Want to Stop the Annual Mudik Road Carnage? Push Development in Areas Outside Jakarta

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Want to Stop the Annual Mudik Road Carnage? Push Development in Areas Outside Jakarta
Yohanes Sulaiman | August 28, 2012

The Transportation Ministry stated last week that there were 4,333 traffic accidents during this year’s mudik season, leaving 760 people dead and 5,308 injured, while causing Rp 8.33 billion in damages. By Monday the death toll had risen to 820. 

The police blamed the high number of accidents and casualties on many motorists’ disregard for traffic regulations, which is not surprising considering that it is also estimated that 1,548 of those people who were involved in the accidents did not have a driver’s license. At the same time, the government is blamed for not providing adequate alternative modes of transportation. 

All of this ignored one big problem: the inequality of economic growth throughout Indonesia. 

This year it is estimated that 8.3 million people left Jakarta to return to their hometowns in Central and East Java. While officials in Jakarta have consistently tried to prevent more people from moving to the already overburdened city, they are fighting a losing battle. 

Like it or not, people will keep coming to Jakarta as long as Jakarta remains the center of our national economy. 

In 2010, for instance, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Jakarta contributed roughly 16.31 percent of the national gross domestic product. That means that the GDP of Jakarta alone was slightly larger than the GDP of entire province of East Java and twice as big as the GDP of Central Java. 

With such an economic concentration in a very small region, it should come as no surprise to anyone that people will flock to Jakarta in the hopes of improving their lives. They then will return to their hometowns during mudik season. With so many people on the road, it should not be any wonder that traffic accidents will increase, especially considering the poor condition of the roads and the ignorance of many people when it comes to proper road etiquette and basic knowledge of the law. 

While better transportation infrastructure and driver education would help decrease the number of accidents, a much better policy is needed to bolster economic growth in the other parts of Java that are the destinations of the annual exodus. In order to do that, the government has to improve the transportation infrastructure. 

Because of massive traffic jams, horrible road conditions, the lack of deep-water harbors to ship products, red tape and what is perceived as a lack of legal protection outside of Jakarta, it is only natural for industries to gravitate to Jakarta. The capital has better transportation infrastructure and is where people can find better jobs. 

While the government is planning to increase the budget for infrastructure spending by 14.9 percent in 2013, bringing it to Rp 193.8 trillion (approximately $20.3 billion, and 11.6 percent of the budget), such an increase is long overdue, and considering the current state of Indonesia’s infrastructure, would probably be inadequate. 

What the government needs to do is to encourage more private investment in transportation infrastructure and labor-extensive industries, especially outside of the Jakarta region. To do that, however, the government has to develop a strong, united and coherent economic policy, trim the bureaucracy, streamline labor laws and business permits, and ensure investors that even in the outlying regions, they will not suffer from the greed of unscrupulous local officials. 

More important, the government needs to show commitment in upholding the law and eradicating corruption. Sadly, the government has been burying its head in the sand in the past few years. 

While President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono keeps voicing his displeasure over his government’s poor performance in boosting economic growth, his inaction in the light of a recent fight between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Police has done little to generate public trust. 

Actions speak louder than words. As long as Yudhoyono is unable to translate his rhetoric into action, investors will remain jittery over what they perceive as Indonesia’s lack of seriousness in upholding the rule of law. And they won’t have the desire to invest far from the capital’s city limits. 

Thus Jakarta will keep having its traffic jams, and the annual death toll from mudik will keep increasing.

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Pelan2

3:10pm Aug 28, 2012

Pak Yohanes - on the spot again - too bad that SBY does not read your snippets when they are published.

With the electoral system presently in force, no capable independent Indonesian will come forward to lead. Presidential candidates will be the "has beens" - brought up through the political parties, which are all ridden with corruption, and if elected, they are faced with the "payback issue" to those political parties that backed him/her during the run-up to the election. Rather disappointing that 250 mill Indonesians have to choose between a bunch of handpicked "crooks" instead of getting fresh, forward thinking Indonesian candidates. One "small" hope though, is that Jokowi steamrolls over Fauzi Bowo in the DKI-1 election on Sep. 20th and that he will later move on to the national stage - last hope I would say..

jchay

3:57pm Aug 28, 2012

Move the capital city out of Jakarta, give more incentive for investors, get rid of non-performance and corrupt Bupati.. c'mon Indonesia, it's 2012. Be smarter voters or else you're shooting your own foot!

bajajbutut

7:11pm Aug 28, 2012

At the end of the day, I think it's up to the motorists to start looking after ourselves. Accident can occur anywhere, anytime. I really think it's the people mentality, their driving style and their disregard to road safety that account more to road accidents than anything else.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

7:31am Aug 29, 2012

Thank you all for your comments.

@Pelan2: To be frank, I am probably one of few people who actually look at Jokowi skeptically. Yes, he is a lesser of two evils, but dunno, I think he is way overhyped, and when he could not deliver due to the huge problems that Jakarta face, then expect s**t hits the fan. I wish him the best though.

@Jchay: the idea of moving capital out of Jakarta has actually been broached as early as in 1910s(?). Bandung's "Gedung Sate" was supposed to be the new Dutch Governor General palace. So, don't think it will happen anytime soon (unfortunately).

@Bajajbutut: agree, but that does not address the root cause of the mudik phenomena itself. Still, you are right that the driving style in Indonesia is atrocious and I blame it to the lack of law enforcement with the police ready to look elsewhere when they are offered some incentives.

zerodiversity

9:20am Aug 29, 2012

Pak Yohannes made a good point but I am done thinking that SBY would do something about the problem. From now till 2014 SBY would be more interested to negotiate on ways to consolidate his power after his term is done. He would not put the country interest first.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

10:33am Aug 29, 2012

@zerodiversity: I agree. The next two years will be power consolidations. There are some rumors about him trying to groom a young minister in his cabinet to be his successor (not Hatta), so I don't think there will be any major breakthrough in respect of anything in the next two years. (You might notice that this piece is more of an analysis than the usual "exhortation.")

Pelan2

10:56am Aug 29, 2012

@Yohanes - noted your reservations about Jokowi, maybe you are right. However, if he wins by a huge margin, at least that would show that he has the majority of Jakartans behind him which would give him a good mandate to govern and the political parties should be very careful not to put "the breaks on" keeping the 2014 elections in mind.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

11:29am Aug 29, 2012

@Pelan2: I don't discount the impact of a landslide to his ability to get things done. That will be a good wake up call to a lot of Indonesian politicians and the corrupt oligarchy that support them. At the same time, however, this might also inspire his political opponents to try to make his life hell, in order to ensure that he won't be a viable candidate for higher office. Moreover, people tend to be impatient for someone who they believe as Messiah, and thus when he cannot deliver in his first or second years, expect things to turn ugly. Still, I do sincerely hope that my misgivings are misplaced in this case.

zerodiversity

2:29pm Aug 29, 2012

Don't expect too much even if Jokowi-Ahok did manage to win the election. There are too much problems piled up in Jakarta and the bureaucracy is too much to expect Jokowi to perform miracles. If Jokowi manages to show us his determination for changes and small but concrete steps towards making improvement, I will say he is a good enough leader.

As for the yearly mudik problems, I am surprised that we are already going into 2013 and there is still no express toll road from Jakarta to Surabaya. Connecting the entire java island would have indirectly improved the traffic condition in Jakarta tremendously. I believe the main reason we don't have a connected java island is because too many people want a share of the big profit the project would have given.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

7:14am Aug 30, 2012

@Zerodiversity: Corruption is probably the only reason for this lack of express toll road. I believe that there was a company planning to invest in a toll road a couple of years ago, but they decided to pull out once they found out that the total bribes that they had to pay would have already at least doubled the original estimate of investment needed to build the toll road.

TheSplodge

10:22am Aug 30, 2012

@All

It would be interesting to have a break down of deaths caused by accidents to see where the majority of problems lie.

I, for one, would be surprised if the vast majority of deaths and injuries were not to motorbike riders. If that is the case, surely one way to lessen the awful carnage would be to ban all motorbikes from leaving the city, especially the 'bebeks'. Since Jakarta bikes have a 'B' on the license plate I can't imagine it would be very difficult to enforce.

I realize that this does not solve the problem of how to get hundreds of thousands of Indonesians back to their kampungs but saving around 6000 people from being killed or injured must surely be the higher priority.

zerodiversity

10:39am Aug 30, 2012

@Pak Yohannes

I agree, the government and bureaucracy here is a farce and disgrace to the country. Those so-called "government people" think only of themselves and how much money they can siphon off the country. I am not surprised foreign and private companies refused to invest money in toll road projects because of the huge amount of 'grease' money they have to pay

devine

3:38pm Aug 30, 2012

Pelan2; my guess is that SBY actually reads the snippets... but does not understand them...

Nullify

3:43pm Aug 30, 2012

Country Corruption indices such as Corruption Perception Index etc are made and published yearly to aid potential investors in their feasibility studies. Ignore these indices at your own perils.

Let Us Embrace and Celebrate Our Diversity

Okay, I don't know why or how, but they totally butchered my article into a pile of nonsense. You can compare the differences between the original version and the published version here.
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Original version:

Let Us Embrace and Celebrate Our Diversity
Yohanes Sulaiman | August 16, 2012

When Indonesian founding fathers proclaimed the independence of Indonesia on August 17, 1945, they envisioned a strong united state, where the diversity of the populations, the various ethnicity, religions, races, and social classes became the pillars of the new young nation.

This idea is further crystallized by Mohammad Hatta, who recalled a particular episode that happened in the late afternoon of the Proclamation Day. He was visited by an officer of the Japanese Navy and Mr. Nishijima, an assistant to Rear Admiral Tadashi Maeda. The two Japanese gentlemen brought up the concerns from the population of the Eastern Indonesia, the majority of who were Christians and Catholics.

The main concern of the Eastern Indonesians was that the new country might start from the wrong foot, by putting in the idea of Islamic law (Shariah) in the preamble of the Indonesian Constitution. While technically the Shariah wouldn’t apply to them, the presence of the Shariah in the preamble signaled that the new Indonesian nation was going to favor one religion only.

Hatta, realizing the danger of creeping sectarian problem that in the end would undermine the unity of the young nation, decided to have a meeting with Ki Bagus Hadikusumo, Wahid Hasjim, Mr. kasman Singodimedjo and Mr. Teuku Hasan, all of them were influential representatives of the Moslem community. In the end, they were agreed to replace the problematic part of the Preamble with simply “Unity in One God.”

The event surrounding the change of the wording is still under debate to the present day, and was seen as controversial especially for those advocating the implementation of Islamic law in Indonesia. Yet, it is clear that for the Indonesian founding fathers, the interest of the nation as a whole was far more important than their own narrow interests, and they could not simply sacrifice idea of a united independent Indonesia nation on the altar of their egoism.

President Sukarno also approved this idea of a united nation, where the diversity of the nation is seen as something to be celebrated, rather than something used to break the nation apart. As he argued powerfully in his speech in front of the Eight Conference of the Baperki (back then, a Chinese Indonesian association, seen as close to the Indonesian Communist Party) that:

“Why should I demand an Indonesian of Chinese descent who wants to become an Indonesian citizen to change his name? …No! That’s a private affair. Religion is also a private affair, and I don’t interfere in that. What I want is for us to be truly Indonesians. We become true citizens of Republic of Indonesia.”

Therefore, it is saddening to see that sixty seven years after the proclamation of Indonesian independence, the issue of sectarianism has not diminished. Instead, irresponsible politicians and their supporters seem to enjoy stoking the issue of race and religion as a way to advocate their narrow political interests at the expense of the interests of the nation as a whole.

The irresponsible use of the issues of ethnicity, religions, races, and social classes would undermine the integrity and stability of Indonesia’s democracy. Rather than seeing elections as a referendum to judge whether an incumbent was a competent guardian of public trust or as an arena to test and promote idea and programs, elections are now being turned into “scaremongering events,” that electing a certain candidate would bring down the wrath of God or the opposite candidate would turn into a “Manchurian Candidate,” doing the bidding of a certain narrow interest group to destroy the nation.

Our founding fathers would shed tears, seeing decades of their works to create a united nation enriched by the diversity of its population are wasted by people with narrow interests, people who prefer to sacrifice and destroy the unity of the nation for their own selfish short term political goals and narrow interests.

It will be useful to use the celebration of the sixty-seventh anniversary of the Indonesian Independence as a time of reflection to see how far astray this nation has gone from the ideals of our founding fathers and try to go back to the path of putting national interests above selfish narrow interests of our own.

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Butchered version:

When Indonesia’s founding fathers proclaimed independence from the Netherlands on Aug. 17, 1945, they envisioned a strong, united state, where the diverse population would be the pillar of the new nation. 

This idea was crystallized by Mohammad Hatta, who recalled being visited on Proclamation Day by two men, an officer from the Japanese Navy and the assistant to Rear Adm. Tadashi Maeda. They raised concerns about the people of eastern Indonesia, many of whom were Protestants and Catholics. 

The main concern was that the new country might start on the wrong foot by putting in the idea of Islamic law in the preamble to the Constitution. Realizing the danger of creeping sectarianism, Hatta met with Ki Bagus Hadikusumo, Wahid Hasjim, Kasman Singodimedjo and Teuku Hasan, all influential representatives of the Muslim community. All agreed to simply use the phrase “Unity in One God” in the preamble. 

It is clear that for Indonesia’s founding fathers, the interests of the nation as a whole were far more important than their personal interests, and they did not sacrifice the idea of a united, independent Indonesian nation on the altar of their egoism. 

President Sukarno embraced a diverse nation as something to be celebrated, rather than something to be used to break the nation apart. 

As he argued in his speech at the Eighth Conference of the Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship (Baperki), a Chinese-Indonesian association: “Why should I demand an Indonesian of Chinese descent who wants to become an Indonesian citizen to change his name? … No! That’s a private affair. Religion is also a private affair, and I don’t interfere in that. What I want is for us to be truly Indonesians.” 

It is saddening today to see that the issue of sectarianism has not diminished. Our founding fathers would shed tears, seeing decades of their work wasted. 

The 67th anniversary of Indonesian independence should be a time of reflection. In the spirit of our founders, let’s try to get back to putting national interests above narrow self-interest. 

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masmon2

3:35pm Aug 16, 2012

Good article Yohanes - the country seems to take more steps backwards than forwards in the areas that you discuss.

This is all the result of weak government and greed having gone unchecked for so long.

The country desperately needs leaders that will work to educate, inspire and motivate people towards excellence. The starting point should be the education system, but when education funds are plundered by the authorities or the very schools they are intended for one has to ask when will change ever occur.

Yohanes-Sulaiman

4:04pm Aug 16, 2012

@masmon2: thanks for your kind comment. I am afraid the changes won't come until people got fed up and throw out the bums. Though, I see the Jokiwi's victory is a much needed jolt to the status quo, that people who believe that they could simply rely on "nasi bungkus" and big parties' support got their comeuppance in the last round. Still don't think he will be the silver bullet who can solve everything.

 

China Puts On a Show of Strength, But One-Party System Showing Weaknesses

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China Puts On a Show of Strength, But One-Party System Showing Weaknesses
Yohanes Sulaiman | August 01, 2012

A week ago China announced that it had stationed a garrison in Yangxing Island. Simultaneously, it also established the city of Sansha on the same island to govern its disputed territory in the South China Sea. 

Many analysts agree that China’s actions are symbolically important. China was sending a political message to its neighbors, stressing its seriousness in defending its claims over the region. But the new deployment has only a minimal military value, as any serious military action would still be mounted from bases in Hainan. 

China’s message, however, compounded by the recent botched Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Phnom Penh, raised the tension in the dispute concerning the ownership of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. 

At the same time, Japan is feeling picked on because China is intruding on its territorial waters in a dispute over the Senkaku Islands. 

It seems hard to believe that China would knowingly pick a simultaneous fight with its neighbors. But this is an unintended result of its one-party system. 

In the past few years, China’s internal cohesion has grown weaker, with social protests erupting more often than before. Many of the protests were directly caused by the irresponsible behavior of officials or their relatives, such as the infamous “My Father Is Li Gang” scandal, where a drunk driver, after striking two university students, leaving one dead, tried to shirk his responsibility by invoking the name of his father, who happened to be deputy chief of police of that region. 

Other protests were caused by growing social injustice and inequality, exacerbated by abuse of power and growing corruption within the bureaucracy. Land seizure protests have rocked China quite often lately. In Wukan, the local population famously managed to kick out the local corrupt communist party officials and forced the central government to concede to the villagers’ demands. 

Moreover, as the country becomes more and more prosperous, people are demanding more from the government, including better environmental protection. This leads to violent clashes against the police by people protesting the planned expansion of polluting industries. There were recent protests against the planned metal plant in Shifang and the planned construction of a pipeline intended to dump wastewater from a paper mill into the sea in Qidong. 

China will undergo a change in leadership within the next year, where president Hu Jintao is likely to be replaced by Xi Jinping. 

During this transition, with the Chinese Communist Party’s reputation already suffering, the last thing China needs is to have nationalists rising up and protesting what they perceive as China’s weak handling of its disputed territories. 

Thus, China’s one-party system has turned out to be its own biggest weakness. Lacking a democratic system with a check-and-balance system, where officials’ behavior can be checked by a strong judiciary and legislative system, and where ordinary people can vent through the free press and be afforded an honest election, the bucks stops with the party. 

With the party’s credibility at stake, it could not show weaknesses. In domestic affairs, the party has to keep cracking down on protests — often violently, closing down offensive Weibo accounts, and censoring anything that has the potential to be politically offensive on the Internet, even though such crackdowns will further undermine the party’s credibility in a long run. In international affairs, China has no option but to take a hard line, even if the action is detrimental to the nation’s long-term strategic interests. 

China’s current condition is eerily similar to the last days of President Suharto in 1998. At that time, the economic crisis had badly undermined the regime. Coupled by years of corruption and abuse of power among the cronies of the president, the government had no choice but to keep cracking down on its critics and take a belligerent stance, especially in regards to East Timor. By the end, however, the proverbial dam broke, the political elite split and took action that further undermined the regime until it finally collapsed. 

Granted, China’s current condition is much better than Indonesia’s at the end of Suharto’s New Order. It still has the power to maintain the current political environment for years to come. 

At the same time, however, China needs to understand that it has no option but to engage in more political reform and strengthen the rule of law. It has to prepare itself for the inevitable transition to democratic rule. 

Internationally, China’s failure to reform could lead to further regional instability and armed conflict with its neighbors. 

That would inevitably get the US involved. Domestically, China might experience Indonesia’s growing pains, like internal violent conflicts, religious intolerance, broken rule of law, massive corruption, and uncontrolled vigilante mobs. The stakes are very high indeed. 

The Silver Lining of a Failed Asean Summit

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The Silver Lining of a Failed Asean Summit
Yohanes Sulaiman | July 21, 2012

In an Asean first, the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last week were unable to issue the usual joint communique at the end of their summit. Irreconcilable differences regarding the South China Sea, with diplomats pointing at Cambodia’s unwillingness to embarrass Beijing, were the reasons for the deadlock. 

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said in response: “I think it is utterly irresponsible if we cannot come up with a common statement on South China Sea. This is a time when Asean should be seen to be acting as one, when the rest of the region expects Asean to be acting as one, and that’s why it’s extremely disappointing that so far we have not been able to achieve that.” 

Marty was right to feel disappointed over Asean’s failure. This summit broke the “taboo” that regardless of the debates and acrimony within the summit, by the end of the day, every country will sit down, shake hands and issue a joint communique that papers over the differences and saves face. 

The failure to issue a joint communique this time around can be said to have torn apart the facade of Asean unity. If 10 nations cannot agree on one joint communique that is full of generalities and only mentions that the summit was also discussing the contentious issue of the Scarborough Shoal, then it remains to be seen whether Asean has the political will to push for more drastic (and most likely painful and domestically unpopular) measures that will be needed down the road in forming a stronger union. 

While the Southeast Asian nations have high hopes and plans for the future of the organization, hoping that it can help strengthen their ties and develop common interests, not unlike the European Union, the failure shows that there is still has a long way to go. It also raises another issue: when push comes to shove, can Asean members rely on each other? 

There might just be a silver lining to this fiasco. The inability to issue joint communiques may be seen as normal for future summits. That way, summits will actually be used to bring up difficult issues and force Asean nations to face the most contentious of issues head-on. Controversial decisions may be made, with some nations agreeing and others objecting — something that under the current facade of harmony is impossible. 

The caveat, though, is that all Asean countries must have enough political will to stay together and turn Asean into a binding organization; otherwise, it faces disintegration. Therefore, the Phnom Penh summit should be used for introspection and possibly a great time to think of the future of Asean itself. 

China should also take heed. It may have won this round by using its influence to make sure that Asean chair Cambodia kept the issue of the Scarborough Shoal from the final communique. In the long term, however, China could end up losing the war to win the hearts and minds of the Asean nations. 

Should China’s actions undermine the unity of Asean, the disgruntled Southeast Asian countries might put the blame on China for wrecking the Asean project with its unwelcome interference. That won’t be good news for China’s good relationships with the majority of Southeast Asian countries and its goals in the region. 

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serenityjam

10:59pm Jul 21, 2012

Our foreign minister is correct to feel disappointed and remarked that the ASEAN's failure to issue a joint communique is 'utterly irresponsible'.

He must be referring to Cambodia (as chair and host in Phnom Penh) that acted shamelessly to refuse the call of nine other countries to make mention of the crisis at Scarborough Shoal.

ASEAN must resist aggression from a superpower. China has a hidden agenda to control the Southeast Asian region. China is trying to "rewrite" history by telling tales about its alleged proofs of ownership by showing fraudulent maps and imagined conquests of islands in the past by the naval expeditions commissioned by

its dynastic emperors.

Indonesia should be wary because China can do what it is doing to provoke the Philippines on Scarborough Shoal. I am confident that the ASEAN will be restored as one formidable economic bloc and China's intrusion in the ASEAN territorial waters will not succeed. ASEAN, unite!

maspanji

11:35pm Jul 21, 2012

Asean is a noble cause but its vision is fall short due to suspicion among its member states, namely Malaysia - Indonesia, Thailand- Cambodia, Walaysia - Singapore etc. And the only country that the Chinese to reckon with is Vietnam.

DasMonk

12:17pm Jul 22, 2012

Mr Serenityjam. I feel the post frommaspanji is correct, I would go further and say that certainly in Indonesia and Thailand the suspician of its neighbours is fueled by misplaced hateful rhetoric from those who should know better such as politicians

Regarding China's expansionist policies, this will inevietably lead to direct military conflict within the next few years, potentially months

China will aggress and the ASEAN will maintain a non retaliation stance. The president is making his customary loud noise but is devoid of any action. To analyse why we should consider the deals over the last decade whereby we have lost out as a nation, but perhaps not personally

It is with regret that the Philipines best freinds are in North America and when the blood starts to flow it will be they and not us who provide assistance

We dream of being a regional superpower but seem unwilling to take the burden it brings time and time again

Yohanes-Sulaiman

7:45pm Jul 22, 2012

Thank you for your kind comments. I never expected to receive comments on a foreign affairs piece. So glad that I was proved wrong.

I will add that the biggest problem with ASEAN is in the lack of common interests, goals, and visions, especially after the end of the Cold War. While The European Union moved from "anti-Soviet" bloc to creating a common market that could in the end balance against the US and Japan (later China), ASEAN has not really made such rethinking, other than just try to slog around hopefully everything would be all right. That's the unfortunate effect of simply creating an association without trying to strengthen it or to create a common long term interest or goal between all states in the region

Other problem is the fact that ASEAN keeps maintaining the illusion that it has nothing to do with security, while in reality, it is all about security (back then, it was created to keep the Commies out). Thus, the mismatch between the policy and reality

serenityjam

10:16pm Jul 22, 2012

@DasMonk:

Last time I heard our foreign minister Marty Natalegawa went to Manila to spearhead common statement among ASEAN member-nations in lieu of joint communique. It seems, sir, that Indonesia is doing something about China's aggression.

I am happy to hear that. Maybe, as citizens, we should support our government's foreign relations moves. I know that foreign ministers speak rhetorically but underneath those statements they mean business. There is one positive action. Am I glad that our foreign minister is leading the way.

Besides, there is no need to think of going to war. China as a bully must be pressured through world opinion. There is power in the pen. ASEAN member-nations are generally peace-loving people, are we not?

DasMonk

6:51am Jul 23, 2012

Mr Yohanes-Sulaiman

The future failure of ASEAN to remain nothing more than a club is down to several points already outlined, lack of common interest, self interest and suspician among the major listings, nationalist hatred

However convolutly it may well be the China threat that finally draws us together in the same way as the threat of war in Europe banded the nations. The EU was born from the The European Coal and Steel Community with the belief that tied national interests would avert war. It has to date succeeded.

The number one priority is to recognise the threat and as yet all I see in China buying influence and silence around the world. It bodes ill for the region because at some point it will come to conflict. Recent history shows we have sided with Ahmadijah, Gaddiffi and Assad and promoted a non intervention model. When the Chinese start firing one cannot help thinking we will side with Beijing and do nothing