Letter from the Editors
If everything is political, as the saying goes, then the reverse is also true: Politics touches everything.
Welcome to the March 2022 issue of The Diplomat Magazine.
2022 is a busy political year for Asia-Pacific countries. Rather than focus on the election races themselves, we are taking a step back in this issue to explore why it matters. If everything is political, as the saying goes, then the reverse is also true: Politics touches everything about daily life. The present pandemic has made this crystal clear, as politicians’ decisions about vaccinations and COVID-19 containment procedures have a direct, sometimes heartbreaking, impact on every person’s life.
More broadly, political debates of all kinds are a prism for a broader question: What kind of society do people want to live in, and how should their government make that happen? In this issue we explore the societal friction points behind political decisionmaking – and the political fractures impacting society – from Sri Lanka to Singapore to South Korea and beyond.
“If vaccine diplomacy is the new great game, it is being played wrong by all sides, with the risk that no one will be left a winner,” write Alyssa Leng, Roland Rajah, and Herve Lemahieu in our cover story. Based on research they’ve done with the Lowy Institute, Leng, Rajah, and Lemahieu chart the contours of so-called “vaccine diplomacy,” and its failures. This isn’t to say major powers have done nothing, but in the race against COVID-19 global efforts have been tripped up by the prioritization of major power self-interest over equity. We will all pay the price.
Then we turn to South Korea. In an election where both candidates are fighting scandals and a lack of public trust, writes Hyung-A Kim, South Koreans face a difficult choice. Kim, an associate professor of Korean politics and history at Australian National University, argues that this is the most unpredictable and nastiest presidential election since South Korea democratized in 1987. As the March 9 election approached, Lee Jae-myung from the ruling Democratic Party and Yoon Suk-yeol from the main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP) were neck-and-neck; as this issue goes to print, it’s not clear whether either is the leader South Koreans want and need.
Devana Senanayake and Janik Sittampalam, both Sri Lanka-based journalists, look back at the summer of 2021, when Sri Lanka was in the middle of a deadly, Delta-driven surge in COVID-19 cases. Sri Lanka managed the early stage of the pandemic well, at one point eliminating community transmission. But starting in early 2021, as Senanayake and Sittampalam outline through interviews with healthcare workers and officials, Sri Lanka’s pandemic response broke down, thanks to a toxic combination of complacency, poor communication, and lack of foresight on critical questions like PCR testing systems and the vaccination drive. The end result: thousands of deaths over the summer of 2021.
In Singapore, a national myth of hyper-competent, selfless leadership is on the ropes amid a messy and prolonged struggle to find a successor for current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. As Michael D. Barr, associate professor of international relations at Flinders University, chronicles, Lee’s originally anointed heir flamed out in embarrassing fashion. Over a year later, Singaporeans are no closer to knowing who their next prime minister will be – or even the process through which he (and it will be a he) will be chosen. The selection process highlights the major weaknesses of Singapore’s political system, Barr argues: a reliance on patronage and homogeneity as the grounds for advancement has led to insular groupthink, even as Singapore itself grows more cosmopolitan and demanding of reform.
We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.