POLITICS

What Happened: Missing journalists. Cyber crime lawsuits. Increasing restrictions on coverage. Pakistan’s media sphere is under pressure not seen since the heyday of military dictatorship.

Our Focus: “It is astonishing how the Pakistani media has gone from being one of the liveliest and free in its history to becoming one of the most subdued and controlled,” Omar Waraich, the head of South Asia at Amnesty International, told The Diplomat. “The threat here is that journalism is turning into propaganda.”

What Comes Next: With the opposition hosting protests in a bid to oust the current government, the media is pulled in differing directions: Cover a major political story, and risk the government’s ire, or keep quiet.

Interview

Bill Hayton, an associate fellow with the Asia-Pacific Program at Chatham House, on China’s national myth-making: “The Communist Party needs a narrative that justifies its hold over Tibet and Xinjiang and its claims to Taiwan. It needs everyone to forget that, right until the 1940s, the Communist Party leadership claimed that all those territories contained separate nationalities with the right to self-determination.”

Northeast Asia

The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee is meeting in Beijing this week for its fifth plenary session. The biggest topic for discussion: finalizing a blueprint for the 14th Five Year Plan, which sets China’s economic goals for the period from 2021-2025. The plan will, in turn, reflect the CCP’s strategies for the emerging U.S.-China competition.

South Asia

The first phase of voting in Bihar's state election starts on October 28, marking the beginning of several crucial regional polls in India over the next two years. While a host of regional issues will shape their outcome – including internal migration following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, farmers' rights, as well as Hindu-Muslim relations – the upcoming state elections will also serve as a litmus test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party's sway over the Indian political scene in the run-up to national elections in 2024.

Southeast Asia

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will pay a short visit to Indonesia on October 30, part of an Asian tour that is also taking him to India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. During the trip to Jakarta, which follows Indonesian Defense Secretary Prabowo Subianto's five-day visit to the U.S. earlier this month, Pompeo will seek to enlist Indonesia in the Trump administration's incipient anti-China coalition. If so, he is likely to be disappointed.

Central Asia

Back in August, we covered the case of Bobomurod Abdullaev, a journalist who was deported from Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan, reportedly because of social media postings critical of the Uzbek government. The case raised questions about the extent of the Mirziyoyev government’s tolerance for free speech. Abdullaev’s recent announcement that the charges against him have been dropped thus merits attention as part of Uzbekistan’s continuing effort to reform its image.

ECONOMICS

Sri Lanka’s current foreign debt stock is dominated by international sovereign bonds, but the government may now be seeking to increase loans from China instead.

POLITICS

Meaning “if politics was good” in Lao: The hashtag has become a label for rare political criticism from Laotians, inspired by the protests across the border in Thailand.

The Diplomat Magazine | October 2020

This month, we take stock of the state of U.S. alliances in Asia after four years of the Trump administration. We also decipher the role China plays in Myanmar’s peace process, scrutinize the civil-military nexus taking shape in Pakistan under Imran Khan, and highlight the major developments that have molded Fiji over its 50 years of independence. And, of course, we offer a range of reporting, analysis, and opinion from across the region.