Letter from the Editors

Welcome to the November 2020 issue of The Diplomat Magazine.

2020 might be best summed up as the year of dashed hopes. Certainly that’s true on the personal level; whether merely a canceled vacation; more seriously, a lost livelihood; or, worst of all, a lost life, no one has been immune from the impact of COVID-19. But we are also seeing thwarted dreams on the national level, from restricted diplomatic opportunities to dimmed economic dreams to eroding respect for human rights.

Is democracy in decline? Can India really achieve economic self-reliance? Was Vietnam’s year as ASEAN chair wasted? And can Kyrgyzstan come out stronger after a botched election? These are among the many questions we ponder in this issue. While the coronavirus pandemic has killed its fair share of dreams, it’s just one of many causes of disappointment in the annus horribilis that is 2020.

Since at least 2016, if not earlier, the world’s liberal thinkers have been warning of the decline of democracy around the globe. How is that playing out in Asia? In our cover story, we take a bird’s eye view of the state of democracy in the four main subregions of the Indo-Pacific: East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. The general malaise that has infected democracies around the world is in full display in Southeast and South Asia. However, East Asia’s democracies remain a bright spot, while Central Asia poses a tricky question: Can democracy decline if it never really existed in the first place?

Next up: Amitendu Palit, a senior research fellow and research lead at the Institute of South Asian Studies in the National University of Singapore, parses India’s efforts toward achieving self-reliance, particularly by putting some economic space between New Delhi and Beijing. But India’s economy is very much dependent on China, specifically for imports of goods that India then uses in final products, like pharmaceuticals. Decoupling is not so simple as task as banning an app. Still, “India is not the only country wary of an assertive China,” Palit notes, and New Delhi may just be able to team its efforts up with those of other countries equally skeptical toward China.

Vietnam had special cause to rue the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the ASEAN chair for 2020 – a once-in-a-decade opportunity – Hanoi had big plans for advancing its diplomatic goals. But with international travel largely canceled, Vietnam has had to scramble to arrange virtual meetings (a first for ASEAN) while not completely giving up on its priorities. As Nguyen Phuong Linh, a former Hanoi-based journalist, and Ph.D. candidate Nguyen Khac Giang outline, that effort has proven surprisingly successful.

Finally, Kyrgyzstan. The small, revolution-prone Central Asian state had its third protest-driven change of power in nearly 30 years of independence last month, bringing a convicted kidnapper from prison to presidency in mere days. The political dust has not settled, with each day bringing new twists and turns. Bruce Pannier, an RFE/RL correspondent and longtime observer of the region, outlines some of the political nuances we’ll need to understand whatever happens next.

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more inside these pages.