In The News

Growing Anti-US Sentiments Roil Alliance With South Korea

Sook-Jong Lee June 8, 2004
Although South Korea’s legislature just approved the deployment of 3000 troops to Iraq, South Koreans’ anger about US military actions has reached a boiling point, argues Sook-Jong Lee, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. South Koreans have become increasingly critical of the US since the 1980s, with the presence of US forces in South Korea serving as a daily reminder of the country’s...

China is Just Catching Up

Yasheng Huang June 8, 2004
China’s so-called 'rise' in the last two decades must be put into perspective, says Yasheng Huang, associate professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and author of "Selling China". In recent times, Huang notes, blaming China’s buoyant economy for financial uncertainties in other parts of the world has come into vogue. But the hysteria and exaggeration expressed by...

Indonesia's Shameful Export

Devi Asmarani June 8, 2004
Last month, Indonesia was forced to face the reality of a widespread child prostitution network when a woman was arrested for employing young schoolgirls as prostitutes from a food stall in a densely populated neighborhood in South Jakarta. This article in the Straits Times reports that the 1997 economic crisis has caused millions of children to take to the worst of forms of child labor,...

Beijing's Social Contract is Starting to Fray

Minxin Pei June 3, 2004
Marking the anniversary of Beijing's crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protest movement 15 years ago, China scholar Minxin Pei writes that the Chinese Communist Party's hold on power is not sustainable. The regime has been fortunate, he says, to have achieved such unprecedented economic growth and prosperity since 1989. But the party's 'neo-authoritarian' development...

Filipino Workers, Activists Protest Over Jobs

Cody Yiu June 3, 2004
For years Taiwanese industry and construction companies have relied upon the labor of Filipinos, Thais, and migrant workers from other Southeast Asian countries. Labor relations have not always been smooth, however, with reports of abuse and exploitation surfacing from time to time. The latest labor conflict, reported here in the Taipei Times, concerns 19 Filipino workers who were being over-...

No Lack of Fake Luxuries

Jin Hyun-joo June 3, 2004
Cartier, Rolex, DKNY… Brand-name items are all the rage on the streets of South Korean cities. But buyer beware, says this article in the Korea Herald; a great deal of these 'luxury goods' are fakes. Counterfeit items generate billions of won a year in sales, though, because savvy buyers don't seem to care that they aren't getting the real thing. Two out of three university...

US Firm to Control Chinese Bank

Peter S. Goodman June 1, 2004
China's banking industry has long been the focus of reform-oriented economists and policy-makers in Beijing. Corruption, a history of bad loans, and banks' obligations to lend to unprofitable state-owned businesses have caused some observers to call the sector the Achilles heel of China's booming economy. Yet things may be changing. After negotiations that concluded this weekend...