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Two sides of the debate on Indonesia's future turn on the tension between sustained economic growth fueled by demand for Indonesia's natural resources and the highly skewed distribution of wealth. With the Indonesia boosters forecasting a vertiginous rise of Southeast Asia's largest economy, the naysayers point to the deadweights of corruption, lack of transparency, and poor governance. With democratic electoralism revived in a post-authoritarian setting, such issues can no longer be swept under the carpet: they are matched by a relatively open media and burgeoning civil society.

Timor-Leste (East Timor) appears to have put the crisis of 2006 behind it. No major outbreaks of violence recurred. The security dividend translated into tangible economic progress. Added to that, the otherwise impoverished, half-island Southeast Asian nation has joined the holders of sovereign funds. Still, macro-development indicators do not give cause for unbridled optimism.

Laos in 2007 unveiled new infrastructure linking the landlocked country with its neighbors. Just as Laos seeks to exploit its ample natural riches, so the country reinvents its sense of regional integration. Willy-nilly, such late-arriving globalization also brings the still largely isolated communist state under increasing international attention on a range of governance and human rights issues.