Good news pick of the fortnight

As the Rabbit yields to the Dragon, the focus this week is on good news – or at least, less bad news.

• Kavi presents a more upbeat assessment of Cambodia’s potential as Chair of ASEAN (16 Jan). He notes its capacity “to reset the grouping's global standing and relations with all of its powerful dialogue partners”, and focuses on three areas in in which Cambodia can take the lead: narrowing the development gap; ensuring “that ASEAN will not become a pawn in the major powers’ competition”; and promoting cooperation within the Lower Mekong Initiative.
• Reports by Goldman Sachs and HSBC sparked upbeat headlines about the Philippines’ economic trajectory. “Philippines to leapfrog to be 16th largest economy by 2050” (13 Jan) and “Philippines may become key global growth driver” (16 Jan) are two such. Such predictions of good things to come have been made before, of course, and Michael Alan Hamlin examines whether anything might be different this time (25 Jan).
• And Myanmar keeps churning out the surprises, including a ceasefire with the Karen National Union and the release of further political prisoners. President Thein Sein has even given an interview (20 Jan).There may, of course, still be unpleasant surprises ahead, but Nicholas Farrelly (16 Jan) writes that “right now my very strong impression is that we need to give Burma’s decision-makers the full benefit of the doubt. Somebody, somewhere is doing their best to demonstrate goodwill. They are hoping that the world takes notice.” As he points out, the next top priority should be trying to forge peace with the Kachin Independence Army. Andrew Selth (24 Jan) offers a useful assessment of advances so far and challenges to come.
• Intriguingly, former diplomat David Brown (21 Jan) reports that “hopes of a deal between China and Vietnam are rising in the South China Sea”. Probably best not to hold our breath – nevertheless: “Eight months after trading threats, China and Vietnam are now huddled in negotiations over the northern section of the South China Sea, an expanse that no other nations claim.” This initiative could only be part of the solution to what is a much more convoluted problem, but a pragmatic step forward would be a useful precedent.
• And The Star (23 Jan) notes: “Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed on a permanent regional secretariat to look into issues of sustainable marine development, resources management, research and development projects and income improvement of coastal communities between the two countries.” OK, a secretariat is not exciting news, but it’s way better than some of the headlines on maritime and border issues we’ve seen between Indonesia and Malaysia in recent years.