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Why does it matter that a Chinese blogger who uses the pen name “Jing Haihou” says local officials and lawmakers must take actions to maintain Hong Kong’s unique advantage of “two systems” in order to attract investments and encourage those who left the city to come back?

What makes that important is that Jing is understood to be representing the view of Beijing’s political elites when he blasts the Hong Kong government for overzealously enforcing the 2020 National Security Law and thus scaring off foreign investors.

The timing is also significant: Jing’s comments follow the July 6-9 visit to Beijing of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a dovish US politician. Washington and Beijing had resumed high-level trade talks after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 20.

“Since the implementation of the National Security Law, some people, including officials and lawmakers, have used the law as a trump card to promote their policies and a shield to hide their responsibility for policy failures,” Jing says.

He says some officials implemented the government’s decisions without deep thought – for example, by removing Chinese writer Lu Xun’s books from public libraries and banning non-political films. Lu Xun is the pen name of China’s liberal novelist Zhou Shuren (1881-1936), whose books are still permitted to be circulated in mainland China.

Jing complains that some people don’t listen to rational criticism, have leftist mindsets and always mix up “contradictions among the people” and “contradictions between ourselves and the enemy.” He says the misuse of the National Security Law is not what the central government wants to see under its principle of “patriots administering Hong Kong.”

He also says connecting Hong Kong with the outside world is a prerequisite for China to keep developing while maintaining a diversified culture. A global network is the only way that Hong Kong can strengthen its status, he says, concluding that “diversification means more gold,” a reference to foreign investments.

Jing’s comments were reported by the Singtao Daily, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper, on July 11. Pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong were initially shocked by those comments. But they then said they agreed with them – a sign of recognition that Jing’s views reflect those of Beijing’s top leaders.

Regina Ip, convenor of the Executive Council, also said Hong Kong should avoid losing its uniqueness or becoming just another city like many on the mainland.

Lau Siu-kai, an advisor of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said safeguarding national security remains Hong Kong’s top priority but the government needs to take care of foreign investors’ and local people’s concerns about freedoms and human rights.

Sam Ng, a Hong Kong commentator, said Beijing now realizes that tight control on Hong Kong does not fulfill its goal to attract foreign investments. However, Ng said, it has remained unclear what Beijing will do next.

In the first five months of this year, China’s foreign direct investment fell 5.6% from a year ago. For decades, most foreign investments have been entering mainland China through Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s trade offices

Even if Beijing now reviews its Hong Kong policy, it may be a bit too late as the US Congress is a step closer to approving a bill that will grant the US government the power to review the status of or even shut down the Hong Kong economic and trade offices (HKETOs) in Washington, DC, New York and San Francisco.

In February, US Senators Marco Rubio and Jeff Merkley reintroduced the HKETO Certification Act to reevaluate the United States’ recognition of HKETOs. US Congressmen Chris Smith and Jim McGovern also introduced companion legislation in the US House of Representatives.

On July 13, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations passed the Act, which needs to be approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the president to become law.

“Hong Kong is unfortunately neither autonomous nor democratic as China’s genocidal regime continues to undermine the city’s basic freedoms,” Rubio said in a statement. “HKETOs no longer merit diplomatic immunities in our nation. As such, their privileges must be revoked.” 

“The sad reality,” said Merkley, “is that the HKETOs now serve as propaganda arms of the Chinese government. Committee passage of this bipartisan bill is a strong step forward in defense of the people of Hong Kong.”

The Hong Kong government strongly condemned the US Senate Committee for passing the Act and interfering in the affairs of Hong Kong. It said it will continue to implement the National Security Law resolutely, fully and faithfully.

“A small number of politicians in the US ignored Hong Kong people’s unanimous demands for stability, progress and development and the international community’s common interests in Hong Kong,” an unnamed spokesperson at the commissioner’s office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong said on July 14. 

“They deliberately passed evil laws related to Hong Kong and politicized economic and trade issues to serve their own political self-interest,” the spokesperson said. “This conceals their evil intention of ‘containing China with Hong Kong,’ and exposing their bullying and hegemony.”

The current National Security Law forbids acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

Last month, Chief Executive John Lee said Hong Kong will pass another security law in accordance with the Basic Law’s Article 23 this year or in 2024. The new law will cover acts of treason, sedition, theft of state secrets and foreign bodies’ conducting political activities in the city. 

In early June, Beijing called on the US to allow Lee to attend the APEC summit that will be held in San Francisco later this year. Lee was sanctioned by the US as he had led the police force’s crackdown on the anti-extradition protests in late 2019 and early 2020.

Read: China’s June exports hit by weak Western demand

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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JAKARTA – President Prabowo Subianto? It has a ring to it these days and the sound is only getting louder as the defense minister and Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) chairman maintains his lead in the polls seven months out from next year’s February 14 presidential election.

For most analysts, that’s because rival Indonesian Democrat Party for Struggle (PDI-P) candidate Ganjar Pranowo is struggling to gain traction in the shadow of overbearing matriarch Megawati Sukarnoputri and a family legacy she is determined to protect and preserve.

Aides say it is Megawati who will decide the Central Java governor’s running mate while acknowledging Pranowo might be consulted. It is rumored she will also select his Cabinet. Certainly, she promises to be omnipresent in any Pranowo administration. 

Many of Indonesia’s 192.8 million voters may already be asking themselves whether they will be getting Pranowo or Megawati, judging by the way he shelters behind the façade he has built around himself as a social media star.

So far, at least, he has failed to assert himself as a leader in his own right. Still bowing to authority figures and with little of substance to show for his decade-long governorship, he has only said he is committed to following in President Joko Widodo’s policy footsteps.

Shining isn’t encouraged in PDI-P with Megawati and her daughter, Parliament Speaker Puan Maharani, at the helm. One legislator who quit the party says she couldn’t do the job she was elected to do because she had to stay below the radar.  

Prabowo, for his part, is sitting back and enjoying the ride, happy in his role as defense minister and seemingly comfortable in the knowledge that if the hugely popular Widodo is not openly supporting him, he is not opposing him either, despite being a nominal PDI-P member. 

Several groups of volunteers who played a key role in Widodo’s two election victories are openly backing Prabowo. Among them is a group led by Gibran Rukabuming, 35, the president’s eldest son and the mayor of Solo in Central Java.

All this explains why the Golkar and National Mandate (PAN) parties are gravitating toward Gerindra and its coalition partner, the National Awakening Party (PKB), leaving PDI-P with only the tiny United Development Party (PPP) for company.

With PDI-P holding 128 seats in the House of Representatives, it doesn’t require a partner to clear the 20% threshold needed to nominate a presidential candidate. But that may be cold comfort.

A recent survey by Kompas, Indonesia’s leading newspaper, had Prabowo at 24.5%, ahead of Pranowo on 22.8% and opposition candidate Anies Baswedan adrift on 13.6% and struggling to make headway in what is firming as a three-horse race.

A subsequent survey by Indikator Politik, considered one of the country’s more reliable pollsters, also had Prabowo in the lead at 38%, with Pranowo on 34% and Baswedan on 19% – another indication of the minister’s staying power.

If Pranowo does lose to Prabowo, analysts foresee a rising tide of resistance to Megawati’s leadership from the ruling party’s younger cadre, giving Widodo a possible opening to a job that would extend his influence long after he steps down in October next year. 

Megawati’s recent effort to mend fences with former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Democrat Party – a surprise move she notably left to her underlings to manage – showed she is already looking beyond the first round of voting.

Supporters of Baswedan’s coalition, comprising the Democrats, the Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) and the National Democrat Party (Nasdem), would likely become a factor in a second-round showdown between Prabowo and Pranowo.

It is generally accepted that the Islamic conservatives who support PKS and represent a consistent 12-13% of the Indonesian electorate – grouped mostly in heavily populated West Java – will never vote for PDI-P, sitting as it is on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

Historians looking back on this period will marvel at how the influence of Megawati’s father, founding president Sukarno – and five words in the preamble to the 1945 Constitution –  may have been a turning point in the race.

That singular phrase, “all colonialism must be abolished,” served to justify Megawati’s opposition to Israel participating in last May’s FIFA Under-20 football tournament and the association’s subsequent action in canceling the event.

A former Dutch colony which won its independence following World War II, Indonesia’s foreign policy is dominated by one single, unsolvable issue – ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine. This is the first time it has been applied to sport, however.

“This is not an Islamic issue, it is a nationalist issue,” says one foreign policy expert, explaining why Indonesia’s Muslim majority did not join the move to exclude Israel. In fact, they have said very little.

Neither did Prabowo, adhering to his strategy of staying away from controversy. Even his one real lapse, a strangely conceived plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war on Moscow’s terms, did nothing to dent his popularity at home.

More than disappointing millions of football-mad Indonesians, Pranowo’s outspoken support for PDI-P’s stand – at Megawati’s clear behest – painted him as a timorous functionary who will unquestioningly do her bidding.

That stands in strong contrast to Widodo. He has consistently refused to accept a situation where, as a two-term president, he is expected to be subservient to a self-entitled party leader who has never won an election.

When Prabowo declared his candidacy last year, analysts thought his age – now 71 – and two previous losses to Widodo in 2014 and 2019 would be major drawbacks against a charismatic 54-year-old rival who represents a generational break with the past.

Instead, Prabowo has prospered, mostly due to PDI-P’s strategic miscalculations, which have dispelled all lingering talk of Prabowo signing on as Pranowo’s vice-presidential candidate in what would be an unbeatable ticket.

Indeed, the fact that Megawati was compelled to nominate Pranowo before she was ready, clearly to limit the fallout from the football fracas, reveals just how out of touch she is with public opinion.

It also shows where her priorities lie: maintaining her iron grip on PDI-P and keeping alive the name of her father, who died 53 years ago before two-thirds of Indonesia’s population was born.

While Prabowo acts cautiously, he has said enough to suggest he believes Indonesia needs another round of political reform after a decade of democratic neglect at the hands of the Jakarta elite. 

In one interview he noted “the cost of doing politics is too expensive and is incentivizing corruption,” asserting that “our political system isn’t making Indonesia a great, advanced and prosperous country, but could ruin it.”

He went on to call for political parties, social organizations and religious leaders to join together to fix the system, using a similar body to that formed in the dying days of Japan’s wartime occupation to prepare Indonesia for independence.

Pranowo isn’t alone in promising to continue what Widodo has started, including his controversial US$33 billion plan to move the national capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan, a project that has barely broken ground.

Prabowo’s brother, businessman Hashim Djojohadikusumo, recently pledged to follow “99.99%” of Widodo’s programs, the strongest commitment the Prabowo camp has made so far to secure the president’s endorsement.

On the surface at least, today’s Prabowo is a very different version from the bellicose general accused of human rights abuses during the reign of Suharto, his then father-in-law, and his alleged attempt to take power when Suharto resigned in 1998.   

His weaknesses often shine through, however. Friends say he still allows his explosive temper to get the better of him in private and the off-the-cuff speech he made at the Shangri-La Dialogue underscores a penchant for doing his own thing.

Insiders say Prabowo did have a prepared speech he had worked on with a team of advisers, addressing the issues of Myanmar and the South China Sea, that had been cleared with the Foreign Ministry beforehand.

Instead, he scrapped it at the last minute and wrote his own 18-minute speech, widely seen as an effort to raise his domestic stature as an international statesman, rather than any serious proposal to end a conflict on the other side of the world.

Baswedan has also been calling for a political transformation, naming his team as the Coalition of Change. But that worries Indonesians still suspicious of the former education minister’s ties to the Sharia-based PKS, even if it has lately taken a more centrist stance.  

Analysts point to a recent op-ed in Kompas that set out the opposition’s mission statement by rejecting “blind obedience” toward any national leader and advocating for a strengthening of democracy and policies promoting economic equality.

These goals are perceived to be implicit criticisms of Widodo, who critics complain has presided over years of democratic decline while pursuing a single-minded search for foreign investment and building infrastructure projects that arguably have done little to help the poor.

Certainly, it belies the fact that Widodo remains Indonesia’s most popular-ever president, winning an extraordinary 82% approval rating in the latest survey carried out by the Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) last April.

Clearly, many voters don’t agree with Baswedan’s assessment and are prepared to support Widodo until the last day of his eventful presidency. That alone puts a value on his endorsement which may be difficult to measure but simply can’t be ignored ahead of next year’s presidential poll.

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Cambodia will undergo monumental “generational succession” after next weekend’s general election, with Prime Minister Hun Sen set to step down after almost four decades in power and be replaced by his eldest son Hun Manet, according to leaked official documents seen by Asia Times.  

Apart from Hun Sen’s own dynastic succession, which will see Hun Manet, 45, take over as prime minister, the sons of powerful Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Defense Minister Tea Banh will also inherit their fathers’ jobs, according to the leaked lists.

Of 30 cabinet posts, there will purportedly be 23 new ministers when the next cabinet is formed, which Hun Sen has said will happen by the end of August. All but one of the ten incumbent deputy prime ministers will retire, according to the same leaked lists.

Many, like Hun Manet, are in their 40s and the children of retiring ruling party grandees.  However, analysts told Asia Times that there are many competent and compelling appointees on the list, an indication that the inchoate Manet administration will attempt to build a technocratic governance image.  

The Interior Ministry will be inherited by Sar Kheng’s son, Sar Sokha, 43, who is currently a secretary of state at the education ministry and head of Cambodia’s football association. Tea Seiha, 42, the governor of Siem Reap province, will take over the defense ministry from his father, according to the leaked lists.

Vongsey Vissoth, an experienced minister attached to the prime minister’s office and a permanent secretary of state of the finance ministry, will become the new Minister in Charge of the Office of the Council of Ministers, an important post that decides when the cabinet meets and what it discusses. He will likely ensure Hun Sen maintains an active role in future cabinet meetings. 

Sok Chenda Sophea, secretary-general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, a body that assesses foreign investment, is expected to become the next foreign minister. 

Some old faces will remain, including Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth, 57, who will apparently be the only deputy prime minister who keeps that position. Ing Kantha Phavi, the women’s affairs minister since 2004, will also keep her job, according to the leaked lists.

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in power since 1979, is assured victory at the July 23 general election after having banned its only viable challenger from competing in the ballot. 

It is projected to win the vast majority, if not all, seats in parliament, just as it did at the last general election in 2018 after banning its Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) rival. All efforts are now being made to ensure high voter turnout to provide a veneer of legitimacy for the succession plans. 

Hun Manet has featured prominently in the CPP’s campaign rallies, where on at least one occasion he was handed the ruling party’s flag by his father in a symbolic and public gesture as the campaign got underway earlier this month. 

For almost a decade, Hun Sen, 70, has meticulously planned his dynastic succession. 

In 2018, Hun Manet was appointed army chief and deputy commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. The CPP’s Central Committee approved him as the party’s future prime ministerial candidate in late 2021.

In April, Hun Manet temporarily stepped down from the military so he could run for parliament at the July 23 election.

Hun Sen has said he will remain CPP president after resigning as prime minister, a post that will allow him to continue to dictate policy and personnel choices. 

Because of constitutional amendments that he rushed through last year which weakened the National Assembly’s ability to choose a prime minister or censure a minister, Hun Sen will now have even more power. 

It was previously unclear when Hun Sen would actually step down. Some commentators suspected this at some point in the mid-term before the 2028 general election. However, it now appears that he has at least made preparations to depart before the next cabinet is formed. 

The leaked lists were spread on social media last weekend by accounts associated with Cambodia’s now-banned opposition parties, raising suspicions that they may have been faked. 

However, Asia Times spoke to several government and diplomatic sources who said the names and positions tally with information they have also been provided. It also chimes with details that have leaked over the past 12 months.  

For instance, this writer heard last year that another of Hun Sen’s sons, Hun Many, 40, was tipped to become minister of the civil service, which the leaked lists confirm. 

In order to sell his own son’s rise to the top job, it is believed Hun Sen pledged that a “generational succession” would also take place, in which the children or relatives of all grandees would rise through the ranks.

According to the leaks, Eang Sophalleth is tipped to become environment minister. He is the son-in-law of Chea Sophara, an outgoing deputy prime minister and land management minister.

Cham Nimol, a secretary of state at the commerce ministry, will become commerce minister. She is the daughter of former commerce minister Cham Prasidh. 

The children of deceased party grandees will also get promotions. Sok Soken, a son of Sok An, a longtime close ally of Hun Sen and former minister in charge of the Council of Ministers, is purported to become the next tourism minister.

Meanwhile, Chea Somethy, a son of the late Chea Sim, a former CPP president, is expected to be named Minister for Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation.

A number of the appointees are Hun Manet’s closest aides, including Heng Sour (tipped to be labor minister) and Huot Hak (minister for National Assembly-Senate relations). Many of them are affiliated with Hun Manet through the ruling party’s youth wing, of which he was made president in 2020. 

Chay Borin, a parliamentarian from Tboung Khmum province, is being lined up as religion minister seemingly because of his close association with Manet within the CPP youth organization (Khmer-language press have referred to him as Manet’s “representative.”)

Importantly, a clean sweep of deputy prime ministers also appears likely. Of the current 10 politicians who hold that rank, only Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth will stay on, according to the leaked lists.  

The likes of Sar Sokha and Tea Seiha are listed as incoming deputy prime ministers. So, too, are National Police Chief General Neth Savoeun and Sun Chanthol, the apparently outgoing minister of public works.

There will be more continuity among the permanent ministers, who lack cabinet portfolios but are tasked with special projects.

Those who are forecast to remain in their posts include Kun Kim, Ho Sithy, Om Yentieng, Ieng Moly, Islam Hassan and Ly Thuch. Incoming permanent ministers include Pich Sophorn, a secretary of state at the labor ministry; Prum Sokha, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Public Service; and Ouk Rabun, the current minister of rural development. 

Analysts who spoke to Asia Times on the condition of anonymity said they had expected patronage appointments in the lists, which are necessary to balance the influence networks within the party. 

Had the Hun family gained too much power and not divided the spoils of dictatorship among most of the important political families, it might have bred intra-party tensions and potentially a rival to Manet for the top job, they said. 

However, they added that there appear to be genuine technocrats among the appointees. One analyst who saw the list said they were impressed that, in the more technical ministries, the CPP appears to be prioritizing competence over loyalty.

If the list is legitimate, Chheang Ra, who is currently director general of Calmette Hospital, the capital’s flagship public hospital, will become the new health minister. Keo Rattanak, secretary general of state-run electricity utility Electricite du Cambodge, will become minister for energy and mines. 

The expected future minister of rural planning is Chhay Rithysen, an engineer who studied at America’s elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently director general at the General Department of Land Management and general secretary of the ministry’s Board of Architects.

Even when there’s nepotism clearly involved, that doesn’t mean that the new generation appointees necessarily lack talent. 

Most commentators would agree that Dith Tina – the 44-year-old son of Supreme Court chief Dith Munthy, who forcibly banned the CNRP in 2017 – has excelled since last year becoming agricultural minister, a post he is expected to keep. So, too, is the competent Koeut Rith, who has been justice minister since 2020. 

Cham Nimol has held various positions at the commerce ministry since her early 20s, at a time when her father, Cham Prasidh, was the minister. If she becomes commerce minister, at least the 43-year-old would have had almost two decades working within the ministry.

Follow David Hutt on Twitter at @davidhuttjourno

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Cambodia will undergo monumental “generational succession” after next weekend’s general election, with Prime Minister Hun Sen set to step down after almost four decades in power and be replaced by his eldest son Hun Manet, according to leaked official documents seen by Asia Times.  

Apart from Hun Sen’s own dynastic succession, which will see Hun Manet, 45, take over as prime minister, the sons of powerful Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Defense Minister Tea Banh will also inherit their fathers’ jobs, according to the leaked lists.

Of 30 cabinet posts, there will purportedly be 23 new ministers when the next cabinet is formed, which Hun Sen has said will happen by the end of August. All but one of the ten incumbent deputy prime ministers will retire, according to the same leaked lists.

Many, like Hun Manet, are in their 40s and the children of retiring ruling party grandees.  However, analysts told Asia Times that there are many competent and compelling appointees on the list, an indication that the inchoate Manet administration will attempt to build a technocratic governance image.  

The Interior Ministry will be inherited by Sar Kheng’s son, Sar Sokha, 43, who is currently a secretary of state at the education ministry and head of Cambodia’s football association. Tea Seiha, 42, the governor of Siem Reap province, will take over the defense ministry from his father, according to the leaked lists.

Vongsey Vissoth, an experienced minister attached to the prime minister’s office and a permanent secretary of state of the finance ministry, will become the new Minister in Charge of the Office of the Council of Ministers, an important post that decides when the cabinet meets and what it discusses. He will likely ensure Hun Sen maintains an active role in future cabinet meetings. 

Sok Chenda Sophea, secretary-general of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, a body that assesses foreign investment, is expected to become the next foreign minister. 

Some old faces will remain, including Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth, 57, who will apparently be the only deputy prime minister who keeps that position. Ing Kantha Phavi, the women’s affairs minister since 2004, will also keep her job, according to the leaked lists.

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in power since 1979, is assured victory at the July 23 general election after having banned its only viable challenger from competing in the ballot. 

It is projected to win the vast majority, if not all, seats in parliament, just as it did at the last general election in 2018 after banning its Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) rival. All efforts are now being made to ensure high voter turnout to provide a veneer of legitimacy for the succession plans. 

Hun Manet has featured prominently in the CPP’s campaign rallies, where on at least one occasion he was handed the ruling party’s flag by his father in a symbolic and public gesture as the campaign got underway earlier this month. 

For almost a decade, Hun Sen, 70, has meticulously planned his dynastic succession. 

In 2018, Hun Manet was appointed army chief and deputy commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. The CPP’s Central Committee approved him as the party’s future prime ministerial candidate in late 2021.

In April, Hun Manet temporarily stepped down from the military so he could run for parliament at the July 23 election.

Hun Sen has said he will remain CPP president after resigning as prime minister, a post that will allow him to continue to dictate policy and personnel choices. 

Because of constitutional amendments that he rushed through last year which weakened the National Assembly’s ability to choose a prime minister or censure a minister, Hun Sen will now have even more power. 

It was previously unclear when Hun Sen would actually step down. Some commentators suspected this at some point in the mid-term before the 2028 general election. However, it now appears that he has at least made preparations to depart before the next cabinet is formed. 

The leaked lists were spread on social media last weekend by accounts associated with Cambodia’s now-banned opposition parties, raising suspicions that they may have been faked. 

However, Asia Times spoke to several government and diplomatic sources who said the names and positions tally with information they have also been provided. It also chimes with details that have leaked over the past 12 months.  

For instance, this writer heard last year that another of Hun Sen’s sons, Hun Many, 40, was tipped to become minister of the civil service, which the leaked lists confirm. 

In order to sell his own son’s rise to the top job, it is believed Hun Sen pledged that a “generational succession” would also take place, in which the children or relatives of all grandees would rise through the ranks.

According to the leaks, Eang Sophalleth is tipped to become environment minister. He is the son-in-law of Chea Sophara, an outgoing deputy prime minister and land management minister.

Cham Nimol, a secretary of state at the commerce ministry, will become commerce minister. She is the daughter of former commerce minister Cham Prasidh. 

The children of deceased party grandees will also get promotions. Sok Soken, a son of Sok An, a longtime close ally of Hun Sen and former minister in charge of the Council of Ministers, is purported to become the next tourism minister.

Meanwhile, Chea Somethy, a son of the late Chea Sim, a former CPP president, is expected to be named Minister for Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation.

A number of the appointees are Hun Manet’s closest aides, including Heng Sour (tipped to be labor minister) and Huot Hak (minister for National Assembly-Senate relations). Many of them are affiliated with Hun Manet through the ruling party’s youth wing, of which he was made president in 2020. 

Chay Borin, a parliamentarian from Tboung Khmum province, is being lined up as religion minister seemingly because of his close association with Manet within the CPP youth organization (Khmer-language press have referred to him as Manet’s “representative.”)

Importantly, a clean sweep of deputy prime ministers also appears likely. Of the current 10 politicians who hold that rank, only Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth will stay on, according to the leaked lists.  

The likes of Sar Sokha and Tea Seiha are listed as incoming deputy prime ministers. So, too, are National Police Chief General Neth Savoeun and Sun Chanthol, the apparently outgoing minister of public works.

There will be more continuity among the permanent ministers, who lack cabinet portfolios but are tasked with special projects.

Those who are forecast to remain in their posts include Kun Kim, Ho Sithy, Om Yentieng, Ieng Moly, Islam Hassan and Ly Thuch. Incoming permanent ministers include Pich Sophorn, a secretary of state at the labor ministry; Prum Sokha, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Public Service; and Ouk Rabun, the current minister of rural development. 

Analysts who spoke to Asia Times on the condition of anonymity said they had expected patronage appointments in the lists, which are necessary to balance the influence networks within the party. 

Had the Hun family gained too much power and not divided the spoils of dictatorship among most of the important political families, it might have bred intra-party tensions and potentially a rival to Manet for the top job, they said. 

However, they added that there appear to be genuine technocrats among the appointees. One analyst who saw the list said they were impressed that, in the more technical ministries, the CPP appears to be prioritizing competence over loyalty.

If the list is legitimate, Chheang Ra, who is currently director general of Calmette Hospital, the capital’s flagship public hospital, will become the new health minister. Keo Rattanak, secretary general of state-run electricity utility Electricite du Cambodge, will become minister for energy and mines. 

The expected future minister of rural planning is Chhay Rithysen, an engineer who studied at America’s elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently director general at the General Department of Land Management and general secretary of the ministry’s Board of Architects.

Even when there’s nepotism clearly involved, that doesn’t mean that the new generation appointees necessarily lack talent. 

Most commentators would agree that Dith Tina – the 44-year-old son of Supreme Court chief Dith Munthy, who forcibly banned the CNRP in 2017 – has excelled since last year becoming agricultural minister, a post he is expected to keep. So, too, is the competent Koeut Rith, who has been justice minister since 2020. 

Cham Nimol has held various positions at the commerce ministry since her early 20s, at a time when her father, Cham Prasidh, was the minister. If she becomes commerce minister, at least the 43-year-old would have had almost two decades working within the ministry.

Follow David Hutt on Twitter at @davidhuttjourno

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After 12 months in office, a massive blowout in net migration and two major reviews, the Anthony Albanese government will, in 2023 and 2024, embark on a significant overhaul of immigration policies that will bring down Australia’s net migration from its current peak.

From July 1, 2023, the government has undone a range of Covid-19 policy settings. These were implemented by former prime minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal–National coalition government due to pressure from business lobby groups desperate for labor. 

The most significant was former immigration minister Alex Hawke’s decision to provide international students with unlimited work rights. That decision drove a record surge in offshore student visa applications in 2022 and to date in 2023. 

From July 1, 2023, international students’ work rights are restricted to 48 hours per fortnight from a previous 40 hours per fortnight. This will impact over 610,000 students currently in Australia.

The financial calculations these students will have made – with many of them having borrowed huge sums to pay tuition fees – are unlikely to have allowed for the re-imposition of restricted work rights, a sharply weaker labor market forecast by Treasury, high interest rates and the rapidly rising cost of living.

Both the Coalition and Albanese governments have made temporary graduate visas more attractive with longer stay provisions. This increased the number of temporary graduates in Australia from around 90,000 in mid-2021 to almost 195,000 by May 2023. 

The surge is despite large numbers of temporary graduates obtaining permanent residence through the nomination of state or territory governments, a skilled independent visa or an employer-sponsored skilled temporary visa.

If the labor market weakens as forecast, temporary graduates may find it increasingly difficult to secure a long-term skilled job that enables them to be nominated by a state or territory government, to qualify for a skilled independent visa or to be sponsored by an employer for a skilled temporary visa. 

The minimum salary for this visa will also rise to AU$70,000 (US$47,734) from July 1, 2023 after being held down by the Coalition for a decade.

The Coalition government also established a special fee-free Covid-19 visa stream with full work rights (subclass 408) that was predominantly taken up by overseas students and temporary graduates whose visas were expiring but could not leave Australia due to travel restrictions. 

There are almost 100,000 people currently in Australia on this visa. This visa will likely be closed to new applications in the near future.

The Coalition government made major changes to the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) and the Work and Holiday (W&H) visas including increasing caps on the number of W&H visa holders by 30% in 2022–23. It also allowed these visa holders to work with one employer for longer than six months, enabled them to apply for a third visa and increased age limits.

These changes rapidly increased WHM and W&H visa holders in Australia from around 19,000 in early 2022 to almost 140,000 by May 2023. From July 1, 2023, WHM and W&H visa holders will need to change employers every six months.

Two other changes will be the introduction of the Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) and direct access to Australian citizenship by New Zealand citizens who have been in Australia for a significant period. The PEV is a permanent visa. 

Despite the requirement of a formal job offer, the 2023–24 Federal Budget has assumed a large portion of the PEV holders will fall back on social security. That poor policy outcome should lead the government to re-design this visa.

Despite its border protection and visa integrity rhetoric, the Coalition government presided over the largest decline in immigration compliance activity over the last 40 years. That contributed to the visa system becoming widely abused and increased migrant worker exploitation.

In response to a Nine Network investigation, the Albanese government commissioned a former Victorian state police commissioner Christine Nixon to undertake a review of visa integrity. While the government has not yet released the Nixon report, the Melbourne-based newspaper The Age appears to have sourced a copy and says the findings are “scathing.”

The recent federal budget allocates funding to increase immigration compliance activity. But much of that will be needed just to enforce visa changes that start from July 1, 2023.

An editorial in The Age demanding action will put pressure on the government to go further, especially in terms of the abuse of the asylum system. More than 100,000 asylum seekers currently in Australia will be especially vulnerable to labor market exploitation if the labor market weakens as forecast. 

The Albanese government has announced measures to reduce migrant worker exploitation. But given the size of the problem, this will be a long way short of what is required. While tightening immigration policy, the Albanese government appears committed to attracting key skills in the health, aged care, education and information technology sectors. 

One of the most significant announcements is an aged care labor agreement to address the chronic shortage of aged care workers, especially given Australia’s aging population. This will result in a shift in the focus of courses offered by international education providers towards these sectors.

The government should commit to a long-term target for net migration such as over a 10-year cycle, given net migration will increasingly be the main driver of population change.

Abul Rizvi holds a PhD in Immigration Policy from the University of Melbourne. He was a senior official in the Department of Immigration from the early 1990s to 2007.

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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It is a given, within the UN system, that all major donors will go to great efforts to ensure that key positions, particularly those of heads of agencies, are filled by their respective citizens. Within this ecosystem, the international management of asylum and migration is an endeavor that Washington traditionally considers as part of its preserve.

To try to address population movement, governments created two organizations, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) set up in 1951 under US sponsorship to address the population displacement in Europe left over by World War II, and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) created the same year by the United Nations to address “refugees,” that is, those fleeing persecution.

Over the following decades the two organizations, the mandates of which increasingly overlapped, developed into multibillion-dollar operations. And in 2016 the IOM joined the United Nations system, which now has two organizations doing in substance the same thing.

The end of the Cold War voided what had been the ideological component of “asylum” as an instrument of political confrontation between states. However, while the ideological dimension of population displacement took a step backward, displacement as such took a massive leap forward.

There are currently some 100 million displaced persons throughout the world. These include so-called “refugees” who seek asylum from war or persecutions and are outside their country of origin, the internally displaced who had to flee their place of residence but are still within their own country, and migrants who wish to move for economic reasons without going through the legal procedures of the countries of destination.

Seen in a global perspective, population displacement  has also developed into two main components: movement between one country and another within the same geo-cultural regional environment, and movement from one socio-cultural environment to another, or more specifically from the Third World toward the industrialized West.

In both of these scenarios, those who move are a combination of “refugees” who flee war and persecution and “migrants” who flee poverty and government mismanagement. The end result is that the distinction between “refugee” and “irregular migrant” is becoming increasingly blurred; but whatever the definition of those on the move, the overriding element is not so much who they are but what their destination is. 

Within this perspective the situation of a Rohingya refugee who fled Myanmar and sought refuge in Bangladesh is not substantially different from that of  a Ukrainian who sought refuge in Switzerland. While both can qualify as “displaced,” neither moved beyond his socio-cultural environment.

Cultural clashes

Conversely, while such groups as Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans or sub-Saharan Africans, not to say Central Americans, might have found asylum in neighboring countries, their ultimate destinations are the Western industrialized societies. The resulting migratory pressure is currently fueling in the countries of destination an increased degree of cultural rejection.

This stems from the perception that an unregulated influx of people who harbor values that are viewed as incompatible with those of the countries of destination is creating for the latter an existentialist threat. Thus countries like Poland or Hungary that have made it a policy of not receiving a single refugee opened their doors to the Ukrainians while keeping them closed when Africans, Arabs or Muslims are concerned. 

With population displacement an issue that increasingly impacts domestic policies, UN member states have no intention of delegating to an international entity the formulation of their migration policies. Conversely however, the industrialized countries need a multilateral instrument to help mitigate the global impact of displacement.  

Thus stabilizing the movement and ensuring that it does not overflow its socio-cultural environment has become the unsaid but ultimately main concern of the industrialized countries. 

This concern that expresses itself through the provision of aid to the poorer countries of transit or destination in an attempt to manage the overflow before it reaches the borders of industrialized countries.

Within this perspective, organizations like the IOM or UNHCR play a major role in channeling what comes under the label of multilateral assistance to the countries of transit – assistance that is given in parallel to the many millions of euros that the likes of Germany or Spain provide to such transit countries as Turkey, Morocco or Libya in order to encourage them to control their borders better.

US takes back control

Such an effort is also undertaken by the United States when it tries to ensure better  control by its Latin American neighbors of its southern border.

Within this global perspective, the United States  traditionally sought to exercise some form of guardianship over the two organizations dealing with the issue, namely the IOM and UNHCR, a guardianship that has become a staple of US foreign policy.

Exercising this authority has in essence two configurations: The first is funding. Washington is and has been over the years the main donor both to the IOM and to the UNHCR. Granted the European Union is not far behind, but with 27 members to contend with, speaking with one voice is not its forte, a weakness that the United States does not have to contend with.

The second is administrative. On paper the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is chosen by the UN secretary general and elected by consensus by the General Assembly. Actually the election process is a formality.

What is not is the consultative process by which the secretary general identifies a candidate that all major governments will approve of – a process that ensured that the High Commissioner would be a credible figure from a small, possibly Western country, who would know how not to step on the toes of the major donors.

Once elected it was a given that the High Commissioner would chose as a deputy an American from a list submitted  by Washington. The end result is the current situation in which an Italian High Commissioner spends most of his time traveling and commiserating while an American is actually running the organization.

Choosing the IOM’s director general was an altogether different process. Except for a minor interlude, the director of the organization was traditionally an American of ambassadorial rank elected through a secret ballot by the 171 member states, with the provision that he would get a two-thirds majority of the votes.

Breaking tradition

This functioning equilibrium was wrecked by the US administration of Donald Trump. In 2018 Trump presented for the post of IOM director general Ken Isaacs, a right-wing politician who had made a name for himself by denouncing the alleged evils of migration. Isaacs was so visibly incompetent that the IOM member states broke with tradition and elected as IOM director general a Portuguese, Antonio Vitorino. 

Vitorino was a former vice-prime minister and European Commissioner and came across as a quiet, hard-working, cautious administrator. During his five-year tenure he took the IOM’s budget from some US$2 billion to $3 billion while in essence keeping a low profile.

Not one to rock the boat, and mindful of Washington’s interests, he took as deputy in 2021 Amy Pope, a bouncy mid-level White House staffer of the Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations.

It was customary for IOM directors general to be elected to a second five-year term when, in the spring of 2023, Pope, with the support of Washington, announced that she would be running for the post. That the deputy of the head of a UN agency due for re-election would turn against her boss and seek to unseat him was unheard of in UN history.

What followed was an acrimonious campaign in which Pope heaped scorn on her opponent, whom she derided for being “old school” and not traveling enough.

With President Biden descending into the fray and personally inviting governments to vote for Amy Pope, the hapless Vitorino did not stand a chance. Granted, France did try to have him endorsed as the candidate of the European Union. However, this would have required the consensus of all the EU member states. This did not prove forthcoming when Poland, presumably at Washington’s urging, refused to endorse him.

The end result was that, after a first vote that saw Pope coming strongly ahead, Vitorino pulled out of the race and Pope was elected by acclamation as the new director general of the IOM.

Migrant system politicized

While Washington obtained what it had set out to achieve, namely the return of the IOM to the American fold, the process proved bewildering for most of the international diplomatic community. With Washington the major donor and with contributions earmarked for specific projects rather than left to be disbursed at the discretion of the organization, the IOM was already in practical terms an instrument of American foreign policy.

Likewise, while it is not unusual for governments to seek to place some of their officials in senior United Nations positions, Amy Pope as a mid-level White House staffer with an unimpressive CV and no political base of her own would hardly have qualified for such a privileged treatment.

And as for Vitorino, the soft-spoken former deputy prime minister of a NATO and EU member state had done nothing to antagonize  Washington, and denying him a second term could hardly have been an aim in itself.

Which leaves only two hypotheses as to the reason Washington went to such lengths to get Amy Pope elected as director general of the IOM.

The first is simply to backtrack from the policy of Donald Trump and reclaim a UN organization that Washington saw as its own.

The second places the battle for the IOM within the context of the new Cold War between the US and China. Within this context, all UN organizations are not created equal.

Some, like the Food and Agriculture Organization, are in essence technical and dedicated to combating “hunger.” Thus when the FAO’s director general, the Chinese national Qu Dangyo, was due for a second term on July 2, 2023, he was re-elected by a landslide of 168 votes out of 182.

Conversely, what can be termed as the Western industrial establishment is not inclined to give up any organization that deals with issues that have a strategic or security component. Thus when the directorship of the World Meteorological Organization came up for a vote, the Chinese candidate Zhang Wenjian was trounced, receiving 37 votes while his Argentine opponent was elected with 108 votes.

The same happened at the International Telecommunication Union, where the American candidate was elected with 139 votes while her Russian opponent received 25.

Within this global ecosystem, the nationality of the director general of the IOM is of little consequence, and even more so as the United States, as the major donor, has a lock on the organization. Imposing Amy Pope, however, permitted Washington to flex its political muscle, albeit in an environment where it had no competitor.

And by the same token it illustrated the frailty of the European Community, where the defection of Poland ensured that the organization could not speak with one voice.

As of today the Biden administration can pride itself in having re-established its hold on the IOM while retaining a dominant influence on the parallel UN Refugee Agency.

This in turn leaves unanswered another question, namely how to bring the asylum/migration nexus under some control.

Doing so would entail the merger of the IOM and UNHCR and in parallel the adoption by the main countries of destination, namely the European Union, of a coordinated and well-defined migration policy that would include realistic migration quotas with the immediate return to the areas of origin of those who do not qualify.

Integrating into the process the countries of transit and of destination would be a must. 

Granted generating such a process is not within the terms of reference of either the IOM or UNHCR or of any single government and can only be achieved if there is the political will to do so among the main UN member states. To say that this is not even on the distant horizon is an understatement. 

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