Washington Post (March 22)
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew “was the democratic world’s favorite dictator.” Despite his virtues, he was “demonstrably unwise about democracy in Asia. While he was touting supposedly unique Asian values incompatible with liberal Western norms, Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia became robust democracies and prospered economically.”
Tags: Asia, Democracy, Dictator, Indonesia, Lee Kuan Yew, Prospered, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Values, Virtues, Western
The Economist (December 3)
“If Thailand’s economy could be said to belong to any foreign country, it would be Japan. After floods devastated Thailand in 2011, Japanese firms poured in nearly $30 billion to rebuild their favourite production base in Asia. That is more investment in three years than everything that American firms have poured in since the Vietnam war, plus everything Chinese firms have ever invested on top.”
Tags: Asia, China, Economy, Floods, Investment, Japan, Production base, Thailand, U.S., Vietnam
New York Times (October 9)
“Large parts of the world seem to be on the verge of a recession. In many countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, economic growth has already stalled.” Nevertheless, too many officials “are unwilling or ill prepared to respond.” German officials “continue to insist that countries that use the euro meet restrictive fiscal rules” and “officials in Japan, meanwhile, have hurt that economy by raising a sales tax too fast.
Tags: Asia, Economic growth, euro, Europe, Germany, Japan, Latin America, Officials, Recession, Stalled, Tax
Bloomberg (September 2)
“Japan’s lowest auto sales in three years are reviving concerns that manufacturing will hollow out in Asia’s second-largest economy.” This could deliver a blow to Prime Minister Abe’s “efforts to revive the economy, which last quarter contracted the most since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.”
Tags: Abe, Asia, Auto sales, Contraction, Earthquake, Economy, Japan, Manufacturing, Tsunami
Wall Street Journal (July 2)
The decision by the Cabinet to reinterpret the constitution and allow for Japan’s collective self-defense is “a momentous and long overdue decision that strengthens the security of Asia’s democracies. Perhaps as important, it will force Beijing to contemplate how its aggressive behavior in the East China Sea invited Japan to take a more active role in the region.”
Tags: Aggressive, Asia, Beijing, Cabinet, Collective, Constitution, East China Sea, Japan, Region, Reinterpret, Security, Self-defense
Euromoney (June Issue)
In Asia, “regulatory co-ordination efforts are failing to keep pace with banking and capital flows, as there is no single authority to call…. Diverse markets, conflicting interests and failed policymaking add to the regulatory challenge.” APEC, the Asean Economic Community and the Chiang Mai Initiative aren’t meeting this challenge, leaving “Asian policymakers, supervisors and securities officials [to] coordinate policies and assess financial stability through a fragmented and ad-hoc series of talks and negotiating blocs that are not fit for purpose.”
Tags: Ad-hoc, APEC, Asean, Asia, Authority, Capital flows, Conflicting interests, Coordination, Diverse markets, Financial stability, Fragmented, Policies, Policymakers, Regulatory, Securities officials
Financial Times (June 9)
For the first time in over four decades, Japan earned more in tourism than it spent. This last happened in 1970 when “the Apollo moon landing was still fresh in the memory, Osaka was hosting Asia’s first World’s Fair and a dollar bought three-and-a-half-times more yen than it does today.” Visitors from Asia have skyrocketed as destinations in Japan have gone from “prohibitively expensive” to reasonable, aided by the drop in the yen and higher disposable incomes elsewhere in Asia.
Tags: Apollo, Asia, Destinations, Dollar, Incomes, Japan, Osaka, Prohibitive, Reasonable, Tourism, Visitors, World’s Fair, Yen
WARC (June 5)
“Digital advertising expenditure is set to grow across Asia in the next five years but most spectacularly in China where it will account for over half of all advertising by 2018,” as it grows from 40% of ad spend in 2013 to 55% in 2018. Other big gains are expected in South Korea (from 35% to 46%), Australia (30% to 43%) and New Zealand (19% to 28%).
Tags: Ad spend, Advertising, Asia, Australia, China, Digital, New Zealand, South Korea
Euromoney (May Issue)
“Dollar-denominated debt capital market volume in Asia reached almost $27 billion in April, the highest monthly volume on record…. These record volumes underline the fact that global investors remain keenly focused on Asia, despite continuing worries about a slowdown in China and India.”
Tags: Asia, Capital, China, DCM, Debt, Dollar, Global, India, Investors, Market, Record, Slowdown, Volume, Worries
Financial Times (May 23)
“India has a new prime minister; and each of Asia’s four most powerful nations is now led by a combative nationalist.” India’s Modi, Japan’s Abe, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi make up the four “nationalist horsemen” who will transform Asia and perhaps the world. “The multilateralist assumptions of the postwar order are giving way to a return to great power competition. Nationalism is on the march, and nowhere more so than in the rising east.”
Tags: Abe, Asia, Assumptions, China, Combative, Competition, India, Japan, Modi, Multilateralist, Nationalist, Postwar order, Power, Prime minister, Putin, Russia, Xi
