By Tom Plate
Asia can be tough to figure out. Any given week in Asia offers more highs and lows than the New York Stock Exchange. The region shimmers from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Let's start with the ridiculous: In Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), the majority Sinhalese government announces victory in the endlessly self-destructive civil war against minority Tamils; but in the process it looks to have torched many innocent Tamils. Do we call this progress or regression? Will Sri Lanka become more or less stable over time? Will there be justice for all?
In Myanmar (formerly Burma), the government removes Nobel Laureate and anti-junta leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 63, from house arrest and dumps her in regular prison while charging her with new crimes. Can this ruling junta get any dumber? Hasn't this remarkable woman been through enough? Why doesn't the crack British commando unit assigned to this problem go in and extricate her before these idiot Burmese generals are the death of her?
And in Pakistan (formerly a non-failed state), the military is expanding its nuclear arsenal at the very time its ability to keep its current radioactive stockpile from extremists is questionable. How do even more nukes make Pakistan safer? How in the world do they even define national security in Islamabad?
And then in Bangkok, an inept government proposes to stabilize the country by putting censorship clamps on the news media, which is like trying to clamp a lid on a boiler while putting up the flame. Thailand's a constitutional monarchy, to be sure ― not a full-fledged democracy. Even so, does it have to head in the direction of a Burma?
And in otherwise mature Tokyo … Oh, let's leave Japan alone this time and get to the pleasant upticks about Asia before we all get thoroughly depressed.
A wonderful election: Worldwide applause rightly greets the decision of the Indian electorate to reward the federal government of Manmohan Singh with a new and stronger mandate. And this isn't easily achieved in India: In fact, there's not enough space here ― or perhaps even on the surface of the moon ― to explain the complexities of the Indian election system; plasma physics may be slightly easier to digest. Suffice it to say that, at the end of the day, Prime Minister Singh, the quiet-spoken but deeply thoughtful 76-year-old economist at the top of the Congress Party-driven coalition government, has been resoundingly asked by Indian voters to stay at the helm and soldier on.
Taking nothing away from the powerful and effective behind-the-scenes work of charismatic Congress Parliamentary Party president Sonia Gandhi, Asia and America need to accept and honor the rise of the intellectually astute Singh to the top tier of world statesmen. International recognition would be richly deserved ― overdue, actually.
A very interesting appointment: The Obama Administration offers the vacancy of U.S. ambassador to China to a prominent Republican, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. In accepting, this apparently rising GOP star is placing national-service duty over potential political ambition. He is right to do so ― this is a sensitive and important post. The Chinese should be especially pleased.
The gentleman has a resume of wide richness as former U.S. ambassador to Singapore under the competent Bush (1992 to 1994), then deputy U.S. trade representative under the incompetent Bush (2001-2004). He is China-savvy. His family of seven children includes one adopted from China, and he is fluent in Mandarin, the main common language of the mainland, which he picked up years ago as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan. Also, as Utah's governor he has preached the gospel of not excluding China from international problems that cannot possibly be solved if China is excluded. This looks to be a good appointment.
A political resurrection: Understandably, China's leadership thought Zhao Ziyang had died four years ago. Well, he did ― but this reformer's thoughts live! It turns out that the late Chinese Communist Party boss secretly recorded (over some Chinese opera tapes) his memoirs and political views. They are most controversial, especially inside China.
Zhao reveals that his boss, the late Deng Xiaoping, was anything but the economic visionary of legend and had to be pushed all the time; that the awful bloodshed at Tiananmen Square in 1989 was easily avoidable if the government hadn't lost its head and its cool, and that China must move toward democracy before long. ``If we do not move toward this goal,'' he is reported as saying in the book to be published soon (``Prisoner of the State,'' by Simon and Schuster), ``it will be impossible to resolve the abnormal conditions of China's market economy.''
The 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen mess arrives June 4 of this year. The book is brilliantly timed ― good work, Simon and Schuster! Once again in Asia, the past refuses to be buried, even in China.
Career journalist Tom Plate, an American university professor for 14 years and author of ``Confessions of an American Media Man,'' is the author of six books, and is now working on a study of Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore. He can be reached at platecolumn@gmail.com.