Southeast Asia

Spring 2009 turned out to be a busy traveling season. I was invited to Tokyo to speak at a forum. Cherry blossom--Japan's cultural icon--was to come a little later, but some flowers were declaring an arrival of spring. One very important meeting was cancelled, however, because of the major disruption in the flight schedules in and out at the Narita airport due to the crash landing of a FedEx cargo plane.

From Tokyo, I went on a country hop, starting from Thailand (Bangkok) onto Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) and to Singapore. In Thailand, political tension was again rising. I could see pro-Thaksin (a former prime minister) "red shirts" demonstrators gathering in an increasing number at a park near the administrative center of the country. (After I came back to Hawaii, the demonstrators crushed with the Army, resulting in some casualties.) In Malaysia, Prime Minister resigned while I was there. The ruling Barisan National coalition, especially the UMNO party in it, faces tough electoral challenges, as the region's economy increasingly feels the effects of downturns in its major trade partners, like Japan, the United States, and China.

In Singapore, everything looked normal on the surface. Despite the heavy reliance of its economy on international trade, the cost of readjustment till now has been largely absorbed by the informal sector, it seemed.