Letter From the Editors
An opposition leader, a revolutionary turned autocrat, and a business mogul: these individuals loom large in the Asia-Pacific.
It’s an eternal debate in both history and international relations: how important are individual personalities, especially those in leadership positions, compared to the larger environment in which decisions are made? In this issue, we focus on three figures from the Asia-Pacific region who are having an outsized impact on politics, economics, and even the act of memory-making itself – while also highlighting the structural factors that have shaped their careers.
Our cover story spotlights Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea’s Democratic Party and the favorite to win the next presidential race. Lee famously lost in the country’s tightest presidential election in 2022, and since then he has been the bete noire to President Yoon Suk-yeol. Steven Denney, an assistant professor of International Relations and Korean Studies at Leiden University, traces how Lee came to spearhead the DP’s resistance to Yoon’s administration, which Yoon cited as the rationale behind his declaration of martial law. Amid South Korea’s polarized politics, Denney notes, views of Lee are split. Is he a champion of democracy, under siege from politically motivated persecution? Or a corrupt politician with dictatorial leanings who couldn’t move past his 2022 loss? “While Lee and the DP have capitalized on the ruling party’s missteps,” Denney writes, “they must also address internal issues and public skepticism to ensure a sustainable path to governance.”
Next we turn to Cambodia, which in April will mark the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s capture of Phnom Penh, which soon morphed into a brutal and genocidal rule. Although the Khmer Rouge’s three years, eight months, and 20 days in power began on April 17, 1975, there is “no shared interpretation of the significance of April 17,” writes Cambodia scholar Astrid Norén-Nilsson. Norén-Nilsson, a senior lecturer at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, charts a course through memory and memorialization, laying out how Hun Sen – who spent 25 years as prime minister before passing the office on to his son – has reinterpreted and operationalized the past to tell a story of peace, eschewing his own past with the Khmer Rouge and the unbearable memory of April 17.
Finally, journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta recounts the Adani Group’s rapid rise – and the mounting number of controversies that have come with it. Gautam Adani, the conglomerate’s founder, went from relative unknown to one of India’s richest men, largely thanks to his personal connection with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But rumors that Modi applied political pressure to secure deals for Adani have stoked controversy as accusations against the company pile up, both in India’s immediate neighborhood – Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka – and as far afield as Australia and Kenya.
We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.