones with no education aren't suitable for working here."
Officials said Tibet needed skilled labour and investment from other regions to maintain the plateau's gross domestic product, which was 18.4 billion yuan last year.
To step up investment, the government has introduced a range of preferential tax, financial and real estate policies. Mr Zhang said his salon was built with the help of these policies but he gave few details. "The government gives us all kinds of special deals," he said.
And it is equal opportunity for those ready to set up shop.
"Ethnic Chinese, Tibetan and all other minority groups enjoy the same benefits of the preferential policies," said Wu Jilie, vice-minister of the Tibetan Autonomous Region's government.
So why aren't Tibetans jumping at the chance? "They are better at doing things that involve their traditional culture," Mr Zhang said.
But even those Tibetans who do set up a business say they are troubled by the Han Chinese influx. On the Barkhor pilgrim circuit around Jokhang Temple, stalls are being taken over by Han Chinese.
"There are too many Chinese here," said Lhatzo, a 31-year-old Tibetan with a stall in Barkhor's silver market. "Business is getting worse month to month and year to year."
She particularly resents the growing number of Han Chinese tour guides who bypass her stall to favour their ethnic Chinese friends who will hand over a fat under-the-table commission.
New 2,000-strong air marshal force starts work: report
scmp - Thursday, August 26, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 5.47pm:
China's new 2,000-strong air marshal force has started work on international and domestic routes after nearly three years of preparations triggered by the September 11 attacks, state media said on Thursday.
The plain-clothes force is being deployed on more than 1,000 flights, and on some "sensitive" routes they would be assisted by additional security personnel, the China Youth Daily reported.
Airport security was good already, making hijackings and other acts of terrorism relatively rare in China, which means the air marshals may not have much work to do, the paper said.
So they would be charged with additional jobs such as stopping passengers from smoking or using cellphones, or preventing them from taking other passengers' seats, according to the paper.
The report did not address the issue of how this additional list of responsibilities might compromise the need for air marshals to be strictly undercover and unrecognisable to potential terrorists.
Sixty per cent of the new force is made up of existing airline security personnel who have received extra training, with volunteers from the police force making up the rest.
All have been given rigorous courses in arrest techniques, negotiating tactics and crisis management, the report said.
Despite the paper's claim of the rarity of terrorism on board Chinese planes, China has seen a number of hijack attempts.
The most recent case was in July when a mentally ill man threatened to spray acid over passengers on an Air China plane from Beijing unless he was flown to South Korea.
In February last year a man demanding to be taken to Taiwan started a fire using fuel hidden in a drinks can on an Air China fight from Beijing to southeastern Fuzhou city. He was subdued by onboard security personnel and the plane landed safely with 149 passengers.
Not all in-flight sabotage attempts have had happy endings.
In May 2002, a cancer patient started a fire on a plane in an apparent suicide attempt so his family could cash in on his flight insurance, causing the plane to plunge into the ocean, killing all 103 passengers and nine crew.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 5.47pm:
China's new 2,000-strong air marshal force has started work on international and domestic routes after nearly three years of preparations triggered by the September 11 attacks, state media said on Thursday.
The plain-clothes force is being deployed on more than 1,000 flights, and on some "sensitive" routes they would be assisted by additional security personnel, the China Youth Daily reported.
Airport security was good already, making hijackings and other acts of terrorism relatively rare in China, which means the air marshals may not have much work to do, the paper said.
So they would be charged with additional jobs such as stopping passengers from smoking or using cellphones, or preventing them from taking other passengers' seats, according to the paper.
The report did not address the issue of how this additional list of responsibilities might compromise the need for air marshals to be strictly undercover and unrecognisable to potential terrorists.
Sixty per cent of the new force is made up of existing airline security personnel who have received extra training, with volunteers from the police force making up the rest.
All have been given rigorous courses in arrest techniques, negotiating tactics and crisis management, the report said.
Despite the paper's claim of the rarity of terrorism on board Chinese planes, China has seen a number of hijack attempts.
The most recent case was in July when a mentally ill man threatened to spray acid over passengers on an Air China plane from Beijing unless he was flown to South Korea.
In February last year a man demanding to be taken to Taiwan started a fire using fuel hidden in a drinks can on an Air China fight from Beijing to southeastern Fuzhou city. He was subdued by onboard security personnel and the plane landed safely with 149 passengers.
Not all in-flight sabotage attempts have had happy endings.
In May 2002, a cancer patient started a fire on a plane in an apparent suicide attempt so his family could cash in on his flight insurance, causing the plane to plunge into the ocean, killing all 103 passengers and nine crew.
Hopes fade in Tibet for return of Dalai Lama
SCMP - Monday, August 23, 2004
REUTERS in Lhasa
It is 45 years since Tibet's god-king, the Dalai Lama, fled his homeland on horseback - and some Tibetans have given up hope of seeing him again, at least not in his present incarnation.
"Many Tibetans believe the 14th Dalai Lama is the last of the Dalai Lamas," said 21-year-old road worker Migma Tsering.
"The Dalai Lama is the main figure for Tibetans - they trust him. But many Tibetans believe the 14th is the last of the Dalai Lamas," he said, speaking in a corner shop run by his sister near Lhasa's Jokhang temple, the holiest Tibetan shrine where the Dalai Lama's throne has been kept empty since 1959 in readiness for his homecoming.
"It is the Dalai Lama that I believe in. When he dies, I may give up Buddhism."
Many Tibetans still regard the Dalai Lama as their spiritual and temporal leader and say privately they yearn for his return.
References to the Dalai Lama in the mainland's state-run media often drip with venom, calling him a "splittist" or separatist bent on dividing Tibet from China.
At Sera monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa , a sprawling conglomeration of white-washed buildings with golden roofs, groups of monks from among the maximum 600 allowed to live there by government rule held an outdoor debate.
Standing in the centre of a circle of about six colleagues, a monk would fire back answers to questions on doctrine posed by his colleagues, maroon robes sweeping the ground as he bent towards a questioner and clapped his hands to make a point.
One 28-year-old monk said he had lived at Sera - famed in the past for its warrior monks - for 15 years.
Smiling shyly, the young man tried for diplomacy when asked whether his allegiance lay with the Dalai Lama or with Tibet's second most senior spiritual leader, the Panchen Lama, who made a visit to Xigaze, 220km west of Lhasa, at the weekend to pay his respects to his predecessors. "In my heart, both of them are there. They are my Buddha," he said.
But then emotion appeared to defeat tact and political expediency. "To be honest, both are important, but in my heart the Dalai Lama does have a higher place, and then the Panchen Lama after that.
"I don't know why. That is just how my heart thinks."
REUTERS in Lhasa
It is 45 years since Tibet's god-king, the Dalai Lama, fled his homeland on horseback - and some Tibetans have given up hope of seeing him again, at least not in his present incarnation.
"Many Tibetans believe the 14th Dalai Lama is the last of the Dalai Lamas," said 21-year-old road worker Migma Tsering.
"The Dalai Lama is the main figure for Tibetans - they trust him. But many Tibetans believe the 14th is the last of the Dalai Lamas," he said, speaking in a corner shop run by his sister near Lhasa's Jokhang temple, the holiest Tibetan shrine where the Dalai Lama's throne has been kept empty since 1959 in readiness for his homecoming.
"It is the Dalai Lama that I believe in. When he dies, I may give up Buddhism."
Many Tibetans still regard the Dalai Lama as their spiritual and temporal leader and say privately they yearn for his return.
References to the Dalai Lama in the mainland's state-run media often drip with venom, calling him a "splittist" or separatist bent on dividing Tibet from China.
At Sera monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa , a sprawling conglomeration of white-washed buildings with golden roofs, groups of monks from among the maximum 600 allowed to live there by government rule held an outdoor debate.
Standing in the centre of a circle of about six colleagues, a monk would fire back answers to questions on doctrine posed by his colleagues, maroon robes sweeping the ground as he bent towards a questioner and clapped his hands to make a point.
One 28-year-old monk said he had lived at Sera - famed in the past for its warrior monks - for 15 years.
Smiling shyly, the young man tried for diplomacy when asked whether his allegiance lay with the Dalai Lama or with Tibet's second most senior spiritual leader, the Panchen Lama, who made a visit to Xigaze, 220km west of Lhasa, at the weekend to pay his respects to his predecessors. "In my heart, both of them are there. They are my Buddha," he said.
But then emotion appeared to defeat tact and political expediency. "To be honest, both are important, but in my heart the Dalai Lama does have a higher place, and then the Panchen Lama after that.
"I don't know why. That is just how my heart thinks."
Expatriates are the latest growth industry for Macau
scmp - Monday, August 23, 2004
FREDA WAN in Macau
A rising number of foreigners living in Macau, coupled with increasing foreign investment in the tourism and gaming sectors, has prompted some countries to appoint representatives to serve their citizens in the city.
Estimating that 1,000 US citizens now live in Macau, the United States consulate in Hong Kong has appointed a warden.
As the new warden, Reggie Martin, who is manager at the Westin Resort Macau, provides American citizens and travellers with information on visas, voting and security warnings.
"American companies like the Venetian, MGM and Wynn Resorts are going to build huge resorts. At the management level they will probably bring in Americans."
Compared with the population of 450,000, the expatriate community in the former Portuguese enclave is still small.
In the first six months of this year, an average of 7,119 US nationals and 3,463 British nationals per month visited Macau - an insignificant percentage compared with the monthly average of 746,441 mainland visitors.
But consulates in Hong Kong, including those of the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and France, all expect the number of foreigners living in Macau to creep up.
Britain, with an estimated 500 citizens living in Macau, is expecting more British companies to do business there or use Macau as a stepping stone into the mainland.
"Macau's future is extremely exciting with all the new gaming infrastructure and tourism facilities being developed," said Glenn McCartney, appointed as British honorary consul this spring.
Mr McCartney teaches at the Institute for Tourism Studies in Macau.
"We will be attracting even more British people who want to come to Macau for a holiday as well as to live and invest here."
Other expatriate communities are well established in Macau. The Macau Water Supply Company chief executive and an executive director of Macau's electricity company, Companhia de Electricidade de Macau, are both French, among an estimated 100 to 120 French citizens living in the city.
Wan Wai-lun, spokesman for the Australian consulate in Hong Kong, estimated there were about 200 to 250 Australian citizens in Macau.
"From our observations, the numbers are definitely increasing."
FREDA WAN in Macau
A rising number of foreigners living in Macau, coupled with increasing foreign investment in the tourism and gaming sectors, has prompted some countries to appoint representatives to serve their citizens in the city.
Estimating that 1,000 US citizens now live in Macau, the United States consulate in Hong Kong has appointed a warden.
As the new warden, Reggie Martin, who is manager at the Westin Resort Macau, provides American citizens and travellers with information on visas, voting and security warnings.
"American companies like the Venetian, MGM and Wynn Resorts are going to build huge resorts. At the management level they will probably bring in Americans."
Compared with the population of 450,000, the expatriate community in the former Portuguese enclave is still small.
In the first six months of this year, an average of 7,119 US nationals and 3,463 British nationals per month visited Macau - an insignificant percentage compared with the monthly average of 746,441 mainland visitors.
But consulates in Hong Kong, including those of the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and France, all expect the number of foreigners living in Macau to creep up.
Britain, with an estimated 500 citizens living in Macau, is expecting more British companies to do business there or use Macau as a stepping stone into the mainland.
"Macau's future is extremely exciting with all the new gaming infrastructure and tourism facilities being developed," said Glenn McCartney, appointed as British honorary consul this spring.
Mr McCartney teaches at the Institute for Tourism Studies in Macau.
"We will be attracting even more British people who want to come to Macau for a holiday as well as to live and invest here."
Other expatriate communities are well established in Macau. The Macau Water Supply Company chief executive and an executive director of Macau's electricity company, Companhia de Electricidade de Macau, are both French, among an estimated 100 to 120 French citizens living in the city.
Wan Wai-lun, spokesman for the Australian consulate in Hong Kong, estimated there were about 200 to 250 Australian citizens in Macau.
"From our observations, the numbers are definitely increasing."
Indonesian court jails Papuan separatist to 10 years: report
scmp - 20Thursday, August 12, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Jakarta
Updated at 1.54pm:
A court in Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, in the throes a decades-old low-level insurgency, has sentenced a man to 10 years in jail for treason, a report said on Thursday.
Yance Hembring, 50, was proven guilty of instigating a rebellion against the state and had voiced no remorse over his action, the Jakarta Post newspaper said.
Hembring, according to Judge Sugiharto of the court in Papua's Jayapura, had taken part in several meetings in 2003 and 2004 to discuss the province's independence and the method to be used to secede from Indonesia.
The meeting agreed to call for an international referendum to determine the future of Papua and he also set up a secretariat for the separatist Free Papua Organisation to facilitate secession aims.
Hembring, who was arrested in January while chairing a meeting at the secretariat, has admitted being a Free Papua leader since 1999.
Prosecutors had recommended a 15 year jail sentence.
The Free Papua Organisation has been fighting a sporadic and low-level guerilla war since 1963 when Indonesia took over the huge mountainous and undeveloped territory from Dutch colonisers.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Jakarta
Updated at 1.54pm:
A court in Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, in the throes a decades-old low-level insurgency, has sentenced a man to 10 years in jail for treason, a report said on Thursday.
Yance Hembring, 50, was proven guilty of instigating a rebellion against the state and had voiced no remorse over his action, the Jakarta Post newspaper said.
Hembring, according to Judge Sugiharto of the court in Papua's Jayapura, had taken part in several meetings in 2003 and 2004 to discuss the province's independence and the method to be used to secede from Indonesia.
The meeting agreed to call for an international referendum to determine the future of Papua and he also set up a secretariat for the separatist Free Papua Organisation to facilitate secession aims.
Hembring, who was arrested in January while chairing a meeting at the secretariat, has admitted being a Free Papua leader since 1999.
Prosecutors had recommended a 15 year jail sentence.
The Free Papua Organisation has been fighting a sporadic and low-level guerilla war since 1963 when Indonesia took over the huge mountainous and undeveloped territory from Dutch colonisers.
Deng made the tough calls on my watch, says Li Peng
SCMP - Wednesday, August 18, 2004
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
It was Deng Xiaoping who "resolutely backed" the crackdown on the "1989 political disturbance" and insisted on building Guangdong's Daya Bay nuclear plant and the Three Gorges Dam, according to former premier Li Peng .
Writing in the Communist Party journal Seeking Truth, Mr Li said the three most controversial decisions he made during his premiership were all the ideas of the former patriarch.
"In the spring and summer of 1989, a serious political disturbance took place in China," wrote Mr Li, who has rarely referred directly to the incident publicly. "Comrade Deng Xiaoping - along with other party elders - gave the party leadership their firm and full support to put down the political disturbance using forceful measures."
Mr Li also wrote that it was Deng who decided to ignore opposition in Hong Kong and pushed for the construction of the nuclear power plant at Daya Bay.
Deng also supported the Three Gorges Dam project with which Mr Li is closely associated. "Everybody knows that he was the main decision maker behind the Three Gorges Dam project," Mr Li wrote. In a rare revelation of his feelings when he became premier in 1988, Mr Li described himself as a timid apprentice who needed encouragement from the former patriarch to face the daunting task.
"Comrade Xiaoping said: What I am worried is that you are not bold enough to carry out your work. You have to learn hard and train yourself in work in order to make yourself more mature," Mr Li recalled.
Seeking Truth published articles by other former leaders to mark the centenary of Deng's birth, but Mr Li's was the only article to refer directly to the 1989 military crackdown.
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
It was Deng Xiaoping who "resolutely backed" the crackdown on the "1989 political disturbance" and insisted on building Guangdong's Daya Bay nuclear plant and the Three Gorges Dam, according to former premier Li Peng .
Writing in the Communist Party journal Seeking Truth, Mr Li said the three most controversial decisions he made during his premiership were all the ideas of the former patriarch.
"In the spring and summer of 1989, a serious political disturbance took place in China," wrote Mr Li, who has rarely referred directly to the incident publicly. "Comrade Deng Xiaoping - along with other party elders - gave the party leadership their firm and full support to put down the political disturbance using forceful measures."
Mr Li also wrote that it was Deng who decided to ignore opposition in Hong Kong and pushed for the construction of the nuclear power plant at Daya Bay.
Deng also supported the Three Gorges Dam project with which Mr Li is closely associated. "Everybody knows that he was the main decision maker behind the Three Gorges Dam project," Mr Li wrote. In a rare revelation of his feelings when he became premier in 1988, Mr Li described himself as a timid apprentice who needed encouragement from the former patriarch to face the daunting task.
"Comrade Xiaoping said: What I am worried is that you are not bold enough to carry out your work. You have to learn hard and train yourself in work in order to make yourself more mature," Mr Li recalled.
Seeking Truth published articles by other former leaders to mark the centenary of Deng's birth, but Mr Li's was the only article to refer directly to the 1989 military crackdown.
Two Uygurs executed for separatism
SCMP - Saturday, August 14, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
The mainland has executed two Muslims who were among 18 Uygurs convicted of separatism in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang .
The group, alleged members of the little-known East Turkestan People's Party, were sentenced on July 21 by the Intermediate People's Court in Aksu in Xinjiang, said Ma Lin, deputy director of the court.
Two were sentenced to death and had been executed, while two were sentenced to life in prison.
The Aksu court could not be reached for comment.
A spokesman for the Uygur activist group World Uygur Congress, based in Germany, said the other 14 defendants were sentenced to between five and 20 years in prison.
"Some of them were businessmen, some were religious people. Others had been harassed by the Chinese government," said the spokesman Dilxat Raxit.
All 18 defendants were charged with illegally organising a political party, using armed tactics to split the country, concealing guns, ammunition and explosives, and illegally producing, buying, selling and transporting weapons and explosives.
The court official did not name the defendants, but Mr Raxit said the two executed men were Akmed Tash, president of the group, and treasurer Lokman Mamet.
The case highlights what many believe is growing dissatisfaction among Uygurs in the mainland, given Beijing's stepped up crackdown against them after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
The mainland has executed two Muslims who were among 18 Uygurs convicted of separatism in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang .
The group, alleged members of the little-known East Turkestan People's Party, were sentenced on July 21 by the Intermediate People's Court in Aksu in Xinjiang, said Ma Lin, deputy director of the court.
Two were sentenced to death and had been executed, while two were sentenced to life in prison.
The Aksu court could not be reached for comment.
A spokesman for the Uygur activist group World Uygur Congress, based in Germany, said the other 14 defendants were sentenced to between five and 20 years in prison.
"Some of them were businessmen, some were religious people. Others had been harassed by the Chinese government," said the spokesman Dilxat Raxit.
All 18 defendants were charged with illegally organising a political party, using armed tactics to split the country, concealing guns, ammunition and explosives, and illegally producing, buying, selling and transporting weapons and explosives.
The court official did not name the defendants, but Mr Raxit said the two executed men were Akmed Tash, president of the group, and treasurer Lokman Mamet.
The case highlights what many believe is growing dissatisfaction among Uygurs in the mainland, given Beijing's stepped up crackdown against them after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Oil price rise poses huge risk to Asia
SCMP - Saturday, August 14, 2004
PETER KAMMERER, Foreign Editor
Asian countries risk losing the economic gains made since the 1997 financial crisis if crude oil prices remain high, analysts said this week.
With inflation already rising in some countries as prices hover at near-record levels, governments are looking for ways to cushion the impact.
Subsidies on oil products, most evident in Malaysia and Thailand, are under increasing strain, prompting emergency meetings of energy officials.
Oil has also become political for candidates in next month's presidential election in Indonesia, and the Philippines' recently elected president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is controversially considering a petrol tax to raise much-needed revenue.
Prices could also be a significant factor in next year's general elections in Thailand if they remain high.
A recent study by the inter-governmental International Energy Agency concluded that if high oil prices were sustained for a year, Thailand would lose 1.8 per cent of gross domestic product, the Philippines 1.6 per cent and India 1 per cent.
Oil exporting nations China and Malaysia would be less exposed, although would still experience respective cuts in GDP of 0.8 per cent and less than 0.4 per cent.
The director of the agency's oil markets and emergency preparedness office, Kenji Kobayashi, said on Thursday the impact for Asia would be considerable given the region's high dependence on oil imports.
Although Asia produces only 10 per cent of the world's oil, it uses more than a quarter of global supplies. Industrialisation has created expanding demand, most notably in China and India. Oil imports are estimated to have cost India US$15 billion - about 3 per cent of GDP - last year.
"Sustained oil prices of US$45 a barrel and above will cause inflation in coming months followed by a hampering of economic growth," Mr Kobayashi warned from his Paris office.
"They have to make efforts in their macro-economic and energy policies to reduce the effects."
Although Asian countries have been turning to natural gas and improving energy conservation, oil remains the primary power source.
The Singapore-based head of the Centennial Group consultancy's economic research practice, Manu Bhaskaran, concluded that China, India, South Korea and Thailand would be worst hit by rising prices. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore were better placed to weather any economic turmoil.
Global growth would slow as oil prices rose, reducing the demand for exports from the region, he said. The more open a country's economy, the greater the impact.
Malaysia was better placed than most other countries because of the revenues it would earn from higher oil prices. Indonesia was also in this situation, although would benefit to a lesser extent, Mr Bhaskaran said.
Singapore, which had become oil-rich because of its role as a major oil refining centre, would also gain through increased refinery margins. Higher global prices also meant more oil and gas exploration in the region.
Nonetheless, Malaysia on Thursday said it would have to review subsidies because losses to the government were becoming a burden.
Indonesia, Thailand and India would also have to rethink their subsidies, Mr Bhaskaran said.
"Higher oil prices have created policy dilemmas for governments," he said. "Raising oil prices means inflation goes up and that affects the economy. They're caught in a bind, but they have no choice but to bite the bullet."
Asian Development Bank economist Park Cyn-young determined in a study of the impact of a US$10 a barrel oil price rise on 10 Asian countries that the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore would fare worst. Trade balances would be impacted the most.
If oil prices were to remain above US$40 a barrel until the end of next year, inflation in Asia, not including Japan, would rise by more than 1 per cent and real income would fall by 0.8 per cent, or US$28.8 billion, her report said.
But Ms Park doubted this week that the present price rises would be as severe in impact as those in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Even at US$50 a barrel, Asian countries will be able to cope," Ms Park said.
PETER KAMMERER, Foreign Editor
Asian countries risk losing the economic gains made since the 1997 financial crisis if crude oil prices remain high, analysts said this week.
With inflation already rising in some countries as prices hover at near-record levels, governments are looking for ways to cushion the impact.
Subsidies on oil products, most evident in Malaysia and Thailand, are under increasing strain, prompting emergency meetings of energy officials.
Oil has also become political for candidates in next month's presidential election in Indonesia, and the Philippines' recently elected president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is controversially considering a petrol tax to raise much-needed revenue.
Prices could also be a significant factor in next year's general elections in Thailand if they remain high.
A recent study by the inter-governmental International Energy Agency concluded that if high oil prices were sustained for a year, Thailand would lose 1.8 per cent of gross domestic product, the Philippines 1.6 per cent and India 1 per cent.
Oil exporting nations China and Malaysia would be less exposed, although would still experience respective cuts in GDP of 0.8 per cent and less than 0.4 per cent.
The director of the agency's oil markets and emergency preparedness office, Kenji Kobayashi, said on Thursday the impact for Asia would be considerable given the region's high dependence on oil imports.
Although Asia produces only 10 per cent of the world's oil, it uses more than a quarter of global supplies. Industrialisation has created expanding demand, most notably in China and India. Oil imports are estimated to have cost India US$15 billion - about 3 per cent of GDP - last year.
"Sustained oil prices of US$45 a barrel and above will cause inflation in coming months followed by a hampering of economic growth," Mr Kobayashi warned from his Paris office.
"They have to make efforts in their macro-economic and energy policies to reduce the effects."
Although Asian countries have been turning to natural gas and improving energy conservation, oil remains the primary power source.
The Singapore-based head of the Centennial Group consultancy's economic research practice, Manu Bhaskaran, concluded that China, India, South Korea and Thailand would be worst hit by rising prices. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore were better placed to weather any economic turmoil.
Global growth would slow as oil prices rose, reducing the demand for exports from the region, he said. The more open a country's economy, the greater the impact.
Malaysia was better placed than most other countries because of the revenues it would earn from higher oil prices. Indonesia was also in this situation, although would benefit to a lesser extent, Mr Bhaskaran said.
Singapore, which had become oil-rich because of its role as a major oil refining centre, would also gain through increased refinery margins. Higher global prices also meant more oil and gas exploration in the region.
Nonetheless, Malaysia on Thursday said it would have to review subsidies because losses to the government were becoming a burden.
Indonesia, Thailand and India would also have to rethink their subsidies, Mr Bhaskaran said.
"Higher oil prices have created policy dilemmas for governments," he said. "Raising oil prices means inflation goes up and that affects the economy. They're caught in a bind, but they have no choice but to bite the bullet."
Asian Development Bank economist Park Cyn-young determined in a study of the impact of a US$10 a barrel oil price rise on 10 Asian countries that the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore would fare worst. Trade balances would be impacted the most.
If oil prices were to remain above US$40 a barrel until the end of next year, inflation in Asia, not including Japan, would rise by more than 1 per cent and real income would fall by 0.8 per cent, or US$28.8 billion, her report said.
But Ms Park doubted this week that the present price rises would be as severe in impact as those in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Even at US$50 a barrel, Asian countries will be able to cope," Ms Park said.
Can America handle China's rise?
SCMP - Saturday, August 14, 2004
TOM PLATE
The China question has yet to surface in the US presidential election. Perhaps this is just as well. The surge of China presents the west in general, and the United States in particular, with vexing questions. Should US policy accommodate the all-but-inevitable? Or should it seek to contain the surge, or perhaps somehow unplug it?
Within the Bush administration, whatever its faults, these issues do get debated. And sometimes these policy conflicts surface in the media and, embarrassingly, make you wonder if this US administration is operating a "two-China" policy.
One group argues for the in-your-face approach: step over this line and we will blow those from the Middle Kingdom back to the Middle Ages. This mentality was reflected in misconceived media claims recently that the US was despatching seven aircraft carrier groups to encircle China to force it to back away from a Taiwan confrontation. It was also evident in the melodramatic renditions of Admiral Thomas Fargo's recent trip to China, when the commander of US forces in the Pacific was depicted as practically wagging his finger in the face of the Chinese. The Bush administration has moved more forces into the region - not aircraft carriers, but B-52 bombers - to compensate (symbolically at least) for the redeployment of some US ground troops from South Korea to Iraq. The point here is not China, but North Korea. And no high-level US representative in China will engage in finger-wagging again, especially after the experience of former secretary of state Warren Christopher: After delivering a human rights dressing-down in the early 1990s, he was in effect shown the door and escorted to the airport.
Instead, the more nuanced view in today's Republican Party emphasises China's determination to become a great power once again. This helps explain both Beijing's reunification fixation with Taiwan and its willingness, at the same time, to play ball with the US on peripheral issues (Bosnia, even Iraq) that do not damage its core interests. But understanding China leads logically to a much tougher set of questions. China, according to James Baker, the US secretary of state under George Bush senior, "is in the midst of a great transformation of truly historic proportions". American policy, he said, must wish for China to emerge "as a fully fledged member of the community of democratic and peaceful nations".
But that view slyly conceals as much as it reveals. It is true that China could transform itself into a democratic and peaceful regional power. It is also possible that China might emerge as a non-democratic and non-peaceful global power. The world geopolitical community is presumably spacious - and indeed gracious - enough to accommodate the former, but not the latter.
That is clear enough. What is less clear is whether the US will accept any significant challenge to its pre-eminence, whether from a China that is peaceful and democratic or one that is otherwise. A US determined to maintain its position as top global dog would presumably give ground only grudgingly to an "inexorable" China rise. If it proves hard for a proud America to go down without a fight, the only real issue(and the Chinese may have come to this conclusion) is perhaps the form and nature of that fight.
From this perspective, putting China on constant edge with finger-pointing lectures and testosterone-arousing naval manoeuvres would not seem to be the smartest approach to slowing down the inexorable rise. If the US wants China's "transformation" not to come at the expense of its diminution, Washington needs a better policy than an aggressive posture that puts China on constant red alert. The best approach would help China modernise without turning it into a monster.
Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, is founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network.
TOM PLATE
The China question has yet to surface in the US presidential election. Perhaps this is just as well. The surge of China presents the west in general, and the United States in particular, with vexing questions. Should US policy accommodate the all-but-inevitable? Or should it seek to contain the surge, or perhaps somehow unplug it?
Within the Bush administration, whatever its faults, these issues do get debated. And sometimes these policy conflicts surface in the media and, embarrassingly, make you wonder if this US administration is operating a "two-China" policy.
One group argues for the in-your-face approach: step over this line and we will blow those from the Middle Kingdom back to the Middle Ages. This mentality was reflected in misconceived media claims recently that the US was despatching seven aircraft carrier groups to encircle China to force it to back away from a Taiwan confrontation. It was also evident in the melodramatic renditions of Admiral Thomas Fargo's recent trip to China, when the commander of US forces in the Pacific was depicted as practically wagging his finger in the face of the Chinese. The Bush administration has moved more forces into the region - not aircraft carriers, but B-52 bombers - to compensate (symbolically at least) for the redeployment of some US ground troops from South Korea to Iraq. The point here is not China, but North Korea. And no high-level US representative in China will engage in finger-wagging again, especially after the experience of former secretary of state Warren Christopher: After delivering a human rights dressing-down in the early 1990s, he was in effect shown the door and escorted to the airport.
Instead, the more nuanced view in today's Republican Party emphasises China's determination to become a great power once again. This helps explain both Beijing's reunification fixation with Taiwan and its willingness, at the same time, to play ball with the US on peripheral issues (Bosnia, even Iraq) that do not damage its core interests. But understanding China leads logically to a much tougher set of questions. China, according to James Baker, the US secretary of state under George Bush senior, "is in the midst of a great transformation of truly historic proportions". American policy, he said, must wish for China to emerge "as a fully fledged member of the community of democratic and peaceful nations".
But that view slyly conceals as much as it reveals. It is true that China could transform itself into a democratic and peaceful regional power. It is also possible that China might emerge as a non-democratic and non-peaceful global power. The world geopolitical community is presumably spacious - and indeed gracious - enough to accommodate the former, but not the latter.
That is clear enough. What is less clear is whether the US will accept any significant challenge to its pre-eminence, whether from a China that is peaceful and democratic or one that is otherwise. A US determined to maintain its position as top global dog would presumably give ground only grudgingly to an "inexorable" China rise. If it proves hard for a proud America to go down without a fight, the only real issue(and the Chinese may have come to this conclusion) is perhaps the form and nature of that fight.
From this perspective, putting China on constant edge with finger-pointing lectures and testosterone-arousing naval manoeuvres would not seem to be the smartest approach to slowing down the inexorable rise. If the US wants China's "transformation" not to come at the expense of its diminution, Washington needs a better policy than an aggressive posture that puts China on constant red alert. The best approach would help China modernise without turning it into a monster.
Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, is founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network.
From father to son
The Economist, UK Aug 12th 2004
Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore’s elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew,
became the city-state’s prime minister on Thursday. Singapore’s
economic success, based on an odd mixture of free markets and state
meddling, looks set to continue. But will its new leader allow a bit
more social and political freedom?
IT IS only the second time Singapore has changed its leader since
independence in the 1960s; and there will be more continuity than
change. On Thursday August 12th, Lee Hsien Loong was sworn in as prime
minister of the South-East Asian city-state, a job which his father,
Lee Kuan Yew, held for 31 years until 1990—since when he has continued
to exert power from behind the scenes. Under the stern, fatherly
guidance of the elder Mr Lee, Singapore won independence from Britain
(via a brief and unhappy period as part of Malaysia) and was
transformed from a third-world colony into a rich, high-technology
export success. Under Goh Chok Tong, who has bridged the gap as prime
minister between the two Lees, Singapore weathered the late-1990s Asian
crisis and, a couple of years later, the bursting of the high-tech
bubble. Since then its economy has bounced back.
Even with his 52-year-old son finally in the top job for which he has
long been groomed, the 80-year-old Mr Lee senior will continue to sit
beside him at the cabinet table, enjoying the title of “minister
mentor”. Nor will Mr Goh go: he will stay in government as head of
Singapore’s central bank. Several other senior figures from Mr Goh’s
cabinet will remain, though swapping jobs.
Like Hong Kong, another formerly British-run city-state, Singapore has
built its modern prosperity on free enterprise and openness to trade.
But in Singapore’s case these have been combined with enthusiastic
government backing for favoured industrial sectors. The government’s
main industrial-holding company, Temasek, run by the new prime
minister’s wife, Ho Ching, owns stakes in everything from airlines to
banks to the country’s main telecoms firm. (The latter is, in turn, run
by Mr Lee’s brother, Lee Hsien Yang, adding to the impression that
Singapore is essentially a big family firm.) The promotion of
industrial “national champions”, in other countries an expensive
disaster, seems to have served Singapore well—and it seems likely to
continue under the next generation of the Lee family.
While Singapore regularly comes near the top of surveys of the freest
places to do business, its people have to put up with restrictions on
their social and political liberties. Though it is fair to call
Singapore a democracy, the Lee family’s ruling People’s Action Party
(PAP) has long used its unshakeable grip on power to harass its
opponents. And the country’s 4.4m citizens have had to endure constant
haranguing from their government, which only recently
relaxed—slightly—its infamous ban on chewing gum (purchasers must first
register with a pharmacist).
The elder Mr Lee always brushed aside foreign criticism of his
authoritarian style: “If this is a ‘nanny state’, I am proud to have
fostered one,” he wrote. Singaporeans have always seemed prepared to
accept nannying as the price of their prosperity. In the last election,
in 2001, the PAP won yet another landslide, even though this coincided
with the country’s worst recession since independence. The younger Mr
Lee shares his father’s didactic, hectoring style. His speeches are
full of stern injunctions to Singaporeans to tighten their belts
against the hard times ahead.
The economy does indeed face a number of potential challenges—from the
demographic effects of a low birth rate to the risk of losing jobs to
low-cost China. But right now it is booming: in the second quarter of
this year it grew at an annual rate of almost 12%, having bounced back
smartly from last year’s outbreak of the SARS virus across Asia, which
hit various sectors, from manufacturing to tourism.
Much of the vigorous growth is the result of government-directed
diversification into electronic components and, more recently,
pharmaceuticals. Multinational drug firms such as Pfizer and
Schering-Plough are expanding their capacity in Singapore, attracted by
its economic freedoms, reliable legal system, relative absence of
corruption and well-educated workforce. During his stint as finance
minister—a post he held from November 2001 until this week—the younger
Mr Lee cut taxes, reformed pensions and liberalised the financial
sector.
Singapore’s pro-government media have lavished praise on the new prime
minister for his courage and strength of character: he stoically
endured the death of his first wife and later survived a bout of
cancer. But while he has demonstrated his credentials as an economic
liberal, he also seems to share his father’s old-fashioned attitude to
social and political freedoms: for instance, he fiercely defends the
PAP’s more underhand tactics, such as threatening to put districts that
vote for the opposition at the bottom of the list for public spending.
Sex and the city-state
Under his predecessor, Mr Goh, some of Singapore’s strict social
controls were eased. Bans on everything from bungee-jumping to
street-busking were relaxed. Singaporean television was even allowed to
broadcast the salacious American sitcom “Sex and the City”. This
cautious liberalisation partly reflects the government’s realisation
that Singapore must now move beyond manufacturing into
“knowledge-based” industries that depend more on individual creativity.
The government recently announced a review of Singapore’s strict sex
laws, under which homosexuality is a criminal offence (though
increasingly tolerated), after official researchers noted that cities
with lots of gay residents tend also to be centres of innovation. Last
weekend, the authorities allowed Singapore’s biggest-ever gay street
carnival to take place, attended by an estimated 6,000 people.
Other signs of gradual social liberalisation include a reduction in the
period of compulsory military service and an official review of
poverty, which may even lead to a reconsideration of one of Singapore’s
strongest taboos: welfare benefits. The elder Mr Lee abhorred the very
idea of state handouts (except to industry, that is) and his
strait-laced son is likely to share this attitude. Thus, as in other
social matters, any changes will be gradual. Still, the younger Mr Lee
is likely to have plenty of time to carry them out.
Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore’s elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew,
became the city-state’s prime minister on Thursday. Singapore’s
economic success, based on an odd mixture of free markets and state
meddling, looks set to continue. But will its new leader allow a bit
more social and political freedom?
IT IS only the second time Singapore has changed its leader since
independence in the 1960s; and there will be more continuity than
change. On Thursday August 12th, Lee Hsien Loong was sworn in as prime
minister of the South-East Asian city-state, a job which his father,
Lee Kuan Yew, held for 31 years until 1990—since when he has continued
to exert power from behind the scenes. Under the stern, fatherly
guidance of the elder Mr Lee, Singapore won independence from Britain
(via a brief and unhappy period as part of Malaysia) and was
transformed from a third-world colony into a rich, high-technology
export success. Under Goh Chok Tong, who has bridged the gap as prime
minister between the two Lees, Singapore weathered the late-1990s Asian
crisis and, a couple of years later, the bursting of the high-tech
bubble. Since then its economy has bounced back.
Even with his 52-year-old son finally in the top job for which he has
long been groomed, the 80-year-old Mr Lee senior will continue to sit
beside him at the cabinet table, enjoying the title of “minister
mentor”. Nor will Mr Goh go: he will stay in government as head of
Singapore’s central bank. Several other senior figures from Mr Goh’s
cabinet will remain, though swapping jobs.
Like Hong Kong, another formerly British-run city-state, Singapore has
built its modern prosperity on free enterprise and openness to trade.
But in Singapore’s case these have been combined with enthusiastic
government backing for favoured industrial sectors. The government’s
main industrial-holding company, Temasek, run by the new prime
minister’s wife, Ho Ching, owns stakes in everything from airlines to
banks to the country’s main telecoms firm. (The latter is, in turn, run
by Mr Lee’s brother, Lee Hsien Yang, adding to the impression that
Singapore is essentially a big family firm.) The promotion of
industrial “national champions”, in other countries an expensive
disaster, seems to have served Singapore well—and it seems likely to
continue under the next generation of the Lee family.
While Singapore regularly comes near the top of surveys of the freest
places to do business, its people have to put up with restrictions on
their social and political liberties. Though it is fair to call
Singapore a democracy, the Lee family’s ruling People’s Action Party
(PAP) has long used its unshakeable grip on power to harass its
opponents. And the country’s 4.4m citizens have had to endure constant
haranguing from their government, which only recently
relaxed—slightly—its infamous ban on chewing gum (purchasers must first
register with a pharmacist).
The elder Mr Lee always brushed aside foreign criticism of his
authoritarian style: “If this is a ‘nanny state’, I am proud to have
fostered one,” he wrote. Singaporeans have always seemed prepared to
accept nannying as the price of their prosperity. In the last election,
in 2001, the PAP won yet another landslide, even though this coincided
with the country’s worst recession since independence. The younger Mr
Lee shares his father’s didactic, hectoring style. His speeches are
full of stern injunctions to Singaporeans to tighten their belts
against the hard times ahead.
The economy does indeed face a number of potential challenges—from the
demographic effects of a low birth rate to the risk of losing jobs to
low-cost China. But right now it is booming: in the second quarter of
this year it grew at an annual rate of almost 12%, having bounced back
smartly from last year’s outbreak of the SARS virus across Asia, which
hit various sectors, from manufacturing to tourism.
Much of the vigorous growth is the result of government-directed
diversification into electronic components and, more recently,
pharmaceuticals. Multinational drug firms such as Pfizer and
Schering-Plough are expanding their capacity in Singapore, attracted by
its economic freedoms, reliable legal system, relative absence of
corruption and well-educated workforce. During his stint as finance
minister—a post he held from November 2001 until this week—the younger
Mr Lee cut taxes, reformed pensions and liberalised the financial
sector.
Singapore’s pro-government media have lavished praise on the new prime
minister for his courage and strength of character: he stoically
endured the death of his first wife and later survived a bout of
cancer. But while he has demonstrated his credentials as an economic
liberal, he also seems to share his father’s old-fashioned attitude to
social and political freedoms: for instance, he fiercely defends the
PAP’s more underhand tactics, such as threatening to put districts that
vote for the opposition at the bottom of the list for public spending.
Sex and the city-state
Under his predecessor, Mr Goh, some of Singapore’s strict social
controls were eased. Bans on everything from bungee-jumping to
street-busking were relaxed. Singaporean television was even allowed to
broadcast the salacious American sitcom “Sex and the City”. This
cautious liberalisation partly reflects the government’s realisation
that Singapore must now move beyond manufacturing into
“knowledge-based” industries that depend more on individual creativity.
The government recently announced a review of Singapore’s strict sex
laws, under which homosexuality is a criminal offence (though
increasingly tolerated), after official researchers noted that cities
with lots of gay residents tend also to be centres of innovation. Last
weekend, the authorities allowed Singapore’s biggest-ever gay street
carnival to take place, attended by an estimated 6,000 people.
Other signs of gradual social liberalisation include a reduction in the
period of compulsory military service and an official review of
poverty, which may even lead to a reconsideration of one of Singapore’s
strongest taboos: welfare benefits. The elder Mr Lee abhorred the very
idea of state handouts (except to industry, that is) and his
strait-laced son is likely to share this attitude. Thus, as in other
social matters, any changes will be gradual. Still, the younger Mr Lee
is likely to have plenty of time to carry them out.
United Nations grills Hong Kong on EOC
scmp - Monday, August 9, 2004
RAVINA SHAMDASANI
A United Nations committee has urged the Hong Kong government to explain how it is safeguarding the independence of the Equal Opportunities Commission.
In response to the government's regular report to it, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has asked for additional information on various issues, including the EOC's independence, the lack of age discrimination laws in Hong Kong and the condition of people living in "cubicle" or cage homes.
Controversies over the EOC's status in the past few years cover a range of issues, including speculation that the chairman's post could be downgraded from directorate level. Two of the issues involve the failure to reappoint popular chairwoman Anna Wu Hung-yuk in July last year when her contract expired, and the scandal several months later that led to the resignation of the new chairman, Michael Wong Kin-chow, in November.
More recent issues have also reignited controversy.
They involve the perceived lack of independence of an inquiry into events leading to Mr Wong's resignation and the reappointment of several conservative figures, who have served for more than seven years, to the EOC board.
The UN committee has asked the government to "describe the measures taken by [Hong Kong] to safeguard the independence of the Equal Opportunities Commission and to provide information on interventions, if any, made by private or public actors on EOC's operations".
A "list of issues" published by the committee asks the states that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to fill in what the committee perceives as omissions or items warranting elaboration.
Its list of issues for Hong Kong, which submitted its report as part of China's, also took the government to task for effectively imposing a $400 levy on foreign domestic helpers and failing to include them in the Mandatory Provident Fund safety net.
Quoting the government's contention that age discrimination laws could have "potentially far-reaching implications", the committee asked for examples.
"Please describe support mechanisms that are in place, if any, to assist ethnic minority students in schools to cope with subjects that are taught using Chinese as the medium of instruction," it said.
The committee also sought information on the extent to which mainland children with no right of abode in the city were allowed entry into local schools.
RAVINA SHAMDASANI
A United Nations committee has urged the Hong Kong government to explain how it is safeguarding the independence of the Equal Opportunities Commission.
In response to the government's regular report to it, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has asked for additional information on various issues, including the EOC's independence, the lack of age discrimination laws in Hong Kong and the condition of people living in "cubicle" or cage homes.
Controversies over the EOC's status in the past few years cover a range of issues, including speculation that the chairman's post could be downgraded from directorate level. Two of the issues involve the failure to reappoint popular chairwoman Anna Wu Hung-yuk in July last year when her contract expired, and the scandal several months later that led to the resignation of the new chairman, Michael Wong Kin-chow, in November.
More recent issues have also reignited controversy.
They involve the perceived lack of independence of an inquiry into events leading to Mr Wong's resignation and the reappointment of several conservative figures, who have served for more than seven years, to the EOC board.
The UN committee has asked the government to "describe the measures taken by [Hong Kong] to safeguard the independence of the Equal Opportunities Commission and to provide information on interventions, if any, made by private or public actors on EOC's operations".
A "list of issues" published by the committee asks the states that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to fill in what the committee perceives as omissions or items warranting elaboration.
Its list of issues for Hong Kong, which submitted its report as part of China's, also took the government to task for effectively imposing a $400 levy on foreign domestic helpers and failing to include them in the Mandatory Provident Fund safety net.
Quoting the government's contention that age discrimination laws could have "potentially far-reaching implications", the committee asked for examples.
"Please describe support mechanisms that are in place, if any, to assist ethnic minority students in schools to cope with subjects that are taught using Chinese as the medium of instruction," it said.
The committee also sought information on the extent to which mainland children with no right of abode in the city were allowed entry into local schools.
KL to appoint women as judges in Syariah Court
New Straits Times - AUG 10, 2004
Candidates should be academically qualified and mentally strong as they will handle emotionally difficult cases
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia will, for the first time, appoint women Syariah Court judges who will tackle child custody and other emotionally taxing cases.
The appointments, which will be made after a 10-year debate, may help to remove perceptions of prejudice against women, said the Prime Minister's religious adviser, Tan Sri Hamid Othman.
With his announcement on Sunday, Malaysia will join other Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Sudan in having women judges administer Islamic syariah laws.
It also paves the way for state religious councils in Malaysia - including those fearing that women are too weak to handle tough emotional cases - to recommend candidates who will be appointed by the Sultans in the country.
The number of appointments has not been fixed, but they must be academically qualified, said Tan Sri Hamid.
Those who are eligible include court registrars and arbitration officers with judicial diplomas from International Islamic University Malaysia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
'Resistance to women judicial appointments is diminishing,' said Tan Sri Hamid. 'That is probably because Islamic scholars have realised there is nothing wrong.'
He also stressed that the Quran did not prohibit women from becoming judges.
The suggestion that Malaysia should have women syariah judges was first raised a decade ago by groups claiming there was discrimination against women by insensitive male judges.
These claims declined over the years because of greater awareness of women's rights, but the state religious councils continued to delay the appointment of women syariah judges.
'The federal government was ready, but we could not rush the state governments into making such appointments. They have the powers,' Tan Sri Hamid said.
Last month, Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, political secretary to Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, said plans were in place to appoint women syariah judges.
The Mufti of Kuala Lumpur, Datuk Mohamad Yusoff Hussain, said: 'Anyone who is qualified can be a judge. It has nothing to do with gender. Apart from their academic qualifications, candidates must also be mentally strong because they will face difficult and emotionally taxing cases.' \-- New Straits Times
Candidates should be academically qualified and mentally strong as they will handle emotionally difficult cases
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia will, for the first time, appoint women Syariah Court judges who will tackle child custody and other emotionally taxing cases.
The appointments, which will be made after a 10-year debate, may help to remove perceptions of prejudice against women, said the Prime Minister's religious adviser, Tan Sri Hamid Othman.
With his announcement on Sunday, Malaysia will join other Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Sudan in having women judges administer Islamic syariah laws.
It also paves the way for state religious councils in Malaysia - including those fearing that women are too weak to handle tough emotional cases - to recommend candidates who will be appointed by the Sultans in the country.
The number of appointments has not been fixed, but they must be academically qualified, said Tan Sri Hamid.
Those who are eligible include court registrars and arbitration officers with judicial diplomas from International Islamic University Malaysia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
'Resistance to women judicial appointments is diminishing,' said Tan Sri Hamid. 'That is probably because Islamic scholars have realised there is nothing wrong.'
He also stressed that the Quran did not prohibit women from becoming judges.
The suggestion that Malaysia should have women syariah judges was first raised a decade ago by groups claiming there was discrimination against women by insensitive male judges.
These claims declined over the years because of greater awareness of women's rights, but the state religious councils continued to delay the appointment of women syariah judges.
'The federal government was ready, but we could not rush the state governments into making such appointments. They have the powers,' Tan Sri Hamid said.
Last month, Datuk Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh, political secretary to Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, said plans were in place to appoint women syariah judges.
The Mufti of Kuala Lumpur, Datuk Mohamad Yusoff Hussain, said: 'Anyone who is qualified can be a judge. It has nothing to do with gender. Apart from their academic qualifications, candidates must also be mentally strong because they will face difficult and emotionally taxing cases.' \-- New Straits Times
Activist alleges intimidation bid
scmp - Tuesday, August 10, 2004
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
An Aids activist who lobbied for the release of patients with the disease in Henan claimed yesterday he had been beaten up by thugs used by the authorities to intimidate him.
Li Dan , founder of the Orchid School for Aids orphans, said he and two volunteers were detained on Sunday night when trying to visit Aids patients who had just been released from police detention in Henan's Shuangmiao village.
While all three were freed yesterday morning, Mr Li said he was attacked by two young men while waiting at a railway station in Shangqiu city yesterday afternoon - just hours after his release.
"The men said I should know why they beat me," Mr Li said, adding that the beating lasted for about 15 minutes and he suffered leg injuries.
A policeman intervened and took all of them to a police station.
Mr Li said he made a brief statement about his beating but his two attackers were released without being questioned. He alleged that the attack had been carried out to intimidate him.
"I guess the local governments are anxious about our lobbying for Aids patients," Mr Li said, adding that it was the first time he had faced such harassment.
Mr Li and other activists have lobbied for the release of a number of Aids patients in Shuangmiao.
The patients, including Orchid School for Aids Orphans co-ordinator Wang Guofeng and his wife Li Suzhi , were released last Saturday after they were sentenced by police to home detention on charges of fraud and disrupting social order.
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
An Aids activist who lobbied for the release of patients with the disease in Henan claimed yesterday he had been beaten up by thugs used by the authorities to intimidate him.
Li Dan , founder of the Orchid School for Aids orphans, said he and two volunteers were detained on Sunday night when trying to visit Aids patients who had just been released from police detention in Henan's Shuangmiao village.
While all three were freed yesterday morning, Mr Li said he was attacked by two young men while waiting at a railway station in Shangqiu city yesterday afternoon - just hours after his release.
"The men said I should know why they beat me," Mr Li said, adding that the beating lasted for about 15 minutes and he suffered leg injuries.
A policeman intervened and took all of them to a police station.
Mr Li said he made a brief statement about his beating but his two attackers were released without being questioned. He alleged that the attack had been carried out to intimidate him.
"I guess the local governments are anxious about our lobbying for Aids patients," Mr Li said, adding that it was the first time he had faced such harassment.
Mr Li and other activists have lobbied for the release of a number of Aids patients in Shuangmiao.
The patients, including Orchid School for Aids Orphans co-ordinator Wang Guofeng and his wife Li Suzhi , were released last Saturday after they were sentenced by police to home detention on charges of fraud and disrupting social order.
Changing of the guard will bring little change
scmp - Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Two of the big surprises of Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's tenure have been his popularity with the public and his more recent moves to reduce the government's famously intrusive presence in citizens' lives. Perhaps they are not completely unrelated. This is something that Mr Goh's deputy, Lee Hsien Loong, should keep in mind as he takes over the top spot on Thursday.
Mr Goh was neither well-known nor popular when he became prime minister 14 years ago. But the public's approval of him has risen over the years as Mr Goh revealed himself to be an affable and approachable leader.
Mr Lee comes into office with a reputation for being aloof and will likewise have to win people over. The dynastic nature of the succession does not help. Mr Lee, after all, is the son of Singapore's founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and his elevation to the prime minister's role has been planned since Mr Goh took office.
The younger Mr Lee will inherit an economy in recovery, but also one that has to deal with rising competitive pressures from around the region. A busy shipping port, light manufacturing and services industries will all contribute to an expected 8 to 9 per cent growth for the year.
However, to stay competitive, Singapore is hoping to move up the economic value ladder and draw more investment in areas such as financial services, biomedical science, the media and creative arts. To do that, it will need a more free-thinking workforce.
That is where Mr Goh's recent reforms - from relaxing the ban on chewing gum to allowing dancing on bar tops - come in. But the changes have only just begun and they will have to go much further if the goal is a freewheeling, risk-taking culture. Continuing along the path of liberalisation must be a high priority for the incoming Lee government. It can also give a boost to the new prime minister's popularity.
On the diplomatic front, Mr Lee already faces a big challenge. His trip last month to Taiwan, over the objections of Beijing, has cast doubt on the start of talks about a trade agreement with the mainland, scheduled to begin in November.
Mr Lee will have to reassure Beijing, keep talks on track and ease worries in the Singaporean business community. Singapore has in the past positioned itself as an honest broker in the strained relationship between Taiwan and the mainland. If he is skilful, the incoming prime minister may be able to maintain this careful balance.
A new cabinet lineup will be announced, but few observers expect a big departure from the past. The main questions are whether Mr Lee will keep his current posts as finance minister and head of Singapore's central bank, who might be tapped for deputy ministerial roles, and what portfolios he will give to Mr Goh and Mr Lee's father, both of whom are expected to stay on in the new government.
The general policy direction, likewise, will remain the same. On the economy, the emphasis will remain on diversification and addressing rising competition from abroad.
In terms of governance, Mr Lee promises a more consultative style, but because he is known for his hardline stance against the government's opponents, it is difficult to see any immediate opening of Singapore's tightly controlled political scene.
The voting system that assures the ruling People's Action Party of a continuous majority in parliament is unlikely to be changed during his tenure, even as the drive towards fewer social and business restrictions continues.
Mr Lee could end up defying expectations and charting a more radical course, but there is nothing in his carefully laid path to the premiership to indicate it could happen. More likely, the new prime minister's focus will be on carrying out his predecessor's moderate programme and on gaining more of the public's trust along the way.
Two of the big surprises of Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's tenure have been his popularity with the public and his more recent moves to reduce the government's famously intrusive presence in citizens' lives. Perhaps they are not completely unrelated. This is something that Mr Goh's deputy, Lee Hsien Loong, should keep in mind as he takes over the top spot on Thursday.
Mr Goh was neither well-known nor popular when he became prime minister 14 years ago. But the public's approval of him has risen over the years as Mr Goh revealed himself to be an affable and approachable leader.
Mr Lee comes into office with a reputation for being aloof and will likewise have to win people over. The dynastic nature of the succession does not help. Mr Lee, after all, is the son of Singapore's founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and his elevation to the prime minister's role has been planned since Mr Goh took office.
The younger Mr Lee will inherit an economy in recovery, but also one that has to deal with rising competitive pressures from around the region. A busy shipping port, light manufacturing and services industries will all contribute to an expected 8 to 9 per cent growth for the year.
However, to stay competitive, Singapore is hoping to move up the economic value ladder and draw more investment in areas such as financial services, biomedical science, the media and creative arts. To do that, it will need a more free-thinking workforce.
That is where Mr Goh's recent reforms - from relaxing the ban on chewing gum to allowing dancing on bar tops - come in. But the changes have only just begun and they will have to go much further if the goal is a freewheeling, risk-taking culture. Continuing along the path of liberalisation must be a high priority for the incoming Lee government. It can also give a boost to the new prime minister's popularity.
On the diplomatic front, Mr Lee already faces a big challenge. His trip last month to Taiwan, over the objections of Beijing, has cast doubt on the start of talks about a trade agreement with the mainland, scheduled to begin in November.
Mr Lee will have to reassure Beijing, keep talks on track and ease worries in the Singaporean business community. Singapore has in the past positioned itself as an honest broker in the strained relationship between Taiwan and the mainland. If he is skilful, the incoming prime minister may be able to maintain this careful balance.
A new cabinet lineup will be announced, but few observers expect a big departure from the past. The main questions are whether Mr Lee will keep his current posts as finance minister and head of Singapore's central bank, who might be tapped for deputy ministerial roles, and what portfolios he will give to Mr Goh and Mr Lee's father, both of whom are expected to stay on in the new government.
The general policy direction, likewise, will remain the same. On the economy, the emphasis will remain on diversification and addressing rising competition from abroad.
In terms of governance, Mr Lee promises a more consultative style, but because he is known for his hardline stance against the government's opponents, it is difficult to see any immediate opening of Singapore's tightly controlled political scene.
The voting system that assures the ruling People's Action Party of a continuous majority in parliament is unlikely to be changed during his tenure, even as the drive towards fewer social and business restrictions continues.
Mr Lee could end up defying expectations and charting a more radical course, but there is nothing in his carefully laid path to the premiership to indicate it could happen. More likely, the new prime minister's focus will be on carrying out his predecessor's moderate programme and on gaining more of the public's trust along the way.
Dissident's bid for asylum turned down
scmp - Monday, August 9, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Sydney
Dissident Zhao Jing said yesterday Australia had rejected her application for political asylum.
Ms Zhao said she was "deeply disappointed" by the decision, which supporters in Australia suggested was a result of Canberra caving in to pressure from Beijing.
"If I go back to China I will face persecution," she said. She has 28 days to appeal against the rejection and for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to reverse the decision.
"I believe in the [Australian] government's promise of freedom and democracy to their people and I was deeply disappointed with the refusal letter," she said.
Sources within the dissident community, however, said it was not uncommon for asylum applications to drag on for years after the applicants filed appeals.
Ms Zhao travelled to Australia as part of a tour group on July 21 and applied for asylum with her colleague, law professor Yuan Hong- bing .
The pair say they face arrest by mainland police over four politically sensitive books which Professor Yuan wrote and Ms Zhao helped distributed electronically.
"My lawyer told me that if I was sent back to China I would go to prison for 10 years," Ms Zhao said.
Her supporters in Australia expressed surprise that the application had been dealt with in one week, when the process normally takes at least a month.
Beijing last week urged Canberra to "properly handle" the defection, suggesting Professor Yuan be treated as an illegal immigrant.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Sydney
Dissident Zhao Jing said yesterday Australia had rejected her application for political asylum.
Ms Zhao said she was "deeply disappointed" by the decision, which supporters in Australia suggested was a result of Canberra caving in to pressure from Beijing.
"If I go back to China I will face persecution," she said. She has 28 days to appeal against the rejection and for Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to reverse the decision.
"I believe in the [Australian] government's promise of freedom and democracy to their people and I was deeply disappointed with the refusal letter," she said.
Sources within the dissident community, however, said it was not uncommon for asylum applications to drag on for years after the applicants filed appeals.
Ms Zhao travelled to Australia as part of a tour group on July 21 and applied for asylum with her colleague, law professor Yuan Hong- bing .
The pair say they face arrest by mainland police over four politically sensitive books which Professor Yuan wrote and Ms Zhao helped distributed electronically.
"My lawyer told me that if I was sent back to China I would go to prison for 10 years," Ms Zhao said.
Her supporters in Australia expressed surprise that the application had been dealt with in one week, when the process normally takes at least a month.
Beijing last week urged Canberra to "properly handle" the defection, suggesting Professor Yuan be treated as an illegal immigrant.
One-child policy adherents rewarded
scmp - Monday, August 9, 2004
ALICE YAN
Several provinces have started implementing a State Council plan to reward elderly people who complied with national family-planning policies dating back to the 1970s.
The payment system kicked in last month for rural parents over the age of 60 in parts of Henan and Heilongjiang . The pilot project will be gradually extended to selected areas in Chongqing and 14 western and central provinces.
The State Council put forward the scheme in February, proposing annual payments of at least 600 yuan per person for people with just one child, two daughters or disabled children. Central and local governments contribute equally to the fund.
According to the China Youth Daily, the deputy director of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, Pan Guiyu , said the reward scheme would be the biggest incentive for rural residents to stick to family- planning policies in the future.
It is part of a carrot-and-stick approach adopted by authorities. In September 2002, the central government introduced rules limiting punishment for violations of the one-child policy to fines. The amounts vary from region to region depending on the level of economic development.
Before that punishments were ad hoc, often brutal and at the discretion of local officials. In some cases, urban residents with more than one child were expelled from their work units and had damning reports included in their personnel files.
In villages, local officials would routinely demolish the homes of people who did not pay fines for having extra children. This reward scheme will be in effect in all selected areas from next year, but most villagers are still unaware of their rights to the state benefit.
Thirty-three-year-old Liu Yongxia , of Huoqiu county in Anhui province , was surprised.
"I didn't know about it," Ms Liu said. "It's a pretty good thing. But I think it should have been introduced earlier because we obeyed the rules."
ALICE YAN
Several provinces have started implementing a State Council plan to reward elderly people who complied with national family-planning policies dating back to the 1970s.
The payment system kicked in last month for rural parents over the age of 60 in parts of Henan and Heilongjiang . The pilot project will be gradually extended to selected areas in Chongqing and 14 western and central provinces.
The State Council put forward the scheme in February, proposing annual payments of at least 600 yuan per person for people with just one child, two daughters or disabled children. Central and local governments contribute equally to the fund.
According to the China Youth Daily, the deputy director of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, Pan Guiyu , said the reward scheme would be the biggest incentive for rural residents to stick to family- planning policies in the future.
It is part of a carrot-and-stick approach adopted by authorities. In September 2002, the central government introduced rules limiting punishment for violations of the one-child policy to fines. The amounts vary from region to region depending on the level of economic development.
Before that punishments were ad hoc, often brutal and at the discretion of local officials. In some cases, urban residents with more than one child were expelled from their work units and had damning reports included in their personnel files.
In villages, local officials would routinely demolish the homes of people who did not pay fines for having extra children. This reward scheme will be in effect in all selected areas from next year, but most villagers are still unaware of their rights to the state benefit.
Thirty-three-year-old Liu Yongxia , of Huoqiu county in Anhui province , was surprised.
"I didn't know about it," Ms Liu said. "It's a pretty good thing. But I think it should have been introduced earlier because we obeyed the rules."
Another Aids activist goes missing
scmp - Monday, August 9, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 1.07pm:
A leading Chinese Aids activist has gone missing in central Henan province, activists said on Monday, accusing local government officials of abducting him to cover up a debilitating Aids epidemic.
"Li Dan was taken away by local government and village officials in Zhecheng county," Wan Yanhai, a leading Beijing-based Aids activist said.
"They took him away without an arrest warrant or any other official document, so that is why we consider this a kidnapping."
Li and a colleague were detained on Sunday night as they prepared to visit Shuangmiao village where other Aids activists and patients had been preparing protests over government treatment of the epidemic, Mr Wan said.
After being locked up in a local hotel, Li's colleague was released, but the officials took Li away to an undisclosed location, he said.
Police in Zhecheng county said they knew nothing of Li's disappearance or his activities in the area.
Aids has hit harder in Henan than perhaps any other part of China as tens of thousands of impoverished farmers contracted the disease while selling blood for transfusions under unhygienic conditions.
No one has been held responsible for the scandal.
Li, who runs a Beijing-based Aids self help group called Orchid, had been planning to visit four other activists who were released on Saturday after being held in police custody in Shangmiao village for nearly a month.
Wang Guofeng and his wife Li Shuzhi and two other HIV-positive activists were arrested in early July in Shangqiu city as they were about to travel to Beijing to petition the national health department.
Li Shuzhi said on Saturday that their detention was also linked to sending Aids orphans in need of schooling and care to an orphanage run by Li Dan's charity.
Activists said the arrests proved that harsh tactics are still used to silence Aids protesters, despite an apparent newfound openness among China's leaders in dealing with the country's HIV/Aids epidemic.
In provinces such as Henan, where farming communities have been devastated by Aids, officials have stormed villages at night, beating and arresting HIV-infected farmers demanding better care, according to campaigners.
"They've built special jails in the counties affected by Aids to house Aids patients," Wan, China's most well-known Aids activist, said.
"This is central government policy."
Despite increasing numbers of children orphaned by Aids in Henan and other central provinces, the Chinese government has frowned upon charities trying to help.
Li Dan's orphanage was ordered shut in July.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing
Updated at 1.07pm:
A leading Chinese Aids activist has gone missing in central Henan province, activists said on Monday, accusing local government officials of abducting him to cover up a debilitating Aids epidemic.
"Li Dan was taken away by local government and village officials in Zhecheng county," Wan Yanhai, a leading Beijing-based Aids activist said.
"They took him away without an arrest warrant or any other official document, so that is why we consider this a kidnapping."
Li and a colleague were detained on Sunday night as they prepared to visit Shuangmiao village where other Aids activists and patients had been preparing protests over government treatment of the epidemic, Mr Wan said.
After being locked up in a local hotel, Li's colleague was released, but the officials took Li away to an undisclosed location, he said.
Police in Zhecheng county said they knew nothing of Li's disappearance or his activities in the area.
Aids has hit harder in Henan than perhaps any other part of China as tens of thousands of impoverished farmers contracted the disease while selling blood for transfusions under unhygienic conditions.
No one has been held responsible for the scandal.
Li, who runs a Beijing-based Aids self help group called Orchid, had been planning to visit four other activists who were released on Saturday after being held in police custody in Shangmiao village for nearly a month.
Wang Guofeng and his wife Li Shuzhi and two other HIV-positive activists were arrested in early July in Shangqiu city as they were about to travel to Beijing to petition the national health department.
Li Shuzhi said on Saturday that their detention was also linked to sending Aids orphans in need of schooling and care to an orphanage run by Li Dan's charity.
Activists said the arrests proved that harsh tactics are still used to silence Aids protesters, despite an apparent newfound openness among China's leaders in dealing with the country's HIV/Aids epidemic.
In provinces such as Henan, where farming communities have been devastated by Aids, officials have stormed villages at night, beating and arresting HIV-infected farmers demanding better care, according to campaigners.
"They've built special jails in the counties affected by Aids to house Aids patients," Wan, China's most well-known Aids activist, said.
"This is central government policy."
Despite increasing numbers of children orphaned by Aids in Henan and other central provinces, the Chinese government has frowned upon charities trying to help.
Li Dan's orphanage was ordered shut in July.
Yunnan women flock to Thai sex industry
SCMP - Monday, August 9, 2004
ALICE YAN
Women from at least half the households in some Yunnan counties have worked in the sex industry in Thailand, according to a United Nations report.
Liu Meng , from the Chinese Women's University in Beijing, is a UN Inter-Agency Project consultant and a contributor to the report. Along with three other mainland researchers, she interviewed 440 residents in Yunnan's Lancang county.
The isolated county is on the west side of the Mekong River and home to more than a dozen different ethnic communities. It has an annual per-capita income of 580 yuan, half the national average.
A significant proportion of the women were found to be earning a living in the Thai sex industry. Professor Liu said it was difficult to determine the exact number, but more than half the families in the region had a member who had worked as a prostitute in Thailand.
"It is easy to judge from the fact that families with women who have been to or are in Thailand live in cement houses while other families live in crude shacks," she said.
The UN report said women from ethnic minority prefectures in Yunnan started heading to Thailand in the 1980s and the trend accelerated after 1995.
Professor Liu said the women became sex workers because they were poor and had limited economic opportunities at home.
"A lot of local residents still do not have enough to eat and are willing to pay snakeheads to help them cross the border," she said. The women were not forced to make the trip and there was no social stigma against working as a prostitute.
"The public admire and canonise the women who have been to Thailand. They think it's a very good, quick way to earn money," she said. "Some people are not shy or embarrassed when they talk about a female relative working there as a massage girl. Some parents cite examples to their children of women with experience in Thailand. It is a real social tragedy."
The report said the women heading to Thailand belonged to the Dai and Wa minorities and their similar physical appearance and language to the Thais made the trip easier for them.
In many communities there was also a tradition of women rather than men supporting the family. Men had traditionally depended on women's labour and the school dropout rate for boys was higher than for girls.
Ms Liu interviewed a 41-year-old mother and a 19-year-old daughter who both went to Thailand several years ago.
"The family built a house after the two women brought back their earnings," she said.
The other members of the family, the father and brother, did not work and stayed at home every day.
"The daughter learned to speak Putonghua and even a little English after working there," Ms Liu said. "She said she would not like to return to her home town and would rather stay in Thailand. But she did not have any plans for the future."
Ms Liu said the daughter's feelings were not uncommon.
"When the women return, they are not able to get used to the local living conditions and social environment," she said. "Some of the unmarried women have problems finding a husband because they are wealthier and have a broader perspective."
Ms Liu said the local governments seemed to turn a blind eye to the issue, with officials citing the economic benefits of the migrant sex workers.
"They are not aware that the prosperity of the region, which is the responsibility of government, is at the cost of women's health, lives and youth," she said.
Fang Yuzhu , from the rights department of the All-China Women's Federation, was also involved in the survey. She said it was extremely difficult to convince women not to become prostitutes.
"The women who return have the material evidence to justify going there," Ms Fang said.
ALICE YAN
Women from at least half the households in some Yunnan counties have worked in the sex industry in Thailand, according to a United Nations report.
Liu Meng , from the Chinese Women's University in Beijing, is a UN Inter-Agency Project consultant and a contributor to the report. Along with three other mainland researchers, she interviewed 440 residents in Yunnan's Lancang county.
The isolated county is on the west side of the Mekong River and home to more than a dozen different ethnic communities. It has an annual per-capita income of 580 yuan, half the national average.
A significant proportion of the women were found to be earning a living in the Thai sex industry. Professor Liu said it was difficult to determine the exact number, but more than half the families in the region had a member who had worked as a prostitute in Thailand.
"It is easy to judge from the fact that families with women who have been to or are in Thailand live in cement houses while other families live in crude shacks," she said.
The UN report said women from ethnic minority prefectures in Yunnan started heading to Thailand in the 1980s and the trend accelerated after 1995.
Professor Liu said the women became sex workers because they were poor and had limited economic opportunities at home.
"A lot of local residents still do not have enough to eat and are willing to pay snakeheads to help them cross the border," she said. The women were not forced to make the trip and there was no social stigma against working as a prostitute.
"The public admire and canonise the women who have been to Thailand. They think it's a very good, quick way to earn money," she said. "Some people are not shy or embarrassed when they talk about a female relative working there as a massage girl. Some parents cite examples to their children of women with experience in Thailand. It is a real social tragedy."
The report said the women heading to Thailand belonged to the Dai and Wa minorities and their similar physical appearance and language to the Thais made the trip easier for them.
In many communities there was also a tradition of women rather than men supporting the family. Men had traditionally depended on women's labour and the school dropout rate for boys was higher than for girls.
Ms Liu interviewed a 41-year-old mother and a 19-year-old daughter who both went to Thailand several years ago.
"The family built a house after the two women brought back their earnings," she said.
The other members of the family, the father and brother, did not work and stayed at home every day.
"The daughter learned to speak Putonghua and even a little English after working there," Ms Liu said. "She said she would not like to return to her home town and would rather stay in Thailand. But she did not have any plans for the future."
Ms Liu said the daughter's feelings were not uncommon.
"When the women return, they are not able to get used to the local living conditions and social environment," she said. "Some of the unmarried women have problems finding a husband because they are wealthier and have a broader perspective."
Ms Liu said the local governments seemed to turn a blind eye to the issue, with officials citing the economic benefits of the migrant sex workers.
"They are not aware that the prosperity of the region, which is the responsibility of government, is at the cost of women's health, lives and youth," she said.
Fang Yuzhu , from the rights department of the All-China Women's Federation, was also involved in the survey. She said it was extremely difficult to convince women not to become prostitutes.
"The women who return have the material evidence to justify going there," Ms Fang said.
Officers cleared of Timor atrocities
scmp - Saturday, August 7, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Jakarta
Four Indonesian security officers convicted over atrocities during East Timor's 1999 independence vote have been acquitted on appeal, officials said yesterday, angering human rights groups who say the trials were a sham.
Prosecutor Ketut Murtika said the four, including Major-General Adam Damiri, the most senior military officer to face trial for the killings surrounding the UN-backed ballot, were cleared on July 29.
The appeals court also reduced a 10-year jail term imposed on Eurico Guterres, a pro-Jakarta militiaman who oversaw the murder and torture of independence supporters, Mr Ketut said.
Human rights groups slammed the rulings, which mean that trials set up to deflect pressure for an international tribunal have failed to convict any Indonesian police or military for the violence in which an estimated 1,400 were killed.
Hendardi, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said the verdicts were "clear evidence that the whole human rights trials are a sham".
Prosecutors have yet to say if they will take the cases to the Supreme Court.
In addition to General Damiri, who had been facing three years in jail, the court quashed terms against Indonesia's ex-military chief in East Timor, Colonel Nur Muis, and the country's former police and military commanders in Dili.
All of the men had been freed pending the appeals.
Whole towns were razed in the violence surrounding the vote when Indonesian troops and their local militia proxies waged a savage but futile intimidation campaign.
Indonesia set up its own special court in 2001 to investigate the killings, but out of 18 defendants tried, only East Timor's former governor Abilio Jose Soares has been placed behind bars, for three years.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Jakarta
Four Indonesian security officers convicted over atrocities during East Timor's 1999 independence vote have been acquitted on appeal, officials said yesterday, angering human rights groups who say the trials were a sham.
Prosecutor Ketut Murtika said the four, including Major-General Adam Damiri, the most senior military officer to face trial for the killings surrounding the UN-backed ballot, were cleared on July 29.
The appeals court also reduced a 10-year jail term imposed on Eurico Guterres, a pro-Jakarta militiaman who oversaw the murder and torture of independence supporters, Mr Ketut said.
Human rights groups slammed the rulings, which mean that trials set up to deflect pressure for an international tribunal have failed to convict any Indonesian police or military for the violence in which an estimated 1,400 were killed.
Hendardi, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said the verdicts were "clear evidence that the whole human rights trials are a sham".
Prosecutors have yet to say if they will take the cases to the Supreme Court.
In addition to General Damiri, who had been facing three years in jail, the court quashed terms against Indonesia's ex-military chief in East Timor, Colonel Nur Muis, and the country's former police and military commanders in Dili.
All of the men had been freed pending the appeals.
Whole towns were razed in the violence surrounding the vote when Indonesian troops and their local militia proxies waged a savage but futile intimidation campaign.
Indonesia set up its own special court in 2001 to investigate the killings, but out of 18 defendants tried, only East Timor's former governor Abilio Jose Soares has been placed behind bars, for three years.
Beidaihe in spotlight as resort's role in politics renewed
scmp - Saturday, August 7, 2004
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
The Beidaihe summer resort is still on the political radar despite reports that central government leaders have called off their informal meetings by the seaside for the second year running.
The famed resort has been in the headlines this week as state media reported on a meeting chaired by Vice-President Zeng Qinghong with military scientists from western and northeastern provinces.
The meeting echoes one last year at which Mr Zeng met medical professionals who contributed to the fight against the Sars outbreak. The experts were the first to benefit from a decision to reward leading scientists with a holiday in the villas originally reserved for senior government officials.
But the presence of Mr Zeng and other senior Communist Party and government officials at Thursday's meeting sparked speculation among analysts about whether an important meeting was being held.
Officials attending the meeting are all known as either proteges or allies of ex-president Jiang Zemin, who chairs the Central Military Commission.
Beidaihe, a three-hour drive from Beijing, was the traditional venue for power plays in the Communist Party until last year.
At the summer resort favoured by Mao Zedong , Deng Xiaoping and Mr Jiang, retired party elders and incumbent senior officials would discuss important political and economic issues before they went to formal party and central government meetings.
The new leadership, under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao , cancelled the traditional meetings after Sars wreaked havoc.
Many analysts believe that Mr Hu cancelled the get-together in order to reduce meddling by party elders. However, speculation has grown during the past two months that meetings could resume this year.
Thursday's meeting with the scientists, which was largely a photo opportunity, attracted a large number of senior party and government officials.
They included vice-premiers Huang Ju and Zeng Peiyan ; He Guoqiang, minister of the Central Organisation Department; Wang Gang, director of the party central committee's general office; Xu Caihou , director of the PLA's General Political Department; and state councillors Hua Jianmin and Chen Zhili .
The news sparked speculation of an alleged power struggle between Mr Jiang and Mr Hu in the lead-up to the fourth plenum of the Central Committee later this year.
JOSEPHINE MA in Beijing
The Beidaihe summer resort is still on the political radar despite reports that central government leaders have called off their informal meetings by the seaside for the second year running.
The famed resort has been in the headlines this week as state media reported on a meeting chaired by Vice-President Zeng Qinghong with military scientists from western and northeastern provinces.
The meeting echoes one last year at which Mr Zeng met medical professionals who contributed to the fight against the Sars outbreak. The experts were the first to benefit from a decision to reward leading scientists with a holiday in the villas originally reserved for senior government officials.
But the presence of Mr Zeng and other senior Communist Party and government officials at Thursday's meeting sparked speculation among analysts about whether an important meeting was being held.
Officials attending the meeting are all known as either proteges or allies of ex-president Jiang Zemin, who chairs the Central Military Commission.
Beidaihe, a three-hour drive from Beijing, was the traditional venue for power plays in the Communist Party until last year.
At the summer resort favoured by Mao Zedong , Deng Xiaoping and Mr Jiang, retired party elders and incumbent senior officials would discuss important political and economic issues before they went to formal party and central government meetings.
The new leadership, under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao , cancelled the traditional meetings after Sars wreaked havoc.
Many analysts believe that Mr Hu cancelled the get-together in order to reduce meddling by party elders. However, speculation has grown during the past two months that meetings could resume this year.
Thursday's meeting with the scientists, which was largely a photo opportunity, attracted a large number of senior party and government officials.
They included vice-premiers Huang Ju and Zeng Peiyan ; He Guoqiang, minister of the Central Organisation Department; Wang Gang, director of the party central committee's general office; Xu Caihou , director of the PLA's General Political Department; and state councillors Hua Jianmin and Chen Zhili .
The news sparked speculation of an alleged power struggle between Mr Jiang and Mr Hu in the lead-up to the fourth plenum of the Central Committee later this year.
Three Protestant activists imprisoned for leaking state secrets
scmp - Saturday, August 7, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Beijing
A court sentenced three activists in the independent Protestant church to up to three years in prison yesterday for leaking state secrets, a court official and an overseas church activist association say.
The Intermediate Court in the eastern city of Hangzhou found Xu Yonghai, Liu Fenggang and Zhang Shengqi guilty of passing on information to an overseas magazine about a court case involving another member of the independent church, the China Aid Association said.
The independent church refers to loosely affiliated groups whose followers worship outside the official Protestant church.
Liu was also found guilty of passing on information about the destruction of unofficial churches outside Hangzhou in a crackdown last year, the aid association reported.
Liu got three years in jail, Xu two years and Zhang one year, the group said.
A judge at the Hangzhou court's No1 criminal division confirmed the three men had been sentenced, saying their cases were now closed. The judge, who identified himself only by his surname, Zhang, declined to give further details.
The cases against the men apparently stem from their efforts to publicise last year's crackdown. Hundreds of ministers and worshippers were reportedly detained in sweeps by police and dozens of churches destroyed.
The central government initiates such crackdowns to enforce its insistence that Christians worship only in government-controlled churches. Despite harassment, fines and the possibility of prison, millions of Protestants and Catholics continue to attend unauthorised assemblies.
Mainland officials deny violating religious freedoms, saying detained activists are criminals who violated the law and threatened national security.
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Beijing
A court sentenced three activists in the independent Protestant church to up to three years in prison yesterday for leaking state secrets, a court official and an overseas church activist association say.
The Intermediate Court in the eastern city of Hangzhou found Xu Yonghai, Liu Fenggang and Zhang Shengqi guilty of passing on information to an overseas magazine about a court case involving another member of the independent church, the China Aid Association said.
The independent church refers to loosely affiliated groups whose followers worship outside the official Protestant church.
Liu was also found guilty of passing on information about the destruction of unofficial churches outside Hangzhou in a crackdown last year, the aid association reported.
Liu got three years in jail, Xu two years and Zhang one year, the group said.
A judge at the Hangzhou court's No1 criminal division confirmed the three men had been sentenced, saying their cases were now closed. The judge, who identified himself only by his surname, Zhang, declined to give further details.
The cases against the men apparently stem from their efforts to publicise last year's crackdown. Hundreds of ministers and worshippers were reportedly detained in sweeps by police and dozens of churches destroyed.
The central government initiates such crackdowns to enforce its insistence that Christians worship only in government-controlled churches. Despite harassment, fines and the possibility of prison, millions of Protestants and Catholics continue to attend unauthorised assemblies.
Mainland officials deny violating religious freedoms, saying detained activists are criminals who violated the law and threatened national security.
