Office Politics

Hello. If you've read the Jakarta Post and the Straits Times today, you'll notice subtle differences in the reporting over the Straits of Malacca deal, while nothing is reported in Malaysia. Always interesting if you ask me.

Also the Straits Times today has a lot of news on DPM Lee's visit to Taiwan. Must be little else to report so dig up old news from Xinhua and People's Daily. I remember once I read something in the Economist and five weeks later it appeared in the Straits Times. There's no news like old news. Sometimes I think the Straits Times is like the guy in the group/office who thinks he has hot gossip, but really its like so old that everyone forgot about it.

Just read Today and found this interesting article. The problem is PM Kozumi is not the man for China-Japan normalisation. Strongest supporters for a Pan-East Asia organisation are China and Malaysia. Indonesia remains largely apprehensive and Japan needs to get out of its funk. India remains an interested outsider and has constantly "battled" China over influence in Southeast Asia. I don't think an EU-like organisation in Asia will spring up. We should innovate and come up with our own organisation to deal with our regional issues. As much as I hate to use civilisational analysis (thanks to Professor Huntington), I'd like to point out that Europe is basically Western and Byzantine cultures, while Asia is a hodge-podge of various civilisational "blocs" (try Islamic, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian). Whatever model we adopt it won't be EU-ish. Indonesia, China and India combined make up more people than the EU. How can an East Asian organisation have an equal voice for both China and Brunei (pop: less than a million). Whatever arrangement we come up with we'll need to work it out on our own.

Moving on to latest office talk. So betting on the date of handover is over and new pools are being formed on the cabinet. Who will be DPM? 2 SMs (SMS..heh)? Finance Minister? Defense Minister? Foreign Minister? Why is Lim Swee Say going back to NTUC? Such a waste. I know Vivian Balakrishnan will not be Foreign Minister. Can you imagine the mistake so many protocol departments will make thinking he's a her? Wonder who education Minister will be? Reinstitute coporal punishment and make everyone do NCC? Who'll retire? Who'll be promoted? Sounding more and more like betting on World Cup or Euro or Copa (for the hard core betters out there).

I smell breakfast folks, so I got to go. Hang in there coz' I'll be back with more to say soon.