The Drivers of Global Agricultural Production

As world population increases, how will agriculture have to change?

With the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warning in its latest report, Food Insecurity in the World, that food price volatility is here to stay, what are the driving forces in global agriculture in the world today?

A study by Johns Hopkins University’s Paul Nitze School of International Studies points out that with the global population projected to grow by 2.6 billion between now and 2050, “farmers everywhere will be asked to increase production sufficiently to feed the equivalent of two more Chinas,” causing world demand for agricultural products to possibly double by the middle of the century.

For the very short term, the forces seem to be driving prices down, with global commodity prices falling a further 0.3 percent last week, according to the Shanghai-based research firm Research-Works, which tracks commodities. While the falls in food prices are primarily due to the collapse in confidence that the Eurozone can stay together in the wake of the Greek economic debacle as well as over Chinese economic concerns, plantings are up sharply as a result of skyrocketing prices kicked off by the 2006-2008 food crisis.

According to the FAO, climate change, increased frequency of weather shocks, increased linkages between energy and agricultural markets due to growing demand for biofuels and increased financialization of food and agricultural commodities all suggest that price volatility is here to stay.

The US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service identifies eight key factors that will dominate global agriculture through 2020. The report is cited in the current issue of Rice Today, the publication of the International Rice Research Institute based in the Philippines.

At the top of the list is the rise of the middle class, which is expected to double across the planet, with developing countries leading the growth, expanding by an estimated 104 percent, compared with a 9 percent expansion of the middle class in Europe and North America. That is expected to dramatically change consumption patterns as those with rising incomes shift from subsistence foods such as rice and millet to more meat and more-expensive foodstuffs. China already consumes more than 25 percent of all the meat produced worldwide. China’s meat consumption has skyrocketed from 8 million tonnes in 1976 -- a third of U.S. consumption of 24 million tonnes – to 71 million tonnes today, more than double that in the US, according to an April 254 study by the Earth Watch Institute.

Second is the seemingly inevitable fall in the US dollar against other currencies despite the dollar’s current strength as other currencies such as the euro take a beating from the continuing financial crisis. Putting upward pressure on commodity prices, which are mostly denominated in US dollars, thus raising foreign buyers’ purchasing power and hence demand for the products they wish to buy.

Biofuel demand, which is third, is not expected to slacken as grains, vegetable oils and sugar have all been converted into fuels at an increasing pace, especially in the United States and the Eurozone. Biofuel production in fact is considered one of the factors behind the 2006-2008 food crisis, with 30 percent of cereal price increases laid to biofuel demand. Led by the United States, Europe, Australia and Brazil, global biofuel production doubled in less than six years, reaching 140 billion liters in 2011. In the United States and Europe alone, biofuel production has continued to increase, growing by 70 percent since the 2007–08 food crisis, according to FAO statistics.

Fourth is trade liberalization despite the near two-decade paralysis in talks over the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization, which are meant to liberalize agricultural trade. Even without the ratification of the Doha Round, trade liberalization has risen by 150 percent, with total trade reaching US700 billion and expected to cross the US$1 trillion mark by 2020. Despite concerns over the so-called “noodle bowl” of bilateral trade agreements, the free trade pacts are expected to continue to fuel rising agricultural trade between countries.

By contrast, and in expectation of what could go wrong the USDA cites the possibility of “policy errors” – rising protectionism as the global financial turndown continues to bite. The WTO reported in June 2011 that the world's trading nations were beginning to limit exports of food and raw materials and installing new import barriers, including Indian cotton, Ukrainian wheat and other commodities.

Sixth, the USDA cites high input and energy prices, which will continue to rise. Agriculture is about planting, harvesting, transporting, and processing. When energy-intensive inputs such as diesel, fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals become more expensive, farmers’ profits and output are affected. The limited sources of energy and global growth of the middle class are anticipated to drive prices of inputs – primarily fertilizer and agricultural chemicals – and fuels for planting, harvesting, transporting and processing food. The Iowa State University Extension Service forecast in January 2012 that non-land costs would increase approximately 15 percent over 2011, led by higher fertilizer, fuel, seed and crop protection costs, affecting soybean rotation and corn.

Seventh, the USDA cites the increasing role of biotechnology. Between 1996 and 2010, the agricultural agency said, biotech crops increased by 87-fold, making them the fastest-adopted technology in the history of agriculture. The US alone planted 170.43 million acres' worth in 2011, with Brazil in second at 75 million acres under cultivation. Other countries are catching up rapidly, however. Growth by developing countries was up by about 50 percent in 2011 despite environmentalist’s fears of so-called “Frankenfoods” and concerns that crop diversity was being destroyed.

Finally, the USDA cites eighth the increase in production area. The world does not appear to be running out of planting land. Production, the USDA says, is expected to increase in South America, particularly in Brazil, and in the former Soviet Union countries including Ukraine, where land was taken out of production with the collapse of collective farming with the fall of the communist bloc. Africa, the report notes, “offers a massive land resource, but given its poor infrastructure, high transport and distribution costs, its role appears limited for now.” However, there is not a lot of slack in the amount of amount of arable land, according to Johns Hopkins Nitze School, which says the amount of land can’t increase by more than about 10 percent, given population pressures, desertification and lack of water.

The USDA report doesn’t cite climate change. It is unsure just what role climate change is going to play, although climate scientists forecast the increased chance of weather incidents. Perhaps the most notable was last autumn’s torrential rains, which appear to have been triggered by the landfall of Tropical Storm Nock-ten and subsequent rains which put more than 20,000 square kilometers of farmland under water and did US$1billion of damage to Thai agriculture. On the other side of the planet, the damage was worse. Rice farmers in Arkansas in the United States, which usually account for 42 percent of US output, also were flooded, then faced drought, reducing their crop by 32 percent according to the USDA. Desertification is expected to increase in some areas, but growing seasons could increase in northern climates where Canada, Russia and other countries depend on agriculture for a major part of gross domestic product.

Dipetik dari - Asia Sentinel

Brunei 'professional peacekeeper'

Syed Rory Malai Hassan
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Thursday, May 31, 2012

BRUNEI as the 'Abode of Peace' is acquiring a justified reputation as a "professional peacekeeper".

This was stated recently by the British Defence Advisor to Brunei, Group Captain Mike Longstaff OBE RAF, in his new additional role as Non-Resident Defence Attaché to the Philippines.

Touching on his initial familiarisation tour of the troubled Mindanao region, where he visited Brunei's 8th IMT contingent in Cotabato City, he said, "I found them in great spirit and fully focused on the vital role they are playing in the peace process between the MILF and the Philippine Armed Forces".

"It was very evident during my two days out on the ground the immense contribution this small, professional force is making and how much it is appreciated by the local population. It is an outstanding example of regional cooperation in a truly international force supporting the peace and stability of a neighbouring state."

"The introduction of the first RBPF officer to be deployed was also seen as a very positive move, which was warmly welcomed by General Raheem, the new Malaysian IMT Head of Mission."

When asked about the overall peace process, he said, "The UK is playing an important role within the International Contact Group in supporting the high-level negotiating teams and sharing our experiences from the Northern Ireland Peace Process."

"The general mood on both sides of the table is relatively positive making substantive progress in a number of areas, but there are some very difficult issues yet to be resolved," he added.

He hopes his new accreditation in Manila will help the British government spread understanding and appreciation for Brunei's contribution far and wide.

Dipetik dari - The Brunei Times

Gov’t, MILF to tackle power sharing, energy control in talks

OZAMIZ CITY – Power sharing between the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will top the list of issues to be discussed as negotiators from the two sides meet in Kuala Lumpur Monday.

MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said the meeting would focus on building consensus on “the flesh-and-bones of a political settlement” to end over four decades of Moro rebellion in Mindanao.

In April, both panels agreed on 10 decision points, including an agreement to create a new autonomous political entity to replace the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

During last month’s talks, chief government negotiator Marvic Leonen sought to defer further discussions on the power-sharing issue so that they will have time to assemble “enough information to be able to produce a clearer position…”

In his opening statement during the April talks, Leonen particularly cited the MILF proposal of listing energy among the “exclusive power of the autonomous political entity.”

Leonen said the proposal “have indeed caused a very involved discussion within the government.”

In Mindanao, at least half of electric power is generated by the Agus hydropower complex along the Agus River, which is dependent on the waters of Lake Lanao, which is within the autonomous territory.

Sulu Sea, which is claimed by the MILF for a Moro maritime territory, is also believed to contain rich gas deposits.

Iqbal said in Monday’s meeting, the panels agreed to discuss how the new political entity would share power with Manila.

The power-sharing discussions between the panel would jump off from the government’s comments on 73 items the MILF listed as exclusive powers of either the national government or the autonomous political entity, and concurrently shared.

Leonen said the government panel “have engaged the relevant cabinet clusters, departments and initially… the President” regarding the MILF list.

The decision points already reserved for the national government are powers over defense and external security, foreign policy, common market and global trade, coinage and monetary policy, citizenship and naturalization, and postal service.

These areas are part of the list of powers not to be exercised by the ARMM under Republic Act 9054, which amended the region’s charter.

Under RA 9054 the Regional Legislative Assembly is also prohibited from legislating laws touching on the areas of administration of justice except Shariah; quarantine; customs and tariff; general auditing; elections; patents, trademarks, trade names, and copyrights; and maritime, land and air transportation, and communications, except those within the region.

But RA 9054 also granted the ARMM the power to enter into economic agreements, an attribute the peace panels earlier agreed to transfer to the new autonomous political entity.

Iqbal said the discussions on power-sharing should further sharpen the attributes of the new entity to replace ARMM.

Dipetik dari - Inquirer News

Singapore ruling party rebuffed in by-election

SINGAPORE — An opposition candidate won by a landslide in a Singapore by-election on Saturday as voters handed a stinging rebuke to the ruling party in a poll seen as a referendum on their recent reforms.

The Workers' Party retained the seat in the district of Hougang, winning 62.09 percent of votes cast despite having to fire the previous member of parliament over allegations of extramarital affairs.

The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) received 37.91 percent, the elections department said.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other PAP big guns had gone all out to campaign for the ruling party candidate, Desmond Choo, but in the end failed to win control of the ward, which has been in opposition hands for the past 21 years.

The vote took place a year after the ruling party, which has been in power more than half a century, suffered its worst performance in a general election.

The Hougang seat was left vacant in February after the Workers' Party sacked its representative over allegations of extramarital affairs, giving the PAP an opportunity to redeem itself.

In last year's elections, the PAP was jolted when it received an all-time low of 60 percent and the opposition grabbed an unprecedented six seats in the 87-member parliament. The PAP holds the rest.

Issues such as a liberal immigration policy, a growing income gap, high salaries for cabinet ministers and overcrowding in public transport hit the PAP vote, analysts said.

The PAP-led government swung into action after the general election rebuke, stepping up construction of public housing, budgeting hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade public transport, and reducing the foreign worker intake.

Cabinet ministers also took a pay cut but they remain the highest-paid politicians in the world, with the prime minister on a basic annual salary of Sg$2.2 million ($1.73 million).

Singapore says the high salaries are designed to deter corruption and attract talented people from the private sector.

Workers' Party Secretary General Low Thia Khiang described the win by the party's Png Eng Huat as a "very good result" but slammed the PAP for what he described as "character assassination" during the campaign.

Prime Minister Lee said in a statement he was disappointed about the loss but was encouraged that the party had managed to increase its share of the popular vote.

He noted that the 37.91 percent PAP got in Saturday's by-election was an improvement on the 35.2 percent it polled in Hougang last year and 37.3 percent in 2006.

"I respect the choice of Hougang voters. The PAP will continue to be present in Hougang, and I am confident that we will win back the constituency in a future election," Lee said.

He also said the reforms initiated by the government will continue.

"Since the general election in May 2011, the PAP government has done its best to address important national issues like housing and transportation, immigration and population, economic upgrading and workers' incomes," he said.

"We have made progress, but there is much more to be done."

Apart from national issues, many Hougang residents are angry at the PAP's policy of putting opposition wards at the back of the queue for upgrades of public-housing estates, where more than 80 percent of Singaporeans live.

Hougang is a lot scruffier than neighbouring PAP-controlled wards, which receive priority for facelifts and other improvements that boost property values.

Dipetik dari - AFP

Egyptian presidential candidates Mursi and Shafiq prepare for run-off elections

THE apparent winners of the first round of Egypt's landmark presidential vote have reached out to rival candidates ahead of a June run-off, as international monitors called the initial voting process "encouraging."

Final votes were still being counted, but unofficial results suggested that the top two out of 12 candidates were the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Mursi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former premier under ousted Hosni Mubarak.

The Brotherhood called a meeting of various candidates on Saturday afternoon, but the campaigns of Abul Fotouh, former foreign minister Amr Mussa and Nasserist candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi said the three would not attend.

At a news conference later, Mr Mursi appealed to Egyptians to pursue the goals of the revolution, a day after his movement said the nation was "in danger."

He said he was confident the results of the June 16 and 17 run-off "will serve the revolution and the interests of the Egyptian people."

He also sought to reassure those who fear a Mursi win would serve the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood ahead of the country.

"As a president, I will be the president for all Egyptians. (My relationship) with the Brotherhood will be the same as all Egyptians," he said.

On Friday night, the Brotherhood said it was seeking to create a coalition of forces to challenge Mr Shafiq.

"We call on all sincere political and national forces to unite to protect the revolution and to achieve the pledges we took before our great nation," it said.

"The slogan now is: 'The nation is in danger'," Essam al-Erian, deputy head of the Brotherhood's political arm, told AFP.

Mr Shafiq also called for broad support from former rivals, calling on his competitors by name to join him and promising there would be no return to the old regime.

"I reach out to all the partners and I pledge that we would all work together for the good of Egypt," he told a news conference.

Addressing young people who spearheaded the 2011 revolt, he said: "Your revolution has been hijacked and I am committed to bringing (it) back."

"I pledge now, to all Egyptians, we shall start a new era. There is no going back."

As the top two candidates worked to rally support for the run-off, leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi, who came third, said he was to file a complaint over alleged voting irregularities in the first round.

"We will file appeals and we will then determine whether or not we accept the results," Mr Sabbahi said.

"It is our right to get a response to our appeals. We will be in the second round, God willing."

A Shafiq-Mursi run-off looks likely to further polarise a nation that rose up against the authoritarian Mubarak 15 months ago but has since suffered endemic violence and a declining economy.

The contest presents a difficult choice for activists who led the revolt against Mubarak. For them, choosing Mr Shafiq would be to admit the revolution had failed, but a vote for Mr Mursi would threaten the very freedoms they fought for.

Independent analyst Hisham Kassem said the situation "is one of the most difficult political situations that Egypt has ever known."

"We face the risk of maintaining the Mubarak regime, or Islamising the country," he told AFP.

Former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Centre monitored the elections, told journalists that the process had been "encouraging" but noted that he and his monitors had faced unprecedented constraints.

"I would say that these (elections) have been encouraging to me," he said, adding that authorities had imposed "constraints placed on us as witnesses that have never been placed on us before."

He said minor "haphazard" violations had been observed, but there did not appear to be systematic irregularities that favoured any one candidate.

Mr Erian said on Friday it was "completely clear" that Mr Mursi and Mr Shafiq had topped the vote and would compete in the June 16-17 run-off.

He said Mr Mursi had won 25.3 per cent of the vote and Mr Shafiq 24 per cent, with Mr Sabbahi at 22 per cent.

Both Mr Mursi and Mr Shafiq had been written off as long shots just weeks before the historic election in which Egypt voted for the first time to elect a president after Mubarak's ouster in a democratic uprising.

The election, with 50 million eligible voters, was hailed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who congratulated Egypt on its "historic" election and said Washington was ready to work with a new government in Cairo.

Electoral commission officials said turnout was around 50 percent over the two days.

The election follows a tumultuous military-led transition from autocratic rule marked by political upheaval and bloodshed, but which also witnessed free parliamentary elections.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in power since Mubarak's downfall, has pledged to restore civilian rule by the end of June.

Dipetik dari - The Australian

United we stand, divided we fall

Diplomatically Speaking
By Dennis Ignatius

The continuing standoff between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal is a reminder that Asean needs to get its act together sooner rather than later.

THE South China Sea, spread over 3.6 million sq km, has long been a hotbed of overlapping bilateral and multilateral territorial claims.

China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over three-fourths of the South China Sea, including the Paracel and Spratly group of islands, the Macclesfield Bank and the Scarborough Shoal. Parts of the Spratly islands are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The Paracels are claimed by China and Vietnam while the Scarborough Shoal involves the Philippines and China.

What makes these claims significant, and complicated, is the real possibility that the South China Sea may contain some of the world’s most significant deposits of oil and gas. Some estimates suggest that the region may contain as much as 20-30 billion tonnes of oil or 12% of global reserves.

Earlier this year, the Philippines invited foreign companies to drill for oil in the Scarborough Shoal area. China immediately condemned the move. The People’s Daily, in an editorial, even went so far as to call for “substantial moves, such as economic sanctions, to counter aggression from the Philippines”.

China has repeatedly stated that it wants to settle these conflicting claims through peaceful negotiations. However, it has not been averse to using force when challenged; it forcibly took the Paracels and seven of the Spratly islands from Vietnam following skirmishes in 1974 and 1988, respectively.

This stands in contrast to the peaceful resolution of island disputes between Malaysia and Singapore, and Malaysia and Indonesia, through the auspices of the International Court of Justice.

Malaysia and Thailand also set a sterling example in 1979 by agreeing to put aside overlapping boundary claims in the Gulf of Thailand and jointly exploiting oil resources there, a win-win situation for both sides. A similar agreement was signed between Malaysia and Vietnam in 1992.

Territorial sovereignty can, of course, be a highly emotive issue. Nations often work themselves into a frenzy and go to great lengths to defend a pile of rock, a shoal or a frozen bit of mountain.

India and Pakistan, for example, have squared off against each other for more than 20 years over a worthless patch of ice in the Himalayas, 5,700m above sea level.

More soldiers have died of harsh weather conditions than actual combat but the madness goes on with no end in sight.

In 1996, Asean ministers, recognising the potential for conflict arising from overlapping claims in the South China Sea, agreed to negotiate a regional framework for managing the issue. It has been a difficult process.

In 2002, Asean and China managed only a joint declaration committing themselves to the peaceful resolution of their territorial disputes. It has not, however, prevented tense situations from developing as we have seen in the Scarborough Shoal.

Understandably, Asean is extremely wary of upsetting China. China has become too big, too powerful, too overwhelming to antagonise.

At the same time, Asean is also deeply divided on the question of how to respond to issues that are strictly bilateral in nature or limited to just a few of its members.

The Philippines, for example, has long pressed for a tougher Asean position in order to strengthen its hand vis-à-vis China, something that other Asean countries have been reluctant to endorse fearing it will only lead to further confrontation.

There is, in fact, a sense within Asean that the Philippines has mismanaged its handling of the issue, a view that is also shared by quite a few Filipino commentators. Now that the United States has signalled its reluctance to be drawn into the dispute, Asean leaders are hoping Manila will reassess its position.

Asean needs to realise, however, that its greatest strength in dealing with China or any one else for that matter, on this or any other issue, is its own unity and solidarity. United it stands, divided it falls.

All issues that affect regional security, whether bilateral or multilateral in nature, need to be managed together for the good of the whole Asean community.

Asean leaders must, therefore, find common purpose to help develop an effective framework to resolve these kinds of disputes.

In the end, the options, short of war, in the South China Sea are limited.

China and the Asean countries can put aside their competing claims and jointly work to exploit the resources of the South China Sea, as Malaysia and Thailand have done, or resort to international arbitration.

The former could well lead to a real zone of peace, cooperation and prosperity and cement the already burgeoning relations between China and the Asean countries. The latter is bound to leave sore losers and a divided region.

For China, a win-win solution with Asean will also undercut efforts by other powers to exploit regional fears of China in an attempt to build new alliances aimed at Beijing.

Whatever it is, the worst thing Asean and China can do is to let the issue fester.

Dipetik dari - The Star Online

On naval ties, Russia signals as China blusters

By Stephen Blank

Historically, naval exercises have at times played a key role in diplomatic signaling. One can only look back at the Franco-Russian naval exercises in 1891-1892, which portended the creation of the Double Entente and the Franco-Russian alliance.

Bearing that in mind, what do the Russian-Chinese naval exercises of April 22-27 tell us? First of all, it appears that there was far more commentary in the Chinese press than in the Russian one about these exercises. Second, although both sides announced the exercises only on March 29, they were the result of an agreement between both sides' navies and armed forces in April -August, 2011. The Russian press claimed the earlier date and the Chinese and Taiwanese claimed August.

Third, these exercises appeared in the context of a growing frequency of exercises in Asia by Chinese, Russian and US-Asian forces and amid the reorientation of US forces to East Asia, a change that Beijing has publicly labeled as unfriendly and hostile.

Whereas US forces were conducting exercises with the Philippines just before these Sino-Russian exercises; only 10 days before these bilateral Sino-Japanese exercises the Russian air force flew some 40 bombers near Japan's frontier as a Russian exercise.

Furthermore, this exercise consisted of simulated cruise missile launches. Consequently, even if the exercises were planned before the US policy initiative and the divisive Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum of 2011, it is easy to see why the Chinese military media in particular emphasized the unity of the two sides and the implicitly anti-American aspect of these exercises.

Indeed, the Chinese Press reported chief of the General Staff Chen Bingde's statements that bilateral military cooperation was an important aspect of the overall cooperation between Russia.

These exercises represented a sign of the "unshakable determination" to implement the two governments' strategic partnership and strategic mutual trust between the two militaries, strengthen the two navies' capacity to deal with new threats (ie the US) and a willingness to work together to safeguard regional peace and security.

Such remarks suggest the greater willingness of the Chinese military to take a hard line against the US. But the Russian military remained more circumspect with regard to naval issues. Instead, the Russian military's public response was political in nature.

On May 3, General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff, announced a new argument, but one that was long argued by Beijing, that the US missile defenses were objectionable because they will also target China's nuclear potential, an argument that has rarely figured in Moscow's public argumentation against those missile defenses, and a solicitude for China's nuclear capacity that is undoubtedly politically mandated given what we know of Russian defense thinking.

The next day Makarov announced that there would be more bilateral exercises.

This was President Vladimir Putin's way of sending a discreet but unmistakable signal as opposed to the rather more blustery tone of the Chinese military.

Russian generals do not make these kinds of statements and announcements without strict political guidance. Thus, Moscow is signaling to both Beijing and Washington that too much US pressure on missile defenses, on checking China in Asia, and on exporting democracy will lead Moscow closer to Beijing even though most analysts recognize that Russian security in the Asia-Pacific depends on the maintenance of an equilibrium and balance between the US and China, not on Russia's "leaning to one side".

Indeed, Makarov's statements did not silence the debate in the Russian media, nor did the generals in China silence the civilian analysts there.

Thus, an April 28 article by Vasily Kashin of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies explicitly waned against China's growing economic, political and military power and influence. Kashin explicitly referred to a Chinese debate in the mass media and expert sources over switching to the creation of military-political alliances and tougher opposition to the West.

Thus, Kashin confirmed earlier reports that there were those in Beijing interested in formulating a closer military-political alliance with Moscow and presumably vice versa even though that would lead in his view to placing Russian politics under the shadow of that bilateral competition between Beijing and Washington.

Kashin certainly implied that this outcome would do Russia no good. A Chinese commentator, Hai Tao, also cautioned against reading too much into these exercises.

But it is clear that these exercises also signaled improved Chinese naval capabilities such as naval replenishment at sea and thus constituted a sign to Asia and the US of those enhanced capabilities.

But those capabilities could also conceivably threaten Russian equities and interests. Putin's recent remarks that Russia hopes to catch the wind of China's sails may yet come through in ways that he certainly did not mean or intend.

Dipetik dari - Asia Times Online

Pentagon warns China on Spratlys, Scarborough backlash

MANILA, Philippines - The US Department of Defense has warned China that it courts backlash from other countries if it insists on its aggressive stand on territorial disputes.

The Pentagon, in its 2012 report to the US Congress on the military and security developments involving China, said Beijing must balance its interests if it wants to maintain harmony with other countries that it depends on for economic growth and development.

"Beijing is finding it increasingly difficult to balance these interests, particularly when the pursuit of one conflicts with the pursuit of another," said report released over the weekend.

It mentioned China's territorial disputes with other countries, including the Philippines.

"China's leaders view the first two decades of the 21st century as a 'period of strategic opportunity' for China’s growth and development. They assess that this period will include a generally favorable external environment, characterized by interdependence, cooperation, and a low threat of major power war.

"They believe this provides China a unique opportunity to focus on internal development while avoiding direct confrontation with the United States and other great powers. China’s leaders do not expect this period to be free of tension or competition (as evidenced by periodic flare-ups with neighbors over territorial disputes in the South China Sea) or to last indefinitely," the report said.

It said Chinese military theorists see the Spratlys and Scarborough shoal as belonging to the "first island chain" of China's maritime perimeter.

The Philippines itself is in the "second island chain" of China's maritime perimeter that extends from Japan to Guam.

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China's aggressive behavior

A September 2011 paper published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in the United States said China's aggressive behavior over disputed territory seems to have started in 1999 with an annual unilateral fishing ban.

It said maritime security patrols in West Philippine Sea by ships from China's Fisheries Administration first began around 2000, while its People's Liberation Army Navy started conducting regular patrols in the disputed waters since 2005.

"In the first half of 2011, China's maritime patrols have apparently begun targeting hydrocarbon seismic exploration vessels, while previously they had focused primarily on fishing boats. These increased patrols have resulted in clashes with Philippine and Vietnamese ships that some observers identify as evidence of a significantly more assertive posture," it said.

It added that China has built an advanced oil rig for use in the South China Sea.

It mentioned observations that growing Chinese activities in the West Philippine Sea are "a prime example of Beijing’s greater assertiveness in recent years and months."

"In many cases, the implication is that China has in some fundamental sense altered its strategy and approach to managing its maritime claims in that region, from an emphasis on negotiation to an increasing reliance on coercion and a use of force," the study warned.

The paper, however, believes that China's growing assertiveness is only the result of Beijing's reaction to the activities of other countries in disputed territories.

"In the past few years, China has not altered it basic, longstanding two-sided strategy of a) avoiding conflict while deferring the resolution of difficult disputes (such as those in the East China Sea and South China Sea) in favor of negotiation and cautious management (sometimes involving notable concessions), while b) maintaining a resolute defense against perceived attempts by others to undermine China’s diplomatic, legal, political, economic, and military position," it said.

"When possible, Beijing has attempted to maintain an emphasis on bilateral negotiation and avoid conflict," the paper said.

'Not China's bathtub'

Other analysts, meanwhile, believe that China must learn to stop acting aggressively regarding its territorial claims.

"The message to China is simple: The South China Sea is not China's bathtub to do as it pleases. China must decide whether it wishes to maintain an antagonistic approach to territorial claims outside its legal and territorial reach," said Country Risk Solutions executive official Daniel Wagner and international comparative law experts Edsel Tupaz and Ira Paulo Pozon in a Huffington Post essay published Sunday.

"A sensible approach would be to declare victory, and leave while it is ahead," they said.

"The South China Sea/West Philippine Sea will ultimately be a litmus test for whether China will cease to act as an unwieldy 800-pound gorilla that does as it pleases and will instead act as a responsible member of the international community, willing to engage other contestants in a rules-based regime in accordance with established norms of diplomacy and consistent with a nation of its importance and stature," the essay added.

Wagner, Tupaz and Pozon believe that China's behavior will force the Philippines and other claimant countries in the region to strengthen ties with the United States -- further alienating Beijing.

"With China maintaining an adversarial approach to its well overstretched claim to the South China Sea, the Philippines and other countries in the region have little choice but to strengthen alliances with the United States," they said. "Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore have all done the same. The Philippines will in the end benefit from an enhanced military relationship with the U.S., as will other countries in the region."

Dipetik dari - ABS-CBN News

Egyptians prepare for their first taste of true democracy

AFTER six decades under the thumb of men from the military, Egyptians savour the novel experience this week of a presidential election whose outcome no-one knows in advance.

They vote tomorrow and Thursday for a leader to replace Hosni Mubarak, who was swept away 15 months ago by a popular revolt that ushered in a turbulent military-led transition and elections for a parliament now dominated by Islamists.

No real power has yet changed hands – an army council led by the man who served as Mubarak’s defence minister for 20 years still holds the reins, promising to hand over by 1 July after a new president is elected, probably in a run-off vote in June.

Opinion polls are untested and previous post-Mubarak votes – the parliamentary poll won by the Muslim Brotherhood and an earlier referendum that overwhelmingly approved army-proposed interim constitutional changes – may be no guide this time.

Months of tussles and fluid alliances involving the army, Islamists, protesters and others have bewildered Egyptians and disillusioned some of those who helped topple Mubarak.

The overwhelming, urgent challenge for the new president will be to revive an economy battered by months of unrest and uncertainty, and to remedy the poverty, unemployment and collapsing public services that helped fuel last year’s revolt.

None of the 13 candidates is likely to top 50 per cent in the first vote, so a run-off is set for 16-17 June. A president is to be announced on 21 June, and the generals have promised to yield power by 1 July.

On the secular side, the front-runners are Amr Moussa, Mubarak’s foreign minister for ten years, and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force commander and civil aviation minister, made prime minister by Mubarak during his last days in power.

On the Islamist side are Mohammed Morsi for the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s strongest political movement, which was banned under Mubarak, and Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, a moderate Islamist who broke with the Brotherhood and has emerged as a crossover candidate. He has appeal both among liberals and the ultra-conservative Islamists known as Salafis.

The secular leaders of the revolution fear either Mr Moussa or Mr Shafiq would perpetuate elements of the old, corrupt police state they served. Some Islamists threaten a second uprising.

“Voting for these people means joining them in sin,” a Brotherhood cleric, Munir Gomaa, said in a religious edict. “It is not permitted by Islamic law … to bring back these faces the revolution sought to remove.”

The latest polls show Mr Moussa and Mr Shafiq in the lead, followed by Mr Abolfotoh and then Mr Morsi, with up to half the voters undecided. But polling, highly restricted under Mubarak, is new to Egypt and its reliability is unknown.

Many doubt Mr Morsi could be so far behind, given the Brotherhood’s proven electoral strength – in the post-Mubarak parliamentary election, the first in which the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to run openly, it captured nearly half the seats.

Any result brings its own tensions. A Morsi victory would mean the Brotherhood, holding the presidency and dominating Parliament, could set about Islamising Egypt’s government. But it might act with its customary pragmatism to avoid angering liberals and, more important, the military and security forces.

Dipetik dari - Scotsman.com

The strange paradox of the constitutional monarch

After 60 years seeing her face on the money, on the postage stamps, on the TV screen and in our strangest dreams, we have become so accustomed to her that we hardly ever stop to think just how singularly weird the Queen really is.

I don’t mean that disrespectfully. As an individual, Elizabeth II is possibly the least peculiar person you’ll ever meet. The secret of her considerable success, I’d argue, lies in her complete lack of regal affect, her almost middle-managerial air of calm professionalism.

And that is where the weirdness comes in. Elizabeth, more so than any other monarch before her or almost certainly after, has mastered and embodied the strange paradox of the constitutional monarch.

We are living through the final great age of the constitutional monarchy, and her long reign may mark this institution’s peak moment of success and credibility.

On the three occasions I’ve been invited to meet the Queen – we’ve chatted briefly about Canadian history, horse racing and newspapers – I have been struck by the way she carries out the day-to-day job of being the head of state: Not as a power to be reckoned with or as a symbol to be revered, but as a highly competent civil servant.

For that is exactly what she is: a civil servant, hired by Parliament to carry out a specific task. Her only remnant of absolute power is her right not to sign any piece of British legislation – but, then, if she did, Parliament could choose another family for the next-in-line. The constitutional monarchy is, paradoxically, a complete inversion of the old monarchy, where the kings and queens created a cabinet and a parliament to carry out their will.

Beginning with the English Bill of Rights of 1689, it flipped around: Now the monarchy exists at the behest of an elected Parliament, which, in turn, effectively “elects” the ruling monarch. “A Republic has insinuated itself beneath the folds of a Monarchy,” the great philosopher of constitutional monarchy Walter Bagehot exclaimed. It was a revolution without a guillotine.

I have no doubt that the Queen is a sufficiently well-read student of Mr. Bagehot to know that there is no longer any truth to his most famous line: “Above all things, our royalty is to be reverenced … Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.”

The notion of a monarchy revered for its magical powers, or even passively tolerated for its life of leisure and good connections, dissolved the moment Queen Elizabeth II stepped out in 1953 to a phalanx of TV cameras. To keep her job, and maintain it for her offspring, she has had to embody exactly the opposite qualities: transparency, humility, frugalness, ordinariness.

Those happen to be the qualities of a good elected president. For today’s constitutional monarchs know the game is up: In a perfectly reasonable world, they would not exist. If we started from scratch, we would not choose a hereditary selected aristocrat from a randomly selected family as head of state in a modern, rights-based democracy. But we do, in 36 countries, including Canada.

You may notice that these countries are not doing too badly. In fact, there’s an even larger paradox here: When you look at modern monarchies, such as Sweden, Spain, Japan or the Netherlands, you see a lot more democracy taking place than you do in some republics.

As the Dutch historian Wim Roobol notes in his paper “Twilight of the European Monarchy,” the main reason why the steady 300-year decline in proportion of monarchies has not reached zero is because countries like Canada are sometimes more democratic than some republics, and republics are capable of being more authoritarian than any modern monarchy. Remember, all the Arab dictatorships that saw democratic uprisings last year were republics.

This makes it tough for people like me who would prefer a system like those in Germany or Ireland, with ceremonial but elected presidents – like governors-general, but chosen by the people. It might be better for independence and national unity – for the first time, all Canadians would be voting to fill the same office – but nobody wants to change it as long as our popular Queen wears the crown.

It won’t come to an end because people like me don’t like it. Rather, Dr. Roobol notes, it will end because some latter-day royals will realize that their “glamorous but essentially politically empty function is not worth the troubled life in the spotlights of a partly affectionate, partly unctuous and very often cynical public opinion.”

We used to behave ourselves because we thought the kings and queens were watching. Now they do because we are.

Dipetik dari - The Globe and Mail

North Koreans seize Chinese fishing boats

Three Chinese fishing boats are being held for ransom by North Korean captors, Chinese state media reported on Thursday, an unusual ruffle in the relationship between the two Communist neighbours that highlights China’s growing conflicts at sea.

Twenty-nine fishermen were captured by unidentified North Koreans in Chinese waters on the morning of May 8, China’s state-run Global Times newspaper said, citing the captain of one of the boats.

The ships were seized in the Yellow Sea, about 100km off the west coast of North Korea and roughly the same distance from the east coast of China’s Shandong province. The identity of the captors and whether they were acting independently or on orders from Pyongyang is unclear, and North Korea has not issued any statements on the matter.

China is North Korea’s most important ally, supplying the pariah state with food, fuel and diplomatic support, and public disagreements between the two are very rare.

The incident comes amid rising tensions over China’s maritime boundaries, particularly in the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines are locked in a month-long stand-off.

China claims parts of the South China Sea that are also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, and these disputed waters have been a rising source of friction as China’s military power grows.

The maritime spat between China and the Philippines was sparked by a fishing vessel dispute and has escalated into a serious trade and diplomatic row, with China blocking imports of some Philippine products and some Chinese airlines cancelling flights to the islands.

China and South Korea have clashed several times over fishing grounds, including an incident last year when a South Korean coastguard was killed.

However, the latest incident is unusual because China is North Korea’s closest ally and the two countries are not known to disagree over their maritime boundaries.

The captors demanded Rmb900,000 ($142,000) to be paid by Thursday to secure the release of the vessels, but the boats’ captains say they are unable to pay that amount, according to the Chinese newspaper.

Analysts questioned whether the apparent dispute signalled a deterioration of ties between Beijing and Pyongyang. “The spat is unlikely to seriously impact the wider relationship,” said Sarah McDowall, Asia Pacific desk head at IHS Global Insight. “The Pyongyang government continues to make efforts to maintain close ties with its Beijing counterparts through frequent visits and praise of their friendship and there have been no signs that this will change under new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”

China’s foreign ministry acknowledged the incident in a daily briefing on Thursday but did not provide details.

“We hope this problem will be appropriately solved as soon as possible,” spokesman Hong Lei said, adding that China and North Korea were in close touch over the issue.

Calls to China’s State Oceanic Administration went unanswered.

Dipetik dari - FT.com

Asia as Global Leader? Not So Fast

Ho Kwon Ping

Will Asia mimic bankrupt Western ideas, fall victim to hubris – or generate new, sustainable visions?

As the European economy teeters on the verge of a second recession and the US recovery wobbles, Asia is brimming with optimism. For Asian triumphalists attending a recent conference in Thailand – “Reading the Signposts of a Changing Landscape” – the signs are big, clear and point to a happy future.

I’m less sure. The wording on many signposts is confused, with many pointing towards dead ends or quicksand. In the rush of exuberant expectations that Asia’s time has come, the continent could fall victim to what’s behind many failures in the history of the world – simple hubris.

The rise of Asia is not predetermined, just as the dominance of Western civilization for the past few hundred years was not preordained. The rise of European imperialism and then American hegemony was not simply due to economic power backed by military might. It was underpinned by innovative, even revolutionary thinking, about the primacy of the rule of law; the separation of church and state; the commitment to an empirical, scientific worldview; and all the institutions that brought about the modern state built on liberal democracy and market capitalism.

Much of the intellectual vigor propelling the West to supremacy is now spent. In its place is frustration that the old order is not working, with no vision as to what the new order should be.

So could Asia rise to the occasion and, in the intellectual vacuum, offer new solutions to bankrupt thinking? Is the continent capable of creative destruction of taboos and restrictive mindsets hobbling it during past centuries? Is Asia’s economic growth matched by equally vigorous intellectual innovation?

The regional landscape offers clues.

India, for example, has managed, despite numerous challenges, to remain the world’s largest practicing democracy. But the continuing clash and contradictions between tradition and modernity renders Indian political and social relations almost dysfunctional. And while Indian pride in its scientific, artistic and business achievements is justified, the continuing inability to lift millions of people out of abject poverty remains a sobering and hopefully not insurmountable challenge.

China, the other great and ancient civilization of Asia, is today to become the second most powerful economy in the world. Its government has, unlike India, lifted teeming masses from abject poverty. Private capitalism thrives alongside the more dominant state capitalism. But the absence of a dynamic civil society – unlike in India – and its opaque political structure, as so glaringly revealed by the Bo Xilai scandal, is possibly unsustainable.

India suffers from a lack of political consensus; China has too much of it. India has a surfeit of democracy and a deficit of economic equality; China has eradicated poverty, but suppressed democracy.

Indian thought leaders realize that democracy has not reduced inequality or improved the lives for most Indians. Chinese intellectuals recognize that the current systemic problems of political governance, glossed over by rapid economic growth, are unsustainable and brittle. But neither knows how to move forward beyond recognition of the need for drastic reform. Intellectual innovation and political power are not integrated.

Japan’s social cohesion stands in stark contrast against China and India, but that same homogeneity and social conservatism has left it stranded in genteel decline, with no new thinking to break the country out of its stifling insularity.

South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore are probably the best examples of societies which grew rapidly due what political scientists call “developmental authoritarianism” and have successfully transited to liberal democracy. But their models of development are not easily transplanted to larger, more diverse societies.

Southeast Asia has largely recovered from the debilitating financial crisis of the late 1990s, which nearly crippled its private sector and brought down its banks. But internal contradictions remain unresolved in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia and are, arguably, growing steadily.

While one can’t deny the real achievements of an ascendant Asian civilization, it’s difficult to accept the facile self-congratulations of the triumphalists who suggest that Asia’s success in this century is inevitable. Even those who believe fervently that Asia’s time has come cannot afford complacency. Asia requires diverse, innovative thought leadership if its economic rise will result in a sustainable, new paradigm for civilizational progress.

In particular, Asia needs to inculcate a virtuous cycle whereby business, political and social leaders interact to create new norms of economic, social and political behavior and values. One example is the dire need of a replacement for the highly individualistic, American form of capitalism which at its best, enormously rewards risk-taking, but at its worst, creates monstrous inequalities based on speculative gambling of other people’s money. Capitalism is not universally identical; it’s shaped by history and culture, resulting in the Scandinavian variant or the German model. The American model may not be broken, but after recent financial debacles, Asia should not blindly adopt it.

Asia needs to delve into its own history and culture for inspiration in creating an Asian variant of capitalism. One such source can be the webs of mutual obligations which serve as a common, recurring socio-ethical tradition of Asia. This communitarian characteristic of Asian culture can, if thoughtfully enhanced, nurtured and developed, replace the highly individualistic, Darwinian ethos of American capitalism. Communitarian capitalism can be an Asian form of ethical wealth creation, where the interests of the community of stakeholders in an enterprise – owners, employees, customers and suppliers and the larger community – would be a higher consideration than return on capital.

In other words, communitarian capitalism would be stakeholder-driven, not simply shareholder-driven.

One of the contradictions of globalization is the starkly worsening income inequalities across the world, particularly in Asia. There is no middle way, no waffling position where Asia’s elite claim credit for generating growth but deny responsibility for its negative consequences. Such waffling unfortunately, is what most Asian business leaders are doing today; hiding their heads under the sand, thinking that if they simply stick to what they’re good at doing – creating and consuming wealth – they are part of the invisible hand of productive capitalism. But that’s just not good enough because, as we’ve seen, unfettered capitalism is not an absolute good, and often businessmen deepen its imperfections.

History has shown how many institutions of a modern and progressive society, such as liberal democracy or universal suffrage, arose out of the demands of a rising business class – the bourgeoisie. Asia’s rising middle class needs to play the same historic role as their counterparts in Europe several hundred years ago.

Thought leadership need not be in grandiose or visionary ideas, but can small, practical solutions to real problems. For example, as a tiny country, Singapore has no pretensions of being a global thought leader. It has simply and quietly created solutions to its own set of changing circumstances, setting a model for others.

Singapore’s approach to social security and public housing, launched many decades ago, has been universally hailed as revolutionary. In the field of sustainable resource management for cities, Singapore is probably one of the leading world examples.

Across Asia, there are many more examples of innovative, inspiring thought leadership covering a spectrum of fields. But this is not enough. Asia needs fundamental paradigm shifts, particularly on political and business governance, if it’s to reach the vision of its future. Future generations will either blame or thank the present elite for what they do, or more disappointingly, choose not to do.

Dipetik dari - Asia Sentinel

The Yankees are back

By BENJIE OLIVEROS

The docking of the USS North Carolina (SSN77) at Subic Bay, May 13, appears to be a sign that the issue of US military bases and the concomitant presence of US military troops has gone full circle. The submarine is being touted as “one of the stealthiest, most technologically advanced submarines in the world. It brings to the region the capability to conduct the full spectrum of potential submarine missions including anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, strike, naval special warfare involving special operations forces, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and mine warfare.”

The article today May 15 published by Interaksyon described the submarine as “nuclear-powered.” What it failed to mention is that being one of the newest class of submarines of the US Navy and with its described capabilities, it is, without doubt, nuclear-armed. This is a clear violation of the Philippine Constitution, which declares a policy of “freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory.”

However, the Aquino government is silent about it.

Also the declared purpose why the US submarine docked here, which is for “routine ship replenishment,” coupled with the rest and recreation of US Navy personnel in the country, is reminiscent of the time when the US Subic Naval Base was still in existence. And this is not an isolated incident.

While the docking of US Navy warships, carriers, and submarines come far in-between before such as the USS Georgia in 2009, the USS Essex, USS Denver, and USS Harpers in 2010, the USS Carl Vinson in 2011, and recently, the USS North Carolina, the same might not be true in the near future as the US declared its intent to refocus its military presence toward the Asia-Pacific region and with Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III begging the US to increase its military presence in the country.

The US may not reestablish permanent military bases in the country. But it has already come up with a cheaper arrangement. It has access to all ports, facilities, and military camps that it needs through the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement that it entered into with the Philippine government in 2002; it can station troops on a “semi-permanent” basis through the US-RP Visiting Forces Agreement of 1999 and through more frequent (actually non-stop) US-RP Balikatan joint military exercises, training and combat support.

When the Senate rejected the US-RP military bases agreement in September 1991 – due to the pressure from the people led by progressive groups and the arrogance of US chief negotiator Richard Amitage – the Filipino people won a battle for sovereignty. This victory was won by the people despite the active campaigning of the late president Corazon Aquino for the retention of the US military bases.

But now, this victory is being reversed by the second Aquino government under the pretext of securing the Philippines against a possible attack by China due to the conflicting claims over Scarborough Shoal and parts of the Spratly Islands. Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino provided the US with the excuse, to which the latter gladly obliged.

Opinion polls conducted by media agencies show that most Filipino prefer a diplomatic settlement of the conflicting claims between the Philippines and China. But, despite his pronouncements on the contrary, President Aquino appears to have chosen a subaltern’s way: beg the US for protection while trying to brag to China that big brother is on its side. What a waste of the historical 1991 victory of the Filipino people in the battle for the country’s sovereignty.

Dipetik dari - Bulatlat

Vietnam protests China's S. China Sea fishing ban

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam is protesting China's fishing ban in parts of the South China Sea that Hanoi claims as its own.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi says in a statement posted on the ministry's website late Tuesday that Vietnam considers China's decision "invalid."

China's seasonal ban begins Wednesday and is meant to curb overfishing in the South China Sea. But parts of the sea also are claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The sea has valuable fishing grounds and shipping lanes, and is believed to be rich in oil and gas.

Vietnam and China have recently engaged in spats in disputed waters, and a marine standoff between the Philippines and China over an uninhabited shoal has gone on for more than a month.

Dipetik dari - The Associated Press

Taiwan to build 'stealth' warship fleet

TAIPEI — Taiwan is to build 12 new "stealth" warships in reaction to China's naval build-up, the island's navy announced Tuesday.

Navy Captain Chu Hsu-ming told reporters Lung Teh Shipbuilding Co, a private firm, has been awarded a Tw$890 million ($30.1 million) contract for the construction of the first 500-tonne corvette, with delivery slated for 2014.

The prototype will be the first of 12 such twin-hulled boats, which the designer said are hard to detect on radar.

"After the prototype is completed and tested, its specifications may be fine-tuned for the mass production of the (remaining) ships," said Chu.

Each of the vessels will be armed with up to eight Hsiung Feng (Brave Wind) III anti-ship supersonic missiles as well as eight Hsiung Feng IIs.

Ties between Taiwan and China have eased markedly since Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Kuomintang party came to power in 2008, ramping up trade and allowing in more Chinese tourists.

But Beijing still refuses to renounce the use of force, even though Taiwan has been self-governing since the end of a civil war in 1949, prompting the island to continually modernise its armed forces.

Dipetik dari - AFP

To preserve rights of Brunei's natives

Amir Noor
TUTONG
Tuesday, May 15, 2012

HISTORICAL research should be intensified in further understanding the details and in-depth the culture of ethnic Brunei Malays, said Universiti Brunei Darussalam lecturer yesterday.

In presenting his working paper on 'Bruneian Malay Core Integration and Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB) Philosophy' during the MIB Seminar yesterday, Associate Professor Dr Hj Hashim Hj Abd Hamid provided suggestions on best to preserve the rights and rightful ownership of the Brunei Malays who are the core citizens of the Sultanate.

His paper highlighted the seven races of Bruneian Malays (Melayu Brunei) which consists of Belait, Bisaya, Brunei, Dusun, Kedayan, Murut and Tutong Malays, who have been identified as the rightful natives of the Sultnate.

"In the constitution, these seven Malay races are recognized as 'citizens of His Majesty the Sultan' or 'the Sultan's people' otherwise referred to as 'the people of Brunei' through the absolute force of law."

He also proposed for more intensive historical research on certain aspects such as appearances, culture, characteristics, customs, dialect, architecture, material culture and others.

Another was to recognise these Bruneian Malays as the 'core citizens' of the Sultanate through the Brunei Darussalam Constitution and at the same time, grant the seven tribes of Brunei Malays special privileges which are not to be threatened or interfered by any party.

Bandar Seri Begawan was suggested to have special status as a MIB centre which prohibits the selling of land owned by Malays to non-Malays. The land owned by non-Malays also can not be sold to other non-Malays but instead can be passed on to their heirs. A land can be passed on for the government to buy. The associate professor opted for the same conditions to be applied for Kuala Belait, Tutong, Temburong and Muara residents who are Bruneian Malays.

He also mentioned historical records proving Brunei Malays to possess courage and bravery with matching physical attributes. It was reported that these core citizens were well-versed with the sea, under the power of Wazirs, Pengirans and Temenggongs which would also include their knowledge on sea, navigations, defence, fisheries, and others.

Dr Hj Hashim was one of the two speakers who presented their working papers with the theme,"The Role of Tribes in Brunei Darussalam in Strengthening One's National Identity", the other speaker was Hj Markandi Hj Kuris, a Language and Literature Bureau Officer. This segment covered the numerous indigenous races in Brunei, including the Dusun, Bisaya, Tutong and Iban communities.

Dipetik dari - The Brunei Times

Vietnam floats between China and US

By Lien Hoang

Last month, the United States and Vietnamese navies spent five days practicing navigation, medicine and diving skills in the central Vietnamese port of Danang, with some concerts and sports thrown in for good measure.

Not exactly on the level of war games, which US Marines were conducting with the Philippines that same week. But that softer tone might be just what Vietnam is looking for in its struggle to secure a share of contested territories in the South China Sea.

The country aims to strike a delicate balance between its two most important partners, China and the US, both of which play vital parts in the intensifying maritime imbroglio. Coveted shipping routes and natural resources, most notably oil and gas, have made the sea contentious for decades.

But, as Vietnam's horns have locked a little tighter with China's in recent years, the so-called US strategic "pivot" to Asia seems to be coming at a serendipitous time for Hanoi.

China's fast political, economic and military ascent has Southeast Asian countries scrambling for alternative alliances. In the case of Vietnam, that has meant shoring up support from Russia, Japan, India, Australia and notably the US, a former war adversary.

Their joint naval activities in Danang offered the latest evidence of a changing US-Vietnam relationship. Though non-combatant, the annual training exercises grown piecemeal since they started in 2010.

Last year, Vietnam gave more input to the exchange, and this year the US sent bigger, better-armed vessels: a command ship, a guided missile destroyer and a rescue and salvage ship.

For the United States, the visit projects a message that its military presence in Asia is welcome. That's the sort of legitimacy it needs to defend its stated interest in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and its unstated interest of counterbalancing China's rise.

With American winds at its back, Vietnam can stand a little bolder in front of its much larger neighbor. Still, the Vietnamese aren't going as far as the Philippines, which staged mock rescues with US forces of a captured island and oil rig during joint exercises last month.

Vietnam's strategic collaboration with the US is more subtle, perhaps by design, so that it can be seen as acting independently while keeping options open with China.

"It's better to have both the US and China to hold each other at bay, rather than one dominant," says Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra. "Vietnam does not want its relationships with the US and China to be very bad, but it also does not want them to be very good."

The balancing act represents differences that reach the highest echelons of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party, between those members looking west versus those clutching to ties with their ideological comrades to the north.

Since 2005, China and Vietnam have performed perennial reminders that they can get along in the form of joint patrols of the Tonkin Gulf. That followed a watershed compromise to divide up the bay in 2000.

But the Tonkin demarcation covers just a small fraction of the South China Sea, known in Vietnam as the East Sea. Elsewhere in these contested waters, agreement has proved much more elusive. Vietnam and China also continue to fight over sovereignty of the Paracel Islands, while farther south, the Spratly archipelago includes four more feuding claimants, namely the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.

Ownership of the islands would mean control over some of the world's busiest sea lanes and biggest fisheries. The area is also believed to hold vast energy supplies. Reuters reported in April that the findings of a Philippine company suggested one area of the sea in the Reed Bank could contain more than five times the amount of natural gas than originally estimated.

China purports to own the majority of the sea, which it protects through occasional scuffles with its smaller adversaries. In April, China released 21 Vietnamese fishermen after a seven-week detention for alleged trespassing. Less than a year earlier, China used similar charges to defend twice cutting the cables of Vietnamese ships on exploratory missions in the sea.

More recently, Vietnam has tried to assert sovereignty by sending monks to build pagodas on the Paracels. It also conducts naval training exercises there and this week unveiled a statue of ancient military hero Tran Hung Dao. At the same time, China is pushing forward with tourism development on the islands.

Diplomatic tightropes

It's times like these that a US buttress might look especially appealing to Hanoi. But Vietnam can and will only go so far to woo the Americans. Though the country has a handful of strategic partnerships, including with China, such a proposal with the US has stalled over human rights-related issues.

United States Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman cited such concerns in January while rejecting a Vietnamese request for defense equipment. It doesn't help that, since the senators' visit, Vietnam has arrested an American democracy activist and extended the detentions of bloggers whose criticism includes anti-China posts on the sea disputes.

Friday marks Vietnam Human Rights Day in the US, which brings together activists and lawmakers to discuss where progress can be made.

For its part, Washington has its own diplomatic tightrope to walk with Beijing. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up a visit to China this month, clouded not only by US harboring of a Chinese dissident but also by South China Sea concerns. As the US calls for freedom of navigation in the waters, China nags the country for bolstering its Southeast Asian rivals.

Dialogues with China and the US make up two pillars in Vietnam's approach to the South China Sea, as described by Ian Storey, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Though China and Vietnam are both "pretty keen to not let this dispute get out of hand", Storey says Vietnam's three other strategies are bulking up its military, internationalizing the dispute and turning to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

China scholar Andrew Nathan, a professor at Columbia University in the US, agrees that a military strike is unlikely. In addition to the diplomatic costs, use of force would be a logistical nightmare across hundreds of islands, rocks, and reefs, and would do little to remove other countries, he says. Still, China is strengthening its navy and therefore its hand at the bargaining table.

Vietnam's ASEAN allies bring their own baggage to the controversy. For a while, Vietnam can ride the coattails of the Philippines, which has stronger US military backing and is currently in a month-old high-seas standoff against China.

The tensions over Scarborough Shoal continue without resolution but also without violence, which could be tested Friday when anti-China protests are planned to hit Manila. At the same time, energy firms in China and the Philippines are discussing joint exploration of the contested Reed Bank.

The Philippines has been the loudest proponent for a unified stance against China, but other ASEAN members are loath to risk the aid and investment China offers, notably with fewer strings attached than US assistance.

The unified stance that Vietnam and the Philippines want is supposed to be a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. China signed a watered-down version of the declaration in 2002 with ASEAN countries, four of which claim parts of the South China Sea.

As the 10th anniversary of the original document approaches, ASEAN is making revisions to present to China. The question is whether the association will add any teeth this time, or simply see how much longer it can continue to float along at sea.

Dipetik dari - Asia Times Online

MILF commends outgoing Brunei IMT contingents

The MILF Central Committee highly commended the outgoing officers of the Negara Brunei Darussalam contingents with the Malaysia-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) for the peace process between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Ghazali Jaafar, MILF Vice Chairman for Political Affairs, led the awarding of honors to the six (6) outgoing Brunei contingents during the Exit Call Ceremony at Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao held few days ago.

“In behalf of Brother Al Haj Murad, MILF Central Committee Chairman, we commend the outgoing members of the Brunei IMT headed by Maj Nazri for a job well done with the IMT,” Jaafar said.

“Being the second largest contingent with the IMT since its deployment in 2004, the MILF’s expression of gratitude and commendation are not enough for the strong support of the Brunei Government headed by His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah to the peace process between the government and MILF,” Jaafar said.

“We hope that Brunei will continue to support the peace process for as long as necessary,” he added.

The outgoing officers of Brunei IMT is composed of Major Pg Hj Nazri Amir bin Pg Dp Hj Md Zain, Captain (u) Muhammad Walee bin Hj Roslie, Capt Mohd Hamerolazmi bin Hj Abd Latip, Warrant Officer 2 Awg Mitasby bn Hj Mamit, Warrant Officer 2 (u) Pg Noorhan bn Pg Hj Md Tahir, Staff Sergeant (l) Airwan bin Ahmad.

In his message, Sammy Al Mansur, BIAF Chief of Staff, said “In the next few days, we know that you will be completing your one-year tour of duty, and will be leaving our homeland. Time travels so fast but what have you contributed and accomplished in sustaining the ceasefire on the ground and pushing forward the peace process will remain valuable in our continuing quest to achieve peace and justice in our homeland.”

“Indeed, your team had done a very good job. Major Nazri, Captain Walee and Captain Hamerolazmi and the rest of your group or batch under the leadership of Col Esmaon and Col Hasmee, the MILF leadership is fully aware of your commendable performance and services both on personal and professional functions. Kindly accept our gratitude and congratulations. Keep up the good work and we are very certain that you will continue to give pride and honor to the royal Brunei Armed Forces and to the government of Brunei Darussalam,” Al Mansur said.

“We ask all of you to convey our gratitude to His Excellency Brother General Aminuddin, Chief of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF),” he said.

The group of Major Nazri will be going back to Brunei on May 18, 2012. Their replacement will also be deployed on this day.

Mohagher Iqbal, Chairman of the MILF Peace Negotiating Panel, also commended the outgoing Brunei officers, saying “your professionalism and objectivity had significantly contributed in sustaining the ceasefire and confidence building on the ground, and the enabling environment for the success of the peace process.”

Dipetik dari - Luwaran.net

Issue of land ownership is a question of sovereignty

Survey of 13 Asian Countries

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We refer to the article "Law Society airs concern over land ownership" published on Page 4 of the Borneo Bulletin on May 11, 2012.

The Ministry of Development is aware of the concerns raised by the Law Society and various other parties on the amendments to the laws on the use of trust instruments in land ownership. This response seeks to provide some clarity and update on this issue.

The rationale of the proposed changes to the law on property ownership is to prevent the deliberate use of trust instruments and related documents such as powers of attorney, to side-step government policy on land ownership which is elaborated below.

The use of trust instruments in the ownership of land in Brunei Darussalam has become rampant and in the government's view, is in blatant disregard to the policies of land ownership of the country. Restrictions on ownership of property are not recent phenomena. Every country has its own policy touching on property ownership and the eligibility of persons in the ownership of property in the country. Brunei Darussalam is no exception to this. Indeed, land being a finite resource and Brunei Darussalam only 2,226 square miles in size is small compared to our immediate neighbours. Her policies on the type of properties which may be owned and the criteria of eligibility of ownership takes on more importance for a country like ours.

The issue of land ownership is a question of sovereignty. It is common to see limitations and restrictions imposed in the criteria for eligibility of ownership of land for foreign entities and non-citizens. The rationale behind such restrictions is based on the national interest in ensuring sufficient land for ownership by its own citizens. No country will unknowingly allow the perpetual ownership of its land by foreigners and non-citizens. For such purposes, leases are granted to such persons and entities to use such lands for the period of the lease. Limitations and restrictions are often applied in the case of ownership of property by foreigners and non-citizens as shown in the survey and table annexed herewith.

The press has quoted the figure of 47,000 trust instruments used in the ownership of land in Brunei Darussalam. The use of trust instruments in land ownership is usually by owners who are unable to meet the criteria for outright or perpetual ownership of such land. While such a policy for land ownership should not pose any difficulty for properties purchased by citizens for their own use, problems arise when these properties are actually purchased for ownership by persons who are unable to satisfy the criteria for outright or perpetual ownership at the outset.

The provisions in the Land Code are instructive on this issue:

Section 23 stipulates that "Any person wishing to transfer, charge, lease or sub-lease his land shall deliver to the Land Officer an instrument in one of the Forms D, E or F… and the Land Officer, if satisfied as to the transaction, shall register each transfer, charge, lease or sub-lease … provided that a transfer, charge, lease or sub-lease of land shall be null and void and shall not be registered except with the prior approval in writing of His Majesty in Council".

Further at Section 27, it is stipulated that "No claim or interest in any land shall be valid unless it has been registered in the Land Office".

To date, outright transfers of properties held in perpetuity, with certain exceptions have only been approved in the case of transfers to citizens. Purchasers of such property having to do so through the use of trust instruments are unable to deny that they do so for the sole reason that any attempt in transferring the property in their name will result in a rejection or non-approval since they do not qualify and do not satisfy the criteria for outright or ownership of the property on a perpetuity basis. They therefore resort to the appointment of a citizen as a trustee and use trust instruments to secure the ownership of the property, all in the knowledge that if they are honest or truthful in the application for the transfer of the property, a rejection will follow.

It is therefore regrettable that the recent articles published on this topic tend to portray such purchasers as innocent parties who are now exposed to the loss of their rights in the ownership of the lands which they have in fact purchased in outright contravention of government policies. The Land Code has always been clear in this respect - no claim or interest in any land shall be valid unless it has been registered in the Land Office. Since their claims or interests are not registered and has not been approved to be registered in their names, these claims are therefore invalid.

It must be reiterated that the ownership of land through the use of trust instruments have been deliberately deployed to side-step known government policies on the ownership of property. Such purchasers cannot in all conscience shut their eyes to the obvious fact that they would not have to resort to the use of trust instruments were they able to own the properties on the basis of perpetuity at the outset.

Having considered the above position, the impending amendments to the Land Code are intended to provide the opportunity for purchasers of such property who have done so through the use of trust instruments, to register their claims and interests in the Land Register. These claims and interests will be registered subject to the conditions of tenure that have been used by the government in the past. As reported, leases of 60 years from the date of registration are being considered for ownership by foreigners. The applicable tenure for a property used as a residence by permanent residents who are not nationals of other countries is also being considered. The Ministry of Development together with other relevant government agencies will hold discussion sessions at which conditions of tenure, application processes and related matters will be further elaborated.

A system of registration of caveats is also being considered and it is intended that the rules for the registration of caveats to be published concurrently or shortly after the above amendments to the Land Code.

It is regrettable that the Law Society has taken the stand of "condemning the passing of any laws that would have a retrospective effect on property owned through power of attorneys" as reported in the Brunei Times article "Law Society makes firm stand on PA" published on Page A9 on May 11, 2012. The Ministry of Development has taken legal advice on this matter. It is never the intention of the Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam to deprive land owners of their rights.

The policy on land ownership has been known and has been in use all this while. The deliberate use of trust instruments to circumvent these policies have to be brought under control. Further the amendments seek to ensure transparency in the ownership of land in Brunei Darussalam.

We wish to conclude by stating that the views of the Law Society and indeed of many other interested persons have been considered in the formulation of the policies behind the amendments to the Land Code. We certainly trust that a balanced view can be presented in any discussion on this issue. The purpose of the amendments have been stated above and the safeguarding of national interests with the goal of continued peace and prosperity for the nation should prevail.

Dipetik dari - Borneo Bulletin Online

Law Society airs concern over land ownership

Members of the Law Society of Brunei Darussalam have expressed great concern over reports in the press in relation to a policy decision by relevant authorities that seeks to render invalid certain types of equitable or beneficial interests in landed property in Brunei Darussalam, specifically where landed property is registered in the name of a citizen, but for which the beneifical or economic interest is held in trust for a permanent or temporary resident, or "ineligible person".

Since the policy has been announced, there have been no amendments to the laws relating to the ownership of and interests in land in Brunei.

The Law Society of Brunei Darussalam said this in a statement on proposed changes to the laws relating to the ownership and interests over landed property.

The Law Society wishes to state that prior to this policy announcement, there have been no published laws that specifically prohibit non-citizens from holding interests in landed property.

In decisions that date back to the 1970s until as recently as 2010, Brunei courts have on the basis of the laws of contract and equity given effect to unregistered interests in land in Brunei. In the recent past, there has also been implicit acceptance of ownership of beneficial interests in land, in relation to applications for permanent residency by temporary residents, and the requirement for proof of investment into Brunei.

Based on an understanding of what has been previously been known or permitted, individuals have arranged their affairs, made investments and conducted their business dealings.

The Law Society notes that with the policy announcement the authorities wish to take steps to invalidate all existing beneficial or trusts arrangements that are deemed "ineligible". In order to give effect to this policy a law would need to be passed that would have retrospective effect over existing arrangements.

The Law Society wishes to note its concern with the passing of any law with retrospective effect over individual's property rights, without warning or compensation.

The Law Society would state this type of action would ignore any accepted standards of the rule of law, and would set a very grave precedent which would not foster confidence both locally and internationally.

The Law Society has made representations to authorities concerned to consider with care any proposed amendments or changes to the law relating to the ownership of land and has requested for a draft of proposed laws or amendments to be circulated for the purpose of public consultation.

The Law Society strongly believes that as far as possible, changes in the law should not create uncertainty, lead to disputes and unduly cause unfairness or hardship.

The Law Society is , as always, guided by the wise leadership of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam.

The Law Society was established in 2003 by the passing of the Legal Profession (Law Society of Brunei Darussalam) Order.

By the Order, the purposes of the society are "to represent, protect and assist members of the legal profession in Brunei Darussalam" and "to protect and assist the public in Brunei Darussalam in all matters touching or ancillary or incidental to the law". It is thus one of the functions of the Law Society to raise matters of public interest.

All practising advocates and solicitors in Brunei are members of the Law Society.

Dipetik dari - Borneo Bulletin Online

Myanmar: Suu Kyi beacon of a new era

In any contest, the obvious winner is rarely ever the only winner. This is often lost sight of in the moment of euphoria. The overwhelming victory of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) in the 45 by-elections to Myanmar’s Parliament has other winners, too.

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, the government and the military establishment also deserve to be counted among the winners. Doubtless, the iconic Suu Kyi — symbol of the struggle for democracy since 1988 — is the leading force of the transformation now under way.

It is the iron resolve of this frail-looking, 66-year-old Nobel laureate and her relentless campaign — even after the military junta robbed her of the results of her victory in the 1990 elections and kept her under periodic detention since then — that triggered the electoral landslide heralding democracy in one of the world’s most repressive military dictatorships. No praise can be too much for this awesome achievement.

However, an outcome dealing a political blow to Suu Kyi would have been disastrous for not just democracy but all of Myanmar and especially its president and the military rulers. In fact, the regime is reportedly flattered at the result of the by-elections endorsing its own “reformist credentials”! The elections have made Myanmar the world’s newest darling. It is yet to be freed from the clutches of the military and far from being a democracy, but it holds out great promise of profit for international capital.

With the inevitable lifting of sanctions by the US and other western countries, Myanmar is bound to emerge as a new magnet for investments. There would be stiff competition for exploiting the potential of its oil and gas reserves. It is already a tourist hot spot, and is waking up to how tourism infrastructure can make for a new economic boom and, along with foreign investments, boost its foreign exchange reserves.

These, though, are in the future. What has happened now is that Suu Kyi has proved that she is as popular as she was in the 1990 elections, after which she has been mostly under house arrest. She has won handsomely in the 45 by-elections and set Myanmar irrevocably on a new political path.

If one sees this as an election with only winners — and no losers — then, in the stages to come, every player would strive to hold on and maximize the winnings of this round.

The goal post now is the general elections scheduled in 2015. The challenge facing Suu Kyi is to build on the victory, carry further the momentum and sustain the movement for democracy until the 2015 elections. She would need to go beyond her emotive appeal to create cadres across the country, recast the party as an electoral machine, keep her followers fired and use her place in Parliament to gain more political mileage.

This is the first time there is an “Opposition” in the 664-member Parliament of Myanmar and the generals and unelected military men sitting in Parliament would not do anything to make her job easy. The military is banking on gradual and moderate success of reforms — so that they have a safe exit without any backlash of the kind witnessed in the Arab world. Since Myanmar is now moving toward democracy, they may not try to thwart it; but they will definitely try to ensure that the pace is “comfortable” and does not endanger them in any way.

President Thein Sein, who assumed office in March 2011, has done a remarkable job. It is yet unclear how he negotiated with the military dictatorship to allow the process of political reform to go this far. But the undeniable fact is that he has prevailed and struck a balance between the interests of the military dictators and the movement for democracy. There are also reformists in the military and among the ranks of the uniformed in Parliament. It would appear that Thein Sein has played off these forces against each other in a shrewd manner to the satisfaction of the generals, Suu Kyi and the international community.

Although his role is being commended, it remains to be seen whether he stays on course until the 2015 election, for that would be the critical test of whether the reforms go forward enough for Myanmar to experiment with democracy. Until that happens, and the generals retreat from politics, Aung San Suu Kyi has to remain on guard and safeguard the small space she has secured for democracy to take root in hostile ground. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — even of liberty that is yet to come.

Dipetik dari - Arab News

Asian Diplomatic Ambiguity: Calming The South China Sea? – Analysis

The ongoing standoff between Beijing and Manila over their rival claims in the Spratlys may never be resolved through standard frameworks of international law. The best way forward may lie in the Asian way of diplomatic ambiguity.

By Alan Chong and Emrys Chew

RECENT ATTEMPTS to prescribe solutions to the ongoing standoff between Beijing and Manila over their rival claims to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea combine large doses of good intentions with a clinical approach to international law. These are unlikely to be taken seriously simply because they ignore the thick political contexts entangling the rival claimants.

For starters, some international legal consultants have suggested that Chinese positions may well be untenable according to baselines asserted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that are drawn from a submerged “Macclesfield Bank”. Likewise, Filipino claims to Scarborough Shoal via the argument of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending from the Republic’s main islands are equally contestable in a court of international law. Then, in late April, an International Crisis Group report attributed Chinese aggression to severely inadequate inter-ministry coordination and the political exploitation of nationalism by the Chinese Communist Party.

All these prognoses assume, dangerously, that history, memory and informal maritime practices on the ground are marginal to the current standoff. The reality is that these non-litigable and non-technical factors loom very large in the daily practice of Asian international relations.

History and memory in Asian international politics

Many policy circles forget that 21st century Asia still grapples with the crippling legacies of past centuries. The traumas of alien jurisdiction imported under colonial conditions from the West have left scars etched deeply into both psychological mindscapes and political landscapes.

China, expressed in terms of the collective destiny of a People’s Republic unified in 1949, was heir to a grand nationalist revitalisation project. Commencing in the late 1880s with Sun Yat-sen’s global outreach to rally the Chinese diaspora towards a modern political awakening, such nationalism brooked no compromise in pursuing a restoration of unity to the Chinese people. It was emphatically territorial: from the xenophobic attempts to regain sovereignty conceded from opium wars, gunboat diplomacy and unequal treaties over a “century of humiliation”; through the studied obstinacy of Chinese communist officialdom towards Chris Patten’s policies in the run-up to Hong Kong’s handover; to the non-negotiable goal of “recovering” Taiwan.

The Filipino struggle, expressed militarily and intellectually, first against Spain and then the United States, was about proving themselves ready for national independence. Ironically perhaps, it would take José Rizal’s writings to demonstrate how a Chinese-Filipino mestizo could become the equivalent of a Johann-Gottfried Herder of the Filipinos, awakening a spiritual nationalism that located its homeland in the Philippine archipelago.

For Filipino and Chinese nationalist alike, World War Two was significantly about fighting a just war for one’s pride and home against an imperial foreign power. The Cold War reiterated the territoriality of Philippine nationalism when the United States concentrated a vital part of its Cold War containment facilities at Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base. The US military had to evacuate those bases by 1992 owing to resurgent Philippine nationalism in a more fluid post-Cold War order. Both the Chinese and Philippine nation-states would thereby embody a collective spiritual need to defend or recover “lost” territories.

Porous borders, fluid frontiers

The collective nationalist urges to dominate and demarcate territory notwithstanding, history has also yielded boundary-defying patterns of social commingling between peoples on the ground. Before the militarisation of rival claims in the mid-1970s, virtually all reports on the Spratlys indicate that fisherfolk from claimant countries availed themselves regularly of the abundant fish stock in these waters without heeding the maritime boundaries. Commercial vessels of all sizes and flags have transited the disputed waters on their cargo routes.

Significantly, Beijing and Manila have both promoted tourism in the disputed zone, even though both governments argued simultaneously that such activities reinforce territorial sovereignty. It emerges that the nature of human social activity has added a seemingly universalistic layer of virtual claim on a “regional commons,” thereby defying any straightforward assertion of sovereignty.

Yet such mixed-usage, boundary-defying patterns of human activity are rooted historically in Asian political cultures, pre-dating even the Western import labelled as the nation-state. Itinerant traders, nomadic fisherfolk, international tourists and pan-Asian missionaries of every religious persuasion have crisscrossed Asian maritime frontiers without regard to sovereignty as we know it. Occasionally, these travellers and traffickers were subjected to piratical attack, but just as frequently, they put into ports along their transit routes in the South China Sea and Malacca Strait on the basis of the port’s reputation for just governance, religious piety, and “value added” commercial services.

An informal variant of “proto-soft power,” to use today’s fashionable term, thus attracted respect for territoriality on the open maritime commons since ancient times. It is hardly surprising that the sources of piracy in Asian waters continue to baffle modern Asian governments.

Virtue of diplomatic ambiguity

The current impasse in the Spratly Islands dispute is therefore unlikely to be resolved through neo-Westphalian, legalistic frameworks. Both Beijing and Manila, alongside the remaining four claimants, will need to reconcile the conjoined histories and memories that drive their sovereign territorial nationalisms with the informal maritime practices on the ground.

There is already a guide to handling this – the structural face-saving ambiguity inherent in the ASEAN Way. Both Manila and Beijing could find some non-political reason such as maritime safety (or specifically, safety of fishermen on the open seas) to produce a common reason to stand down. Even the ongoing third party-involved joint oil exploration and extraction ventures could be considered a continuation of the time-honoured practice of sharing an Asian commons.

Ambiguity is not necessarily a political taboo, much less a sin against national public opinion. Rather, it presents an alternative way out of complex entanglement that cannot be unravelled through legal technicalities. Indeed, the Chinese would do well to heed their own peaceful slogan – “shelf disputes, jointly develop” – thus laying to rest the spectre of a gunboat diplomacy that recalls their own troubled past.

Dipetik dari - Eurasia Review