First Daughters Inc

The elevation of Ivanka Trump to the nebulous position of “Assistant to the President”, with a West Wing office and security clearance, raised a storm among western commentators but attracted little comment in Asia, where politics is pretty much, sometimes literally, a family business. But something about this trendy First Daughter is discomfiting. 

For all the controversy, the concept of prominent First Children is not novel in Western democracies, but most had responsibilities without power. None have held Ivanka’s unique “unofficially-official” position of power without responsibility. Chelsea Clinton, for instance, accompanied her father on his trip to India — the first