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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (8544)	5/10/1999 11:15:00 AM
From: Heretic	Respond to of 9980

OT <<I remember the precision with which we placed our fire during the the Desert Storm operation.>> Really? OPERATION DESERT STORM: EVALUATION OF THE AIR CAMPAIGN report from the United States General Accounting Office "many of DOD's and manufacturers' postwar claims about weapon system performance were overstated, misleading, inconsistent with the best available data, or unverifiable" fas.org

To: Stitch who wrote (8544)	5/10/1999 3:03:00 PM
From: Bosco	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

G'day Stitch & all - I am sure there is enough worries in this world, so I won't be fanning more flame. Right now, I think we have come to a critical point of balance, in the sense of a famous legal scholar, whose name has escaped me for the moment, who said the nature of practical justice is some got too much of it and some got too little, and on balance justice was done! I come to this when several events juxtapose one another. 1) pent up anger in China - not necessarily against foreigners, mind you; 2) Congress dished China's hope of WTO; 3) Prez Clinton decided not to waste political capital on China's desire into WTO; 3) the allegations of China received US nuclear secrets and 4) NATO misbombed the China Embassy in Belgrade - if one is to accept the explanation that it was purely accidental. If these four factors are meshed together, maybe something good may come out of this [ok, call me an optimist <sg>!] When everyone has misplayed one's hand enough, and if most of the players are sensible sort, they may come to a point that they declare a multilateral draw and start afresh. The downside is that if anyone overplays one's hand, it can only exacerbate the stalmate. Let's hope common sense prevails best, Bosco

To: Stitch who wrote (8544)	5/11/1999 10:27:00 AM
From: christopher franck	Respond to of 9980

Dear all on Indonesia again. Professor Sadli has a penetrating and succinct analysis of the situation. Untuk Bulletin Kadin, Mei 1999 IMPROVING ECONOMIC STABILITY DEFYING PRE-ELECTIONS GLOOM Writing in early May 1999, one is perplexed by the improving macro-economic indicators. The rupiah rate continues to strengthen, dipping below Rp8000 per US dollar. The monthly rate of inflation (of April) still remains flat. As a consequence interest rates are going down, although the 30% p.a. threshold has not been breached. The stock market index also shows improvement because of buying by overseas parties. We take comfort in recalling titles of our previous editorials. Our February editorial was called "Some Silver Lining", March was "Fragile Stability Continuing", while last month's was titled "IMF Reasonably happy?" In the meantime, the June 7 general elections are rapidly approaching. The licensed political campaign period (starting May 16) has not started, but everybody is apprehensive about possible violence. But there is a general feeling that notwithstanding the recent social conflicts related to race, ethnicity and religion, violence related to the upcoming elections can, and will be, minimized. The government, police, army and the leadership of the large political parties are talking to each other, sharing the same concern, and establishing crisis centers locally as well as nationally. None of those parties want postponement of the elections. The prospect is that five big parties will emerge from the elections, i.e. PDI-Megawati, Golkar, PAN, PPP and PKB, not necessary in this order. None of them will be strong enough to form a government. Hence, the November presidential elections will be more important but more unpredictable. Habibie, Amien Rais and Megawati are top contenders, but anyone of them have his or her own drawbacks. Habibie's domestic political goodwill is wearing out because of his lack of political savvy. His East Timor initiative has a very rough going and no peace is in sight for that region. The same is true for Aceh. He is still Gokar's main presidential candidate but not as a single nomination. The slate also consists of Wiranto, Akbar Tanjung and the Sultan of Yogya. It reflects lack of unanimity within the party's leadership and a struggle between the older more pro-status-quo leadership and younger reformists. Amien Rais may be an unchallenged candidate only if his party turns out to be the biggest among the five, which is not very certain at this juncture of time. PDI-Perjuangan appears to be the front runner, but Megawati is a women in an overwhelmingly Islam country and is not a seasoned politician. Some other parties who matter may not give her wholehearted support. That may open the possibility for dark horses. The Sultan of Yogya is one, and Wiranto cannot be ruled out because Marzuki Darusman (Golkar MPR leader) mentioned his name. On the other hand, Rudini, the present chairman of the General Election Committee (KPU), will have a high standing if he can pull through a reasonably free and clean election and if the KPU can discipline the contending political parties. People are eager to embrace a personality who promises effective leadership in these troubled times and is reasonably free of a KKN (corruption, etc.) image. Rudini has a (Dutch trained) military background and is a former minister of interior. He is not Golkar but supports a smaller break-away party (MKGR). According to the 1945 Constitution Indonesia has a presidential system of government. The president is elected for five years and parliament cannot bring him down, although under a new rule there will be an MPR session every year to hold the president accountable, but probably cannot easily impeach. But now there is the restriction of two terms for the presidency. Hence we will have much greater political democracy, but that will not necessarily guarantee a strong and effective government. Perhaps the next president must concentrate of political and social problems and leave the economy to the market, foreign creditors and investors and to the IMF, which may not be the worse alternative. At he moment Hubert Neiss (IMF) is in the country and soon the bi-monthly IMF Letter of Intent will be signed. He is reasonably happy with the progress of macro-economic indicators, and is reported that he will concentrate of restructuring of the state banks. To reduce the costs of recapitalization these banks have to make a sincere effort to recoup early the assets of the 20 biggest debtors. The 16 March agreement focussed on restructuring of the private banks. Hence, according to the IMF, bank restructuring and the rescheduling of large corporate debts are the key to economic recovery. But there is an incipient bullish mood in East and Southeast Asia, and Indonesia will be dragged along. (Sadli, 11 May '99)