Vietnam's Urban Poor

Published on Oct 24, 2012 by Luke Hunt

Vietnam has the highest urbanization rate in Southeast Asia. Just a decade ago, only 24% of its population lived in cities, with 65% of the labor force employed in rural agriculture. Today, already more than 30 million people live in urban areas, accounting for approximately 34% of Vietnam’s total population.The country is witnessing a rapid proliferation of urban areas, with the number of towns or cities at 755 and rising.Planners estimate that Vietnam’s cities will be home to more than 46 million people by the year 2020. The largest of these cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are the growth engines of the country, supported by a relatively low urban unemployment rate of 4.6%.Read more from Taufik Indrakesuma &....

Philippines & a Chance for Peace

Published on Oct 17, 2012 by Luke Hunt

For the first time in years, a good news story has come out of the southern Philippines. Earlier today the largest Muslim insurgent organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), signed a deal with President Benigno Aquino’s government. The “framework agreement” has been hailed as creating a roadmap to end the decades-long war waged by Muslim insurgents.But it potentially could do even more. If successful – a very big if — it will overhaul a dysfunctional system of governance that empowers despotic warlords and permits criminals and extremists to wreak havoc in the Philippines and beyond. It is not only the best chance for peace with the MILF, but also the first time the government has agreed to give genuine....

Russia's Checkbook Diplomacy

Published on Sep 17, 2012 by Luke Hunt

Moscow is turning to financially vulnerable South Pacific nations to promote its foreign policy agenda thousands of miles away. Since returning to power as Russia’s president three months ago, Vladimir Putin has lived up to his well-honed reputation as the hard, no-nonsense man of East European politics by bullying his way into the internal affairs of neighbors with fearless abandon.He has served notice that Moscow will challenge the West’s naval dominance of the world’s oceans, moving to shore-up his country’s defenses from the Arctic Circleand its Western flank to its troubled southern borders,breakaway republics and even the South Pacific.Read more in The Diplomat..

China's Debt Bomb

Published on Sep 8, 2012 by Luke Hunt

China’s massive bank financed stimulus was intended to keep the economy moving. It may instead lead to economic disaster.Financial collapses may have different immediate triggers, but they all originate from the same cause: an explosion of credit.  This iron law of financial calamityshould make us very worried about the consequences of easy credit in China in recent years.  From the beginning of 2009 to the end of June this year, Chinese banks have issued roughly 35 trillion yuan ($5.4 trillion) in new loans, equal to 73 percent of China’s GDP in 2011. About two-thirds of these loans were made in 2009 and 2010, as part of Beijing’s stimulus package.  Unlike deficit-financed stimulus packages in the West, China’s colossal stimulus package....

Laos Mulls Reforms

Published on Aug 27, 2012 by Luke Hunt

Latter day communist countries still carry the legacies of their past. Somewhat secretive and sensitive to criticism, authorities in one-party states tend to hide at the slightest hint of criticism. It’s a routine in East Asia that is as common in Laos as it has been in Vietnam, China, or even North Korea.But more recently the government of Thongsing Thammavong in Laos has been making some very different noises. His government has lashed-out at the faceless bureaucrats behind the nation’s dilapidated health services, a bungling judiciary, and even the state-controlled press.Read more in The Diplomat..