Monday will mark the start of a new era in the Islamic Republic of the Maldives with the inauguration of Mohamed Nasheed as President ending the thirty year rule of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Being a low-lying archipelago (the highest point in the country is about ten feet) of 1,200 coral atolls, the country faces unique challenges as global climatic change threatens to raise sea levels over the next century. In what can only being called a global wake-up call, the incoming President has announced that the Maldives will seek to buy a new homeland on higher ground as an “insurance” policy. President Nasheed intends to use a portion of the receipts from the high-end tourist trade to create a “sovereign wealth fund” that will invest in land so the people of Maldives may in the future have a land underneath their feet.

The Maldives will begin to divert a portion of the country’s billion-dollar annual tourist revenue into buying a new homeland – as an insurance policy against climate change that threatens to turn the 300,000 islanders into environmental refugees, the country’s first democratically elected president has told the Guardian.

Mohamed Nasheed, who takes power officially tomorrow in the island’s capital, Male, said the chain of 1,200 island and coral atolls dotted 500 miles from the tip of India is likely to disappear under the waves if the current pace of climate change continues to raise sea levels.

The UN forecasts that the seas are likely to rise by up to 59cm by 2100, due to global warming. Most parts of the Maldives are just 1.5m above water. The president said even a “small rise” in sea levels would inundate large parts of the archipelago.

“We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome. After all, the Israelis [began by buying] land in Palestine,” said Nasheed, also known as Anni.

The president, a human rights activist who swept to power in elections last month after ousting Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the man who once imprisoned him, said he had already broached the idea with a number of countries and found them to be “receptive”.

He said Sri Lanka and India were targets because they had similar cultures, cuisines and climates. Australia was also being considered because of the amount of unoccupied land available.

“We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades,” he said.

(more…)

It is pretty evident that the world is looking past the Bush era and anxiously awaiting an Obama Presidency though in the interim the world seems to be having a collective well now what moment. No doubt, President Obama faces an array of foreign policy challenges left adrift by the Bush Administration and no doubt an Obama Presidency will devote most of its international attention to unwinding in Iraq and resolving the war on the terror in the Hindu Kush. When it comes to the Asia-Pacific, Obama faces certainly complex challenges ranging from the economic to security issues to climatic change to environmental degradation to democratic governance and human rights. As with much of the Obama agenda, it’s not clear what an Obama Administration intends or protends.

2008 has been both a remarkable and difficult year in the Asia-Pacific region. The political landscape, for starters, is much altered. We have new leaders in South Korea (more conservative), Australia (more liberal), New Zealand (more conservative), Thailand (more disturbed), the Maldives (fresh and new), and Japan (plus c’est la meme chose, plus ça change). Lingering political crises plague the region in Malaysia and Burma and while a long civil war in Sri Lanka seems to be winding down, it is still on-going. India, which earlier this year passed a nuclear treaty with the United States, is scheduled to head to the polls next year and it’s not clear in which direction India will head. 2008 has been a year of widespread religious rioting and political turmoil across the north of India and the global downturn has been to affect India’s fast-growing economy. And there’s little question that for the past eight years with US attention so diverted, China has taken advantage to pursue its global ambitions in Asia and Africa but also increasingly in Latin America. That Venezuela just signed a military treaty of co-operation with Beijing should worry policy makers in Washington. And then there is North Korea where questions over the health of the sixty-six year old Kim Jong-Il’s arise almost on weekly basis. There are questions over the war on terror in places ranging from India to the Philippines to Indonesia. The downturn in the US economy has already impacted the export-oriented economies of the region. In short, Asian questions loom large.

Here’s a look at questions and views in the global and Asia-Pacific press looking what an Obama Presidency might mean for the region.

Obama Skeptics in Asia
By Richard Halloran for Real Clear Politics.

From Japanese commentators flowed considerable anxiety. Yomiuri, Japan’s largest circulating newspaper, said “so far, Obama has talked only in generalities.” The paper worried that he would be protectionist. Asahi, a leftist paper, said that for Japanese, Obama was an “unknown quantity.”

Yoshihisa Komori, a columnist in the conservative Sankei, called Obama “a frighteningly unknown politician” who would rely less on traditional alliances, such as that with Japan, and more on international organizations in foreign policy.

In South Korea, the largest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, applauded Obama’s election but added: “Yet Obama has shortcomings, such as scant diplomatic experience and no administrative career. He is also inclined to protectionist trade policies on behalf of the U.S. economy.”

Filipinos split on Obama’s stance on the 600 American troops posted in the southern Philippines to help the Philippine Armed Forces fight Moro insurgents and terrorists. Some urged Obama to keep the troops there, others urged him to withdraw them.

The Thai newspaper Nation quoted Obama: “Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states.” The paper then lamented the bitter “red and yellow” divisions in Thailand today, wishing they “could correspond to blue and red in the US.”

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he had written to Obama: “Many issues will claim your attention. May I make a case for the importance of Southeast Asia to the US, a region which is not unfamiliar to you,” referring to Obama’s childhood in neighboring Indonesia. A writer for the Straits Times, Joanna Lee, however, was skeptical of Obama’s emphasis on hope: “Alas, I’m not sure hope is enough.”

Global Man of Mystery
By Greg Sheridan in The Australian.

One piece of good news is that he may keep Bush’s Defence Secretary Robert Gates in position. Gates knows Australia well and values the Australian alliance. He will be perhaps the only person about whom that can confidently be said at the top of an Obama administration. There is no sign that Obama has any knowledge of or interest in Australia, though it is good that he took a congratulatory call from Rudd.

It is conceivable that some American enemies, such as Iran, may use Obama’s election as the opportunity to strike a grand bargain with Washington.

It is equally possible that they may see weakness in Obama and try to exploit it, in effect testing the new president.

(more…)