First of all, a Happy New Year to all of our readers. We have some exciting plans for The Diplomat this year, including changes to the site to better accommodate our growing network of correspondents and contributors, as well two blogs on APAC's two major rising powers, namely China and India.

In the meantime, though, some interesting signs from North Korea. According to The Korea Herald, North Korean media have suggested that Kim Jong-il's youngest son, Kim Jong-un, is a step closer to be officially named heir to the North Korean leadership.

The paper says:

'North Korean media highlighted the "morning star," a nickname for Kim Jong-il's apparent heir, in their New Year's Day meteorological reports, drawing attention to the power succession plan.Kim Jong-il's youngest son Jong-un has often been referred to as the "Morning Star General."

'Venus, also known as the 'morning star,' shed an unusually bright light above the Chonji before sunrise.'

'North Korean media routinely introduce the natural phenomena on the morning of New Year's Day, but it is the first time since 2000 they mentioned the morning star.'

With so much guesswork involved with North Korea (one leading Korea watcher told me last year that, frankly speaking, we know 'nothing' about Kim Jong-un), this seems as reliable a guide as anything else. Let's hope, though, the reporter has thought this through more than The Korea Times did with a story it ran last month where it quoted, in all seriousness apparently, a story by US tabloid The Weekly World News:

'Extraterrestrial cemetery in Rwanda, Central Africa which is at least 500 years old, was discovered.

'According to the Weekly World News, Dr. Hugo Childs, the Swiss anthropologist said, "There must be 200 bodies buried there and not a single one of them is human."

One of the most interesting relationships in the Asia-Pacific is that between China and Pakistan. Ties between the two tend to get overlooked, with much of the focus of Pakistan-related commentary falling on its ties with the United States. But a report earlier this year by the German Marshall Fund took a useful look at the prospects for China playing a greater role in stabilizing Pakistan and Afghanistan, describing Beijing as a one of the most 'promising' sources of leverage. It argues:

'With China's own interests so vitally at stake--particularly in Pakistan--analysts close to the Chinese government have been suggesting that Afghanistan-Pakistan could become the most important area of strategic cooperation between China and the West.'

But it goes on to point out:

'Despite the stakes, China continues to be apprehensive about co¬operating with the West in addressing these challenges. Any risk of jeopardizing-or opening up to scrutiny-what has been arguably China's closest alliance over the past 50 years is viewed with trepida¬tion. As one former Chinese diplomat put it: "The relationship goes as deep as you can imagine. Pakistan's friends in China are not just the people who've passed through the South Asia desk but those who've seen Pakistan's support on Taiwan, Tibet, in international organizations, arms control, and disarmament. Not to mention the military."'

Pakistan for its part, not only embraces the relationship, but according to a report in The Dawn newspaper today seems determined to expand ties further in the IT sector:

'Emphasising the strategic importance, which the current government attached to the use and role of ICTs for tangible improvements in all spheres of life, (Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani) called for focused approach towards driving technology adoption.

'The Prime Minister was talking to a group of high-level executives of Chinese telecom manufacturing company Zhongxing Telecom corporations (ZTE), headed by Lou Ping Fan, President Southeast Asia for the company. The meeting was also attended by Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan.'

Some analysts I've spoken to in India believe China sees Pakistan as a useful tool for tying down India in Kashmir, a view that was given some weight earlier this year when the Chinese Embassy in Delhi started issuing separate visas to Indian passport holders from Indian-administered Kashmir. This is an issue that is taken up by a couple of the contributors to our APAC2020 special feature that comes out this week. And it's sure to be a key issue in the next few years.

This will be the last post until the New Year, but in the meantime do check out some of the interesting articles in APAC2020 when it's up from tomorrow--we've got some great contributions from some analysts who are not just informative, but extremely generous with their time at this busy time of year.

Trying to think of something Christmas appropriate that didn't have a painfully tenuous link to Asia-Pacific news was a little difficult, but I think I've managed.Actually the story underscores a more general point that numerous commentators and analysts have been making to me about the potential for closer integration in Asia--that it will be led by economics, while security ties will lag.

The China Daily reports that Chinese toy manufacturers, anticipating a slowdown in the usual Christmas rush because of the global recession, have been eyeing new markets, including in Southeast Asia:

'Guangdong province, another key Christmas manufacturing base, recorded exports of 19,000 tons to Association of South East Asian Nations between January and August, a hike of 250 percent on last year.

'In the US and Europe, total export volumes for the same period fell 25 percent and 14 percent respectively.'

We have some interesting insights on why security co-operation in Asia is lagging in our upcoming APAC 2020 special. In the meantime though, enjoy the festive period!

It's always struck me that the danger for governments with too compliant a media is that when they try to bring their message to the international stage, they're unprepared for the critical thinking they're likely to be exposed to by the international press.

As I've said before, China (a lowly 181 out of 195 countries in terms of press freedom according to the latest Freedom House rankings) is going to find itself under increasing scrutiny as it continues to play a more prominent international role, and the spotlight shined on it is not always going to show up something pretty.

The fall-out from the Copenhagen climate summit is a good case in point. John Lee, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute (who has also written one of the lead essays in our major APAC 2020 feature coming up next week) penned a scathing piece in Foreign Policy on China's role in what was, in truth, a failed gathering:

'[T]eams of international economists, scientists, inspectors, and statisticians roaming China to gather information on carbon emissions and reduction initiatives would have been unprecedented. In promoting China, Beijing projects an image of order and competence to the world. In parts of its wealthier coastal cities, China is that. But these international teams would undoubtedly discover exactly how dysfunctional the heart of the country really is. They would see firsthand and report back how China's 45 million local officials remain the most formidable obstacle to improving transparency in China's sprawling economic structure -- protecting their turf, defending their privileges, arbitrarily enforcing the law, and when it comes to economic performance, blatantly cooking the books.'

Mark Lynas, a writer for the Guardian newspaper (and presumably not planning on setting up an office in China anytime soon) is equally scathing:

'China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was 'the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility', said Christian Aid. 'Rich countries have bullied developing nations,' fumed Friends of the Earth International.'

The point here is that while in its own country, and for a domestic audience, China's leaders would be able to rest on their laurels following such a PR coup, international commentators sifting through the debris of Copenhagen will be able to put together a more rounded picture. After all, mention the fireworks at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games and what springs to mind? How great they looked, or the fact that they turned out to be computer-generated.

Having yesterday lambasted poor media coverage of Asia overseas, I'm also happy to say there's still some very good, thoughtful and informative stuff out there as well.

A few pieces caught my eye on Afghanistan today. One is the second part of a series by NPR looking at the challenges facing the US-led counter-insurgency effort now that 30,000 more troops have been promised. It's a thorough, balanced piece that summarizes the ongoing difficulties in the vital recruitment of Afghan soldiers:

'Afghan commanders predict that pay raises and signing bonuses that go into effect Dec. 23 will lure even more recruits. The raise means an average Afghan soldier and police officer will take home about $250 a month. That's about $50 less than Taliban militants are said to make each month during fighting season.

'But Afghan recruiters admit the surge of recruits is more likely linked to Afghanistan's brutal winter and the resulting slowdown in Taliban fighting than to bonuses. Boot camp appeals to recruits, who get a lifestyle most cannot afford--regular meals, a warm place to sleep, socks and new boots.

'What the Afghan government gets in return is hardly ideal. Less than 1 out of every 9 Afghan soldiers can read and write. Police officers are also largely illiterate, and about 17 percent of them test positive for illegal drugs.'

A bleaker assessment is offered by Rodric Braithwaite, a former British ambassador to Moscow, who writes in the Financial Times on the troubling lessons learned by the Soviet Union:

'Despite their losses, the Russians won most of their fights. They kept the main roads open, something we cannot always do today. They broke mujahedeen attempts to besiege cities. They mounted large operations, mustering up to 12,000 troops, to suppress mujahedeen bases and formations. They put together an Afghan army, armed with heavy weapons, which often fought well enough, despite the distressing tendency of Afghan officers to change sides and of soldiers to return to their villages when the going got rough.

'But the Russians never got over their basic weakness: they could take the territory, but they never had enough troops to hold it. As one Russian critic put it, they had tactics but no strategy.'

The Diplomat has, unsurprisingly, selected Afghanistan as one of the 10 defining issues for the Asia-Pacific region over the past decade for our upcoming special feature, APAC 2020. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said the estimated $10 billion a year costs of the expanding security forces will have to be funded by the West for the next two decades. But signs of whether or not this strategy has been a success will come long, long before then.

the photo that accompanies it and you see a collapsed apartment block.

It's a striking picture. Unfortunately it was taken 10 years ago, when Taipei was hit by a devastating earthquake that claimed more than 2400 lives. I appreciate editors are under pressure to find visually arresting images and that there might not have been any good enough ones ready to go. But I wonder whether the cutbacks that US newspapers (and indeed newspapers around the world) are making with foreign bureaus and correspondents could mean less scrutiny and a poorer end product.

Setting images aside, foreign coverage can run the risk of being undermined through careless word choice. A case in point is a word that gets bandied around far too often in Western coverage of Asia--nationalist. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for example, was just one of many Asian leaders described as a 'nationalist' in a region where the word still has an ugly ring to it. There's a strong argument to be made that he was. But was he really much more so than many, even most, 'patriotic' US presidents?

Listen to US politicians and their speeches are often littered with references to 'only in America' and the justness of America using force in pursuit of its values. My point is not that US politicians are any more nationalistic than Asia's leaders--politicians the world over understandably talk up their country. It's just that by choosing one word for our 'familiar' Western leaders and another, less warm and fuzzy one for Asia's, that Western media creates a sense of 'otherness' that eventually seeps into mainstream consciousness and can undermine understanding of other nations when it is needed most.

This is only a more subtle example of a related problem brought home to me by one of our correspondents who told me a few months back how a US magazine that ran a piece he penned on an insurgency changed the word 'insurgents' to 'terrorist group.'

Presumably it was changed in an effort to spice up the story and not because the editor had any particularly strong attachment to what the movement has done (it wasn't the Taliban or al-Qaeda he was writing about, incidentally.)

But I'd hope that a good rule of thumb for every story would be that we treat it as if it's the only piece a person might ever have read about an issue, and so balance and accuracy are of paramount importance. We'll all get it wrong sometimes. But we need to at least try.

(Disclaimer: This information was to the best of my knowledge accurate last time I looked on the respective websites, but may have changed now)

Poor Japan--even on issues where it can validly claim to be a global leader its efforts get overlooked.

In September, a recently elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama decided to take the initiative on global warming by announcing an ambitious target of a 25-percent reduction in emissions by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

But with world leaders now gathered in Copenhagen in a last-ditch attempt to secure an agreement, Japan's latest pledge has gotten barely a mention overseas. Last week EU leaders earned BBC news headlines after they pledged about $10.6 billion to help developing countries adapt to global warming. Japan yesterday offers 1.75 trillion yen (about $19.5 billion) and gets a few lines buried in a general BBC story about the talks.

The media geographic navel gazing isn't limited to the BBC though. It took me a little longer to find CNN's take on the climate talks--apparently it's only the sixth most important world story today, the most interesting angle on which is that Hillary Clinton says time is running out. I couldn't see the story at all on the front page, though I did learn there that Pepsi won't be advertising during the Super Bowl.

Little wonder that an October survey by the Pew Research Center showed the proportion of Americans agreeing there is 'solid evidence the earth is warming' had declined to 57 percent, from 71 percent about 18 months earlier.

To be fair to CNN, it did have a quick vote on its website asking: 'Could you live without conventional electrical and water supplies?' Presumably this is meant to be some kind of sop to the global warming debate. (For the record, when I looked, 65 percent had said they couldn't).

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva

A temptation for governments, and Asia is no exception, is to start bashing (rhetorically) a neighbour to drum up domestic support, or at least to distract from problems at home. The trouble is, the passions that get inflamed by such rhetoric can take on a life of their own, something Chinese authorities learned--or at least should have--when they tacitly backed anti-Japanese protests in 2005.

According to Thailand's The Nation newspaper today, Cambodia and Thailand are themselves dabbling in nationalism. As Luke Hunt reported recently for The Diplomat, simmer tensions were heightened with the offer last month to former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of a position as an economic adviser to Cambodian Premier Hun Sen.

I asked Luke today what he thought of The Nation report's suggestion that tensions are being played up for domestic gain. He told me:

'I think there's some truth to it but only some. In Cambodia Hun Sen likes political brinkmanship too much. He already enjoys massive political support, particularly in the countryside so he doesn't need to do this. But he has a long history of playing on nationalist sentiment and the opposition in Cambodia is virtually non-existent. Hence he is using the Thai government as a whipping post, partly because he enjoys it, partly because he dislikes [Thai Premier] Abhisit so much and partly because--like all politicians--he thrives off the competition.'

But he added:

'I think Abhist's a little different and is still in short pants politically speaking. He was thrown into the deep end when he became prime minister and didn't know how to handle Thaksin and Hun Sen's theatrics. In the end he handled it well in that his popularity rating rose on the back of Thaksin's support for Hun Sen, who most Thais dislike intensely. Thus I think he's developed a taste for it and could play the troubled neighbour card much more in the future, which I do think is potentially dangerous.'

As our contributor in Copenhagen, Stephen Minas, suggests in his latest dispatch from the climate change conference, there's still an awful lot to do if any kind of deal is to be reached.

Meanwhile, though, Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe have just released their latest Change Change Performance Index. And the figures should make for some sobering reading for Asia's policymakers.

The two groups rated 57 leading greenhouse gas emitters and placed them in one of five categories, ranging from 'very good' to 'very poor'. Coming in a distant last place was Saudi Arabia, though the very poor category also included (in ascending order) Kazakhstan, Australia, New Zealand, China and Malaysia. The poor category, meanwhile, included Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. India was the only Asian country to make it into the 'very good' category.

On a related note, there's an interesting piece in the New York Times today about China's shift toward nuclear energy as it seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But, unsurprisingly, the rapid proliferation of nuclear power stations is raising concerns about quality control:

'Yet inside and outside the country, the speed of the construction program has raised safety concerns. China has asked for international help in training a force of nuclear inspectors.

'The last country to carry out such a rapid nuclear expansion was the United States in the 1970s, in a binge of reactor construction that ended with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. And China is placing many of its nuclear plants near large cities, potentially exposing tens of millions of people to radiation in the event of an accident.'

Reports about the discovery of more than 30 tonnes of weapons (including rockets, explosives and missile components) on a plane inspected in Thailand, believed to have just come from North Korea, underscore the point I made recently about Pyongyang's apparent inability to negotiate in good faith.

What must be particularly galling for the United States is that the plane likely left just after US special envoy Stephen Bosworth met with North Korean officials for talks that he described as 'useful'. There was no agreement reached on when North Korea would return to the six-party talks over its nuclear programme, but South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the two sides had agreed to conduct talks aimed at replacing the Korean War armistice agreement with a peace treaty.

As the Korea Herald points out in an editorial:

'The incident reveals that even as it was pursuing dialogue with Washington, North Korea was pursuing illegal arms exports. The incident also exposed North Korea's duplicity. On the other hand, the fact that the Thai authorities inspected the cargo on a tip-off from the United States shows Washington's resolve to continue with UN sanctions while engaging in dialogue with North Korea.'

But it adds rather optimistically:

'Perhaps the seizure of the arms cargo will drive home the message to the leadership in Pyongyang that it really does not have much choice but to return to the aid-for-denuclearization talks.'

Maybe it will return to talks. But as far as a serious commitment to denuclearizing goes, it's difficult to see how anything is sufficiently different to make North Korea change its mind. It just doesn't want to, and there's nothing really on the table that will make its self-serving and self-glorifying leadership even think honestly about doing so.