Myanmar: 2025 in Review--Is it Hopeless?

The only drama associated with this piece of my writing is that the Editors of the East Asia Forum sent back my second draft that included my responses to comments from two peer reviewers. The Editors wanted me to add hyperlinks in most paragraphs and a provide a list of my sources. I told them I wasn't paid enough to do this and had more important things to do. They gave the job to a junior staff member and the new draft they sent me needed no more than a dozen small fixes. They accepted all of my fixes.

The Editors of East Asia Forum are professors in the Economics Department at ANU in Canberra. EAF started in 2006. It comes out in two forms: an online blog of short pieces, and a quarterly magazine with longer pieces. The magazine is sold widely in bookstores and news stands in Asia. EAF has published a handful of my short pieces over the past 20 years. The most recent long story was a co-authored essay about Indonesia's new capital published in March 2020, seven months after President Jokowi announced the site and before they broke ground. We suggested three keys to success for the project, none of which were followed. The project is looking more and more like a white elephant.