Insights and Analysis
Editor’s Picks: 2014 Must Reads
December 23, 2014
Season’s Greetings! On behalf of In Asia’s editorial board and bloggers, we thank you for your engagement and continued readership throughout the year. We’ll be taking a short break, but will return on January 7. In the meantime, catch up on our must-read pieces and highlights on the most pressing events and issues in Asia throughout 2014.
Sincerely,
Alma Freeman
Editor, In Asia
To mark The Asia Foundation’s 60th anniversary, we kicked off 2014 with a year-long conversation on the most critical issues facing Asia, accompanied by six special blog editions. Here are some highlights:
- Ky Johnson examines “Corruption in the Philippines: Survey of Business Execs Reveals ‘Mixed’ Findings,” and George Varughese and Sagar Prasai examine why civic complacency in political accountability is holding Nepal back.
- Meet the women leaders who drive Aquino’s reform agenda, by Maribel Buenaobra, and read why inclusive growth in Asia is impossible without including women, by Véronique Salze-Lozac’h and Ka Wai Wong.
- Koy Neam and Silas Everett blog on the January 3 crackdown on street protests in Cambodia and why it serves as a “sharp reminder that the country’s institutions still do not guarantee protection of basic human rights for all of its citizens.”
- David Steinberg reexamines growth and poverty in Myanmar, and Syed A. Al-Muti writes on Bangladesh’s development surprise and why it can be a model for developing countries.
- Farid Alam and Sofia Noreen look at the struggle against religious conflict in Pakistan, and Steven Rood blogs on a milestone passed in the 40-year effort to end hostilities in the Philippines between the national government and Muslim separatist fronts.
- Chen Liuting writes on how China’s expanding foundations are taking a greater role in disaster management, and Tirza Theunissen blogs from Mongolia, where despite a wealth of natural resources, it “faces severe water scarcity and quality crisis.”
Experts also blogged on Asia’s historical elections in 2014:
- From Indonesia, Andrew Thornley offers eight takeaways from the country’s presidential election, and Sandra Hamid writes on the election activists who are fighting to end “money politics.”
- One week after Afghans defied threats to cast their vote on election day, Abdullah Ahmadzai blogs from Kabul on the concern over fraud as results were tallied.
- From India, Mandakini Devasher Surie decodes India’s election results, where few anticipated the sheer magnitude of the victory of the BJP led by Narendra Modi. Rani Mullen follows up on “5 Predictions for India’s Development Cooperation Under India’s New Government.”
In January, news of the “Bangkok Shutdown” grabbed headlines:
- John Brandon writes why credible reform, not shutdown, is needed to end the political standoff, and later, Kim McQuay looks at Thailand’s deepening political crisis that led to the removal of former Pheu Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in May.
Lastly, regional integration issues grabbed readers’ attention:
- Analysis on Asia’s youngest country – Timor-Leste – and its road to ASEAN, by Mario Filomeno da Costa Pinheiro; why regional cooperation in South Asia remains weak, by Sagar Prasai; and the pros and cons of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) for SMEs, by Véronique Salze-Lozac’h, Arpaporn Winijkulchai, and Ka Wai Wong.
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