What’s left for China and Kim Jong Un

Officially, Kim Jong Un is the leader of North Korea, he is the successor of his Dear Leader and Father, he is crossing two of his eldest brother. The eldest son who was a favorite to be a successor is Kim Jong Nam, but he is a Don Juan of Macau, spending money only for gambling and women, he will do anything to satisfy his own nuke. The North Korea irascible generals are worried if Kim Jong Nam rules the country.

The Great Leader under reasonable option chose the younger son to be the next leader of North Korea. But the 20-something young man is facing so many problems with less experience. The doubt over him will start among his own family. Young Kim will have to deal the Dear Leader’s powerful and demanding wife Kim Ok, his extremely devious aunt Kim Kyung-hui and her equally scheming husband, Jang Song-thaek. Jang is one of only four vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission, the holy of the hollies of North Korea; the chairman is, of course the Dear Leader, who else.

The family issue is not the major problems of Kim Jong Un, the nightmare is the economy deficit that has turn North Korea into the poorest country in the East Asia, more over if we compare to their rich and wealth neighbor South Korea. This economy issue is also worry Pyongyang one and only ally, Beijing.

The Chinese is worry if the economic in North Korea went bad, it will drive massive refugee from North Korea to the China territory. Beijing has offer they proposal for North Korea economic renovation, which gently has been refused by the Great Leader, the proposal mark that the North Korea should embrace the new market economic without change their political view, that’s what China do. The Great Leader is a solid follower of Chief Mao, he doesn’t believe with Den Xiaoping way. But Kim Jong-Un, he was attending the International School of Bern in Switzerland, he is quite familiar with the western economic culture, there is a huge possibility he will accept the Chinese proposal.

The other issue that faced by the successor of the Great Leader is the nukes. The western countries in particular United State, is goanna doing everything to stop the nuke program held by North Korea. The Six Party Talk (China, US, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Russia) doesn’t show any significant result. China has shown a negative respond over North Korea nuclear and missile test in 2009, China also support the UN sanction over Pyongyang. Stability over the Korean peninsula and the East Asia are important for China to secure their market and trade mission. Maybe China will let the North Korea have the nukes, what China is try to say is “don’t use it, and don’t make war. Not yet.”

Kim Jong-un will need the China support, not only to maintain relation that his father has run, but also to gain respect from the military; most of the North Korea high-ranking military officers have strong ties with China. And to fix the economy, since North Korea wouldn’t let IMF or World Bank entering the country, the China money will play the biggest part to save the North Korea economy, in return China will make Pyongyang just like Beijing, a short of capitalist with a commie spirit.

China or India.

An Economist put a coin on the table and roll it up, and said to you “which economy goanna role the world after the western? China or India?!”

Lately it will be absolutely a hard option, putting your bet on which economy will be the successor of the western economic, assuming the western economic in other way are a pig shit.

The coin is still spinning, and we still cannot make up our choice. So lets make a short talk about the coin, I mean China and India in the context of economic power.

Last month at Changi Airport I bought a TIME Magazine, the editorial headline is Chindia (China-India). I spend my flight from Singapore to Jakarta reading that magazine. I almost finish the main article when the tires of the plane hit the ground, I stop reading, but frankly this Chindia keep ringing on my head for the next two weeks.

Right now, 40% of people who living in planet earth live in China and India, ten years from now it will be about 50% of the world population are living in China and India. Most of the world famous brand and product have their workshop in China or India, Nike, Apple, Suzuki, Microsoft etc. 50% of the world consumptions products are made in China and India. Off course both of them have the largest working class in the world.

We also must aware that China and India are in competition to be the world leading economic. So what I like to do right now is to compare China and India, it’s only a short comparison with a simple data, using three variables Infrastructure, financial and politic.

Lets start with infrastructure. China have better infrastructure than India, there is a fast train that connect Beijing and Shanghai, and line of beggars                   fill the road between Delhi and Mumbai. China has doing better on the infrastructure because the government has order the Banks to fund most of the infrastructure to support the economy, for example the Chengdu district that has turn magically in a short time to be an industrial city. Even Intel has transferred much of its manufacturing base from Shanghai to Chengdu. The Chengdu blueprint is legally under the command of the Chinese government and its goal is to support the global capitalism. Their India counterparts still struggling building the public infrastructure, India even cannot build the road to support the business, and the public transportation in India are overload with people. The power of India is not on the infrastructure but most on the human resources, most of managerial staffs multi national companies in New York, London or other big cities are Indian. The Indian government is lack of capacity to maintain the public infrastructure, for example what happened in the Calcutta hospital last week, 30 people died tragically on the fire accident, the hospital has lack of mechanism to handle fire.

After infrastructure let’s turn to financial, in particular banking system. The issue of China Banks is the government interferes too much on the credit management, the government even told whom and under what matter the credit proposal should be approve by the banks, of course under some circumstances some of anti government people or organization are not allowed to gain bank fund. The banks in China turn into little more than arms of government policy, which make Chinese banks more vulnerable and less efficient in allocating resources. Indian Banks, on the other hand, are run more commercial basis. They have greater expertise in risk management and credit analysis, they tend to lend money more intelligently and have stronger balance sheets.  Moreover this situation will lead India to become more powerful in Economy better than the Chinese. Mark Young, head of Asian Banks at rating agency Fitch in Singapore said to Time “Indian Banks are stronger. There is a clear link the health of the Banking sector and the capability to support the economic growth” so the financial sector most likely will support the Indian economic? Not so fast.

The last is a vital subject, which is politics. As a country that had been through a long struggle to stand as a nation, China face more than we can imagine. China has becoming a country who had their own view in politic, and that view doesn’t always satisfied the Western country especially the US. The US believes that the China political ethic has against the US political agenda, we are not talking about the Human Rights or the freedom of speech; we talk about the China missile that is capable to reach US territory, and of course their disputes with Taiwan and some of ASEAN Nations in South China Sea.

In the other side, India has be a loyal ally for the US, US has give India any access to build their value whether its in politic or economic. Intel has built their manufacture in China, but their technocrats stay in India. But inside, India has internal problem, such as Kashmir and long historical dispute with Pakistan. China has Tibet and some clandestine political opposition.

The coin still spinning on the table. The economist doesn’t really sure when it goanna stop and which side of the coin goanna take control the world economic. So do I.

Pemuda yang membakar diri itu, haruslah dikenal sebagai Sondang Hutagalung.

Ketika Sondang membakar dirinya minggu lalu, saya berguman kecil: “Kok bisa ya?”. Sosok Sondang langsung menyita perhatian saya. Saya mengikuti berita tentang dia di koran dan internet. Saya juga mengikuti perdebatan tentang aksi Sondang, sebagian besar pendapat (yang saya temui) kecewa dengan apa yang Sondang lakukan, mereka merasa aksi bakar diri itu tidak seharusnya terjadi.

Sondang adalah aktivis GMNI salah satu organisasi mahasiswa Nasionalis di Indonesia, dia aktif di kalangan aktivis dan beberapa kali ikut aksi solidaritas Munir. Dia, sebagaimana aktivis mahasiswa lainnya, dikenal sangat aktif mengkritisi kebijakan pemerintah. Tentu itu adalah sebuah hal yang wajar. Sampai akhirnya dia memutuskan untuk membakar dirinya. Sondang yang sempat dirawat di RSCM dikunjungi banyak rekan aktivis dan simpatisan. Beberapa hari kemudian Sondang meninggal.

Dalam waktu singkat beberapa tokoh Nasional (tentu yang anti pemerintah) meromantisme tragedi ini sebagai sebuah bukti kegagalan pemerintah. Iya, pemerintah ini memang gagal, kita semua tahu, tapi kita tidak perlu seorang pemuda membakar dirinya sampai mati untuk membuktikan itu!

Tentu kita semua berduka. Tapi protes dengan cara melukai diri sendiri apalagi sampai meninggal, rasanya tidak relevan dengan kehidupan di Indonesia. Di negara lain seperti Myanmar dan Tibet banyak terjadi aksi bakar diri oleh para Biksu, hal itu sesuai dengan budaya mereka, dan kita harus hormati itu, tapi di Indonesia rasanya hal itu kurang tepat. Perlu juga diingat bahwa kelompok teroris yang meledakkan Bali beberapa tahun lalu juga melakukan aksinya atas nama protes, apa kita sepakat?

Ini adalah tragedi, dan marilah dipahami sebagaimana tragedi. Dan Sondang adalah korban dan marilah dipahami sebagaimana seorang korban.

Selamat jalan Sondang, semoga diterima di sisi-Nya.