Cambodia

Over the past two years, Cambodia’s government has steadily ramped up the pressure on the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), as well as on any civil society activists and journalists who question the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). In just the past year, security forces have cracked down on demonstrators holding regular Monday protests, while the government has pursued criminal charges against opposition leaders Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy. In July, someone murdered prominent activist Kem Ley in broad daylight at a gas station, and while police have arrested one suspect, the motive for why he would kill the activist remains murky. Earlier this month, after Kem Sokha refused to surrender to police for months on dubious charges, a court sentenced him to jail. Now, as Kem Sokha still refuses to surrender to police, Prime Minister Hun Sen has taken an even tougher line, threatening to destroy any protesters and refusing to even negotiate with the CNRP while Kem Sokha remains holed up, according to Radio Free Asia. Co-opposition leader Sam Rainsy meanwhile remains in exile, facing his own criminal charges. According to Radio Free Asia, Hun Sen recently told legislators,” You [the political opposition] can never threaten us with the demonstrations. Let me make it clear that it is not going to work that way … Don’t even think about it. If I ever enter into such negotiations I will be nothing short of a dog.” The Cambodia Daily reported even tougher comments from the prime minister. It noted that, “Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday said he would ‘eliminate’ opponents who dare to protest against his government during a speech in which he also declared that he personally ordered the military to deploy around the CNRP’s headquarters late last month.” Indeed, the Cambodian military recently held exercises close to CNRP headquarters. Always dangerous, Cambodian politics now seem to have reached a new level of viciousness, in advance of 2017 location elections and 2018 national elections. The brutality of Cambodian politics has come in waves over the past three decades, with periods of intense discord and violence alternating with somewhat quieter times. This appears to be a time of discord and violence. The opposition plans to continue with mass demonstrations in Phnom Penh, while Hun Sen and the security forces prepare to battle them. Meanwhile, civil society leaders and journalists are complaining that they are facing a level of intimidation and threats unseen in the country since the early 2000s. But the 2000s was a time when Hun Sen had much greater control over Cambodian society. Between the early 2000s and 2013, the last national election, Hun Sen had consolidated his power, cowed opposition parties, and co-opted many opposition legislators; the prime minister probably was less fearful of his political future. Where does Cambodian politics, which seemed poised for real change in 2013, after the CNRP nearly won national elections, go next? Most likely, the country is headed toward even greater distrust and violence. Hun Sen and the CPP are setting out a marker---they will give no ground in advance of the 2017 and 2018 elections. Hun Sen is even less constrained by any international norms than he was fifteen years ago---Cambodia’s economy is growing, aid and investment is flowing in from China, and the country has become an increasingly central player in ASEAN. Yet unlike in the 2000s, the opposition is more unified, less likely to be co-opted, and more able to organize demonstrations and share information, using social media and not having to rely on word of mouth and the state-dominated broadcast media. Young, urban Cambodians have been registering to vote in record numbers; the country’s urban population has become much more knowledgeable about politics, and much more aware of the flaws of the CPP, over the past decade. Hun Sen’s monopoly on power remains strong, but his ability to control what Cambodians hear about the government has weakened substantially. And despite intimidation, opposition supporters have refused to halt their demonstrations in Phnom Penh and its outskirts.

As Cambodia prepares for national elections in two years, its politics have veered dangerously out of control. Even though young Cambodians are demanding political alternatives and accessing more information outside of state media, the country’s transition toward two-party politics has collapsed. The government’s brutal tactics of the 1990s and early 2000s, when political activists were routinely murdered and opposition parties nearly put out of business, have returned. Young Cambodians may be left with no outlet for their grievances, creating a potentially explosive situation, especially given the promise of reform and dialogue just a few years ago. For more on how Cambodia’s politics are spiraling out of control, see my new piece for World Politics Review.

Last week, I spoke via email with Sophal Ear, Associate Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College, and author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy, about the current crisis in Cambodian politics. After a brief truce following elections in 2013, in which the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) shocked the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) by nearly winning control of the National Assembly, any semblance of détente has broken down. One opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, remains in exile; if he returns home he could face charges of defamation. Another opposition leader, Kem Sokha, has been holed up in the CNRP’s headquarters for weeks. If he comes out, he faces charges of “procurement of prostitution.” A prominent government critic, Kem Ley, was gunned to death in broad daylight one morning two weeks ago, raising fears that, in the run up to national elections in 2018, the country may be returning to the violent politics of the 1990s and early 2000s, when many opposition, politicians, activists, and journalists were killed. I asked Prof. Ear for his insights about the current crisis. Joshua Kurlantzick: To start, what do you think the ultimate outcome of the current CPP- CNRP standoff will be? Sophal Ear: The ultimate outcome of the current CPP-CNRP standoff is likely to be eventual denouement sometime before the election. At some point, Sam Rainsy/Kem Sokha and Hun Sen will have rapprochement—in 2013, it was the passing (from old age) of Hun Sen’s father that triggered some head clearing. The rhythm and pattern of previous electoral cycles suggests this, but this time could be different of course. There’s no parent left for Hun Sen to shed tears over and there’s growing worry that his vise will not loosen. In that case, we’d be in relatively unchartered waters whereby the elections would take place without opposition leader Sam Rainsy present in-country and his deputy unable to campaign outside of party headquarters since he is holed up there. In the five national elections Cambodia has held from 1993 to date, this has never happened. Joshua Kurlantzick: Can the opposition mount a campaign, even under these circumstances? Sophal Ear: If the ruling party continues to turn up the heat, the opposition won’t have to lift a finger---the campaigning for the opposition will be done by the ruling party for them. But we have seen this movie before; back in 1993, the royalist party, FUNCINPEC, won national elections, but the CPP still finagled a co-Prime Ministership. The stakes were high then, but they’re even higher now for the ruling party. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars at stake just for one ruling family. Across the entire ruling party, there could be billions. How many dead critics and arrested opposition folk does it take to get people mad enough to the point where they’re not going to take it anymore? From Cambodia’s past, it seems a lot more than what’s happened so far, so expect still more tragedy going forward. In fact, there’s already talk in ruling party-aligned media that the opposition was behind government critic Kem Ley’s murder. The next logical step is to involve the courts which will of course be “independent” in their handling of this matter. Joshua Kurlantzick: Is there a likelihood that, if the opposition wins, there are some elements of institutions, like the armed forces, that would not go along with a 1993-type situation? Sophal Ear: If the opposition wins (something I don’t think will be permitted), but let’s say that if by some miracle they do, sure there’s always a chance, however small, that some elements like the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), would try to stand-up and prevent another 1993 “No winners/No losers” election. Joshua Kurlantzick: Is there a way out of this cycle? Sophal Ear: It’s hard to imagine much changing while Hun Sen is on the scene because it’s not as if he’ll wake up one day and decide that the system he put in place needs to change. Too much is at stake; his family’s regal status and wealth are all on the line. Electoral pressure occasionally forces his hand (after the 2013 election, he did swap out some ministers, and also more recently, but increasingly, it’s looking like musical chairs). At best, the changes are incremental. What we know for sure though is that no one escapes old age, sickness and death. I know that’s very Buddhist of me to say in a very Buddhist country, but it is what it is. Joshua Kurlantzick: What is the outlet for young Cambodians’ dislike of politics as usual, if they don’t get a change in government? Sophal Ear: Social media is the obvious outlet for young Cambodians’ venting and they really do not like what they’re seeing. A three-star general complained on social media about having $200,000 worth of jewelry stolen from his gym locker (yes, that is not a typo, there are five zeros). He was mercilessly mocked online for having so much jewelry to begin with while on his government salary. Of course, this being Cambodia, they promptly charged some hotel employees even though the CCTV footage apparently exculpates them. In another case, a leading social media critic with a million followers on Facebook and an early supporter of the CNRP decided to sue Kem Sokha for defamation over the scandal now embroiling him (having a mistress—said prostitute he allegedly procured—with whom he was secretly recorded speaking unflatteringly of the social media critic). That social media critic has since been savaged online. Passions and mass sentiment on the internet can also be incredibly destructive. In 2003, a mass chain of emails kept being forwarded about a Thai soap opera actress claiming that Angkor Wat was Thailand’s and that she’d rather be reborn a dog than Khmer. I knew immediately it was completely bogus, but it led to the anti-Thai riots and the burning of the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. Even Hun Sen got into the act before the riots, saying the actress wasn’t worth a blade of grass. I’m sure the authorities see this and know that if they cannot mollify young people or co-opt them online, they’ve got a powder keg on their hands in a country where more than half the population is 24 years old or younger.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Bochen Han, Theresa Lou, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Asia reacts to the South China Sea decision. The ruling of the arbitral tribunal in the Philippines’ case against China regarding the South China Sea sent ripples across the region. The Chinese government responded with an unequivocal rejection and state media irately critiqued the tribunal’s award, which included a ruling that China was not entitled to historic rights in the waters and that the Spratly Islands—alone or individually—do not generate any exclusive economic zones. Taiwan also said that they “absolutely will not accept” the ruling since Taiwan was not allowed to take part in the case and the tribunal judges included Itu Aba, a feature in the Spratlys claimed by Taiwan, to the scope even though it was not included in the Philippines’ initial filing. Others welcomed the decision. It was met with joy on Philippine social media and the Philippine foreign affairs secretary called it a “milestone decision.” Vietnam, another nation that has tense maritime relations with China and could bring a case of its own, said that it supports resolving the disputes through peaceful legal and diplomatic mechanisms and reasserted its sovereignty claims. Other members of the Association of Southeast Asian States advocated implementing the 2002 Declaration of Conduct on the South China Sea and called for progress to be made toward a Code of Conduct. Observers were also closely watching Japan’s reaction, given the ongoing dispute in the East China Sea. The Japanese foreign minister encouraged the relevant parties to adhere to the ruling since the decision is “final and legally binding.” China, however, clearly does not agree, which means situation in the South China Sea could become rockier than ever. 2. Cambodia loses voice of the people. Political battles are raging in Cambodia in the aftermath of the death of Kem Ley, a prominent Cambodian media commentator and government critic who was fatally shot at a convenience store in the capital on Sunday. Kem Ley’s death reverberated across the country, with Cambodians outraged at having lost a sympathetic voice who “spoke the language of the people”, and opposition leaders denouncing it as an assassination by the ruling regime. The killing comes at a time of renewed tensions between Prime Minister Hun Sen and the opposition, led by the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which accuses Hun Sen of unleashing a fresh crackdown upon it ahead of the 2018 general election. With fingers pointing at him across the country, the prime minister, in the midst of a thirty-one-year reign marked by alleged corruption, electoral fraud, and rights abuses, promised a “vigorous investigation” and called for an end to the politicization of the shooting. Ultimately, however, regardless of whether the killing was a matter of debt settlement, as the shooter in custody claims, or a bona fide “act of state terrorism”, Kem Ley’s death will continue to serve as political fodder for interest groups across the country. 3. Pyongyang cuts diplomatic communication with Washington. North Korea has severed its only official channel of diplomatic communications with the U.S. government. Pyongyang’s decision came as a response to U.S. sanctions on North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for the regime’s human rights abuses. The U.S. Treasury Department also targeted fourteen other North Korean senior officials and eight agencies that are accused of violating human rights. Though North Korea has repeatedly denied the existence of political prison camps, the State Department recently released a report indicating that an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners are detained in such camps and are subject to forced labor and torture. The heightened pressure on North Korea is perceived as efforts to intensify consequences for Pyongyang’s provocative behavior and to push the North to rejoin the negotiation table. North Korea is particularly sensitive of international criticisms of its leader, and the state’s news agency has called the sanctions a “declaration of war.” Such events raise concerns over the fate of two U.S. citizens detained by North Korea, which stated that it will be conducting all issues pertaining to the United States under the state’s wartime law. 4. Kerala imposes a “fat tax.” The fourth round of India’s National Family Health Survey showed the state of Kerala has the second-highest obesity rate in India, prompting its recently-elected Communist government to instate a 14.5 percent tax on burgers, pizzas, doughnuts, sandwiches, pasta, and tacos served at global fast food chains. While government officials claim that these preventive measures will only target the societal elite and address the state’s 3–4 percent obesity rate, critics of the tax argue that much of the local food served by small cafés is also unhealthy and this will ultimately hurt their businesses. Many believe that this is also an attempt by the Kerala government to increase tax revenue, which has fallen by roughly 4 percent over the past five years due to a struggling agricultural sector and stagnating purchasing power. 5. China faces WTO troubles. China hopes to be named a “market economy” by the World Trade Organization (WTO), a designation that would make it more difficult for other countries to bring trade disputes against it, but is encountering pushback from Europe and the United States. This week, the U.S. government opened a case against China at the WTO, accusing it of failing to eliminate export tariffs that raise the global cost of a number of raw materials ranging from cobalt to tantalum. The European Union is hesitating on granting China market economy status, as European steel manufacturers have expressed concerns about dumping from China, which produces approximately 50 percent of the world’s steel. On Wednesday, China and the EU agreed to create a “platform” for monitoring Chinese policies that may favor domestic steel producers. Should the platform find no issues with Chinese steel exports, EU leaders have signaled they would be willing to move forward on China’s market economy status. Bonus: Can’t catch ’em in China. While Pokémon Go has taken some of the digital world by storm, becoming the most popular mobile game ever in the United States since its release last week, the app is still not technically available in China. Even when desperate fans find ways to download the game, Niantic Labs, the game’s developer, has essentially blocked off most of Asia from accessing its servers over concerns about overloading them. Nevertheless, demand is seething: some Chinese users have been using VPNs to access the game, and many others have settled for a similar domestically made game, “City Sprites GO,” which was the most downloaded free app in the Chinese Apple store this week. Needless to say, if and when Niantic Labs releases the game in China, it would be a win-win for both the company and Pokémon fans, since China has a $7 billion mobile gaming market with one billion users.

Over the past year, any hopes that Cambodia, where national elections almost led to a change in government three years ago, was headed toward a democratic transition, have been fully dashed. Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) are again taking complete control of the kingdom. In fact, as the country prepares for the next national elections, to be held in 2018, Hun Sen appears to be resorting to his usual combination of repressing opposition politicians and co-opting a small number of his opponents. These harsh but skillful tactics have helped him become the longest-serving non-royal ruler in Asia, surviving one of the most tumultuous political environments in the world. To review – following national elections in 2013 in which the new opposition coalition, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), did much better than expected, Hun Sen appeared unusually subdued. He publicly acknowledged a need for more inclusive politics and he publicly welcomed opposition leaders into parliament. The opposition coalition had relied on support from younger Cambodians who, in many cases, no longer remembered the Khmer Rouge era and longed for better government than that provided by Hun Sen. Perhaps shocked by nearly being beaten by the opposition in 2013, Hun Sen promised a new “culture of dialogue” with the opposition CNRP. Many CNRP leaders took their seats in parliament and prepared for Cambodia to potentially grow into a stable, two-party system. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who had been living in exile, returned to Cambodia. That compromise has come completely unraveled, with the government using all its tools to crack down on the CNRP.  Rainsy has fled into exile again after the government produced a warrant for his arrest on old, questionable charges. The government has arrested four human rights workers and an election commission official as part of an elaborate investigation into an alleged affair by top CNRP leader Kem Sokha. It also has detained at least twenty-five opposition politicians on a range of charges, while police have raided the opposition coalition’s headquarters. This crackdown may have economic repercussions as well. As Markus Karbaum notes on New Mandala, Hun Sen’s tight control of politics, combined with a lack of transparency and high levels of graft throughout the economy, are dissuading foreign investors. The country has few comparative advantages over neighboring nations like Vietnam, and its rice sector and garment sector, which are critical to the economy, are facing serious troubles. Rice is becoming too costly to produce, due in part to poor physical infrastructure. The garment industry will shrink if Cambodia loses its priority access to the EU market, which is possible in the next decade or so. Strangely, Rainsy does not seem as alarmed as the situation might warrant. In an interview with Radio Free Asia during a recent visit to Washington, Rainsy was muted in his criticism of Hun Sen. Rainsy further maintained that the opposition continues to “value and hail the culture of dialogue” even as it is battered by the CPP. Hun Sen’s crackdown is part of a regional trend. After being challenged in the early 2010s, anti-democratic forces are getting stronger in many parts of Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, where a 2013 election nearly put the opposition coalition in power, the opposition is in tatters and fighting amongst itself. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has attempted to take the opposition reins, but he is still widely distrusted by many urban and liberal Malaysians. With the opposition split, and the Najib government aggressively pursuing prosecutions of politicians and civil society activists under sedition laws, even the massive 1MDB state fund scandal does not seem to have stopped Najib’s consolidation of power. Although in the long-term, young and urban support for the ruling coalition is waning, Najib’s coalition just won two parliamentary by-elections and looks poised to dominate national elections, which must be held before August of 2018. Given the opposition’s lack of coherent leadership, and the ruling coalition’s two by-election victories, it is highly possible that Najib will call elections in 2017 instead. Similarly, in Thailand the military junta increasingly shows few signs of giving way. Asked this week whether he would step down if the Thai public votes, in August, against the junta-backed new constitution – as Prime Minister David Cameron offered his resignation following the Brexit vote – Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha was blunt. “Do you want me to leave or what? I’m not leaving,” even if the junta-backed constitution is voted down in the national referendum, Prayuth told reporters. “I’m the one who sets the rules.”

Three new annual reports, from the U.S. State Department, Freedom House, and Reporters without Borders, add further evidence to worries that much of Southeast Asia is experiencing an authoritarian revival. Released this week, Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press report (for which I served as a consultant for several Southeast Asia chapters) reveals that in nearly all the ten ASEAN nations, press freedom regressed significantly last year. Freedom House’s findings are similar those of Reporters Without Borders annual Press Freedom Index, which was released earlier this month. In it, the scores of Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian nations dropped, as compared to their scores in 2015. Like Freedom House’s report, RSF’s analysts use a range of indicators to reflect the overall level of press freedom in each nation. These falls are not surprising---Malaysia has shuttered major publications that have reported on the 1MDB scandal swirling around Prime Minister Najib tun Razak, Thailand’s junta is proving increasingly intolerant of dissent, Brunei has promulgated harsh new sharia-based laws, and other Southeast Asian nations like Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam remain highly intolerant of independent reporting. And these declines in press freedom are indicative of a broader trend. As I have written, much of Southeast Asia has regressed from democratic transition over the past decade; its retrenchment is symptomatic of a broader, global authoritarian revival. Finally, the State Department’s annual country reports on human rights provides more evidence of the democratic downfall of a region that was once touted as an example of political progress. While Myanmar made significant strides toward democracy in 2015, and Indonesia and the Philippines remained vibrant democracies, the country reports show that most of the rest of the region regressed in terms of rights and freedoms. Thailand came in for a particularly harsh assessment, with the State Department noting, “The interim [Thai] constitution remained in place during the year, as did numerous decrees severely limiting civil liberties, including restrictions on freedom of speech, assembly, and the press.” The country reports further noted that in Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Brunei, among other Southeast Asian nations, there were signs of growing repression in 2015. In the coming months, Southeast Asia’s political trajectory will become even clearer. The NLD-led government in Myanmar is beginning to develop a policy agenda, and its actions will clarify how successfully it can manage a difficult transition from military rule---whether Myanmar becomes more like Thailand, where the armed forces never really returned to the barracks, or like Indonesia, where the power of the armed forces has been curbed significantly. Thailand will hold a referendum, in August, on a new constitution midwifed by the junta. The Thai coup government has essentially barred any open discussion of the new constitution, which contains clauses that could perpetuate the military’s influence and drastically weaken the power of elected members of parliament in the future. However, it seems unlikely that the coup government will resort to outright rigging the constitutional referendum, though it will try its hardest to sway Thais to vote for the draft. The junta has cracked down on most types of dissent, so Thais may use the referendum to voice their frustrations. If the new constitution passes by only a small percentage of the vote, or is even defeated, it would suggest that there is sizable antigovernment sentiment bubbling up in Thailand. Finally, there are the upcoming elections in the Philippines, to be held next week. Some Philippine civil society activists worry that strong popular support for vice presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the former dictator, and for presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who allegedly oversaw brutal anticrime strategies as mayor of Davao, marks a rising popular frustration with the difficulties of democratic government---a longing for a strongman who can just get things done, ignoring institutions or checks on power. Since the Philippines is the most established and vibrant democracy in the region, the results of its presidential election will be another powerful signal of regional trends.

The U.S.-ASEAN summit earlier this week, held at Sunnylands estate in California, was overshadowed by the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, and the political debate over his possible replacement. Many Southeast Asian leaders, who had looked forward to the summit as a sign of the Obama administration’s interest in the region, as well as a kind of blessing for hardline rulers like Cambodia’s Hun Sen and Thailand’s Prayuth Chan-ocha, were probably disappointed by how little attention the summit got from the U.S. media and from many U.S. politicians and opinion leaders. Still, the summit offered several glimpses into the current and future challenges facing U.S.-ASEAN relations. For one, as several media outlets have noted, the joint statement released after the summit, while noting a need for “mutual respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, equality and political independence of all nations ... and a shared commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes” in the South China Sea, did not mention China or China’s role in creating an environment ripe for armed conflict in the Sea. (Less than a week after the summit, Fox and other news outlets reported that China has placed surface-to-air missiles on an island in the disputed Paracels chain in the South China Sea). The lack of any mention of China in the joint statement, despite the fact that before the summit U.S. officials clearly intended any joint statement to reference China’s actions in the Sea, testifies to the continuing divisions within ASEAN over how to handle China’s growing power in the region. This fissure between countries, like Vietnam, that are terrified of China’s rising power, and those, like Cambodia and Thailand, that are much less concerned, has repeatedly divided ASEAN in the past five years. These divisions are undermining the organization’s famed consensus. On several occasions now, ASEAN leaders or defense ministers have been unable to agree upon a joint statement summarizing ASEAN’s position toward China’s actions in the South China Sea. Second, selling more Southeast Asian nations on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not be easy. Four Southeast Asian nations---Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam---already have committed to joining the TPP. Vietnam in particular stands to make major economic gains from joining, and the recent Party Congress, which essentially ended Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s political career, will not change Hanoi’s commitment to the TPP. But though President Obama used the Sunnylands summit to press other ASEAN members to join the TPP, public and elite opinion in several Southeast Asian countries is largely against TPP accession. In particular, in Thailand, where a potential U.S.-Thailand free trade agreement was scotched by public protests and a lack of popular support a decade ago, there is now little will in the Thai government or among Thai opinion leaders to join the TPP. In Indonesia, public support for joining TPP is also tepid, despite President Joko Widodo’s pledge that the country will sign up. The fact that the U.S. Congress, which gave President Obama fast track authority, now appears to have put discussions about ratifying TPP on ice until after the November elections, cannot be helping President Obama persuade ASEAN members to sign up for the deal. Third, the White House clearly understands the importance of symbolism in ASEAN. Many previous U.S. administrations, going back at least two decades, have disdained ASEAN as a talk shop that rarely produces tangible outcomes, and have bristled at the organization’s seeming love of symbolism---showy photos of leaders clasping hands, working groups that deliver lengthy and jargon-filled plans for future integration, hundreds of ASEAN-related meetings of top officials every year. But ASEAN moves slowly and cautiously, even more so now than the organization did in the 2000s, when it was led by dynamic former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan. Regional powers that invest in ASEAN, accepting its symbolic gestures as part of doing business, are often rewarded with opportunities to improve bilateral ties with individual ASEAN nations. The Obama White House clearly has understood this bargain---join in the symbolism, and (sometimes) reap the reward of closer bilateral relations with ASEAN members and a better image among Southeast Asian publics. From signing ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2009, to this week’s Sunnylands summit, the White House has embraced ASEAN’s symbolism-before-substance style with fervor.

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.  Part 3 Southeast Asia’s decade of democratic regression, which I examined in the previous blog post, reflects a worrying global retrenchment. Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report, which measures the spread or retrenchment of freedom globally, has reported ten straight years of declining global political freedom. In Freedom House’s 2016 edition of Freedom in the World, more than seventy countries registered declines in political freedom as compared to the prior year. The implications of this democratic regression are broad and significant. On a human level, the regression of democracy means that, compared to a decade ago, more of the world’s people are living today under governments that restrict economic, social, and political rights. People living under authoritarian rule are more likely to have shorter and less healthy lives, as shown by indicators of human development; over time, democracies have proven more effective in fostering key aspects of development including life expectancy and reduced child mortality. The global democratic regression may lead to more interstate conflict. In addition, political retrenchment may foster extremism, creating favorable conditions for groups inspired by the self-proclaimed Islamic State or for other types of extremists, such as Buddhist nationalist extremist groups in Myanmar or hardline royalist groups in Thailand. Already, outside Southeast Asia groups linked to the Islamic State have made headway in states where political freedom has regressed, or never fully emerged, and where people feel they cannot create political change by working within the system. In Egypt, for example, where a military government has thrown leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in jail, and also crushed more liberal political groups, Islamists have increasingly turned to violence, attacking police, military, and government targets in the Sinai and other parts of the country. In Libya, where the collapse of the Qaddafi dictatorship led to a chaotic political environment, the Islamic State has established a large foothold, and have reportedly started heading south to recruit fighters from sub-Saharan African states. Overall, notes Edward Delman of The Atlantic in a study of the Islamic State’s international recruiting, “the countries that send the largest numbers of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, either in absolute terms or on a per-capita basis, tend to be either politically repressive (Saudi Arabia, 2,500 fighters), politically unstable (Tunisia, 6,000 fighters), discriminatory toward a Muslim minority (Russia, 2,400 fighters), or a combination of the above.” Notably, Southeast Asian nations are not on the list of countries that send the most foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq. Yet Southeast Asian nations that do not embrace political reform could face a greater threat from Islamic State-linked extremists. To combat the spread of Islamic State-influenced groups in Southeast Asia, the region’s leaders need, most importantly, to reverse Southeast Asia’s democratic regression. The region’s leaders should not overreact to the actual threat of terrorist attacks, but rather should more effectively address the root causes of popular alienation from normal politics. After all, even if 1,500 or even 2,500 Southeast Asians have traveled to Islamic State-controlled territory and returned to the region, this figure is a miniscule fraction of the total population in Southeast Asia. And as Delman notes, countries in the Middle East and Europe have contributed a far higher number of fighters to the Islamic State than Southeast Asian nations. Yet if Southeast Asian nations respond to the militant threat by subverting the rule of law, and promulgating legislation that gives the security forces excessive powers, they risk further alienating populations and actually pushing more people into joining extremist groups. Instead, Southeast Asia’s leaders should battle militants within legal frameworks. In Indonesia, the Jokowi government had not, before this month, sought legislation that would allow security forces to detain suspects for extended periods of time without charge, as is possible in some other countries in the region. Potential changes to counterterrorism laws in Indonesia currently being debated still would not give security forces the sweeping powers they enjoy in other Southeast Asian nations. Still, Indonesia is going to probably get tougher. The country is about to potentially pass preventative detention laws that could allow the authorities to hold terrorism suspects for up to six months, a significant shift that could undermine the rule of law in the archipelago. Adhering to the rule of law bolsters popular support for antimilitancy efforts and does not run the risk that regional governments can use detention for broad roundups of political opponents. Jokowi’s government also has sent a signal that it will not tolerate extrajudicial killings by the police and other security forces. Although Indonesia’s security forces hardly enjoy a clean reputation, Jokowi has suggested that an independent, nonpartisan investigating body will analyze suspected rights abuses by the security forces, such as in places like Papua. Other governments in Southeast Asia should copy this approach, relying on legal, humane strategies to investigate and arrest militants, and fostering more effective oversight of security forces. In addition, countries in Southeast Asia need to strengthen institutions that can resolve political conflicts, so that they do not have to rely on undemocratic, archaic institutions to resolve disputes. In Thailand and Myanmar, political conflicts too often are resolved by the military; in Cambodia and Malaysia disputes are often resolved in backroom negotiations involving a small handful of business and political elites. These weak institutions foster cycles of political conflict, and make it easier for militants to claim that democracy is failing to create peace and security.

Read Part 1 here.  Part 2 After Jakarta’s initial successes against militants such as those from Jemaah Islamiah, a new generation of Islamists began to emerge in Southeast Asia in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Some had been students in schools set up, in the 1990s and 2000s, by earlier generations of radicals, while others had taken part in plots and attacks in the 1990s and 2000s and had survived the region-wide crackdown on Jemaah Islamiah and other militants. As Indonesian militancy expert Sidney Jones notes, many of these survivors lacked the discipline and organizing principles that had been characteristic of Jemaah Islamiah in the late 1990s and 2000s. Jones notes that the Indonesian authorities were saved in January 2016 primarily by the militants “incompetence,” but if radical groups continue to grow and train in Syria, they may eventually perfect more deadly bombing and shooting plots in Southeast Asia. The rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State has provided new inspiration for the younger radicals and, for some willing to travel to Syria and Iraq, a new place for young Southeast Asian militants to train and meet fellow militants from around the world. In some ways, for Southeast Asian radicals the Islamic State’s wars in Syria and Iraq were a kind of modern version of the Afghanistan of the 1980s, a place for foreigners to come, learn how to fight, and mingle with other radicals. However, it was far easier for Southeast Asians to make the journey to Islamic State territory than it had been to join the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Social media, for one, made it far easier for young Southeast Asians to learn about life in Islamic State territory and plan trips to Islamic State-controlled regions than it had been for radicals who wanted to fight in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In addition, the Islamic State’s theatrical brutality, tailored to social media, seemed designed to inspire radicals in other countries to adopt more brutal tactics. Some Islamic State leaders apparently see the value in recruiting and training Southeast Asians. After all, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, and Indonesia and Malaysia are two of the most prominent moderate Muslim-majority states in the world, countries with close relations with the United States, France, China, and other countries either involved in the battle against Islamic State or targeted for attacks by Islamic State leaders. In the past four years, the Islamic State has not only created a brigade of its fighters for Indonesians and Malaysians, who speak a common language, but also released video messages, shared on social media, targeted at Southeast Asian recruits and including efforts to Southeast Asian women to travel to Islamic State territory and potentially marry fighters. Jones’s Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict estimates that as many as forty percent of Indonesians who have traveled to join the Islamic State are women and children. At the same time as the Islamic State is spreading its message into the region, Southeast Asian states are struggling with other factors that could spark radicalism. These factors include: The expansion of social media and Internet access, and the growing use of apps like WhatsApp and Zello that are harder for the authorities to track; the growth in foreign-funded religious schools in Southeast Asia; and, incompetent Southeast Asian prison systems, which tend to group Islamists together and often brutalize them; and, some Southeast Asian leaders’ response to the growth of the Islamic State, a response that has too often morphed into outright Islamophobia. In Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and other countries in the region, a lack of political freedom has been probably the biggest driver of militancy. Once touted as a democratic beacon for other developing regions, since the late 2000s, much of Southeast Asia has witnessed a democratic retrenchment. In its report on global freedom in 2009, Freedom House ranked the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Timor-Leste as “partly free” nations, and ranked Indonesia as “free.” Twenty years earlier, only the Philippines ranked as “partly free” in the region; the rest of these countries were graded “not free,” while Timor-Leste did not even exist as an independent nation. In Thailand, for instance, throughout the 1990s and much of the 2000s, Thailand appeared to have left its era of military interventions behind; Thai army commanders insisted the era of coups had passed and that the armed forces would become a normal military, run by elected civilian ministers. Thailand passed a progressive constitution in 1997, and in the 1990s and 2000s the country held multiple free elections. Malaysia, meanwhile, seemed poised to develop a competitive two-party system in the 2000s and early 2010s. In Cambodia, unexpected gains by the opposition coalition in 2014 national elections led to a brief period of compromise between opposition politicians and longtime prime minister Hun Sen. Today, few people are touting democracy in Southeast Asia as an example of political freedoms. Since the 2000s, Thailand has suffered more than a decade of political turmoil capped by a military coup in May 2014, the second coup in the kingdom in less than a decade. The country is still ruled by a junta, and even if elections are held in 2017, Thailand’s new constitution, written under junta rule, will dramatically restrict democratic freedoms and undermine democratic institutions. In 2015 Hun Sen’s government ended the rapprochement with the opposition. The Cambodian government pursued criminal charges against opposition leader Sam Rainsy, forcing him into exile, and Cambodian police did nothing as a mob of people, potentially organized by the ruling party, attacked opposition lawmakers just outside the parliament building. In Malaysia, the story is similar. After the 2013 general election, which the ruling coalition narrowly won, relying on gerrymandering and alleged vote fraud, the government jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, and used a new law to crack down on other opposition politicians and civil society activists. In Myanmar, since the end of junta rule in 2010-11, Muslims have been the targets of brutal violence. Gangs and paramilitary organizations, apparently tolerated by the state, have launched waves of attacks on Muslim communities in western Myanmar and other parts of the country; over 130,000 Muslim Rohingya, an ethnic minority, fled their homes, and often wound up in camps for the internally displaced that seemed more like internment camps than centers designed to aid refugees. In southern Thailand, meanwhile, increasingly autocratic rule has added to popular alienation from the Thai state and made it easier for militant cells to recruit, according to a study of recruiting by Don Pathan, an expert on the southern Thai conflict who writes for The Nation newspaper. The government of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the last popularly elected leader before the May 2014 coup, had attempted to launch peace negotiations with the southern militants. But after the coup the Thai army essentially jettisoned the talks. In late 2015 and early 2016, several representatives of the southern insurgents held informal meetings with army negotiators in an attempt to restart the talks, but these informal meetings have yet to produce any tangible results. In Malaysia, the government’s increasing repressiveness and desire to burnish its Islamic credentials have combined to fuel radicalism. Malaysia’s government has not only passed legislation that could suppress opposition voices, but also used its powers to entrench economic and political preferences for ethnic Malays, disempowering ethnic Indians and ethnic Chinese. Malaysian leaders also have used speeches to increasingly try to portray Malaysia a state for Malay Muslims, and tarred opposition leaders by portraying them as stooges of non-Muslim ethnic minorities. As a result, although Malaysian Prime Minister Najib tun Razak has been vocal, on the international stage, about the need for moderate Muslim voices to combat militancy, his government has allowed Malay Muslim nationalist voices to dominate the governing coalition and to wield extensive power over public discourse. At the same time, the government’s crackdown on public protests, nonprofits’ operations, and independent media have limited the means by which Malaysians, including Islamists, could participate peacefully in public discourse. Religion has become central to Malaysians’ identities, as economic and social policies entrench the linkage of faith and identity. “More and more Malays identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims. In a poll carried out [in 2015], Merdeka Center found that 60 per cent of Malays consider themselves as Muslims first, 27 per cent as Malaysians first, and only a peculiarly low 6 per cent saw themselves as Malays first,” writes Penang Institute analyst Kok-Hin Ooi in an analysis for New Mandala. Of course, the extremism that has bloomed in Southeast Asia from failed democratization does not only entail Islamism. Southeast Asia’s failed democratization has sparked many forms of extremist groups, all of which pay little heed to legal, constitutional means of resolving political conflicts. In Thailand, the stalled democratization has fostered a rise in militant Buddhist organizations, some of which have pushed to make Buddhism the state religion. It also has sparked the growth of hardline, conservative, royalist street demonstrations. These royalist street demonstrators, some of whom also belong to militant Buddhist groups, paralyzed Bangkok with protests in late 2013 and early 2014, disrupted planned parliamentary elections, and ultimately set the stage for the May 2014 coup. (During the 2013 and 2014 protests, many of these royalist groups openly called for an end to the franchise for poor Thais and/or a restoration of the absolute monarchy.) In Myanmar, incomplete democratization, and the vacuum of political power left by the end of authoritarian rule, has also allowed radical Buddhist nationalist groups to gain power. Some of the new Buddhist nationalist groups have alleged links to hardline, anti-Muslim political parties; others allegedly are linked to the gangs and paramilitaries that have terrorized the Rohingya and other Myanmar Muslims. These empowered extremist groups are not necessarily fueled primarily by economic grievances. The three provinces of southern Thailand are not the poorest in the country, and are far from the poorest areas of Southeast Asia. In fact, the southernmost provinces are far richer than some areas of Thailand’s rural, drought-hit northeast. The extremist royalist groups that helped topple the Yingluck government and pave the way for the coup were led by middle class and upper class Thais, including some of the richest people in the kingdom. In Malaysia, meanwhile, the most hardline Malay Muslim groups, and the militant Islamist cells that have been uncovered, do not usually attract the poorest in Malaysian society, but rather middle-class and lower-middle class Malays, especially those who apparently fear that urbanization and more open politics might mean a dilution of state privileges for Malays. Indonesia, by contrast, has not regressed politically over the past decade, and its continued democratic transition has blunted the appeal of radicalism. Along with the Philippines, it is the only Southeast Asian nation to be consistently ranked among the freest nations in the developing world by Freedom House. In his first two years in office, President Joko Widodo has helped further entrench democratic culture and institutions, even if he has been less aggressive in pushing on long-term political and economic reforms than some of his supporters had hoped. (In particular, Jokowi has tended to fall back into statist, economic nationalist policy prescriptions.) Still, as President Jokowi has maintained the system of regional and local elections, installed prominent anticorruption activists at the center of his cabinet, and transformed the style and image of the presidency from that of a remote, almost monarchical figure to that of a public servant listening to public concerns. Meanwhile, by the middle of the 2010s, Indonesia’s massive decentralization of legislative authority and government budgets had greatly empowered local politicians and local populaces. Decentralization allowed for a degree of differentiation in how localities handled issues like the selling of alcohol, the regulation of gambling, and other issues that Islamic parties and Islamist militant groups tended to emphasize. (Occasionally, these local laws catered to devout Christians, such as in predominantly Christian areas of Papua, rather than to Muslims.) And decentralization and democratic consolidation have greatly helped Indonesia’s battle against a new generation of militants. Decentralization, for one, helps reduce the appeal of Islamic parties and militant groups on the national level. Devout voters can obtain many of their demands through local legislation, reducing the appeal of national Islamic parties---or of militant groups who pledge to force change through violence. Freedom of expression means that Indonesians can openly advocate for the imposition of harsher Islamic laws or other goals of militant groups; the state does not stifle their voices. Confidence in Indonesia’s political system, and the impact of Indonesian presidents’ public speeches against militants, has clearly had an impact on the Indonesian population. In a poll released in November 2015 by the Pew Research Center, nearly 80 percent of Indonesians had an unfavorable view of the Islamic State, a much higher unfavorable figure than in Malaysia, Turkey, and Pakistan, among other countries. In Malaysia, for instance, only about sixty percent of the population in the same poll, had an unfavorable view of the Islamic State. It helps that the largest Indonesian religious organizations have added their weight to the countermilitancy campaign. Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian religious movement with some 50 million members, has developed a sophisticated public campaign promoting a tolerant version of Islam. The campaign also emphasizes to Indonesians how alien the Islamic State’s form of Islam is to Indonesia’s Islamic traditions. These national campaigns have helped the Indonesian security forces, who rely on tips from the populace. Although militants were able to strike in Jakarta in January, in December 2015 Indonesian security forces made a string of arrests in five cities of people allegedly linked to Islamic State and planning a larger attack. To be sure, Indonesia has not eradicated militant groups. Terrorist attacks are always a possibility in Indonesia, even if the government has shifted public opinion against Islamists and destroyed many militant cells. The archipelago’s porous borders, notoriously corrupt immigration checkpoints, and open society all allow militant groups to come and go with impunity. Yet Indonesia’s open society has helped inoculate the country against the possibility that militant groups inspired by the Islamic State will gain large numbers of followers.

Read Part 2 here and Part 3 here.  Part 1 On January 14, militants struck in one of Jakarta’s busiest shopping and office districts. At around 11 am, one attacker blew up a suicide bomb at a Starbucks. Then, a group of attackers grabbed foreigners from the area, started firing wildly into the street, and drove a motorcycle toward a nearby police station and attacked that. The surviving militants then engaged in a running gun and bomb battle with Indonesian police, leaving a total of eight people dead, including five of the attackers. After the attacks, it quickly emerged that the purported ringleader, an Indonesian man named Bahrun Naim, had been living in the Islamic State’s “capital,” Raqqa, where he had reportedly organized the Jakarta violence. Although the brazenness of the attack shocked some Indonesians, the fact that militants inspired by ISIS committed violence in Jakarta was not particularly surprising. Since the previous autumn, Indonesian police and intelligence had been receiving reports of ISIS-linked militant cells organizing on Java and other islands; a month before the attack, Indonesian police had made a string of arrests, across the archipelago, of militants allegedly linked to the Islamic State. One of Indonesia’s leading specialists on militant groups, Sidney Jones of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, had warned that ISIS has “transformed the terrorism threat [in Indonesia] after years of mostly foiled [terrorism] plots” in the archipelago. And the Indonesian government had estimated that hundreds Indonesians had traveled to Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq and then returned home. So many Indonesians and Malaysians had traveled to Islamic State territory that IS had started a brigade of fighters just for visiting Indonesians and Malaysians. Indonesia was not alone in facing the threat of militants linked to or inspired by the Islamic State. Some Southeast Asian intelligence organizations place the total number of Southeast Asians who have made the trip to ISIS territory as between 1,200 and 1,800. Even in Singapore, a city-state with an extremely effective intelligence service, radicals inspired in part by the Islamic State have returned to the island, according to public speeches by Singapore’s prime minister. In addition, several veteran militant groups in Southeast Asia whose existence predated the rise of the Islamic State, such as those fighting in the southern Philippines, have publicly pledged their allegiance to IS in 2014 and 2015. Whether these pledges are designed to bring more notoriety to the veteran groups, or actually constitute real linkages with IS, remains unclear, but their impact is to strengthen Islamic State’s image as a group with real global appeal. Yet of all the Southeast Asian nations facing rising militancy---the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Brunei, and Indonesia---Indonesia is actually the best equipped to combat the challenge of radicalism. The Indonesian government confronted an earlier rise of militancy, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a time when many Indonesian militants were inspired by al-Qaeda; Indonesian security forces effectively penetrated the earlier militants’ cells and broke up many terrorism plots, without comprising Indonesia’s democratic transition. To be sure, as Jones notes, that earlier decade of militant activities left some radical networks in place, networks that IS sympathizers now may try to activate in the archipelago. The Islamic State’s powerful social media messaging may help militants regroup in Indonesia. But these militants will have a difficult time seriously threatening Indonesia’s social fabric, or upsetting the political gains Indonesia has made since the end of the Suharto dictatorship. Indeed, while much of Southeast Asia backslides into authoritarian or semi-authoritarian politics, highlighted most notably by Thailand’s harsh military rule, Indonesia’s political system has continued to mature, becoming a consolidated and essentially federal democracy. This maturation, and the maturation of Indonesia’s religious establishment, has created many ways to co-opt radicals through the political process, undermining the appeal of militant groups to the broader public---and making it easier for police to identify and arrest the small number of extremists planning violent attacks. I will examine why democratic regression facilitates militancy in other Southeast Asian nations in my next post.

Read Part 1 here.  6. Of All Southeast Asia Issues, Only Myanmar and the TPP Will Be Discussed in the U.S. Presidential Campaign Although there are several Republican and Democratic candidates with foreign policy experience, Southeast Asia will mostly go unmentioned during the U.S. presidential primaries and general election. The two exceptions: Myanmar and the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which include Brunei, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia, and may in the future include the Philippines and Indonesia as well. Although the TPP seemed to be almost completed in 2015, by the end of the year, congressional leaders were calling for it to be delayed until after the 2016 elections. The agreement will undoubtedly be debated on the campaign trail, as a majority of the candidates currently in the race have expressed opposition to the deal. In addition, since Hillary Clinton has highlighted U.S. rapprochement with Myanmar as a triumph of her tenure as secretary of state, the question of whether Myanmar is actually a success story of U.S. diplomacy will undoubtedly come up in presidential debates too. 7. Cambodia’s Political Situation Will Further Deteriorate Cambodia’s fragile political truce broke down in 2015, with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party once again dominating politics and the opposition facing bare-knuckles state power. Old criminal charges were revived against many opposition politicians, including the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, who is in exile, apparently afraid to return to the kingdom. Mobs attacked opposition politicians outside parliament, and Prime Minister Hun Sen, the longest-serving non-royal ruler in Asia, made clear that he would not be standing aside when elections are held again in 2018 for parliament. Hun Sen is one of the savviest, toughest political operators in the world, and he got what he wanted from the 2015 truce with the CNRP---control of parliament even though the opposition had made big gains in the 2013 parliamentary elections, and a reduction in international pressure on Phnom Penh to work with the opposition. Now that the pressure is off, and campaign season is getting going again, Hun Sen’s government may well press charges against more opposition leaders. It also may essentially prevent Rainsy from returning to Cambodia. 8. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung Will Become General Secretary As Asia Sentinel recently reported, the Vietnamese Central Committee’s process of deciding the next slate of Party leaders appears to be hitting more bumps than usual. Although the Central Committee was supposed to meet throughout the summer and fall of 2015 and reach consensus behind closed doors before the Party’s 12th Congress, planned for late January, the Congress could potentially be delayed for months. According to several Vietnamese analysts, opponents of Dung, who want the Party to move more slowly on economic reforms, are trying to stop him from becoming General Secretary. Some conservatives are furious that Dung has presided over Vietnam’s plan to join the TPP, which would force Hanoi to liberalize some state enterprises and upgrade labor rights. (According to an analysis by the Peterson Institute, the TPP also would be a boon for Vietnam, the poorest country in the agreement---that in the period up to 2025, Vietnam’s exports would grow by 37 percent more if it was in the TPP than if it was not.) But Dung appears to believe that he can win a majority of support among the Vietnamese leadership, although he cannot campaign openly. Instead, a letter purportedly written by Dung to several senior colleagues was leaked, probably by Dung supporters, to a prominent Vietnamese political blog that is surely read by most of the Party elites. In the letter, Dung defends himself against a range of charges, including mismanaging the Vietnamese economy. The prime minister probably does enjoy enough support to finally prevail. Indeed, when the 12th Party Congress is finally held, expect Dung to be named General Secretary.

An excellent article in this month’s Foreign Affairs, by Stephanie Giry, outlines the strategies Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has used to stay in power. Now the longest-serving nonroyal ruler in Asia and the seventh-longest serving nonroyal ruler in the world, Hun Sen remains the ultimate survivor. He is a man who was one of the youngest foreign ministers in the world in the period after 1979, when he served in the government installed in Phnom Penh after Vietnam invaded and removed the Khmer Rouge. He was a former military man who made a gradual transition from the unschooled, rugged but naturally savvy former fighter from that time to a suave and charming head of government. For three decades, according to human rights groups, Hun Sen has used a combination of populist charm, control of the media through relations with media tycoons, outright intimidation, and relatively effective management of the economy to stay in power. Cambodia holds elections, but the deck tends to be stacked heavily against the opposition, with TV networks, the election commission, and other critical actors historically favoring the ruling party. In 2013, after his party, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), suffered a shock setback in national elections, nearly losing control of parliament to the opposition, Hun Sen appeared more conciliatory toward the opposition. Despite its virtual control of all broadcast media, Hun Sen and the CPP now faced a major challenge from young, urban Cambodians who could organize through social media and the Internet, and did not have the loyalty to the CPP that their parents and grandparents displayed. For many of these young Cambodians, Hun Sen’s basic promise of a rough kind of stability, after the destruction of the Khmer Rouge era, was not enough to vote for the CPP. In the wake of the opposition’s strong election showing, Hun Sen and opposition leader Sam Rainsy embraced each other and agreed to foster a “culture of dialogue” that, in Cambodia’s often-brutal politics, had been lacking in the past. Hun Sen allowed the opposition to get a license to run its own television station; terrestrial broadcast media had been dominated by stations that were pro-Hun Sen and pro-CPP, according to multiple human rights groups. The opposition halted its boycott of parliament and the two sides agreed to create a new election commission, which supposedly would be more impartial than its predecessor in overseeing the next national elections in 2018. Last year, some Cambodian observers speculated that Hun Sen would soon retire, and would not stand for prime minister in the 2018 elections. The culture of dialogue appears, already, to be history. Although Rainsy has not returned to openly bashing Hun Sen, the opposition and the government are doing battle, Cambodia-style, once again. In July, authorities jailed eleven opposition activists on charges of “insurrection” that could net them as much as twenty years in jail. In August, the government charged an opposition senator with treason for supposedly posting a diplomatic document related to the Vietnam-Cambodia border online. The government this year is debating or has passed new legislation that might neuter unions and nongovernmental organizations as well, by reducing the number of union members needed to dissolve a union and by allowing the state to potentially prosecute nonprofits on vague charges of undermining national security, national unity, peace, and Cambodian culture. Despite a new boycott of parliament by the opposition, the government passed the new law on nonprofits this summer. The law also may restrict international NGOs, some of which have had contentious relations with Hun Sen in the past. Under the new legislation, international NGOs and domestic NGOs both must register with the government, even if they are only conducting short-term projects in Cambodia. Hun Sen, meanwhile, appears to be actually consolidating his hold over the CPP, taking on the post of party president after his close ally Chea Sim, the former party president, died earlier this year. In April, Hun Sen announced that he would be running for election in 2018 and said that a civil war could be averted only if he was re-elected prime minister. The armed forces, too, appear to be demonstrating that they will back Hun Sen to the hilt. In late July, Radio Free Asia’s Cambodia service reported:   Cambodia’s armed forces belong to the country’s ruling party and must prevent a ‘color revolution’ from overtaking the Southeast Asian nation, a four-star general said.   Many parts of the armed forces, in fact, operate almost like private militias, according to a recent article in The Diplomat; they are funded by major Cambodian businesspeople, many of whom have close links with the CPP. Little hope left, indeed, for the culture of dialogue in Phnom Penh.

This is a post of a new series on the Development Channel,“This Week in Markets and Democracy.” Each Friday, CFR’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Program will highlight the week’s noteworthy events and articles. Cost of Tax Breaks and Evasion on African Economies As organizations gear up for July’s Third International Conference on Financing for Development, new reports highlight the toll of tax evasion and outsized corporate tax breaks on African economic development. The World Bank calculates that between 2002 and 2009, Tunisia lost at least $1.2 billion in import taxes as firms undervalued and underreported imports. A recent report by Health Poverty Action (HPA) reveals that Sierra Leone has lost nearly $200 million a year in tax breaks, or three times its 2015 health budget. HPA estimates that by reducing benefits for the nation’s five largest mining firms, Sierra Leone could generate an extra $94 million in government revenue. Curbing Corruption in Central and Southeast Asia Asian countries are fighting corruption through digital platforms, legal reforms, and innovative civil society programs. With public procurement accounting for 20 percent of all government expenditures, the Kyrgyz Republic is taking on graft by requiring government bodies to publish all public contract details on a central web portal. Since the roll-out, 700 state and local governments have switched to e-procurement and over 2,000 businesses have registered. In Cambodia, Transparency International has rolled out an Anti-Corruption Card, which citizens receive in exchange for signing a declaration against corruption. The cards, now numbering over 8,000, provide discounts at cafés and shops in Phnom Penh. ILO and UNODC Launch Global Call to Action for Labor Rights Against the background of horrific labor abuses in preparations for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the ILO and UNODC announced a partnership to promote fair and ethical labor recruitment during this week’s UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva. The two organizations are urging governments, labor organizations, and the private sector to end fraudulent labor recruiting through broad legal, regulatory, and enforcement reforms. Such legal protections would be welcome in Hong Kong, where existing laws don’t recognize labor exploitation or domestic servitude as human trafficking. In the private sector, Apple recently ended all recruitment fees for its factory workers, serving as a model for other corporations to end rights violations in their supply chains.    

Today is Earth Day, an appropriate moment to remember Africa’s HeroRats. On April 19, the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called attention to these creatures and their ability to sniff-out land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) as well as their ability to screen sputum samples for tuberculosis. To date these animals have detected over 48,000 land mines and UXO’s, and screened over 290,000 samples for tuberculosis. APOPO, a Belgian non-governmental organization (NGO) with an international staff, trains these HeroRats in Tanzania. Originally starting with mine and UXO detection APOPO has more recently begun using these HeroRats to detect tuberculosis. According to APOPO’s web site, it deploys mine detecting rats in Mozambique, Thailand, Cambodia, and Angola. They have also worked to clear UXO’s in Laos and Vietnam. For tuberculosis screening, APOPO deploys the rats in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Maputo, Mozambique. The rats are able to clear mine fields and screen sputum for tuberculosis faster and more efficiently than other methods. For example, while a human can screen twenty-five samples of sputum for tuberculosis in a day, HeroRats are able to screen one hundred samples in twenty minutes. In clinics using HeroRats the number of patients identified with tuberculosis has risen by 48 percent. Along with being efficient, HeroRats are an inexpensive answer to the problems they seek to solve. APOPO estimates that in order to fully train one rat the cost is approximately $6,400, far cheaper than the alternatives. A theme of Kristoff’s column is that HeroRats are an example of innovative non-profit approaches. HeroRats are Gambian pouched rats. They can be up to three feet long and weigh perhaps forty ounces, too light to set off a mine. Their sense of smell is very strong, compensating for weak eyes. Their life span is about eight years, and they are retired after six. They eat fruits and nuts. Kristof reports that they become close to their handlers. Despite their name, they are rats, not marsupials. HeroRats are an unabashed good-news story. A NGO has identified how a creature can be used to tackle two different horrors, unexploded munitions and tuberculosis. Kristoff writes that his children “gave” him a HeroRat as a Father’s Day present a few years ago. The cost to adopt a rat is $84 per year, most of which goes toward the year-long training that APOPO provides the rats. If you are interested in adopting your own HeroRat, you can visit apopo.org.

Although the Vietnam War, including the “sideshow” war in Cambodia, has been the subject of thousands of books, post-war Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have gotten relatively little treatment from Western writers. This despite the fact that Cambodia suffered one of the worst genocides in history, Vietnam fought another war in 1979 against China and then remade itself into a strategic and economic power, and Laos remains one of the most authoritarian states in the world. There have been a tiny handful of quality books on post-1975 Cambodia, such as Elizabeth Becker’s When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, and David Chandler’s A History of Cambodia. Even fewer have analyzed Cambodia in the 2000s and 2010s. Other books, like Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land by former New York Times journalist Joel Brinkley, had some fine attributes but tended to succumb too easily to glib generalizations about Cambodians and about Cambodian political culture. Still other books on Cambodia were overly academic accounts of Cambodia in the present that were almost impossible for policymakers and the general public to understand. Now, a new book by Cambodia-based journalist Sebastian Strangio, Hun Sen’s Cambodia, has set the standard for compelling and accessible histories of modern-day Cambodia. In particular, the book is the first to offer an accessible but thorough biographical portrait of longtime Cambodian prime minister—and strongman—Hun Sen. Strangio details in compelling form how Hun Sen rose from a skinny, totally uneducated and unworldly senior official in the Vietnam-installed post-Khmer Rouge regime into a smooth autocrat who has dominated the country for decades. Over time, Hun Sen also has become fabulously rich and has become an increasingly powerful player in Southeast Asia, due to Cambodia’s membership in ASEAN, Hun Sen’s longevity, and Hun Sen’s ability to play his patrons Vietnam and China off of each other. Strangio delves into Hun Sen’s early life and his time serving the Khmer Rouge, before he defected and joined the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Strangio also clearly reveals how many of Hun Sen’s closest associates in the Cambodian government almost surely committed atrocities during their time in the Khmer Rouge, before they defected. Most important, Strangio’s portrait of Cambodia reveals how Hun Sen has been able to dominate the country for so long. (Indeed, Hun Sen now is the longest-serving non-royal leader in East Asia and the seventh-longest-serving non-royal leader in the world.) By January 2015, Hun Sen will have been in power for thirty years, and will have been the only leader most Cambodians have known, since the country is extremely young, a result of the massacres of the late 1970s. Strangio lucidly shows how Cambodia’s other political leaders allowed themselves to be bought, controlled, or otherwise co-opted by Hun Sen, and how the devastated country never built the political institutions that could stop the strongman from gaining power. He reveals how, at least for a time, Hun Sen’s version of iron-fisted stability and growth—albeit growth with high inequality—also truly made the strongman popular with the public. Strangio shows how Hun Sen alone, among Cambodia’s major political figures, understood how to build a nationwide party organization and how to appeal to the rural population, in much the same way former King Sihanouk appealed to the Cambodian poor. Indeed, Sihanouk, in Strangio’s telling, wished that Hun Sen had actually been his son, since Hun Sen possessed the popular touch and political acumen that Sihanouk’s actual sons did not. Strangio also offers a devastating indictment of the foreign donors who financed UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), the early 1990s UN-led aid and peacekeeping operation in Cambodia, following the end of Cambodia’s civil war. The same donors continue to pour money into the country today, even as Cambodia’s political culture remains corrupt, Hun Sen’s government is utterly destroying the country’s environment, and growth has enriched only a tiny coterie of elites, mostly in Phnom Penh. Yet even though foreign donors for years enjoyed great power over the Cambodian government, they rarely tried to use that power to really push Hun Sen’s government to change, and Hun Sen was savvy enough to allow a thin veneer of political freedom and civil society. This veneer was enough to allow donors to claim that the country was always becoming more open and more democratic, though this was always a falsehood. In reality, though Cambodia retains a degree of independent civil society, trade unionists, journalists, and activists of all sorts are routinely arrested, beaten, or summarily executed in Cambodia. What’s more, now that Hun Sen has cultivated China, which has become the biggest donor in Cambodia, the group of donors—mostly Western nations and Japan—who for years financed much of the Cambodian budget have less influence over Phnom Penh anyway. Strangio’s book has some flaws. Unlike Brinkley’s book, which had both sizable strengths and deep weaknesses, Strangio does not get the chance to put the pressing questions about Hun Sen’s rule to Hun Sen’s inner circle itself, other than a few of Hun Sen’s business allies. He is not able to confront the most corrupt in Hun Sen’s circle with their graft, to ask the prime minister’s closest aides the hard questions about how Hun Sen has dominated Cambodian political culture and institutions. Brinkley somehow was able to get face-to-face with Hun Sen’s closest circle and put these questions to them, and often get surprising answers. Strangio instead mostly relies on his own analysis, on interviews with a few Hun Sen allies, on many field reporting trips that examine the impact of Hun Sen’s rapacious economic and political strategies, and on outside analysts to show the impact of Hun Sen’s rule. Overall, Strangio’s approach is far more nuanced and thorough; but, I would have liked to see some of Hun Sen’s senior-most aides—or the prime minister himself—squirm in front of the tough questions they never face from the Cambodian media. Finally, though Strangio worked on the book for years, compiling what appear to be mountains of research, the book seems to have been finished before the shocking Cambodian national elections of 2013, in which the opposition almost defeated Hun Sen’s party despite state media showing only Hun Sen and Hun Sen’s party engaging in all sorts of pre-election intimidation of the opposition. According to many election observers, if not for widespread fraud by Hun Sen’s party during and immediately after election day, the opposition coalition would have won a majority in Parliament in 2013. Even so, the 2013 election results showed that, after decades of Hun Sen’s dominance, Cambodia finally might be on the verge of change; Hun Sen’s control of the media had been undermined by the Internet and social media, while opposition politicians who once just squabbled with each other worked together this time and ran a successful campaign. Strangio inserts a kind of postscript on the 2013 elections and its aftermath, which included months of negotiation between the opposition and Hun Sen’s party about the election results and about control of Parliament. Still, the postscript is not enough to capture the 2013 elections thoroughly and to analyze what they might mean for Hun Sen’s long rule and for Cambodia’s future. Overall, this is the finest book on Hun Sen and modern-day Cambodia that has been released thus far.