The Asian Century at 20

A N E W M A N -J U LI S I N I T I AT I V E

BEHIND THE ART

A Show of Hands After escaping political imprisonment, a Myanmar artist explores abuses of past and present.

BY J OS E T T E S H EER A N

PG. 5

The Asian Century at 20

BY TO M N AG O R S K I

P G . 32

BY H T EI N LI N

Letter From the President

Lotus An Iranian-American artist considers leadership,

PG. 6

or lack thereof, during the Arab Spring.

PG. 34

BY S H I VA A H M A D I PHOTO ESSAYS

THE TAKEAWAY

Understanding Jack Ma

BY D U N C A N CL A R K

P G . 10

Southeast Asia’s Balancing Act

BY CH A N H E N G CH E E

P G . 12

North Korea’s Next Weapon of Choice: Cyber

BY DA N I E L RUSSE L

Risky Crossing: Climate Migration

BY X Y Z A CRUZ BAC A N I

PG. 54

P G . 16

India’s Mobile Revolution

BY R AV I AG R AWA L

P G . 18

Passing the Muck: East Asia Makes a Big Coal Press Abroad

BY JACK SO N E W I N G

PG. 22

The Young Women From War-Torn Nations Who Are Shaping the Century

P G . 28

Miners: The Face of Coal in China

BY SO N G CH AO

4

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

P G . 10 0

INTERVIEWS

FEATURES

Trade: The New World Order WENDY CUTLER on the past, present, and future of global trade.

PG. 68

A Tale Of Two Summits

Defining Xi Jinping’s China

ORVILLE SCHELL on what a pair of presidential meetings, 20 years apart, can tell us about

Behind the rise of China’s most

the U.S.-China relationship.

P G . 76

powerful leader since Mao.

BY K E VI N RU D D

PG. 36

The Lives Forged by the ‘Forever War’ Seven Afghans on the immense changes they’ve wit-

The Rise of a New India

nessed in their lifetimes.

PG. 84

Two elections, 15 years apart, show how much a nation can change.

XINHUA/XIE HUANCHI V IA GET T Y | F R ANÇOIS- OL I V IER D OMMERGUES V IA AL AMY

BY A N U B H AV G U P TA

P G . 42

The Korea Conundrum What happens when South Koreans don’t want reunification anymore?

BY M AT T SCH I AV ENZ A

PG. 48

DISPATCHES

The Graying of Asia By the Numbers: The Facts and Figures that Explain the Asian Century

PG. 66

Contributors

P G . 92

Piecing Together North Korea

BY A N N A FI FI EL D

PG. 96

AI Superpowers

Asia 2040: Predictions About the Next Two Decades

BY H A N A H AYA S H I

P G . 120

P G . 12 4

BY K A I - F U L EE

P G . 110

Letter From Kashmir: Between the Great Divide

BY A N A M Z A K A R I A

P G . 114

ASIA SOCIETY

5

Publisher Asia Society

Managing Editor Dan Washburn Executive Editor Tom Nagorski Contributing Editor Matt Schiavenza Design Director Lisa Lok

Contributors Ravi Agrawal Shiva Ahmadi Chan Heng Chee Duncan Clark Xyza Cruz Bacani Wendy Cutler Jackson Ewing Anna Fifield Anubhav Gupta Hana Hayashi Htein Lin Kai-Fu Lee Tom Nagorski Kevin Rudd Daniel Russel Orville Schell Matt Schiavenza Song Chao Anam Zakaria

Illustrators Shreya Gupta Jocelyn Tsaih Olivia Waller Joan Wong Yifan Wu Contributing Designers Raisa Serrano Colin Webber

With funding and support from Harold J. Newman and Mitchell R. Julis 4

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J O C E LY N T S A I H

Editor in Chief Abby Seiff

Dear Readers, Welcome to The Asian Century at 20. This magazine is the inaugural edition of an annual publication covering the great challenges and opportunities facing the Asia Pacific. It is the first such publication issued by Asia Society, and we hope you will find in its pages many examples of the distinctive and diverse perspectives of our global network.

There are no greater challenges today — and there are no greater opportunities — than those presented by the rise of Asia. In its more than six-decade history, Asia Society has built a network of unmatched experience and intelligence, uniquely suited to respond to those same challenges and opportunities. It seemed high time for us to leverage those voices, in a publication produced by Asia Society itself.

Among the contributors assembled here, you will find a reflection of the range and reach of our network: thought leaders in policy and business, the arts and culture, technology and media, sustainability and the environment, and more. They represent a diversity of geography and include the voices of the next generation — some of our writers, photographers, and illustrators were children when the “Asian Century” was born. Over time, we hope to broaden our base of contributors — to this print publication and its digital iteration as well — as we build a platform to champion Asian and Asian American voices and to help our global audience make sense of the staggering changes across the Asia Pacific region.

The print edition will be produced annually, and in this special issue we have chosen to reflect not just on the year gone by, but on these first two decades of the so-called Asian Century. We’ve also asked some of those thought leaders to imagine Asia two decades from now: What fresh challenges, opportunities, and solutions might we be discussing and debating come 2040?

As we look back, and look to the future, I want to thank you for joining us on this journey. And I want to express particular gratitude to two individuals who have led us to this moment. A few years ago, Asia Society Trustees Harold Newman and Mitchell Julis approached Asia Society to discuss the prospects for such a publication. Their foresight and generosity have brought us to this moment.

I hope you enjoy our inaugural issue. There is much more to come.

Warmly,

Josette Sheeran President and CEO Asia Society

ASIA SOCIETY

5

The Asian Century at 20 ASIA

S

T

Y THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

OCIE

6

IMAGINE SOMEONE HAD TOLD YOU, in the waning days of the 20th century, any of the following: Deadly violence against New York and Washington, D.C. would soon lead to two U.S. wars in Asia; a handheld device designed in California and manufactured in China would help change the face of everything from commerce to elections to surveillance; and the GDP of China would multiply by 12, allowing it to challenge the U.S. for global economic supremacy.

What if you had heard that within the next 20 years, a Nobel Laureate, an icon for democracy and freedom, would be accused of complicity in genocide?

What if someone had said you would be able to buy goods in Tokyo with a “cryptocurrency,” or that cash would all but vanish from transactions in Beijing?

That tyrants and pro-democracy activists alike would use digital platforms to advance their aims? And what if you’d heard that one of the most feared leaders in Asia would be a 36-year-old; and one of its “newly-elected” heads of state would be 94?

Well, you might have replied, I think you’re crazy.

Or you might have said: Please, tell me more.

The phrase “Asian Century” was coined well before the century itself arrived. It was reportedly first used in a U.S. Senate committee hearing in the mid-1980s, and picked up by the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who poured cold water on the concept in the late 1980s during a visit with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi: “People have been saying that the next century will be the century of Asia and the Pacific, as if that were sure to be the case. I disagree with this view.”

By the time the century arrived, however, “Asian” seemed a f itting adjective; 20 years in, it’s hard to imagine a better moniker.

The most mind-bending changes of these last two decades have had a China dateline. Beyond the staggering GDP numbers, we have seen a paradigm shift in its economy.

Twent y years ago, the main source of China’s growth was the low-cost manufacturing of toys and clothing and other goods destined for Walmart shelves. Since then, much of that manufacturing has migrated to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangladesh, among other places, and the new engines of Chinese growth are in the decidedly less bricks-and-mortar titans such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent.

Another paradigm shift involves personalities: Xi Jinping has ushered in an era that now draws fewer comparisons to Deng — architect of China’s great revival — and more to Mao Zedong and his cult of personality. And today, the U.S. and China — which 20 years ago had found a post-Tiananmen modus vivendi — have seen their relationship descend to new and potentially dangerous lows.

Meanwhile, as we write, China (and the world at large) faces a fresh and nightmarish challenge in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

Of course, great change has swept across other parts of Asia, too. If history is measured in moments of dynamism, then nearly all of the last two decades’ “history” on the Korean peninsula came at the beginning and end of that period. In June 2000, the big

ASIA SOCIETY

7

news involved the meeting of North and South Korean heads of state in Pyongyang. It was the f irst such summit since the Korean War. Just a few months later, the South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “Sunshine Policy” of greater openness to the North.

Nearly 20 years later came the remarkable scenes of North Korean leaders at the South Korea-hosted Winter Olympic Games, then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s visit to Pyongyang, and soon after, the Singapore and Hanoi summits where U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un ended a six-decade period in which no sitting North Korean leader had been invited to meet his American counterpart.

Are we any safer as a result of those moments? Not clear. Or, at least, open for debate.

In other corners of Asia, we have witnessed more substantive cracks in the geostrategic ice. In Iran, a long diplomatic effort brought the 2015 nuclear deal; in Burma — now Myanmar — back-channel diplomacy ended the long rule of a military junta, and paved the way for the release and then elevation to leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi. Today both the Iran deal and the halo that hung around Suu Kyi have been badly damaged.

In South Asia, meanwhile, plus ça change . For all the talk of a drawdown, the U.S. war in Afghanistan is nearly 20 years old, and instability and violence continue to wrack the country. In May 1999, the Indian Air Force launched an attack on Pakistan army troops and militants in Kashmir, ultimately recap-

turing Kargil after a two-month offensive. Almost exactly 20 years later, India eliminated the special status of Kashmir — a radical departure from a status quo that had existed since partition. The tensions then and now are high.

Beyond the challenges of security and geopolitics, there are existential challenges, as well. The late-1990s’ landmark deal on climate change had an Asian dateline — Kyoto. Two decades later, while much has been done to promote clean energy and awareness of the perils of climate change, the danger has only magnified, with many Asian countries facing the greatest risks.

Then there is the challenge of demography. Asia is home to a massive youth population (particularly in much of South and Southeast Asia), with fears of vast unemployment. Elsewhere in the region, Japan, China, and other nations are struggling with the burdens that come with rapidly aging populations.

And what of Asia’s successes, and opportunities?

Technology. Innovation. Cashless societies. Infrastructure booms. And, again, economic growth.

Consider the results of a U.N. Development Programme report published last year: Between 2006 and 2016, India lifted 271 million people from poverty, “the fastest reduction in the multipoverty index” anywhere on earth. The report identified 10 nations, with a combined population of roughly 2 billion, which led the way to poverty reduction: half of these were in Asia (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam). China, meanwhile, had done much of the continent’s poverty-f ighting earlier. Between 1980

Where might the ‘Asian Century ’ take

8

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

and 2010, more than 700 million people in China rose out of poverty.

In the world of high technology, Silicon Valley has boomed but also found challengers in the high-tech powerhouses of Shenzhen and Shanghai, in India’s “Silicon Coast” and further west, to the powerhouse of Israel’s “Startup Nation.”

If Steve Jobs gave Asian consumers the palm-ofyour-hand device, it was Jack Ma who paved the way for billions of people in Asia to chat and order and pay and date and f ind friends — without ever leaving their homes. The pace of such change, which has affected billions of people, is staggering indeed.

A f inal note about change, in the form of an anecdote. Recently, I came upon an old file from my days at ABC News, notes from a trip to China with the ABC anchor Peter Jennings. We had gone to Beijing and Shanghai in June 1998, a trip timed in conjunction with President Bill Clinton’s visit, and Jennings had done a few inter v iews under the heading “ The New China” (even then, China seemed “new ” and stunningly different).

Twent y years later, the transcripts ma ke for fascinating reading. We met Edward Zeng, the man who opened China’s first internet café, and who predicted a freer f low of information on the internet. “I think in the future,” he said, “Chinese leaders will understand this is something you have to open. And I don’t think there is any problem.” To Zeng, the only real “problem” was that the hardware and software were all designed in the U.S.

Meanwhile, a real estate developer, Zhang Xin, told Jennings about the “revolutionary” idea of home mortgages in her country: “Now finally home ownership is happening in China. It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

Two decades later, there are over 829 million internet users in China, nearly all of whom use mobile devices to access the internet — but the restrictions on news and information are as severe as ever. Meanwhile, today, roughly nine in 10 Chinese families reportedly own homes, and among the country’s greatest challenges is a tide of home mortgage debt.

And, as it happens, Zeng and Zhang turned out to be pretty good personifications of China’s meteoric rise. Today, Zeng is ranked among China’s pre-eminent ent repreneurs, hav ing fou nd ed Spark ice, an ecommerce company; and Zhang (who is an Asia Society trustee) and her husband run SOHO China, one of the most successful real estate companies in the world.

As we ref lect on these changes — small and staggering, positive and negative, from such a range of geographies and professions — we can only guess, and wonder: Where might the “Asian Century” take us, and the world, in the years to come?

Tom Nagorski Executive Vice President Asia Society

us, and the world, in the years to come?

ASIA SOCIETY

9

U N D ERSTAN D IN G

J AC K M A With Duncan Clark FEW COULD HAVE PREDICTED the meteoric rise of Ja ck Ma a n d his te ch gia nt Alib a b a wh e n it launched as an e-commerce platform in 1999. Two decades later, that rise is as profound and important as any of the staggering changes that have defined the “Asian Century” to date. When Alibaba was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014, it was the largest initial public offering in history. In the years since its launch, Ma’s company and its subsidiaries have extended their reach into every stratum of Chinese society, and far beyond.

Alibaba Group’s marketplaces stretch across 200

10

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

countries and are responsible for more than 11 percent of all retail sales in China. If you shop online or stream music in China, if your company uses the cloud, if you buy a snack from a street vendor, chances are you’ve used one of Ma’s products. In the two decades since Alibaba launched, its growth has traced that of China’s internet explosion. Here, in five questions, Duncan Clark, Asia Society trustee and author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built , discusses the rise of Jack Ma and Alibaba, and the changes in China that have made such entrepreneurism possible.

D PA P I C T U R E A L L I A N C E / A L A M Y

“A life in China without the internet

is almost like a life without oxygen.”

Were Jack Ma’s achievements, or the overall success of Alibaba, unlikely in any way? Could you see someone like Ma emerging from the tech landscape today?

Given Ma’s lack of connections and wealth, few would have predicted his rise.

Ma struggled as a student and failed in his first two ventures. His story is a story of endurance. He did, though, display a talent for seeing the essential trends ahead of others. He saw it in the internet in the mid-1990s — five years before he founded Alibaba — and in its applicability to helping small private exporters first in selling overseas and then, crucially, in selling to Chinese consumers.

Today, the rise of companies like ByteDance (Toutiao), Pinduoduo, and others shows that you can still come from behind by embracing tech and seeing new opportunities emerge before the incumbents and competitors do. Maybe, though, it’s even less likely now for an English teacher to come from nowhere a nd l au nch a su ccessf u l compa ny.

Tech-savvy entrepreneurs are really the ones grasping the opportunities today.

In what ways does Ma’s rise reflect changing opportunities in China over the past two decades?

Twenty years in China is like a century in the U.S. — the physical and psychological make-up of China has changed so completely. Now China is far beyond the “copy to China” ideas of the dotcom era. In many ways we can see how the mass online and mobile market combined with ample (perhaps too much) capital, and entrepreneurs have created a “white heat” of new business creation and innovation.

For someone unfamiliar with China, can you explain the role the internet plays there — and particularly Alibaba?

A life in China without the internet is almost like a life without oxygen. It is hard to survive without the internet, and in China that means mobile internet, and not just in big cities (99 percent of access is via mobile).

The mobile coverage is ubiquitous, fast, and inexpensive. And there are so many choices of phones, from the highend iPhones and Huaweis all the way to low-cost but still powerful smartphones from a plethora of providers.

Yes, the “great firewall” blocks access to some of the most familiar sites in the West, from Google to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on, but then the local apps are highly diversified and tailored to local needs of consumers.

There are applications like the ubiquitous mobile payment/QR codes from Alipay

and Tencent WeChat Pay that make the West look positively antiquated. Utilities and government services from paying taxes to parking are also easily available online or through in-app features on Alipay and WeChat. Online/mobile life here really is effortless.

And where does Alibaba sit in this ecosystem?

Alibaba is the biggest player in e-commerce and increasingly in offline or onand-offline retail through Hema (Fresh Hippo) supermarkets and as a driver of payment (with Tencent) and other fintech offerings, logistics, entertainment, healthcare, and more.

What is Ma’s biggest legacy?

The fusion of China’s massive, pent-up entrepreneurial know-how with the internet, creating private companies that have eclipsed even state-owned incumbents in their scale and reach.

Before the internet, most entrepreneurs were very local in scale. The internet opened up national and even international opportunities and visibility to them. And Alibaba’s platforms and investments in logistics companies helped drastically reduce the friction and barriers to scale that had held entrepreneurs back in the past. Jack Ma is forever tied to that entrepreneurial and tech breakthrough for China.

ASIA SOCIETY

11

A s t en s i on s mount be t ween the U.S. an d Chin a , a numbe r of like-min d ed count r i es are pu shing ba ck on press ures t o choose s i d es whil e working t o m aint ain an open an d s t abl e env ironment f or economi c g ro w th.

BY C H A N   H E N G   C H E E T Y P E I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y C O L I N W E B B E R

12

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

“not just as a strategic challenge, but that the rise of the I ALWAYS LOOK forward to visiting the United States. country has come at the expense of the United States.”

The tone of the conversations is hard to match and the Paulson pointed to the access Chinese companies enjoy language of politics is sharp, precise and full of humor. in the U.S. and the lack of access facing American compaWhen I visited in the spring of 2019, however, I did not nies in China, as well as intellectual property concerns find much humor. The mood among thought leaders in among the list of complaints. the business and policy world was somber.

No one anticipated that it would be the established Two topics of conversation dominated: U.S.-China power, the U.S., that would initiate the disruption of relations and President Donald Trump’s positions and the institutions and global frameworks it took a lead in policies — issues those of us from the Association of Southcreating and promoting. east Asian Nations (ASEAN) must listen to with a sharp ear.

“We are at war by economic means,” said a Wall Street N E W figure when we talked of U.S.-China relations. “President Trump is using all the economic and security tools the G E O E C O N O M I C S president has constitutionally to deal with China. The

powers were always there, but no president has used it in When President Trump entered the White House vowing this way before.” to put “America First” in his international dealings, “To demonstrate the extent of U.S. economic power?” allies and friends geared up for substantial change folI asked. He nodded. “To turn off the lights.” lowing his campaign rhetoric.

It is clear there is a consensus Over the past three years, he today in the United States among has been actively restructuring Republicans and Democrats, offithe international economic cials and businesses, the media order, producing new geoecoand academics, and on Main nomics which will have an Street, on the need to be much impact on geopolitics. tougher with China, particularly in tk spot image Renouncing multilateralism economic matters — but there are and the World Trade Organizadifferences of opinion on tactics. tion, President Trump has opted There is discomfort in some for what The Financial Times sees quarters with the handling of the as “aggressive bilateralism.” trade negotiations and the techHe very early took the U.S. out nology war, not because these of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Americans wish to defend China, He pressured Mexico and Canada but because they believe the approach taken neither to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, achieves the objectives the administration intends nor resulting in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), serves America’s interests in the long run. There are those that carried few changes but met U.S. demands. He also who want to work toward bringing the two powers together, managed to get South Korea to renegotiate the U.S.-Korea to find a new basis for cooperation if not a strategic relaFree Trade Agreement, Japan to enter into bilateral talks, tionship, though this is not expected anytime soon. and the European Union, as well. He has levied tariffs on Those of us in the “world order” business have been steel and aluminum imports. blindsided. This is especially true for those of us in SouthWhen Trump threatened tariffs against Mexico in an east Asia. For the past two decades, we have been discusseffort to pressure his neighboring country to do something ing the inevitable changes related to the rise of China, about immigration — even though the USMCA was signed wondering how the emerging power would behave and how — many trade partners watched warily. Is trade negotiation the established power would react. with the U.S. now a continuous exercise? Is there such a Americans have thought about how they would accomthing as a done deal? modate the new rising power. But that was all theoretical.

Chief among the changes, however, has been the U.S.’s The reality has arrived. China has accumulated sufficient relationship with China. It was Vice President Mike Pence’s → mass in military, economic, and technological power to pose a challenge to the dominance of the United States. As former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a frequent visitor to and friend of China, said, the U.S. views China now

A version of this piece first appeared in The Straits Times in June 2019. It has been lightly edited and republished with permission.

ASIA SOCIETY

13

speech at the Hudson Institute at the end of 2017 which many analysts read as the administration declaring a new China policy, comparing it to Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech.

This, read with the White House’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy documents, left no doubt where the administration was heading, as both declared China a “strategic competitor.”

In 2018, Trump pushed the trade dispute with China into a trade war, expanding it into a technology war. The U.S. slapped tariffs on $360 billion of Chinese goods.

China retaliated with tariffs on $110 billion worth of U.S. goods. Chinese students found delays or denials of visas in certain fields of study. Academic exchange with China slowed down or stopped. [Ed note: The two countries in January 2020 signed the first phase of a trade agreement to ease tensions and lower tariffs.]

In May 2019, the U.S. barred American companies from using technology from companies that posed a national security risk, and put certain companies on an “entity list” requiring them to obtain special permission to buy American components and technology, including software. This effectively excluded Huawei’s 5G technology from the U.S. market and Huawei and other Chinese companies from getting their technology supply from U.S. companies.

China, for its part, is drawing up an “entities list” which will impact U.S. companies, though details are not spelled out yet. China has also initiated an investigation into FedEx for allegedly redirecting to the U.S. packages sent by Huawei to its offices in China.

The technology war is already breaking up the established supply chains, with U.S. and Taiwanese companies moving out of China to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia, to offset their risks, though some of this was already happening because of rising costs in China.

Companies are beginning to grapple with the enormity of the implications as it is hard to replicate the speed, scale, talent, and complexity that Chinese suppliers can deliver in technology products. Some U.S. retailers are still maintaining relationships with Chinese firms.

D A N G E R S

O F

D E C O U P L I N G

Paulson’s prescient warning of an economic “Iron Curtain” at the Bloomberg Forum in Singapore in November 2018 looks dangerously to be realized. No one wins in a trade war.

And as Paulson said: “I cannot see how the international

14

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

system would endure, when the two countries that comprise some 40 percent of the world’s GDP and 50 percent of the global growth are working at cross purposes, attempting to disintegrate their economies and contesting the foundations of the rules-based order at every turn.”

It was with this overriding concern in mind that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June 2019, urging both sides to resolve their differences. Even short of an outright conflict, the damage for other countries would be enormous and prolonged as we head for “a more divided and troubled world,” Lee said, before asking both sides not to force countries in the region to choose.

Other ASEAN countries also chose to walk the middle path, taking no sides in the great power rivalry in their interventions. Singapore suggested that smaller countries and larger countries should work together, expanding and deepening cooperation multilaterally and plurilaterally to keep the international economic system open.

It was significant that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a U.S. treaty ally, endorsed Lee’s speech. On Morrison’s visit to the Solomon Islands in June 2019, soon after his re-election, he chose not to play a role in urging the Solomon Islands to retain diplomatic relations with Taiwan over China, stating that it was their sovereign decision.

As tensions mount, countries in the region are carefully defining their own positions, pushing back against pressure to choose sides between the U.S. and China.

Australia subscribes to the U.S.-led Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. In Singapore, Morrison promised to push for the conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as it represented an open architecture of trade relations in the region. He suggested that while other powers faced challenges, the sovereign, independent countries of the region were still going about doing their business.

We are seeing the emergence, the coalescence of a number of like-minded countries which are coming together on shared concerns that they do not want to be forced to choose too starkly and which want to keep an enabling open trading environment going.

They are not organized or institutionalized and could include U.S. allies, friends, and partners of the U.S. and of China. They will do what they can to promote economic growth and a more stable engaged regional environment.

Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, A sia Soc iet y Co- Chair, was Singapor e ’s l onge s t se r v ing Amba s sa d or t o the U.S. an d Singapore’s Per manent Representat ive to the U.N.

A think — and do — tank tackling the major policy challenges confronting the Asia-Pacific.

Ranked in the top 2% of think tanks in the U.S. and globally, according to the University of Pennsylvania.

Learn More Website: AsiaSociety.org/ASPI Twitter: @asiapolicy Facebook: facebook.com/asiapolicy

Clockwise from top lef t: Then IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at ASPI; Then Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and ASPI President Kevin Rudd; CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviews Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani for ASPI; ASPI Vice President Daniel Russel and Ambassador Wendy Sherman; ASPI Vice President Wendy Cutler; Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at ASPI.

KEEP UP WITH CHINA. Read ChinaFile.

ChinaFile is an online magazine from Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations.

ChinaFile.com

PHOTO: WANG HE FOR CHINAFILE

BY DANIEL RUSSEL This tex t was adapted f rom Future Scenarios: What To Expect Fr om a Nu c lea r Nor t h K or ea , an i s s u e p ap e r r el e a s e d b y th e A sia Soc iet y Polic y Inst it ute in Apr il 2019.

AFTER DECADES OF BROKEN PROMISES and failed diplomatic efforts, North Korea has built an arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Chairman Kim Jong Un has vowed that his nuclear “sword” will never be relinquished and that “denuclearization” comes only with global disarmament.

Would international acceptance of its nuclear status produce better behavior? Not likely. The Kim family business model is extortion; Jong Un, no less ruthless than his father and grandfather, has an unprecedented array of weapons at his disposal. Even if he freezes his entire program, Kim can generate new leverage by threatening to proliferate. North Korea’s history of selling nuclear know-how and its expanding uranium stockpile make that threat credible.

But t here is a ne wer, bet ter weapon of choice for North Korea: cyber.

16

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

This high-impact, low-cost, and low-risk digital-age way to steal cash, hack secrets, and terrorize wired nations, is increasingly appealing to the regime. An elite corps of highly trained cyber hackers has already stolen hundreds of millions of dollars, blunting the effect of sanctions. Kim has linked cyber with nuclear weapons as another “all-purpose sword” and experimented with cyber attacks against critical overseas infrastructure. The United States and other developed nations are particularly vulnerable to Kim’s next weapon of mass destruction.

The attractions of cyber theft and cyber terror to North Korea are considerable. Cyber attacks can be camouflaged to make attribution uncertain, particularly given the degree to which North Korean hackers are embedded in China or utilize Chinese servers. North Korea’s primitive infrastructure, its national intranet system’s disconnection from the World Wide Web, and a draconian regulation of communications technology all serve to shield it from scrutiny and largely insulate it from cyber retaliation. Developing offensive cyber capabilities does not depend on procurement of difficult-to-obtain specialized equipment, nor is it particularly expensive. And unlike missiles and nukes, cyber is a revenue generator, not a cost center. Cyber allows North Korea to conduct low-intensity but damaging strikes against developed countries with highly computer-dependent infrastructure, with a far lower risk of retaliation than nuclear or missile testing, let alone an armed attack.

North Korea’s elite cyber force, under the control of its military and the Reconnaissance General Bureau, Kim’s clandestine security apparatus, is composed of about 7,000 hackers, extensively trained in specialized domestic programs and, in some cases, trained also in Russia and China. The regime speaks of its disruptive cyber capability in the same terms as its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, adding it to the list of Pyongyang’s “all-purpose swords that guarantee our military’s capability to strike relentlessly,” according to a report by the South Korean intelligence service.

North Korean offensive cyber activities seem to align around three apparent goals: intelligence collection; harassment, disruption, and retaliation; and revenue generation through cyber theft.

The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has documented frequent North Korean intrusions into government and military systems to steal sensitive information. North Korea hacked the smartphones of South Korean politicians and high-level military officers to intercept messages and phone calls. North Korean hackers in 2016 stole more than 40,000 defense documents including 60 classified files from contractors in South Korea that contained information on F-16 fighters and drones. North Korea is also believed to have stolen a PowerPoint summary of the U.S. military’s top secret war plan “OPLAN 5027,” as reported by South Korean media.

J O N A R N O L D I M A G E S LT D / A L A M Y

N O R T H K O R E A’ S N E X T WEAPON OF CHOICE:

In retaliation for the unflattering comic portrayal of Kim in the movie The Interview, North Korean hackers inflicted significant damage to Sony Pictures in 2014. Other digital attacks include the serious disruption of hospitals in the United Kingdom along with ransom demands to some 300,000 users in 150 countries in the 2018 “WannaCry” episode. In 2013, during a major U.S.-South Korea military exercise and just days after the U.N. Security Council adopted new sanctions following North Korea’s third nuclear test, malware was used to disrupt South Korean banking and public broadcast networks. It took weeks for these systems to recover. Those attacks were followed by large-scale denial-of-service attacks against defector-led media, the South Korean presidential office and other government agencies, along with the deletion of large numbers of banking records. Officials estimate South Korea has incurred more than $650 million in damages from North Korean cyber attacks.

Already, North Korea is targeting financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges and manipulating interbank financial systems to raise large sums of money for the North Korean regime, according to the private cybersecurity firm FireEye. Estimates from South Korean monitoring groups range as high as $1 billion per year. A U.N. panel of experts recently reported to the Security Council that Pyongyang has used cyber theft to create a war chest of at least $2 billion including digital currency stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea and elsewhere in Asia. In February 2016, North Korean hackers netted $81 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank by hacking the U.S.-based SWIFT system and, but for sloppy grammar, nearly succeeded in stealing as much as $1 billion. In 2017, the same North Korean hacking unit was implicated in the theft of $60 million from a bank in Taiwan and tens of million more from India and Chile as recently as November 2018. Other attacks have been documented in the United States, Southeast and South Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, and Africa.

The North Korean cyber threat is significant and evolving.

North Korean computer scientist and defector Kim Heung Kwang told the BBC that the regime is using cyber attacks to begin demonstrating a cyber war capacity that can destroy civilian infrastructure and inflict large-scale fatalities. As Morgan Wright, a cybersecurity expert pointed out in an opinion piece for The Hill, “Cyber warfare levels the global playing field in a way nuclear weapons can’t for North Korea. The risk-return calculation for hacking versus nukes is exponentially different.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed malicious attacks against infrastructure in the United States and 17 other countries by “Hidden Cobra,” the U.S. government’s code name for North Korean cyber attacks.

The data security company Rapid7, which publishes the National Exposure Index, rates the United States as the most vulnerable to disruptive cyberattacks in every index. South Ko-

rea and Japan are not far behind. Former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned of the vulnerability of American infrastructure, which he described as “under attack.”

Vice President Michael Pence called for a “cyber security moonshot,” warning that adversaries are seeking to infiltrate and shut down American power stations and grids, citing a ransomware attack in 2018 that crippled public services in Atlanta, Georgia. Pre-digital-era infrastructure facilities are often retrofitted with makeshift internet linkages that can easily be compromised. Moreover, 80 percent of America’s critical infrastructure is privately owned, and the cost of upgrading existing power plants, air traffic control facilities, rail systems, cellphone networks, or dams is unattractive to business. As the internet of things pervades everyday life, particularly in the industrialized West, new interconnectivity provides new opportunities for malicious cyber attacks.

Defense and deterrence are key components of a strategy to undercut North Korea’s ability to extort. To be effective, they require resources, resolve, clarity, and credibility. If enhanced cyber defense can be combined with denial of access to servers outside North Korea, the threat from its cyber attacks and thefts is diminished.

What will matter most in stemming North Korea’s threats and altering its behavior will be restoring and enlarging cooperation between the United States and China. Meaningful pressure can only be brought to bear on North Korea with the active support of China. China cannot be expected to apply significant pressure on North Korea without significant trust in the United States, confidence in a shared approach, and mutual agreement on an overall strategy for the Korean peninsula, if not Northeast Asia as a whole. At the same time, solidarity and coordination between Washington and its allies in Seoul and Tokyo will also be necessary to forge and implement a coercive containment strategy.

Thus, the three interrelated components of an effective strategy of coercive containment will be diplomacy, defense, and deterrence. The fact that these are not new policy elements does not discredit the strategy; it simply underscores the importance of getting each right. Diplomacy is the tool for forging the shared strategic approach that presents North Korea with both seamless international unity and a path toward resolution.

Defense is a tool to blunt North Korea’s ability to use its weapons, including cyber, and therefore reduce Pyongyang’s leverage. And deterrence is a tool for preventing escalation and managing risk. As daunting as the requirements of coercive containment may seem at the present time, the alternatives, war and appeasement, leave us no better choice.

D ani el R u s s el i s V i c e P r e s i d e nt f o r Int e r n a t i o n al Se c ur it y an d Diplomac y at the A s ia Soc iet y Polic y Ins t it ute.

ASIA SOCIETY

17

India’s Mobile Re volution In less than a decade, smartphones have transformed India in unimaginable ways.

By Ravi Agrawal

18

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

ASIA SOCIETY

19

hen cheap smartphones and cellular data became ubiquitous in the 2010s in India, internet access exploded. It wasn’t an evolution but a revolution. India’s internet users grew from 100 million in 2010 to 400 million by 2015 and will top 600 million in 2020, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India. This growth is almost entirely because of new and inexpensive smartphones which, for most Indians, serve as not only their first PCs and internet devices but also their first cameras, TVs, and alarm clocks.

Put together, their impact has been transformative. The internet-enabled smartphone is eroding old Indian barriers of language, caste, class, gender, and geography in a way that was unimaginable just a few years ago. Thanks to voice-enabled smartphone technology, even the country’s 250 million illiterate men and women can now access the vast video and audio libraries on the internet.

Just as the car transformed the United States by ushering in an ecosystem of roads, highways, and suburbia, the internet-enabled smartphone promises to create new

‘ TH E I NTE R N E T- E N A B LE D S M A RTPH O N E IS E RO D I N G O LD I N D IA N BA R RI E RS O F L A N G UAG E , C A STE , CL A SS , G E N D E R , A N D G EO G R A PH Y I N A WAY TH AT WA S U N I M AG I N A B LE J UST A FE W Y E A RS AG O.’

20

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

systems for commerce, travel, and communication that will transform the Indian economy and allow it to leapfrog certain aspects of development. For example, most Indians are set to bypass physical credit cards and go straight to digital wallets. But while these changes are largely seen as adding more freedom and access to the lives of Indians, they represent a double-edged sword. And there are signs that the government is beginning to use the same technology to control its citizens.

India leads the world when it comes to internet shutdowns. With a simple message to cellular operators, authorities can stop internet access in any village, city, or state. Indian-administered Kashmir, for example, has gone without the internet since August 5, 2019, when New Delhi imposed a curfew on the state. While the government defends communications clampdowns as a necessity to prevent militants from starting attacks, millions of regular citizens find themselves shut out of the modern world. Similar internet shutdowns have taken place across other Indian states, ostensibly to control disinformation during incidents of communal violence.

But without checks and balances, these shutdowns could represent a threat to civic rights.

It is not the only such overreach. India is reportedly considering censoring streaming video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which would bring them in line with broadcast cable channels that are largely seen as pliant to the government. (Reporters Without Borders ranks India 140th out of 180 countries on press freedom.)

Delhi has also been weighing a law to force global companies to keep their data on Indians stored on local servers, a proposal that raised concerns among firms ranging

P R E V I O U S PA G E : J A K E LY E L L / A L A M Y

‘ TH E BAT TLE TO K E E P TH E I NTE R N E T FR E E A N D FAI R IS A N E N D E AVO R TH AT H A S N O E N D.’

from Visa to Google and Uber, which fear the possibility of misuse or hacking. This follows a 2016 draft law that aimed to force internet companies using maps in the country to show all of Kashmir as part of India, despite the reality on the ground where India administers only around 45 percent of the region, with Pakistan controlling around 35 percent and China the remaining 20 percent. The proposal was abandoned after sustained media criticism and diplomatic pressure, but the larger point was made: New Delhi wants to impose on global firms the same controls it does on domestic companies.

Just like China, the richer and more powerful India gets, it wants to shape the global narrative about itself, and to control the valuable data on its citizens.

India already has the world’s biggest biometric database in Aadhaar, a government program started in 2009 that now includes the fingerprints and retinal scans of more than a billion people. While Aadhaar represents a program with the potential for immense good — think of authenticated bank transfers of subsidies to the country’s poor, along with instant identification and verification for e-commerce — there have been numerous instances of data breaches which the government has failed to even recognize, jeopardizing faith in the system. When you factor in to this the alarming potential of government surveillance on every aspect of our lives — and movements — the ability of governments to misuse the internet is endless. Last May, Israeli spyware available only to governments is believed to have been used to hack hundreds of WhatsApp accounts around the world; in India, at least two dozen accounts were targeted, many of them

belonging to human rights activists and opposition leaders, leading to accusations the government was behind the breaches. As much as the internet has immense potential to do good in a country like India, it also enables unprecedented surveillance and potential for misuse. The question then is how to create formidable checks and balances.

The short history of the internet in India shows that civil society has fought hard to protect digital freedom.

In 2016, for example, India’s telecom regulator ruled against Free Basics, a Facebook-led initiative to provide a free but gated version of the internet. While the ruling protected net neutrality — the principle that internet providers cannot discriminate or control access — it took months of public action and civic engagement to raise awareness about the issue and to fight Facebook’s clout and advertising might. Similarly, rights activists fought to make the case that privacy was a fundamental right, leading to a 2017 Supreme Court ruling enshrining that freedom in the country’s constitution.

The battle to keep the internet free and fair is an endeavor that has no end; new frontiers and areas of control will continue to emerge as the internet itself evolves and advances. Perhaps the question then is whether India can preserve a strong civil society to engage in these fights. And while the answer to that question may define every country, the stakes are greatest in the world’s biggest democracy.

R a v i A g r a wa l i s Ma n a g i ng Edi t o r o f For e i g n Po l ic y magaz ine and a member of A sia Soc iet y’s A sia 21 Young Leaders init iat ive.

ASIA SOCIETY

21

Commuters in hazardous levels of air pollution in New Delhi, India.

22

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

China, South Korea, and Japan have made huge strides in lowering domestic coal consumption and greening their energy sources. So why are they funding billions of dollars worth of coal plants in poorer countries?

PA U L K E N N E D Y / A L A M Y

BY JACKSON EWING

ASIA SOCIETY

23

THE BLACKOUTS THAT plagued Pakistan in 2014 and 2015 made clear what many citizens already knew too well: the country needed an energy revolution, and fast. In the short time since, Pakistan has gone from having only one coal-fired power plant to nine, with four more under construction. At the same time, Pakistan has been building some of the world’s largest mines to dig out the country’s substantial — but relatively poor quality — coal reserves.

Pakistan’s turn to coal was hardly surprising.

Before 2015, energy inefficiencies were costing the country some $18 billion (6.5 percent of GDP) annually, drawing the ire of citizens and businesses alike. And with China providing tens of billions of dollars in financing along with equipment and technical capacity, the coal solution appeared ready-made. But this seemingly low-hanging energy fruit has a dirty underbelly, and it’s hardly limited to Pakistan — or to Chinese investment.

Investment from China, Japan, and South Korea threatens to lock in decades of pollution in developing Asian countries with pronounced public health, socioeconomic, and climate change implications. In Pakistan, clouds of smog already blanket Karachi, Lahore, and beyond. They primarily come from transportation, burning trash, and poorly managed industrial activity, and have devastating health and environmental impacts. With the influx of coal, these clouds are set to thicken.

China, Japan, and South Korea have enormous influence over the future of public health, energy markets, and global climate change — and not just through the actions they take at home. Despite fits and starts, these three major economies are gradually cleaning their domestic environments and lowering their fossil fuel dependence. They are also funding coal production abroad at world-leading levels.

From 2016 to 2018, Japanese banks provided 30 percent of the total lending received by the world’s top coal plant developers, with the two largest lenders — Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial — providing $12.8 billion and $9.9 billion respectively.

Japan is also a giant in institutional investments, with its Government Pension Investment Fund providing some $7.3 billion in 41 coal plant developers — the second largest such holdings in the world.

While Chinese banks provide “only” 12 percent of direct lending to coal developers, they dominate the underwriting — a process of raising investment capital. Chinese banks provide nearly three-quarters of the total underwriting in international coal develop-

24

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

ment, and Chinese coal plant enterprises — which include 11 of the world’s 20 largest — are involved across the gamut of project contracting, equipment and expertise exports, equity, and construction.

Like Japan, South Korea’s National Pension Service is a top-five institutional investor in coal at $4.5 billion, and Korean companies like KEPCO, Posco Energy, and Daewoo Engineering & Construction are developing coal plants across Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Mongolia.

All told, roughly 80 percent of the new coal plants worldwide slated for foreign investment are at least partially supported by funding or firms from China, Japan, and South Korea. These coal plants help meet urgent electricity needs, but they accelerate healthcare demands and have rippling direct and indirect social costs. They also challenge the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature increases well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The Asian countries hosting coal expansion will doubtless

face enormous future emissions. Pakistan’s nascent coal sector may contribute to a quadrupling of its greenhouse gas emissions between 2015 and 2030.

Indonesia is on track to nearly double coal consumption bet ween 2018 and 2027. These countries alone have a combined population of some 470 million people, and are among the most important in the world for curtailing emissions growth in the coming decades.

XINHUA / AHMAD K AMAL / ALAMY

The Sahiwal Coal Power plant in Punjab Province, Pakistan, began operating in 2017. It is funded by China as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Coal is attractive to these and other developed economies because of its proven track record of driving development, its availability on global markets (and in some cases domestically), and the presence of financial and operational actors — such as the banks and companies from Northeast Asia — ready and willing to help build coal infrastructure.

A fuller valuation of coal, however, reveals a greater expense for the public purse than its price per kilo-

watt hour. Burning coal carries enormous human costs resulting from breathing the small particulates it spews. In just one example, India sees as many as 115,000 premature deaths each year from coal burning, along with millions of cases of respiratory problems and as much as $4.6 billion in annual hospital costs.

Coal investment flowing from Northeast Asian powers partly reflects a dubious consequence of their domestic success.

China has reversed trends that saw domestic coal consumption triple from 2000 to 2013, leaving it with consumption roughly equal to the rest of the world combined. Responding to the resulting air pollution, heavy industry production gluts, and a desire to move toward services and higher tech manufacturing, coal is declining as a percentage of China’s energy mix and will soon decline in absolute terms. As China moves toward peaking emissions in 2030 — perhaps sooner — and increasing the non-fossil share its energy mix to 20 percent (with natural gas making up much of the balance), it is no longer the vibrant coal market it once was.

Japan’s efforts to wean itself from coal took a hit with the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, which led to all nuclear power being removed, and then sparingly reintroduced since.

Prior to Fukushima, Japan operated 54 nuclear reactors to produce roughly one-third of its electricity — and planned to further expand the sector to make up for taking roughly half of its coal production offline. As a result of Fukushima, coal’s share of electricity generation in Japan is higher now than it was before the disaster. Yet Japan is also committed to reducing coal consumption in the coming decades, implementing energy conservation policies to drive overall demand down, and using financial incentives to rapidly grow its small renewables sector (solar grew five-fold between 2012 and 2015). Japan’s pipeline of new coal-fired power plants has collapsed from almost 12.7 gigawatts of projects in January 2015, to less than 4.6 gigawatts with more cancellations likely to come. In advance of the June 2019 G20 meetings in Osaka, Japan’s cabinet approved plans for overall carbon neutrality by 2050, which would include widespread coal station closures beginning in the mid-2020s.

South Korea moved from being one of Asia’s poorest countries in the 1950s to the world’s 11th-largest economy by 2016, largely on the back of heavy industry growth. This energy-intensive pathway began to shift in the mid-2000s as environmental stress led to a series of green growth policies. Coal consumption flattened in the early 2010s, and — some small spikes not w it hsta nd ing — is set to d ecl ine mov ing forward. The government’s current electricity strategy suspended plans for new coal-fired capacity not already under construction and is retiring all plants older than 30 years.

As their power mixes shift at home, coal industry interests in China, Japan, and South Korea look abroad for continuing returns. Reversing this trend requires solutions that combine the

ASIA SOCIETY

25

carrots of new avenues for profitability in non-coal sectors, and the sticks of stricter environmental regulation — both in investor and recipient countries.

For recipient countries this means recognizing more completely the costs of coal in their energy planning.

Accounting for coal’s socioeconomic and environmental costs, through taxes on pollution, caps on emissions, rolling back fossil fuel subsidies and the like, makes cleaner energy more financially and strategically attractive. The natural endowments, political and economic structures, and technical capacities of countries will inform widely disparate energy portfolios that work for them. The imperative for these countries is to attract outside investments and partnerships that service such portfolios — from power generation to grid development, transmission and use — rather than finding sanctuary in coal.

Similarly, the Northeast Asian powers need to reevaluate their long-term strategic interests in the energy sector. Investing in coal abroad can ease domestic transitions away from the energy source, and assuage the resistance brought by domestic coal actors. But it delays an inevitable sunsetting of the industry, and creates too many problems along the way to be justified.

Redoubled civil society, diplomatic, and media attention to the prominence of Northeast Asian coal

26

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

funding is raising the reputational stakes for these countries.

While international legal barriers on the issue are unlikely, norms around coal divestment are growing. The flight of major financiers, fears of stranded assets, G20 dialogue on rolling back coal through “responsible investment,” the growth of environmental and carbon markets, and trade considerations on border carbon adjustments could all create headwinds and headaches for coal investment moving forward.

More plainly, coal investments are increasingly risky and in tension with Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean goals of improving trade partnerships. If the first-order impetus for investing in the energy systems of their developing neighbors is to make money and fill a need, the more overarching purpose is to help build vibrant markets and growing consumer classes in developing Asia that can fuel future regional growth — from which the Northeast Asian powers would benefit mightily. Coal has too much environmental and public health baggage to meet these objectives in the long-term, and presents a steep opportunity cost. China, Japan, and South Korea have the opportunity to lead an Asian clean energy renaissance that solidifies their primacy in the energy and efficiency sectors of the future. Taking advantage of this opportunity would be a win for them, a win for developing Asia, and a win for the global climate.

Jackson Ewing is Senior Advisor for Sustainabilit y with the A sia Soc iet y Polic y Inst it ute.

THE G LOBAL CITIES EDUCATION NET WORK

The Global Cities Education Network (GCEN) — a key initiative of Asia Society’s Center for Global Education — is working to fix education, globally and locally.

Bringing together city officials from high-performing school systems across the Asia-Pacific and North America, the network identifies common, high-priority problems; researches best practices; and develops effective, practical solutions that can be adapted to varying cultural and political contexts.

GCEN strives to eradicate systemic problems and, ultimately, improve education for all.

Learn more: AsiaSociety.org/GCEN

“ TH E A SIA GAM E CHAN G ER AWARDS ARE D ESIG N ED TO FILL A VITAL GAP — ID ENTIF YIN G AN D H O N O RIN G TRU E LE AD ERS MAKIN G A P OSITIVE CO NTRIB UTIO N TO TH E FUTU RE O F A SIA .”

J O S E T T E S H E E R A N , A S I A S O C I E T Y P R E S I D E N T A N D C EO

Since launching in 2014, the Asia Game Changer Awards ceremony has emerged as the premier event honoring individuals, organizations, and movements that have inspired, enlightened, and shown true leadership in Asia and beyond.

Learn more about the awards at AsiaSociety.org/GameChangers

ASIA

GAME CHANGER AWARDS

MEET THE GAME- CHANGING YOUNG WOMEN FROM WAR-TORN NATIONS WHO ARE

In Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria, these remarkable young women have taken great risks to speak out against the violence and injustice plaguing their societies.

The oldest is 23, the youngest are teenagers. They come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria and have lent their voices to issues impacting hundreds of millions of lives. They stood up for their own rights: the right to an education, the right to thrive, the right to remain a child, unmarried. And then, having done that, they used their growing power to fight on behalf of others. Twenty years into the “Asian Century,” another generation has been shaped by war and conflict. These young women, each a recipient of Asia Society’s Asia Game Changer Award, exemplify the best of their generation: Youth molded — but not defined — by the pain surrounding their lives, bringing a voice to those silenced and serving as an inspiration to millions.

B Y A SI A S O CIE T Y IL LUS T R AT IONS B Y OL I V I A WA L L ER

28

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

Malala Yousafzai was only 11 years old when she started speaking out against the Taliban. A brilliant student, Yousafzai was encouraged by her father — who also ran the local girl’s school. After militants seized parts of Pakistan’s Swat Valley, cutting off access to girls’ education, she gave her first public speech. “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” she asked.

She was 15 when a Taliban gunman boarded a school bus and shot her in the head. Yousafzai was gravely wounded — but she survived. And while the Taliban had intended to kill an innocent girl who simply wanted the right to an education, they instead gave birth to an extraordinary global movement.

The 2012 shooting resulted in a massive outpouring of support for Yousafzai and transformed her into a global icon. In the years since, she has channeled her celebrity into advocacy for the education of girls worldwide. Her work earned her a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, making her the youngest-ever recipient of the award. Together with her father, she started the Malala Fund, which offers girl-centric approaches to education that support the goal of creating a world where every girl reaches her true potential.

Now 22, she is studying philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University. Her fund has expanded to reach girls in countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia by supporting remarkable teachers and advocates providing safe, equitable education.

“The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions,” Yousafzai said, “but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear, and hopelessness died. Strength, power, and courage were born.”

Muzoon Almellehan was in ninth grade when she fled her home in Syria in 2013. She was from the ancient town of Dara’a, the cradle of the Syrian uprising.

Dara’a had seen the first protests against the regime, and some of the first crackdowns against the local population. After violence shut down the city ’s schools, Almellehan and her family left for Jordan, among the earliest in a sea of refugees that now numbers nearly 7 million.

In the midst of these difficult and often dangerous circumstances, and in spite of her youth, Almellehan was not afraid to work for change.

Almellehan and her family lived in the Za’atari and A zraq ref ugee camps in Jord an, and her focus from the beginning was opportunities for girls and young women. She enrolled in the camp schools, but soon saw that half the girls in her class — some as young as 13 and 14 — were dropping out and getting married.

“I was lucky because I was in a camp where there were schools,” Almellehan said. “I was lucky because my parents believed in education.”

Almellehan began walking through the camps, from tent to tent, to speak with parents about the value of education and the risks of early marriage. At every turn, she urged them to send their daughters back to school. Many of her classmates began saying they stayed in school because of her.

“Girls must get an education,” Almellehan said. “It’s the best protection for girls. If a mother is not educated, how can she help her children? If young people are not educated, who will rebuild our country?”

At 19 years old, Almellehan continues her fierce activism, fighting for the right to education for millions of displaced children. She is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and has been named one of Time’s most influential teenagers. Almellehan has carried out missions in Chad, participated in consultations involving the Global Compact on Refugees, and spoken at the G20 Summit. Above all, she remains committed to advocating on behalf of all girls denied an education around the world, especially her sisters from Syria. “ We need education because Syria needs us,” Almellehan said. “Without us, who will bring peace?”

ASIA SOCIETY

29

When Sonita Alizadeh was 16 years old, her mother came to her with news that would turn her world upside down: Sonita was to be sold into marriage.

In her native Afghanistan, it was an all too common story — in fact, her family had already tried selling her once when she was 10. But the teenager’s reaction was anything but ordinary. She decided to rebel — and to use music to do so.

“I scream to make up for a woman’s lifetime silence,” Alizadeh raps in her song “Daughters for Sale.”

“I scream on behalf of the deep wounds on my body. I scream for a body exhausted in its cage — a body that broke under the price tags you put on it.”

As a young child, Alizadeh fled to Iran with her family to escape the Taliban. She discovered, and grew enamored with, rap music.

Despite an Iranian law that prohibited women from singing, Alizadeh recorded songs about being

30

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

a refugee, about the Afghanistan war, and about being a you ng woma n. She star ted w inning money in competitions.

While her parents pushed for the marriage, Alizadeh recorded her powerful and evocative video and uploaded it to YouTube. Eventually, her family relented and decided she didn’t need to get married . The v ideo went v ira l and has since inspired countless other Afghan women.

Tod ay, A lizadeh lives in the United States and is a passionate advocate for ending child marriage. She has shared the stage with heads of state, Nobel laureates, and renowned changemakers. She has helped de velop a curricu lum on child marriage that is being used today by over one million students.

“If I can change [my parents’] minds with my music,” she said, “then maybe I can change the world.”

The members of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team are among the world’s best young engineers. They won a top prize at a European robotics competition for a solar-powered robot that helps farmers plant seeds and cut crops. Another of their robots can distinguish between contaminated and clean water — that innovation won them a silver medal for “courageous achievement” at an international robotics competition in Washington, D.C. But what truly sets them apart is how they got there in the first place — and where they came from.

Afghanistan is one of the world’s most inhospitable places for female education. The majority of girls do not learn to read or write, and very few have succeeded in the fields of science and technology. Persistent poverty and violence make competing in international competitions close to impossible for the vast majority of Afghans. In 2017, the Afghan Girls Robotics Team encountered a different kind of obstacle when, after

making the 500-mile journey from their native Herat to the U.S. embassy in Kabul, they were denied visas.

No reason was given — and it was only following an outcry that the U.S. government granted the girls special status and allowed them in. When they returned home, there was fresh heartbreak: The father of the team’s captain was killed in a suicide bombing.

Unbowed, the girls carried on competing in robotics competitions around the globe.

Roya Mahboob, the first female CEO of a tech company in Afghanistan and one of the team’s sponsors, said that the girls’ real legacy will reach far beyond robotics: “When the girls came back [to Afghanistan] there was a huge movement — the leaders, the communities, the families, everyone was changing their views on women in science and technology. They became an example of hope, happiness, and a sense of pride for the Afghan community.”

ASIA SOCIETY

31

B EHIN D TH E ART

A Show of Hands

BY HTEIN LIN

32

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

hundreds of thousands of Burmese took to the streets, demanding an end to militar y rule. The militar y responded with violence, killing an estimated 3,000, imprisoning another 3,000, and driving some 10,000 to exile. But the conf lict birthed a group of activists, artists, writers, and leaders whose participation would shape Myanmar in the years to come — particularly over the past decade, as the country began to open to the outside world.

One of these artists was Htein Lin. A member of the so-called “88 Generation,” Htein Lin f led Myanmar in the af termath of the failed pro-democracy revolution and returned in the early 1990s, only to be arrested in 1998 — along with dozens of others — for planning a demonstration to mark the 10th anniversary of the uprising. He spent six years in Myanmar’s notorious prison system where he was subjected to abuse and torture. Still, Htein Lin made art: painting on sarongs and uniforms, carving portraits into bars of soap.

Today, much of Htein Lin’s art focuses on what is changing in Myanmar, and what is not. Af ter decades of military rule, the country began opening in 2011, and held a historic democratic election in 2015, resulting in a win for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. The outcome was stunning, but the intervening years have hardly seen repression disappear from Myanmar.

There are more than 600 political prisoners in jail or facing trial, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners.

These include students, journalists, and rights activists; citizens jailed for speaking out against oppression of ethnic minorities — particularly the Rohingya — or for criticizing Myanmar’s powerful military.

In 2017, Htein Lin presented “A Show of Hands” at Asia Society Museum in New York.

Row upon row of white plaster arms wave out from the wall. Each one is a cast of the right hand of a former political prisoner, their names and dates of imprisonment labeled neatly below. Htein Lin began the project in 2015; he wonders if it will ever be finished.

Here, Htein Lin speaks about his past, his work, and Myanmar’s future.

M A R I A B A R A N O VA - S U Z U K I / A S I A S O C I E T Y

I N 198 8,

Unfortunately, “A Show of Hands” is a have collected the off-cuts of vinyl project which never ends. There are so signboards, which leave a random collecmany former political prisoners, but even tion of cut-out letters, and created new now, under our supposedly democratic images and messages that show the nagovernment, there are still new ones ture of change in Myanmar. With my being locked up for so-called defamation “Recycled” series, which I began shortly of either the military or the civilian gov- after my release — when I could not afernment. It looks like the project will ford paper or canvas, only locally recycontinue for the foreseeable future. cled cardboard — I now am capturing When I make the plaster hands in a Myanmar words and events. These inpublic place, it interests the younger clude things like the assassination of generation who do not know exactly Muslim lawyer Ko Ni, the controversial how much the older generation sacri- word “Rohingya,” and the revival of the ficed. I also learn a lot from talking to dispute around the Myitson dam. the prisoners, including the challenges Since Myanmar has its own alphabet, faced in the women’s jails, which, previ- these paintings are effectively coded so ously I wasn’t aware of. It is important that an international audience will not that no one’s sacrifice be forgotten, and understand unless the word is explained that the next generation should know to them. I have also commented on the what their parents experienced. destruction and burning of villages in “A Show of Hands” is both a sculpture ethnic areas in my installation “Recently and public performance project. It is a Departed” which was shown in Yangon public act, as the prisoners often use it in January 2019. as an opportunity for reminiscence.

My current major series is called I would like everyone’s story and “Skirting the Issue.” It invites Myanmar their sacrifice to be recorded. That women to comment on the traditional is why when I travel in Myanmar, or belief that a man’s hpoun or power will outside Myanmar to countries where be weakened through contact with womthere is a large exile community, I put en’s clothing, for example by walking the word out through social media and under a clothesline or mixing clothes in personal networks that I would like to the washing machine. I invite women to meet any former political prisoners who bring me their old longyis and I paint are interested and plaster their right their portraits on the longyi and they arms, to ensure that their stories are comment on their views on this belief remembered. and whether they support it or not. Many Since I moved back to Yangon in 2013, still do, but some do not. in addition to continuing “A Show of The question of hpoun underpins not Hands,” I have embarked on some new only ongoing discrimination against wompaintings and installations. Many en in Myanmar but is closely connected to of them are inspired by the changes tak- the tension between the military and the ing place in Myanmar (not all of them NLD party led by a woman, Daw Aung San positive), and some by the traditional Suu Kyi, whom they do not fully accept. beliefs that remain in place.

This series became very controversial One of these changes is the switch when I exhibited it in Yangon — somefrom ox-carts to mechanized transport. thing I had not expected. I received a lot of I have collected old cart wheels and abuse on Facebook criticizing me for chaltransformed them into useful objects lenging this discriminatory practice. such as beds and chairs, as well as into Overall, I feel that the current situation thoughtful objects that recall the sym- in Myanmar is very fragile and complicatbol of the wheel in Buddhism. ed, and this was just one element of wider For my series “Signs of the Times,” I inequality which has yet to be resolved.

ASIA SOCIETY

33

B EHIN D TH E ART

Lotus

BY SHIVA AHMADI

Two stills from Lotus. The top shows the bucolic beginning. At bottom is the bleak finale.

34

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

protesters spilled into the streets of Tehran, demanding that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad step down. The incumbent president had just won a second term, besting the reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi with nearly twice as many votes. Those results drew outcry from opposition supporters who accused the government of fraud and said Ahmadinejad had stolen the election. As the months wore on, millions across the country took to the streets — the largest demonstration since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Green Movement (named because protesters donned scarves and clothes in Mousavi’s campaign colors) ran until February 2010, when it was violently quashed, its leaders placed under house arrest and scores executed. Nearly a year before the Arab Spring sparked, Iran had started — and finished — its own populist movement.

In the United States, Iranian-American artist Shiva Ahmadi watched transfixed as the Middle East bloomed with hope, only to implode. Born and raised in Tehran, Ahmadi has long incorporated politics into her art.

At a glance, her brightly colored paintings are delicate and beautiful — drawing on Persian artistic traditions. Look closer and the violence seeps through; war, bloodshed, and bombs traipse across the paper.

In 2014, Ahmadi exhibited “Lotus” at Asia Society Museum in New York. The work is a nine-minute animation of a watercolor and ink painting by the same name. In the original painting, a turbaned figure sits on a filligred throne — blood dripping from his face and body, a bomb gently resting on an outst retched hand. Monkeys and men clutching explosives are scattered across a landscape littered with arrows. In the background, smokestacks and oil refineries loom.

To c r e a t e t h e a ni m a t i o n , A hm a di worked backwards. All starts bucolic: birds in the trees, a buddha on the throne, colored baubles in hand. This, says Ahmadi, is how life appears to be moving as well.

“All these leaders who were promising hope and were supposed to save and protect people’s lives; they turned into tyrants and IN JUNE

C O U R T E S Y O F S H I VA A H M A D I

20 09,

started turning on their own people.”

Here, Ahmadi speaks about how her work draws from the politics around her.

I started painting “Lotus” after the Iranian uprising, and was working on it when the Arab Spring began. Since I’m from the Middle East and grew up during the Iran-Iraq war, it’s always been important to me to pay attention to the larger world.

The animation of “Lotus” was based on a painting that I did a year earlier, in 2013. At that time I had no idea that I would be making an animation — it was far from my mind. I’d never done anything digital apart from a very small piece and I considered myself a painter.

My paintings are narrative and have many figures and animals scattered all over the place. When you look at it on a larger scale, you can see that all of these characters are spread around the surface doing their thing. Animating it actually made perfect sense because when the painting was finished and I was looking at it, I thought: What if I start bringing other elements to the work and move these characters around?

While I was working on “Lotus,” I began looking through the buddha statues in the Asia Society Museum collection. All these beautiful buddhas represent someone who is a leader with a serene character, someone who can bring everything and everyone together. They have such a big presence.

In the painting of “Lotus,” in the center, I had this leader or mullah who is sitting on a lotus flower. So I was looking at the buddha and looking back at the figure in the center of my painting — comparing their characters and who these people are. I thought: Wow, what if I just used the buddha to show what happened to all these other elements in the painting?

What happened? At the beginning of the “Lotus” animation, everything is so beautiful and playful and light, and then, once all these characters start moving, even the buddha cannot resist anymore and turns into a tyrant.

That’s exactly what was happening in the Middle East at the time. All these leaders who were promising hope and were supposed to save and protect people’s lives, they turned into tyrants and started turning on their own people.

When there is no democracy, when people basically don’t have any rights, when they don’t make the decisions, when one person controls everything — then corruption is always an inevitable part of it. It’s not a republic anymore. It’s going to be just a tyranny. That didn’t happen with the buddha because he was such a sy mbol of goodness and he was able to keep his image clean — but it really doesn’t happen in politics like that.

I moved to the United States 20 years ago and have gone back to Iran twice.

I can’t comment about what is going on in Iran right now, but from what I see this is exactly what is happening. There is a small group in power that controls everybody’s lives.

I’m also an immigrant. I experienced 9/11, and the invasion of Iraq, and the Trump Muslim ban. Instability and anxiety has always been a big part of my life and I feel like it is a big part of many immigrants, especially from the Middle East.

It’s not easy to be an immigrant. It’s not easy to leave everything behind and move to another country with a new language, new culture, new everything. And it is definitely not easy to be profiled for political reasons.

For the longest time, the strategy in my work was that I want to make something where the surface is going to be very beautiful because the message is extremely ugly. I wanted to combine the two together so it would grab people’s attention but at the same time send the message.

In the last few years, for me at least, it’s come to a point where things are extremely ugly on the surface and I can’t pretend anymore. The new animation I’m working on right now is about land theft and corruption. My work has become a little bit more transparent. It’s impossible to sugar coat what is happening.

ASIA SOCIETY

35

36

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

P H O T O I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y C O L I N W E B B E R

Def ining X i J i n p i n g ’s China T HE PA S T, PR E SEN T, A ND F U T U R E OF C H I N A’ S MO S T P OW ER F U L L E A DER SINCE MAO ZEDONG.

BY KEVIN RUDD

ASIA SOCIETY

37

XI JINPING sits at the apex of the Chinese political

system. But his influence now permeates every level. In 2013, I wrote that Xi would be China’s most powerful leader since Deng Xiaoping. I was wrong. He’s now China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

We see this at multiple levels. The anti-corruption campaign he’s wielded across the Party has not only helped him “clean up” the country’s almost industrial levels of corruption. It has also afforded the additional benefit of “cleaning up” all of Xi’s political opponents on the way through.

None of this is for the fainthearted. It says much about the inherent nature of a Chinese political system that has rarely managed leadership transitions smoothly. But it also points to the political skill craft of Xi himself.

There is little Xi hasn’t seen with his own eyes on the deepest internal workings of the Party. He has been through a “masterclass” of not only how to survive it, but also on how to prevail within it. For these reasons, he has proven himself to be the most formidable politician of his age. He has succeeded in pre-empting, outflanking, outmaneuvering, and then removing each of his political adversaries. The polite term for this is power consolidation. In that, he has certainly succeeded.

The external manifestations of this are seen in the decision to formally enshrine “Xi Thought” as part of the Chinese constitution. For Xi’s predecessors — Deng, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao — this privilege was only accorded to them after they had formally left the political stage. In Xi’s case, it occurs near the beginning of what is likely to be a long political career.

A further manifestation of Xi’s extraordinary political power has been the concentration of the policy machinery of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi now chairs six special “central committees” covering almost every major area of policy.

But perhaps the greatest manifestation of Xi’s accumulation of unchallenged personal power has been the decision to remove the limit of two five-year terms on those appointed to the Chinese presidency.

Xi is now 66 years old. He will be 69 by the expiration of his second term as president, general secretary of the Party, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Given his own family’s longevity (his father lived to 88, and his mother is still alive at 94), as well as the general longevity of China’s most senior political leaders, it is prudent for us to assume that Xi, in one form or another, will remain China’s paramount leader through the 2020s and into the following decade.

He therefore begins to loom large as a dominant figure not just in Chinese history, but in world history, in the 21st century.

It will be on his watch that China finally becomes the largest economy in the world, or is at least returned to that status (which it last held during the Qing dynasty).

Finally, there is the personality of Xi himself as a source of political authority. For those who have met him and had conversations with him, he has a strong intellect, a deep sense of his country’s and the world’s history, and a deeply defined T h i s t e x t w a s a d a p t e d f r o m a n a d d r e s s t o c a d e t s d e l i v e r e d worldview of where he wants to lead his country. Xi is a t t h e Un i t e d S t a t e s Mi l i t a r y A c a d e m y, We s t Po i n t , Ne w Yo r k no accidental president. It’s as if he has been planning for this all his life. in March 2018.

38

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

L I A N / X I N H U A /A L A M Y

Troops prepare for a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, in Beijing on October 1, 2019.

It has been a lifetime’s accumulation of the intellectual software, combined with the political hardware of raw politics, that forms the essential qualities of high political leadership in countries such as China. For the rest of the world, Xi represents a formidable partner, competitor, or adversary, depending on the paths that are chosen in the future.

There are those within the Chinese political system who have opposed this large-scale accumulation of personal power in the hands of Xi alone, mindful of the lessons from Mao. In particular, the decision to alter the term limits concerning the Chinese presidency has been of great symbolic significance within the Chinese domestic debate. State censorship was immediately applied to any discussion of the subject across China’s often unruly social media.

For Xi’s continuing opponents within the system, what we might describe as “a silent minority,” this has created a central, symbolic target for any resentments they may hold against Xi’s leadership. It would be deeply analytically flawed to conclude that these individuals have any real prospect of pushing back against the Xi political juggernaut in the foreseeable future.

But what these constitutional changes have done is make Xi potentially vulnerable to any single, large-scale adverse event in the future. If you have become, in effect, “Chairman of Everything,” then it is easy for your political opponents to hold you responsible for anything and everything that could go wrong, whether you happen to be responsible for it or not.

This could include any profound miscalculation, or unintended consequence, arising from contingencies on the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Chinese debt crisis, or large-scale social disruption arising from unmanageable air pollution or a collapse in employment through a loss of competitiveness, large-scale automation, or artificial intelligence. This could come from international fallout over Xinjiang, how events unfold in Hong Kong, or his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

However, militating against any of the above, and the “tipping points” that each could represent, is Xi’s seemingly absolute command of the security and intelligence apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party and the state. Xi loyalists have been placed in command of all sensitive positions across the security

ASIA SOCIETY

39

Xi has proved himself to be the most formidable politician of his age.

establishment. The People’s Armed Police have now been placed firmly under Party control rather than under the control of the state. And then there is the new technological sophistication of the domestic security apparatus right across the country — an apparatus that now employs more people than the People’s Liberation Army.

We should never forget that the Chinese Communist Party is a revolutionary party that makes no bones about the fact that it obtained power through the barrel of a gun, and will sustain power through the barrel of a gun if necessary. We should not have any dewy-eyed sentimentality about any of this. It’s a simple fact that this is what the Chinese system is like.

Apart from the sheer construction of personal power within the Chinese political system, how does Xi see the future evolution of China’s political structure? Here again, we’ve reached something of a tipping point in the evolution of Chinese politics.

There has been a tacit assumption, at least across much of the collective West over the last 40 years, that China, step by step, was embracing the global liberal capitalist project. Certainly, there was a view that Deng’s program of “reform and opening” would liberalize the Chinese economy with a greater role for market principles and a lesser role for the Chinese state in the economy.

40

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

A parallel assumption has been that over time, this would produce liberal democratic forces across the country that would gradually reduce the authoritarian powers of the Chinese Communist Party, create a greater plurality of political voices within the country, and in time involve something not dissimilar to a Singaporean-style “guided democracy,” albeit it on a grand scale.

Many scholars failed to pay attention to the internal debates within the Party in the late 1990s, when internal consideration was indeed given to the long-term transformation of the Communist Party into a Western-style Social Democratic Party as part of a more pluralist political system. The Chinese were mindful of what happened with the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also saw the political transformations that unfolded across Eastern and Central Europe.

Study groups were commissioned; intense discussions were held. They even included certain trusted foreigners at the time. I remember participating in some of them myself.

Just as I remember my Chinese colleagues telling me in 2001 and 2002 that China had concluded this debate, there would be no systemic change, and China would continue to be a one-party state. It would certainly be a less authoritarian state

XINHUA/XIE HUANCHI V IA GET T Y IMAGES

than the sort of totalitarianism we had seen during the rule of Mao. But the revolutionary party would remain.

The reasons were simple. The Party’s own institutional interests are in its long-term survival: after all, they had won the revolution, so in their own Leninist worldview, why on earth should they voluntarily yield power to others? But there was a second view as well. They also believed that China could never become a global great power in the absence of the Party’s strong central leadership. And that in the absence of such leadership, China would simply dissipate into the divided bickering camps that had often plagued the country throughout its history.

These internal debates were, of course, concluded a decade before Xi’s rise to power. His should not be interpreted simplistically as the sudden triumph of authoritarianism over democracy for the future of China’s domestic political system.

That debate was already over. Rather, it should be seen as a definition of the particular form of authoritarianism that China’s new leadership now seeks to entrench.

Kevin Rudd is President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Prime Minister of Australia.

ASIA SOCIETY

41

42

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

T

H

E

R ISE

OF

A

N E W

I N D I A

In 2019, India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party sailed to victory, with the biggest majority a party had seen in decades. With the ghosts of BJP’s remarkable 2004 failure looming over the polls, what happened?

BY A N U B H AV G U P TA

ASIA SOCIETY

43

Previous page: Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers an address to more than 60,000 British Indians at a 2015 forum in the U.K.

IN 2004, India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was riding high. Led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a popular and respected figure who had overseen a growing economy, the party was seeking reelection after a first term generally perceived as successful. The BJP was so confident, in fact, that it called for elections six months early. The party’s campaign slogan — the strident “India Shining” — was meant to remind voters of its sterling stewardship of the economy, and along the campaign trail BJP backers touted the spread of a “feel good” factor under their reign.

None of it worked.

The BJP suffered one of the most surprising upsets in Indian electoral history, with its seat total in parliament dropping from 189 to 144. The Indian National Congress party (INC), which picked up 159 seats on its own and a total of 217 with its allies, would go on to form the next government.

The consumption-fueled optimism of the BJP’s slogan did not resonate with most Indians, and it became a watchword for the BJP’s disconnect with the plight of the common man — struggling with stagnant farm incomes and an unemployment crisis.

Fifteen years later, the ghosts of 2004 loomed large over the 2019 polls.

At the start of 2019, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP were gearing up for a reelection campaign to secure a second term in power. Modi’s broad popularity

44

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

ought to have buoyed the BJP’s confidence, but the currents of Indian politics are famously unpredictable. Few analysts were confident the BJP could secure another majority in parliament on its own when the election took place during a six-week period in April and May. Growth had plateaued (according to the World Bank, India’s economy grew at 6.98 percent in 2018, a high rate by global standards but the slowest annual rate during Modi’s tenure) and from the perspective of the aam aadmi, or common man, things were not improving quickly enough. For some in rural India, life even seemed to be getting worse. In February 2019, when an employment survey leaked, showing India with the highest unemployment rate in four decades, the BJP panicked.

For a brief moment, the 2019 election seemed to follow the script of 2004. Once again a popular BJP prime minister was running on his economic record, which upon closer inspection seemed less than stellar. The BJP had done poorly in the state assembly elections months earlier. And the moribund Indian National Congress was showing signs of being a worthy opponent again, hammering Modi’s government on the hollowness of its economic record. The stage was set for history to repeat.

Instead, the 2019 election flipped the script, and Modi and the BJP won the biggest majority any single party had managed in decades.

P R E V I O U S PA G E : P I B / A L A M Y A B O V E : S O PA I M A G E S L I M I T E D / A L A M Y

Left: A BJP rally in Kolkata ahead of the May 2019 election.

The party’s varied fate in the two elections, one early in the century, the other at the close of its second decade, is emblematic of the evolution of a rising India. The BJP’s 2004 defeat unleashed forces that led to its 2019 victory and have remade the country. At the turn of the century, India was seen as just South Asia’s preeminent player. Today, it has risen to the level of a rising world power.

In that 15-year span, the BJP had changed and the country with it. And in Modi, the party had found a leader who suddenly represented and spoke to the increasingly bold ambitions of the Indian public — for better and for worse.

THE PIVOT The BJP is a far greater force in Indian politics today than it was in 2004 — it is now a truly national party. In 2004, the BJP had experienced little success outside of India’s Hindi Belt, which severely limited its electoral ceiling. In contrast, at the start of 2019, it controlled more than half of India’s state assemblies and had made significant inroads into southern, eastearn, and northeastern India.

It is also a more forceful party, taking on rivals not just in the opposition but in the media, academia, and independent government institutions. Most critically, unlike in 2004, the BJP of today has fully embraced its Hindu nationalist roots, openly touting a Hindu vision of India in its campaigns and attacking the defenders of India’s secular character.

Ironically, the electoral defeat of 2004 may have led to this right turn. Vajpayee was seldom linked with the Hindu right-wing base of his party and took pains to make the BJP appear more inclusive. After the BJP’s defeat in 2004, a major Indian editor warned that the party “may well slide back into extremism” after this moderation had failed to bear fruit at the polls. That prediction appears to have come true.

Hindu nationalist sentiments have become mainstream in India thanks to the BJP. The BJP’s majoritarian vision has tremendous currency across India today, and its 2019 election victory is a byproduct of that.

Shrewdly, the party also co-opted some of the ideological ground of its sole competitor at the national level, the INC. The BJP learned a valuable lesson when it got pummeled in 2004 — it could not be perceived as negligent toward India’s poor and rural communities. When the BJP returned to power in 2014, it made governance and social services a priority, with initiatives to build toilets and accelerate financial inclusion. It also borrowed directly from the INC playbook by promising sops and subsidies to garner votes. The clear-

est example of this was the government’s announcement of a universal basic income for poor farmers in February 2019, mere months before the election.

For years the INC had castigated the BJP for being heartless toward India’s poor. In the 2019 election that narrative was harder to make stick. India’s two biggest parties ended up fighting the 2019 election by trying to outdo one another with their social welfare schemes, leaving the country without a major party advocating forcefully for markets and free trade. (If this trend continues, it could be a problem not just for India’s politics but for the country’s longer-term economic trajectory. Without significant reform and a stronger reliance on markets and trade, India simply cannot access the global supply chains it needs to grow at the pace necessary to create jobs and alleviate poverty.)

Socioeconomically, meanwhile, India has become a different country over the past 15 years. The economy has more than quadrupled in size since 2000 and vaulted from being the world’s 13th largest economy to the seventh. The middle class, which has been a consistent BJP voting bank, doubled from 300 million people to 600 million between 2004 and 2012 alone. This burgeoning middle class — those spending

‘INDIA HAS BECOME A DIFFERENT COUNTRY OVER THE PAST 15 YEARS.’ between $2 and $10 per capita per day — now makes up a large chunk of the Indian electorate. Devesh Kapur, a leading scholar on India, has written that the desires and demands of this new “aspirational” generation are remaking the Indian political landscape.

The rise of this aspirational middle class is a dramatic development with ramifications not just for India’s economy and its politics but for the rest of the world. This lifting up of living standards of hundreds of millions of people has turned India into one of the biggest consumer markets and the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses.

Today, what happens in India, the largest democracy on earth and soon to be its most populous country, matters far beyond its borders.

More and more, this growing demographic in India embraces nationalism, seeks economic opportunity, demands clean and good governance, and desires greater respect for its homeland on the world stage. In 2014 and 2019, voters simply went for the party and leader they felt could best deliver.

ASIA SOCIETY

45

A LEADER FOR THE MOMENT One of the critical differences between defeat in 2004 and victory in 2019 involved the standard-bearers of the BJP; Vajpayee then, Modi now. Prime Minister Modi represents and speaks to the social currents that make India tick today.

Kapur has written that “Modi’s India is aspirational, assertive — and anti-elite.” With his finger on the pulse of the Indian heartland, Modi is a natural leader for this moment in Indian history.

Unlike Vajpayee, Modi is beloved by the BJP’s Hindu rightwing and has helped usher in the Hindu nationalism now coursing through India’s streets. Because of his early links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist grassroots organization, the party’s ideological base views him as its own. Modi faced broad domestic and international condemnation for his handling of the horrific religious riots in Gujarat in 2002, which many critics and scholars describe as an anti-Muslim pogrom. However, the incident only endeared him further to his RSS supporters, who saw him as a leader that would stridently defend Hindus in India’s wars, cultural and otherwise.

Modi has returned the favor by delivering on several long-standing and highly coveted RSS priorities, including the provocative revocation of the special autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, legal permission to build the controversial Ram temple in Ayodhya, passage of a divisive Citizenship Amendment Act that provides a path to citizenship to non-Muslim migrants that fled religious persecution from three Muslim-majority countries, and the criminalization of “triple talaq,” the regressive “instant divorce” practiced by some Muslims in India.

In addition, his modest roots and unlikely journey from tea seller to prime minister are a compelling counterpoint to the dynastic INC, which has been controlled by the Nehru/Gandhi family for much of India’s independent history. Modi’s lack of esteem for Western manners and his insistence on delivering speeches in Hindi are also strong rejoinders to the perceived pretensions of the Delhi political elite and the detachment of the INC in particular.

Simply put, many Indians believe that Modi represents and speaks for them.

Modi’s successful economic tenure as chief minister of Gujarat cemented his credibility as an uncorrupt and efficient economic steward. Even though his boldest economic gambit — demonetization — failed spectacularly, it reinforced voters’ perceptions of him as a leader of action. The countless Indians who have grown impatient with the country’s speed of progress see Modi as a kindred soul, laboring to transform India’s economy despite challenges from a decrepit bureaucracy.

46

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

Modi has also been at the forefront of co-opting the INC’s social welfare platform by focusing and delivering on social services. Government spending on social services such as health, education, housing, and water dropped under the BJP government of Vajpayee. While Modi was not necessarily better in all of these areas during his first term, his initiatives on sanitation, financial inclusion, and electrification have brought real change on the ground, and Indians have taken notice.

In his study of Indian voters, Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has found that in India “most successful politicians have mastered the art of skillfully combining both types of appeals” — economic and identity. In addition to endorsing a Hindu-right social agenda, Modi has skillfully exploited national identity in his approach to national security. The prime minister has whipped supporters and the Indian press into a nationalistic frenzy against neighboring Pakistan, responding to terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan with bluster and confrontation.

Top: Members of the Hindu nationalist group, RSS, march through Beawar in January 2020.

ABOVE: TUUL AND BRUNO MORANDI / AL AMY R I G H T : PA C I F I C P R E S S A G E N C Y / A L A M Y

Left: Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. India’s middle clas doubled from 300 million people to 600 million between 2004 and 2012 alone.

After showing an openness to dialogue with Pakistan early in his first term, Modi quickly pivoted to a tough approach. He initially paused peace talks with Pakistan after the Pathankot attack in January 2016 and later ordered “surgical strikes” in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to an attack on the town of Uri. By publicly announcing such a retaliatory attack for the first time and suspending all talks with Pakistan, Modi heightened bilateral tensions further.

With diplomacy frozen, the Pulwama terrorist attack in February 2019 created a nationalist uproar in India that ultimately sealed the BJP win. Again, Modi went one step further in his response than India had in the past, ordering an attack on Pakistani territory beyond Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Even though scant evidence has emerged that India’s military response accomplished the objectives the government claimed, Modi won the battle of narratives domestically by upping the ante and positioning himself as the

protector of the country. The ensuing India-Pakistan crisis dominated the news cycle for an entire month, upending the campaign and undermining the opposition’s economic message just before elections. Modi’s political handling of the Pulwama attack was the turning point of the 2019 election. If the 2004 election was fought over the economy, the 2019 election was ultimately about national security.

Modi has officially diverged from the path of restraint that Indian leaders traversed in the 2000s. Both Vajpayee and his successor Manmohan Singh made the politically difficult decision to forgo confrontation for the sake of stability. Modi has benefited politically by rejecting that logic, but in doing so he has made escalation more likely in future crises. For years the international community looked to India to be the responsible player in the nuclear rivalry with Pakistan. With that no longer a guarantee, the coming decades are likely to see a number of dangerous clashes on the subcontinent.

The BJP’s surprise loss in 2004 and its resounding victory in 2019 are apt bookends for Indian history in the first two decades of this century. Whether consciously or not, lessons learned from 2004 altered the BJP’s approach for politicking and governing, and eventually awarded it the reins of the Indian state for a second straight term. Making it all come together is Narendra Modi, the strongest leader India has had since Indira Gandhi, and one who is leaving a lasting mark.

Anubhav Gupta is A ssoc iate Direc tor at the A sia Soc iet y Polic y Inst it ute.

ASIA SOCIETY

47

TH E

KO R EA

N

SOUTH KOREAN POLIC Y TOWA RD ITS NORT HER N NEIGHBOR H A S A LWAYS BEEN MOLDED BY THE QUESTION OF R E ­U N I F I C A T I O N . W H A T H A P P E N S WHEN PEOPLE DON’T WANT IT ANYMORE?

CO

BY MATT SCHIAVENZA

NU ND

RU M

EVEN A CYNIC would have found it an unforgettable image: When

South Korean President Moon Jae-in stepped down from his plane at Pyongyang’s airport in September 2018, he was greeted by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with a warm embrace. The historic summit in the North Korean capital marked the third meeting between the two in 2018, a year that also featured a joint Korean team at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Bonhomie aside, Kim and Moon concluded their meeting with few tangible achievements. But speaking in New York later that month at an event co-hosted by Asia Society, Moon was ebullient. “There is something miraculous happening on the Korean peninsula,” he said.

If Moon is right — and that’s a big if — North and South Korea could achieve real diplomatic breakthroughs in the coming years. It’s clear what Moon’s ultimate goal is: reunification. In a nationally televised speech delivered in August 2019, Moon pledged to achieve the merger of the two Koreas by 2045, the centennial of Korea’s liberation from imperial Japan.

On this score, Moon may well be disappointed. The prospects for Korean unification are as dim as ever — and are likely to grow even dimmer as the years pass.

The 1945 division of Korea into two halves — the north under Soviet control, the south to the U.S. — traumatized the peninsula, permanently separating millions of families whose members straddled both sides of the border. In the early postwar years, the differences between the two Koreas were comparatively

50

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

slight. Despite being on opposite sides in the Cold War, North and South Korea were both impoverished states ruled by authoritarian governments. Today, the differences are stark. South Korea, a country of 51 million, is a thriving democracy and one of the world’s most dynamic economies and a major exporter of electronic goods and cultural products. North Korea, half as large, has an economy 50 times smaller and is one of the most repressive autocracies on earth.

Moon’s diplomatic charm offensive is arguably the most sustained push to improve ties with North Korea since the so-called “Sunshine Policy,” an initiative launched by former president Kim Dae-jung in 1998 that established an unprecedented level of diplomatic and economic ties between North and South Korea.

(In fact, Moon’s diplomatic charm offensive borrows

P R E V I O U S PA G E : H A R R Y C U N N I N G H A M / U N S P L A S H A B O V E : J U N G Y E O N -J E / A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

Previous page: A packed train in Bucheon, South Korea.

Above: People in Seoul watch a screen showing live footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Pyongyang Airport, on September 18, 2018.

so much from Kim’s that it has been referred to as a “Moonshine Policy”). But the North Korea of the turn of the century is far different from the country Moon is dealing with today. Following the collapse of Soviet subsidies in 1991, North Korea experienced a famine that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and sparked widespread malnutrition. North Koreans had less access to the outside world than they enjoy today, due to goods flowing across the relatively porous Chinese borders. With the U.S.S.R. gone and China turning decisively toward market economics, North Korea seemed bound for a similar transformation.

“It was natural for South Koreans to have expectations that [the Sunshine Policy] could lead to reunification,” said John Delury, a professor at South Korea’s Yonsei University and a member of Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders network. “It was a period when everyone was writing op-eds about North Korea collapsing tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”

Today, North Korea remains one of the world’s poorest and most isolated countries. But few predict immi-

nent collapse. Illicit economic activity across the Chinese border as well as modern market reforms have lessened food insecurity and increased prosperity somewhat. The Kim family regime moved past the sudden death of Kim Jong Il in 2011 with the accession of his untested son, Kim Jong Un, as supreme leader.

Since assuming office, the younger Kim has consolidated control by arranging the murders of his powerful uncle, Jang Song Thaek, and later his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam. Just 36 years old now, he may well be poised to govern North Korea deep into the 21st century.

Through a combination of deft diplomacy and dumb luck, Kim is also less isolated than ever. In addition to his growing engagement with Moon Jae-in, Kim has met several times with Xi Jinping, China’s president and North Korea’s most important patron.

And, in a summit in June 2018, he became the first North Korean leader to meet with a sitting U.S. president when Donald Trump arranged the encounter in Singapore. (Though many derided it as little more than a photo opportunity, it was of undeniable value to Kim.) Kim’s whirl of activity has yielded little progress in eroding crippling economic sanctions. But some believe they have softened his reputation as the brutal scion of a pariah state.

“Kim has all these leaders lining up to meet him,” said Jieun Baek, an Asia 21 Young Leader and expert in North Korea at Oxford University. “He has all the legitimacy he needs domestically and, increasingly, internationally — even in South Korea.”

Even if North Korea were on the verge of collapse, meanwhile, it is far from assured that South Koreans desire reunification. The most recent survey by Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification suggests that less than a third of the population would prefer unification to peaceful coexistence. The tens of thousands of North Koreans who have defected to the South and remained there have faced discrimination and struggled to adapt to life in their new country, making the prospect of assimilating North Korea’s entire population especially daunting. A 2014 study found that nearly 60 percent of North Koreans are reluctant to disclose their origins. And while the South Korean government still assists recent North Korean refugees with housing stipends and job training, Seoul has recently made cuts to this budget. The issues surrounding the integration of refugees (who, after all, risked their lives to go to South Korea) do not bode well for reunification. “[If South Korea] can’t integrate 32,000 people, how are they going to integrate 25 million, the majority of whom had no interest in defecting and who were

ASIA SOCIETY

51

‘[If South Korea] can’t integrate 32,000 people, how can they integrate 25 million?’

South Koreans in their 20s and 30s are more than twice as likely to be indifferent to reunification than those in their 50s and 60s. The population of South Koreans with personal ties to relatives north of the border is dwindling with age; family separation, a wrenching issue for many South Koreans, will almost certainly diminish in salience as the years pass.

“Younger South Koreans are typically not that focused on North Korea,” Delury said. “They don’t want to absorb a basket case.”

The lower likelihood of reunification, however, does not mean that North and South Korea are destined to remain at loggerheads. Resolution of the nuclear issue — itself no small feat — would be a more immediate priority, as would promoting economic and people-to-people ties between the two nations. “Overall, what I think that [the Moon] government is working on and what the majority of the South Korean public wants,” said Delury, “is to change the relationship so that it’s not based on threats and hostility.”

Whether these goals are realized, it’s worth pointing out that South Koreans are not the only ones with an opinion about reunification. In April, Kim Jong Un introduced a new title for himself: “Supreme Representative for All the Korean People,” an indication that he too favors an eventual reunion with the South — just on his terms.

raised to hate South Korea and its allies?” Baek asked.

Then there’s the projected cost. The 1990 merger of East and West Germany may be considered a bestcase scenario for the two Koreas — countries divided by ideology that retained cultural and linguistic ties.

Thirty years after reunification, and after an estimated $2 trillion of government spending, residents of the former East Germany remain significantly poorer than their counterparts in the West.

A Korean reunification would make Germany’s feel like a minor overture. While West Germany was between two and three times as rich as the East, South Korea is currently 25 times wealthier than the North.

The cost of reunification is conservatively estimated to be $3 trillion, 50 percent greater than South Korea’s entire economic output. And the cost of these burdens would be particularly acute for South Korea’s young, who already face high unemployment (the Korean Bureau of Statistics estimates youth unemployment to be 9.5 percent, one of the highest rates in the OECD). Ma t t S c h i a v e n z a i s A s s i s t a n t D i r e c t o r o f C o n t e n t a t Unsurprisingly, a poll conducted in 2018 found that A sia Soc iet y.

52

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

IGOR PRAHIN / ALAMY

Messages of peace and unity left on a fence at at the so-called “Bridge of No Return” located at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, at Imjingak, South Korea.

LIKE WHAT YOU SEE HERE?

STAY TUNED The online version of Asia Society’s new publication will launch in the second half of 2020, complemented by a special print edition released at the end of each year.

We are working hard to create a global platform for top-flight content representing a wide range of perspectives on key Asia-related issues.

We've got Asia covered.

A NEWMAN-JULIS INITIATIVE

Watch this space:

AsiaSociety.org/Magazine

A worsening climate is destroying how people farm, fish, and forage across Asia. No longer able to scratch a living from the land, the continent’s poorest are increasingly seeking work abroad — and finding themselves ever more vulnerable to the dangers that follow.

In the village of Kotafoun, in East Nusa Tenggara province, families depend on subsistence farming. But an increase in droughts and fires have made it harder to survive. As farms fail, women are increasingly seeking work as domestic laborers in Malaysia. While the jobs can be a lifeline, they are poorly regulated.

Exploitation, including underpayment, and physical and sexual abuse is not uncommon.

In November 2013, a stranger named Johan Pandi came bearing gifts and promises for the Abuk family, and asked for permission to take 27-yearold Dolfina to work as a maid in Malaysia. With their farm suffering, the family saw it as a crucial opportunity. Dolfina left her two children behind and went with Pandi, who gave her a fake identity card and passport.

Here, Dolfina’s suitcase sits inside the family hut.

C

LIMATE CHANGE is one of the biggest crises of our time, and one of its most significant impacts will be on human migration. This is not a new understanding. We have long known that rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, desertification, and worsening natural disasters will force unprecedented population movements.

The World Bank and the International Organization for Migration predict that by 2050 hundreds of millions of people will have been displaced due to climate change.

In the world’s poorest and most agriculturally dependent areas, this mass migration is already underway. Of the 71 million people currently displaced globally, roughly one in four has been forced to leave their home due to natural disasters and it is inevitable that more and more people will become migrant laborers as their livelihoods at home are threatened.

Take the case of Indonesia. Every year, millions of Indonesian workers head to plantations, factories, and homes across Asia and the Middle East — many of them driven by failing farms. With a changing climate leading to worsening floods and droughts, agricultural work is becoming increasingly unpredictable. Without a steady income, more and more Indonesian families are turning to risky migrant labor.

Over the past few years, I have been traveling across Asia documenting families impacted by climate migration. In 2018, I went to Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, where farming families have been struggling with drought. To cope, women migrate to work as maids in Malaysia. While it is a job prone to exploitation and worse, many families told me they feel they have no choice.

With climate change precipitating ever-higher levels of mass migration, experts warn that human trafficking will rise in kind. The most desperate workers will also be the most vulnerable to abuses like forced labor and sexual exploitation. In the absence of serious labor reforms, tragic stories like those from East Nusa Tenggara will become the norm.

56

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

ASIA SOCIETY

57

The first time that Dolfina called home, her father later recounted, she said that her employers were good to her and she would send money soon. The money would help support her parents’ failing farm, and her young son and daughter (pictured).

58

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

The family was so happy with Dolfina’s good fortune that when another recruiter came to their village, they sent her older sister Mariah to work as a maid in Malaysia as well. In March 2016, Dolfina called her mother and said she would soon be returning. Those were the last words they heard from her.

Later that month, the family received a call from an employment agency in Malaysia saying Dolfina had died and her body would be shipped back. They insisted the young woman had died of natural causes and gave no further information.

Above, Mikhael Abuk shows a photo of his daughter in her coffin.

ASIA SOCIETY

59

Police officer Ruddy Soik is a member of the human trafficking unit of East Nusa Tenggara. He has been working on human trafficking since 2012. When I met Soik in his home, he showed me his files related to some of these trafficking cases. He was proud to say that in 2018, his unit caught nine traffickers.

The file is thick and well organized. It is filled with details and images of victims who left with a promise and came home either dead or abused.

Soik says he is frustrated that human trafficking is still so widespread.

The hardest thing for him is changing the mindset of the families about sending away their daughters, but he says it’s hard to blame parents given the circumstances. When the land gets drier, they grow poorer, and the promise of hope in Malaysia seems brighter.

Sea levels continue to displace those living in low land areas in Indonesia, and agricultural yields have dropped dramatically due to drought and water scarcity, says Renard Siew, an expert on climate change mitigation at the Climate Reality Project. Here, workers in East Nusa Tengarra quarry gravel from a dried-out riverbed.

60

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

While still trying to cope with the documents or money. She told her famdeath of his younger daughter, Mikhael ily to wait to hear from her. Mikhael is received a call from Mariah, who said still waiting for the phone call. They that she and other undocumented have heard nothing more. He can only workers were hiding because of raids hope that his remaining daughter will conducted by Malaysian authorities. one day come back alive. In the meanMikhael begged Mariah to come home, time, he and his wife focus on raising but she said she couldn’t risk it without their grandchildren.

ASIA SOCIETY

61

Another grieving father is Martin Sauk, a struggling farmer who was promised a better life when his daughter Adelina left for Malaysia. She died af ter being star ved, abused, and

62

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

forced to sleep outdoors with her employer’s dog in Penang, Malaysia.

Her employer was arrested for murder, but the charge was later dropped for unknown reasons.

A blurry photo and a bed — that is what’s left of Adelina. Her case is similar to that of many women who left Indonesia hoping for a better life.

ASIA SOCIETY

63

64

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

Members of Adelina’s family gather at their home in Ponu, which, like many neighboring villages, has no access to electricity. Though these communities have played the smallest role in causing global warming, they are the hardest hit by it. With the climate changing, millions more people like Adelina, Mariah, and Dolfina will be forced into migration for survival. And unless regulations and enforcement improve — both in the countries people flee, and the ones in which they settle — cases like these will grow tragically ever more common.

This repor t ing was suppor ted by t h e P u li t z e r C e n t e r.

Xyza Cruz Bacani is a Filipina author and photographer who uses her work to raise awareness about under repor ted stories. She is a member of Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders initiative.

ASIA SOCIETY

65

BY THE N U MBERS

The Facts and Figures that Explain the Asian Century

ASIA* POPULATION: 3.74B 2000

1.91 MALE

4.64B 2020

1.83 FEMALE

2.37 MALE

5.19B 2040

2.27 FEMALE

2.64 MALE

2.55 FEMALE

U.N. Po p u l a t i o n D i v i s i o n

Percent of population living on less than $1.90 a day, the global poverty line, in Indonesia

Internet Penetration in Afghanistan

Extreme Temperatures

2000 .005%

39.3%

2019 20% Wo r l d B a n k

ASIAN BILLIONAIRES 2000

5.7%

118.4°F

48.9°F

The temperature in Delhi on June 10, 2019, an all-time record high

The temperature in New Delhi on Dec. 30, 2019, when India’s capital dropped to the coldest December day in over 100 years.

2000

106

In d i a To d a y

Percentage of women in the workforce in Pakistan: Growing 15%

22%

2000

2019

2019 2017

Wo r l d B a n k

66

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

767 Fo r b e s

Wo r l d B a n k

61.9m

Percentage of women in the workforce in India: Dropping 22%

26%

Chinese airplane passengers in 2000

611.4m 2000

Chinese airplane passengers in 2018

2019 Wo r l d B a n k

Males per 100 Females in Taiwan

F

M

F

103.2 2000

Wo r l d B a n k

COST OF A SIM CARD IN MYANMAR

M

98.8 2020

U.N. Po p u l a t i o n D i v i s i o n

$1376 2009

Israel GNI Gross National Income per capita*

$19,140 2000

$1 2019

$40,920 2018

T h e Ir r a w a d d y

Portion of population living in cities in Thailand

2040

Wo r l d B a n k *A t l a s m e t h o d

Saudi Arabia GDP

$189.5b 2000

64.4%

2020 2000

51.4%

31.4%

$786.5b 2018 Wo r l d B a n k

U.N. Po p u l a t i o n D i v i s i o n

Population of Japan: Shrinking

126.8m 2000

126.5m 2018

*A s i a r e f e r s t o E a s t A s i a , C e n t r a l A s i a , S o u t h A s i a , S o u t h e a s t A s i a , a n d We s t A s i a s u b r e g i o n s .

Wo r l d B a n k

ASIA SOCIETY

67

68

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

T r a d e : A New World Order

WITH POPULISM GAINING TR ACTION, THE VERY CONCEPT OF FREE TR ADE AS A NET GOOD IS INCREASINGLY QUESTIONED.

An interview with Wendy Cutler Ph oto illu stratio n s by C o lin We b b e r

ASIA SOCIETY

69

Before becoming vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, Wendy Cutler spent decades working as one of the United States’ top trade negotiators. During that time, she helped draw up some of the most significant trade agreements inked between the U.S. and Asian nations. Cutler was chief negotiator to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which was signed in 2007, and served as a senior negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the Obama administration.

In just a few years, however, those deals have been reopened, or rejected outright.

With populism gaining traction, the very concept of free trade as a net good is increasingly questioned by leaders in the U.S., U.K., and some Asian nations as well.

At the height of the 2019 trade dispute between China and the U.S., Cutler sat down with Asia Society Executive Vice President Tom Nagorski to talk about the past, present, and future of global trade.

The interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, took place in September 2019. Shortly before we went to press, the two countries inked a “phase one” deal in mid-January. The deal, which included a number of intellectual property and curren-

70

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

cy reforms and rolled back more threatened tariffs, appeared to de-escalate tensions — though much remained unknown.

Tom Nagorski: In your long career as a trade negotiator, you have worked on no fewer than 10 major trade deals. They are long, grueling, 24/7 endeavors. Is there some great backstory to how you became a trade negotiator in the first place?

Wendy Cutler: Trade is an issue that has always been of interest to me. It’s something I studied in college, and it seemed like a vehicle that helped take a lot of people out of poverty around the world. When I started appreciating the international benefits of trade, as well as what it meant for the U.S., I became increasingly passionate about it.

I entered the government at the Department of Commerce and was thrust into trade negotiations at a young age, put at the table representing the U.S. within a few years of when I joined the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. And once I could actually sit in that seat, representing the U.S. — at that time on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GAT T) in Geneva — there was no holding me back.

This is what I wanted to do.

TN: Is it fair to say you also came into that role at a time when this notion of fair trade as an unalloyed good for the U.S. and the world was at a high point? We’re talking early 1990s, mid-1990s; there was not a whole lot of questioning, at least in this

countr y, that it was goo d to have a U.S. trade representative; it was good to pursue these deals.

WC: Well, absolutely. And when I look back at the early part of my career, I wish I had valued all the support we were getting at that point because people weren’t questioning the benefits of trade. The labor movement still had concerns and we took those concerns seriously, but for example, there was strong bipartisan support from Congress. It wasn’t a matter of whether we should be going forward with these deals but more of how we could make them not only beneficial for the United States but also for our trading partners.

TN: Now that whole notion — that free trade between nations is fundamentally a good thing for humanity — seems to be under attack, certainly in many quarters of this country and in other parts of the world.

The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the TPP were big landmark deals with Asia front and center. Then President

Trump comes to office and the Trump administration very quickly says these are bad deals, and pulls out. What’s it like, given all the blood, sweat, and tears put into it? What’s it like just on a personal level to see these things gutted so quickly?

WC: On a personal level, obviously it’s very difficult to watch any project you’ve worked on for many, many years to be basically eliminated with the sign of a pen. But more importantly, with respect to threats to withdraw from the U.S.-Korea FTA and also the actual withdrawal from the TPP, I felt that as a country we were going to lose.

I feel somewhat vindicated on both fronts because I don’t think anyone really understands how difficult a trade negotiation is until they’re the ones at the table.

When you’re not at the table, it’s easy to say: “We needed a better deal. Our negotiators were incompetent. If I were at the table, I could achieve this.” And I think this administration, like previous ones, has learned that these talks are hard and the

results that you’re able to achieve — assuming you’re able to reach closure in the negotiations — are going to require a give and take.

With th e U. S .- Ko re a Fre e Tra d e Agreement, the president ended up not withdrawing but rather amending it. When I look at those amendments, they were modest and — frankly — things that I think any previous president probably would have asked for had the agreement continued over the years.

And with respect to the TPP, somewhere between 50 and 75 percent of the new NAFTA actually includes language straight out of the TPP. So, in many respects, whether it be digital trade, or state-owned enterprises, the environment, or labor, the new NAFTA’s rules are very close to the TPP. In certain areas they built on the TPP, they improved it; and in certain other areas they took away some of the TPP benefits and came up with new ways to address these issues. But overall there are a lot of similarities.

ASIA SOCIETY

71

‘The feeling is that now a lot of the countries that were once on top

72

TN: Whether you’re pro-free trade or not, it’s fair to say some of this stuff can seem, certainly to the layperson like myself, pretty arcane. Some of the issues that you spent all that time working on are not that easy to understand. Let me ask you to give the general public some examples of what really matters to them. How does trade impact the

country. We export loads and loads of agricultural products, manufacturing products, services, ideas, and intellectual property. All of those exports have to go somewhere. When you produce those exports you’re employing people in the United States. And what the statistics show is not only do exports create thou-

consumer, the business owner, et cetera?

WC: Trade brings enormous benefits to our overall economy but also to families, communities, and individuals. You mentioned consumers, for example. As a result of trade, we’ve seen lower prices and more choice. We now can buy vegetables yearround because many of them are imported in the seasons when we don’t produce them. And, obviously, when tariffs are imposed and additional ones are being threatened, the consumer is going to see prices increase.

Keep in mind that a lot of trade is not only about imports that benefit consumers, but it’s also about exports. The United States is a very innovative, productive

sands of jobs per a billion dollars worth of exports, but most of these jobs are higher-paying jobs than jobs associated with the traditional economy.

Through the years, trade has helped lift people out of poverty and also contributed to economic growth and to the promotion of innovation in economies around the world.

Now, that said, I’ll be the first to admit that there are people who do not benefit from trade. And I think that the United States needs to do a much better job taking care of those people and also promote policies that get our workforce ready for the international marketplace of tomorrow.

TN: Given all the prosperity that’s been realized through trade with Asia, what

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

happened? Why is free trade as a concept, as a doctrine, not just under some review and debate but really fallen into disfavor?

WC: Well, it’s an interesting question.

Institutions like the GATT were established right after World War II. Let’s remember the United States was by far the number one economic power at the time, and our objective was to help other countries recover in the aftermath of the war and help them grow their economies. And what’s a better way to grow your economy than to open up our markets and work to open their markets so we could trade? The idea was that this was going to be a win-win proposition, not only for the United States but for other countries.

TN: And for a while it was, right?

WC: Absolutely. But what has happened is that people are questioning the benefits of trade now because the United States is not the only game in town. What we’ve seen over time is many other countries — whether it was Japan 20, 30 years ago or China now — threatening our supremacy in the

of the world are really being disadvantaged by trade.’

trade area. There is a feeling that these countries have not had to live up to and adhere to the same obligations that the United States lived up to under the GATT and the WTO. And as a result, the feeling is that these trade agreements have exacerbated income inequality in countries like the U.S., in Europe, and I think we’re going to see this emerge in other advanced, developed countries. The feeling is that now a lot of the countries that were once on top of the world are really being disadvantaged by trade.

TN: Let’s get to the heart of the issue in the trade war that the United States and China are waging, which dates in its current form to the new administration in Washington. It all started because the United States said China is not playing fair — whether we’re talking about trade or currency issues or other things. How did this start?

WC: First, it didn’t really start with Trump. There was frustration building up with respect to China for many years and most acutely during the second term of the Obama administration.

There is just a fundamental view that there’s not a level playing field between the United States and China when we’re trying to trade and compete in the world on the economic front. For example, China does not adequately protect and enforce intellectual property rights — an area where the United States is extremely competitive.

China provides its companies with financial assistance, both direct and indirect, which provides advantages that are not enjoyed by private companies around the world.

When it comes to technology in particular, China is focused on subsidizing the next generation of technologies at the same time that it’s forcing our companies to turn over their knowhow, their source codes, their intellectual property, their trade secrets, as a cost of doing business in China. If you put it all together this is unfair. This was never contemplated. This wasn’t the pact that we expected with China. There’s a growing feeling that the past approaches of trying to work with China, attack these practices, and address them

to the World Trade Organization — we’re making some marginal improvements, but overall are not fixing the situation. So a new approach was called for and that’s where our president has been extremely vocal and focused on.

TN: And, just to be clear, you have no issue with the fact that you felt some stronger measures or some standing up to China in this regard was appropriate.

WC: That’s correct. I agree that the time had come to call China out and to try and find a new way to get Beijing to play fairly.

TN: But I also think you’re not a big fan of what seems to be this almost never-ending cycle of the threat of a new tariff, a tariff being implemented, maybe some talks in Beijing or Washington, and then those talks collapse and we have more threats and more tariffs. We’re in the middle of a cycle like that right now. Tariffs are the antithesis of free trade. What do you think ab out th e ta c tics that have been used to carry out the standing up to China?

ASIA SOCIETY

73

WC: Well, to share a story with you: I worked for nine U.S. trade representatives throughout my career and a number of them through the years would ask us, “Why don’t we just impose tariffs against this country if it’s not playing by the rules?”

Our response was basically twofold.

Number one, we would break our obligations under the World Trade Organization which would then invite other countries to do the same — and that would work against our interests. And, two, tariffs end up hurting the United States, whether it be our consumers, our workers, our farmers, or our businesses. Frankly, both of these concerns have really played out in real time.

Perhaps it was worth it to go ahead with the first tranche of tariffs against China. It

74

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

clearly got their attention. It got China to the negotiating table. But, I don’t think they’ve played out the way that the Trump administration expected.

There was hope that once we started imposing tariffs China would be hurting economically, cave, and come to the negotiating table and make major concessions.

And unfortunately what we’re seeing is that the Chinese are not only responding by counter-retaliating, but their position seems to be hardening. They seem to be saying: “We’re not going to respond to these tactics. We’re not going to cave. We have the wherewithal to get through this tit-for-tat tariff dispute.”

TN: Right. And I believe on many occasions the president himself, or others in the administration carrying out these policies,

have said: “First of all, it’s not going to hurt Americans — at least not as much as it’s going to hurt the Chinese.” And there’s been an implication that it’s going to bring more manufacturing jobs back to the United States. What’s okay or not okay with those arguments?

WC: Let me be the first to admit that the tariffs are hurting China. We’ve seen their manufacturing output going down. We’ve seen some plants being closed. We’ve seen economic growth decline over previous quarters. But what we’re also seeing is that the United States is suffering from these tariffs as well. And particularly as more and more products are hit by U.S. tariffs, and China responds with counter retaliation, the hurt to U.S. consumers, workers, farmers, and businesses is now becoming more and more acute.

TN : So just m a rr yin g th e curre nt conversation with the U.S. and China with this broader look at what’s happened to the doctrine of free trade. Does the fate of the U.S.-China trade war, as we’re calling it now, have the potential to really steer the world in a different direction?

There’s one scenario where this just goes down the tubes and then it’s really protectionism writ large between the two largest economies on Earth.

Or, if a deal gets done, might you see a way in which people do start to see the benefits and maybe we’re back to a place where free trade as a policy and as a proposition suddenly comes into better regard, its reputation might be salvaged if things go well?

WC: I don’t think we’re ever going to

get back to where we were. I believe we are in a new world and we need to be m o re c o g n iz a nt a n d re s p o n sive to concerns about trade that have been expressed by many constituencies in the United States.

With respect to China, we’re at a juncture in these negotiations where it’s uncertain where they’re going to lead. If they lead to a deal, it’s not going to be a perfect deal. But I would expect we’ll have a deal that would make sufficient progress to allow both sides to lift some of their tariffs at a minimum. And maybe to get back to some new normal — to be defined.

TN: If you had the possibility of a few moments in the Oval Office sometime soon — let’s say tomorrow you’ve got 15, 20 minutes with the president — how

would you make your case given all the things you’ve thought about and been talking about here? What would you say to Trump?

WC: The United States has a strong and innovative economy — in order for us to continue to grow and to create the kind of jobs that we need, we need to export, we need to be part of the international trading system.

At the same time, we need to address the concerns of those who are left behind: through some social safety net policies, and also by educating the next generation of workers to make sure that they are ready and prepared for the new types of jobs that are going to be created by the new technologies that are that are now hitting the streets.

ASIA SOCIETY

75

A TA L E O F

What a pair of presidential meetings tells us about two decades of fits and starts in the U.S.-China relationship.

An interview with ORVILLE SCHELL Photo illustrations by JOAN WONG

76

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

T WO S U M M I T S

Few people have devoted more time to understanding the U.S.-China relationship than Orville Schell. He is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society and the author of more than a dozen books. Since the 1970s, Schell has been visiting and observing China as a journalist and scholar, meeting its leaders in politics, business, academia, and the arts. Schell is also the co-chair of the Task Force on U.S.-China Policy, a group of scholars and diplomats whose most recent publication in 2019 made the case for a new “smart competition” in U.S. policy toward China.

Schell sat down with Asia Society Executive Vice President Tom Nagorski to talk about the last 20 years of U.S.-China relations, viewed through the prism of two presidential summits: The meetings that U.S. President Bill Clinton held with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in 1998, and the 2017 visit of President Donald Trump with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. As Schell explains, the differences between these two events speak volumes about the changes in both countries, and in the U.S.-China relationship, over the past two decades. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TOM NAGORSKI: Before we get to these two specific events and take a little time travel back to 1998, you said recently that the big picture U.S.-China relationship in this time frame goes something like this: the birth of the policy of engagement, the evolution of that policy, and more recently the death of that policy. That’s a stark statement and analysis.

How would you characterize where things stood in terms of the utility of engagement as perceived by both sides?

ORVILLE SCHELL: What was interesting about 1998, when Clinton went to China to visit Jiang Zemin, was that it was less than a decade after 1989 and the Beijing massacre, when we really thought the U.S.-China relationship would fall apart — and it didn’t.

There were two reasons for that. One was Deng Xiaoping — he revived economic reform if not political reform in 1992 — and the other was that Jiang Zemin was a strangely warm Chinese leader. And what I mean by warm is he had a sense of humor. He was a bit of a clown. He was quite affable and he really did want to contend as a normal leader in the cosmopolitan world.

ASIA SOCIETY

77

When Clinton came to China, remember, he had just done a somersault.

He had come into office speaking about the “butchers from Baghdad to Beijing.”

And yet he had come around to the notion that it was better to work with China than to eschew them and push them aside. (He gave them permanent most-favored-nation trading status and let them into the WTO.) So he shows up in Beijing, and, quite counterintuitively, these two countries which had almost shipwrecked after 1989, had a rather warm and open relationship particularly between the two leaders.

TN: You’ve been sort of a Zelig-like figure at all these occasions — watching them arrive at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. You wrote at the time that the two leaders had effectively decided they want to let bygones be bygones. Was that a Tiananmen Square reference?

OS: Yes. Tiananmen Square was a giant obstruction to everybody’s ability to feel comfortable with each other. And yet in that summit they met in the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square after a big honor guard greeting outside Tiananmen Square. And, quite extraordinarily, Jiang Zemin decided at the very last minute that the press conference, which would have an open question and

78

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

answer period with the media from all over the world, would be broadcast live on radio and television. This is something that would be unimaginable today.

TN: And was unimaginable then.

OS: It was not unimaginable but it was quite a bold move by Jiang. I think what he was trying to demonstrate was that China was slowly opening and wanted to become more digestible in the world as it was constructed outside of China. He didn’t want to be a big leader, a cold war dictator. And what proceeded was the most extraordinary press conference I think I’ve ever been to in China. These two leaders in a very affable, friendly manner began to talk about subjects which had long been considered far too sensitive for such a discourse.

TN: As you say, it was unheard of at the time. No chance for the Chinese censors to do anything because it’s going out there. Clinton tells Jiang Zemin in the hall there that the use of force and loss of life at Tiananmen were “wrong.”

That freedom of speech and association are the rights of people everywhere.

What was it like to sit there and listen to this going out live?

OS: Well, to Jiang Zemin’s credit he grinned through it, he replied. He stood up and said we have different systems,

different values et cetera, et cetera. And he went right on.

It seems to me that it was such a rare moment — when a leader didn’t get so offended that he pulled out the humiliation card, the face card, and bring the whole press conference down around everyone’s ears. That’s exactly the kind of flexibility that allows things to work out even when there are profound disagreements that we miss today. That would be considered a slight to the throne of the most grievous order now for a U.S. president to comport himself in this way. I think Xi Jinping wouldn’t even allow an opportunity for such an occasion to arise.

TN: You mentioned Jiang Zemin’s reply. As you say, he took it well and then gave right back. He said they could not have enjoyed the stabilit y they enjoyed then had they not used force at Tiananmen. Again, this was an open conversation. They had a similar exchange about the Dalai Lama. I think President Clinton said, “I know the Dalai Lama. I think you should get to know him you’d like him.”

OS: Yes. It was astounding! And actually it was Jiang Zemin who raised the question of Tibet himself, which was unthinkable. He asked Clinton why are Americans so fascinated with what he

LUC NOVOVITCH / AL AMY

Jiang Zemin is ushered by Bill Clinton to a state diner at the White House in October 1997.

WHITE HOUSE PHOTO

Donald Trump with Xi Jinping at a cultural performance at the Great Hall of the People in November 2017 in Beijing.

called “Lama-ism,” which was Tibetan Buddhism. And he was grinning the whole time and Clinton took that as an invitation to pop right off and say how much he liked the Dalai Lama. So this was pretty extraordinary moment.

Back then, a lot of people thought Jiang Zemin was a bit clownish. He loved to sing “Home On the Range.” He’d recite “The Gettysburg Address.” Everybody thought of this guy as, really, not very ready for prime time. But looking back on him, I realized that there was something quite amazing about this man. He wanted China to become soluble in the world. He didn’t want China to be isolated, separate. And he didn’t wear his pride on his sleeve.

TN: So what you’ve described, whether it’s clear thinking at the moment as a reporter or your reflections 20-some years on, sounds like a profound positive moment for engagement between the two countries. Did it bear fruit in the years immediately after?

OS: Of course, China profited immensely from being in the WTO and having most-favored-nation trading status.

In a certain sense, it helped precipitate the China economic miracle. But then Jiang Zemin left office and Hu Jintao came in and Hu Jintao was sort of a gray, blurry,

unclear leader. He lacked a certain confidence, certainly in the stylistic bravado, or interest in really getting out in the world and mixing it up. He was much more retiring and reluctant and it beca me a l it t le bit u nclear whet her China really wanted to join in with the world, as Jiang Zemin evidently did.

TN: Before we leave Jiang and Clinton, it’s worth noting that Clinton quite famously predicted after that summit that China would go the way of the regimes in Eastern Europe. He said business engagement would open the country. He said “the spirit of liberty” would carry the day. “The genie of freedom will not go back in the bottle” was the oft-quoted line of the day. What happened to that genie of freedom?

OS: So this is when it got branded as engagement. Clinton called it “comprehensive engagement” and the theory was that if you trade and interact, China will become less indigestible and more willing to join the global order and the rules of the game as they exist.

TN: And he wasn’t the only one to believe that.

OS: No, no. Everybody believed it.

What happened was engagement used to be presupposed on opposing the Soviet Union. Then, when the Soviet Union fell

apart, engagement lost its logic. So Clinton reinstalled a new operating system for engagement, built around the supposition that with more trade and interaction, history is on our side. Remember when Clinton told Jiang Zemin: “You’re on the wrong side of history”?

That was the faith. I think in retrospect it was a bit naïve, but actually it was an exercise of American leadership too — to think that you could wisely help shape and guide China as it emerged from this very intense revolutionary Leninist experience. I think it was a gamble worth taking.

TN: So 20 years later, I think it’s just plain interesting to look at what was on the agenda then and what ’s on the agenda now — which says as much about the times as it does probably about the relationship. In 1998, you had human rights, Tibet, you had missile proliferation, and then, of course, China about to join the WTO. On international security issues, you had India-Pakistan front and center on the agenda.

Two decades later Trump comes to Beijing and meets Xi and there it’s trade, trade, trade, right? Allegations of unfair trade, currency issues, and some issues that really weren’t in the ether or in the vocabulary back then: cyber theft, AI, 5G.

ASIA SOCIETY

79

‘ PA RT O F T H E “ C H I N A D R E A M ” I S T H AT C H I N A S H O U L D N O LO N G E R A P O LO G IZ E FO R W H O IT I S .’

OS: And don’t forget the South China Sea and Taiwan are heating up, and now Hong Kong and North Korea.

TN: Whatever the engagement policy was, to what extent does an utterly different agenda for the two countries change things? Or is that a red herring in this discussion?

OS: The thing about the Jiang Zemin era — their slogans were: “peaceful development,” “peaceful rise,” and “keep your head down and bide your time.” In other words, don’t do anything muscular. Don’t be thumping your chest. Don’t be going around the world making trouble and scaring people.

What changed with Xi Jinping was that he came in after the economic crisis of 2008 and `09. He came in not being a sophisticated cosmopolitan person: doesn’t speak any foreign language, never studied abroad, never had experience abroad. He’s very much a homegrown leader, right? I think he thought, “Aha. There’s American decline happening at the same time we’re rising!” He is having his “China Dream.” And what was that? The rejuvenation of China.

China’s new restoration as a great power with wealth and power at its disposal.

I think he was sort of deceived a bit by a combination of things into think-

80

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

ing, “Well, maybe the moment has come for China to stick its head up and not bide its time.”

There’s an expression in Chinese, the zhongguo fangan (中国方案), which means the “China option.” Xi possibly had begun to think, “Maybe China discovered the way to develop for itself and possibly even other countries?” It had done so well. So, there was a bit of overweening ambition, maybe arrogance about China’s possibility of being on the verge of becoming the ascendant power.

From there on we began to unravel the notion that we could converge; that collaboration, cooperation, and trade were a solvent for our differences.

We began to find the differences becoming more exaggerated and China less and less agreeable and willing to give a little and get a little, play by the existing rules of the trade system in the world order in order to develop and get ahead. That was the beginning, the first shot fired into the bow of engagement.

TN: OK. So Donald Trump comes to the same setting. November 2017. It’s been one year since his election and Xi Jinping at this point is about halfway through — assuming it’s going to be a 10 year tenure (and I guess it’s another conversation). But he’s five years in. And, I guess the point

you’re making here is that Donald Trump is coming not only to a totally different China in terms of its strength and its economic growth — they’re about to catch us — but also in terms of its confidence as a nation. To what extent does this change the dynamic?

OS: Part of the “China Dream” is that China should no longer apologize for who it is. Now it imagined that it had the resources and the military power to throw its weight around a little and it didn’t see any reason to be so accommodating to the global order as it existed because it didn’t feel it needed to. But the problem was that the U.S.-China relationship depended on a certain flexibility. It depended on this notion that somehow we were heading in the same direction — at least in certain ways — that reassured people that it was worthwhile keeping on trading and interacting. A nd I think one of the major catalytic elements in this change was the tensions created by China’s claims in the South China Sea. China under Hu Jintao and then under Xi Jinping, decided this is a “core interest,” or in Chinese, hexin liyi (核心利益). When it comes to “core interests,” the Party does not negotiate.

What are the “core interests”? Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang. Basically

‘ T R U M P ’ S A SS U M P TI O N WA S T H AT T H E U. S . H A D B E E N TA K E N .’

what core interest implies is: This is ours.

There will be no discussion.

TN: We can discuss other things.

OS: Yes. Other things, but not this “core issue.” So that just threw a giant wrench in the works because the South China Sea goes all the way down to Indonesia and China basically was declaring what was inside that so-called “ninedash line” as their own territory.

TN: Now, just to push back a little bit, Donald Trump didn’t come in November 2017 hollering, at least not publicly, about the South China Sea or about Taiwan or certainly not about Xinjiang.

OS: Well, he wanted to make a phone call to Taiwan.

TN: Correct. But fair to say that most of what Donald Trump came to talk about and fulminate about were these economic issues and to some extent tech issues. To play devil’s advocate here — why not come with the posture that “OK, China has advanced remarkably since Bill Clinton was here. China is on a par almost with the United States in terms of its economic place and stature on the globe. And we should come recognizing that. And it is fair for them to feel that they’re not to be pushed around anymore.”

OS: I think Trump’s assumption — which grew out of people like Steve Ban-

non, Peter Navarro, and Robert Lighthizer — was that the U.S. had been taken. The playing field wasn’t level, and the U.S. national interest was being violated repeatedly, whether it’s in trade or cybersecurity — you name it. The change had already begun under Obama with the so-called “pivot to Asia,” which was a recognition that things were out of balance and had to be put back in balance or the engagement policy that we’d been adopting for decades wouldn’t function.

So when Trump came in, he was really the first person to say, “Engagement is dysfunctional for American interests.”

TN: OK. Tons have changed as we’ve discussed in terms of the issues, but what about just the plain old summitry and atmospherics that November in Beijing?

OS: Well it was very claustrophobic.

There was very little meaningful exchange. One thing I will say to Trump’s credit was that even as he turned up the heat in terms of hostility toward China on trade and other things, he kept the relationship with Xi, the personal relationship, open. Trump kept saying “He’s my friend we get along fine. He’s great.”

But if you watch the two interact, you saw none of the élan and the excitement and actually the real pleasure that you could see with Clinton and Jiang Zemin,

or Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter or even Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon. It was very ritualistic with Xi. Very cool.

Frozen in a certain ceremonial aspic.

TN: These things matter, right? I mean going back to Soviet summits. My gosh, acres of newsprint were spent on those kind of atmospheric questions. And when you talk about the United States and China, these things matter, right?

OS: This is where leadership plays a key role and such things suggest the temper of a leader in terms of wanting to bond and work things out. It gives a reading of whether they can do it or not, or whether they ’re being pushed or played or obstructed or whatever. There was none of that in evidence beyond the ceremonial aspect when Trump met Xi. TN: Is it too simplistic then to look at Trump and Xi in 2017 and see on the one hand a Chinese leader who’s feeling strong, confident — OS: — but strength and confidence built on a profound sense of weakness, which is often the worst kind of confidence because it manifests itself as hubris; it’s not strength at all.

TN: And here is an American president who for the first time maybe in modern history is going to go full bore with the points made as a candidate

ASIA SOCIETY

81

Mao Zedong shakes hands with Richard Nixon during his historic 1972 trip to Beijing.

82

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

K E Y S T O N E P R E S S / TA N G O I M A G E S / A L A M Y

Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office during a nine-day state visit in 1979.

about attacking China on points X, Y, and Z. Do you have a misreading on both sides? It’s a recipe for something not great.

Which I guess is where we are now.

OS: I think there are tragic flaws on both sides. The tragic flaw on China’s side is the inability to recognize how much is at stake, that flexibility is at the heart of good diplomacy, and that national interest is often served by making compromises. The tragedy on Trump’s side is not that he’s misidentified Chinese intentions or the fact that the playing field was grossly out of level, unreciprocal, and needed fixing, it was that he hasn’t got a clue, once you challenge the existing order, about how to put the thing back together again. What do you do when you decide engagement doesn’t work? What’s your policy? You challenge them and then what?

TN: You’ve had a whole paper recently that argues for what I think you call “smart competition” between the two countries.

Not smart engagement, but smart competition. Our colleague Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia who runs our policy institute here, has spoken and written about what he calls the “avoidable war.” Those both in their own ways are roadmaps for some greater engagement. What’s the remedy here?

OS: I think here is where leadership is so important. When you have two countries that have such demonstrably different and contradictory political systems and value systems, if you don’t have good leadership — leaders who can say, “All right, we’ll cooperate here, we’ll compete here, but we will not go to war there” — then you have a very dire situation.

What I fear now is neither of our leaders are capable of putting the relationship back together in a new format which embraces China’s rise and the different systems and values, while keeping the peace in critical areas. This requires both sides to be flexible. But China, by declaring so many “core interests,” denies itself the flexibility to be able to make accommodations.

Finally, let me just say — and you know I’m a stern critic of my own country — over the last seven presidential administrations each U.S. president has bent over backwards to find some accommodation in very trying circumstances. Trump, not so much. But Trump’s virtue is he recognized the situation was unsustainable and out of balance.

TN: Hunting for some silver linings here, do you see any areas where at least some accommodations could be made that would at least lower the temperature a little bit?

OS: Well, antiterrorism was one area but unfortunately because of the Uighur situation in Xinjiang, and China’s posture toward Muslims, it has been very difficult to effect any kind of a partnership here. The antinuclear question with North Korea had some promise because China didn’t want to see a nuclear North Korea. But, even that has eroded.

I do think climate change is the biggest and most obvious challenge. It’s just that the U.S. doesn’t recognize it now. But China is missing an opportunity to play an even greater leadership

role in this area if it chose to do so. Short of that, I just do not see what the new Soviet Union is that could bring us together.

TN: I suppose on the climate point, not to prognosticate too much here on the American political front, but we could have a new leader of course and that climate thing could come back into play as some mortar for the bridge building of the U.S.-China relationship.

OS: It could, Tom, and I think we have to remember that we have been at impasses like this several times before. 1989 was one. 1979 was one. 1972 was another.

And we did manage to break through.

We’re in a situation now where the leaders seem to be losing the capacity to

find t hat ne w, para d ig m-shif t ing common ground, and that ’s what ’s so alarming. Engagement was an astounding policy because it lasted for so long and everybody bought into it in one way or another.

TN: Reaching here for one more stab at a silver lining. We’ve been looking at two summits 20 years apart. Let’s say we have a 2040 summit — a couple of leaders in the U.S. and China whose names we probably don’t know right now — what’s a headline on the good side of the ledger that you could see written that might make us or our children feel a little better.

OS: If we could avoid some problems in the South China Sea, Hong Kong, and

Taiwan, then we may be able to elide through this period of tension to a place where we would find some other cause to join forces.

If I were Trump and I were Xi Jinping, I think the only thing that’s left to do now is if each would appoint some trusted plenipotentiary to set up a very small team on each side to look at alternative scenarios on an emergency basis. Take two weeks, then get together for a week with the two teams and compare roadmaps, see if there’s anything we can agree on, any offramps to the collapse in the relationship.

Short of that I think the signs don’t leave me filled with much optimism.

ASIA SOCIETY

83

y b d e g r o F s e v i L e h T

In Afghanistan, an entire generation has been shaped by war. With the U.S. planning to depart, Afghans from a wide range of ages and professions reflect on how their country has changed since the October 2001 invasion.

84

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

’ r a W r e v t h e ‘ Fo r e

BY MATT SCHIAVENZA ILLUSTRATIONS BY SHREYA GUPTA ASIA SOCIETY

85

ON OCTOBER 7, 20 01,

just four weeks after the September 11 attacks, a U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan. The ostensible purpose of the invasion was to destroy Al Qaeda — the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11, which had found safe haven in the Central Asian country. But soon after Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government collapsed that December, the war assumed a new dimension: helping Afghanistan rebuild so that its government would never again incubate Islamic terror.

Eighteen years later, the war in Afghanistan continues.

In the United States, it is now colloquially referred to as the “forever war,” one that has confounded three successive presidential administrations. Since 2001, more than 2,300 Americans have died in a war that has, conservatively, cost the United States more than $900 billion. The total cost to Afghanistan has inarguably been greater: According to researchers at Brown University, more than 100,000 Afghan soldiers, police officers, and civilians have died as a direct result of the conflict since 2001.

Today, the Afghan government controls less than twothirds of the country’s territory, meaning that large swathes of the countryside remain in the hands of the Taliban or other groups, and the government is riven with graft. Attempts to negotiate a peace between the Taliban and Kabul have failed, most recently when U.S. President Donald Trump canceled talks at Camp David in September 2019

86

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

following a Taliban attack on U.S. soldiers. A recent Washington Post investigation based on over 2,000 pages of government documents reveal a portrait of failure: Afghanistan remains violent, unstable, and corrupt.

But while policymakers and military leaders alike struggle to find a resolution, Afghanistan itself has undergone staggering changes in the last 18 years.

Women, infamously barred from attending school under the Taliban, now occupy an increasingly visible role in Afghan society, business, and government. Widespread urbanization and modern technology have shrunk the once-formidable gaps between city-dwelling Afghans and those living in the remote countryside. And while corruption remains an enormous problem, Afghanistan is, in many ways, more democratic and free than many other countries in the region. One Afghan official said recently, “strange as it sounds, 9-11 was a great thing for us. It brought an end to the Taliban rule.” But the fear remains that a precipitous American withdrawal may erase these gains.

Since 2006, Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders initiative has brought together more than 900 rising leaders across a broad range of sectors and geographies who are working to build a better world. We spoke to several of the Afghan members of this network, and others about how life in the country has changed and where they see Afghanistan headed in the future.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE UNDER THE TALIBAN? Manizha Wafeq: There was nothing to do — we had to stay home all day, and only about once a month or every two weeks women would dare to go outside in order to buy things like yarn for knitting and embroidery. We could go and visit family, but that was it. Every time when we left home, we’d be afraid of being caught by a group of Taliban who would go around the city to see that women were covered up and accompanied by a family member.

Saad Mohseni: When you look back, the best term to describe the country was “zombie-like.” People were in a daze. The Taliban years were very traumatic, and the people who had remained in Kabul had suffered severely.

You could see it in their eyes. There were almost no feelings. People didn’t react to things. There was a certain numbness to people.

You have to understand: In those early years, you wouldn’t see a lot of young people. They were either hidden away or had moved out of the cities or to Pakistan or to Iran or maybe with relatives in the provinces. The country basically had nothing in terms of infrastructure and telecommunications. The civil war of the ’90s had destroyed the city, so there wasn’t much infrastructure; and at the same time, there wasn’t much hope.

Abdul Ghaffar Nazari: The city was quiet and there were far fewer people in the streets. The Taliban wore black or white turbans and had long beards. They walked the streets of the city holding machine guns. The city stunk.

Once, we saw a man who had been hanged remain untouched for days in order to frighten people.

The schools were only open for boys. No women worked except for doctors. In government offices, there were no chairs and tables — people sat on carpets, pillows, and blankets. Weddings were no longer any fun because there was no music. They were more like funerals. People were poor. Everyone struggled to eat three meals a day, and most were unable to manage.

Omaid Sharifi: I remember going to watch a football match one weekend at Kabul’s stadium and they would bring two people out and behead them in front of you.

There were thousands of men and children there at the stadium to watch the game, and the Taliban would behead people. Or they’d cut the hands off of people who’d steal.

There was also less entertainment. When you’re a kid, you want to play in the streets, play sports, listen to music, and watch TV. But none of these were available. Music was banned, nobody was allowed to watch TV or movies, and

even when we were playing sports, like football, during prayer times the Taliban soldiers would come and force everyone to go to the mosque. That was a glimpse of the life we had before 9/11.

Sadiq Amini: The Taliban treated themselves like the owners of the land as well as people’s lives. They used extreme violence to dictate a way of life to our people for whatever purposes they wanted.They were making a clear attempt to move Afghanistan toward backwardness, darkness, and primitivity. They were against technology, TV, radio — any sort of activity that could give you a glimpse of the future.

Maiwand Rahyab: I remember wearing turbans, not being able to shave my beard, not being able to watch TV, or listen to music, and not being able, most importantly, to express myself when I felt anger and disenchantment and frustration. I had no opportunity to take it out of myself.

AFGHANISTAN’S CHANGES Facts and Figures GDP 2002: $4.06 billion 2018: $19.36 billion LIFE EXPECTA NC Y 2000: 55.8 2017: 64.13

C02 EMISSIONS (metric tons per capita) 2000: 0.037 2014: 0.294 POPUL ATION 2000: 20.78 million 2018: 37.18 million

Source: Worl d Bank

HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED? Omaid Sharifi: Just think about me, a 12-year-old kid working on the streets of Kabul during the Taliban era. I’ve held exhibitions in Australia, the U.S., in Canada, and have traveled around the world with my Afghan passport. I’m an ordinary Afghan citizen without backing from the warlords, the government, or drug lords. I’m just an ordinary kid from Kabul. I’m able to travel and compete on a global level. I’m able to use opportunities with the fellowship I got through Asia Society. A lot of young Afghans have access to the internet, to education outside of Afghanistan, and conferences and events outside our border. They’re connected to the whole world and they’re contributing to the world, whether it’s through tackling climate change or conflict resolution.

ASIA SOCIETY

87

T O P : N I K O L A I I G N AT I E V / A L A M Y BOT TOM: MARK PEARSON / AL AMY

Above: A family rides a bicycle through the streets of Kabul in 2003. Below: Children play on an old Soviet ARC above Kabul in 2008.

88

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

Shaharzad Akhbar: People’s aspirations have grown vastly. They now aspire to a life that you’d consider normal in any part of the world, being able to send their children to school and having access to media. Afghans can now enjoy things like going to a concert or a cultural event. Even people who don’t have access to the same services still aspire to that life.

Sadiq Amini: First and foremost, we’re now free.

We can feel that we’re the owners of our own land and of our destiny. We live in dignity. We see opportunities to advance and we see hope for a better future.

Saad Mohseni: Afghanistan is now a well-connected country — 70 or 80 percent of the population has phones, most of them smartphones, and every house has access to television and radio. You have a new generation of Afghans who are accustomed to having their sisters go to school and their wives working and being totally connected. It’s a totally different mindset.

People ta l k ab out cor r upt ion in A fgha nista n, but despite that, there have been improvements in infrastructure with new roads and buildings. It’s a completely different country now. We may as well be in a different universe.

WHAT DO YOU THINK MIGHT HAPPEN IF THE U.S. MILITARY LEAVES AFGHANISTAN? Saad Mohseni: The question is about how the Americans go about doing it. A rushed, quickly negotiated settlement not taking into account the gains of the last 20-odd years will obviously be counterproductive and very dangerous for the country, and of course for the U.S. reputation and regional stability.

Sadiq Amini: Our forces have the will to continue providing security for our people, defending our motherland, our people, our sovereignty, and our freedom, but they’ll face real threats and dangers. And due to a lack of maturity in terms of institutions, leadership, and their dependency on skills, weapons, and leadership, there’s a real danger that our forces might be fractured or even divided along ethnic lines and then disintegrate.

That’s a threat I foresee in the absence of any American forces in Afghanistan.

Maiwand Rahyab: In terms of the capacity of our security forces to defend our country, they’ve come a long way.

Even without the presence of international forces, I think that our forces have developed more capacity and earned

the support and trust of the country to defend the country. But what worries me is if they’ll have the financial means to maintain that capacity.

Abdul Ghaffar Nazari: If the U.S. military leaves, Afghanistan will no longer be a priority. There will be less business investment. International NGOs will leave. The army will not have sufficient support in terms of finances, logistics, and equipment. The U.S. will no longer be engaged in our politics and economics. Youth will again leave the country, causing a brain drain. Billions of dollars of investment will flee the country.

DO YOU THINK THE TALIBAN MIGHT TAKE OVER? Maiwand Rahyab: There’s a new generation of young Afghans. People my age, who went through the Taliban era, remember how difficult, hard, frustrating, and inhumane it was. I think we appreciate what we’ve achieved in Afghanistan in the last 17 or 18 years. There’s been a gradual movement toward creating a shared common narrative of a post-Taliban Afghanistan, and I think this post-Taliban Afghanistan has its new culture, a new way of life, a new political system, a new socio-economic reality, and new values. Even people from the mujahideen have enjoyed a different life in the past 18 years, gaining economically, politically, and socially.

I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest in Afghanistan to regress into the past.

Sadiq Amini: In the 1990s, the only resistance the Taliban faced when they entered Kabul was the Northern Alliance, who retreated into a corner of the country to avoid bloodshed. The people of Kabul were so tired of the civil war and unaware of the Taliban’s true nature that they welcomed them with flowers. his time around, if they try to get into Kabul, the people will welcome them with bullets and bombs. If the Taliban try to regain power through violence, and if they succeed to some extent, then they must be assured that this time there will be resistance from all corners of the country by patriotic Afghan youth.

Abdul Ghaffar Nazari: Afghanistan is a changed country. It has its own constitutional law and government infrastructure. Human rights are practiced, democracy exists in places, and freedom of speech is respected. The Taliban, at least for now, are softer than before. They are willing to claim they have no issues working with women.

ASIA SOCIETY

89

HOW HAVE THINGS CHANGED FOR WOMEN? Shaharzad Akbar: Of course, there remains a lot of sexism and patriarchal structures. There’s also been a kind of openness that Afghanistan had not experienced before. You can look at photos from the past of women in miniskirts, but I think what we have now is greater in terms of the number of women having access to services like education and employment. And the fact is that a greater proportion of Afghans from different ethnic backgrounds, not just upper-class people from Kabul, have changed their views about women in society. You now have women in very remote parts of the country serving in the army and police, and you have women politicians. Something has clicked in the minds of many Afghans that maybe women can have more of a role in society.

Of course, not everyone agrees on what that looks like. It’s important to remember that these women are the first people in their generation to go to school. Some people’s daughters are becoming army officers and joining the football team. In terms of momentum in redefining women’s roles, in terms of trying to understand what we can do, there’s been a lot of progress. Today in Afghanistan, women teachers are normal. When my father was growing up, in a small village, people who sent their daughters to school were considered infidels.

ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT AFGHANISTAN’S FUTURE? Sadiq Amini: I can assure you with confidence that so much has been achieved in the last 18 years. There is so much hope and energy and there are so many bright young Afghans, men and women, from all over, who are dedicated to serving the country that it’s almost unbelievable sometimes. The older generation, when we discuss this with them, have never seen such a vibrant group of young men and women around the country before. We’re utilizing opportunities and we’re dealing with challenges.

There are so many of both.

Maiwand Rahyab: It’s a difficult question. It depends on the day you ask. There are things in Afghanistan that have happened in the last 20 years that have made me hopeful, including the fact that the youth would like to tie their future to Afghanistan’s fate and to remain there. The recent reforms and the way the government works, particularly in the past couple of years, and a vibrant civil society, give me hope. Our free and independent media, the most vibrant in the region, gives me hope. The high political maturity in different political groups in the country gives me hope. There’s a lot of signs and indications of hope in the country.

In the meantime, we’re a country so dependent on international support and assistance and so vulnerable to interference and influence from different countries. And given that U.S. politics are quite unpredictable these days, particularly in terms of foreign policy, it’s provided a high level of uncertainty as well. But I’m hopeful and optimistic.

Matt Schiavenza is the Assistant Director of Content at Asia Society.

90

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

Sadiq Amini, an e x per t in diplomac y and international security, is a Lecturer of International Relations at private universities in Kabul.

P r e v i ou sly, he wor ked a s the hea d o f the Communication and Public Relations Unit at the Comprehensive Agriculture and Rural Development Facility, jointly managed by the Agriculture and Rural Development ministries.

‘PEOPLE’S ASPIRATIONS HAVE GROWN VASTLY. THEY NOW ASPIRE TO A LIFE THAT YOU’D CONSIDER NORMAL IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD, LIKE BEING ABLE TO SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SCHOOL AND HAVING ACCESS TO MEDIA.’

Shaharzad Akbar is Chairperson for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Previously, she was senior Advisor to the National Program on Culture and Creative Economy with UNESCO Afghanistan. She has worked for years as an advocate for building a vibrant and tolerant society. In 2017, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.

In 2001, af ter the Taliban government was removed from power in Afghanistan, Saad Mohseni left Australia for Kabul. Together with his siblings, he launched Afghanistan’s first private radio station, Arman FM. In the years since, Mohseni has become the country’s first true media mogul, a history-making force who has transformed Afghanistan’s once-barren media landscape.

Abdul Ghaf far Nazari currently serves as Senior Advisor for Tetratech Justice Sector Support Program — Aghanistan, funded by the U.S. Department of State as well as the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. He has served in a variety of roles in business and civil society over the past thirteen years and has received numerous accolades in Afghanistan and beyond.

Maiwand Rahyab has devoted his career to strengthening civil society in Afghanistan. In the Taliban era, he ran home-based schools for girls, who were prohibited from leaving the house for edu­ cation. He has served as a prominent youth and civil society leader and as an election observer. He’s now the commissioner of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission.

Omaid Sharifi is the Curator and President at ArtLords, Wartists, and Rebel Group. ArtLords is a grassroots movement of artists and volunteers paving the way for social transformation by employing the soft power of art and culture as a non-intrusive approach. He is a Millennium Leadership Fellow with the Atlantic Council and an American Foreign Relations Council/Rumsfeld Fellow.

Manizha Wafeq is the President of Afghanistan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

She has 16 years of work experience for women’s empowerment and gender equality. She established gender units in the Ministries of Commerce and Economy and trained more than 500 government employees in gender concepts in Kabul and in the provinces.

ASIA SOCIETY

91

T H E GR A Y I N G O F A S I A

In Japan, and across much of Asia, an aging population is shaping up to be a personal challenge for millions — and a public health catastrophe.

BY DR. HANA HAYASHI

92

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

The author and her husband on their wedding day; with three of her four grandparents.

I have four grandparents, all over the age of 90. One suffers from dementia and is confined to a bed in the dining area of my mother’s home. Another shows early signs of dementia, on top of a different serious health condition, and we are currently looking for a local health facility to handle her extended care.

My other two grandparents are relatively healthy, but cannot live independently, and require daily support at home. Since we need to take care of the elderly on both sides of the family, my parents have lived separately for more than a decade, balancing their full-time careers with care for and support of their own parents.

I too — eight months pregnant — am part of my family’s social service labor force, working from my parents’ homes, helping out however and whenever I can. My husband assists, as well.

This is hardly sustainable, but the cycle shows no signs of stopping. At some point, my parents will be the ones who need constant care and support. And we will do our best to provide it for them because that is what families do in Japan.

We have no other choice. There is a public support system for this aging society, and we have been fully utilizing it. However, there are limits, and this is the reality of what we face as a family.

Japan is the fastest aging country in the world. In 2019, the percentage of people aged 65 and over reached 28.4, an all-time high. Low fertility rates coupled with aging means that by the 2030s, one in three people will be 65 or older; one in five will be older than 75. There are recognized milestones for measuring how much a society is aging. If the population of those aged 65 and over reaches 7 percent, it is called an “aging society,” at 14 percent, it becomes an “aged society,” and 21 percent is a “super-aged society.” It took Japan only 24 years for its aging rate to go from “aging” in 1970 to “aged.” (By comparison, it took the U.S. 73 years to reach the point where it became an “aged society,” in 2014.)

Although Japan is a harbinger of this super-aging society, other Asian countries are following a similar path. South Korea moved from an aging to aged society in 18 years, Singapore did so in 20 years, and China in 25 years — and all are aging still. For these countries in Asia, the response to accelerated aging is an urgent public health issue.

Although differences exist among nations, there are some fundamental shared reasons of this rapid aging, including low fertility rates and improved longevity.

Friends and colleagues sometimes ask me why my grandparents haven’t moved to nursing homes, reducing the tasks and burdens on my parents. Needless to say, we appreciate the Japanese healthcare and welfare services. However, in the rural area where we live there are fewer resources and facilities. Our approach is in part the result of the high demand for the available public resources (for instance, there are more than 30 people on the waitlist for a local nursing home).

Then, too, there are emotional barriers for these four elderly people, whose strong hesitation to utilize outside resources delayed a move. In this, we are hardly alone. According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, nearly 70 percent of the general public here prefer to spend their last days in their own homes, rather than at hospitals (approximately 19 percent) and nursing homes (around 1.5 percent). Of course, we all aim for our grandparents’ longevity. And I am truly grateful that there will soon be four generations living under one roof. However, I also have to admit that it is very challenging, and we often struggle. Already, one of my grandparents has begun expressing that she does not want to live anymore.

For the longest time, the ultimate goal of our public health system has been to make people live longer. Today, Japan has one of the highest lifespans in the world.

But are the associated health, social, labor, and fiscal difficulties really what we aimed for? This is the exact reason why I chose public health as my lifework. As a researcher and practitioner in social epidemiology and behavioral sciences, my mission is to create a healthier society by maximizing people’s lives physically, mentally, and spiritually. From both professional and personal standpoints, I cannot stop thinking about how we can achieve these goals — and also, whether they are really appropriate.

The Japanese government has promoted home care for the elderly. There are multiple reasons behind this, including the increase in the number of people who need elderly care, the rising rate of patients requiring further treatment for acute care needs, the general public’s preference for home-based care, and the reduction of hospital beds due to decreasing medical care costs, among others. These home care services help us right now, but huge concerns remain.

Even as we maximize government resources, home care can mostly exist based on family members’ sacrifices —

ASIA SOCIETY

93

physical, mental, and economic. The reality is that, for people with the most severe service needs, nearly 60 percent of caregivers spend all day providing support, according to a cabinet office report.

Emotional burden aside, there are clear economic impacts. Without enough workplace flexibility, caregivers increasingly find themselves forced to leave the workforce — as with my mother. In Japan, the number of people who quit their jobs due to caregiving doubled between 2010 to 2017, to 90,000 people. The economic loss of this turnover is estimated to be $60 million per year. While some companies approve of leaves of absence for family care, usually there is a limit.

As family members cannot estimate when these care needs will end, there needs to be more flexibility.

Health and care inequalities already exist — between the more affluent cities with extensive medical and social welfare resources and the rural rest of the country. While Japan has far lower levels of income inequality than many other industrialized countries like the United States, Canada, and the U.K., disparities still remain. In areas with scarce resources, the burden of care largely falls on each family’s shoulders. And while there is some financial support from government resources, additional costs need to be paid by caregivers. No doubt the quality of services received varies because of these inequalities.

Despite the promotion of home care, meanwhile, there are scant mental health or counseling resources for the caregivers themselves. In Japan, a care manager is assigned to arrange care and bridge with medical and social welfare facilities for each recipient of government support, but that is the extent of support services. Every day, family members experience a wide variety of difficult emotions — anger, frustration, sadness, loss, guilt, stress, disappointment, and hopelessness. Wit hout professional help, the caregivers can easily become burned out.

94

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

In 2007, the government started to keep statistics on homicide due to care burdens. It is estimated that a caregiver murders an elderly charge once every two weeks. This is a startling statistic in a society like Japan, which is characterized by very low levels of violence. Caregiver suicide has continued in spite of an overall decrease in the number of suicides, accounting for 230 out of approximately 22,000 cases per year.

Compounding the difficulties is that care systems still largely depend on a face-to-face and paper-based registration system. This is frustratingly inefficient. It can take half a day to obtain a single document from a hospital. Scheduling and document-related commitments add up, becoming a very time-consuming process for caregivers. All could be resolved by the use of an IT system.

‘Enabling people to simply live longer is not enough.’

The government has promoted and expanded regional comprehensive care for an aging society, changing healthcare policies and systems. But as a public health expert who studies such systems, I believe there is much more that Japan, as well as other Asian countries facing these difficulties, can do.

We need to explore how to successfully reduce caregivers’ burdens, as well as help the elderly learn to accept physical and cognitive declines. We should find where these challenges are coming from, and respond to them appropriately based on scientific evidence. For the purposes of collective learning, before and after new policies and programs are implemented, I strongly suggest that we collect data and analyze whether or not they were successful.

The consideration of inequalities in

elderly care is likewise necessary. These inequalities run the gamut far beyond economic or location, including communication inequalities (for instance, who is able to process complicated information), social support (if people have friends and family who provide physical and emotional aid), and social capital (such as whether or not a community has a trustworthy neighborhood). It is crucial to know where these inequalities exist and what their effects are on recipients and caregivers. We should minimize these inequalities, and aim for a society where people can end their lives with a guarantee of quality care.

Finally, we must redefine our public health goals. Enabling people to simply live longer is not enough. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” It’s time to expand this definition to one that properly incorporates the aging process when there is difficulty achieving this “complete” state. How do we do that? I do not have a complete answer yet. But to figure this out remains one of our region’s most urgent tasks.

A lthough there have been tough times, I must say that there are surely sweet moments as well — like my grandpa with dementia asking if I have enough money to buy food when I leave for work (as he thinks that I am still a high-school student). I sincerely want to do my best for each of my four grandparents, who have supported me my whole life. At the same time, as a public health expert, I must think about how we can make changes on a societal level before it is too late. This journey, with a soon-to-be-born son, will be continued over generations.

Dr. Hana Hayashi is the Asia Pacific Director at McCann Public Health, McCann Health, and also is an adjunct instructor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan. She is a member of Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders initiative.

WE DO NOT DREAM ALONE ASIA SOCIETY TRIENNIAL

NEW YORK CITY

JUNE 5 - AUGUST 8, 2020

The first initiative of its kind in the United States, the Asia Society Triennial is a multi-venue festival of art, ideas, and innovation across New York City that focuses on contemporary art from and about Asia and the diaspora.

More than 40 artists and collectives from 19 countries have been selected to participate in this historic event.

Learn more: AsiaSociety.org/Triennial

COURTESY OF ANNA FIFIELD

Riding the Pyongyang metro.

96

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

RT

H KO

Trips to Pyongyang tell one story; meetings with defectors, another.

BY ANNA FIFIELD

A

P GOING TO PYONGYANG as a journalist feels like being cast in a communist remake of The Truman Show. It feels like everyone is involved in an elaborate tableau designed to try to fool the visiting reporter.

The highly choreographed, deeply unrepresentative view of North Korea offered during these press trips has led some commentators to suggest that journalists shouldn’t go to North Korea.

But even after seven often-frustrating trips to Pyongyang over a decade, I still think there is a great deal to be learned from visiting the Potemkin capital.

North Korea’s continued existence is a mystery. Its leaders are a mystery. And then there’s the question that’s occupied my mind throughout eight years of reporting on the world’s most impenetrable state: What is life in North Korea really like?

R E

ING T C O IE

O

G

HER N T E

To answer this question about any other country, even an authoritarian country, a journalist would follow a familiar routine: Go there. Travel around and talk to as many people from as many walks of life as possible. Get a feel for the place. Interview analysts and experts. Read the statistics. Try to understand the full picture.

In North Korea, none of this is possible. Even if we get into the country — no mean feat, given that the regime sharply restricts access for journalists — we are not free to report. Regime minders are with reporters every minute of the day, deciding where we go, who we talk to, and what questions we can ask. Their job is to make sure we can’t do the very thing we’re there for: to see what life is really like in North Korea.

Right up until the publication of my book about Kim Jong Un, I was trying to get into North Korea. I still think there is value to

‘I’VE FOUND REPORTING FROM OUTSIDE TO Y IELD A FULLER PICTURE OF WH AT LIFE INSIDE IS R E A LLY L IK E .’

going and seeing how the country is and isn’t changing. That in itself can speak volumes.

Over the years, I’ve seen the transformation of Pyongyang from a dreary city with brutalist, Stalin-era architecture into a slightly less dreary city with some modern, Chinese-style architecture added in.

I’ve been to some of the restaurants and bars and sports centers that have sprung up in the Kim Jong Un era as the millennial dictator tries to convey a sense of progress. I’ve seen the emergence of traffic lights and traffic jams, the introduction of solar panels and cell phones. I’ve had tea with a North Korean oligarch and I’ve watched Kim Jong Un stand up and deliver an astonishingly confident speech to 3,000 generals and cadres.

Propaganda can be illuminating, however, and even Kim Jong Un’s regime can’t orchestrate everything.

One February, I visited the Red Cross Hospital in Pyongyang — the best hospital in the country (apart from the ones for the regime leaders). There was no electricity or heat and I was freezing despite my thick coat. The patients, meanwhile, were in pajamas. It was ludicrous to watch the surgeons brag about their top-of-the-line equipment while we could all see our breath.

And that, in itself, was telling. If this is the best hospital in the elite capital, what would an ordinary hospital in the countryside look like?

In 2012, just a few months into Kim Jong Un’s reign, Pyongyang announced it would be launching a satellite into orbit. The government invited dozens of journalists — who were all on hand to report to the outside world that it failed.

So there’s value in going. But I’ve long found reporting from outside the country to yield a much fuller picture of what life in North Korea is really like.

98

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

In interviews in northern China, just over the border from North Korea, escapees have told me about starving during the famine of the 1990s and being sold as brides. In Laos and Thailand, I spoke with North Koreans who were still making their escape, having fled the country mere weeks earlier.

These North Koreans have told me how teachers don’t show up to school or doctors to hospitals because they’re too busy making money in the nascent market economy. They’ve told me about the corruption that has pervaded every aspect of daily life.

In South Korea, home to more than 30,000 escapees from the North, refugees have told me about drug use so endemic that police chiefs take their bribes in the form of methamphetamine.

They’ve talked about the moment they learned Kim Jong Un would be taking over — “I thought it was a joke,” one said.

This is not the North Korea a journalist learns about on a reporting trip to Pyongyang.

Trying to find answers about North Korea has become increasingly important as the Kim regime engages more — sometimes for better, usually for worse — with the outside world. What these trips inside and discussions outside have made clear is that nuclear-armed Kim Jong Un still feels strong, and the 25 million people of North Korea remain in constant fear.

In spite of all the questions remaining, the puzzle I’ve pieced together from both inside and outside the country has left me with one clear impression: The North Korean regime is not showing any signs of cracks.

Anna Fif ield is the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post and the author of The Great Su ccessor: The Div inely Per fec t Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un. She is a member of A sia Soc iet y’s A sia 21 Young Leaders init iat ive.

FIND OUT WHAT EVERYONE IS LISTENING TO. Asia In-Depth, a new podcast from Asia Society.

Bringing you conversations with the world’s leading experts and thought-leaders on the politics, economics, and culture of Asia — and beyond.

Subscribe today!

Learn more: AsiaSociety.org/Podcast

Asia 21 \ ˈā-zhə twen-tē-ˈwən \ n.

1 . an unparalleled global network of Asia-Pacific influencers

under the age of 40; 2 . a highly collaborative group of young leaders, from all walks of life, who are changing the world

For more on how Asia 21 is defining the future visit AsiaSociety.org/Asia21

T HE FACE OF C OA L

A MINER-TURNED-PHOTOGRAPHER REFLECTS ON LIFE IN CHINA’S COAL COUNTRY.

IN CHINA Left: Miners Group 001.

Below: Middle-school teacher Xianwen Shi poses near the coal mines of Shandong with one of his students.

PHO T OS A ND TEX T BY SONG CH AO

From left: Miners Group 003; A lake formed by the subsidence of the surface above a former coal mine; Postman Lao Gu.

EVER SINCE I WAS A CHILD, I called a coal mine home. It was in southwestern Shandong Province, which sits on the Yellow Sea in eastern China. Beijing was 370 miles to the north. Shanghai was 560 miles to the south. The coal-mining community where I lived with my uncle had a population of just 20,000.

The mine had been around since ing. But on my days off, I often 1986, and in addition to the miners, took portraits of my workmates and there were people from all walks their families. Later, I began to of life. My uncle was an art teacher explore the lives of mining families at the local middle school. Thanks and also those who lived in mining to his influence, I had a strong inter- areas but were engaged in different est in art and photography from work. I also began to photograph the a young age. “s u b s i d e n c e l a ke s ” f o r m e d b y After graduating from high school the land destruction coal mining in the mid-1990s, I was lucky to be leaves behind. able to get a job in the local coal I hope that my photography mine. For many young people at that presents miners and coal mines — time, being a miner was a desirable and those who depend on them — career, because — although mining from a different perspective than was very hard — the salary for this what you normally see. The portraits back-breaking work was relatively of the miners here were taken 18 high. On days that I worked, I had years ago. Most of them were my little time or energy for anything workmates or my former classmates. other than mining, eating, and sleep- At that time, most of them were over

102

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

30 years old. Now, they have reached retirement age. As for the younger miners, some are still in the local area, while others have gone further inland, to the coal mines in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Guizhou, and elsewhere. Some of them have been promoted. A small number have changed careers.

In China, Shandong remains a relatively important area for coal production.

As China has developed rapidly over the past several decades, it has done so on the back of the coal industry and the workers who spend their days, and risk their lives, toiling in the mines. But, as we all know, coal is a nonrenewable resource and people across China have grown worried about the potential ecological impact of our reliance on it.

It is undeniable that miners are a vulnerable group. They are engaged in difficult, sometimes life-threatening, physical labor, in an extremely challenging underground environment.

They have made positive contributions to economic development and social progress. Unfortunately, the miners don’t get much attention or respect from the larger society.

I live in Beijing now, but I go back to the coal mine every year because my family and many friends still live there. As a miner and a cameraman, I hope that this kind of photography can change perceptions. I hope it shows that the Chinese miner is not a cold, coal-mining machine — there are rich and delicate emotions and

u niq u e ch a ra c te rs b e n e ath each rough appearance.

The miners bring brightness and warmth to societ y. They deser ve our respect.

Song Chao’s portraits were featured in COAL + ICE, a documentary photography exhibition and climate festival held in San Francisco in September 2018, following several smaller shows in China and Paris.

Organized by Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and co-curated by Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas and exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries, the project explored climate change — from the miners who risk their lives to extract that most fundamental of fossil fuels, to the melting Himalayan glaciers.

ASIA SOCIETY

103

104

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

From left: Xinglun Hu, Guanglan Yang, Yonglun Yao, and Guangwei Liang. All four men have spent most of their adult lives working in the mines of Shandong.

ASIA SOCIETY

105

From left: Drummer Peng Ding; Miner Jinping Chen; Miner Weibin Hu

ASIA SOCIETY

107

Miners Group 012. These miner portraits were all taken in 2002, and all were colleagues of Song Chao.

“I spent more time with my co-workers than with my family in the six years there as a miner. When I closed my eyes, their images would naturally appear in front of me, together with their personality, ideas, and the way they usually behave themselves,” Chao noted. “My co-workers’ sincerity and the strength that the pictures reflect have offered a wonderful start and guidance for my portrait creation.”

C H I N A S P U T M A N D T S I A M E R B A T T L E A I S U P R E

110

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

S N O H N I

I M E O C F

K E N T

A N O R

M A C Y

For decades, the United States has dominated research in artificial intelligence. But China is catching up — quickly. AI has been part of China’s national strategy for years, with the government providing billions of dollars for research funding. This rivalry between the world’s two largest economies is the subject of the book AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee, an entrepreneur and world-renowned expert in the field, who teases out the implica-

THE CHINESE TEENAG ER with the square-rimmed glasses seemed an unlikely hero to make humanity’s last stand. Dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie, Ke Jie slumped in his seat, rubbing his temples and puzzling over the problem in front of him. Normally filled with a confidence that bordered on cockiness, the 19-year-old squirmed in his leather chair. Change the venue and he could be just another prep-school kid agonizing over an insurmountable geometry proof.

But on this May afternoon in 2017, he was locked in an all-out struggle against one of the world’s most intelligent machines, AlphaGo, a powerhouse of artificial intelligence backed by arguably the world’s top technology company: Google. The battlefield was a 19-by-19 lined board populated by little black and white stones — the raw materials of the deceptively complex game of Go. During gameplay, two players alternate placing stones on the board, attempting to encircle the opponent’s stones. No human on Earth could do this better than Ke Jie, but today he was pitted against a Go player on a level that no one had ever seen before.

Believed to have been invented more than 2,500 years ago, Go’s history extends further into the past than any board game still played today. In ancient China, Go represented one of the four art forms any Chinese scholar was

tions — both positive and worrisome — of AI in politics, economics, and the U.S.-China relationship.

In this excerpt, Lee explains how a highly-publicized match of the ancient game Go between a teenaged Chinese prodigy and the Google-built AlphaGo became China’s “Sputnik moment”: the incident that catalyzed Beijing’s feverish rush to match American capabilities in AI.

expected to master. The game was believed to imbue its players with a Zen-like intellectual refinement and wisdom.

Where games like Western chess were crudely tactical, the game of Go is based on patient positioning and slow encirclement, which made it into an art form, a state of mind.

The depth of Go’s history is matched by the complexity of the game itself. The basic rules of gameplay can be laid out in just nine sentences, but the number of possible positions on a Go board exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe. The complexity of the decision tree had turned defeating the world champion of Go into a kind of Mount Everest for the artificial intelligence community — a problem whose sheer size had rebuffed every attempt to conquer it. The poetically inclined said it couldn’t be done because machines lacked the human element, an almost mystical feel for the game. The engineers simply thought the board offered too many possibilities for a computer to evaluate.

But on this day AlphaGo wasn’t just beating Ke Jie — it was systematically dismantling him. Over the course of three marathon matches of more than three hours each, Ke had thrown everything he had at the computer program.

He tested it with different approaches: conservative, aggressive, defensive, and unpredictable. Nothing seemed to work. AlphaGo gave Ke no openings. Instead, it slowly tightened its vise around him.

ASIA SOCIETY

111

The View From Beijing What you saw in this match depended on where you watched it from. To some observers in the United States, AlphaGo’s victories signaled not just the triumph of machine over man but also of Western technology companies over the rest of the world. The previous two decades had seen Silicon Valley companies conquer world technology markets. Companies like Facebook and Google had become the go-to internet platforms for socializing and searching. In the process, they had steamrolled local startups in countries from France to Indonesia. These internet juggernauts had given the United States a dominance of the digital world that matched its military and economic power in the real world. With AlphaGo — a product of the British AI startup DeepMind, which had been acquired by Google in 2014 — the West appeared poised to continue that dominance into the age of artificial intelligence.

But looking out my office window during the Ke Jie match, I saw something far different. The headquarters of my venture-capital fund is located in Beijing’s Zhongguancun (pronounced “jong-gwan-soon”) neighborhood, an area often referred to as “the Silicon Valley of China.”

Today, Zhongguancun is the beating heart of China’s AI movement. To people here, AlphaGo’s victories were both a challenge and an inspiration. They turned into China’s “Sputnik Moment” for artificial intelligence.

To understand why, we must first grasp the basics of the technology and how it is set to transform our world. When the Soviet Union launched the first human-made satellite into orbit in October 1957, it had an instant and profound effect on the American psyche and government policy. The event sparked widespread U.S. public anxiety about perceived Soviet technological superiority, with Americans following the satellite across the night sky and tuning in to Sputnik’s radio transmissions. It triggered the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), fueled major government subsidies for math and science education, and effectively launched the “Space Race.” That nationwide American mobilization bore fruit 12 years later when Neil Armstrong became the first person ever to set foot on the moon.

AlphaGo scored its first high-profile victory in March 2016 during a five-game series against the legendary Korean player Lee Sedol, winning four to one. While barely noticed by most Americans, the five games drew more than 280 million Chinese viewers. Overnight, China

112

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

plunged into an artificial intelligence fever. The buzz didn’t quite rival America’s reaction to Sputnik, but it lit a fire under the Chinese technology community that has been burning ever since.

When Chinese investors, entrepreneurs, and government officials all focus in on one industry, they can truly shake the world. Indeed, China is ramping up AI investment, research, and entrepreneurship on a historic scale.

Money for AI startups is pouring in from venture capitalists, tech juggernauts, and the Chinese government.

Chinese students have caught AI fever as well, enrolling in advanced degree programs and streaming lectures from international researchers on their smartphones. Startup founders are furiously pivoting, re-engineering, or simply rebranding their companies to catch the AI wave.

And less than two months after Ke Jie resigned his last game to AlphaGo, the Chinese central government issued an ambitious plan to build artificial intelligence capabilities. It called for greater funding, policy support, and national coordination for AI development. It set clear benchmarks for progress by 2020 and 2025, and it projected that by 2030 China would become the center of global innovation in artificial intelligence, leading in theory, technology, and application. By 2017, Chinese venture-capital investors had already responded to that call, pouring record sums into artificial intelligence startups and making up 48 percent of all AI venture funding globally, surpassing the United States for the first time.

A Game and a Game Changer Underlying that surge in Chinese government support is a new paradigm in the relationship between artificial intelligence and the economy. While the science of artificial intelligence made slow but steady progress for decades, only recently did progress rapidly accelerate, allowing these academic achievements to be translated into real-world use-cases.

The technical challenges of beating a human at the game of Go were already familiar to me. As a young Ph.D. student researching artificial intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University, I studied under pioneering AI researcher Raj Reddy. In 1986, I created the first software program to defeat a member of the world championship team for the game Othello, a simplified version of Go played on an eight-by-eight square board. It was quite an accomplishment at the time,

but the technolog y behind it wasn’t ready to tackle anything but straightforward board games.

Deep Blue had essentially “brute forced” its way to victory — relying largely on hardware customized to rapidly generate and evaluate positions from each move. It had also required real-life chess champions to add guiding heuristics to the software. Yes, the win was an impressive feat of engineering, but it was based on long-established technology that worked only on very constrained sets of issues.

Remove Deep Blue from the geometric simplicity of an eight-by-eight square chess board and it wouldn’t seem very But in that same match, I also saw a reason for hope. intelligent at all. In the end, the only job it was threatening Two hours and 51 minutes into the match, Ke Jie had hit a to take was that of the world chess champion. wall. He’d given all that he could to this game, but he knew This time, things are different. The Ke Jie versus it wasn’t going to be enough. Hunched low over the board, AlphaGo match was played within the constraints of a Go his eyebrow began to twitch as he pursed his lips. Realizboard, but it is intimately tied up ing he couldn’t hold his emowith dramatic changes in the tions in any longer, he removed real world. Those changes inhis glasses and used the back of clude the Chinese AI frenzy that his hand to wipe tears from both ‘I believe that the skillful AlphaGo’s matches sparked amid of his eyes. It happened in a the underlying technology that flash, but the emotion behind it application of AI will be powered it to victory. was visible for all to see.

AlphaGo runs on deep learnThose tears triggered an outChina’s greatest opportunity pouring of sympathy and suping, a groundbreaking approach to artificial intelligence that has port for Ke. Over the course of to catch up with — and possi- these three matches, Ke had turbocharged the cognitive capabilities of machines. Deep-learngone on a rollercoaster of hubly surpass — the U.S.’ ing-based programs can now do man emotion: confidence, anxia better job than humans at idenety, fear, hope, and heartbreak. tifying faces, recognizing speech, It had showcased his competiand issuing loans. For decades, the artificial intelligence tive spirit, but I saw in those games an act of genuine love: revolution always looked to be five years away. But with the a willingness to tangle with an unbeatable opponent out of development of deep learning over the past few years, that pure love for the game, its history, and the people who play revolution has finally arrived. It will usher in an era of mas- it. Those people who watched Ke’s frustration responded sive productivity increases but also widespread disruptions in kind. AlphaGo may have been the winner, but Ke bein labor markets — and profound sociopsychological came the people’s champion. In that connection — human effects on people — as artificial intelligence takes over beings giving and receiving love — I caught a glimpse of human jobs across all sorts of industries. how humans will find work and meaning in the age of arDuring the Ke Jie match, it wasn’t the AI-driven killer tificial intelligence. robots some prominent technologists warn of that frightI believe that the skillful application of AI will be China’s ened me. It was the real-world demons that could be con- greatest opportunity to catch up with — and possibly surjured up by mass unemployment and the resulting social pass — the United States. But more importantly, this shift turmoil. The threat to jobs is coming far faster than most will create an opportunity for all people to rediscover what experts anticipated, and it will not discriminate by the col- it is that makes us human. or of one’s collar, instead striking the highly trained and poorly educated alike. On the day of that remarkable match Excerpted from AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee. Copyright © 2018 between AlphaGo and Ke Jie, deep learning was dethroning b y Ho u ght o n Mi f f li n . A l l r i ght s r e s e r v e d . No p a r t o f t hi s humankind’s best Go player. That same job-eating technol- e x c e r pt ma yb e r e pr o du c ed or r e pr int ed w ithout p e r mi s s i on ogy is coming soon to a factory and an office near you. in writing from the publisher.

The Ghost in the Go Machine

ASIA SOCIETY

113

LETTER

FROM

K ASHMIR:

A journalist peers inside Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

BET WEEN

BY A NA M Z A K A R I A PHO T OGR A PHS BY A MIRUDDIN MUGH A L

THE GREAT

DIVIDE

Opening pages: Azad Kashmir on the right and Indian-administered Kashmir on the left, with the Neelum river acting as a natural border between the two regions.

FOR

DECA DES,

the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir has sat at the heart of the struggle between Pakistan and India.

Cleaved during the 1947 partition of the two nations, the western portion of Jammu and Kashmir is an Indian state and the eastern portion is administered by Pakistan. While much has been written about the Indian side, far less is known about Azad Kashmir, as the Pakistani side is often referred to. In Between the Great Divide, Pakistani journalist and member of the Asia 21 Young Leaders iniative Anam Zakaria traveled across Azad Kashmir, exploring the untold stories of those caught in the middle of one of the world’s longest ongoing conflicts.

That great divide came into especially sharp relief in 2019, after New Delhi revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir — a constitutional guarantee that provided the state with a nominal level of autonomy. With political arrests, curfews, and a steep curb on communications, the region has plunged further into uncertainty, and tension between neighboring Pakistan and India has spiked once again.

In this lightly edited excerpt, Zakaria describes traveling with her husband, Haroon, and Kashmiri friend, Sharjeel, to visit Manakpayan Refugee Camp in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir. Located just past the Line of Control (LoC) dividing the Indian and Pakistani sides, the camp is just one of two dozen — housing tens of thousands of refugees in total.

Today, thousands of refugees live in camps set up by the Pakistani government in cities like Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Kotli, and Mirpur in Azad Kashmir. They are issued Pakistani identity cards, like all other Kashmiri citizens, and are given Rs 1,500 ($9.70) per person per month by the Azad Kashmir government to survive on. (The government has since increased the allowance to Rs 2,000.) “The government also provides land for the 24 refugee camps that it operates, housing 22,773 people. The rest live in various areas and cities across AJK,” noted a report in Al Jazeera. Electricity, gas, and tuition fees are also subsidized for them.

116

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

In some ways, the refugees are culturally and linguistically different from those who belong to Azad Kashmir.

While several of the refugees also speak Pahaari and Gojari, which makes it easy to converse with the locals (many of whom speak Pahaari and Pahaari-Pothwari as well as Gojari), others only speak Koshur (commonly referred to as Kashmiri). Since Koshur is only spoken by a minority in Azad Kashmir, it can be problematic for some of the refugees to fit in. Moreover, politically too, the refugees stand out. Many of them are secular nationalists, opposing Kashmir’s unification with Pakistan. They stand for an independent Kashmir. A lot of locals, however, at least on record, state that they would like to side with Pakistan. According to Human Rights Watch, the establishment identifies and discriminates against anyone who is perceived as a nationalist, and therefore anti-Pakistan. Re-

Left: The district of Kotli faces cross-LoC firing despite a 2003 ceasefire agreement in place between India and Pakistan.

Above: Refugees from Indian-administered Kashmir soak in the sun in makeshift camps at Muzaffarabad.

portedly, refugees have been picked up for interrogations, arbitrarily arrested and beaten up because of these nationalist sentiments. The report also mentions that “though torture is not commonplace (in Azad Kashmir), it is threatened often,” and when carried out, enjoys impunity.

As we wait for the chairlift to make its way to our side, Haroon points towards our right and says, “Srinagar [the capital of the Indian side] is right in front of us. This road would take us there directly.” “Yes it would,” Sharjeel chips in. “In fact, the point at which we are standing is where the bus connects people from both sides of the LoC. Azad Kashmiris sit on the bus that goes from here to the border village of Chakothi (approximately 32 miles from Muzaffarabad). It serves as the check-post for the India-Pakistan bus service.

Then they cross over by foot to Indian-administered Kashmir to meet family and relatives they have been separated from.

Similarly, Kashmiris from that side walk over to Chakothi after acquiring the required permit and the bus brings them to this part of Muzaffarabad. Trade trucks between both sides also come here, right where we are standing.”

This bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar was launched in 2005. It was seen to be an instrumental step in bridging the physical and political divide between the two sides. Yet I am told it is not easy for everyone to get on the bus. One must have a “real enough” reason to want to visit the other side. Countless forms have to be filled at one end and verified at the other. Additional documents and proof of family across the LoC is often required. For most Kashmiris like Sharjeel, the bus remains just a dream. I am told that the refugees who came during the 1990s are also unable to use the bus service, despite the fact that almost all of them belong to divided families. Many of them

ASIA SOCIETY

117

‘PERHAPS THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE IS A REFUGEE NOT FOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS OR A H A N D F U L O F Y E A R S B U T F O R D E C A D E S T O C O M E .’

have the militant label associated with them, and even those who don’t would be unable to travel across without being arrested and interrogated first to explain why they had left and whether they were associated with militancy in any way. This is the case despite a rehabilitation policy initiated by the Indian state in 2010, which encourages militants who went across the LoC for training to return to their homes in Indian-administered Kashmir.

AS THE CHAIRLIFT arrives, I notice that it is hanging by a thin cable, the wind rocking it left and right over the flowing Jhelum. My excitement of sitting in it fizzles out. I am scared to step inside, a fear only made worse when a fourth man, a policeman from the area, joins us. He also needs to get across. Haroon enters first and I am about to follow him when Sharjeel asks us to switch sides. He explains that the wind is very strong and it is better if I sit on the right side, which is covered. The left side has no protection. He thinks Haroon will be safer there than I would. I listen to him and move over, trying not to let my apprehension show as we dangle about 20 feet above the Jhelum. I know Haroon is concerned too, for he is much more scared of heights than I am, and I begin to deliberate whether the small chairlift can carry the weight of all four of us. And as I fret, I wonder whether little children who must use the same chairlift to get out of the camp would be safe in it if four of us adults were at risk. Fortunately, the ride lasts less than a minute and before I can worry any more, we are already on the other side of the river, at the foot of the mountains that host hundreds of refugees.

Sharjeel pays 10 rupees to two young boys taking care of the chairlift. “This is the camp,” he says, pointing towards a maze of makeshift shelters, and I try to take it all in. These are mostly small shacks, some made of mud, some with corrugated iron, and others with brick. Clothes are drying on thin wires or on tree branches outside. Graffiti marks the concrete, with names like Mughal House and Arshad’s Home. Young boys stand outside, playing with sticks and stones, and pause when they see us, staring for a while be-

118

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

fore going back to their game. I have only ever seen photographs of refugee camps set up at the time of Partition in cities like Lahore, or the refugee camps set up by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. From those snapshots, I had always imagined refugees to reside in big tents but the camp we stand at seems to resemble more of the cramped settlements the Kashmiri journalist Rahul Pandita writes about. They spread over miles of mountainous land. Perhaps that is what happens when one is a refugee not for a couple of months or a handful of years — but for decades to come.

Excerpted from Between the Great Divide by Anam Zakaria.

Copyright © 2018 by HarperCollins India. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Clockwise from top: Splinters from a mortar shell in Kotli; A refugee gets out of the chairlift at the Manakpayan camp in Muzaffarabad; Children join a protest against the pellet wounds inflicted on Kashmiris in Indian-administered Kashmir.

ASIA SOCIETY

119

A SI A 2040 The next two decades will bring staggering global shifts. A changing climate will lead to more human migration than ever, while new and persistent conf licts will continue to cause the displacement of millions. Humanitarian crises are all but assured. Meanwhile, vast improvements in healthcare and science are leading to massive demographic shifts — infant mortality is plummeting in the poorest nations, life spans are lengthening in the wealthiest. But the side effects of gender selection and a rapidly aging population will hit many nations hard. Technology may prove our saving grace, or it may prove our downfall. We reached out to ambassadors and political leaders, CEOs and scholars, writers and artists to ask what the year 2040 will bring. Their answers were hopeful, horrifying, scientific, philosophical, grand, and delicate. Explore them below.

Illustrations by Yifan Wu

120

DURREEN SHAHNAZ

WEIJIAN SHAN

Founder, Impact Investment Exchange; 2016 Asia Game Changer

Chairman and CEO, PAG Group

By 2040, Asia will be one of the leaders in women’s empowerment and climate action.

This will occur in part, by transforming our financial systems. For Asia to reach this pinnacle of equitable leadership, we all need to have the courage to radically push for system-wide change, embrace risk, and build a financial market that truly works for everyone.

Cancer will become curable and aging will be slowed. Use of clean energy will be greater than fossil fuels. China will have a larger middle-class population than the U.S.

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

VISHAKHA N. DESAI

LAN YAN

YURIKO KOIKE

Senior Research Scholar, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; President Emeritus, Asia Society

Chairman and CEO, Lazard Greater China

Governor of Tokyo; 2019 Asia Game Changer

One of the biggest challenges for China in 2040 is that China will become old before it becomes rich. The aging problem will have a huge impact on its social security system and on its economic growth model.

I am convinced that for Asia in general, and Tokyo in particular, the vision we must pursue is not just an extension of our efforts to date. We must have the courage to take risks, to pursue new ideas, to move beyond our prejudices and perceived historic constraints.

Asia’s future will be bright only if Asian leaders work to unlock and inspire Asia’s vast human aspirations. The temptation to constrain and control citizens and their dreams must be resisted. Finally, I trust that by 2040 the Japanese word for longevity, chōju, will be understood and admired across Asia and the world.

By 2040, Japan’s average life expectancy might very well exceed 100 years old.

By 2040, India will have close to 1.5 billion people living on a landmass onethird the size of China. A large majority of the new population will consist of young men; one-third of the country’s population will be under the age of 18.

Imagine these young men, living in increasingly urban environments, hunting for millions of nearly non-existent jobs every year. Some 40 million of them will be “surplus males” who can’t find brides. The Indian preference for male children already is resulting in selective abortions of female fetuses, giving India (along with China) one of the most skewed ratios of male-to-female children. Add to this phenomenon

densely populated urban centers that

WU XINBO Director, the Center for American Studies; Dean, the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University; ASPI Council

suffer from drastic effects of environ-

Over the next 20 years, Asia will emerge

mental degradation sends chills down

as the largest economy in the world. It

of single males the presence of social media saturated with sexually explicit images. The idea of underemployed, sexually-charged young men, roaming

my spine. It makes me worried sick for my grandnieces who are growing up as strong-willed young girls in India today.

will also become a champion in technology, business, and fashion, among other sectors. But Asia will have yet to overcome tough geopolitical challenges and

YORIKO KAWAGUCHI Former Foreign Minister and Environment Minister of Japan; Distinguished Fellow, ASPI Asia in 2040 will be multipolar. India will emerge as a leader alongside China and the U.S. — which will remain an imperative economic partner to the region. Japan will also remain a leader.

Regional challenges in maintaining peace and the liberal economic order, improving regional and individual countries’ income distribution, and establishing a workable regional governance system will also have to be addressed.

forge effective regional cooperation.

THANT MYINT-U Founder and Chairman, Yangon Heritage Trust; Former Special Adviser to the Myanmar Government By 2040, Asia will be a far smaller and far more unwieldy place, with civilizations and peoples pressed up against one another as never before. Many areas will be grappling with catastrophic climate change as well as the myriad new forces unleashed by technological innovation. To prepare for this testing world to come, perhaps what’s as important as anything else will be to teach kids history — global and interconnected histories, including those of far away places — in critical and creative ways. We must introduce them to different perspectives in order to counter narrow nationalist narratives and, more than anything else, to develop empathy for strangers. It’s the essential building block for the kind of cooperation that will be necessary for Asia to survive and prosper.

ASIA SOCIETY

121

INDRA NOOYI

IAN BREMMER

Former CEO, PepsiCo; Asia Society Trustee; 2018 Asia Game Changer

President and Founder, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media; Harold J. Newman Distinguished Fellow, ASPI

I see both the opportunity and challenge of recognizing that women have hopes and dreams beyond wanting a family. It’s a shame not to tap the potential of these incredible people in the work world, and to address that they need support at home. We will see more intergenerational househ olds e m e rg e, with co m m unities redesigned to have old and young helping each other out. The extended family will play a bigger role in letting new families prosper.

NICHOLAS PLATT Former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Philippines, Zambia; President Emeritus, Asia Society Climate change will become the primary issue threatening — as well as uniting — the U.S. with the countries of Asia.

Long recognized by U.S. Navy analysts as the major national security threat to the millions living at sea level, the realities of flooding, relocation, and forced migration will have become the top priority for policy makers in the U.S., China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Though controlled by no one, climate change will be recognized as the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, unless checked by massive cooperation between the nations. China will become the biggest economy, but will not replace the U.S. as most influential power. Pervasive Communist Party controls are antithetical to the self-generated innovation and technical advance needed to avoid the middle-income trap. China will need help from abroad to deal with its growing shortages: clean water and air, fewer but older people. The U.S., creator of great past messes, will clean up the current one.

122

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

In 20 years, a wide range of Asian countries will come to be dominated both by China’s economy and its technology — to the point that hedging against China will no longer be an option. That’s good news for China, which will use its hub-and-spoke system of influence abroad to raise a new “Beijing Consensus” that is heavy on the “Beijing” and short on the “consensus.” Beijing will be the one setting trade standards and frameworks for people-to-people connections, ensuring that everyone in its orbit is aligned with Chinese economic and tech priorities. Put another way, the “internet of things” 20 years from now will both connect and divide, and that will be felt most acutely in the Asian nations that will fall within China’s data space.

LULU C. WANG Founder and CEO, Tupelo Capital Management; Asia Society Trustee There is so much negativity these days. I will propose a rosier future, especially in Asia. This past decade has been marked by tragic flows of immigrants — unwelcome at almost all points of entry. I would envision that in 20 years, as population growth stagnates in most countries, demand for those who can manage and innovate in low-resource, high-tech industries will soar. Rather than facing barred doors, workers will be wooed, even across borders. This gifted worker class will restore faith in capitalism and globalism — two concepts that have fallen into disrepute in recent years. This competition for talented labor will transcend gender as well as political biases.

HASSAN ABBAS Professor of International Security Studies, National Defense University; Bernard Schwartz Fellow, Asia Society, 2010 Asia will be thriving economically in 2040 after a sustained pattern of growth and development. Overall, two challenges will become acute over time: climate change effects and political instability in states experiencing authoritarian regimes. Resistance to injustice will be stronger and better organized. Some of the most violent conflicts in Asia, such as the India-Pakistan confrontation over Kashmir, the Saudi-Iran proxy wars, and the violent trends in Afghanistan will be less intense after various attempts at peace settlements that will, hopefully, be maturing by 2040.

WINSTON LORD

SAAD MOHSENI

Former U.S. Ambassador to China; Former President, Council on Foreign Relations

CEO, MOBY Group; 2014 Asia Game Changer

Twenty years from now the Communist Party will not be ruling China. For decades the Party has defied history and its edict that man (and woman) does not live by bread (or rice) alone.

It has used economic progress, nationalism, and fierce repression to maintain power. By 2040, universal human impulses for freedom, economic imperatives, political accountability, and an interdependent world will combine to transform the Chinese landscape.

The biggest challenges facing countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan will be unemployment and resource scarcity, namely water. As populations of both countries increase dramatically (Afghanistan’s is set to increase threefold while Pakistan’s is expected to double) both nations will struggle to meet their citizens’ expectations.

With Af-Pak expected to host 500 million inhabitants by 2060, there is a risk that the region’s disgruntled youth will continue trekking westwards in search of a better life, further compounding Europe’s refugee crisis.

MAHA HOSAIN AZIZ

FERNANDO ZOBEL DE AYALA

Professor in the MA International Relations Program, NYU; Asia Society Global Council

President, Ayala Corporation; Asia Society Trustee

All countries are headed for a major occupational identity crisis because at least 40 percent of jobs will be wiped

PAUL EVANS Professor of International Relations, UBC; Asia Society Global Council Headlines from 2040: “Asian Leaders Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Global Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty”; “First Chinese President of the World Bank Appointed, Second Woman to Hold the Post”; “For 10th Consecutive Year, Asia is the Global Leader in Poverty Reduction”; “Team from United Korea Wins FIFA Title.”

away by automation in the next 20 years. We will be forced to reimagine the relationship we have with our work.

Governments will have to provide for those who cannot find new work — or leaders will face massive protests. But there are bright spots. Citizens are so active and engaged. They themselves may come up with solutions to our major problems that our weak governments are unable to reach.

With rapid innovation in technology we will see a transformation in several critical services, including education and healthcare. The availability of the best educational content online will give everyone equal access to relevant knowledge and skills, while healthtech will bring down costs and provide greater healthcare access by 2040. At least 163 million households will enter the middle class and will create substantial purchasing power. Empowering this segment of the population will require drastically improving financial inclusion and access to education and healthcare in innovative ways.

SHARMEEN OBAID-CHINOY Oscar-Winning Documentary Filmmaker; 2014 Asia Game Changer

TRITA PARSI Executive Vice President, The Quincy Institute By 2040, U.S. military hegemony over the Persian Gulf will have come to a complete end. Regional powers will grudgingly seek to resolve their tensions on their own. While tensions initially had increased, by 2040, the Persian Gulf states will have set up a new security architecture for the region.

Though stability will remain elusive, geopolitics will not be the main driver of instability, but rather climate change.

We humans want to outpace machines and genetic modification will change the way we operate. Unfortunately, ethicists are not part of the conversation and the gravest challenge we will face is how much engineering we want to do to the human body. By selecting embryos for greater intelligence or beauty or embedding chips that will allow the human body to perform at a higher ability, we may embark on a dark path. We will have to decide what is ethical and where to draw the line.

SHIVSHANKAR MENON Former Foreign Secretary of India; Distinguished Fellow, ASPI Twenty years from now we are likely to see an Asia that is even more integrated economically, politically plural, and without a single or simple security architecture.

Asia will be central to the world economy, and the major provider of knowledge and innovation. If she is true to her traditions she will concentrate on the human aspects of development, particularly as the population ages.

ASIA SOCIETY

123

Contributors RAVI AGRAWAL is Managing Editor of Foreign Policy magazine. Previously, he served as CNN International’s New Delhi bureau chief, and before that worked as the senior producer of CNN’s flagship program on world affairs, Fareed Zakaria GPS . He began his CNN career in London in 2006 after earning a bachelor ’s degree from Harvard University, where he worked for The Harvard Crimson . In 2013, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Shaper, and in 2016, Asia Society named him an Asia 21 Young Leader.

SHIVA AHMADI is an artist whose practice borrows from the artistic traditions of Iran and the Middle East to critically examine global political tensions and social concerns.

Having come of age in the tumultuous years following the Iranian Revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Ahmadi moved to the United States in 1998 and has been based in California since 2015. In 2016, Ahmadi was awarded the “Anonymous Was A Woman” Award and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at the University of California, Davis. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Asia Society Museum.

CHAN HENG CHEE is Ambassdor-at-Large with the Singapore Foreign Ministry and Global Co-Chair of Asia Society. She chairs the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities in the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She is Chairman of the National Arts Council, a member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, a member of the Constitutional Commission 2016 and Deputy Chairman of the Social Science Research Council. Previously, she was Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States and Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

124

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

DUNCAN CL ARK is author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built, the definitive work on China’s e-commerce and technology giant, its founder, Jack Ma, and the forces and people that propelled its rise. Clark is chairman of BDA China, an advisory f irm he founded in 1994. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Asia Society. Clark is a Visiting Senior Fellow of the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics; and a former Visiting Scholar at Stanford University.

XYZA CRUZ BACANI is a Filipina photographer based in Hong Kong who uses her work to raise awareness about under-reported stories. Bacani is a grantee of the WYNG Media Award Commission, the Pulitzer Center, and the Open Society Moving Walls 2017.

She is one of the BBC’s 100 Women of the World 2015, 30 Under 30 Women Photographers 2016, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2016, a Fujifilm Ambassador, and a member of the Asia 21 Young Leaders initiative. She was one of the Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Social Justice Fellows for 2015 and has exhibited worldwide.

WENDY CUTLER joined the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) as Vice President in November 2015. She also ser ves as the Managing Director of the Washington D.C. O f f ice. She joined A SPI fol lo w ing a n illustrious career of nearly three decades as a diplomat and negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Most recently she served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, working on a range of U.S. trade negotiations and initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region. Cutler received her master ’s degree from Georgetow n Universit y ’s School of Foreign Ser v ice and her bachelor ’s degree from George Washington University.

JACKSON EWING holds a joint appoinment as a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute of Environmental Policy Solutions and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy.

He also serves as Senior Advisor for Sustainability with ASPI. Prior to joining Duke, Ewing was director of Asian Sustainability at ASPI, where he led projects on Asian carbon market cooperation and sustainable resource development in the ASEAN Economic Community.

ANNA FIFIELD is t he B eiji ng Bu reau Ch ief for The Wa sh ing ton Post a nd a member of Asia Societ y ’s Asia 21 Young L eaders initiative. She is the author of The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un . Previously, she was the Post ’s Bureau Chief in Tok yo, covering Japan and the two Koreas, and was Seoul correspondent for The Financial Times. She particularly concentrated on North Korea, tr ying to shed light on the lives of ordinary people there and also on how the regime managed to stay in power.

ANUBHAV GUPTA is an Associate Director with ASPI. As a South Asia specialist, he develops and coordinates ASPI’s initiatives related to the region. Previously, Gupta worked on climate change and energ y issues in India at the Nat ura l Resources Defense Council. Born in India, Gupta has lived in the U.S. since the age of 11 . He received his ma ster ’s d egree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

SHREYA GUPTA is a Ne w York ba sed illustrator. She is originally from India, but her passion for drawing and illustrat ion brou ght her to t he United States, where she pursued an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts, NY. As a child who initially wanted to take photographs, she was told that she was “too young” to carry around a camera.

So instead, she started drawing the places and things she wanted to remember, and that is how she was introduced to art.

DR. HANA HAYASHI is a public health strategist and behavioral scientist based i n To k y o w h o s e m i s s i o n i s t o c r e a t e a hea lt hier societ y so t hat people ca n bet ter enjoy and ma ximize their lives.

She has led global health promotion and consulting projects, in both developed a nd d e v e l op i n g c o u nt r ie s a t Mc C a n n Health, and as A sia-Pacif ic Director at M c C a n n P u b l i c He a l t h . S h e a c t i v e l y researches and teaches at multiple academic institutions, such as Tokyo Medical and Dental University, the University of Tokyo, and the Society and Health Lab at H a r v a r d T. H . C h a n S c h o o l o f P u b l ic Hea lt h . She i s a member of the Asia 21 Young Leaders initiative.

HTEIN LIN is a Burmese artist and writer, and has also been a comedian and actor.

His ongoing work includes a number of s e r i e s s u c h a s “ R e c y c l e d , ” “A S h o w of Hands,” “A Show of Wheels,” “Signs of the Times,” and “Skirting the Issue.” These use local materials and found objects to portray current Myanmar political and social themes. Htein Lin is represented in Yangon by River Gallery. A selection of his works is included in the A r tists Pension Trust collection. Two of Htein Lin’s paintings were purchased for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, opened in 2007.

KAI-FU LEE is the Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and President of Sinovation Venture’s Artif icial Intelligence Institute. Previously, Lee was the Vice President of Google, President of Google China. Previously, he held executive positions at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Lee received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Me l l on Un i ver sit y. L e e w a s t he V ice Chairman of the Committee of 100, an elite group of Chinese-A mericans and one of the 100 most inf luential people in the world by Time magazine in 2013.

T he Ho nor a b l e K E VI N RU D D s e r ve d a s A u s t r a l i a ’s 2 6 t h P r i m e M i n i s t e r (2007-2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010-2012). He led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis — the only major d e veloped economy not to go into recession — and helped found the G20. He is also a leading international authority on China. He joined ASPI as its inaugural President in January 2015. He is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute, and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All.

LISA LOK is the Design Director of The A sian Cent ur y at 2 0. Brook ly n-ba sed graphic designer and art director who creates contemporar y visuals stripped down to the core. She is currently an Art Director at Airbnb Magazine . Her work can also be seen in the pages of NYLON , and RollingStone events.

DANIEL RUSSEL is Vice President, International Security and Diplomacy, at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Formerly a ca reer memb er of t he Senior Foreig n Service at the U.S. Department of State, his most recent U.S. government position w a s ser v ing a s A ssista nt Secretar y of State for East Asian and Pacif ic Affairs.

During his 33-year diplomatic career, he received numerous awards, most recently the 2017 Presidential Rank Award. Russel was educated at Sarah Lawrence College and University College London.

TOM NAGORSKI became Executive Vice P r e s id e nt of A s i a S o c ie t y fo l l o w i n g a three-decade career in journalism — having served most recently as Managing Editor for International Coverage at ABC Ne ws. Na gorsk i ser ves on P r ince ton Universit y ’s Adv isor y Council for the Department of East Asian Studies, the A dv isor y Boa rd of t he Com m it tee to Protect Journalists, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has written for several publications and is t he aut hor of Miracles on t he Water: The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack.

ORVILLE SCHELL is t he A r t hu r Ross D irec tor of t he C enter on U. S.- Ch ina Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at t he Universit y of Ca lifornia, Berkele y Graduate School of Journalism. Schell is the author of 15 books and a contributor to numerous magazines and newspapers.

Schell graduated Magna Cum Laude from Har v ard Universit y, w a s a n e xcha nge student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s, and earned a Ph.D. (Abd) at the Un i versit y of Ca l i for n i a , B erke le y i n Chinese History. He has traveled widely in China since the mid-1970s.

ASIA SOCIETY

125

Contributors (cont inued) MATT SCHIAVENZA is t he A ssis t a nt D i r e c t o r o f C o n t e n t a t A s i a S o c i e t y.

Previously, he worked as an editor and writer at The Atlantic , where he launched and oversaw The China Channel. A graduate of Columbia Universit y ’s School of International and Public Affairs, Schiavenza lived in China from 2004 to 2010.

His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, T he Hu f f i n g t on Po s t , a nd nu me r o u s other publications.

Born in Dongming Count y, Shandong Province in 1979, SONG CHAO began working as a miner in Shandong’s Yankuang Group in 1997. He began to take photographs of his co-workers in 2001. In 2002 he received the Chinese National Photography Award.

In 2009, Song graduated from the Beijing F i l m A c a d e m y, a nd h a s worke d w it h Time magazine to photograph workers in China. His pictures were featured in Asia So c ie t y ’s C OA L + ICE e x h ibit ion . He works and lives in Beijing.

ABBY SEIFF is t he Ed itor-in- Chief of The Asian Century at 20 . She is a journalist with a decade of experience reporting a nd ed it ing, primarily in A sia . Her writing and photography have appeared i n Ne w s we e k , T i me, Me kon g R e v ie w, Foreign Policy, A l Jazeera, Pacif ic Standard and more. She has received grants from Thomson Reuters Foundation, Internews, and the International Reporting Project. She received a Logan Nonf iction Program fellowship for her forthcoming book on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake.

J O C E LY N T S I A H i s a Ta i w a n- b o r n , Shanghai-raised artist currently based in Oa k l a nd , Ca l ifor nia . Throu gh her i l lu st rat ions, mu ra l s, pa int ings, a nd animations, she creates a world where amorphous figures live and interact with one another. Her work is a meditation on what it means to exist as a being as well as the intangible aspects of life.

RAISA SERRANO is a Queens native who now resides in Brooklyn. She currently works on digital experiences at Critical Mass. She’s worked on BMWUSA.com, the Colour app, and many other website and bra nd red esig ns for v ar iou s a gencies.

W h e n s h e ’s n o t d e s i g n i n g , y o u c a n f ind her spending time with her family and friends, caring for her plant friends, k n it t i n g , a nd o c c a s io n a l l y t r a v e l i n g on a foodventure.

126

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

OLIVIA WALLER is a freelance illustrator and printmaker, based in Brighton, U.K. She combines elements of collage, drawing and printmaking within her work to depict scenes of domestic melodrama, striking characters, and celebrations of women.

DAN WA SH B U RN i s C h i e f C o n t e n t Off icer at Asia Society. He is the author of The Forbidden Game: Golf and t he Chinese Dream , which The Wall Street Jo u r n a l c a l l e d “ s t r i k i n g l y o r i g i n a l ,” The Economist called “gripping,” and The Financial Times named one of the Best B o o k s o f 2 0 1 4 . D a n ’s w r i t i n g h a s a p p e a r e d i n T h e N e w Yo r k T i m e s , F T Weekend Magazine, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, The Economist, Golf World, Golf Digest , and ESPN.com. Dan is also the founding editor of Shanghaiist.com, one of t he most w id el y rea d English-language websites about China.

COLIN WEBBER is a senior designer at Penguin Random House, and a music producer in his living room. His book covers often feature bold colors, big typography, and illustration/collage. His illustrations often incorporate ephemera or nod to the tactile beauty of print making.

JOAN WONG is a designer that creates visual responses to narratives. She has designed book covers for Penguin, Random House, Alfred A. Knopf, Farrar Straus and Giroux, New Directions, Simon and Schuster, and Harper Collins. She’s also a f requent col laborator w it h The Ne w York Times, The Ne w Yorker, a nd The At lantic, helping to il lu st rate c urrent events pieces and think pieces about the world as it is today.

YIFAN WU is an award-winning illustrator, gif maker and animator from Nanjing. She is a visual artist who vents her thoughts about the idiot, morbid, mordant world in her artwork; a creative thinker who deals with her nihilism through reading stories and storytelling. She loves waacking and voguing.

ANAM ZAKARIA is an independent oral historian, researcher, author, and cultura l f a c i l it a t or. She pr e v iou sl y l e d T he Citizens Archive of Pakistan’s (CAP) Oral History program, conducting hundreds of oral histories with Partition survivors and religious minorities. She frequently writes on issues of conf lict and peace in South Asia for various news outlets and peace-building platforms. Zakaria has a d eg r e e i n i nter n a t ion a l d e ve lopme nt from McGill Universit y and a certif ication in counseling with a special interest in trauma and healing in conf lict zones.

She is a memb er of t he A sia 21 You ng Leaders initiative.

Asia Society Salutes Its Corporate Members Asia Society’s corporate members receive access to impactful educational resources, extensive global business networking and relationship-building opportunities, high-profile brand exposure, rewarding community service, employee engagement, and corporate entertainment throughout Asia Society’s 13 centers in the U.S. and Asia.

JOIN US TODAY!

Corporate@AsiaSociety.org AsiaSociety.org/Corporate

Contact: Christopher M. Belisle Executive Director of Corporate Relations 212.327.9375 | cbelisle@asiasociety.org

All Nippon Airways (ANA) BHP China Merchants Bank EY Facebook Freddie Mac

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. Kohn Pederson Fox Associates PC Lutron Electronics Company Mars, Incorporated McKinsey & Company

Medtronic Morgan Stanley Nikkei Asian Review PepsiCo, Inc. Prudential Financial, Inc. S&P Global Sequoia Capital China

Singapore Airlines Ltd. SOHO China Standard Chartered Bank State Bank of India United Airlines, Inc. Värde Partners ViacomCBS

Abbott Laboratories China General Chamber of Commerce — U.S.A. China Investment Corporation Goldman Sachs & Co. CollegeDaily, Inc

Gemdale USA Hong Kong Association of New York Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office HSBC JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Manhattan Chamber of Commerce Maytech Global Investments,LLC Philip Berry Associates, LLC PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC South China Morning Post

State Grid Corporation of China Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP Telstra WarnerMedia

UNDERWRITERS AND SPONSORS FOR PROGRAMS, RESEARCH, AND SPECIAL INITIATIVES AIG Alcoa Foundation AT&T Ayala Corporation Ayala Land, Inc. Bank of America Bloomberg Philanthropies BNY Mellon Broad U.S.A. Inc. Buzzfeed Chevron China Merchants Bank Citi Colgate-Palmolive Company DBS Bank

Delbros Group Deloitte Edison International Facebook Financial Times General Atlantic Goldman Sachs & Co. Goldman Sachs Foundation Google Hcash Hyosung Corporation International Container Terminal Services, Inc. IP Ventures JPMorgan Chase & Co.

KPMG Lotte Co., Ltd. MAGSAYSAY Marriott International Mars, Incorporated Mastercard McDonald’s McGraw-Hill Medtronic Metro Pacific Investments Micro D International, Inc. Parnassus Investments PepsiCo, Inc. Prudential Financial Queen’s Road Foundation

Rémy Cointreau/Louis XIII Seaoil Phillippines, Inc. Security Bank SOHO China Standard Chartered Bank Synchrony Tiffany & Co. United Airlines, Inc. Vankee Värde Partners WarnerMedia Wells Fargo

Asia Society is the leading educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among peoples, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States.

List updated as of October 2019

BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAN H EN G CH EE Co-Chair

JO H N L . TH O RNTO N Co-Chair

B E TSY Z. CO H EN Vice Chair & Secretary

LE WIS B . K AD EN Vice Chair

LU LU C . WAN G Vice Chair

JOSE T TE M . SH EER AN President and CEO

RO B ERT NIEHAUS Treasurer

TRUSTEES Nicolas A. Aguzin HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Edward R. Allen III Isaac Applbaum Mohit Assomull Joseph Y. Bae Nicolas Berggruen Hamid Biglari J. Frank Brown Michael S. Chae Albert Chao Purnendu Chatterjee Chen Guoqing Duncan Clark O.B.E. Henry Cornell Fritz Demopoulos Richard Drobnick J. Michael Evans Renée Fleming Jamshyd N. Godrej Toyoo Gyohten Susan S. Hakkarainen George G. Hicks

128

THE ASIAN CENTURY AT 20

CHAIR EMERITI Doris Magsaysay Ho W. Bradford Hu Omar Ishrak Mitchell R. Julis Karamjit S. Kalsi Adrian T. Keller Caroline Kennedy Mahmood J. Khimji James Kondo Ram Krishnan Chong-Moon Lee Lee Hong-Koo Ido Leffler Jean Liu Strive Masiyiwa Harold McGraw III Asheet Mehta John D. Negroponte Harold J. Newman Gaoning Ning Indra K. Nooyi Richard L. Plepler Thierry Porté Stephen Riady

Charles P. Rockefeller Nicolas Rohatyn Kevin M. Rudd Denise Saul Stephen A. Schwarzman Neil N. Shen Shin Dong-Bin Warwick L. Smith Harit Talwar Oscar L. Tang Ernie Thrasher Kenneth P. Wilcox Zhang Xin James D. Zirin Fernando Zobel de Ayala

Ronnie C. Chan Henrietta H. Fore Maurice R. Greenberg Charles R. Kaye HONORARY LIFE TRUSTEES Peter A. Aron Winthrop R. Munyan Cynthia Hazen Polsky John D. Rockefeller IV Washington SyCip (In Memoriam) Lisina Hoch (In Memoriam)

As of February 2020