US support no use for Manila to bluff South China Sea claims

The US and the Philippines began a two-week military drill on Monday. This "shoulder to shoulder" exercise is widely believed to be targeted at China. Some US analysts even argue that Washington should adopt a national strategy oriented at South China Sea to stop China's "aggression" in this region. Without a correct understanding of China's South China Sea policy and the US role in this area, these analysts miscalculated the real Asia-Pacific geopolitics.

China is depicted by many Western media as a bully in South China Sea, but the reality is that most of the Nansha Islands are forcibly occupied by those supposedly "bullied," such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

We shouldn't draw a simple conclusion that China and the US will engage in a hot war if Washington gets fully involved in this area. It's too naïve a judgment, as what the Philippines and Japan are aiming at is to turn their conflicts with China into a direct confrontation between China and the US. Such change is unlikely to happen in post-Cold War international relations.

The islands disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea are a battle for national interests. They have led to a strategic game between China and the US, but its intensity is not high.

Where the game heads to relies on how the stakeholders, especially China and the US, interact with each other. Neither Manila nor Washington can manipulate the situation. China has more power to reshape the scenario.

Both China and the US are global powers, and the islands disputes constitute just a fraction of their bilateral relationship. Neither China can cherish illusions that the US will stay neutral in the South China Sea, nor the Philippines and Japan can indulge in a reverie that Washington would jeopardize its relationship with China for their petty interests.

China has more confidence than ever to face the US in the South China Sea chessboard. A growing US-China relationship benefits the US, which mandates that US doesn't allow its warships to be locked in a dangerous standoff with China.

What's more, China's actions have never really touched the nerve of the US. People with insight can see the restraint and prudence of China's South China Sea policy.

The other stakeholders in this area should cast away illusions that the US would be their "big daddy." Bilateral negotiations with China are the only way to address these disputes and to protect their own interests.

Washington's military deployment in Asia-Pacific can hardly be turned into real deterrence against China, but the US won't stop making mischief in this area. However, under the framework of a new type of major power relationship, China is gathering more experience to play the chess with the US.

Countries like the Philippines and Japan should better update their knowledge about China. Borrowing power from the US and scaring China reflects nothing but their short-sightedness.

Source:Global Times Published: 2014-5-7 0:33:01

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End the lawyers' monopoly on conveyancing in Malaysia

End the conveyancing monopoly

Lawyers set outrageous fees despite the fact that the work done does not involve additional skill.

WHEN I started my legal practice many years ago, it was quite common for lawyers to give discounts on fees chargeable for conveyancing and loan transactions. In fact, some of us charged time costs to clients because the work was quite straightforward (even if the sums involved were large).

In those days, there was already a no-discount rule. The legal fraternity then was more realistic and the Bar Council was lenient when it came to the amount of fees we could charge: no one would be liable for disciplinary action for not following scaled fees, and breaches were more frequent than observance. Those were happy days.

By and large, conveyancing and loan documentation for financial institutions are straightforward matters. They usually involve standard terms that lawyers use on a daily basis without much effort (though some lawyers might dispute this).

Conveyancing fees are what we call “easy money” – clerks do all the work and lawyers collect their fees for signing on the right pages. The higher the value of the property, or the value of the bank loan, the higher the fee.

I have never thought it right to charge high fees on this basis; after all, high-value residential property transacted in Ampang, for example, requires the same work and skill as that of lower-valued property in Klang, so why should there be a difference in fees?

The fact is that the scaled fees mandated by the Bar Council favour the lawyer who undertakes larger property transactions – but why this is so can be difficult to understand, and I suggest you read Michael Joseph’s Conveyancing Fraud, which was first published in 1989.

Joseph was an English solicitor who did his part to expose the arbitrary and unfair system by which the Law Society of England and Wales (the governing body for solicitors) set outrageous fees despite the fact that the work done had no relation to any additional skill.

Ultimately, good sense prevailed and solicitors lost their monopoly over conveyancing in England and Wales. A new breed of professionals called “conveyancers” was given the right to do this work as well and, as a result, fees were much reduced and services improved. That’s what competition does to any industry.

But not in Malaysia. Here, the Bar Council still insists that only lawyers can undertake conveyancing work and scaled fees must be strictly followed – a practice abandoned long ago in other Commonwealth countries.

When it comes to this issue, the Bar Council somehow always overlooks the question of public interest. It seems that, to the Council, it’s their members’ interests that are more important.

The economist Adam Smith warned us 250 years ago that when people of the same trade met, the conversation usually ended up in a conspiracy against the public through the raising of prices.

We now have the Competition Act 2010, which in essence seeks to promote the competitive process, and the rule of the game is to discourage anti-competitive behaviour. The stance taken by the Bar has been definitely against the Competition Act, although no one dares to challenge the lawyers’ monopoly.

The question remains: why must lawyers be the only type of professionals allowed to do conveyancing work?

A solicitor friend countered this view by saying that the Competition Act itself allows for exclusion. For example, Section 13 of the Act exempts any agreement or conduct that complies with a legislative requirement. My friend argued that the Solicitors’ Remuneration Order 2005 (which allows for scaled fees to be charged) is such a legislative requirement.

But wait a minute. I’m not saying that the Bar is in violation of the Competition Act. I’m saying merely that the Bar’s monopoly on conveyancing is not in compliance with the spirit of the Act. The Bar is once again out of touch!

The Malaysian Competition Commission, under the able leadership of former Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Siti Norma Yaakob, should exercise its power under Sections 11 and 12 of the Competition Act to perform a “market review” of the situation and publish the results.

I am sure such a study will show the need for the establishment of a new breed of professional conveyancers so as to give lawyers some fair competition, and I’m sure the market review will benefit the public immensely.

Arguments that conveyancing work is complicated and must be done by lawyers have already been used in Australia and England, and have been found to be baseless – in fact, the quality of conveyancing services in Australia and New Zealand actually improved after the lawyers’ monopoly was broken.

In Malaysia, there are many former legal clerks and Land Office employees who can qualify and be registered as conveyancers. Of course, local conveyancers will have to be properly regulated under their own professional standards organisation to ensure that a high quality of work will be maintained.

The lawyers’ monopoly has no purpose whatsoever in this day and age. Moreover, given that the Bar Council has always fought for the political and human rights of the people, I believe it should extend this public spirit to conveyancing and other spheres, even if it means less “easy money” for lawyers.

In fact, the real test of our commitment to a particular cause is our willingness to persist even if it hits our pockets, so I say again: the public will surely benefit from an end to the conveyancing monopoly, services will improve and prices will fall. So why can’t we do it?

Contributed by by datuk zaid ibrahim The Star/Asia News Network

> Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, true to his Kelantan roots, is highly passionate about practically everything, hence the name of this column. Having established himself in the legal fraternity, Zaid ventured into politics and has been on both sides of the political divide. The former de facto Law Minister at one time is now a legal consultant but will not hesitate to say his piece on any current issue. He can be reached at zaid.ibrahim@partners-corp.com. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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It's is our battle: Obama in Malaysia

The biggest takeaway from Barack Obama’s speech was that he really isn’t that interested in solving our domestic issues.

I WAS one of the lucky young leaders who attended the town hall meeting with United States President Barack Obama. It was an incredible experience and I was impressed by his energy, oratory and diplomacy.

However, that town hall meeting left our social and mainstream media buzzing with two issues – the questions raised by the participants and Obama’s quotes on affirmative action in Malaysia.

Many Malaysians viewed the less-than hard-questions asked Obama (such as the meaning of happiness) as a waste of an opportunity. They felt the most powerful man in the world needed to be asked some powerful questions.

I, too, had some serious questions for him. However, I am not, as some critics put it, “disappointed in the future leaders of Asean” for asking theirs.

Four hundred young people attended the town hall meeting but only eight questions were taken. Two were from the social media (curated by moderators and, therefore, bound to be “safe”). The social media questions and three others from the audience came from non-Malaysians, leaving the remaining questions for only three Malaysians.

Might it simply then had been an unfortunate coincidence that Obama happened to pick the three Malaysians, in a sea of raised hands, who chose not to ask about the TPPA (Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement) or human rights?

Obama is a role model to many. Not all young people are political journalists, critics of his foreign policy or otherwise determined to tembak him.

The Asean participants are my friends and fellow alumni of the US State Departmentsponsored exchange programmes. I know them well enough to know they have a different take to politics than we do.

Malaysians thrive on discussing issues of the day in a kopitiam, at a forum or via Twitter. We’re practically hardwired to talk politics. Contrastingly, my Asean friends are here on a leadership initiative. They’ve attended numerous programmes, conferences and workshops all geared towards helping them become leaders of civil society.

Their focus is to find solutions to poverty, climate change and human trafficking – not to zoom in on policy and trade agreements.

Their questions simply illustrate that they’re more concerned with bettering themselves and their world than turning everything into a debate. This was a town hall for young leaders on leadership. Expect some young (read: naïve) questions on leadership.

At one point during his address, Obama said “Malaysia will not progress if non-Muslims are not given equal opportunities.” I, like many others, took his sound bite to social media.

Many people went further, calling on Obama to pressure our government into reform, to “save us”! And of course we had people labelling Obama a hypocrite, his comment either ridiculous or irrelevant, and condemning those who looked to him as a saviour.

These reactions reminded me that we are once again stuck in our dichotomy of “accept wholesale or reject wholesale”.

I personally think the biggest takeaway from his speech was that he really isn’t that interested in solving our domestic issues.

Many times, he urged us to fight a good fight, but he made it a point to remind us that he has his own problems in America to solve. I couldn’t agree more.

Realistically, the US president has bigger problems to deal with than us.

Idealistically, we shouldn’t need him to help in any major way. My Sejarah textbook taught me that time and again when our rulers were faced with domestic problems, they opened themselves up to colonisation by seeking help from foreigners instead of facing up to their countrymen.

However, I disagree with those who dismiss Obama. Yes, this is an issue we’ve been dealing with for so long that the US president isn’t adding anything substantive to the debate, but that doesn’t make him irrelevant!

It’s like any other old debate such as abortion or creationism. You’re perfectly entitled to roll your eyes and say “Yeah, I’ve heard this one before,” but to some people it’s a big deal to have the leader of the free world publicly say, “I’m on your side.”

Others cite his domestic and foreign policy to label him a hypocrite, but you can agree with what he said yesterday without having to agree to what he said last year or did in Syria.

I highly appreciate the public relations value of the leader of the free world demonstrating an awareness of my cause, but it doesn’t have to follow that I adore him, agree with all his policies or think he’s Superman.

In a week’s time, people will forget what he said. But the fight goes on, right?

So, instead of obsessing over whether he had the right to say what he said, whether it matters that he said what he said, or making idle wishes that someone else had said what he said, let us focus on the more important part of his speech – that it’s our battle.

Open Season by Marina Tan

> Marina Tan won the 2012 English Speaking Union International Public Speaking competition. She is presently studying at Kolej Yayasan UEM and will be going to Yale University in the United States in August to pursue a double major in engineering and economics.

Marina Tan The Star-ESUM Public Speaking Competition 2011



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