🛰 Global Eyes, Asia Edition
News and notes from the Pacific to the Urals
China
China is pointing its new satellite radar toward Japan:
A satellite photo has revealed that China has built a new long-range, early-warning radar that can be used to detect ballistic missiles from thousands of miles away, likely giving it coverage of all of Japan.
The image, taken on February 2022 by commercial satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies and published on Google Earth, show that a new Large Phased Array Radar, or LPAR, has been built at an existing mountaintop site in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, some 70 miles southeast of the provincial capital Jinan.
China’s zero-Covid policy threatens the global economy:
For weeks now, economists everywhere worried that sticking with China’s Covid absolutism was a headwind the global system scarcely needs. A zero-case strategy that worked wonders in 2020 is no match for Omicron and more transmissible variants to come. Worse, it’s backfiring on Asia’s biggest economy, on which the region is relying to drive recovery efforts.
Fresh lockdowns in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and elsewhere are reaching a critical mass. They mean that roughly 400 million people across 45 mainland cities are under full or partial lockdown.
Detained Taiwan community college student Li Ming-che, who went missing five years ago after entering China from the city of Macao, has been released and returned to Taiwan. He had been imprisoned in China for five years.
The time has come for the US to make clear that it will defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, writes Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
South Asia
The Taliban know what strings to pull to get Afghanistan’s frozen assets back. Their leaders hope that if they appease international demands about the education of girls, their funds will be unfrozen.
The International Monetary Fund will consider providing quick financial assistance to Sri Lanka following requests from India:
Sri Lanka asked for a loan under the rapid financial instrument window, meant for countries needing urgent balance-of-payment support. But the global lender was initially not inclined to grant the request.
Should India use this crisis to try to stop Sri Lanka from being pulled into China’s orbit?
It would be naïve to imagine that Indian assistance would automatically bring Sri Lanka under Indian influence. Nevertheless, India must continue to provide as much assistance to Sri Lanka as possible to deal with the present economic crisis, because prolonged instability in the country will have a spillover effect on India too. One has to remember that even though China is an important factor, it is not the “only” factor in India-Sri Lanka relations. There are other bilateral issues between the two countries which are equally important.
Pakistan’s new government sworn in. There are so many parties in the coalition that satisfying everyone is no easy task. We’ll be writing more about this soon in the magazine.
Southeast Asia
President Joko Widodo has cracked down decisively on Indonesia’s hardline Islamic Defenders Front, which is known for raiding bars and brothels and intimidating religious minorities:
In 2020, it became clear that the national police had had enough of the FPI, which earlier had been regarded as carrying out off-the-books operations to go after people or groups the police wanted to intimidate or get rid of. After being ordered disbanded, one by one its central figures have been imprisoned on various charges, some of which appeared less than apt.
Australasia
Australia’s new submarines may be built overseas:
“If we had four submarines, we believe that we would get 7,000 jobs, and the majority of those would be high-value jobs, high paying jobs.” … “The word ‘nuclear’ creates fear. However, we know that the potential issues around nuclear can be managed really effectively.”
Business and Finance
Indonesian imports and exports reached a high in March in response to surging global commodity prices fueled by the global economic recovery and the Ukraine war.
The global surge in commodity prices is expected to have a net positive impact on Indonesia’s trade, as rising prices of exported commodities like coal and crude palm oil outweigh rising prices of imported goods, particularly crude oil. “It all depends on whether the war between Russia and Ukraine would be a prolonged one or a quick one, as it could move the price of international commodities.”
Yen plunges despite Japan’s warnings:
Shortly after the yen slid past the 128 line, Japan’s top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said the government is monitoring developments in the currency market, including the yen’s depreciation, and their impact on the economy “with a sense of vigilance.” …
… A weak yen has been seen as a boon to Japanese exporters as it boosts their overseas profits when repatriated. When combined with soaring crude oil and other commodity prices, however, it becomes a headache for resource-scarce Japan because it means increased import costs.
Oil
Saudi crude oil exports topped the 7-million-bpd mark for the first time since the start of the pandemic and the price war with Russia in March and early April 2020. Back then, the Saudis flooded the market with oil after failing to initially agree on a response to the plunge in global oil demand as countries imposed lockdowns to fight Covid.
Saudi Arabia has been raising its crude oil production by over 100,000 bpd each month under the OPEC+ deal for a total of 400,000-bpd increase from all members of the pact. In the past few months leading to February 2022, Saudi Arabia had been raising slightly its crude exports each month. But the increase between January and February was more than 300,000 bpd, suggesting that the Kingdom drew more crude from elsewhere to export much more than its monthly increase in crude production. The high international crude oil prices and recovering demand probably also played a role in the higher Saudi crude exports in February.
Why isn’t China buying more Russian oil? The logistics of shipping oil from the Black Sea and the Baltic to Asia, a tanker scarcity, and the difficulty of getting bank guarantees and insurance for Russian cargoes are formidable obstacles.
Take a 3D tour of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya museum:
Mark your calendar
We’ll be discussing chapters one through six.
Rachel says: “This book is incredible. There’s so much about Stalin that I never learned in college. I was taught about the Holocaust, but I had no idea that most of the Jews who perished weren’t killed in Germany. I can’t put this book down.”
“It’s a damned good book.”—Vivek.
