Malaysia

By Richard Javad Heydarian Malaysia’s recent national election was a stunner for many reasons. Not only did the election return a nonagenarian to power, but it also ended the six-decades-long one-party hegemony of Barisan Nasional (BN). For the first time in Malaysia’s post-independence history, the opposition is in power. Crucially, long-time opposition leader and democracy activist Anwar Ibrahim has been pardoned and released from prison, enabling him to eventually take the helm of the Malaysian state, paving the way for deep political reforms. Yet Mahathir Mohamad’s return to power is not only potentially transformative for Malaysian domestic politics. It also has far-reaching strategic implications. First of all, Malaysia may revisit its increasingly cordial, if not acquiescent, bilateral ties with Beijing, which heavily invested in upgrading relations with the previous Najib Razak administration. Similar to the case of the Philippines during the Benigno Aquino III administration, domestic anticorruption initiatives in Malaysia could have a significant impact on external relations with China. Former President Aquino III’s good governance reforms primarily targeted Beijing-backed projects launched under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. These anticorruption efforts against China-backed projects, along with Aquino III’s tough South China Sea policy, led to an overall deterioration in Philippine-China bilateral ties, which reached its apotheosis in 2016 as the Philippines won a decision at an international tribunal in The Hague against Beijing’s claims to an expansive “nine-dash line” of territory in the South China Sea. Malaysia under Mahathir may quickly implement anticorruption reforms; he has already apparently barred Najib from leaving the country, and vowed that the government will reopen investigations into the 1MDB state fund scandal. A major issue driving the Mahathir-led Pakatan Harapan coalition victory was the nationwide uproar against the 1MDB corruption scandal. The former prime minister and his associates have been accused of embezzling as much as $1 billion from the state fund. The 1MDB debacle also sparked international investigations into the Najib government, as the United States, Singapore, and Switzerland, among other countries, froze accounts and launched investigations against Malaysia’s investment fund body. But as Western governments began threatening criminal probes against top Malaysian officials, Najib began to fortify strategic and economic relations with China, which became a key source of investments for Malaysia. And the former prime minister was unapologetic about it. As the new Mahathir government moves towards potentially prosecuting Najib after placing him under a travel ban, greater scrutiny of Chinese investments could be coming. Before the election, Mahathir complained about the potential for rising housing costs for Malaysians triggered by an expansion in real estate projects by Chinese companies, and a potential influx of Chinese property buyers. “Here we gain nothing from the [Chinese] investment… [W]e don't welcome that,” he recently lamented. Mahathir also has repeatedly expressed concerns about over-reliance on Chinese technology, engineering and labor for Malaysian infrastructure projects. Among China-led projects that could be reconsidered is the $13 billion East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) railway, connecting Kuala Lumpur with less developed eastern regions. Mahathir has indicated that he may scrap the whole project. He has also warned about the threat of a debt trap, citing the case of Sri Lanka, which was forced into humiliating debt-for-equity deals with China due to its inability to repay ballooning debts to Chinese state firms. Secondly, Mahathir likely will take a stronger stance against China’s growing strategic assertiveness across Southeast Asia. Under the Najib administration, Malaysia remained reticent to openly highlight Beijing’s behavior in the South China Sea, eager to maintain booming economic ties with China. Under Mahathir, Malaysia’s policy of strategic acquiescence toward Beijing could change. Unlike Najib, Mahathir seemingly views China as a potential strategic threat. He has described the Xi administration as “inclined towards totalitarianism” and increasingly belligerent, a government that “like[s] to flex [its] muscles” and “increase [its] influence over many countries in Southeast Asia” in a “very worrisome” manner. Mahathir further has warned against growing militarization of the South China Sea, where Malaysia is one of the four Southeast Asian claimant states. Malaysia is currently occupying multiple land features, including the Swallow Reef, a reclaimed island with its own naval base. Historically, China has been less assertive within Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea than it has been in the economic zones of the Philippines and Vietnam, due to cordial bilateral relations with Malaysia. In recent years, however, Chinese navy and coast guard have been more active within Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone in the area. Nonetheless, the Najib administration adopted a softer tone than other Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam and the Philippines, which filed an arbitration case against China. Finally, Mahathir could place his country, once again, at the center of Southeast Asian affairs, where senior, high-profile figures tend to play an outsized role in setting the regional agenda. In fact, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional organization largely owes its existence as well as peaceful evolution over time to the efforts of powerful, often domineering regional leaders like former Singapore Prime Minster Lee Kuan Yew as well as Mahathir during his previous two-decades-long stint as Malaysian prime minister from the 1980s to early 2000s Mahathir shaped ASEAN’s relations with great powers, including China, and its response to regional economic and strategic crises, especially the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Mahathir’s return to the center of power in Malaysia could also provide leadership and foster internal coherence within ASEAN, which has increasingly lost its way in recent years due to in-fighting among member states and the growing influence of China in Southeast Asia. Mahathir is expected to build on the efforts of his predecessors, who managed to improve historically tense relations with neighboring Singapore, the current chairman of the ASEAN, over the past two decades. His personal gravitas, as a regional elder statesman, could also mean greater deference among his significantly more junior colleagues in the regional body. In recent years, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has a dominant figure within ASEAN. Yet Duterte has been mired in controversy, coming under fire for his human rights record and, especially, too cozy relations with China. Last year, with the Philippines holding the organization’s rotating annual chairmanship, ASEAN kept largely silent over South China Sea disputes as well as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, probably the two largest regional challenges. As a result, ASEAN often appeared irrelevant in shaping regional affairs. Notwithstanding his age (ninety-two years old) and his need to focus on domestic political challenges including the 1MDB scandal, rising inequality, and rebuilding political institutions, Mahathir’s return to the stage could give more purpose and substance to the ASEAN. Throughout the decades, Mahathir has been a constant fixture in regional meetings, seen as a regional bigwig and an indispensable source of strategic wisdom across Southeast Asia. Indeed, it is likely that Malaysia’s prime minister will once again try to leverage his influence within ASEAN to advance not only his country’s interests, but also make the regional body a more relevant player in addressing key challenges, including in the South China Sea. Mahathir’s unlikely and stunning return could be not only a game changer domestically, but for the whole Southeast Asian region. Richard Javad Heydarian is a nonresident fellow at ADR-Stratbase Institute, Manila, and the author of The Rise of Dutere.

In a result few pollsters and analysts (including myself) predicted, last week the Malaysian opposition coalition, led by nonagenarian former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, defeated the ruling coalition in national elections, leading to the first transfer of power in independent Malaysian history. To the previous government’s credit, despite rumors on election night and the following morning that the Election Commission and former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak would take measures to defraud the voters, or prevent a change of government, the transition process was completed in an orderly and largely peaceful manner. The Election Commission, seemingly stacked with Najib loyalists, announced that the opposition coalition had won a majority of parliamentary seats, and the Malaysian king provided an audience to Mahathir and named him prime minister. But amidst jubilant scenes in many parts of Malaysia, hard questions now face the opposition coalition, which unites an array of parties that draw on widely different groups of voters and have different platforms. For more on these hard questions, see my new World Politics Review article.

By Thomas Pepinsky On May 9, Malaysian voters delivered a stunning defeat to the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN, “National Front”) regime. Since independence in 1957, Malaysia has been ruled by a prime minister from the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). UMNO was the largest party in the Alliance, the predecessor to the BN. Since the transition from Alliance to the BN after the suspension of Parliament from 1969-1971, UMNO has played an increasingly dominant role in the ruling coalition. The era of BN rule is now over. On the evening of May 10, Mahathir Mohamad from the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (a.k.a. BERSATU), a member of the opposition Pakatan Harapan (PH, “Alliance of Hope”) coalition, was sworn in as Malaysia’s seventh prime minister. PH, which holds a simple majority in Malaysia’s parliament, now forms the country’s government. UMNO is now an opposition party, one of the two main opposition parties representing peninsular Malaysia (the other is the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party). Anyone with a sense of Southeast Asian history will find the previous paragraph jarring. Mahathir Mohamad, after all, is Malaysia’s most famous UMNO politician—at least he was until he broke with the party several years ago. As an UMNO member, he was Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, from 1981 until 2003. He has also long been a voice for ethnic Malay interests in a multiethnic country, having authored The Malay Dilemma, an explosive book in Malaysian politics that outlined a stark economic and political agenda that used legislation and government action to boost the economic and political power of ethnic Malays. How can he lead a democratic government comprised of his own party and a coalition of former opposition parties such as mostly ethnically Chinese Democratic Action Party and the People’s Justice Party, which draws support from urban areas, each of which is vocally multicultural in its platform and has long opposed UMNO? Malaysia watchers also will remember that Mahathir has a history of acting aggressively against his political opponents. He has no reputation as a committed democratic or civil libertarian. In 1987, the anti-opposition crackdown known as “Operasi Lalang” saw opposition Democratic Action Party head Lim Kit Siang detained without trial for over a year. After more than five decades in opposition politics, Lim Kit Siang will sit in Parliament as a member of the majority headed by Mahathir. Even more famously, Mahathir ousted his former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, in 1998, and subsequent events saw Anwar jailed for corruption and sodomy. Although he is no longer imprisoned for the same reason, Anwar remains in custody, and had to watch Mahathir’s swearing in from prison. Anwar’s wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail is now Malaysia’s deputy prime minister. How can Mahathir rule in a coalition with his former political enemies, against whom he showed no mercy in the 1980s and 1990s? The answer to these questions is to recall that democracy is not government by democrats. As I have argued elsewhere: The better way to think about political regimes—the general term for democracies and dictatorships—is to think about them as systems. Systems may have features that are independent of the features of the actors who work within them. Political regimes are comprised of individuals arranged into parties, bureaucracies, factions, movements, organizations, and other collective actors that interact with one another and with the individuals that comprise them. The key point then is that ‘democracy’ is a feature of a system—the regime—rather than a feature of the individuals who comprise it. By a simple test of was there an election, did the incumbent government lose, and has it respected the results and turned over power to its opponents? Malaysia appears to have democratized. That Mahathir is the new prime minister is perhaps a paradox; with the benefit of history it is certainly a shocking development. His Malay chauvinism and authoritarian tendencies may have mellowed, or not, but it does not actually matter. As of the time of writing, Mahathir appears to be the first democratically elected prime minister of Malaysia. Now the question is how the PH will rule. PH will need to find a way to contain both an ethnic Malay-first party—which is what BERSATU is—and other, multiethnic parties that hold far more parliamentary seats than BERSATU. If Malay voters abandoned the BN and jumped to PH because they thought it better able to represent their interest than UMNO, it remains to be seen how BERSATU will deliver on that promise, and how the other PH component parties will respond. But that is nothing more than the challenge of multiparty democracy in ethnically heterogeneous societies. Many Malaysians have waited for decades for this, and now we will see how it unfolds. Thomas Pepinsky is associate professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. He specializes in comparative politics and international political economy, with a focus on island Southeast Asia. He blogs about Southeast Asian politics at http://tompepinsky.com/blog.

Part 1 Earlier this week, the opposition coalition in Malaysia pulled off a dramatic upset, ending the ruling coalition’s grip on political power, which has lasted since Malaysia’s independence from Britain. Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister who returned, in his 90s, to lead an unwieldy opposition coalition, was sworn in as prime minister again today, after meeting with the country’s king. But the election, although shattering in Malaysian politics, raises several questions immediately. First, can the unwieldy opposition alliance hold together and actually govern? The opposition turned to Mahathir as its leader as he came out of retirement, and after the longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was jailed. Anwar and Mahathir have a long and complicated relationship—Mahathir was prime minister when Anwar was jailed previously, on dubious charges—but Mahathir has said he will push for a full pardon of Anwar, and for Anwar to soon run for an MP seat and join the government. For now, Anwar’s wife, Wan Azizah Ismail, a veteran opposition politician, will likely be a deputy prime minister. How will these figures all get along, given historic enmities? In addition, the opposition is a coalition with multiple parties, many of which have starkly different views on key questions of economic and foreign policy. They were united largely by their desire to end the ruling coalition’s power and to rid politics of former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak. Can they work together? Will Mahathir eventually step aside as prime minister for Anwar, as he has promised? Many of Mahathir’s core supporters love him, but share little in the way of viewpoints about politics and Malaysian culture as supporters of Anwar and his party. Will that chasm matter once the coalition is governing? Second, how will Mahathir’s return to office affect Malaysia’s relations with China, which have grown noticeably warmer under Najib’s tenure? In the aftermath of the election, Mahathir announced that the new government might “renegotiate several agreements that had been struck with China,” according to CNBC. During the campaign, Mahathir had criticized Najib for pushing Malaysia’s economic and strategic relations too close to Beijing and it is likely the new government will apply strict scrutiny to several major Belt and Road Initiative projects, such as a rail line planned in peninsular Malaysia. Yet during his previous time as prime minister, Mahathir often showed that his harsh words toward many foreign states—including the United States and the United Kingdom—concealed a pragmatic willingness to cooperate on economic and strategic issues. Third, will the new government immediately step up investigations and/or pursue indictments in the 1MDB case? On the campaign trail, the coalition that now rules Malaysia vowed to make 1MDB investigations a priority, and there is certainly a high possibility that the new government will pursue a broad range of charges in the alleged corruption case, including possibly against Najib and his close allies. The government may also cooperate more closely with foreign governments investigating the 1MDB scandal, which had complained of stonewalling from the Najib government. Mahathir has said that Najib will have to face whatever “consequences” come from Najib’s time in office, but when Mahathir was prime minister, he was hardly an advocate for transparency at the highest levels of government, and Malaysia has no real tradition of investigating former prime ministers, who usually receive laurels and titles. We will have much more coverage of the impact of the election this week and next week.

On May 9, Malaysians will go to the polls in the first national elections since 2013. Prime Minister Najib tun Razak and his allies appear poised for victory on May 9, though the race is close. And if he wins, the prime minister could potentially transform Malaysia, which has been a semi-authoritarian state with some degree of the rule of law, into an Erdogan-style autocracy. For more on how Najib might remake Malaysia, see my new Washington Post article.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering March 31 to April 6, was compiled with support from Alexandra Bro, Rebecca Hughes, and Amalia Trigo.

Last week, Malaysian prime minister Najib tun Razak dissolved parliament and called a general election, which will now occur no more than sixty days after April 7, the day of dissolution. Najib and other leaders of the governing coalition, which has ruled Malaysia since independence, likely set this timetable in part so the election would be held while the longtime opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, remains in jail. In the last national election, Anwar’s coalition, a diverse group of parties held together by his personality, actually won the popular vote, although extreme gerrymandering (and possibly fraud) ensured that Najib’s coalition retained control of parliament. It would be a major upset if the opposition coalition, led by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad with Anwar in jail, won the election this time around. It is true that the opposition made major gains in 2013, that there is significant public discontent in Malaysia with the 1MDB scandal and the other allegations of corruption swirling around the government, and – at least among urban Malaysians – that there is anger about Malaysia’s outflow of capital and lack of jobs in higher-value industries. In addition, high living costs are a major problem for Malaysians of all income levels, and despite being cleared by the domestic justice system, Najib’s administration still faces ongoing investigations into the 1MDB scandal in the United States and multiple other countries. Still, Najib and his coalition are likely to win. Mahathir remains distrusted by some in the opposition, and he does not have the ability to galvanize the broad opposition coalition the way that Anwar had. The Najib government has dished out a massive pre-election budget, which is a norm in Malaysia, to appeal to voters. Under new election regulations, many districts are even more gerrymandered than in past year, further diluting the power of urban voters, who tend to support the opposition. And Najib’s parliament recently passed a law against “fake news” designed to further chill political discourse in Malaysia, a country where Najib has already overseen significant crackdowns on expression over the past five years.   Najib also has benefitted from a divide between the Parti Islam Se Malaysia, or PAS, a vital part of the opposition coalition last time, and the current, Mahathir-led opposition coalition. This divide could badly hurt the opposition in the election, leaving Najib and his allies the winners as PAS siphons votes from the opposition without winning many seats for PAS itself. In addition, if Najib and his coalition win the election – and especially if they win by a considerable amount – they are likely to usher in an era of a much more repressive Malaysia. Najib has wielded power repressively in his current term, but in another term he could well try to turn Malaysia in a direction closer to Turkey or other more personalized authoritarian states. However, a massive victory by Najib’s coalition would not necessarily lead to a further empowerment of conservative and Islamist groups in Malaysia, which have been wielding greater political power in recent years. If Najib scores a large victory, PAS will be less equipped to extract concessions from the new government. However, if Najib does not win big, and PAS’s split of the opposition is a major factor in Najib’s win, PAS and its Islamist allies will be poised to make sizable demands on the government. Finally, as James Chin notes in New Mandala, the states of Sabah and Sarawak will again play a critical role in the election. In the past, they have been virtual vote banks for the ruling coalition, and the opposition has failed to make much headway in either of these states. For Sabah and Sarawak’s reliability, the governing coalition has lavished money and political power on these two states located on the island of Borneo.

After months of speculation, many signs indicate that Malaysia will hold its national elections in late April or early May. According to reports in the Malaysian press, the country’s election commission has booked most of the private helicopters in Malaysia for that time period, suggesting that it will be using them to monitor the election. Although Prime Minister Najib tun Razak does not legally have to call an election until late August, he may want to hold an election in April or May, since the vote would come before opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is released from jail. In the last national elections, held in 2013, the Anwar-led opposition coalition actually won the popular vote, but extreme gerrymandering gave Najib’s ruling coalition control of parliament, which it has enjoyed since Malaysia gained its independence. The election likely will be close, but, without Anwar, the opposition has turned to an unlikely figure of unity—former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has now turned against the ruling coalition, but during his own terms in office harshly repressed dissent and oversaw Anwar’s first jail term.  And, even with the 1MDB scandal still swirling around him and the ruling coalition, Najib has a strong chance to win the election. If he does so, it will be in part because he, and the ruling coalition, have aggressively courted conservative, even Islamist voters, in part by splitting the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), part of the opposition alliance in the last national elections in 2013, away from the opposition. But to woo these voters, which the ruling coalition needs as urban Malay, Chinese, and Indian voters favor the opposition, Najib and the party have increasingly framed Malaysia as a state that should be dominated by Muslim, ethnic Malays. In addition, the ruling coalition has, among other steps, allowed PAS and its supporters to push forward legislation that could undermine Malaysia’s civil laws. The shift in Malaysia, in which conservative, even Islamist groups are wielding greater power in politics, is mirrored in Indonesia as well. There, the Jokowi government has not wooed Islamist organizations, but it was slow to recognize their growing power, which grew over the past decade but now has fully bloomed. Indeed, Jokowi’s administration only began to push back after Islamist organizations helped swing the vital Jakarta governor’s election last year. In a new CFR expert brief, I examine why Islamist groups are growing more powerful in Malaysia and Indonesia, the potential impact of their rise on the countries’ political systems, and the implications for U.S.-Malaysia and U.S.-Indonesia relations.  The full expert brief can be read here.

The rise of Islamism in Malaysia and Indonesia could have severe consequences for the two states’ societies, political systems, and overall stability.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Larry Hong, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. At last, Myanmar–China pipeline opens for business. This Tuesday, the first drops of crude oil began their slow northward crawl through a new pipeline connecting the Burmese coast to the southern Chinese city of Kunming. After nearly three years of remaining empty, the 480-mile-long, $1.5-billion pipeline will carry up to 260,000 barrels’ worth of crude a day to a refinery owned by the state-owned PetroChina, China’s largest oil producer. The pipeline will also help China address its “Malacca dilemma,” the fact that the country’s oil imports come primarily through the Malacca Strait and disputed South China Sea. The new Myanmar pipeline has the capacity to supply nearly 6 percent of China’s daily crude, and should allow PetroChina to boost exports of refined products over the coming years. One analyst argues that while the benefits Myanmar enjoys from the project will likely be minimal in the short term—mostly revenues from tariff fees—the experience of building and operating a large-scale energy project with China could help develop Myanmar’s domestic capacity for similar infrastructure development in the future. Local residents, on the other hand, are less thrilled with the project: activists in both Kunming and Myanmar have challenged the refinery and pipeline, respectively. 2. Disappearances disturb in Malaysia. Widely circulated CCTV footage of what appears to be the abduction of a Malaysian pastor, Raymond Koh, as well as subsequent revelations of other disappearances in the country, is unnerving many citizens and rights groups. Mr. Koh, who runs a nongovernmental organization called Harapan Komuniti, or “Hope Community,” in Kuala Lumpur, has been missing since the morning of February 13. Unlike a normal abduction, however, no ransom amount or information was offered, even though the Mr. Koh’s family offered a RM100,000 (around $23,000) reward. This unusual incident led the pastor’s son to fear the worst: that his father had been murdered. Following the highly publicized disappearance of pastor Koh, several other cases of disappearances surfaced. They include social activist and former Petaling Jaya City Councillor Peter Chong, Pastor Joshua Hilmy and his wife, and social activist and the founder of a nongovernmental organization Amri Che Mat. In the absence of a clear rationale for what some called “unprecedented” disappearances and the apparent lack of official efforts in locating these missing individuals, the Malaysian Bar says that there are “alarming doubts on the adequacy of the safety and security measures of the country” and even speculates that these missing cases might be “forced disappearances,” a politically charged term used to describe the disappearance of individuals by or with the acquiescence of state officials. In response to the allegations, Malaysia’s police force has denied any connections between these five individuals and cautioned the public against “unverified rumors.” 3. Japan’s population poised to take a steep dive. The Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (NIPSSR), which updates its country-wide figures every five years, has reported this week that Japan’s population is expected to fall from over 127 million today to merely 88 million people by 2065, and 51 million by 2115. This potentially drastic drop-off is based on decades of declining birth rates dating back to the 1960s. However, the population decline is not as rapid as previously anticipated, as a growing number of women in their thirties are choosing to have children. That said, this particular demographic bump will not bring about a substantial change, as NIPSSR argues that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will need to implement better national policies to enhance child care, improve work-life balance, and integrate the elderly into the economy, as well as those to promote mass immigration. As of right now, immigrants are primarily short-term students and guest workers. Japan is struggling with an aging demographic in which adults aged sixty-five and over currently comprise roughly 30 percent of the population, reducing the country’s workforce and creating a heavy demand for pension funds. 4. Duterte walks back assertive Spratly statements. On April 6, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte stated his intent to order troops to occupy and fortify islands and reefs within the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea, along with his intent to personally visit Pagasa island to plant a Philippine flag on June 12, Philippine independence day. The comments, made during a press briefing after a military camp visit in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the province on the front lines of the maritime dispute with China, appeared to be directed at Chinese encroachment in the Philippine Pacific coast. The Philippines and China possess competing claims to islands and features within the South China Sea; Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Vietnam also have claims within the South China Sea. On April 10, Duterte sought to allay concerns over his remarks by clarifying that he had “ordered the occupation of the ten or nine islands that are just near our shores” and also stating that no offensive weapons would be placed on those islands. Additionally, on an April 13 speech in Saudi Arabia, he retracted his vow to personally raise a Philippine flag on Pagasa “because of our friendship with China.” Mr. Duterte’s initial statements perplexed many, as he has generally sought to bring the Philippines closer to Beijing in contrast to the approach of previous Philippine administrations. 5. New data transfer rules proposed in China. The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s top internet regulator, put forth Measures for the Security Assessment of Outbound Transmission of Personal Information and Critical Data this week. The measures stipulate that foreign companies operating online networks in China will need to apply for permission and undergo a security assessment before exporting data that either relates to more than 500,000 individuals, is tied to key national scientific projects or infrastructure, or exceeds one terabyte in size. The Chinese government will then decide whether to allow the transfer based on potential harm to the country’s economic development, political system, or national security. These regulations are consistent with previous restrictions on the Chinese internet including the 2016 Cybersecurity Law, but are notable for expanding the application of data localization rules beyond companies in “critical infrastructure” to encompass all operators. While some have hailed the new regulations as a means to counter security threats and protect digital rights, most observers are more skeptical and see them as further step in the government’s promotion of “internet sovereignty” and efforts to restrict foreign technology companies. The draft regulation remains open for public comment through May 11, 2017. In the past, some Chinese cybersecurity regulations have been watered down in response to criticism during this public comment period. Internet service providers and technology companies will no doubt be waiting anxiously to see if that pattern will repeat this time. Bonus: Indonesian artist sneaks political message into X-Men. The creators behind X-Men: Gold, a 2017 reboot of Marvel’s well-known comic series, were touted as an “all-star creative team.” But the illustrator of the series’ first issue, Reddit users revealed this week, had more in mind than crafting action-packed panels. Ardian Syaf, a freelance Indonesian artist for Marvel, inserted at least two politically and religiously charged cryptic messages into the comic: one that referenced a Quran passage that hardline Indonesian Islamists use to defend their views of non-Muslims, and another that referenced a protest in Jakarta against the city’s Christian governor. After becoming aware of the hidden messaging, Marvel confirmed that the references would be erased in future editions of the comic and immediately terminated Syaf’s contract. Though Syaf denied any anti-Christian or anti-Semitic sentiment on Facebook, photos of him meeting with the leader of a controversial hardline Islamist group also surfaced online. Another illustrator, who has worked on Marvel artwork before, stated that sneaking political opinions into comics was nothing new, but “this episode definitely did not fit into Marvel’s storytelling.”

As I noted in a piece I co-authored with Scott Snyder shortly after the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam, Malaysia is but one of many Southeast Asian nations that have relatively robust diplomatic ties with Pyongyang. Or at least---Malaysia had relatively robust ties with Pyongyang. Those ties existed before the brazen killing in Kuala Lumpur’s international airport, the travel ban by Pyongyang on Malaysian citizens in North Korea and Malaysia on North Korean citizens in Malaysia, and the increasingly hostile rhetoric between Pyongyang and Kuala Lumpur. (The latest news is that Kuala Lumpur is in talks with Pyongyang about the return of Malaysian citizens from North Korea, but it would be hard to imagine the two nations’ relationship returning to normal any time soon.) Since the crisis began, groups of Malaysians have routinely protested outside the North Korean embassy to demand their fellow citizens back, and it is hard to imagine Pyongyang’s public image in Malaysia getting worse than it is now. Before the assassination and the subsequent bilateral crisis, Malaysia had apparently been working to bolster economic and diplomatic ties with North Korea. It may not exactly have been a “special” bilateral relationship between Pyongyang and Kuala Lumpur, as The Diplomat notes, but ties were relatively robust. As the BBC notes, Malaysia long has played a role as a facilitator for talks between Pyongyang and foreign powers, but in recent years the relationship apparently had expanded. Malaysia and North Korea had agreed upon a mutual visa-waiver program that would allow for greater business and tourist travel between the two nations. Malaysian firms had begun looking for economic opportunities in the North, although the size of the legitimate two-way trade remained very small. The BBC reports that Malaysia had, however, become an important site for illegal North Korean money-making activities, including alleged weapons deals; Reuters has reported that North Korea’s spy agency sold military radios and other military devices out of a site in Malaysia, even though the United Nations has banned Pyongyang from selling military equipment. Some other reports have speculated that Pyongyang was using Malaysia as a major hub for spying activities. Yet even after the blatant Kim Jong Nam killing and the ensuing hostage situation, many other Southeast Asian nations still retain significant links to Pyongyang. And so far, there does not seem to be any rush in other Southeast Asian capitals to reassess these ties, even as Malaysian Prime Minister Najib tun Razak has taken a tough approach to Pyongyang in the wake of the Kim Jong Nam killing. (Najib also may sense that looking tough, and focusing on the North Korea story, can help deflect public attention from the past year’s worth of graft scandals.) For some of these states, like Cambodia, the ties are based partly on historic links; former King Sihanouk had close personal ties with North Korean leaders. North Korea also helped build a new museum near Angkor Wat---a museum utilizing the massive paintings and murals a North Korean state art studio has become known for. Since Cambodia is a relatively poor country, with a semi-authoritarian leader, maintaining ties with Pyongyang has little reputational cost, even after the Kim Jong Nam killing. The same is basically true for Laos, which Pyongyang apparently sees as both a place to make money from state-run Korean restaurants and a site to try to interdict refugees fleeing from the North to the South. Laos’s government is not one that is particularly sensitive to any type of reputational cost from its diplomatic relationships. Myanmar may be changing politically, but its powerful military reportedly built ties with North Korea over the past two decades. Myanmar civilian leaders, and foreign powers, have urged the armed forces to cut these ties, but it remains unclear to what extent that has happened. (Myanmar definitely has become more willing to criticize Pyongyang’s actions in recent years, as David Steinberg notes, but whether it has totally cut military ties remains uncertain.) Still, for wealthier Southeast Asian nations---ones more sensitive about their international reputations---will the Kim Jong Nam killing, and the subsequent Malaysia-North Korea standoff, lead to a reassessment of relations with Pyongyang? These nations have long believed in trying to work with North Korea through a consensual, low-key approach, and they may want to maintain decent ties with the North in case the Koreas ever reunite. In that case, it would be important to have contacts among the former North Korean elite. But that consensual, low-key approach to the North may be failing. The relationship has backfired even for lenient Malaysia, and Pyongyang appears to be increasingly willing to take actions that destabilize regional relations in both Southeast and Northeast Asia. Thailand and Singapore are the important countries to watch, in terms of how Southeast Asia will now approach the Kim Jong Un regime. These countries are of vital economic importance to the North, but North Korea is not of vital economic interest to them. As the South China Morning Post reports, “Southeast Asian countries are waking up to the reality that their decades-old bond with North Korea, forged during the time of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, may count for little when dealing with the unpredictable third-generation leader Kim Jong-un.” Kavi Chongkittavorn of The Nation (Bangkok) notes that Thailand’s government helped create a space for North Korea to use ASEAN meetings to discuss sensitive issues with other major regional powers, and in 2008 Singapore convinced Pyongyang to sign ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. But, Kavi thinks, voices in Southeast Asia may be questioning the value of maintaining these ties, in the wake of the Kim Jong Nam killing, Pyongyang’s ballistic missile test, and other provocations by the North. Kavi notes that Southeast Asian states must realize “Pyongyang has abused the friendship and trust of ASEAN and its members … and tackle the issue of North Korea’s espionage activities within its member countries. It is an open secret that some ASEAN members … have been considered havens of clandestine activities by North Korea.” A first sign that Singapore, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian nations might move away from their relatively lenient approach to Pyongyang will be whether they crack down harder on North Korean embassies in the region. They could limit the number of diplomats and pay much closer attention to whether these embassies are conducting illegal businesses.

North Korea continues to evade UN sanctions designed to prevent its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) development by embedding its agents and intermediaries within the international trading system, according to the latest assessment of the UN Panel of Experts set up to monitor North Korean compliance with international sanctions. In fact, North Korean sanctions evasion has largely eviscerated the intent and impact of UN sanctions resolutions designed to block international financial and material support for North Korean nuclear and missile development efforts. Aside from the obvious Chinese loophole, the assassination of Kim Jong Nam has shone a bright light on another major portal for North Korean illicit actions and sanctions evasion: Malaysia. The visa-free access to Malaysia that North Korean citizens have enjoyed until it was rescinded earlier this month following the murder of Kim – the half-brother of the isolated regime’s leader, Kim Jong Un -- had provided Pyongyang with a base for both illegal procurement and financing activities that have enabled it to import sensitive materials and finance its WMD development. The Panel of Exports report identifies Glocom as a North Korean front company that relies on an extensive international commercial network to market radio communications equipment for military and paramilitary organizations. More importantly, Glocom is a contact point for Pan Systems Pyongyang, an international firm that has played a major role in procurement and financing of sensitive and dual-use goods on behalf of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As part of its investigation, the panel identified two Malaysian-based companies, International Golden Services Sdn Bhd and International Global Systems Sdn Bhd, which have served as front companies and contact points for Pan Systems Pyongyang in Malaysia.  Earlier this week, local media reported that Malaysian police had taken preemptive action against the two entities “to ensure that Malaysia is not used for activities detrimental to national security.” ’Prominent regional arms fairs’ The Pan Systems Pyongyang network includes offices in Malaysia and China that were used to procure components and sell completed systems through relationships with suppliers in China and Hong Kong. North Korean citizen Ryang Su Nyo with support from Pyun Won Gon, Kim Sung Su, Kim Chang Hyuk, and others directed these activities. According to the panel, the network was able to build up “significant international recognition including through participation in prominent regional arms fairs and selling high-end arms and related materiel in multiple countries.” The panel asserts that the network was coordinated by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Reconnaissance General Bureau, which has been responsible for some of North Korea’s most notorious provocations. Although the UN resolutions have highly restricted North Korea’s access to the financial system on paper, the report suggests that these sanctions have not affected the ability of North Korean networks such as Pan Systems Pyongyang to finance its operations, asserting that the network maintains bank accounts in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Middle East. By conducting financial transactions under the names of its affiliates such as Pan Systems Singapore, the company has been able to maintain sufficient financial access to the international financial system that it was able to transfer funds to a supply chain of more than twenty companies in China, and has also used front companies to conduct transactions via Hong Kong-registered companies that were cleared through U.S. correspondent banks in New York. Suez arms interception The Panel of Experts report also provides details on the interception in the Suez Canal of the Cambodian-flagged and North Korean-crew piloted Jie Shun in what it categorizes as the “largest interdicted ammunition consignment in DPRK sanctions history,” superseding the 2013 interdiction of the North Korean flagged Chong Chon Gang ship that was loaded with vintage Cuban munitions and airplane parts. The interdiction of the Jie Shun by Egypt revealed a cargo from North Korea through the Suez Canal containing 30,000 PG-7 rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and related sub-components shipped in wooden crates concealed under 2,300 tons of limonite (iron ore). The Jie Shun evaded detection by cutting off GPS during most of its journey, with the exception of transit through heavily trafficked straits and ports. The shipment from Haeju in North Korea to an undisclosed Middle Eastern destination were falsely labeled as “assembly parts for an underwater pump,” and the bill of lading showed the address of the “Dalian Haoda Petroleum Chemical Company, Ltd.” Finally, the Panel of Experts report provides an initial assessment of the latest front in North Korean sanctions implementation through monitoring of coal and iron exports to China. The panel finds that North Korean coal and iron ore exports to China have continued to increase year-on-year despite adoption of new UN Resolutions in March and December 2016. In fact, North Korea’s January exports of coal amounted to one-fifth of the UN-mandated quota for 2017, leading to a February announcement by the Chinese ministry of commerce that it would ban imports of North Korean coal for the rest of 2017.  This earned Beijing a rare rebuke from Pyongyang, who accused China of going along with North Korea’s enemies to "bring down its social system." But the pattern to date shows that enforcement of past Chinese announcements has not had a decisive effect on North Korean trade. Instead, whack-a-mole efforts by the international community have come up short, when some countries continue to enable North Korea to evade sanctions, embed its international supply chains in the global system, and defy efforts to squeeze North Korea into compliance with international nuclear norms. A version of this post originally appeared on Forbes.

The death in Malaysia of Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, was shocking on its surface. Reports indicate that two women may have poisoned him at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, while others suggest a larger group of people might have been involved. Reports further suggest the attackers may have poisoned Kim Jong Nam with a needle, while other reports allege they sprayed or used a cloth to apply some kind of poison on him. He died on his way to a hospital in the Malaysian capital. The New York Times reported that “A woman was arrested in connection with the killing on Wednesday.” The Times further reported: “The Royal Malaysia Police announced late Wednesday afternoon that they had arrested a woman that morning and that she had been carrying a Vietnamese passport in Terminal 2, where the attack occurred. They said she was ‘positively identified’ from closed-circuit video, and was alone at the time of her arrest.” But despite the brutal and spy-thriller nature of the death, in some ways, it was not shocking. Kim Jong Nam is known to have publicly questioned the sustainability of Kim Jong Un’s rule in the early days following the 2011 death of their father, Kim Jong Il and the 2012 transition to Kim Jong Un’s rule. This was criticism that Kim Jong Un probably took personally. The half-brothers also reportedly had no personal relationship, which might have made it more likely for Kim Jong Un to see Kim Jong Nam as a threat. Kim Jong Nam, who had lived in exile for more than a decade, was also known to have maintained contacts with the once powerful Jang Song-thaek and Kim Kyong-hui. If Kim would execute his powerful uncle, Jang Song-thaek, no one should be surprised that he might also seek to eliminate his half-brother. The Times reported that Pyongyang allegedly had issued a standing order for the assassination of Jong Nam. Despite North Korean orthodoxy that North Korea follows a line of direct father-son succession, eliminating prospects of rule by "side branches," the absence of a confirmed male heir means that the regime remains vulnerable, especially in the event that something happens to Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Nam’s elimination removes the prospect that Kim Jong Nam could be put forward, for instance with Chinese backing, as an alternative to Kim Jong Un’s rule if the dissent were to grow in North Korea and the country were to become more unstable. It also symbolizes Kim Jong Un’s quest for absolute security through rule by fear, a leadership style that ultimately could come back to haunt him. Using assassination teams also has been longstanding practice by Pyongyang. Kim Jong Il sent agents to eliminate Kim family defectors in previous years, including in 1997 when they assassinated a Kim family relative who had defected to Seoul. Still, the heavy use of elimination, rather than exile, as his father and grandfather did, to neutralize potential family and elite threats carries with it higher risks. Those close to Kim Jong Un may come to the decision that assassination is the only viable tool by which to chart a different future for North Korea and its people. The apparent assassination raises further questions about North Korea’s relations with Southeast Asian nations. Pyongyang has long maintained ties with Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, where Kim Jong Nam reportedly was spending more of his time in recent years than in Macau. Perhaps, an assassination attempt in Kuala Lumpur made more sense politically to Pyongyang since a blatant killing in Macau, controlled by China, would likely anger Pyongyang’s most important patron. But why would Kuala Lumpur and Singapore recently host Kim Jong Nam? North Korea has diplomatic relations with a number of Southeast Asian nations, but in recent years, Malaysia decided to allow visa-free travel to and from the North and for citizens of the North. Multiple reports suggest Kim Jong Nam had been visiting or residing in Malaysia and Singapore, possibly since 2014. Why? To what benefit for Malaysia? Does such a benefit outweigh concerns and possible massive embarrassment to Malaysia? North Korea’s security services have badly embarrassed other regional governments, including those of Myanmar and Thailand, by launching terrorist attacks in these countries, using extrajudicial means to attack and detain defectors, and allegedly being involved in other criminal activities including narcotics trafficking, currency counterfeiting, and other offenses. So Malaysia had to expect that such an attack could be carried out by North Korean security services/intelligence, and Malaysian leaders must have known of North Korean embassies’ troubling links to crime in Southeast Asia. Perhaps a desire for greater trade explains Malaysia’s unusual willingness to bolster ties with Pyongyang. Few Malaysian businesspeople have expressed interest in North Korea or North Korean trade to Mr. Kurlantzick, however. Officials in Kuala Lumpur do say Malaysia supposedly wants to boost trade with North Korea. Their bilateral trade is minimal, and Malaysia is richer than countries like Cambodia with close ties to North Korea. Malaysia is a middle-income economy, and bilateral trade with North Korea would be a rounding error in overall Malaysia’s overall gross domestic product. And if Kuala Lumpur wanted to cultivate trade relations with Pyongyang, why allow Kim Jong Nam, a perceived threat to Kim Jong Un, to stay freely? The mystery only deepens as more information emerges.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. South Korean president makes second public apology. On Friday, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea made a second public apology amidst rising domestic turmoil surrounding allegations that her close friend, Choi Soon-sil, acted as a kind of “shadow president” and improperly profited from her relationship with the president. In addition to apologizing, Park recently replaced her closest aides, including the prime minister, in a bid to pacify criticism. Large protests against Park, which roiled Seoul last weekend, are expected to be surpassed by turnout at protests scheduled for this weekend. Park’s approval rating has fallen to just 5 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll, which is the lowest since Park took office in 2013, and the lowest for any Korean president at any moment since 1948. Another poll found that 70 percent of respondents wanted her to resign or be impeached. In her apology, Park stated she would cut ties with Choi, flatly denied any involvement in the cult started by Choi’s father, and pledged to cooperate with any investigations. Choi, who fled to Germany in September when news of the scandal first broke but later returned home, was taken into custody recently under a South Korean law allowing "emergency detention" of suspects if authorities have reasonable grounds to believe the crime may warrant the death penalty or a life sentence, and believe the suspect is a flight risk who may also attempt to destroy evidence. 2. Malaysia to buy four Chinese naval ships. During a visit to Beijing this week, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak signed fourteen agreements worth approximately $34.4 billion. The deals included the purchase of four Chinese littoral mission ships, which are used mainly for coastal patrol and surveillance. Half of these ships will be built in Malaysia and half in China. During the trip, leaders from the two nations also discussed the South China Sea. Prior to his visit, Najib praised China "as a true friend and a strategic partner”. Following on the heels of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s warm reception in Beijing last month, Najib’s trip provoked concern in some circles about closer ties between China and Southeast Asia.  However, others argue that the course of Sino-Malaysian relations has not shifted dramatically and the new agreements relate more to Malaysia’s domestic economic needs than changing geopolitics. 3. Abe promises $7.7 billion for Myanmar’s development. This Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that Japan would provide 800 billion yen over five years in development aid to Southeast Asia’s fledgling democracy. The funds will come as a combination of official development assistance and private-sector capital, and go primarily toward building industrial capacity and infrastructure. 40 billion yen has been earmarked for supporting development in regions home to ethnic minority groups. Abe’s aid commitment coincides with a visit to Japan by Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been traveling widely in recent months to strengthen bilateral ties with a number of countries, including China, India, and the United States. However, Japan’s investment promise this week is nothing new: over the past few years, Japanese business operations, language courses, and investment dollars in Myanmar have all increased. So Abe’s generosity signals more of a continued pledge rather than a new chapter in the two countries’ relations. 4. Afghan returnee children make bricks in bondage.  According to the United Nations, roughly 7,400 Afghans are crossing the border each day to return from Pakistan, whose government has imposed a deadline of March 15, 2017, for “voluntary return and repatriation.” The Pakistani government has placed greater emphasis on the return process in response to the spread of terrorism, the presence of ISIS, and deepening ties between Afghanistan and India. The nearly half a million impoverished Afghan returnees from both Pakistan and Iraq are straining the finances of the cash-strapped government and aid organizations, who are attempting to provide humanitarian assistance as winter approaches. Each returning family receives just fifty dollars per household member in assistance, assuming they have proper registration. Many families with young children have settled into brick factories, where they work by day and sleep in the factories at night since their villages of origin have been destroyed amidst the ongoing violence. These bonded laborers, many of whom do not receive the aid promised to them in returnee “incentive packages” by the government, are working for unlivable wages as their kiln bosses profit tremendously. Although Afghan law officially prohibits child labor, Human Rights Watch estimates that at least one quarter of the country’s children ages five through fourteen participate in the labor force. 5. An assertive China hung GSK out to dry. A New York Times report published this week, based on confidential documents and reports, rehashes the sordid bribery and corruption scandal that rocked the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in China a few years ago, which resulted in a $500 million fine and prosecuted foreign management. Since the case, Chinese prosecutors have targeted a range of foreign businesses in anti-monopoly and anti-corruption cases, including Qualcomm (a record $975 million fine), shipping companies, and automobile manufacturers. And many American business leaders operating in China have simultaneously expressed concerns over rising distrust toward foreign businesses in the country. But the Times report also exposes how a foreign multinational can misstep under China’s increased regulatory assertiveness: in combating initial bribery accusations, GSK followed “the old playbook” and tried to downplay wrongdoing, discredit a whistleblower, and bribe regulators. The tactics backfired, and ended up implicating more executives and private investigators employed by the company. Whether or not Chinese regulators are in fact targeting foreign firms is an open question, but they are certainly not pulling any punches. Bonus: When pigs fly... Alibaba’s decision to rename its travel site Alitrip to Flying Pig, or Fliggy, provoked an unexpected controversy. In response to the change, Uighur snack entrepreneur Adil Memettur posted on Weibo criticizing the name as offensive to Muslims and said he would no longer use the service. Netizens responded with their own critiques of Memettur and Uighurs in general. Memettur later apologized on Weibo. Alibaba also clarified the rationale behind their rebranding, which was an effort to appeal to younger customers, who comprise over 80 percent of their users. But after the recent dust-up it remains to be seen whether the name Fliggy will fly.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Lincoln Davidson, Samir Kumar, Gabriella Meltzer, and David O’Connor look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Deadly forest fires exact major toll on Southeast Asia. A study published this week in Environmental Research Letters by public health and atmospheric modeling experts at Harvard University and Columbia University reveals the severe public-health ramifications of forest fires that engulfed Indonesia in 2015. The researchers estimated that fires deliberately set to clear land for agricultural purposes caused the premature deaths of 91,600 people in Indonesia, and 6,500 and 2,200 deaths in Malaysia and Singapore, respectively. These figures exclude damage done to children and infants or miscarriages caused by the toxic haze. Fatalities resulted from exposure to fine particulate matter, commonly referred to as PM2.5, which can result in health problems including asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, and cardiovascular disease. The fires, exacerbated by severely dry El Niño conditions, destroyed 10,000 acres of land and resulted in $30 billion worth of economic losses for the country. The annual fires have strained relations between Indonesia and its neighbors, and the government’s response is a greater crackdown on private companies and individuals who ignited the fires for commercial gain. 2. Eighteen Indian soldiers killed by militants in Kashmir. Early Monday morning, four militants crossed the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, and attacked an Indian army outpost in the remote village of Uri, killing eighteen soldiers. India attributed the attack to Jaish-e-Mohammed, an anti-India terrorist group with ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service most notable for their 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh dubbed Pakistan a “terrorist state” in a tweet, while General Raheel Sharif, the chief of the Pakistan army, condemned a “hostile narrative propagated by India.” An outspoken senior member of India’s ruling party called for aggressive action against Pakistan, remarking, “for one tooth, the complete jaw,” but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his advisors appear settled on a policy of aggressive diplomacy to isolate Pakistan in multilateral fora. Reaction to the attack from major countries like Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, was uniform in referencing, implicitly or explicitly, the role that Pakistan may have played in support of terrorist groups. 3. Greenpeace finds chemical accidents occur nearly daily in China. A report released by Greenpeace on Wednesday reveals that China experienced 232 chemical accidents in the first eight months of 2016—nearly one a day—causing 199 deaths and 400 injuries. The report comes little more than a year after a mismanaged chemical storage facility in Tianjin exploded, leaving 173 people dead and hundreds more wounded. Using government-provided data, Greenpeace found that more than half of chemical accidents occur during transportation, while 27 percent occur during production. Leaks caused 43 percent of accidents, while fire and explosions accounted for 27 and 16 percent, respectively. The report notes that the true number of accidents is likely higher than official statistics indicate. Furthermore, these accidents often result in casualties due to the close proximity of chemical plants to densely populated areas. The most recent such accident occurred on Tuesday, when an explosion at a chemical plant in Yantai caused four deaths. 4. Record numbers of Burmese refugees settle in the United States. Recently, the number of Burmese refugees resettling in the United States has exceeded that of Syrian refugees doing the same. Even as the civil war in Syria worsens and the debate surrounding resettlement of Muslim refugees becomes increasingly fervent, a growing number of Burmese nationals, many Muslim, have quietly settled in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of State, from October 2015 to mid-September 2016, 11,902 Burmese refugees and 11,598 Syrian refugees were resettled in America. An increasing number of those from Myanmar are Rohingyas, a self-identified Muslim ethnic minority group that has suffered persistent persecution in Myanmar by the Buddhist majority. The surge in refugees was exacerbated by long-standing and increasingly severe discriminatory practices against the Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state, causing thousands of Rohingya refugees to flee Myanmar. Figures from the Refugee Processing Center show that Rohingya arrivals from Myanmar jumped from just over 650 in the 2014 fiscal year to 2,573 last year. The majority of Rohingya Muslims end up in the United States after spending years in refugee camps in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. 5. Write-downs increase on Chinese non-performing loans. Chinese banks have undertaken further efforts to get non-performing loans (NPLs) off their balance sheets. In the first half of 2016, the number of NPLs written off by the four largest Chinese banks rose by 44 percent, and in the year’s first three months China experienced the slowest growth of NPLs in three years. Some of China’s largest banks–such as China Construction Bank, China Merchants Bank, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China–have announced plans to sell $600 million worth of securities backed by NPLs. In addition to write-downs, bad loans have also been bought up by state-controlled asset management companies and addressed through other government initiatives. Concerns about credit growth and the stress bad loans place on China’s banking system have been mounting. However, estimates of the ratio of NPLs to all corporate loans in China vary considerably between institutions depending on the types of loans included: the IMF places it at 15 percent, but the Chinese government says it is just 1.7 percent. Bonus: North Korea, cyber superpower. North Korea, isolated economically and diplomatically, is also largely cut off from the global internet, but it does have a small web presence. How small? The country has a total of twenty-eight websites on its top-level domain, .kp. A slip-up by an administrator at a North Korean nameserver this week resulted in the list of all the country’s websites that face the internet being visible to anyone who requested them. The websites include an airline, sites showing off the country’s culture and cuisine, the website of Kim Il-sung University, and several state news outlets. You can find a full list here. Oddly, twenty-eight seems to be something of a magic number in North Korea: Kim Jong-un, the country’s dictator, was appointed head of the Korean Workers’ Party when he was twenty-eight and the country has twenty-eight approved haircuts.