Capturing the Year 2009 WRITINGS FROM THE ANU COLLEGE OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Edited by Barbara Nelson with Andrew MacIntyre ANU COLLEGE OF ASIA & THE PACIFIC Capturing the Year Writings2009 from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific Edited by Barbara Nelson with Andrew MacIntyre ANU COLLEGE OF ASIA & THE PACIFIC Capturing the year ISSN 1836-3784 (Print) ISSN 1836-3792 (Online) Published by ANU College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/ Produced by Minnie Doron Printed in Canberra by The Australian National University Printing Service Contents Introduction vii Climate Change Frank Jotzo, New government, new attitude, new optimism 1 Ross Garnaut, Everyone must do their bit 3 Will Steffen, Climate change: the risks of doing nothing 7 Raghbendra Jha, India and the Copenhagen summit 10 Stephen Howes, Can China rescue the world climate change negotiations? 13 Democracy Benjamin Reilly, Big task to tackle at Bali forum 17 Assa Doron, Speaking of Israel 20 Human Rights and Ethics Hilary Charlesworth, Debate, not a boycott, needed to address racism 23 Luigi Palombi, Who owns your genes? 26 Nicholas Cheesman, Shameful responses to UN rights expert should be binned 29 Language Edward Aspinall, Lost in translation 32 Jamie Mackie, Don’t overlook Indonesian 38 Kent Anderson and Joseph Lo Bianco, Speak, and ye shall find knowledge 40 Resources and Energy Quentin Grafton, One fish, two fish, no fish 44 Robert Ayson, Nuclear energy is neither a monster nor a panacea 51 Afghanistan William Maley, Shutting down the Taliban is key to success 54 William Maley, Afghanistan’s elections: the eye of the storm 57 Hugh White, Think about leaving 59 Australia Richard Mulgan, Government responsibility for bushfire tragedy 64 Richard Mulgan, Evidence-based policy 67 Hugh White, Public opinion and the 2009 Defence White Paper 71 Susan Harris Rimmer, Grand plans 74 Robin Jeffrey, Australia and India: the good, the bad and the Section 420s 80 Hugh White, Defence White Paper 2009 86 Bangladesh Bina D’Costa, ‘Frozen in time’? The war crimes trial in Bangladesh 92 Burma Trevor Wilson, Aung San Suu Kyi and the generals 96 Nicholas Farrelly, Burma’s general objectives 98 Craig Reynolds, Review of Taylor 104 China Stuart Harris, Taiwan and Hu Jintao’s end-year overtures 109 Ben Hillman, Fifty years on, what do we really know about Tibet? 111 Ligang Song, Let the stimulus package work in China 115 Richard Rigby, Can China embrace its history and Zhao Ziyang’s memoir? 119 Peter Drysdale, Chinalco fiasco exposes our national ignorance 122 Geremie R. Barmé with Evan Osnos, Q & A on Chinese military parades 125 Fiji Brij V. Lal, Fiji: the cruel hoax 131 Jon Fraenkel, Coup leader’s brittle strategy 134 India Sandy Gordon, Not just India’s problem any more 139 Maxine Loynd, India’s Obama rises 142 Kate Sullivan, Looking for Youngistaan 148 Robin Jeffrey, India’s elections: a bed of nails and roses 153 Indonesia Peter McCawley, Indonesian elections 160 Ross H. McLeod, Indonesia’s choices facing the global financial crisis 166 Greg Fealy, Islamic lens the wrong way to see Indonesia 169 Chris Manning, A surprise choice? Dr Boediono is selected as SBY’s running mate 172 Hal Hill, Indonesia: cautious optimism 175 Hal Hill, Indonesia’s new leadership: the Australian connection 178 Japan Jenny Corbett, It’s important to know how Japan will affect us 185 Shiro Armstrong, Australia, and managing Japan’s insecurity 188 Rikki Kersten, The end game for Japanese politics? The significance fo the collapse of the LDP 190 Korea Hyung-A Kim, South Korea’s ‘bulldozer’ seeks a partner in Rudd 194 Tessa Morris-Suzuki, North Korea’s bluff should be taken seriously 197 Ron Huisken, Is Pyongyang reacting to or shaping events? 200 Malaysia Amrita Malhi, Sex, race and religion still political weapons in Malaysian politics 204 Greg Lopez, Najib’s and UMNO’s survival 207 Pacific Jon Fraenkel, PNG and the Solomon Islands: splendid isolation 212 Stephen Howes, Vanuatu’s recent economic success: lessons for the Pacific 222 Pakistan William Maley, Urgent: Pakistan 226 Shakira Hussein, Inside Pakistan’s Jalozai refugee camp 231 Papua New Guinea Aaron Batten, Papua New Guinea: from economic boom to gloom? 234 Rochelle Ball and Nicole Haley, International labour mobility: opportunities and challenges for PNG 237 Philippines Paul D. Hutchcroft, ‘Getting Our Act Together’? 244 Thailand Andrew Walker, Thailand’s human rights challenges 252 Andrew Walker and Nicholas Farrelly, Thailand’s royal subplot 257 United States Andrew MacIntyre, Obama and Asia 265 Peter Drysdale, Asians are now proud Americans too 267 Peter Van Ness, Under Obama, realism ain’t so realistic any more 270 Contributors 273 Introduction 2009 was a year of upheaval and change. It was the year we felt the variable impact of the Global Financial Crisis. It was a year of vital elections across the region: in India, in Indonesia, in Japan, in Malaysia and in Afghanistan. 2009 was also a milestone year for China, being the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. And it was the year the bombing of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai gripped media attention as did a major missile test in North Korea. Members of the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific interpreted these events in newspapers and periodicals ranging from our city’s Canberra Times to the Jakarta Post, The New Yorker and The Economist. This is the fourth year that the college has published a selection of popular writing produced by its members. From more than 160 articles published by college members in the past year,* we have selected 65, written by 57 of the college’s members. The college has more than 150 scholars who are vigorously engaged in high level research and teaching and who seek to communicate the results of their work to people who might benefit from it—across Australia, across Asia and the Pacific and to the world at large. Collectively, we do this by maintaining blogs, doing radio and television interviews and writing for newspapers and magazines. This popular writing, which represents the * For purposes of Capturing, we take an elastic view of ‘the year’: it extends from about November of one calendar year to October of the next. viii Capturing the Year — 2009 distillation of years of research, is represented in Capturing the Year. We see this volume as both an engaging and useful snapshot of major developments in Asia and the Pacific during 2009 and a convenient window offering people a fuller appreciation of the range of expertise within the college. To be sure, we are heavily engaged with ‘new media’—as the spectacular rise of some of our blog sites such as the East Asia Forum, New Mandala and South Asia Masala suggests. The more traditional book format of Capturing the Year allows us to bring a selection of all of our popular publications together in a convenient fashion. The 2009 menu for Capturing the Year is rich and diverse. We have pieces on cross-cutting themes such as climate change, democracy, human rights and ethics, language and resources and energy. We supplement this with a range of pieces focused on developments in particular countries. This year’s selection covers sixteen countries, stretching from Afghanistan and Australia through the Pacific to the United States. It’s a potent mix. We hope you enjoy it. We also hope that if you don’t yet know the work of our college well, you will be moved to make contact with us. We care as much about getting our ideas out to people who can benefit from them as we do about producing them in the first place. Andrew MacIntyre and Barbara Nelson Climate Change 20 November 2008 CANBERRA TIMES FRANK JotZO New government, new attitude, new optimism Will leaders have the stomach to get serious about climate change, as the global financial crisis turns into recession? The international climate negotiations have been in a holding pattern for years waiting for the end of the Bush presidency. Now—with the new US administration needing to fix the banks, keep Detroit alive and deal with soaring unemployment—might seem like a truly bad time to be expecting breakthroughs on climate policy. But it ain’t necessarily so. President-elect Obama put climate change high up his agenda and did so even in his acceptance speech: ‘Two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.’ To tackle climate change, Obama needs to put in place effective domestic policies to establish America’s credibility on the issue and get the major developing countries into a post-Kyoto agreement. The first may be surprisingly easy to do; the second difficult but not impossible. First published in Canberra Times, 20 November 2008. 2 Capturing the Year — 2009 Obama’s policy platform features carbon pricing via emissions targets and trading, and boosting investment in clean energy. The mood in the US Congress has been shifting on emissions trading, and northeastern and western states are poised to introduce their own schemes. Recession could dampen the appetite for putting a price on carbon for a while, but it may very well result in a very large shot in the arm for revamping the energy sector. Public money for clean energy and improving energy efficiency kills two birds with one stone: it takes the economy onto a lower-emissions path to help with climate change and lessens the reliance on imported oil. Now it kills three: green energy is an attractive target for government spending to pump the economy.