Rob
Many thanks for your detailed news round-up. In asking several questions I
didn't expect the lowdown on each and every one, though pleased to have got
it.
You mentioned:
East Timor is an ex-story.
This is a little puzzling, and significantly more worrying, given the role
being played by Gareth Evans in his International Crisis Group hat (the
skinny on this outfit would be useful). His negotiation of the infamous
Timor Gap Treaty hardly qualifies him to be an impartial administrator or
whatever of the territory whose assets he now presides over. A while back in
either the Guardian or FT there was a very good article that managed to slip
out describing the alarm felt in Australian government circles that the East
Timorese would want more than the measly amount assigned to them in the
original treaty (ungrateful b&*!ards).
You continued:
Since John Howard pronounced that Oz saw itself as Uncle Sam's deputy in the
region, the Indonesian population and Malaysia's leadership (for two) have
correctly discerned that our foreign policy is still of the 'white man's
burden' variety. We've recently upped the ante by announcing a major
sustained military budget increase (the Defense people used to argue they
needed money because there was nothing more dangerous than a united
Indonesia;
now they're getting money because there's nothing more dangerous than a
fragmenting Indonesia), and a new regional arms race is likely to raise
temperature and take food out of mouths. Australia is, in short, more on
the
nose in the region than it has been for a decade.
=====
So how does this fit in with Dubya's trans-Pacific sabre-rattling? Does
Howard really want to get involved in that?
=====
>Any views on the recent Vietnamese CP Congress?
Well, nothing in the media here (of course), but it seems delegates are
pretty
free to speak. Lots of pronouncements about the Party having to review its
structure (endemic corruption, arrogance of the security branches,
non-representative and advanced age of cadres and executives, bureaucracy
trumping compassion etc); some general comments about restructuring an
education system to meet the challenges and derive the benefits of this
'information-age' thingy everyone else has been on about (if not edifying
about) for fifteen years; and a lot of stuff about dangerously lapsing Party
and public morality. All apparently very general, but perhaps indicative of
some profound self critique and some new broom measures. Still confidently
statist-commie stuff on the whole, though. Does that fit your take,
Michael?
=====
Quite a lot in the FT about it, including a typically sneering aside by its
piss-poor Observer diarist. Mostly positive about the change, although also
even managing to acknowledge the unimpeachability of the departing Le Kha
Phieu. He is even quoted in one article stating the need for greater support
for private enterprise, and faster economic development to speed growth. The
statist-commie stuff didn't feature, other than the gratuitous digs and
references to departing dinosaurs, etc.
Nothing at all in the Guardian about it, it seems. Hopefully some outlet
like Monthly Review will pick something up.
Keep on keeping on,
Michael K.
