The Red Line: The Geopolitics of Indonesia

 With a new cold war between the USA and China looming on the horizon the balance of power in Asia is being drawn up, with Beijing and Washington vying for influence in the region. Of all the nations of importance though none will be as crucial as Indonesia. Set to be the 4th largest economy by the year 2050 Indonesia is quickly becoming a regional leader, one that could dictate the direction for ASEAN and SE Asia for decades to come. So we sat down with our expert panel to talk about the future of this soon to be giant. On the panel this week Kyle Springer (US Asia Centre) Natalie Sambhi (Verve Research) Gordon Flake (US Asia Centre) For more info visit - www.theredlinepodcast.com Follow the show on @TheRedLinePod or Michael on @MikeHilliardAus

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PolyMatter: The TikTok Ban

Vox: How China is ruthlessly exploiting the coronavirus pandemic it helped cause

The Chinese government spent weeks denying and downplaying the severity of its growing coronavirus outbreak that eventually spread to the rest of the world. That obfuscation cost nations crucial time in preparing for and potentially curbing the damage of Covid-19. Some experts Vox spoke with believe President Xi Jinping’s regime should be held accountable for the more than 3 million infections and 200,000 deaths that have taken place worldwide. [...]

China has capitalized on the world’s distraction to claim sovereignty over disputed islands in the South China Sea, intimidate Taiwan, and assert more authority over Hong Kong in an attempt to quash the pro-democracy movement there. [...]

And after the US suspended funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) for allegedly being too cozy with Beijing, the Chinese government pledged millions of dollars in additional support for the organization, giving China even more influence in the global health agency and allowing the country to portray itself as the new champion of multilateralism. [...]

Xi himself has said as much. During a major speech in October 2017, he named specific timelines for his grandiose goals: China would have a “moderately prosperous society in all respects” by 2021; it would be a world leader in technology and military modernization by 2035; and by 2049, Beijing’s decades-long dispute with Taiwan would be resolved.

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TLDR News: Could Coronavirus Start a Global Recession?

COVID-19, more commonly known as coronavirus, continues to spread across the world. As the virus spreads investors and businesses are getting nervous. So in this video, we're going to explore the economic effect of COVID-19 and how the global economy is reacting to the virus.

BBC4 Thinking Allowed: Borders

Borders: Laurie Taylor explores the control of national borders. He talks to Nira Yuval Davis, Director of the research centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging at the University of East London and co-author of a new book which asks why borders have moved from the margins into the centre of political life and turned many ordinary citizens into untrained border guards. They’re joined by Jeremy Slack, Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Texas, who charts the way in which Mexican deportees from the United States become the targets of extreme drug related violence upon their return to Mexico.

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The Guardian: 'Did I ever really know him?': the women who married gay men

Megan is one of a potentially dying breed of women: those who married closeted gay men. As countries such as Australia and Britain progress towards LGBTQI equality, it’s a social phenomenon that could vaporise within a generation. 

When a married man comes out later in life, positive reactions can be heartening. Rainbow garlands are unfurled. People applaud his bravery. They empathise with his struggle. They marvel at how he came through it and celebrate that he can finally be himself. They express gratitude we live in more enlightened times.

Often entirely missing from this narrative is the woman’s voice. [...]

She says women present with depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, high blood pressure, eating issues and fears their children will be bullied. “Some women contact the service before their husband is even aware they know he’s gay,” she says. “Some women found out because they were diagnosed with HIV or another STI. And yes, some women say the group saved their lives; they were suicidal when they contacted us.” [...]

Roxanne remembers, as Australia’s marriage equality postal vote was happening, clients contacting the service asking: have you done it yet, have you voted? I ask her if any were no voters, given their experiences. “Absolutely not,” she says. “They were enthusiastic about creating a new world – so no other woman would go through what they did.”

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The Conversation: There are differences between free speech, hate speech and academic freedom – and they matter

Free speech is the right to say whatever one likes. It is unconstrained by the disciplines of reason and objectivity. It doesn’t require factual accuracy. As with academic freedom, it doesn’t matter if one’s opinion is unpopular. Both free speech and academic freedom are essential to democracy. [...]

In a university, the test of a reasonable opinion is higher. One cannot say whatever one likes and call it academic freedom. [...]

When people say that they want to “reclaim” a country as their own and contest “anti-racism” they are saying overtly and unapologetically that they don’t want others to have a democratic presence. They are saying that they don’t want others to have free speech. Nor do they want academics who are not “young white men” to have academic freedom. [...]

Defending a right to bigotry, or to express hate speech, trivialises what the denial of both free speech and academic freedom can really look like. In China, for example, the state has warned against the presence of “mistaken views” in universities, including the study of constitutional democracy, civil society, economic liberalisation, freedom of the press, challenges to socialism with Chinese characteristics and discussion of universal values including academic freedom.

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The Conversation: Around half of 17-year-olds have had sex and they’re more responsible than you think

All up, 47% of students told us they had sex – defined as vaginal and/or anal intercourse regardless of the gender of the partner. [...]

Recent US reports suggest teens are having less sex than they used to. The US Centers for Disease Control found between 1991 and 2017 the percentage of students who’d had intercourse dropped from 54% to 40%. [...]

The average age for the 47% who had experienced sexual intercourse in our survey was about 16 years old. This is slightly lower than other researchers have found. But our survey results may not represent Australian teens as a whole. [...]

They largely reported responsible behaviours. These included discussing having sex (81%) beforehand and protecting their health (77%). They used condoms (56%) and/or the pill (41%). [...]

Despite this, we found 93% wanted their last sexual encounter. Overall, 85% indicated they felt extremely good and happy about their last experience and fewer (less than 20%) reported feeling upset, worried or guilty.

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Failed Architecture: Craigslust: “We’ll Have Sex and You Don’t Need to Pay Much for the Flat”

Upon opening the room share section users are immediately confronted with titles such as: “Free accommodation for gorgeous female” or “Live rent-free in luxury – avail 4 cute female”. Such adverts make “sex for rent” schemes between a male seller and a female buyer seem not only obvious, but presumably socially accepted. In this instance, the assumption that it is acceptable to request “sex for rent” originates in patriarchy, a societal structure in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded. More specifically, it originates in the patriarchal claim of a man’s rights over female bodies in both the domestic and the public space.

As Carole Pateman describes it, through the marriage contract, the woman at home is expected to perform both sex and domestic work for economic support and protection. The public aspect of patriarchal right, through what Pateman names a “prostitution contract”, manifests through the demand for female bodies to be sold as commodities in the capitalist market. Sex for rent appears to be a compelling hybrid of the two contracts, which is helping to fuel a resurgence of oppressive relations in ostensibly socially liberal societies. And while these oppressive relations manifest differently based on the subject’s ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation and physical ability, it’s worth exploring how the basic patriarchal dynamic plays out in some of the world’s most overheated housing markets. [...]

In all these adverts, a familiar yet increasingly contested pattern of discrimination is unrestrained and painfully evident. The majority of property owners and renters are middle-aged, Caucasian men describing themselves as “successful”, “professional”, and “fit”, whilst the target audience for these advertisements are predominantly young, financially unstable women or members of the queer community. Without data on people responding, it is impossible to assess the level of exploitation underlying a particular advert. But given the fact that one is more likely to experience housing precarity as, for instance, a working class woman of colour, it is safe to say this dynamic has even more troubling implications for women affected by other sources of oppression. [...]

What should be surprising, however, is the normalisation of a deal in which one needs to abandon one human right — not to be held in servitude — in order to satisfy another — the right to adequate housing. If the exploitation of housing by real-estate were not so rife, and the home was universally accepted as a place of security, then perhaps “sex for rent” would cease to exist. The breakthrough for female emancipation is historically associated with the removal of housing from the market and the growth of the welfare state. Yet, as long as we apply to housing what Mark Fisher described as a ‘business ontology’ in which it is “simply obvious that everything in society should be ran as a business”, the underprivileged will continue to experience widespread erosion of their historic strides toward equality.

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The Guardian Today in Focus: The fall of Cardinal George Pell

One of Pope Francis’s trusted advisers is now the most senior member of the Catholic church to be convicted of child abuse. The Guardian’s Melissa Davey was in court every day and describes the trial that brought about Pell’s downfall. Plus: Alex Hern on Facebook’s decision to permanently ban the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

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The Guardian: Brutal and dogmatic, George Pell waged war on sex – even as he abused children

As an archbishop in Melbourne and a cardinal in Sydney Pell poured his energies into combating contraception, homosexuality, genetic engineering, divorce, equal marriage and abortion.

He was particularly brutal to gay people. When a wreath was laid outside St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in memory of gay students in Catholic schools driven to suicide, Pell’s disdain was absolute.

“I haven’t got good statistics on the reasons for those suicides,” he declared. “If they are connected with homosexuality, it is another reason to be discouraging people going in that direction. Homosexual activity is a much greater health hazard than smoking.”[...]

Pell did nothing to curb paedophile priests in his years as auxiliary bishop, though the predations of some of the worst of them were being reported to him. He didn’t know enough, he would claim, and he didn’t have the authority to act. Despite the pleas of parents and teachers, Pell left mad Father Searson, toting a gun and terrifying children, in charge of the primary school in Doveton.

His elevation to archbishop shocked Melbourne Catholics. But he didn’t need to be loved by them. He didn’t need their votes. His authority came from Rome, where he sat on a number of councils policing church doctrine. These were the years the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith worked up fresh hard teachings to revile homosexuals.[...]

If you wanted to build a network of Catholic universities, Pell was your man. If you wanted to save hundreds of millions of dollars that victims of abuse might win in the courts, Pell was your man. If you wanted to block official inquiries into the abuse of children by clerics for as long as humanly possible, Pell was your man.

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Foreign Policy: The Beginning of the End of Britain’s Brexit Fantasy

Moreover, Britain suddenly finds itself very much alone on the world stage. As of April 1, as things currently stand (and there’s no plan B in the wings), the U.K. will no longer be in the European Union, with everything that entails. Not least is the loss of frictionless and duty-free trade with nearly half a billion souls. And no one is rushing to save Britain by offering better trade terms, least of all its old “special” ally, the United States.[...]

Trump, who has been a Brexit cheerleader from the start—he was elected only a few months after the Brexit referendum and incongruously cheered the result during a visit to one of his Scottish golf courses—has made a brutally hard process even harder every step of the way for May. Last fall, Trump blindsided May by calling her proposed pullout agreement “a great deal for the EU,” then cast doubt on whether he could negotiate with her at all, in part because May’s pact would have required a 21-month transition period.[...]

More to the point, while standing alone, the U.K. is not a priority for anyone. For example, Leigh noted, Australia and New Zealand are currently in talks on trade deals with the European Union and making it a priority over any hypothetical talks with Britain. A market of 450 million outweighs one of 65 million.

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The Guardian: Pushing up trees: is natural burial the answer to crowded cemeteries?

Added to that was the environmental consideration. Modern cremators use the equivalent of 40 litres of petrol per corpse, on average – enough to drive from Sydney to Port Macquarie – while older cremators can consume twice that, according to 2011 estimates from the Department of the Environment and Energy. “It’s not that cremation of itself is one of the most massive polluters in our society,” Hartley says. “Motorcars, transport, planes would eclipse it, no problem at all – but when you think about it, it’s just a thing that we don’t need to do.”[...]

Cemeteries have long been preoccupied with the problem of space. There’s been talk of building skyward with multi-storey mausoleums and going subterranean with carpark-like catacombs; upright burials, feet first into deep graves, are on offer in Victoria’s Corangamite Shire. In a world-first trial at Rookwood, 120 pigs have been buried and exposed to additives in an experiment in speeding up decomposition in order to bury more human bodies in the same plots.[...]

Hartley wants the project to convey an optimistic message: the earth is surprisingly resilient. Decades from now, if all goes to plan, the pasture would be transformed by 20-metre tall eucalypts, including peppermints and snow gums, as well as tea trees, bottlebrushes, and acacias. People who want to be interred there would have their non-embalmed bodies placed in a biodegradable coffin or shroud and be buried at the minimum legal depth (90 centimetres in NSW) to promote natural decomposition. Native vegetation would then be planted on top and on another acre along Saumarez Creek. The idea is to restore a native wildlife corridor connecting Saumarez Ponds and Dangars Falls, a long-term goal of the Armidale Tree Group.

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CityLab: Stockholm Isn’t Buying This Apple Store

Last month, Stockholm announced that it would block plans for a new Apple Store in the city’s center, overturning the agreement of a previous administration following widespread public outcry. As this article in The Guardian notes, the objection wasn’t against Apple as such (the company already has three Swedish stores) but against the site they chose. Had the company’s plan gone through, the electronics giant would have been camped at the end of Stockholm’s oldest, most central park: a lovely oblong oasis of greenery and paving called the Kungsträdgården, or King’s Garden. In doing so, Apple would have also taken over (but not necessarily built on) 375 square meters (4,037 square feet) of the park surrounding its store—a small chunk of the park’s overall footprint, but a sizeable privatization of public space in such a key, pivotal site.[...]

You might assume locals would thus be less bothered about what came afterwards. The sheer force of resistance—a public consultation received not a single petition in Apple’s favor—shows that there’s something more at work here than a simple debate over shopping space. Stockholm’s resistance is powered, it seems, by widespread concern about corporations taking over public spaces.

Indeed, Apple’s Stockholm plans form part of an international pattern. The tech giant has sought to set itself up in key public areas across the world’s cities, often taking over previously non-commercial spaces such as, in certain cases, former library and museum sites (more of which in a moment). They then present their store facilities as natural extensions of this public space, even as cultural institutions that provide unique opportunities for social exchange. These are not electronics stores—they are “town squares,” places where, according to Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts, “everyone is welcome.” [...]

The problem is the ground ceded to Apple and corporations like it by the state, which (partly under corporate pressure) is relinquishing its role as place-maker and ensurer of democratic access to public space. Apple’s ability to plausibly present their stores as new town squares rests on a tacit, erroneous assumption that the old, existing town squares are gone or broken. There’s no consideration, for example, that a new, truly public function for an underused library could be found.

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The Guardian: Stephen Fry pronounces the death of classical liberalism: ‘We are irrelevant and outdated bystanders’

“A grand canyon has opened up in our world,” Fry said. On one side is the new right, promoting a bizarre mixture of Christianity and libertarianism; on the other, the “illiberal liberals”, obsessed with identity politics and complaining about things like cultural appropriation. These tiny factions war above, while the rest of us watch, aghast, from the chasm below. [...]

One might be forgiven for thinking that there’s nothing less dangerous in modern Australia than an arts festival, but it could have been otherwise. FODI split last year from its founding partner, the Sydney Opera House, and relocated to Cockatoo Island’s industrial precinct. The Opera House ran its own ideas festival, Antidote, in September, with a program that had a distinctly (implicit, if not explicit) progressive flavour. FODI, by contrast, is known for courting controversy, from Hitchens’ inaugural keynote to reports in July that the festival was trying to secure former head of Breitbart, former Trump advisor and one-time mentor to Milo Yiannopoulos, Steve Bannon, to speak. The program was eventually launched Bannon-free – perhaps to FODI’s benefit, given the (in this correspondent’s view, legitimate) criticisms of the ABC’s approach when giving the man a platform earlier this year.

Bannon aside, there’s always a certain amount of what feels like trolling in a program that is doing its best to be edgy. If one hadn’t had their fill of evangelical proto-capitalism listening to Scott “have a go to get a go” Morrison, one could, for instance, head along to hear a discussion between pundits like Nick Cater and Judith Sloan about the supposed benefits of economic inequality. Similarly, if one were not already aware of what headline magnet Germaine Greer thinks about anything, one could attend her festival panel, titled Too Dangerous, presumably to hear her speak about how she’s “too dangerous” to be allowed to speak at festivals.[...]

While it’s never quite clear what the primary outcome of these festivals is supposed to be, they do tend to serve as something of a barometer for the preoccupations of the literary class. The conversations over the weekend exposed a genuine frustration with the lack of nuance in popular debate. Cracks about the “musical chairs” (Fry) or “revolving door” (Tim Soutphommasane) of parliament aside, the Australian government seems to be little more than a sideshow to what is happening overseas – in the United States, in Europe, and increasingly, in Brazil. Does Trump represent fascism or populism? Do the opportunities presented by the mass collection of data by corporations and governments outweigh its potential to be used against the interests of the public? How are we to understand the collision between politics and social media that seems to characterise this decade?

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UnHerd: Time to put the fat cats of capitalism on a diet

It is not hard to see how a proposal by Britain’s hard-left Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for top pay to be capped at twenty times the wage of a company’s lowest paid worker could find support among 57% of the British public3. While the average CEO pay package was almost £5.5 million in 2015, just a quarter of the FTSE 100 companies were accredited as Living Wage employers – committed to paying a minimum £8.45 an hour in the UK4. In America, 50% of the public favour limiting the pay of big business executives5.  [...]

In fact, other countries have managed without resorting to such excess. An internationally comparative measure is compiled by Bloomberg, with America and the UK topping the list for developed nations7. By this measure bosses in America make 300 times that of the average person, while British bosses earn 230 times as much. The ratio for Australia is 113 to one, in France it is 70:1 and in Denmark 83:1, clearly showing that sky-high pay is not a prerequisite of capitalism, but rather a feature of particular market models. Models that have lost the faith of the public.

The rise of share options as part of executive compensation is one reason for this disparity. Already large CEO pay packets in American and UK firms have risen in line with stocks, widening the differential between the pay of executives and their subordinates8. American CEOs are particularly likely to have these incentives compared to their European counterparts. Weak corporate governance is another factor, with European firms more likely to experience closer scrutiny from creditors and independent boards. In contrast, American firms are more likely to combine the CEO and Chairman role, plainly undermining the independent scrutiny function of the board9.  Harvard Law School found that as well as being an “inherent conflict of interest”, having a combined CEO/Chairman costs more, presents greater risk and delivers lower stock returns over the long term10. [...]

Shareholders should think again. Analysis by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhill Mullainathan found that in companies with poor governance, CEOs typically pay themselves more for improvements in profit which arise from luck. They are also more likely to award themselves stock options at lower cost. Adding a large shareholder to the board led to a sizeable reduction in pay for luck, for example, by 23-33%13.  

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The Washington Post: Why the Vatican continues to struggle with sex abuse scandals

The church has had more than three decades — since notable abuse cases first became public — to safeguard victims, and itself, against such system failures. And, in the past five years, many Catholics have looked to Francis as a figure who could modernize the church and help it regain its credibility.

But Francis’s track record in handling abuse is mixed, something some outsiders attribute to his learning curve or shortcomings and others chalk up to resistance from a notoriously change-averse institution. [...]

Whereas transparency is typically advised, the church remains quiet about its investigations and disciplinary procedures. It does not release any data on the inquiries it has carried out. A proposed tribunal for judging bishops accused of negligence or coverup was quashed by the Vatican department that was supposed to help implement it. And, rather than being fired and publicly admonished, offending church leaders are typically allowed to resign without explanation. [...]

“I think we have reached a point where bishops alone investigating bishops is not the answer,” said Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. “We bishops want to rise to this challenge, which may well be our last opportunity considering all that has happened.”

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The Guardian: Sanjeev Gupta: Coal power is no longer cheaper – and we'll prove it

Sanjeev Gupta, an industrialist whose family-owned GFG Alliance group of companies has been credited with resurrecting Britain’s steel industry, says he considered investing in coal generation in the state’s Upper Spencer Gulf after buying Arrium’s steel mill last year but found solar backed by “firming” storage technologies made better economic sense. [...]

Gupta’s position is consistent with the Australian energy market operator, which last week released a forecast that found renewable electricity backed by storage and gas would be the lowest cost replacement for the existing coal fleet. The market operator also found it was important to avoid early departures from the electricity grid to ensure an orderly transition. [...]

Gupta is making a series of investments as part of his bid to create Australia’s only fully integrated steel business. He bought the Whyalla mill in 2017 when then-owner Arrium was more than $4bn in debt and he is spending at least $1bn doubling its annual output to 2m tonnes. He plans to expand it further using his green steel model – an increased emphasis on recycling scrap steel and heavy investment in clean energy projects close to the plant. [...]

Beyond his existing commitments, Gupta is planning an electric car plant in South Australia or Victoria to produce 30,000 vehicles a year – “It’s 100% proceeding but the exact location is still being debated” – and said a proposed copper smelter and refinery for South Australia was at feasibility stage. His Australian steel assets picked up in the Arrium sale also include smaller works in Sydney and Melbourne and a planned new mill in Brisbane. He said all three would produce only recycled steel.

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The New York Times: Britain, Time to Let Go of the ‘Anglosphere’

David Davis, the British government’s Brexit secretary until he left his post this week, said in a 2016 speech on the referendum: “This is an opportunity to renew our strong relationships with Commonwealth and Anglosphere countries. These parts of the world are growing faster than Europe. We share history, culture and language. We have family ties. We even share similar legal systems. The usual barriers to trade are largely absent.” [...]

President Trump may agree to a new trade deal with Britain, but it’s unlikely that Britain would decide the terms, a prospect that is fraught with political risks for the British government. Such a deal raises the specter of British voters eating chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef while watching the revered National Health Service being opened up to American multinationals.

For Australia and New Zealand, trade links with China and Asia are much more important than those with Britain. And Canada, as a member of Nafta, has long been oriented toward the massive American market. Security and intelligence cooperation among these states and Britain in the so-called Five Eyes group is critical, as is NATO membership, but this kind of cooperation does not require a new Anglosphere bloc.

In reality, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand show no inclination to join Britain in new political and economic alliances. More likely, they would rather continue to work within the existing institutions — like the European Union and the World Trade Organization — and remain indifferent to, or just perplexed by, Britain’s calls for some kind of formalized Anglosphere alliance.

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The Atlantic: The World Bargain on Asylum Is Unraveling

There’s long been a “grand bargain … between the rich countries of the Global North and the poorer countries of the Global South,” FitzGerald explained: “The Global North pays for refugees to be housed in other countries in the Global South and in return takes a symbolic number of them through refugee-resettlement programs.” But lately that bargain has broken down as a substantial number of asylum-seekers have gotten past the “obstacle course that’s deliberately been put in their way” and requested refuge on the territory of wealthy countries. “People are trying to reach Europe, trying to reach Australia, trying to reach North America,” he observed. And nobody in Europe and Australia and North America has quite figured out how to respond. [...]

The good news is that these countries of origin and transit have become partners in policing borders, combating human-smuggling operations, offering would-be migrants economic opportunities, and taking back migrants who don’t qualify for asylum in Europe. The European approach of striking migration deals with upstream nations is “fully replicable” in the United States, Ardittis said, though it might require, say, better relations between the Trump administration and the Mexican government than exist at the moment. (“Who’s going to build the Wall?”) [...]

The bad news about Europe’s approach, however, is that this means “the outsourcing of the EU’s border-security strategy to third countries with a potentially poor human-rights record and an often discretionary use of rule of law,” Ardittis told me, raising concerns “about the European Union’s wavering observance” of its “fundamental values.” And that outsourcing has stemmed in large part from EU member states failing to agree on a method of distributing migrants across the bloc, and from European leaders contending with the populism and political extremism that has emerged in reaction to the challenges of integrating newcomers. [...]

But Canada’s success is at times linked to cold calculations by its leaders, such as when Stephen Harper’s government imposed visa requirements on Mexican and Czech citizens in 2009 to counteract an uptick in Mexican and Roma asylum-seekers. While these policies were later reversed, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is currently facing another potential reckoning. Since Trump’s election, Nigerians with U.S. tourist visas and Haitians concerned about losing their temporary residence status in the United States have been entering Canada and asking for asylum, creating a backlog of tens of thousands of cases. A government-commissioned report concluded this week that Canada’s refugee system is buckling under the strain of this surge in claims and warned that lower-skilled economic migrants might be exploiting the asylum process as a means of entering a country that prioritizes high-skilled immigration.

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