BOJ chief Ueda won’t shock markets yet

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TOKYO – Judging by the dearth of volatility in yen trading, investors aren’t expecting fireworks from the Bank of Japan tomorrow (April 28).

Surprises do happen at BOJ headquarters, of course. But this being Kazuo Ueda’s first policy meeting as governor, the odds are low that Tokyo is about to shock global markets with an about-face in its 20-plus-year experiment with quantitative easing.

That would be wise considering the worrisome mix of troubles bubbling up under the surface of the world’s third-biggest economy. Those include worries about a Silicon Valley Bank-like blowup among Japan’s 100-plus regional lenders.

Another: the high likelihood of political blowback in Tokyo if Ueda made radical monetary policy moves right out of the gate.

This latter point is often underappreciated in analyses of the BOJ’s latitude to take risky steps. Though “independent,” the BOJ in reality is on a shorter leash than many observers like to admit. Case in point: Haruhiko Kuroda leaving the BOJ governorship earlier this month with zero effort to wind down QE.

Granted, the BOJ had already been deep in the QE matrix for 13 years by the time Kuroda arrived in 2013. But he turned Japan’s QE era up to 11 and then some. And with limited success, clearly, as wages flatlined amid record corporate profits compliments of a plunging yen.

Still, the big gains in Nikkei stocks and relative macroeconomic stability earned Kuroda considerable political capital at home. Capital he could’ve spent on his way out the door plotting ways to reduce the BOJ’s US$5 trillion balance sheet.

Kuroda didn’t, leaving Ueda with what’s arguably the worst job in global economics. As Ueda presides over his first policy deliberation as governor, memories of December 20, 2022 loom large.

Outgoing Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda. Photo: AFP / Jiji Press

On that day, all hell broke loose in markets after Team Kuroda announced the slightest of tweaks to its “yield curve control” policy. The move to let 10-year bond yields rise as high as 0.5% was meant to limit the gap between US and Japanese interest rates. That, Kuroda figured, would reduce pressure on the BOJ to intervene in markets day after day.

The Kuroda BOJ spent the next two weeks cleaning up the move’s mess by making countless unscheduled asset purchases to reassure global investors that QE is here to stay.

Then came the Silicon Valley Bank crisis in the US. Next, UBS having to save Credit Suisse, which served to spike global paranoia levels to the next level.

Now, comes news this week that San Francisco-based First Republic Bank’s troubles are far from over. And, it follows, concerns about new US bank failures are intensifying by the day.

This is the limited option environment into which Ueda steps. Reports from Bloomberg that US regulators may downgrade First Republic’s prospects are making headlines just as Ueda sits down to mull BOJ policy. It’s worth noting, too, that Japan’s economic performance thus far in 2023 has not been stellar.

“Although the recent decline in government bond yields might seem to open the door for tweaks to yield-curve control, such a step could backfire,” says economist Stefan Angrick at Moody’s Analytics. “Economic data of late haven’t been good. Disappointing GDP growth means the economy is still smaller than before the pandemic. Employment conditions are showing signs of softening, and wage growth is trailing inflation.”

Complicating matters, recent “shunto” wage negotiations yielded the biggest wage gains since 1993 – an average 3.8%. Trouble is, coming amidst the highest inflation in 40 years, the timing of the pay bump could fan overheating risks. Here, China’s rebound adds to the risk of global inflation getting a second wind.

As Angrick notes, “notwithstanding a strong shunto spring wage round, it is unclear that this year’s gains will be repeated next year. Recent financial market disruptions abroad have only added risk. Given the BoJ’s history of premature policy tightening, the bungled yield curve control tweak in December, and the cold water poured on the idea of a change at the first press conference with the BOJ’s new leadership, it is unlikely the BOJ will move soon.”

The reference here to wage uncertainties for next year deepens the plot for Ueda. On the one hand, the new governor doesn’t want to let inflation become even hotter. On the other, Tokyo’s political establishment would pounce if BOJ “tapering” spooked CEOs into closing their wallets anew.

As Naoko Tochibayashi, a World Economic Forum analyst in Tokyo, notes, even now “it remains to be seen if similar wage rises can be seen in small and medium-size enterprises, which make up 70% of employers and are key to Japan’s economic revival.”

Japanese workers are negotiating for higher wages. Photo: AFP / Charly Triballeau

This dramatizes the precarious balancing act Ueda faces. So does the fragile state of Japan’s regional bank network. Many of these lenders service rapidly aging communities in already sparsely populated areas of the country. That squeezed profits well before the banking shocks of the last 15 years, including fallout from the 2008 “Lehman shock.”

That episode, graying customer bases and an accelerating exodus of companies to Tokyo had regional banks hoarding government and corporate bonds instead of lending BOJ liquidity. It was a similar practice that blew up SVB and New York-based Signature Bank.

As of the end of December, SMBC Nikko Securities estimated that regional lenders were sitting on about $10.5 billion of unrealized losses on foreign bonds and other securities. Such figures raise a difficult question Ueda now has to answer: how big might losses get on domestic debt if Japanese government bond yields rose above, say, 1% or more?

The good news is that many Japanese banks tend to prioritize bonds that can be sold rather than holding to maturity SVB-style. As such, SMBC Nikko analyst Masahiko Sato reckons the threat to capital ratios, on average, is only about 2%. Therefore, Sato does “not think potential losses are on a scale with systemic implications.”

BOJ tapering or even a rate hike or two could change this calculus, and fast. If regional banks face profit pressures with rates at zero – and the BOJ is still in 24/7 ATM mode – just imagine the valuation losses if Ueda were to hit the monetary brakes.

Yet Ueda’s pedigree suggests he could be more of an out-of-the-box thinker than currency strategists grasp.

During his time as a BOJ board member in 2000, Ueda dissented on a move to end the zero-rate strategy. His background as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained economist, meanwhile, could be its own wildcard.

At MIT, Ueda was a pupil of Stanley Fischer, a former senior official at the Fed, the Bank of Israel and the International Monetary Fund. Fisher also taught former Fed chief Ben Bernanke, former European Central Bank head Mario Draghi and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

Other members of the MIT monetary club: Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe and former Bank of England governor Mervyn King.

In February, Summers called Ueda “Japan’s Ben Bernanke.” Ueda and Bernanke, it’s worth noting, made their economic reputations exploring the lessons from the Great Depression, including Japan’s late-1920s to mid-1930s policies.

For Ueda, that entailed a keen focus on the 1930s policies of Korekiyo Takahashi, who’s often called the John Maynard Keynes of Japan.

Kazuo Ueda has arguably the most difficult job in finance as the Bank of Japan’s next governor. Image: Facebook / Asahi / Screengrab

Takahashi served as finance minister, BOJ governor and even prime minister in the 1920s and 1930s. His super-aggressive monetary easing, fiscal expansion and “debt monetization” efforts were as pioneering as economic policy gets.

There’s also reason to think Ueda could be a rather conventional central banker. He’s said so far, for example, that there’s no urgency to alter the BOJ-government framework that mandates the central bank target 2% inflation.

“If needed, Ueda likely will request the government to revise the joint statement so that the BOJ can respond flexibly, without sticking with the continuation of monetary easing,” says JPMorgan Chase & Co economist Benjamin Shatil. “We continue to see an exit from yield-curve control in coming months.”

Yet odds are decidedly low that Ueda would choose tomorrow (April 27) to toss financial explosives into jittery markets. And that seems wise for now.

Follow William Pesek on Twitter at @WilliamPesek

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Yoon in DC, time for a shift on the Korean Peninsula

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South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is in Washington this week, and his trip comes at a time when the US, South Korea and North Korea are stuck in a vortex of escalation, counter-escalation. The security dilemma is alive and well on the Korean Peninsula. Is there a way out?

Daniel DePetris, writing for Pacific Forum, says that “The most dramatic shift would be recognition among the United States and its allies that denuclearization is infeasible.” Asia Times is republishing the piece below.

Relatedly, Biden and Yoon were expected to issue a separate statement on the US extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, which obviously occurs on the heels of a renewed debate about whether the ROK should have a nuclear deterrent of its own.

The Wall Street Journal Reports: “The US has agreed to give Seoul a greater voice in consultations on a potential American nuclear response to a North Korean attack in return for swearing off developing its own nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said.”

Here is the DePetris article:

North Korea conducted another intercontinental ballistic missile test on April 13, the second in less than a month. Unlike the case with previous launches, however, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over what Pyongyang claimed was an ICBM powered by a solid-fueled engine.

This would represent another milestone in Pyongyang’s decades-long effort to field an operational missile capability despite being the subject of one of the most stringent UN Security Council sanctions regimes in existence.

A reliable North Korean solid-fueled ICBM would be of particular concern to the United States during a war-time contingency—solid-fueled missiles can be assembled rapidly, are easier to conceal compared to liquid-fueled variants, and can be prepared on-site, giving the United States far less time to locate and neutralize them before launch.

As expected, the United States, South Korea, and Japan condemned the latest test. Tokyo, which issued an emergency alert to residents on the island of Hokkaido, requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

The next day, Washington authorized two separate bilateral military drills with South Korea and Japan, including B-52 bombers and F-35 fighters. The drills were designed to send a message: more missile tests, particularly those with the capacity to reach targets on the continental United States, will result in more defensive measures by Washington and its East Asian allies in response.

Drills beget drills

None of these moves is especially surprising. The Biden administration is spending significant effort this year bolstering the credibility of US extended deterrence to its South Korean and Japanese allies.

In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup engaged in a series of meetings in Seoul, during which Washington pledged to “enhance the implementation of US extended deterrence” through increased deployment of US strategic assets on and near the Korean Peninsula.

This came roughly two weeks after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol suggested it may be time for South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons, or at least request the return of US tactical nuclear warheads on South Korean soil. Yoon’s comments got the attention of US defense officials; in the ensuing months, a variety of US strategic combat systems have been rotated to the area.

In February, US and South Korean officials participated in tabletop exercises at the Pentagon with a specific focus on responding to a number of scenarios involving North Korean nuclear use. US B-1B Lancers joined exercises with South Korean forces at least four times this year. The USS Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, docked in the South Korean port city of Busan in late March. In April, Washington and Seoul executed the largest military field exercises in five years.

Separate exercises occur as well, including trilateral anti-submarine warfare drills between US, South Korean, and Japanese naval forces. Similar exercises are now ongoing, with Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo regularizing them in the future to improve naval force inter-operability.

This has predictably elicited strong countermeasures from the North Koreans. The “security dilemma” – where “defensive” exercises are perceived by the adversary as a belligerent action – is very much alive on the Korean Peninsula. What Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo view as entirely justifiable, Pyongyang views as aggressive and thus deserving of retaliation.

Can the cycle of escalation be broken?

It is hard to see this cycle ending anytime soon. Ordinarily, such situations would be contained through diplomatic engagement, either between the parties themselves (oftentimes discreetly) or through a trusted intermediary. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any diplomatic channel on the horizon.

The Biden administration has reached out to the Kim regime multiple times to jumpstart a new negotiation after talks failed during the Trump era. But Kim Jong Un rejected the overtures and is unlikely to green-light any serious negotiating effort as long as US policy centers on North Korea’s total and irreversible denuclearization.

South Korea, which acted as a facilitator of direct US-North Korea diplomacy during Moon Jae-in’s presidency, is no longer seen by the North Koreans as a credible interlocutor due to President Yoon’s hardline approach toward Pyongyang. (North Korea has even ignored daily military-to-military phone calls from the South for nearly two weeks.)

In an ideal world, China would exploit its considerable financial and political leverage over North Korea to aid Washington in bringing the Kim regime to the negotiating table. Yet, given the terrible state of US-China relations, Beijing has little incentive to help Washington on a foreign policy dispute that has confounded multiple US administrations for decades.

Additional economic pressure is unlikely to bring Kim to the table either. The UN Security Council has been deadlocked on the North Korean nuclear issue since 2017, with the United States and China arguing over who is at fault. Permanent members Russia and China use their veto power to block individual sanctions designations, and the prospect of a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution passing is too low to even theorize about.

Beijing and Moscow increasingly see sanctions as worsening the internal food and economic crisis in North Korea and should therefore be loosened or removed. The United States found out the hard way when it tabled a draft resolution in May 2022, only to walk away from the council chamber disappointed after the Russian and Chinese delegations cast a double veto.

Even if the North Koreans conducted another nuclear test, there is no guarantee the Security Council could conjure up the unanimity required to issue a statement condemning it.

With the UN paralyzed, the Biden administration has relied on unilateral sanctions designations ever since to penalize North Korea for everything from illicit financial practices and fuel smuggling to the development of weapons of mass destruction and human rights abuses. Even so, the North Koreans have proven by necessity to be highly meticulous sanctions evaders.

Washington, therefore, is left with a short list of options. Continuing to strengthen the sanctions regime is the most likely course of action, if only out of bureaucratic habit, yet by definition it is highly reactive to North Korean behavior and holds low probability of success.

Maintaining the current pace of US military deployments in East Asia will be welcomed by Seoul and Tokyo but also risks prompting more North Korean missile tests and military exercises—up to and including a seventh underground nuclear test.

Fostering a detente between the two Koreas is probably a dead-end as long as the Yoon administration’s hard line continues.

The North Korean nuclear issue is a low priority for the Biden administration. The United States is currently content with treading water and waiting for the Kim regime to accept its overtures.

Assuming Washington wants to solve or at least contain the problem, the time has come for a major policy shift. The most dramatic shift would be recognition among the United States and its allies that denuclearization is infeasible when North Korea already possesses dozens of nuclear warheads, will likely construct more, and is in the process of diversifying its delivery systems.

Avoiding a war through a mixture of deterrence, engagement, and practical diplomacy should now be the paramount US national security objective on the Korean Peninsula, not transforming North Korea into a non-nuclear state.

If the United States intends to maintain a consistently high pace of military exercises with South Korea, Washington should establish protocols to minimize confusion and mixed signaling with North Korea.

This will likely require direct communication between US and North Korean military officers and perhaps advanced, mutual notifications about the timing and location of various military and missile exercises to decrease misperceptions.

In addition, the United States, in coordination with China, should be willing to exchange basic information on nuclear safety and maintenance with North Korea. That the United States is highly unlikely to recognize North Korea as a legitimate nuclear-armed state does not obviate the need to ensure Pyongyang’s nuclear practices are up to standard.

The United States should also stop predicating US-North Korea engagement on the nuclear issue alone. Maintaining a cold peace on the Korean Peninsula involves discussions beyond the nuclear component, including, but not limited to, the disposition of conventional forces on both sides of the 150-mile Demilitarized Zone, de-escalation mechanisms between the two Koreas, and common rules of engagement along disputed boundaries like the Northern Limit Line.

Only when realistic, achievable goals are set can an effective strategy be formulated.

Daniel R. DePetris ([email protected]) is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, DC., a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and a foreign policy writer for Newsweek. Follow him on Twitter @DanDePetris.

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. Asia Times is republishing it with permission. 

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US bans intensify chip-making equipment competition

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Export controls on semiconductor technology have been expanded after the conclusion of US bilateral negotiations with Japan and the Netherlands in March 2023. This is only the beginning as the United States is set to further tighten export controls, as recommended in the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence’s final report.

The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security issued new regulations on October 7, 2022, which were expected to bring about protests from semiconductor equipment makers and foundries.

While Washington insists that the measures are designed to protect US intellectual property and defend national security, they reflect the heavy competition in the global semiconductor equipment business.

According to 2019 figures, the United States had a 17% share of overall semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports, trailing behind Japan (28%) and closely followed by the Netherlands (17%), Singapore (10%) and South Korea (10%).

The United States is dominant in the upstream integrated circuit design process but it faces competition from the Netherlands and Japan in the midstream integrated circuit manufacturing process. It also does not have a substantial market share in the downstream integrated circuit packaging and testing process.

The competitive nature of the global semiconductor industry is particularly salient in lithography equipment (dubbed scanners or steppers). The Dutch company ASML Holding NV dominates this market, which was valued at US$11.8 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10%, reaching $18 billion by 2025.

The current moves to deter the Netherlands and Japan from exporting semiconductor equipment to China aim to undercut China’s access to high-end chip manufacturing equipment. But these efforts might also lead to a shift in market share depending on how export controls are implemented.

Dutch firm ASML employees at work. Photo: ASML

After months of deliberation amid negotiations with the United States, ASML announced it would prevent the sales of specific models of semiconductor equipment to an unnamed country.

The affected models were the TWINSCAN NXT:2000i, the NXT:2050i and the NXT:2100i, which are immersion-deep ultraviolet machinery used for lithographic processes in the most advanced logic and memory chips.

ASML has announced that the added measures will not affect its revenue, as it is currently operating at capacity. But given that the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has already prohibited the sale of extreme ultraviolet machinery to China, ASML must plan its next steps wisely and diversify into other jurisdictions.

The additional measures are pending implementation until the Netherlands enacts new laws and ASML is bound by any existing contracts to deliver machines until that time.

Japan has expressed its intent to participate in export controls, announcing its own export control mechanisms in March 2023. But Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi subsequently paid a visit to his counterpart in Beijing, Qin Gang, given the possible backlash from China.

As expected, China has contemplated placing export controls on rare earth materials in retaliation. There is speculation on which Japanese companies would be subject to the ban on semiconductor equipment sales to China, with the most likely being Tokyo Electron.

Depending on how Japan implements the export curbs, Japanese companies Canon and Nikon may seek to revive their lithography businesses, a market in which they once flourished but in which they have lost market share as they have instead focussed on camera lenses.

The Bureau of Industry and Security measures announced on October 7, 2022, have led to a plunge in semiconductor equipment sales to China, demonstrating the immediate impact of the measures on US companies such as Applied Materials, KLA and Lam Research.

The implementation of US export controls on semiconductor equipment may reset the competition for market share and create uncertainty for major players. Other countries such as Singapore, Germany and South Korea are likely to be subject to additional measures in the near future.

As access to the Chinese market shrinks under US export controls, it is bound to spur heightened competition and geo-economic conflict between the United States and China.

June Park is a political economist and an inaugural Asia Fellow of the International Strategy Forum at Schmidt Futures.

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

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Tangaraju Suppiah: Singapore to execute man over cannabis charge

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Singapore death row inmate Tangaraju SuppiahTRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE COLLECTIVE
By Joel Guinto
BBC News, Singapore

Singapore is set to hang a man for trafficking cannabis, in the city-state’s latest controversial execution.

Activists say Tangaraju Suppiah was convicted on weak evidence. Authorities say he received due process, and have scheduled his execution for Wednesday.

It follows a high-profile execution last year of a mentally disabled man over a drugs charge.

Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws, which it says are necessary to protect society.

In recent days his family members and activists delivered letters to Singapore’s president Halimah Yacob in a last-minute plea for clemency, while British billionaire Sir Richard Branson has called for a halt of the execution and a review of the case.

“I know that my brother has not done anything wrong. I urge the court to look at his case from the beginning,” Tangaraju’s sister, Leela Suppiah, told reporters at a news conference.

Tangaraju, 46, was convicted of “abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to traffic” over a delivery of 1kg (35oz) of cannabis from Malaysia to Singapore in 2013.

Though he was not caught during the delivery, prosecutors said he was responsible for coordinating it, and traced two phone numbers used by a deliveryman back to Tangaraju.

Tangaraju claimed he was not the person communicating with others connected to the case. He said he had lost one of the phones and denied owning the second one.

Singapore law mandates the death penalty for drug trafficking and has lesser penalties for couriers. In Tangaraju’s last appeal, the judge agreed with the prosecution that Tangaraju was responsible for coordinating the delivery, which made him ineligible for a more lenient sentence.

Activists have also raised concerns that Tangaraju was not given adequate access to an interpreter and had to argue his last appeal on his own since his family was unable to secure a lawyer.

Singapore authorities say Tangaraju requested for an interpreter only during the trial, and not earlier. They added that he had access to legal counsel throughout the process.

Family of Tangaraju Suppiah, Singapore death row convict, hold letter appealing for clemency.

EPA

Sir Richard, who previously criticised the 2022 execution of mentally disabled Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, said Tangaraju’s case was “shocking on multiple levels”.

In a blog post, he said Singapore “may be about to kill an innocent man” on the back of “more than dubious circumstances”.

“The death penalty is already a dark stain on the country’s reputation. An execution following such an unsafe conviction would only make things worse,” he said.

Rebutting his allegations, Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry said his claims were untrue and accused him of “disrespect for Singapore’s judges and our criminal justice system”.

It said the death penalty was “an essential component” in a multi-pronged approach that has been “effective in keeping Singapore safe and secure”.

Kirsten Han, a spokesperson for Singaporean anti-death penalty advocacy group the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), said the government did not want to appear to buckle under pressure.

But, she added, “of all the things that Singapore punches above its weight for on the international stage and at the UN, defending its right to murder people in the name of its citizens is not something we should be proud of for being outstanding on the international stage”.

Singapore’s strict rules stand in contrast to some of its neighbours’ recent moves. Thailand has legalised the trade of cannabis while Malaysia has ended the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Tangaraju’s family members said they were able to meet him from behind a glass partition at Changi Prison after his notice of execution was released last week.

“He puts up a brave front for my mother because he does not want her to break down,” his niece Subhashini Ilango said. “He has mentally prepared for this day to come. He does feel there’s a great injustice and he’ll be executed for something he did not do.”

His family said they would continue to press for reforms in Singapore’s legal system even if Tangaraju ends up executed.

“If such an injustice happens to my brother, I wouldn’t want it to happen to anybody else so I will continue to fight,” said his sister Leela.

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More eligible foreign visitors to Singapore can use automated lanes for immigration clearance: ICA

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More than 4 million foreign visitors have cleared immigration through the automated lanes to date, the authority said.

PROCESS FOR AUTOMATED LANES

Eligible foreign visitors can submit their SG Arrival Card through the MyICA mobile app or on ICA’s website within three days prior to arrival in Singapore. Submission is free.

They will be directed to the automated lanes, where their biometrics – iris, facial and fingerprint images – are automatically enrolled during the clearance process.

Information on their enrolment is included in the electronic visit pass, which will be sent via email after immigration clearance.

Foreign visitors who are enrolled will then be able to use the automated lanes during departure and on future visits to Singapore.

“ACI is a critical component of ICA’s New Clearance Concept, which aims to make automated immigration clearance the norm at the checkpoints,” said ICA, adding that automated lanes leverage multi-modal biometric scanning technology to provide travellers with a “more secure, efficient, and seamless immigration clearance experience”.

The authority added that it expects 95 per cent of all arrivals at Changi Airport to be cleared through the automated lanes by the first quarter of 2024.

With the automated lanes taking up less physical space and requiring less manpower, ICA will be able to increase its clearance volume and meet the growing traveller volume, which is expected to reach 300 million travellers per year by 2025.

“Correspondingly, the job roles of ICA officers will be enhanced, as ICA moves away from manual clearance,” it added.

“Prior to the ACI, most foreign visitors would have to queue at the manual counters upon arrival for immigration clearance. With the ACI, those eligible can now proceed directly to the automated lanes for immigration clearance, even if it is their first time visiting Singapore,” said ICA’s Assistant Commissioner Phua Chiew Hua, who is deputy director for operations.

“We have made the enrolment process as seamless as possible, so that travellers can perform self-enrolment at the automated lanes while clearing immigration. If required, our officers deployed at the automated lanes will assist them.”

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Hot and heavy politicking in pre-election Indonesia

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JAKARTA – Indonesian Democrat Party of Struggle (PDI-P) leader Megawati Sukarnoputri has finally named enigmatic Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo as her party’s presidential candidate, forced to show her hand earlier than she wanted to by the political fallout from Indonesia losing the FIFA Under-20 World Cup. The 76-year-old matriarch chose the Bogor presidential palace […]Continue Reading