Driving commercial and political engagement between Asia, the Middle East and Europe
Driving commercial and political engagement between Asia, the Middle East and Europe
Driving commercial and political engagement between Asia, the Middle East and Europe
18 November 2019
In today’s bulletin: Rajapaksa family is set to dominate Sri Lanka politics; Malaysia’s ruling party gets trounced at a by-election; India’s link to the UK elections; a university has become ground zero for Hong Kong protests; and more…
RAJAPAKSAS RETURN TO POWER IN SRI LANKA
Former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been declared the winner of Sri Lanka’s presidential election over the weekend. If that name sounds familiar, it is because the Rajapaksas have – save for a five-year hiatus – been a dominant force in the country’s politics for years. Mr Gotabaya was defence chief when his elder brother Mahinda was president from 2005 to 2015. Now Mr Gotabaya is president and if all goes as predicted, Mr Mahinda will be his prime minister next year – a rare phenomenon of one family controlling the two highest offices in the country. While the Rajapaksas are popular among Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority, the country’s minority Tamil and Muslim groups are worried about the revival of the family’s brand of nationalism.
See also: It’s not just two Rajapaksa brothers in politics, there’s more
KIM JONG UN WATCHES DRILLS AFTER US, SOUTH KOREA POSTPONE EXERCISE
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un apparently responded to news that the US and South Korea had postponed by a joint military exercise by supervising some air force drills. Washington and Seoul had announced on Sunday that they would put off a joint exercise. A day later, North Korea’s state news agency announced that Kim watched his military put through the paces. The situation on the Korean peninsula has vacillated significantly over the past year. While Seoul does seem to put some weight on a progressive normalising of ties with its neighbour, Washington’s position has been far less predictable.
See also: North Korea calls Biden a ‘rabid dog’, Trump tweets a response
A BY-ELECTION WITH DEEP RAMIFICATIONS FOR MALAYSIA’S RULING PARTY
A year and a half since Prime Minister Najib Razak was forced from office in a shock election, he was standing all smiles, hands aloft on an election night, with the candidate from his party having trounced the one from the ruling coalition at the Tanjung Piai by-election. The ruling party was expected to lose but the manner of defeat was surprising. It was the largest by-election defeat by a ruling party in Malaysian political history and Pakatan Harapan could not even blame a newly-minted alliance between Malaysia’s two largest Malay parties. The margin of defeat meant that many non-Malays – who voted overwhelmingly for Pakatan at the last election – jumped ship. Early analysis suggests that this was a message to the government that people were unhappy with the pace of promised reforms.
Read more:
Crushing by-election defeat in Johor piles pressure on Malaysian PM Mahathir
Third criminal trial against former Malaysian PM Najib launched in 1MDB scandal
HONG KONG PROTESTERS IN STAND-OFF WITH POLICE AT UNIVERSITY
Hundreds of protesters have been locked in a stand-off with police at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University since Sunday as the situation in the city continued to deteriorate. Some 500 are reportedly encamped in the school, many of them injured, with food running out – believing they would be arrested if they were to leave. Police have surrounded the school. Protesters have been lobbing petrol bombs and bricks at police with makeshift catapults while police have been using water cannons on protesters and firing tear gas. There were reports of burns from chemicals in jets fired from police water cannons. The war-zone like scene come as Hong Kong gears up for district council elections on Sunday with the government pushing forward with it despite some calls for a delay.
Catch up:
Hong Kong confirms it’s in first recession in a decade amid chaos
Choreographed cleanup by China’s PLA soldiers divides Hong Kong opinion
Hong Kong’s anti-mask law ruled unconstitutional by High Court
Love letter to a Hong Kong I once knew
WHY IS AN INDIA-LINKED GROUP CAMPAIGNING IN THE UK?
A UK group called the Overseas Friends of the BJP, which comprises British citizens allied to India’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is campaigning against the Labour Party ahead of the general election on December 12. And there is nothing clandestine about this operation, the OFBJP has announced that it has identified 48 seats in which the British-Indian vote could tip the scales in favour of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. Why is it so anti-Labour? Labour had passed a motion at its annual conference supporting an international intervention in Kashmir and a call for a UN-led referendum.
Read the primer: How will Britain’s ‘Brexit election’ work?
IN OTHER NEWS
Better than The Crown: Britain’s Prince Andrew provoked a backlash Sunday (Nov 17) following an extraordinary TV interview branded “disastrous” by public relations experts in which he denied having sex with an alleged victim of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Yellow vests: French “yellow vest” demonstrators occupied a top Parisian department store on Sunday (Nov 17), a day after clashes in the capital on the first anniversary of the protest movement.
Pope visits Asia: Pope Francis, who years ago hoped to be a missionary in Japan, travels to the sites of the world’s only atomic attacks this week seeking a ban on nuclear weapons.
These insights are produced by The Straits Times, the official media partner for the Asia House Global Trade Dialogue, which took place in Singapore on 7 November 2019.
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