Aaron Siirila » Asia

Hong Kong

Aaron — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:52:11 +0000

From the Hong Kong fish market and harbor at Sai Kung:

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Flowers on black background I’ve been looking to try to improve my “still life”...
U.S. Exports to Asia This is an annotated map I produced for the Asia Matters...
“How Somali Pirates Could Take Obama Hostage” As far as titles go, this one is pretty good....

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Two Talibans

Aaron — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:32:29 +0000

The New York Times published this article by Scott Shane about a month ago, but I think it continues to be relevant now, as Obama just announced his new/revised Afghanistan policy of the “surge” (which another commentator mentioned is the war strategy formerly known as “escalation”.)

The article essentially lays out how there are two different groups called “Taliban” that the U.S. is fighting in Afghanistan, with quite different motivations and constituencies:

At the core of the tangle are the two Taliban movements, Afghan and Pakistani. They share an ideology and a dominant Pashtun ethnicity, but they have such different histories, structures and goals that the common name may be more misleading than illuminating, some regional specialists say.

… Though both groups threaten American interests, the Afghan Taliban — the word Taliban means “religious students” — are the primary enemy, mounting attacks daily against the 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan. Washington’s biggest fear is that if the Afghan Taliban overrun the country, they could invite Al Qaeda’s leaders back from their Pakistani hide-out.

It’s no surprise that the most dangerous group is the one that was ousted by the American invasion in 2001 — that group has the most to gain from a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan:

… The Afghan Taliban, whose group is by far the older of the two forces, have been led by Mullah Muhammad Omar since he founded the movement in 1994. They seeks to regain the power they held over most of Afghanistan before being ousted by the American invasion of 2001.

… By comparison, he said, the Pakistani Taliban were a far looser coalition, united mainly by their enmity toward the Pakistani government. They emerged formally only in 2007 as a separate force led by Baitullah Mehsud under the name Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or Students’ Movement of Pakistan.

Of course, things are further confused because of the porous border between the two countries:

…most leaders of the Afghan Taliban are based in Pakistan, directing their forces from hide-outs across the border. Mullah Omar and his top deputies are believed to be in or around the southern Pakistani city of Quetta. Two other major factions in the Afghan insurgency are led by veteran Afghan warlords, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who are in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where the Pakistan Taliban is strongest.

Al Qaeda’s leaders, including Mr. bin Laden, are believed to be hiding in the same tribal areas of Pakistan. While it has been weakened by American missile strikes, the terrorist network nonetheless is believed to have provided support for the Pakistani Taliban’s strikes against the Pakistani government.

The article mentions that the Afghanistan-Pakistan area has so many ethnic, historical, political and geo-strategic complexities that it is confusing even for experts. That makes it is extremely difficult for the layperson to understand what is going on there, and in the U.S. war there. Nonetheless, with U.S. lives on the line, and more troops to enter the area soon, we owe it to ourselves and the country to understand what we can.

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“How Somali Pirates Could Take Obama Hostage” As far as titles go, this one is pretty good....
U.S.-Asia facts Did you know: • 93% of Arkansas’s international students come...

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Just finished: Chinese Lessons

Aaron — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:36:10 +0000

Just finished reading John Pomfret’s Chinese Lessons. Suggested by my dad, it’s a wonderful book for those interested in how China is changing and has changed over the past three decades. Pomfret recounts the stories of his Chinese classmates when he was an exchange student at one of China’s top universities in the early 1980s. Stories of the Cultural Revolution can shatter the heart but also provide insight into the character of the Chinese people today. Pomfret, who was one of the first Americans to enter China after it normalized relations in 1979 and was among the first to be kicked out in 1989 for witnessing the Tiananmen incident firsthand, then travels back to China for a class reunion to catch up with his classmates and observes how the last 20 years have changed China and them.

Maybe now I’ll have time for some National Geographic magazine reading. The last issue I’ve finished is probably April.

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U.S. Exports to Asia This is an annotated map I produced for the Asia Matters...
Resume I am currently a Program Associate at the East-West Center...

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“How Somali Pirates Could Take Obama Hostage”

Aaron — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:23:53 +0000

As far as titles go, this one is pretty good. The notion of the president of the United States taken hostage by thugs on the open seas is too good to resist — how could you not want to read the article from the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)? It reminds me of the many events we hold here at the Center: we try to come up with provocative or unusual titles for what are often quite dry topics. Not necessarily boring, mind you…and sometimes very interesting. But they are often quite humorless. So I appreciate a good title when I see one.

Of course, the article is referring to how pirates can hostage Obama’s presidential agenda, not the person himself:

The notion that an American president cannot permit hostages or POWs to remain in captivity without suffering a significant political penalty is exceptionally dangerous—gravely injuring two presidencies in succession. … Otherwise, when a Somali pirate detains an American sailor and holds him captive in Mogadishu, Obama may find that his administration is also being held hostage.

Still, that title is pretty arresting.

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Two Talibans The New York Times published this article by Scott Shane...
Balance of trade And now a sneak peak into a project I’m working...
U.S.-Asia facts Did you know: • 93% of Arkansas’s international students come...

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U.S.-Asia facts

Aaron — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:03:43 +0000

Did you know:
•    93% of Arkansas’s international students come from Asia
•    Mississippi’s “Asian alone” population grew 87% during 2004-07, fastest in the nation
•    Louisiana has exports to Asia of $2,547 per capita, fourth in the country

These are from the new brochure for Asia Matters for America. The brochure is coming soon, but the website is available now.

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U.S. Exports to Asia This is an annotated map I produced for the Asia Matters...
Portfolio Here are some information graphics I have created....
Balance of trade And now a sneak peak into a project I’m working...

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Balance of trade

Aaron — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:24:54 +0000

And now a sneak peak into a project I’m working on right now. This is my first attempt at showing balance of trade between the United States and Asia.

US-Asia balance of trade (click to enlarge)

I like the concept but I think it still needs some work. The data I have is only from one month but I’d prefer to have an entire year. I also want to be able to show some change over time. I could obviously have two stacked charts, but I’m thinking of other ways to show the change.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

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U.S. Exports to Asia This is an annotated map I produced for the Asia Matters...
Decade in Review Wow, you’ve got to see this. Phillip Niemeyer does an...
U.S.-Asia facts Did you know: • 93% of Arkansas’s international students come...

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U.S. Exports to Asia

Aaron — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:24:39 +0000

This is an annotated map I produced for the Asia Matters for America website:

The lines in the map above represent U.S. merchandise exports to Asia, by U.S. state and Asian country in 2007. The thinnest lines represent exports of greater than U.S.$2.5 billion; mid-thickness lines, greater than $5 billion; thickest lines, greater than $10 billion.

This image functions both as an infographic and as a introductory image to the Asia Matters project. It is the first image visible on the homepage, so I wanted to make it beautiful and iconic. At the same time, the entire website is dedicated to representing data in innovative, graphical ways. As such, the image needed to convey information — or at the very least, convey the concept of conveying information.

I think it succeeds. The lines clearly show clusters of high-density/high-value trade with Asian trade partners. Beyond the obvious Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea, we also have Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and India. An early draft of this visualization used straight lines between the U.S. origin and Asia destination. However, by curving the lines I was able to make each line distinct, even at this relatively low level of resolution. It was more work to custom curve each line, but well worth it in the end.

However, at the scale and resolution of a website image, I was unable to label the origins and destinations. This is unfortunate because there is some interesting data being displayed. The obvious exporters to Asia are well-represented: California and Washington State have bold lines running to Japan, China and others. Texas and New York are also clearly visible. Less visible are the two lines originating just east of Texas: they represent Louisiana’s trade with Japan and China, which is quite significant.

The beautiful background world image is courtesy of NASA’s Blue Marble.

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U.S.-Asia facts Did you know: • 93% of Arkansas’s international students come...
Balance of trade And now a sneak peak into a project I’m working...
Election maps I’m writing this one day after what many Americans consider...

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