Indonesia

Although the official results of Indonesia’s presidential election yesterday will not be known until July 20, both candidates, Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, now have claimed victory based on exit polling and quick counts. In the past, such as in previous parliamentary elections, these quick counts have been relatively accurate. But now their accuracy is coming into question. Some of the quick counts appear to show Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, as the winner by around three to six percentage points nationally, while Prabowo claims other counts show him as the winner. Since the race came down to the wire too close to call, it is hard to completely trust any of the quick counts or exit polling. Many election experts have criticized Jokowi for claiming victory too quickly. The scenario of a disputed election, unresolved even after July 20, now looms for this massive democracy. The run-up to Election Day was full of smears and other dirty campaigning, a far dirtier campaign than the previous two presidential elections; the dirtiness has created a dangerous, angry climate among supporters of both men. Previous direct presidential elections in Indonesia ended with a decisive victory and no post-election standoffs, so Indonesians have little experience with a Bush versus Gore type scenario. The scenario of a disputed election is a potential nightmare with serious security implications. Prabowo, who has been convinced since he was a kid that he was destined to lead Indonesia, already had suggested before the election, that “losing [the election] is not an option” – he said this in a conversation with a Singaporean reporter. What Prabowo’s comment meant was not exactly clear – it could have been just a rallying cry for his supporters to come out and vote or it could have been the mercurial former general’s conviction that, even if the vote count showed he had lost, he would find some way to still get himself into the presidency. Prabowo, a former special forces and army commander, still enjoys the loyalty of many big business tycoons, of leading Indonesian media networks, and of a coterie of hard-core former special forces soldiers.  Were Prabowo to be declared, on July 20, to have officially lost, he could challenge the result through the court system, leaving the country, the most powerful in Southeast Asia, without real leadership for weeks if not months. Indonesia’s highest court is not fully trusted, having endured recent corruption scandals. Worse, with his network of powerful allies Prabowo could potentially attempt some sort of takeover of the presidency by force if he is declared the loser. This attempt could be a combination of street protests and military actions similar to what has occurred several times in Thailand in the past decade. Although Indonesia’s democracy is far stronger than that of neighboring Thailand, and though the Indonesian military does not appear to be ready to take sides in a post-election crisis, Prabowo’s mercurial nature, and his web of ties to powerful former special forces soldiers, makes such a grab a disturbing possibility.

As we arrive at the last week of campaigning before Indonesia’s July 9 presidential election, the race continues to narrow, and many liberal Indonesians, activists, diplomats, businesspeople, and academics live in fear of a Prabowo Subianto presidency. As I have discussed in previous posts, they worry that Prabowo, despite his claims to the contrary, is not a committed democrat, and will attempt to return Indonesia to the guided democracy/de facto autocracy of the country’s first five decades. Prabowo also has never effectively addressed the numerous allegations of past involvement in human rights abuses, back when he was head of the army’s strategic reserve command. But it is also worth questioning why Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, has seen himself go from the presumed winner three months ago to a man now in the race of his life, with some polls showing the election essentially now even. (Prabowo still trails in polls, but he is within the margin of error) Three months ago, polls showed Jokowi with a staggering thirty point leader over Prabowo in the contest, and most businesspeople, diplomats, and other opinion leaders had all but sworn Jokowi in and were planning for his presidency. Jokowi may still eke out the win, but it is hard to remember such a collapse of any presidential candidacy in such a short period of time. This meltdown is particularly surprising given that, prior to this race, Jokowi had developed a reputation as a savvy campaigner and brilliant political tactician. How has Jokowi fallen so far so fast? For one, in a race where it was essential to get somewhat dirty, Jokowi has consistently tried to take the high road – almost never a winning strategy in democratic politics anywhere in the world. Prabowo surrogates have smeared Jokowi with allegations that he is aligned with ethnic Chinese interests, that he is not really Muslim, or is totally ignorant of the world, and other supposed slurs on Jokowi’s character. (I say supposed, because in an ideal world these would not be considered slurs at all in Indonesia.) The Jokowi campaign initially did not even respond, let alone launch its own negative advertising. By now, when the Jokowi campaign has started really responding, the negative campaigning against Jokowi has made its mark on the population. In particular, the allegation that Jokowi lacks experience and knows little of governing, and the world, has resonated with Indonesians – even though Prabowo himself has never held any elected office at all. As any campaign consultant in Washington would tell you, negative ads get made because they work – much more effectively than positive campaign ads. In addition, the Prabowo campaign realized that, though elections for president now are direct in Indonesia, wrapping up support from a range of political parties other than the president’s own is crucial to winning the presidential election. Parliament remains divided up among a wide number of Indonesian parties, some of them quite small. You can be elected president without your party controlling a large portion of seats in parliament, as Indonesia’s current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was in his first term. But the Jokowi campaign seemed to have thought that enlisting the support of other parties, many of which are simply patronage machines, was old-fashioned, contrary to new and clean politics, and somehow beneath them. Jokowi has paid for this mistake, as Prabowo’s campaign has skillfully wrapped up support from other parties and then made effective use of their patronage and get-out-the-vote machines. Jokowi’s campaign also, until recently, has been noticeably unorganized and ineffective on social media, which is a bit surprising given that Jokowi is younger than Prabowo and has been one of the most ardent users of Twitter in the country. (Jokowi has roughly 1.7 million followers on Twitter.) Social media is critical for the Jokowi campaign, since Prabowo and his allies have so many connections in the mainstream media that much of the mainstream media seems to be essentially backing Prabowo’s campaign. Indonesia has the third-most Facebook users of any country in the world, and Jakarta produces, by some counts, the most tweets of any city in the world each day. Yet Jokowi’s campaign was slow to organize a concerted social media effort other than Jokowi’s own tweeting and some volunteers’ use of social media on behalf of the campaign. Meanwhile, the Prabowo campaign organized the kind of detailed, massive, and tailored social media campaign that Barack Obama has used in his presidential runs.

The third debate between Indonesian presidential candidates Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, and Prabowo Subianto, held over the weekend, was supposed to focus on foreign policy and defense policy. At least that was the idea. It made sense that two men who want to be the president of the biggest power in Southeast Asia, and one that has become increasingly assertive on the world stage, would need to offer their views on Jakarta’s foreign policy. No one seems to have told Prabowo and Jokowi that, though. The debate was bland and both presidential candidates seemed lost talking about foreign policy. Though Prabowo has a detailed campaign platform and can talk in depth about his ideas for economic policy—although sometimes sounding like a more bombastic Hugo Chavez when he rails about the economy—the former general offered little but generalities about what his foreign policy would look like. His lack of any specificity, other than talking about how Indonesia needed to protect its territorial integrity (i.e., Papua) and its natural resources and capital, was especially worrying given Prabowo’s tense relations with countries that are important partners of Indonesia like Singapore, Australia, and the United States.  Prabowo is currently on the U.S. visa ban list because of his alleged links to human rights abuses committed on his watch as head of the Indonesian army’s Strategic Reserve Command. Several Southeast Asian diplomats I have spoken with fear a Prabowo presidency immensely. They worry that, while Prabowo has far more international experience than Jokowi, Prabowo will want to dominate ASEAN leaders’ meetings and will have no interest in the consensual style that Southeast Asia meetings follow.  To some extent, shaking up ASEAN’s style would be a good thing, and could only be accomplished by an Indonesian leader. Unfortunately, Prabowo would be unlikely to push ASEAN in the direction the organization needs to go—that of a more forceful organization that uses its power to promote political and economic opening. What’s more, Prabowo’s constant inveighing against Indonesian capital fleeing Indonesia has Singapore worried that, as president, Prabowo might try to muscle the city-state, which is a haven for that capital and has developed an immense private banking industry. Jokowi was no better in the debate, and he comes with his own concerns on foreign policy. The Jakarta mayor, the first presidential candidate to come of age politically after Indonesia’s democratic transition, surely would be better suited to push the country farther toward democracy. But on foreign affairs, Jokowi has minimal experience, other than dealing with some diplomats and foreign investors during his short stint as Jakarta governor. During the debate, Jokowi tried to project confidence that he actually has a better grasp on foreign affairs than people thought, but he said little about issues critical to Indonesian policy such as ASEAN, the role of Indonesia in ASEAN, Indonesia’s relationship with China and the United States, Indonesia’s views on disputed areas of the South China Sea, and other important topics. Instead, Jokowi talked extensively about how Indonesia must do more to protect the rights of Indonesians who migrate to other countries for work, a reasonable topic given the large number of Indonesians who work in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Gulf kingdoms, where many have allegedly been mistreated. (Issues with mistreatment in Malaysia and the Gulf states have become an irritant in Indonesia’s relations with these nations.) Jokowi also talked generally about the importance of diplomacy in Indonesia’s regional relationships, but seemed to have little idea which of these relationships were most important, or how, more specifically, he might handle the country’s currently contentious relationships with Australia and China, two very important countries to Jakarta. Overall, the debate performance was extremely underwhelming. One hopes that a President Jokowi or a President Prabowo, in office, would gain a far greater understanding of foreign policy than either man has shown on the campaign trail.

  As election day in Indonesia’s presidential election nears, the race seems to be getting closer and closer. While only three months ago Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, universally known as Jokowi, had a twenty to thirty point lead in polls, some recent polling suggests that Jokowi’s lead over Prabowo Subianto has narrowed to less than five points. Prabowo also has picked up a huge range of endorsements and has amassed a broad coalition of support among small parties, including several religious parties that are known for turning out their voters. Of course, some of this narrowing is natural; months ago, Indonesian voters were choosing Jokowi in polls before the real presidential campaign had begun. Jokowi still does have a lead in polls. Several Jokowi supporters note that their man is still ahead despite months of in-fighting in his party and middling campaigning by Jokowi himself, who seemed unable to convert his folksy, mayoral style to national-level campaigning. Now that Jokowi has buckled down, started campaigning harder nationwide, and gotten his party more united behind him, his backers argue, his poll numbers will rebound and he will easily cruise to victory on July 9. But the possibility of Prabowo being elected now must be taken seriously, and a President Prabowo Subianto would be a problematic, if not outright frightening scenario.It’s not because Prabowo is some kind of Indonesian Hugo Chavez. Though Prabowo talks, Chavez-style, for hours on end, inveighs constantly on the stump about the dangers of foreign investment, and calls for investment in some sectors of the economy to be restricted, his rhetoric is just that–rhetoric. Prabowo and his family hail from an elite business background, Prabowo is the son of a prominent economist, and Prabowo is comfortable (some would say, too comfortable) dealing with Jakarta’s big businesses. Though as president Prabowo might devote more state resources to rebuilding Indonesian infrastructure and propping up some state companies, don’t expect him to actually nationalize investments, or pull out of trade deals Indonesia already has entered, or take any other major steps to put up walls around the Indonesian economy. In politics rather than economics, though, Prabowo would not be so benign. (I detailed Jokowi’s own, different problems in this post last week.)  A President Prabowo could be dangerous, potentially, for Indonesian democracy. Prabowo has never held elected office and, in previous jobs and on the campaign trail, has shown little interest in listening to and absorbing the views of others. He seems to have entirely missed the fact that Indonesia has undergone a successful democratic transition since the late 1990s, democratization which has included a high degree of decentralization of power away from Jakarta. Prabowo has never really resolved, with any degree of transparency, the circumstances surrounding his sacking from Kostrad in 1998, Indonesia’s military’s strategic reserve force, as well as the innumerable allegations that, prior to his sacking, Prabowo was involved in the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of pro-democracy activists. Instead, Prabowo presents himself as the type of Sukarno/Suharto strongman who can whip Indonesia into shape with edicts and iron-fisted law. I believe this self-presentation, more than his populist economic rhetoric, reflects Prabowo’s true beliefs and desires, and is consistent with Prabowo’s actions in his previous military and political career. Prabowo wants to return to an earlier version of Indonesia’s constitution, which would give him massive powers–a contrast to the decentralization that has taken place–and he hardly has the temperament for dealing with the checks and balances normal in any democracy. As Australian National University’s Edward Aspinall has written, “When he [Prabowo] hits a roadblock erected by the parliament, the Constitutional Court, the media, or some other checking institution–it’s all too easy to imagine a President Prabowo invoking emergency powers or taking some other extraordinary method to sweep such obstacles aside.” Without a doubt, Prabowo’s strongman style is winning over some Indonesians, who worry about Jokowi’s readiness for the national and international stage and have tired of the gridlock that sometimes comes with democracy. Prabowo supporters believe that only tougher, more centralized governance can help boost Indonesian growth up into the seven to nine percent annual expansion the country needs to expand the economy and find jobs for Indonesia’s growing youth population. But in voting for Prabowo, supporters would taking the country backwards, a serious problem in a region that only last month saw a coup overthrow one of its other strongest democracies, and where Indonesia has become a powerful regional voice pushing for democratic change.

Although Indonesian presidential candidate Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, has seen his lead in the polls shrink in the run-up to the July 9 elections, he still remains the overwhelming favorite. Jokowi has lost ground to Prabowo Subianto because of Prabowo’s effective social media and on-the-ground campaign apparatus. Still, Jokowi and his running mate, former vice president Jusuf Kalla, performed well in the first presidential debate, hitting on Prabowo’s highly problematic human rights record and exposing Prabowo’s sharp, even crazy temper. Jokowi seems to have realized that he needs a better get-out-the-vote operation. He also has become more skilled in deflecting concerns that he will just be a tool of his PDI-P party and of party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri. Still, Jokowi’s true convictions about national-level economic policy and Indonesian foreign policy remain a mystery. In the first presidential debate, he highlighted his famed style of traveling all over Jakarta himself to personally confront bureaucrats and make sure projects are being completed and government workers are not skimming funds. (This style is largely responsible for his man-of-the-people reputation, which is the foundation of Jokowi’s popularity.) But Jokowi has yet to really recognize that, as president, he could not possibly run the massive country simply by personally traveling around Indonesia to hold government workers accountable. In the debate and in campaign appearances, he also has emphasized that although he is just a regular guy, he will hire government officials who are clean and who will use information technology to expedite government functions, improve tax collection, and make government more transparent. If these hires do not perform, Jokowi has promised he will fire all of them. Although these are fine goals in a country plagued by graft and bureaucratic sloth, and Jokowi has indeed followed through on these goals in Jakarta, he does not seem to realize that just appointing the right people will not strengthen Indonesian institutions, which is critical in an emerging democratic giant. In addition, he does not seem to realize that he could not, as president, just constantly sack underperforming ministers without making Indonesia seem highly unstable. In addition, in the debate Jokowi touched on several vague ideas for greater economic nationalism, but did not explore them in detail. In fact, he has generally avoided giving any thoughts on how Indonesia’s economy should develop, other than referring to his small business background to reassure businesspeople that he understands their needs. (Jokowi also has not released a list of high-profile economic advisers who could conceivably become ministers in his government.) But making and exporting furniture, which was Jokowi’s business, is a long way from understanding macroeconomic policy and the needs of Indonesia’s biggest companies. By contrast, Prabowo has offered very specific details of his (nationalist) economic policies – policies that I believe would be disastrous for Indonesia’s economy, but nonetheless are detailed. On foreign policy, Jokowi has been even more vague, although Indonesia increasingly has returned to its traditional role as the driver of ASEAN policy, and has increasingly weighed in on disputes in the South China Sea.

In terms of logistics and the quality of the actual voting day, Wednesday’s legislative elections in Indonesia were of a very high standard, with few irregularities reported across the massive country. The election once again shows that, in terms of the election day itself, Indonesia has moved toward consolidating its democracy and can be trusted to hold fair and relatively well-run polls. The results of the legislative elections, however, defied many predictions, which held that the Indonesian Party of Struggle (PDI-P) would benefit from an expected “Jokowi effect” (from Joko Widodo, its popular presidential candidate) and would dominate voting for the legislature. If PDI-P had gotten more than twenty percent of the seats in the legislature in this election, it could have put Jokowi up for president itself, without having to build a coalition with other parties in parliament to get over the threshold for being able to put up a presidential candidate. Although PDI-P suffers from many problems, which I will go into next week, getting a vote total in these elections high enough to go to the presidential elections without coalition partners would have been positive for policymaking. Although coalition-building is important in young democracies and Indonesia certainly does not want to suffer the kind of majoritarian “elected autocracy” of neighboring Thailand, Cambodia, or Malaysia, unstable and weak coalitions have badly hindered the last two presidential administrations in Indonesia. But PDI-P only got less than 20 percent of the vote. This lower-than-expected total suggests that Jokowi himself, though personally popular and still likely to win the presidential election in July, does not necessarily change people’s views of political parties, which have images based on years of ground work, patronage, and services. PDI-P now will have to form a coalition with, most likely, longtime machine party Golkar and several moderate Islamic parties. This coalition could bring some benefits: it will at least force PDI-P leaders to engage in more consultation on policies, and the coalition will exclude the most toxic parties that function as personality vehicles for former generals. However, such a coalition is also likely to slow presidential policymaking, should Jokowi win in July. It will lead to giving ministerial posts to coalition partners who do not have deep benches of talented politicians, which would defy Jokowi’s promise to only name ministers who are competent and experienced. And since one of the supposed attractions of Jokowi was that he was a pragmatic go-getter who would come into office and use his executive powers forcefully—unlike current president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono—an unwieldy coalition puts a major dent in that Jokowi selling point.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Charles McClean, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Indian election underway. With over 814 million eligible voters, India’s election is the largest democratic undertaking in history and will take place over a period of five weeks in nine phases—three of which were completed this week. On Thursday, constituencies were at stake in eleven of India’s states and three federally administered territories. India’s Election Commission reported impressive voter turnout in most regions, including over 60 percent turnout in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. The ruling Congress Party is almost certain to lose due to widespread voter disenchantment over its stewardship of the economy, corruption, and governance during the party’s tenure in power. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—India’s main opposition party—is expected to win more than 200 of the 543 seats of Parliament, but the question remains as to which parties Narendra Modi, the BJP’s leader and frontrunner to become India’s next prime minister, will appeal to in order to form a coalition government. Final election results will be announced on May 16. 2. Indonesian opposition party leads in parliamentary elections. Indonesia held parliamentary and local elections on April 9, which was declared a public holiday to allow more than 190 million people to vote. Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy, and during these elections over 235,000 candidates vied for almost 20,000 posts. The opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) was to win big—some analysts had predicted PDI-P taking 30 percent of the overall vote—but early results show them taking only 19 percent. Though still a rise from 14 percent in the last elections in 2009, the PDI-P needed at least 25 percent of the vote—or 20 percent of parliamentary seats—to nominate its own presidential candidate; now it will likely have to enter into a coalition with one or more parties. Some observers see this as a blow to the “Jokowi effect,” which describes the enthusiasm behind the popular Jakarta governor and PDI-P presidential candidate Joko Widodo. Also noteworthy was the relative strength of Islamic parties, which had been thought to be in decline. 3. Secretary Hagel wraps up trip to Asia. U.S. secretary of defense Chuck Hagel completed a ten-day trip to Asia this week that included visits to Japan, China, and Mongolia. During the trip, Hagel: met with defense ministers at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Forum in Honolulu, Hawaii; announced that the United States will send two more Aegis-equipped ships to Japan; was the first foreign official to tour China’s aircraft carrier, the Liaoning; and was gifted a horse in Mongolia, where he sought to deepen U.S.-Mongolia military relations. Predictably, Hagel’s stay in China was contentious at times, with Chinese officials boasting of China’s military prowess and expressing their displeasure at perceived U.S. support for Japan and the Philippines in the East and South China Seas. 4. Japan, United States stall on trade pact. U.S. trade representative Michael Froman and Japanese minister of economy, trade, and industry Akira Amari met in Tokyo this week, but failed to resolve bilateral trade issues regarded as critical to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks. Amari and Froman told reporters that they had made some progress but that considerable differences remain over trade barriers, including tariffs on Japanese automobiles and U.S. pork, beef, and rice. Government officials on both sides had originally hoped an agreement could be reached in time for U.S. president Barack Obama’s state visit to Japan on April 24-25. Despite the difficulties, both Froman and Amari stressed the importance of continuing negotiations, saying the TPP will offer tremendous opportunities for both countries, the region, and the global economy. 5. Taiwanese students end occupation of Taiwan’s parliament. Taiwanese students protesting a proposed services trade pact with mainland China ended their three-week occupation of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament. They agreed to leave only after legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng promised to halt debate on the trade deal until new oversight rules are passed. Despite the peaceful ending, student protestors have vowed to continue their efforts. The “Sunflower Movement,” as the protests have become known, has exposed Taiwan’s division over increasing economic integration with mainland China. The view from Beijing remains positive, however, as officials believe the protests will not affect cross-strait relations. Bonus: French mountain air for sale in China. Chinese artist Liang Kegang auctioned a glass jar of clean air from France’s Provence region before a group of about one hundred Chinese artists and collectors. Selling for 5,250 yuan ($860), Liang’s jar is part of a recent trend in artistic protests reflecting widespread dissatisfaction over China’s air quality. In February, twenty Beijing artists wore dust masks and played dead outside the Temple of Heaven; in March, artists in Changsha held a mock funeral for the last citizen to die from smog.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit this weekend (U.S. time) to Jakarta was brief, packed into his whirlwind Asia trip. His short stay in Jakarta was understandable—I think Kerry, despite criticism that he has focused too much on the Middle East, has put in enough of the face time in Asia to justify his claim that he has continued the administration’s policy of re-engagement with Southeast Asia. The fact that Kerry chose to give a speech in front of an audience of students at a cultural center highlighted some of the American embassy in Jakarta’s soft power efforts in the archipelago. And I certainly would agree with most of what Kerry said in his speech on climate change and the threat of global warming—that climate change is a near-apocalyptic threat to the world, that the science about global warming is settled, that Indonesia is one of the developing nations most likely to be affected by climate change, that global warming could prove a death blow to many parts of the archipelago. Kerry had some notable lines in his Jakarta speech, like calling climate change “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” I also do not question Kerry’s personal commitment to combating climate change, since it has been an important issue for him for many years, and he was one of the first leaders on global warming in the Senate. The trouble with the speech was not the science on climate change and its effects but rather the style and framing of the speech and the disconnect between it and the lack of American action. Calling for developing nations like Indonesia to shoulder some of the burden of reducing global warming while offering few concrete steps the United States will take simply is not going to work. People in developing nations, including Indonesia, resent being lectured to on global warming by American politicians, and they resent it even more forcefully when the United States has no clear strategy for addressing global warming. Previous speeches by other American leaders in developing nations, including in Asia, have been poorly received precisely because the United States appeared to be lecturing while avoiding the heavy lifting on climate change, and I am surprised that Kerry seemingly did not study the reception to previous similar talks. The fact that developing nations, including China and Indonesia, have now become some of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases is not going to change the perception that the United States has been the biggest emitter for decades and that the United States needs to be the global leader on addressing the problem. By the way, I don’t consider “a new agreement [with China] on an enhanced policy of dialogue that includes the sharing of information and policies” on global warming significant leadership on climate change. And at home in the United States, the Obama administration has done even less than “an enhanced policy of dialogue.” Just telling countries like Indonesia that they are now big emitters and so they should take a stand will not work. (Kerry said “I call on all of you in Indonesia and concerned citizens around the world to demand the resolve that is necessary ... Make a transition towards clean energy the only plan that you are willing to accept.") And offering people in developing nations bland platitudes on global warming may well cause them to be even more insulted. To wit: The United States is ready to work with you in this endeavor. With Indonesia and the rest of the world pulling in the same direction, we can meet this challenge, the greatest challenge of our generation, and we can create the future that everybody dreams of.

At the end of his current trip to Asia, Secretary of State John Kerry will be stopping in Jakarta and meeting with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Le Luong Minh. Although his visit in Jakarta will be short, Kerry will undoubtedly emphasize the same themes he is hitting throughout the visit, including pushing to restart talks on North Korea’s nuclear program and prodding China to work more seriously with Southeast Asian nations on a real code of conduct for the South China Sea. Matthew Lee of the Associated Press, traveling with Kerry, has a thorough summary of the trip’s agenda here. At the ASEAN Secretariat, Kerry surely will find a welcoming audience for a speech about a South China Sea code of conduct; although he has thus far taken pains to play the role of regional statesman, ASEAN’s Secretary General does hail from Vietnam, one of the two Southeast Asian nations most involved in disputing areas of the Sea with China. Still, it is hard to see what Kerry can say about a code of conduct that would be new in any way, or that would exert more pressure on Beijing than other strategies tried by the administration. Indeed, Kerry might eventually have better luck getting Kim Jong Un to make a deal on his nuclear program than on getting Beijing to agree to a real and binding code of conduct. (The Secretary also will sign two Memorandums of Understanding with Indonesia’s Foreign Minister. These will deal with more modest issues like working together to help other developing countries improve their human rights records.) Despite the short amount of time Kerry is spending in Jakarta, and the focus on ASEAN and regional issues, it would be valuable for him to dip his toe, slightly, into domestic Indonesian politics. He should meet with Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, who is almost sure to be the next president of Indonesia, and who provides an excellent counter-example to failing democracy in Thailand and Cambodia and Malaysia—an accountable, successful, and democratically elected Southeast Asian leader. [

Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Pakistan begins official peace talks with the Taliban. Pakistani government officials and Taliban representatives began formal talks on Thursday. The government delegation has requested an immediate cease-fire and that the talks to be limited to areas where the insurgency is strongest. The Taliban negotiators initially agreed to work within the framework of Pakistan’s constitution. However, one of the Taliban’s negotiators pulled out on Friday because he wanted the agenda included an imposition of Islamic law. Both sides described the talks as “cordial and friendly,” though many experts remain skeptical that they will bear fruit. By request of the Pakistani government during the peace talks, the Obama administration sharply curtailed drone strikes in Pakistan . 2. Thai elections show low confidence in ruling party; rice farmers join in protests against government. Only 47 percent of eligible voters showed up at polls in Thailand’s election on Sunday, compared to 75 percent in 2011, due to a boycott by the opposition Democrat Party and disruptive anti-government protests. Protesters shut down intersections across the country, and some gunmen even shot at would-be voters. A petition introduced by the opposition to nullify the election was rejected Friday on procedural grounds, though a related petition remains pending. In a new twist, many rice farmers have joined protests because they were not given the money they were promised in the government’s populist rice-purchase scheme, which promised farmers that the government would buy rice at above-market rates to boost rural incomes. 3. North Korea threatens to cancel family reunions over U.S.-South Korean military drills. The threat to cancel the family reunions, framed as a sincere effort by Seoul to warm North-South relations, comes only days after Pyongyang agreed to Seoul’s proposal to hold reunions in a resort in North Korea. On Thursday, a spokesperson for the North Korean National Defense Commission stated that the drills, which occur regularly and that Washington and Seoul contend are for defensive purposes, constitute a “reckless act of war.” “It does not make sense to carry out the reunion of families, who were separated due to the War, during a dangerous nuclear war practice,” said the North Korean spokesperson. South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, urged Pyongyang to stick to its commitment. North Korea canceled scheduled reunions in September 2013. Family meetings have not occurred since 2010. 4. Indonesia reports slowest economic growth in four years. Indonesia’s economy expanded by only 5.78 percent in 2013, slowing for the third consecutive year. Finance Minister M. Chatib Basri and other government officials have said that sluggish growth is intentional; economic expansion is being sacrificed to decrease the $9.9 billion current account deficit and ensure sustainable long-term economic growth. With companies fearing to invest in Indonesia prior to a 2014 election, the country’s economy is expected to grapple with weaker growth in the coming years; the International Monetary Fund is projecting growth between 5 percent and 5.5 percent until 2015. 5. Philippines’ Aquino likens China’s claims in South China Sea to Hitler’s in Sudetenland. Speaking with the New York Times this week, President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines called on the world to do more to help Manila resist China’s assertive maritime claims in the South China Sea. He stated, “At what point do you say, ‘Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it—remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.” Naturally, Beijing was not pleased that its leadership had been likened to that of Nazi Germany; Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei stated that “Such a comparison is ridiculously inconceivable and unreasonable. The Chinese side is shocked and dissatisfied.” A Xinhua report was less diplomatic, calling President Aquino “an amateurish politician who was ignorant both of history and reality.” Bonus: Japan’s deaf composer is neither deaf nor a composer. Mamoru Samuragochi, nicknamed Japan’s "Beethoven," was exposed by his ghostwriter, composer Takashi Niigaki, as being neither deaf nor the composer of his own music. Mr. Samuragochi admitted that someone else had written his most famous works, including the themes to video games such as Resident Evil and Onimusha and a sonatina for Japanese Olympic figure skater Daisuke Takahashi.

Darcie Draudt, Charles McClean, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia this week. 1. Report reveals that several of China’s top leaders hold trillions in offshore accounts. A new report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed nearly 22,000 tax haven clients from Hong Kong and mainland China. Among the confidential files cited, there are details of a real estate company co-owned by President Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law, and British Virgin Island companies set up by former Premier Wen Jiabao’s son and son-in-law. The report also states that PricewaterhouseCooper, UBS, and other Western banks have acted as middlemen aiding in setting up the offshore accounts. According to the report, “by some estimates, between $1 trillion and $4 trillion in untraced assets have left the country since 2000.” The ICIJ website is now blocked in China. 2. Postponement of elections until after February 2 ruled constitutional. On Friday, a Thai court ruled that Thailand’s elections, originally scheduled for February 2, can be postponed further, ruling that the Constitution “does not absolutely mandate that the election day cannot be rescheduled.” The court stated that extenuating circumstances can allow for such a postponement. The move has been labeled by some as a judicial coup d’etat, as it could create a power vacuum if no elections are held within the sixty-day period after the dissolution of the House of Representatives subscribed by the Constitution. The court’s ruling is seen as a victory for anti-government protesters, led by former parliamentarian Suthep Thaugsuban, who are seeking to supplant the current government with an unelected “people’s council.” Thailand’s pro-government “red shirt” activists have expressed their willingness to rise up if the elections are scrapped, setting up the prospect of further violence. Nine deaths have been attributed to the protests. 3. Chinese activist lawyer on trial. Xu Zhiyong, a human rights lawyer who campaigned against corruption, is on trial in China for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order.” Xu was a founding member of an informal grassroots group, New Citizens Movement, which demands that Chinese authorities follow the laws outlined in the country’s constitution. Xu also campaigned on behalf of inmates on death row and families affected by tainted baby milk formula in 2009. He was arrested in July 2013, and was previously under house arrest. CFR adjunct fellow and China legal expert Jerome A. Cohen said in an interview that it is unlikely that Xu will receive a fair trial, and “there is a kind of Alice in Wonderland absurdity to these proceedings.” Also this week, Chinese venture capitalist-turned-activist Wang Gongquan won release after being detained for four months, after he admitted to collaborating with another dissident standing trial. Wang, who made a fortune in real estate and Silicon Valley, began protesting against unofficial detention centers (also known as black jails) in 2011. 4. Indo-Australian relations deteriorate. Indonesia has stated it is beefing up naval patrols on its southern border, and the Indonesian Air Force has declared Australia to be “reachable.” The actions and statements come in the wake of “inadvertent” incursions by the Australian Navy into Indonesian sovereign waters, which occurred as Australia was trying to implement its aggressive policy to prevent asylum seekers. From Canberra, the policy appears to be working—in the first hundred days, boat arrivals have dropped by 80 percent. The Australian government has apologized for the intrusions, but Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison stated that there would be “no stepping back” from the country’s hardline policy despite rising tensions with Jakarta. 5. South Korean trade official returned following kidnapping in Libya. Han Seok-woo, head of the Tripoli branch of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, was freed by security forces on Wednesday after being abducted by four gunmen three days prior. The gunmen stopped his car while Han was driving home from work. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official reported on Monday that no one has communicated why they have kidnapped him or what they wanted. Libyan officials identified the gunmen as members of a small armed group. Along with issuing a travel warning, the Korean Foreign Ministry has recommended the 551 South Korean nationals living in Libya leave the country. Bonus: Hong Kong billionaire offers over $120 million to man able to convince his lesbian daughter to marry him. Hong Kong billionaire Cecil Chao offered HK$1 billion (US$128.8 million) to any man who was able to convince his daughter to marry him, despite the fact that she has a wife. His initial offer of HK$500 million attracted 20,000 potential suitors. However, daughter Gigi Chao said that no amount of money would be able to convince her to marry a man, but she “would be happy to befriend any man willing to donate huge amounts of money to [her] charity, Faith in Love.” British ‘Borat’ actor Sacha Baron Cohen is rumored to be planning a movie about Gigi Chao’s plight.

Indonesia’s presidential elections, scheduled to be held in July, will be crucial to cementing Indonesia’s democratic reforms. As many developing nations around the world, like neighboring Thailand, actually have regressed from democracy in recent years, Indonesia has stood out as one of the clearest recent examples of successful democratization. In the late 1990s, as Indonesian politics began to open up, the archipelago was convulsed with violence, and at that time it was unclear whether the country would even survive intact. Battered by the Asian financial crisis, the Indonesian economy shrank by thirteen percent in 1998, and an additional ten percent of Indonesians fell into poverty between 1998 and 2000. The government of longtime dictator Suharto collapsed, and political authority crumbled in many regions. Terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah mushroomed across the country, launching attacks like the Bali bombings in 2002, while outlying regions like Aceh, Papua, and East Timor attempted to secede from the country. All-out civil strife engulfed Timor, the Maluku islands, and other parts of Indonesia, while riots burned down large parts of Jakarta in 1998. But since the early 1990s, Indonesia has made remarkable strides. Indonesia has adopted a more inclusive political system, reduced the military’s authority, empowered local jurisdictions, achieved stability across the archipelago, and sustained strong economic growth of nearly six percent annually for more than a decade. A peace agreement in Aceh, the devolution of powers in places like the Malukus, and a deal to allow East Timor to gain independence helped calm tensions and prevent all-out civil war. These gains have produced a large and Internet-savvy new middle class across the country—Indonesia has the third-largest number of Facebook users in the world, after the United States and India—and have given rise to a young generation of politicians, men and women who do not hail from traditional dynasties. Yet Indonesia’s remarkable successes may have reached their limit, and daunting economic and political challenges remain. Some regions of the country, like Papua, remain plagued with separatist violence. Inequality remains a problem. Wages in low-income fields such as agriculture and apparel manufacturing are stagnant even as educated Indonesians command high salaries in areas such as finance and information technology. Corruption remains probably the biggest drag on growth, and threat to democratic politics; the decentralization of political and economic power in the post-Suharto era has actually in some ways made corruption worse, by increasing the number of government officials with their hands out for bribes. In all likelihood, Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, known universally by his nickname Jokowi, will win the upcoming elections. (Although Jokowi has not yet formally declared his candidacy, nearly all his allies and advisers say he is running for president this year.) In the elections, Jokowi will rely upon not only his own charisma, his regular-guy appeal, and innate political instincts but also the powerful machine of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle, or PDI-P. Jokowi knows exactly how to manage his image, how to project the regular-guy appeal that, in a country that has never known such a politician, has proven enormously popular. In pre-election polling, no other presidential candidate gets even a quarter as much support as the Jakarta governor. The closest challenger, former general Prabowo Subianto, not only cannot match Jokowi’s personal touch and (in PDI-P) formidable political organization but also remains tainted by allegations of involvement in the killings of democracy activists during the Suharto era. That Jokowi likely will dominate the presidential election seems sure. What is not sure is how he will govern. Though dynamic, media-savvy, and results-oriented, Jokowi has only served as mayor, although he has been major of two large cities. He has no experience in foreign policy, national-level economic policy, trade policy, and other issues, and he has hesitated to even offer thoughts on how Indonesia should conduct its foreign policy. He also will have to contend with the many rivalries inside PDI-P; just because former president Megawati is willing to pragmatically throw her support to Jokowi does not mean that she is going to give up her plans to eventually maneuver her children into positions of power. But as president, Jokowi will not be able to avoid the terrain of foreign relations, economics, and trade. And with its economy booming and its politics more stable, Indonesia has in recent years returned to its natural position as the leader of Southeast Asia, and also has assumed a major voice in international forums like G-20 group of economic power. The country has enormous untapped natural resources, but many Indonesians have been angered by environmental abuses linked to previous foreign investment in resources like copper, gold, and oil, and want to redraw the terms of foreign investment in the future. Already, in the past three years Indonesian lawmakers have passed new legislation attempting to restrict certain types of foreign investment and hand control of natural resources back to Indonesian firms. In private, and in some of his actions, Jokowi has offered hints of how he might govern as president. He maintains a strong commitment to democratic institutions, including secular courts and the country’s anti-corruption commission, and his election probably would strengthen these independent institutions and move along Indonesia’s democratic transition even faster. He also has demonstrated streaks of populist economics, the kind of pro-state intervention but also capitalist economics popularized by other developing world leaders such as former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and former Brazilian president Luiz Ignacio Lula de la Silva.  Jokowi has called for the government to take back control of much of the economy, in what he called a “people-centered economy.” He also seems likely to support not only Indonesian power in Asia, even at the expense of traditional relationships like that with Australia, but also Indonesia’s growing willingness to stand up for democracy and human rights in the region, such as pushing the Myanmar government to reform. As he formally announced his candidacy, these views should come into clearer definition.

Just as in 2013, the new year promises to be a year of enormous dynamism and change in Asia. The region is now not only the biggest engine of global growth but also the center of multilateral free trade negotiations, the real heart of a democracy “spring” in developing nations--and the home of the rawest, most dangerous power politics in the world. After all, only in Asia do great powers with great stocks of nuclear weapons still face each other down, Cold War-style. In a new piece for Bloomberg, I offer my predictions for the region for 2014. Read it here.

Will Piekos and Darcie Draudt look at the top five stories in Asia this week. 1. Bloomberg dogged by self-censorship questions. Bloomberg News reporter Michael Forsythe, who worked on an unpublished article about a Chinese tycoon and his ties to CCP leaders, left the company this past week. The move came after it was reported that the unpublished article was rejected by top editors, led by editor in chief Matthew Winkler, because of fears that Bloomberg would be banished from China. Mr. Winkler has denied these claims, instead arguing that the article was not ready for publication. Bloomberg has also been criticized for self-censoring some articles in past weeks, reportedly inserting a code that prevents certain articles from appearing on Bloomberg terminals on the mainland. In response to an article on the family wealth of Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has already taken punitive measures against Bloomberg, including blocking its website, blocking residency visas for new journalists, and restricting Bloomberg terminals at state-owned enterprises. 2. Violence in Xinjiang leaves eleven dead. Assailants with axes attacked a police station in the town of Selibuya last Saturday. Nine of the attackers were killed, along with two people identified as assisting the police. Two police officers were injured. The attack follows on the heels of an incident in Tiananmen Square in late October; the government says an SUV driven by assailants in Xinjiang resulted in the deaths of five people, including the three in the vehicle and two tourists on the sidewalk. Selibuya was also the site of ethnic violence in April, when twenty-one people were killed in clashes between residents and police. 3. Eighty-five-year-old American detained in North Korea. North Korea confirmed on November 22 that it has detained a U.S. citizen, according to Swedish officials who oversee consular issues in Pyongyang for the United States. Merril E. Newman has been detained since October 26 after being escorted off the plane an Air Koryo plane in Pyongyang. His detention follows a vacation to North Korea organized through a Beijing-based tour company. Newman’s detention is unusual in that he has no known record of human rights activism or religious evangelism, unlike other U.S. detainees including Kenneth Bae. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who has previously worked on North Korean issues, has been in touch with contacts in North Korea, his office said. 4. Indonesia “downgrades” relations with Australia amid leaked intelligence reports. The surveillance was discovered via documents from 2009, leaked by Edward Snowden, that show plans to monitor the calls of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife. Australian prime minister Tony Abbott acknowledges Indonesia’s concern, but refuses to apologize for “reasonable surveillance.” Indonesia continues to review all bilateral cooperation; President Yudhoyono has recalled its ambassador to Australia and suspended bilateral cooperation on the issue of people-smuggling. 5. Locke to leave Beijing. The U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, has announced that he will step down from his post early next year for personal reasons, leaving the post temporarily vacant. He has served as ambassador for two and a half years, spending much of his time promoting American businesses and exports. The most notable event of his tenure was the escape of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng from house arrest and eventually into the United States. The former commerce secretary will rejoin his family in Seattle. Bonus: Chinese woman earns her living as Mao Zedong impersonator. Fifty-seven-year-old Chen Yan, a former housewife from Sichuan, has leveraged her uncanny resemblance to the Chinese communist revolutionary into a day job, earning more than 10,000 yuan (over $1600) per forty-minute silent public appearance. Standing at just over five feet tall, she stands on ten-inch platform shoes during performances in which she waves to crowds and stares pensively while smoking a cigarette like Chairman Mao was prone to do. Her impersonations are not all good news, though, as Chen’s husband is “disgusted” by his wife’s role as the only female Mao impersonator.