Macau at pains to clean up its corruption-ridden image     26 April 2009 

Some time last year I wrote here about the high profile case of a minister in Macau, Ao Man-long who was convicted of not less than 21 counts of bribery and sentenced to 27 years in prison. A second trial has now raised his sentence to 28 and a half years.  

The judge described him as ‘greedy’, his methods of amassing wealth as ‘crazy’, and determined that the former Secretary for Transport and Public Works treated laws as ‘nothing’. To underscore the seriousness of the ‘crazy’ offences, the judge stated that if he were to add up the punishment for all the crimes, Mr Ao would have served 368 years. We can see that in terms of how the cost of corruption might be borne by up to five generations. 

More than any other trial in recent years, this trial has highlighted the level of corruption that underpinned the Macau building and construction boom. Four or five years ago, walking the streets of Macau you couldn’t escape the dust and noise pollution generated by the construction that was going on everywhere.  

You got the impression they were trying to build the city in one day, as the slightest delay meant loss of income for the casino magnates. This is where politicians and well-connected individuals cashed in. Those who participated in the bonanza were playing a game as old as the former colony itself, a game in which you couldn’t possibly lose, ie get caught and end up in court and behind bars.  

But that’s all changed, going by the downfall of one of the biggest fish in the land. Macau is sending out a message that it is determined to cleanse its tarnished image. This obviously remains a big challenge because of the nature of the dominant industry – gambling, which has a habit of attracting all sorts of unsavoury characters.  

Both Hong Kong and Macau are the latest territories to return back to the motherland, after decades of being administered by European powers. The Portuguese opted for a gambling haven, with all the social evils gambling tends to attract. Seemingly powerless to streamline the industry, corruption came to be institutionalized, and the new local administration has had its work cut out for it.   

The British in Hong Kong opted for trade and financial services, which turns out to have been a much smarter move. The institutionalized corruption that existed in the past was localized to the police and gangster syndicates. Much of that was eradicated in the seventies, and Hong Kong has subsequently enjoyed a reputation as one of the cleanest places on earth to do business.  

For Macau, this is a hard act to follow. Macau has been so much of a one-industry economy that young people grow up just wanting to work in casinos where they can make a lot of money in salary and bonuses, in some cases a lot more than university graduates. As a result, the incentive to pursue higher education has been at best modest.  

Macau now stands at a cross-roads, wondering which way to go. The gambling industry might be making a killing for the treasury, fuelled as it is by the influx of gamblers from China. It is a well known fact that much of the money that the mainland Chinese gamblers bring in has been acquired illegally.  

The Chinese authorities are starting to clamp down by more closely regulating trips to Macau by party cadres and officials, the prime source of corruptly acquired funds. Macau too is anxious not to be treated as a place to launder dirty money. It’s not good for their reputation and doesn’t sit well with the emergent global economic order which is much more circumspect about money-laundering, tax evasion and so forth than ever before. How Macau moves forward is anyone’s guess.   

Jackie Chan is the latest public figure to put his foot in his mouth. In widely reported comments, he suggested that Chinese people cannot handle too much freedom, they need to be ‘controlled’, otherwise the society becomes chaotic, ‘as in Taiwan’. Now that was quite a mouthful, and it is hardly surprising that the vast majority of responses to his outburst have been vitriolic.  

He claims his comments were taken out of context. That’s the initial standard answer before a half-hearted apology to calm the seas, and perhaps a much more ‘heart-felt’ apology when it becomes clear the comments have indeed infuriated people and the whole saga threatens one’s reputation if not career. Mister Chan is a big action movie star, indeed the biggest to have come out of Hong Kong since Bruce Lee. People listen when he speaks.  

They flock to his movies, at least when they’re not downloading them on some illegal file-sharing website. He represents for many in the Far East the Chinese triumph over Hollywood, the man upon whose shoulders the new generation of mostly mainland China stars now taking Hollywood by storm currently stand, whether they acknowledge it or not. So, for such a person to pour such apparent ridicule on his own has not reflected very well on the celebrity. By making what he naively thought were harmless political comments, he allowed himself to play into the hands of hawkish leaders who oppose freedom. Perhaps he should just stick to karate chops in front of cameras. 

Easter holiday marred by political farce        19 April 2009 

The Land of Smiles is becoming more like the Land of Farce after yet another attempt at a people’s coup. The Land of Smiles imagery is supposed to capture the country’s legendary hospitality, and what they call being ‘jai dee’ (good-hearted). 

There was little evidence of good-hearted banter in the violent clashes that rocked the capital this Easter. It was ‘jai rorn’ (hot-temperedness) everyone. The image of the country took a huge hit. The economy didn’t like what happened either. As for democracy, the jury are still out. Thaksin’s supporters have retired for now. But they’ll be back.  

The man in the middle of the mayhem, the beleaguered President Abhisit Vejjajiva rode the storm, but only just. But he came through as ineffectual and prone to poor judgment. His decision to press forward with the summit of Asian leaders in a bid to prove he was in control left his reputation in tatters when leaders had to be whisked off in helicopters to escape the marauding demonstrators. Others had their planes turned back in mid-flight on learning that the capital was too hot to handle. It will take a brave leader to head to Bangkok for another meeting.  

Another familiar farce is being played out by the North Koreans. Quitting the six-nation nuclear-disarmament talks and resuming its nuclear ambitions is just another tantrum by the petulant hermit regime to extract vital concessions from an Obama administration that is living up to its campaign pledges to talk to ‘rogue regimes’.  

The North Koreans know that in spite of the global opprobrium following their recent deployment of a rocket, the US is unlikely to shut the door on them. So they’ll keep pushing, making extravagant demands. Once they’ve got what they want, they’ll back down, invite international observers to watch them dismantle their latest nuclear operation, everyone will pat themselves on the back for a job well done and the cycle continues.  

The world has observed the antics of this isolated nation for long enough, but it hasn’t come up with a lasting and meaningful solutions. Sanctions and condemnations are woefully inadequate, but they’re the only diplomatic tools available to the international community which operates through a toothless bulldog called the UN Security Council.  

China could of course do more, but they appear not to want to rock the boat. North Korea knows it has nothing to lose. And if the country imploded through starvation, the world would, as usual, rush to their aid. The ethno-historical bond with South Korea means that the southern neighbours would never allow the country to disintegrate. The North fully appreciates that though they’re poor in comparison to their neighbours, they wield an enormous amount of power in the region.  

All the neighbours, from China and South Korea to Japan, know what it’s like to live next door to an unpredictable maniac who is likely to set the whole neighbourhood ablaze. They not only have to protect themselves from the risks he poses to them, but they have to protect him from himself.  

Kenya faces a not too dissimilar dilemma vis-à-vis lawless Somalia. But whereas the North Korean threat to its neighbours can be monitored by satellite, its missile deployments anticipated and potentially neutralized before they cause any damage, the Somali threat to Kenya is insidious and apparently unmanageable. An extensive, porous border ensures that both weapons and economic/financial resources flow largely unchecked into the country.  

The former heighten security concerns through the influx of guns which feed criminal activity, not to mention the threat of terrorism. This has been a decades-long problem. The latter has seen an escalation from low-level smuggling to the more recent influx of cash, which ultimately destabilizes the Kenyan economy.  

It is clear why it is so important to have stable and sensible neighbours. It is so easy to import their problems. For some, the solution is a simple annexation, in the name of burying an artificial boundary, as in the case of Germany. Ethiopia’s occupation of Somalia proved disastrous. For the two Koreas, unification would be the sensible thing to do. But would the North agree to be swallowed up? Not with the current regime.  

Lawless Somalia, on the other hand, will continue to pose a threat. Kenyan politicians can sponsor all the peace talks they want for warring Somali clans and factions. But at the end of the day, the Somalis will have to take charge of their own affairs. If they fail to do so, and the current piracy problem becomes the new face of global terrorism, recent utterances by the US administration suggest a new strategy to contain Somalia is being mooted. The Easter hostage-taking incident opened up a Pandora’s box. We’ll now see emboldened pirates graduate from pesky pickpockets to ruthless burglars. Or worse. The real moneymen behind the piracy have deep pockets, and won’t fade away just yet.  

In the North Korean case, China has chosen to make polite noises and urge calm, but is fully cognizant of the magnitude of risk it faces if North Korean were to disintegrate. Given the history of instability in Kenya-Somalia relations, Kenyans would be deluding themselves if they believed this is a problem for America, German or Japanese ships.  

G20 lays the foundation for a new order      12 April 2009

China was one of the winners at the G20 meeting last week. Not only did President Hu Jintao place his country firmly in the community of the most powerful nations, he also extracted some vital concessions.  

Quite apart from holding bilateral meetings with the leaders of major economies, China also got France to commit to recognizing the sensitivity of the Tibet issue, and more importantly, to undertake not to support any form of independence for Tibet ‘now or in the future’. That’s quite a volte-face for France, coming just months after President Sarkozy met with the Dalai Lama.  

While most were pursuing an economic agenda to contain the global financial and economic crisis, China was intent on political and ideological goals, and where better to pursue them than at the G20 meeting, where the president could reiterate to Obama the significance of China to America’s recovery, proceed to twist Sarkozy’s arm on the Tibet issue, and then offer $40 billion to the IMF while extracting guarantees that leadership of bodies such as the IMF and World Bank would no longer be the divine right of western nations.  

China has truly come of age. The opening of the economy and expansion of industrial investment is now bearing fruit on the world stage. This rise has been nothing short of phenomenal. It is something that a divided and not entirely functional Africa can only watch from the sidelines. Twenty years ago, who would have believed that a communist country that was emerging from years of strife and deprivation would one day be called upon to save the capitalist world?  

The Chinese experience is an interesting lesson which tells us that it’s not about political ideology but effective leadership. Economic success under communism in the Chinese case is unusual in the dwindling communist world. Under Fidel Castrol Cuba pursued a political dogma steeped in communism but was unable to rise from under the shadow of bullying America.  

Castro kept feeding the people revolutionary ideology even when it was clear it was no substitute for a square meal. China endured no such big-brother handicap, and recognized something that many other leaders have failed to understand. While western-style democracy is extremely important especially for the middle classes and well-educated professional elites, most of the rest of the population just wants a chance. 

The chance to have a good and affordable education, a job or a chance to flex their entrepreneurial muscles, a chance to get on with their lives in a safe and secure environment, and maybe, eventually, a chance to elect their own leaders.  

In Kenya, we’ve placed politics above all else. Unfortunately, the political game that goes on there is closer to the shenanigans of Napoleon and his crew who consider themselves sot be ‘more equal than others’ than a true and transparent democracy. We have a president who is content to maintain a discredited status quo, who surrounds himself with yes-men and opportunists whose contribution to the political debate is reducible to self-preservation, and whose commitment to eradicating corruption, the greatest scourge of our time, has never gone beyond the rhetoric in which it is inevitably couched.  

I look at Kenya and see opportunities squandered and a nation forced onto its knees by a minority political elite that will squeeze the last drop of milk from the withering udder of a dying cow. We are fond of talking about the lack of so-called political will. But what does that mean in simple English? It means they can’t be bothered, because taking action hurts their interests.  

But a new wind is blowing. Western governments, in particular the Swiss, British and American, stung by accusations of hypocrisy, have now started looking into how their own poor governance has encouraged crooks abroad to believe they can hide their ill-gotten wealth within their borders.  

One critical point that Barack Obama pushed heavily at the G20 meeting was about ending the culture of poor oversight in which a culture of financial arrogance, to coin a phrase, had been allowed to flourish. Publicly, the G20 saw it primarily in terms of clamping down on so-called tax havens. The sub-text to that embraces a wider remit, such as loopholes in the banking sector that allow criminal activity to thrive under the cover of officially-sanctioned secrecy.  

The once unquestionable competitive advantage of secrecy in Swiss banking has now been revealed as a patent danger to the world banking order. Do the Swiss authorities want their much vaunted banking sector stigmatized as a facilitator of drug-dealing and terrorism? If there’s one positive outcome of the current financial crisis, it is the apparent need for transparency, which is unraveling with every passing day.  

Gordon Brown and Barack Obama now recognize that in their haste to revive their banking sectors, they failed the litmus test of accountability, and allowed banks to reward the executives who ran them into the ground to walk off with mind-boggling bonuses. Accountability will now apply on the global stage. Which is why Obama publicly stated that Kenya shouldn’t expect his help if its leaders don’t clean up their act. Unfortunately, the circus of our politics is such that we’re unwilling to grasp the opportunity of western openness to slay the monster of corruption. 

‘Nation of servants’ gibe rubs the Philippines the wrong way   5 April 2009 

Hong Kong columnist Chip Chao believed he was merely writing a satirical piece but has discovered the cost of a little recklessness with words. He described the Philippines as a nation of servants and wrote that he summoned his Filipina domestic helper to warn her that if her country continues laying a claim on the disputed Spratly islands, she would face dire consequences. 

Of course the tone of the column was pure satire, especially where he says that if the Philippines declared war on China he would have to fire his helper since he can’t be seen to be sponsoring an enemy of the state by paying her wages.  

There’s nothing wrong with a little humour now and again. God knows in these tough economic times we all need a little laughter. But dismissing a country as a nation of servants? The Philippines didn’t take too kindly to the slight, and have apparently banned him for ‘arrogance and disrespect’.  

Mister Chao says he’s a bit surprised by the reaction. It’s not unusual in Hong Kong and other parts of greater China to look down upon the somewhat darker cousins in southern Asia, which explains why many observers, including sympathetic Chinese consider Chao’s comments a ‘racial slur’. The majority of domestic helpers in Hong Kong are from the Philippines, where the concept is so institutionalized that the little room behind the kitchen that is reserved for the domestic helper is generally known as the ‘Filipino room’, never mind that helper might in fact be Indonesian or Thai.  

It is easy to see why a kid being raised by citizens of a particular nation might grow up believing there was some sort of divine destiny to such an ethno-geographical master-servant arrangement. One would think, however, that by the time they got to Mister Chao’s age, which going by the pictures suggests at least four decades, they would have become disabused of this notion. But that’s satire for you. Some would say naked sarcasm. 

Though the Spratly islands are claimed by a host of countries, it is unlikely that besides the odd minor skirmish, a major war will be fought over them in the near future. The war that is going on is largely verbal, amongst bloggers.  

It’s always fascinating to see how commentators succumb to mindless emotional outbursts in the democratic space the internet provides. Some are calling Mister Chip racist, inhuman, a slave, and a host of other unprintable things. The ones I find amusing are those which call him ‘illiterate’. Clearly this is from someone whose grasp of the language has been somewhat shaken by anger, for how can you be illiterate and still write?  

What this storm in a teacup has done is to bring both race and the Spratly islands into sharp focus. Responses to controversial articles show the sad tendency to fight perceived bigotry with even more blatant bigotry, to the extent that people are no longer communicating but merely demonstrating how low they can get when national pride is injured.  

The islands are believed to hold vast mineral and oil reserves, so tensions will remain high for the foreseeable future. China recently upped the ante by dispatching a patrol vessel to the islands. Ideally, the respective governments should get together to hammer out an agreement. But sovereignty is a delicate and tricky affair when gas and oil are at stake, or even when there isn’t much more at stake than national pride, as in the Kenya-Uganda dispute over a relatively insignificant, overcrowded island on Lake Victoria.  

In the case of the very resource-rich Spratlys, it isn’t simply a case of geographical proximity for islands that lie between Vietnam and the Philippines, but a complicated cloak and dagger history of uncertain records, half-baked agreements and military conflicts also involving China, Brunei and Taiwan.

The ‘epicentre of terrorism in the world’ is how Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sees Pakistan. It is a blunt verdict, and a brave condemnation, but not altogether surprising given recent events including the terrorist attacks on Mumbai at the end of last year.  

Pakistan seems to be doing little to erase this image, and as the US refocuses attention on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s role in fostering uncertainty in the region will come under even closer scrutiny. The connection between the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s inability to rein in its largely home-grown terrorist threat lend credence to Singh’s claims. 

It is a tall order for Pakistan to clean up its act where the circumstances that breed the disaffection that attracts young men to the dark side are so institutionalized that to tackle them would be tantamount to asking for deep and painful surgery.  

The US in turn has been expanding the strike-zone for its pilotless drones into regions that were previously thought safe. What this means is that as the Taliban retreat deeper into Pakistani territory, the US continues to pursue them deeper into the country. If that’s not the new face of the war on terror, I don’t know what is. Thus, Pakistan is looking at accommodating a greater US presence on its territory to fight a proxy war that they find expedient to delegate to an unlikely ally.