Inflation-induced protests poised to spread to Asia

The Tunisia-originated “Jasmine Revolution” sparked by rising food prices and now sweeping North Africa is likely to spread to Asia.

Massive demonstrations have erupted in Asian countries hit by soaring food prices since late last year.

The Asian nations have one thing in common with North African countries suffering from pro-democracy protests including Tunisia, Egypt and Libya: political instability stemming from dictatorship and corruption.

If political and economic uncertainties spread from Africa and the Mideast to Asia, nationalism over natural resources such as oil and food could emerge anew as “global risks.”

Asian countries showing signs of the Jasmine Revolution are India and Bangladesh. In New Delhi, 800,000 to 1 million low-income and working class people staged a demonstration Wednesday to blast Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for failing to control inflation.

India saw food prices jump 11.05 percent last month, with the price of onions, a main ingredient in curry, soaring 500 percent from a year ago.

Bangladesh, which global investment bank Goldman Sachs picked as one of the 11 emerging economies of the next generation, suffered food inflation of 11.01 percent late last year. As a result, a string of rallies to protest high inflation have occurred in succession.

These countries are not only raising interest rates but also resorting to direct intervention, including export bans on major foodstuffs, to counter the tsunami of soaring inflation. Yet prices continue to rise.

Despite fast economic growth, demonstrations in India and Bangladesh are intensifying into anti-government political struggles due to deepening income disparity and successive corruption scandals in government.

Pundits say pro-democracy movements will spread to Central and Southeast Asia as well as South Asia. Islamic countries including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have been under one-man rule for more than 20 years since they became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Inflation hit 14.1 percent in Uzbekistan and 12 percent in Turkmenistan last year. These countries have situations similar to those of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt in their governments` oppression of the public and corruption.

In Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Myanmar, both of which experienced violent uprisings due to soaring rice prices in 2008, are not free from political crises in the wake of surging food prices.

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