ST Deep Dive: Singapore-Indonesia deal, Modi's 'bait and switch'
Here's a round-up of recent commentaries and more by think-tanks in the region and elsewhere that could be of interest to those who watch Asia.
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Up in the air
PM Lee Hsien Loong with Indonesian President Joko Widodo during the Leaders' Retreat in Bintan, Indonesia, on Jan 25, 2022.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Indonesia and Singapore have signed agreements that seek to settle some longstanding issues around airspace control, defence cooperation and extradition of fugitives.
Upon his ascent to the presidency in 2014, Indonesian President Joko Widodo had set in motion an ambitious approach to resolve the airspace issue.
The following year, he promulgated a presidential instruction to accelerate the Flight Information Region (FIR) takeover process from Singapore, setting a deadline of no later than 2019.
A key part of the deal clinched last month is that Indonesia will delegate to Singapore, which operates Asean's busiest international airport, the provision of air navigation services in portions of the airspace within a realigned Jakarta FIR.
This agreement will remain in force for 25 years and can be extended by mutual consent. The S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) produced two papers on the deal; the paper by former ambassador Barry Desker, available here, explains why it is a "milestone" in bilateral relations.
Mr Desker's commentary was also reproduced in The Straits Times and you can access it here.
A separate RSIS paper by Indonesia specialists Leonard Sebastian and Deni Dinarto says ties are entering a phase of "cooperative security".
The extradition treaty will allow both sides to pursue and deter cross-border fugitives, including for commercial crimes - something which Jakarta has been pushing for - while defence cooperation will continue to sustain the space needed for Singapore's military training.
Myanmar resistance
How time flies! It is hard to believe that it has been exactly a year since the military ousted the elected government in Myanmar and jailed democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, among others, after a military-backed party fared poorly in the national election.
In opposition to this turn of events, democratically elected lawmakers sidelined by the coup quickly formed the National Unity Government (NUG) as an alternative political representation for the country, something like a government-in-hiding.
Indeed, its first "appointments" came as early as a month after the coup.
In this paper on the NUG written for the Iseas-Yusoff Ishak Institute, co-coordinator of the Myanmar Studies Programme Moe Thuzar and research intern Htet Myet Min Tun say that, moving forward, NUG's great challenge lies in managing the disparate interests of ethnic armed groups, and of regional and international interlocutors.
That is from the inside. Externally, Myanmar has come under considerable pressure from its Asean peers to restore the elected government and free democracy activists. However, intelligence analyst Roshni Kapur argues in this Lowy Institute paper that the group seems to be making little headway with the generals.
Modi's bait and switch
While Myanmar marks the first anniversary of the coup, next-door India will soon mark eight years of Mr Narendra Modi's prime ministership.
Since being elected prime minister, Mr Modi has set about putting his stamp on India, often in indelible ways - the redesign of New Delhi's colonial-era central vista being a good example.
In this paper for India Forum, the noted editor and commentator TN Ninan takes a clear-eyed look at Mr Modi's ascent. He notes that Mr Modi had promised to change India's economic fortunes, but the economy has been his primary failure.
His priority has been political change: Majoritarianism has now been mainstreamed, and the country's institutions stand more eroded than before. You can read the full paper here.
For more on Indian politics, see this commentary for the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies by Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow Vinod Rai. He looks at what is at stake for Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in some upcoming state elections, notably the big state of Uttar Pradesh.
Other reading:
- The much-awaited Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, is now in force, creating the world's largest free trade agreement. What to expect of it in 2022? Dr Su-Hyun Lee and Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit have this to say in an RSIS commentary.
- As more and more pieces move on Asia's strategic chessboard, Dr Premesha Saha and Mr Angad Singh of the Strategic Studies programme at India's Observer Research Foundation discuss the potential for Australia and India to cooperate in the naval sphere.
- Professor Karin Costa Vazquez, Fudan Scholar at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University (China), has this paper written for the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation that examines the China-backed New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank models of multilateral development finance that bring to life an Asian approach to South-South cooperation.
