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What It Takes

INDIA

Does India have what it takes to become a great power on the world stage?

University of Chicago political scientist Paul Post wrote in World Politics Review that he is skeptical.

While India’s population and economy are growing and the country appears ready to invest more to make its military top class, the massive country – the world’s largest democracy – still faces major issues, from poverty to ethnic rivalries and violence among its many different cultures, languages and ethnic communities, Post argued.

“It is not yet a great power, let alone a superpower,” he explained. “For now, it remains a sleeping giant, and there’s no guarantee it will ever awaken.”

India boosters like Martin Wolf of the Financial Times might disagree. Martin recently argued that India will rise to the top of the geopolitical hierarchy for no other reason than its population is now the largest in the world and growing.

India, noted Martin, is on track to hit 1.67 billion people in 2050, while 1.32 billion people will live in China and the US population will be 380 million.

Post was also raising questions about a “great power partnership” between India and the US, as outlined in an Atlantic Council article by Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum President and Atlantic Council non-resident senior fellow Kaush Arha and Samir Saran, the president of the Observer Research Foundation, India. India has always maintained relations with China, Russia, and other US rivals.

Among India’s greatest challenges to achieving its full potential arguably is caste, or “the most important fault line in Indian society,” noted the Economist. As the BBC explained, the caste system is a 3,000-year-old form of social stratification that divides society into rigid hierarchical groups based on economic class, profession, family history, and so forth.

In an example of how caste sows disunity in India, the country’s Supreme Court recently issued controversial decisions on the matter, rejecting a petition to declare the traditional caste system as unconstitutional, wrote the Jurist. “There are provisions in the Constitution specifically referring to caste, to socially and educationally backward classes,” noted a justice.

They further found that officials could not fire government and bank staffers hired due to their caste even if the government had otherwise removed their castes from the so-called “schedules” that track caste statuses throughout the subcontinent, added the Hindu.

Perhaps most importantly, the court also legalized the sub-classification of folks within the castes in which they are already classified. The Indian Express was critical of the idea, saying it would cause more problems in the lowest castes as they jockey for status within the bottom.

If India can overcome this problem, it has the right to be a global superpower.

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The Pressure Cooker

TAJIKISTAN

A statue of Ismoil Somoni is a big attraction in Dushanbe, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan. In the 10th century, he ruled over an empire that included parts of what are now Afghanistan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. “Somonis” is the name for Tajikistan’s currency.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon – who has been in office since 1992 when he and his fellow former Soviet elites fought a four-year civil war against liberal democrats, nationalists and Islamists that resulted in as many as 150,000 deaths – has promoted Somoni as well as other Persian figures in recent years.

As Le Monde diplomatique reported, this mythologizing of Tajikistan’s Aryan past has been Rahmon’s way of building a sense of Tajik national identity.

It’s also likely one reason why Rahmon recently decided to ban women from donning attire including the hijab, the black veil that many Muslim women wear, even though 97 percent of Tajiks are Muslim, wrote Euronews. Instead, the government is encouraging women to wear traditional Tajik clothing, or Western garb.

The idea is to suppress religious extremism, say Rahmon’s allies, according to Radio Free Europe, even as some would argue that Islam doesn’t necessarily compel women to wear hijabs. Men with long beards – a common custom in Muslim countries – have also received frowns from officials. Police trimmed the beards of 13,000 men in Khatlon Province in 2015, for example.

Human rights activists say the policy violates civil liberties and freedom of expression, wrote the EU Reporter.

Rahmon has been pursuing these kinds of measures for years. In 2011, lawmakers passed a law banning minors from entering places of worship without permission and punishing parents who send their kids to foreign religious schools. In 2017, the government shut down almost 2,000 mosques, converting many into tea shops and health clinics.

Critics don’t believe the hijab ban will work. Tajikistan is one of the poorest countries in Central Asia, and Tajiks have few economic opportunities at home. Instead, many leave for menial jobs in Russia. Others opt for Islamic militant groups because they believe radicalism provides them with more dignity and options for the future, argued Emerging Europe. Rules about clothing won’t change those conditions, it added.

Tajikistan certainly has a problem with terrorists. Russian authorities say the terrorists who attacked Moscow’s Crocus City Hall in March, killing 140 people and injuring 360, carried Tajik passports, for example, reported TRT World.

Nazila Ghanea, the United Nations human rights agency’s special rapporteur, believes the restrictions are counterproductive, the news organization added, stressing that it plays a strong role in promoting radicalism within society.

That’s exacerbated by “Tajikistan’s geographic isolation, weak economy and repressive government, (which) will leave it particularly vulnerable to destabilization and becoming a hotbed for radicalization for the foreseeable future,” wrote analytical group Stratfor, adding that a looming succession crisis due to the ailing and aging leader (who’s 71 years old) could inspire even more radicalization among the population.

Meanwhile, there’s another crackdown on belief in the country – the government announced in late August it would suppress witches, warlocks and their clients, wrote the Times of Central Asia. It appears the government has concerns that “deeply rooted beliefs revolving around the supernatural are a threat to stability.”

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Tilting at Windmills

AZERBAIJAN

Vafa Nagi is running for a seat in parliament as an independent in Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections Sept. 1.

“I have no chance to win,” she told Radio Free Europe.

Around the world, opposition candidates like Nagi, a former journalist, often boycott elections as a show of disapproval of an election process they say is rigged in favor of the incumbents –Bangladesh’s election in January, for example.

But Nagi says that taking part in a race that is certain to be swept by the dominant New Azerbaijan Party, headed by President Ilham Aliyev, along with other loyal parties because of the iron control they collectively have on the country, still makes sense.

“You can see that people need someone to tell their problems to, people need someone to care about them,” she said of voters. And regarding her home district of Neftchala, she said, “People have been completely forgotten by officials.”

Still, many of her fellow opposition members are refusing to stand in the election. The question has divided the opposition for years, especially so during the presidential race in February, which Aliyev easily won, says Eurasianet.

So far, the largest opposition party, the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (AXCP), is boycotting the parliamentary race, as it did in February, to take away any legitimacy the race might have.

“We know that we won’t come to power through a boycott,” the party’s leader, Ali Karimli, told Meydan TV, an independent Azeri outlet. “But the question for us now is not how we will come to power, but whether we take part in the government’s charade of a fraudulent election?”

“The fact that the principled opposition … didn’t fit into Aliyev’s plan (for the election) is driving the arrogant regime crazy,” he added.

That was underscored by prosecutors starting an investigation into him in early August for slander and insult, according to JAMnews. About a dozen of his fellow party members are already in jail on “politically motivated” charges.

Meanwhile, Musavat, another large opposition party, has decided to take part in this one.

“I don’t think our participation will lead to democratic elections,” Musavat’s leader, Isa Qambar, told Voice of America. “But we don’t know any other way to change the system.”

Azerbaijan, a former Soviet satellite, has been one of the most repressive countries in the region since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to Freedom House. And Aliyev, who is running for his fifth term and has been in office since 2003 – shortly before his father, a former high-ranking KGB agent and then president of the country, died – has made the country even more repressive.

For example, last year, parliament passed a law that restricts political parties, duly dampening the activities and efficacy of opposition parties. Journalists and civil rights activists, meanwhile, are routinely arrested or harassed, wrote Human Rights Watch.

Analysts say the government occasionally allows a few opposition candidates to win, to keep the public engaged in the election. But Nagi is unlikely to be one of those acceptable candidates.

The powers-that-be have driven her out of office before.

Nagi was elected in 2019 to a municipal council in the Neftchala district, but made powerful enemies after she questioned the council about the illegal sale of lands and other governance and transparency issues, wrote the US Embassy in Azerbaijan.

The Embassy reported that “local officials launched a gender-based harassment and intimidation campaign against Vafa Nagi … the local municipal council chair reportedly ordered authorities to hang photographs of Nagi dressed in her swimsuit with the caption ‘Lady Gaga’ throughout the conservative village to embarrass and shame her and her family members.”

Soon after, she was ousted from the council.

Still, Nagi’s a glass-full type of candidate. She told RFE/RL that the situation can always get worse: “We are trying so our country doesn’t turn into Turkmenistan.”

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The Judicial Wall

THAILAND

The ruling party in Thailand’s parliament, Pheu Thai, recently nominated Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the 37-year-old daughter of billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, as the Southeast Asian country’s next prime minister.

Usually, such an announcement would signal a resolution to political instability and the start of a new government. But Paetongtarn is taking over after Thailand’s Constitutional Court removed former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office for appointing a cabinet minister who was a convicted criminal, contravening Thai law, reported Agence France-Presse.

Srettha’s removal also occurred a week after the Constitutional Court disbanded Thailand’s progressive opposition Move Forward Party, wrote World Politics Review. The party, which won the largest share of seats in parliament last year, saw its leaders barred from standing for office for 10 years, CNN noted.

The court disbanded Move Forward because its leaders have proposed amending the so-called “lèse-majesté” laws that outlaw criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn or proposing policies that might undermine the king’s authority as the country’s head of state, the East Asia Forum explained.

These moves are unpopular because many Thais feel the court is tipping the scales against Thai voters who want political and economic reforms, while defending military and business elites and the allies of King Vajiralongkorn.

Human rights activists say the court rulings are part of a pattern of unelected officials exercising too much power over elected leaders, the Associated Press reported. Since 2005, military coups, court rulings, or other maneuvers have prevented winning political parties from forming governments. Thavisin was closely affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, for example, wrote Time magazine.

“Elections are held in which voters voice increasingly clear demands for change, only for those to be denied by the royalist old guard that has dominated my country for generations,” argued Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a professor of Thai politics at Kyoto University, in a New York Times op-ed.

That old guard is represented by the court, wrote the BBC. “Thailand’s Constitutional court, which has dissolved 34 parties since 2006, has long been the principal guardian of the conservative status quo – at its heart is the monarchy, protected by a politically assertive military,” the broadcaster said. “Beyond that, unaccountable power is wielded by palace officials, senior judges, business tycoons, and military and police officers.”

Still, Move Forward, a party reborn from its previous incarnation previously Future Forward which was dissolved in 2020, has already become a new party, the People’s Party, the Associated Press reported.

But it faces new headwinds, again: The leaders of Thailand’s newest pro-democracy party are now being threatened by a new probe, one by the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which began an ethics investigation into 39 of its lawmakers that could see them cast out of the National Assembly over similar allegations that saw Move Forward dissolved, VOA reported.

Meanwhile, analysts at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, were skeptical that Paetongtarn would be able to assert herself or disrupt these trends. They predicted instability, conservative forces retaining inordinate power behind the scenes of electoral politics, and few if any economic or political reforms.

Governance is suffering as a result. Srettha’s government, for instance, failed to enact meaningful legislation to improve the country’s economy by attracting foreign investment, while feuding with the Bank of Thailand over interest rates.

The royalists might want a weak prime minister. But years of repression often lead to trouble boiling over sooner or later, as it has in the past. Meanwhile, the use of the court for political ends won’t end anytime soon, analysts say.

“The issue of the monarchy has been used by those politicians who would like to ensure that they remain in power,” said Verapat Pariyawong, who teaches Thai law and politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. “It’s those people who rely on issues of lèse-majesté to attack parties like MFP or People’s (Party), so that dynamic will continue as long as … the Constitutional Court can rely on lèse-majesté to disband political parties.”

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Atoll Power

KIRIBATI

Around 1,300 miles south of the American state of Hawaii, Kiribati is a country of 115,000 people living on 150 square miles of atolls that stretch across more than 1.3 million square miles of the South Pacific. This strategic location blessed Kiribati with an amazing environment and potential seabed mineral riches – but has also made the former British colony a prize in the competition for influence between Australia, China, and the US.

“Like many other Pacific Island countries at the moment, it’s seeking to solidify its identity, its values, its place in the region and in the world,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute analyst Blake Johnson told Radio New Zealand. “Kiribati does seem to be doing that a little differently to some of the others, in terms of just the transparency.”

Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, for example, initially leaned toward Australia and the US – he was elected in 2016 on a pro-Taiwan platform. But in 2019, he rescinded his country’s recognition of the independent island state off the coast of China. He then won reelection in 2020 despite allegations that Chinese agents bribed officials in his administration to sway his government’s decision-making, explained Foreign Policy magazine.

Then, recently, without explanation or a public announcement of an agreement, Chinese police officers began patrolling Kiribati’s streets, Reuters reported, raising serious questions about the Chinese government’s operations there. The Chinese officers were part of a “community policing and a crime database program,” said Kiribatian law enforcement officials.

American leaders were particularly concerned. Port facilities on the country’s Christmas Island, within range of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii, could provide a good harbor for Chinese warships.

Voters are now deciding whether to continue this trend under Maamau when they elect a new parliament on Aug. 14 and 19 – these lawmakers will choose a new president in October, wrote Radio New Zealand. Maamau can run for one more term. His main rival is opposition leader Tessie Lambourne, who needs to win a seat in parliament before running for the presidency.

In May, Maamau deported Lambourne’s husband, David, a high court judge in Kiribati who is an Australian citizen. He was one of a handful of foreign judges whom Maamau removed, eliminating an entire tier of his country’s court system while making spurious accusations of judicial misconduct, according to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. This shift clearly benefits Chinese interests, claimed the Australian Associated Press.

Maamau is likely popular because, rather than proposing to move much of his population to Fiji as sea levels rise, he plans to build a sea wall and expand tourism and other industries to develop the country’s poor economy, noted CNA. He might have meddled in the politics of the International Seabed Authority to boost ocean-bottom mining, too, added the New York Times. And he’s had a spat with the Pacific Islands Forum, a regional grouping, pulling his country out – then returning.

But then, analysts say, that’s all part of the country finding its footing.

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‘The People’s War’

BANGLADESH

On July 16, two police officers clashing with student protesters at Begum Rokeya University in the northwestern Bangladeshi city of Rangpur allegedly fired 12-gauge shotguns into the chest of 25-year-old student protest organizer Abu Sayed. The birdshot in the shotguns, illegal for suppressing public demonstrations, killed Sayed, wrote Amnesty International.

His death was one of hundreds in recent weeks as thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in demonstrations that rocked the South Asian country of 171 million people, and brought life – and business – to a standstill. Police have arrested 11,000 people and targeted more than 200,000 more in 200 cases involving fomenting violence and civil unrest, Bangladeshi newspaper the Daily Star reported.

And on Sunday, when the government instituted a shoot-on-sight curfew, protesters defied it, attacked and burned government buildings and the ruling party’s headquarters, and advanced on the prime minister’s residence. Minutes before they stormed it, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, having been in power this time around for 15 years, fled the country.

The reaction was jubilant.

“It’s a new liberation,” Badiul Alam Majumdar, secretary of the Citizens for Good Governance, told the Washington Post. “Our generation fought for the liberation (from) Pakistan in 1971. This generation fought for another liberation … This was the people’s war, and they have won.”

The startling turn of events that led the daughter of the country’s founding father to resign began weeks ago when protests first broke out over quotas that reserve 30 percent of public sector jobs for people related to the freedom fighters who won Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, the Associated Press explained.

Those quotas, however, too often became a reward for the ruling Awami League and its supporters, critics said, while the young struggled for opportunities, especially as the country has been experiencing an economic downturn marked by high inflation, debt and sky-high youth unemployment.

Soon after the protests broke out, the supreme court ruled to reduce the quota to five percent. But the protests continued, evolving into a broader anti-government movement as ill sentiment across the country against the prime minister and ruling party rose to an all-time high, and began to include people from all walks of life, the Diplomat added. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people took to the country’s streets demanding Hasina’s resignation following cries of excessive force, government mismanagement and endemic corruption, Al Jazeera reported. More than 91 people including 13 police officers were killed. An estimated 32 children died.

Critics say Hasina, known as the “Iron Lady,” who has ruled the country for 20 of the past 30 years, may have started off her career as a pro-democracy icon – she inherited the party from her father who was assassinated in 1975 along with most of her family – but had become autocratic, Reuters reported.

For example, many senior opposition leaders were jailed even prior to the protests while civil rights groups say there have been hundreds of cases of forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings by security forces since 2009.

She also encouraged divisions in the country: She called the protesters “razakars,” (collaborators), a pejorative term for Bangladeshis who helped Pakistanis carry out war crimes during the fight for independence, noted the Times of India. Hasina labeled protesters as criminals engaging in “sabotage” and urged citizens to confront them “with iron hands”. She also blamed the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party for irresponsibly stoking the unrest, and warned that “terrorist” elements were out to destroy the country.

Hasina, who won her fourth consecutive term in January in a controversial election that the opposition boycotted, has often used that refrain when protests have broken out in the past, telling Bangladeshis that she is responsible for the peace, stability and economic progress in the country over in the past 15 years. There is some truth in that, observers say, pointing to how Bangladesh went from being an “economic basket case” a few decades ago to showing economic growth that tops India’s.

“(She) was so disappointed that after all her hard work, for a minority to rise up against her,” said her son, government IT advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy in an interview with the BBC World Service, adding that she would not attempt to mount a political comeback. “She has turned Bangladesh around – when she took over power, it was considered a failing state, a poor country. And until recently, it was considered one of the rising tigers of Asia.”

Still, her iron fist meant that there was little surprise in the country when over the past few weeks, she turned off Internet services to prevent protesters from organizing, ordered nightly raids on homes in search of student protesters and allowed police to fire live rounds at demonstrators.

But it was too much for many Bangladeshis, and also the respected military, which began to reject her methods of repression on civilians.

Now, new Bangladeshi army chief Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman says he hopes to get the country quickly back on track. He told the country in a televised address Monday that an interim government would be formed in the coming days and that all deaths over the past weeks would be investigated.

But amid the dancing on in the streets and the red ribbons that have become a symbol of protest, questions about the future linger, especially about a “dangerous vacuum” developing, as the Economist wrote.

The interim government may hope to get things back on track quickly but that is not likely to be easy. Bangladeshi society is deeply polarized and analysts wonder if the chaos and violence will continue or even escalate. At the same time, Al Jazeera noted it would be difficult to rebuild the democratic system quickly after years of the government attempting to eliminate all opposition and fill institutions with their supporters.

Meanwhile, the main opposition party has some of the same issues the ruling party does, including dynastic power politics, cronyism and its own record of oppression when in power, the Economist added. In fact, its leader, jailed former prime minister Khaleda Zia, is the widow of the military officer who took over the country after the coup that killed Hasina’s father, before he too was assassinated in 1981, the BBC noted. Zia, 78 and ailing, was ordered to be freed on Monday.

Regardless, the students said those issues are for another day.

“Now I have seen the victory,” said one protester. “This Bangladesh is now (going to be) made by Gen Z.”

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Baby Onboarding

ASIA

In Japan, a diapers company recently announced that it would be switching its focus from babies to adults – it’s been years since the sales of its products for seniors vastly outpaced those for infants.

Across East Asia and elsewhere on the continent, governments, businesses and analysts are reacting – and sometimes panicking – in relation to a steep population decline and an aging population that mean slower economic growth, a strain on services and benefits, and a shrinking labor force to pay for them in the future.

And almost everyone is trying to find a way to solve the dilemma of the missing babies.

This demographic cliff has mainly arisen because of brutal job markets, skyrocketing living and education costs, slow wage growth, employment insecurity, and tough corporate cultures. But many also attribute the decline to, ironically, traditional family values that have kept many Japanese and Korean women from wanting to bear children.

Last year, the birth rate in Japan decreased to a record low after falling more than 5 percent compared with 2022. The approximately 760,000 babies born in 2023 were among the smallest generation born since the country began tallying the birth rate in 1899. The number of live births, meanwhile, has dropped more than 50 percent in five decades, the BBC reported.

At the same time, marriages in Japan decreased by almost 6 percent. Fewer than half a million Japanese couples took vows of matrimony, the lowest rate in 90 years. Out-of-wedlock births and single parenthood, furthermore, are rare in Japan due to “family values based on a paternalistic tradition,” reported the Guardian.

It’s become such a concern that recently, Tokyo officials began developing a dating app to encourage love and, hopefully, marriage and children. That’s in addition to its singles events, counseling sessions on marriage and a campaign where “lovers can have their stories of how they first met turned into comics or songs.”

“Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society,” said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Similar sentiments are expressed in the back halls of the National Assembly in Seoul. Even so, women in South Korea, which has the lowest fertility rate in the world, cite cultural hurdles, particularly for women balancing career and work demands with caring for a family, in opting out of motherhood. In the South Korean language, the term for wife is “home person.”

Accordingly, South Korean wives who work grueling day jobs are also expected to cook, clean, and care for the kids, even at an advanced age, wrote the Washington Post. The gender pay gap in the country is also the highest among industrialized countries: Females earn 69 cents on the dollar compared with males.

As a result, many women are opting out, noted World Politics Review. For example, the number of marriages dropped by half between 1996 and 2021.

A movement, 4B, encapsulates this situation: It’s one in which its exclusively female members eschew marriage, childbirth and even dating, saying a life without a man is a life with freedom. “I’m not even fighting the patriarchy – I’ve decided to walk out of it,” said Kim Jina.

Some companies, however, are now jumping in to address these issues, after government initiatives such as subsidized housing for newlyweds and payments for babies failed to reverse the trends. That’s no surprise: Businesses worry over the numbers that show the workforce will halve within 50 years. Now, many are offering bonuses for babies: Booyoung Group, a Seoul-based construction company, for example, is paying new mothers and fathers $75,000 per child.

Japan and South Korea, however, aren’t alone in their population woes: Throughout Asia, countries including China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and parts of India are experiencing demographic crises. Work demands and traditions are often to blame there, too.

A big challenge in this shift is how governments will pay for the services associated with growing elderly populations – pensions, healthcare, home health aides, etc. – when the pool of younger taxpayers who are working to foot the bill is shrinking. That’s especially a concern in countries like Japan which have long resisted immigration but is now rethinking its policies and rolling out its “tatami welcome mat,” as the Spectator put it.

It’s an even bigger issue for those countries who are aging without having become wealthy such as Thailand and Vietnam, which face an aging population that is getting old in poverty, putting a burden on the already patchy provision of pensions, healthcare and other key systems. Meanwhile, these countries’ economies often depend on sectors such as agriculture that aren’t easy for the elderly to participate in.

Meanwhile, China’s birth rate is especially concerning. With 1.4 billion people, the country is now the second-most populous after India, losing its top spot last year. But its population could decrease by half to 770 million by 2100 if current trends continue, argued Scientific American. That threatens its prosperity.

Still, Chinese couples eschew children for the same reasons as others in Asia. Their country’s one-child policy, which sought to restrict out-of-control population growth between 1980 and 2016, was rooted in these economic motivations. “The policy supercharged the country’s workforce: By caring for fewer children, young people could be more productive and put aside more money,” wrote the Wall Street Journal.

Still, the government is taking action, recently raising the retirement age to 65 and putting restrictions on abortions. And Chinese prosecutors, for example, recently exposed Chinese firms that were requiring job applicants to take pregnancy tests so they would not hire workers who would later require parental leave and other benefits, CNN reported.

It’s clear: Officials in Beijing want more kids. But as in South Korea, a preference for males through sex-selection family planning as well as natural trends now means men outnumber women and would-be grooms face bleak marriage prospects, the Conversation wrote. That’s in addition to a trend showing how almost double the number of men over women desire marriage.

Meanwhile, the efforts to change marriage and birth trends as well as initiatives to promote women’s rights and equality are inspiring a backlash from men, some of whom are forming groups similar to incels (shortened from “involuntary celibates”), the Economist wrote.

In South Korea, New Men on Solidarity, a men’s-rights group, calls feminism a mental illness, and is courted by the country’s president who said it is hurting “healthy relationships.” In Japan, “Twitter Feminists,” has become a derogatory term. And a group called “the Center for Weak Men” is attracting strong interest. Meanwhile, only 37 percent of South Korean women say they would date a “patriarchal” man, a recent survey found.

That, the news magazine added, means “the rise in anti-feminist sentiment bodes badly for the region’s birth rates.”

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Big Pockets

CHINA

China could be outpacing the US and Europe in the race to realize fusion, a potentially clean energy source that has attracted massive investment in recent years. According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese crews work 24 hours a day on fusion projects in a massive, new tech campus. China is also home to 10 times as many fusion scientists and engineers as in the US. At their current rate of experimentation, research and designing, the Chinese fusion experts will surpass Western expertise and accomplishments in a few years.

This news appeared while the New York Times reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping was welcoming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the capital of Beijing for previously unannounced talks on finding a resolution to the war in Ukraine. Russia is a Chinese ally and arguably Hungary’s closest friend, while Hungary is also a member of NATO and the European Union.

Both developments herald China’s strong influence on the world order. Domestically, however, many warning lights are flashing for the future of what is now the second-most populous country after India.

The Chinese economy in particular faces significant headwinds after a slowdown following the shutdowns of the coronavirus pandemic, a drop in capital and credit after a boom in lending, and the bankruptcies of major real estate firms. Banks are collapsing, reported the Economist. Lay-offs are on the rise, added the South China Morning Post, as youth unemployment is sky-high. Capital flight, or people removing their money from the country, is accelerating, the Brookings Institution found.

The economy was the big topic at the recent third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee that ended July 15, wrote World Politics Review. Xi’s solutions to the country’s problems, meanwhile, are “statist,” with spending on science and other matters of state security while making local governments more responsible for their economic planning – even though they are among the most irresponsibly indebted entities in the country.

Meanwhile, the future could be tougher.

Geopolitical observers like Peter Zeihan have long warned that China faces a demographic cliff, where the population plummets when today’s older generations pass on and younger families are producing one or no children. Another looming problem is the absence of any successor to Xi, Zeihan explained on his YouTube channel, suggesting that China might undergo a collapse of central government power when the 71-year-old president leaves the scene.

The Communist Party of China promises economic growth in exchange for obeisance to the state. The engine of prosperity is stalling. The all-important government appears rigid.

As the Atlantic Council wrote, “One might expect the government to put everything it has into plans to pull the country out of the economic doldrums … but instead of focusing on China’s current problems … it will prepare China for a confrontation with the United States by building industries powered by massive investments in cutting-edge technologies. This program is aimed at reinforcing the party’s hold on Chinese society”.

Notably, it added: “It will also underline China’s shift away from its longtime economic strategy of growth for growth’s sake.”

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Little Dirty Gem

SINGAPORE

Holders of Singaporean passports are among the luckiest in the world. They can travel to 195 countries without a visa, wrote the South China Morning Post, more than almost any other nationality in the world, including Americans.

They have fortune at home, too: The approximately 280-square-mile island city-state in Southeast Asia is wealthy, peaceful, and cosmopolitan – English is an official language along with Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. It is also a wealthy trading nation whose glitz and glamour inspired the novel and 2018 film, “Crazy Rich Asians.”

Singapore is also growing – literally – as it has been reclaiming land from the sea at a breakneck pace, the Business Times explained. This new land has provided space for reservoirs for clean water, storm protections, parks, and housing.

Chinese crackdowns on democracy in Hong Kong, meanwhile, have also led many business leaders in the Chinese “special administrative region” to question whether it can retain its place as the financial hub of Asia, reported the New York Times. Many might even argue that Singapore has already surpassed Hong Kong. Singapore hosted around 4,200 multinational firms’ regional headquarters last year, added Channel News Asia, while the Chinese city is home to fewer than 1,340.

Other Chinese companies, like Tabcut, an AI startup founded in Hangzhou in 2022, are moving to Singapore to take advantage of more opportunities for capital, less negative associations with Chinese human rights violations, and other reasons, reported Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, these trends have also made Singapore into a destination for illicit cash. A recent $2.2 billion money laundering scandal, for instance, implicated DBS Bank, Citi, Credit Suisse, Julius Baer, and other international financial institutions, reported the Banker.

This money has infected politics. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong recently took the oath of office after the resignation of his predecessor, Lee Hsien Loong, the son of the country’s founding father who held the top office for 20 years, Al Jazeera wrote. Both are members of the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has run Singapore since independence from the British in 1965, winning office through elections that Freedom House called “partly free.” The party has also cultivated an often harsh state that limits free speech, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The passing of the baton from Loong to Wong after what was essentially 59 years of rule by the Lee family was scripted and planned meticulously, and was a momentous event, according to the Associated Press. But, as World Politics Review wrote, many Singaporeans were also fed up with corruption scandals and other shortcomings in the PAP government.

They want a rich country that’s honest, too, observers said, noting that with a new leader, the country has a new chance to change.

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NEED TO KNOW

The Absence of Embarrassment

FIJI

A court in Fiji recently sentenced former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama to a year in prison for seeking to suppress a police investigation into corruption at the University of the South Pacific. Lower courts had initially allowed Bainimarama, who served for 15 years through 2022, and Sitiveni Qiliho, the former police commissioner, to avoid jail, but the Pacific island country’s high court overturned that ruling, the BBC wrote.

Now Bainimarama’s political party, FijiFirst, faces deregistration after party leaders sought to expel 16 lawmakers who joined the current government of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in granting themselves pay raises of as much as 130 percent– despite widespread public opposition to the idea and criticism that the measure was illegally passed, explained Radio New Zealand. FijiFirst has no mechanism to oust members, according to electoral officials who said the party would need to create a process or its members would become independents.

Many Fijians are disgusted by their politicians giving themselves more money while nonchalantly sowing political uncertainty. Writing in the Fiji Times, Tui Rakuita, a social scientist at the University of Otago in New Zealand and the University of the South Pacific, described the “absence of any form of embarrassment” among the country’s political elites.

Fiji is not a wealthy country. About 30 percent of the country lives in poverty, according to the Asian Development Bank, and the average annual income is under $14,000. Meanwhile, the country has a high national debt, poor education outcomes for young people, poor quality healthcare services, and crumbling water infrastructure. Recently, nurses had to purchase syringes and needles for patients because the hospital ran out.

At the same time, the government recently increased the retirement age from 60 to 62 years old, saying a brain drain to Australia and New Zealand has hurt the economy, compelling older workers to labor harder and longer, the East Asia Forum reported.

These developments highlight the instability of Fiji’s government, wrote the Strategist, a publication of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The pay increase was not popular among Rabuka’s important allies in the coalition government, which includes his People’s Alliance as well as the National Federation Party and the Social Democratic Liberal Party. If the opposition FijiFirst party disbands, it will be hard to constitute a new government if Rabuka’s current one falls.

Some actors in Fijian politics might be hoping to capitalize on the chaos. “Veteran politicians are grandstanding with one eye on the next election,” argued the Interpreter, a publication of the Australian think tank, the Lowy Institute. “Others are anticipating the demise of some of the existing political parties and are hoping to pick up their votes. The government has unwisely stumbled into a trap of its own making.”

Fiji has a history of political violence. Both Rabuka and Bainimarama launched coups in Fiji, in 1987 and 2006, respectively. Bainimarama has emphasized “ethnic inclusiveness” in his governments, while Rabuka has played up “Indigenous nationalism”. Rabuka, 75, is also a sportsman who recently won a bronze medal in the shot put at the Oceania Athletics Championships, added CNN.

The world will see if Fiji holds together.

In the meantime, some labor leaders and civil rights groups are planning protests. Labour leader Mahendra Chaudhry said the parliamentarians’ salary hike comes as the ruling party reneges on its campaign pledge to lower the government officials’ salaries, prioritize the legislation of a fair minimum wage for workers and lower living costs.

“This is policy-making at its most self-indulgent without consideration to its detrimental impact on the people of Fiji,” said Chaudhry. “While the general population has to endure austerity measures in depressed economic conditions, ministers are queuing up for pay increases.”

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