Commentary ,Asia (Page 5)

Third, it is thought that the group management is developing a Xi Jinping Thought on National Security to supplement the general social philosophy, which has been incorporated into the state constitution and party contract.

China has already announced six arches to further Xi’s philosophy, including his views on society, law, diplomacy, the defense, and the environment. The Ministry of State Security may be planning to mobilize support for the new wall, which is thought to be one of several innovative ones to emerge in the months or years to come.

INVESTORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD ARE NERVOUS

To be fair, the ministry did n’t start using social media to reach more people until much later. In June 2014, the CIA launched its Twitter and Facebook records. The mind of the UK Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, has a personal Twitter account where he tweets advice and reposts official media releases.

However, foreign investors are now quite uneasy due to China’s increased efforts to examine companies and investments with connections abroad. The agency’s abrasive remarks might render them worse.

For example, the government published posts criticizing those with ulterior motives who were pessimistic about China and “badmouthing” its economic growth prospects after China’s monthly meetings on economic and financial position late last year, claiming that all those attempts were intended to undermine the confidence of foreign investors and cause financial unrest in China.

Additionally, it claimed that these actions presented fresh difficulties for China’s efforts to maintain economic stability.

In the economic and financial spheres, the government is anticipated to actively participate in the development of national security protection. What are the meanings of all these remarks? Is the department attempting to imply that it is ready to pursue those who are skeptical of China’s financial guidelines? To begin with, there are too many of them.

The ministry should be more aware of the potential effects of its normal musings in order to increase its public reach. It is a covert company, after all.

Past South China Morning Post editor-in-chief Wang Xiangwei. He currently teaches media at Baptist University. The earliest version of this commentary was released on&nbsp,SCMP.

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REASONS FOR Decline

There may be a number of reasons for the decline, even though the board’s internal discussions will remain private. Given that Najib is a top social figure who continues to enjoy strong support within his group, UMNO, the first would be the spirit of peace.

Given that Najib is also from Pahang and belongs to that country’s aristocracy, the next may be connections between the king and him. However, by merely reducing Najib’s sentence rather than granting a total pardon, the departing monarch avoids any further embarrassment should the former prime minister be found guilty of any of his outstanding charges and given another custodial sentence.

Beyond this, several parties are likely to react favorably to this legal denouement.

First off, even though UMNO supporters have been clamoring for a complete pardon, this choice at least partially satisfies their needs. The group, a part of the unity government, has been lobbying for decades and has at least some demonstrable results to show. This will reduce the possibility of angry group officials tipping the apple vehicle.

Next, the decision has angered and enraged inhabitants across the country, who have questioned the procedure and justification for the partial relief.

Najib is also incarcerated, though, and there are other, more serious cases against him. In fact, he is accused of abusing his position of authority and robbing 1MDB of a remarkable RM2 billion in cash. Najib has so never gotten off lightly, and his legal battles are far from over.

The former prime minister could have resumed his political career if he had received a full pardon ( and his other circumstances had mysteriously disappeared ). Najib will, nonetheless, be excluded from voting for at least one electoral cycle as a result of his limited pardon.

This is due to the previous perfect minister’s five-year suspension from holding political office following his release. Therefore, if Najib were to be elected in August 2028, the upcoming general election, which is scheduled for soon 2027, would already be over. In fact, he would n’t be able to run for office until August 2033.

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MORE FROM INTER MIAMI IS NEEDED BY FANS

It appears that David Beckham’s treatment charge from the football group he co-owned is as low as what debts you anticipate from Evergrande. &nbsp,

Inter Miami has a waiver of liability. According to local media accounts, it had been decided that Messi would play for at least 45 days unless he was injured. And no, the organisers&nbsp had stated in December that supporters would n’t receive a refund if the person left the game. &nbsp,

One may contend that Inter Miami adhered to the agreement’s language but not its nature.

Messi is traveling from Saudi Arabia to Tokyo for the summer, making a stay in Hong Kong. He continued to play in the team’s final 14 days against Al Nassr in Riyadh despite being injured, dribbling the game and making quick runs to friends.

Fans in Saudi Arabia enjoyed the light jogging, though it was n’t much. The spectators at the Hong Kong area deserved that. &nbsp,

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BOSSKU’S LASTING INFLUENCE

Najib’s age matters a lot here. If he does not receive any sentence reduction, he will be 81 years old when released in 2034. If Najib walks free in 2026, he will be 73 years old – not significantly older than the past four prime ministers when they assumed office.

However, the Pardons Board made no mention of the five-year ban from politics, as laid out in the constitution, that typically succeeds a prison sentence. Even if Najib is released on 2026, he has to wait till August 2031 before contesting in any election, guaranteeing him to miss at least one election cycle.

Of course, Najib’s influence is not only limited to elections. Returning in 2026 could already guarantee his place in UMNO, using his flagship “Bossku” (my boss) branding to reinvigorate his base. 

The current UMNO president, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, could now tell his party that he has fulfilled his promise of pursuing a pardon for Najib, and this is the fruit of his labour.

While this success could help him hold on to the presidency for a few years, the pressure for Najib to take over the reins will start to build. Mr Ahmad Zahid would have to make another political manoeuvre to keep Najib friendly but at bay.

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE JAPANESE?

An easy way to look at it is to consider the case of a university professor who took Canadian citizenship, forfeiting her Japanese nationality as a result. (The country bans dual citizenship, though in practice often turns a blind eye to those who possess it.)

Legally, the woman, who went unnamed in a Mainichi Shimbun interview, said she found herself being treated as an illegal foreign resident while staying in her home country. The law says one thing; most, however, would surely still think of her as Japanese.

Similarly, the accomplishments of Syukuro Manabe, joint winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics, are still celebrated as achievements for the country as a whole despite his having switched his citizenship to the United States years ago. 

There are vast swathes of grey in this debate. Japanese-ness clearly can be something more than a piece of paper. While there’s no doubt that much of the Miss Japan criticism comes from racists and online trolls, some of it is more considered, such as that of the manga author Mayumi Kurata. 

“The person chosen as Miss Japan is very beautiful. However, I had interpreted Miss Japan as someone whose beauty represents the Japanese people,” she wrote on Twitter. “She doesn’t fit that definition; her beauty is different from Japanese beauty.” In another post she added, “‘Japanese-ness’ and ‘Japan-ness’ exist in a strict sense.”

At a time when, in much of the Western world, celebration of racial identity is encouraged like never before, it seems somewhat incongruous to say that there is something wrong with the Japanese taking pride in their inherent cultural traits and combined history.

Though there might not be a strict definition of Japanese beauty or even what it means to be Japanese, that’s true of any ethnicity; these groupings might be social constructs rather than measurable genetic differences, but as Kurata notes, that doesn’t make them any less real.

Before you settle on a stance on this question, what are your views on Brooke Bruk-Jackson, a blonde, white woman who won Miss Universe Zimbabwe last year? That triggered a backlash in some sectors despite Bruk-Jackson being born in Harare.

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HIDDEN GEMS AND INSTAGRAM-WORTHY ATTRACTIONS

Social media has played a big role. Entertained by the “southern potatoes,” a nickname given to tourists wrapped in layers of winter clothes, locals offered visitors free rides across the city. The government installed small, warm houses as well as an artificial moon above a local Russian Orthodox Church, to provide better lighting, and cater to a generation obsessed with taking Instagram-worthy selfies. All these welcoming gestures were recorded and amplified on popular platforms. 

Shandong province’s Zibo, a small, declining industrial town in eastern China, offers another case study for places that went viral. Young Chinese flocked to the city of 4.7 million, where US$10 can buy roughly 35 meat skewers. They were pleasantly surprised by “how sincere and honest” local businesses were, as they didn’t raise prices even when tourism demand surged. 

Open-minded and budget-conscious youths are drawn to hidden gems. They prefer hanging out with the locals and learning ethnic minorities’ way of life to shopping in glitzy resorts such as on the island of Hainan. And when they have saved enough money for overseas trips, they are following in the footsteps of those Divas Hit The Road, who ventured to Saudi Arabia in the latest season. During the eight-day October holiday, Chinese descended on Dubai, en route to places like Egypt and Jordan.

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“OPPOSITION-LESS” APPROACHES TO GOVERNING

The position of major parties regarding the future of direct elections appears largely instrumental. The National Awakening Party (PKB), which Baswedan’s running mate Muhaimin Iskandar heads, has advocated for the regional parliaments’ appointment of governors. This is despite Baswedan’s popular election as Jakarta governor, like Jokowi before him, being foundational to his viability as a presidential candidate now.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), whose candidate Ganjar Pranowo was a two-term elected governor of Central Java, has also indicated support for the idea. A draft legislation was recently put forward for a framework for governing Jakarta once the new capital city Nusantara officially replaces it as the nation’s capital.

The Bill proposes that future governors would be appointed by the president on the regional legislative council’s recommendation – an idea touted by the PSI, the self-proclaimed youth party now led by Jokowi’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep.

The preference shown by many political parties for greater control over executive leader appointment processes reflects agitation at what they see as the vagaries and increasing expense of direct elections plus the need to find “electable” candidates.

Any further narrowing of the field for political contestation, such as a return to closed-list voting systems or parliamentary appointments of regional leaders, would close the door on the possibility of any disruptive outsiders contesting gubernatorial or legislative posts. This would be most detrimental to those sectors of civil society without ties to, or utility value for, political elites who will face greater barriers to electoral participation and vulnerability to repression. This would extend to outlier parties excluded from a ruling coalition.

As we have seen over the past decade, few have remained committed to being an effective opposition – a role which comes with risks, such as targeted criminalisation.

A Prabowo presidency, then, may see an expansion of “opposition-less” approaches to governing, framed by nationalist tropes of safeguarding unity. The logic of this approach, already embraced by Jokowi, is to remove parliamentary opposition and curtail the emergence of rival power bases. This is done not by overt repression but co-optation into large ruling coalitions managed via negotiations and inter-elite deals.

Prabowo has said that he intends to include “all sides” in any future government. This would resemble his preferred integralist “consensus” (musyawarah)-based model, as envisioned in Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution, and serve to further strengthen the power of the executive.

In such a scenario, core democratic processes such as elections may be maintained, albeit on a reduced scale but largely stripped of their potential for delivering substantive change. Such processes will nonetheless continue to provide an important avenue for public participation and for conferring legitimacy on the status quo.

If Prabowo can maintain his popularity like Jokowi has done, he may feel emboldened to flex his authoritarian muscle and push once more for a rollback of the post-1999 constitutional amendments and the end of direct elections.

Ian Wilson is a Visiting Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He is also Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Security Studies, Academic Chair of the Global Security Program and Co-Director of the Indo-Pacific Research Centre at Murdoch University, Western Australia. This commentary first appeared on the Institute’s blog, Fulcrum.

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