Tomorrow Matters took a one-month hiatus for January and in that time, much has happened, most notably the Chinese Lunar New Year, during which hundreds of millions of people who have created a livelihood in cities returned to their hometowns to celebrate with family. In China alone, an estimated 1.8 billion trips will have been made.
This month’s edition of Tomorrow Matters looks at the two sides of ‘unity’. We open with a piece about China that explores how Chinese political philosophies are increasingly united by the concept of “democracy with Chinese values”. We then move to India, where the nation is heading into its 75th year of independence, and is united through national pride, but also colonial history. Next, a piece about the diplomatic process of unifying Muslim-Malay separatists in the south of Thailand. Then, a piece from Cambodia looks at the unification of new technologies with agricultural techniques. A cultural article from Malaysia and Singapore is last, examining the optimism and careful caution of Chinese families as they unite for the Lunar New Year.
Readers of this newsletter may also be interested in a book recently published by the Global Institute For Tomorrow’s Founder and CEO, Chandran Nair, entitled Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World. It examines how white privilege is perpetuated in globalised systems to maintain Western economic and cultural dominance, and therefore how dismantling this privilege will help to create a fairer, safer, and more sustainable world for all.
The book has been gaining international traction and was recently featured in the Financial Times as some of the best new writing in politics. If you are interested, you may find more information here, and purchase the book here.
We hope you enjoy this month’s selection of some of the most interesting commentary from around the region.