Indonesian President Joko Widodo wearing a face mask at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 30, 2020 (pool photo by Sigid Kurniawan via AP Images).

After nearly two months of a belatedly imposed and patchwork lockdown to contain the coronavirus, some regions of Indonesia are slowly reopening. Throughout June, authorities will gradually loosen restrictions on establishments like restaurants and shopping areas in parts of Indonesia where the reproduction rate of COVID-19—known as R0 or “R-naught,” the average number of new infections stemming from a single case—is judged to be less than one. But Indonesia is opening up without a clear handle on the scope of its COVID-19 crisis, which is the worst in Southeast Asia, with 32,000 confirmed cases and nearly 1,900 deaths as of […]

Lawmakers wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus at the parliament building in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, June 1, 2020 (AP photo by Aung Shine Oo).

In the early weeks of 2020, the signs pointed to progress in Myanmar’s convoluted effort to finally end 70 years of ethnic strife in its border areas. On Jan. 8, representatives from the government and the 10 ethnic armies that are party to a 2015 cease-fire deal convened in the capital, Naypyidaw, where they reached an eight-point agreement on the next steps to continue implementing that cease-fire. They also vowed to meet for a fourth national peace conference by the end of April, to build on three earlier summits held between 2016 and 2018. That fourth summit would have signaled […]

Chinese paramilitary police stand guard near Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 20, 2020 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).

One sweltering night some years ago, well after I had finished eating dinner, I received an urgent knock on my front door. I was spending a summer in Hanoi, and had just moved into an apartment in a quiet, residential area. My late-night visitor turned out to be a young Vietnamese police officer in uniform. As I often did in such encounters, I tried to keep the interaction as brief as possible by acting confused and answering his questions in English. But then, a middle-aged woman, whom I recognized from the neighborhood, emerged from the shadows and said, “He speaks […]

Ministers of the 11 countries remaining in the Trans-Pacific Partnership hold a press conference after signing the revised free trade pact in Santiago, Chile, March 8, 2018 (Kyodo photo via AP Images).

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Edward Alden is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott, who will be back next week. The first rule when you find yourself stuck down a hole is to stop digging. After more than three years of the Trump administration’s go-it-alone “America First” strategy, the United States now finds itself in a very deep hole indeed. Trump has alienated once-close allies in Europe, Japan, Canada and Mexico by imposing tariffs on their exports to the U.S. and threatening more. His administration has pulled out of major international agreements like the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate […]