Malaysia

On Tuesday (Malaysia time), a Malaysian court found former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak guilty on seven counts of corruption, and sentenced him to twelve years in jail and a nearly $50 million fine. Najib remains out on bail, pending an appeal of his conviction, but he also faces multiple other outstanding charges that could lead to an even longer jail sentence. Although Najib’s case had been widely documented, both in court and in many in-depth investigative articles, the verdict still came as something of a surprise. The political winds in Malaysia had, in recent weeks, appeared to favor Najib. Najib had long dominated Malaysian politics, prior to the 2018 election that ousted his coalition, and in recent months the Mahathir Mohamad/Anwar Ibrahim-led coalition that defeated Najib in 2018 had lost power again. Amidst in-fighting in the Mahathir/Anwar coalition and the onset of COVID-19, they gave way to a government under the control of an old Najib ally, and dominated by members of Najib’s party, UMNO, which has ruled Malaysia since independence, except for 2018 to 2020. Najib had continued to play a significant political role behind the scenes, even as he awaited trial and UMNO was in opposition, and remained influential as his allies retook the reins of government. He also became more active on social media in the run-up to the trial, and used social media to position himself more in the populist and more accessible vein of other Southeast Asian populists, trying to shed his image as a stiff and corrupt politician. Under the new UNNO-dominated government, which has a very shaky hold on parliament, Malaysian prosecutors had dropped corruption charges against an important Najib ally, Musa Aman, giving no real reason for suddenly dropping the charges. The sudden reversal in the Musa Aman case, and the decision by the new government to settle with Riza Aziz, Najib’s stepson, seemed to suggest that, with UMNO back in control of the government, Najib might be spared as well. In recent weeks, the new Malaysian government also reached a deal with Goldman Sachs over the bank’s links to Malaysia’s 1MDB state fund, which was at the center of the charges against Najib. Goldman agreed to pay $2.5 billion to Malaysia, less than the Malaysian government originally had demanded, and Malaysia also dropped criminal charges against the bank.  Ultimately, however, Najib’s case may have been so large, and the allegations of graft so enormous and polarizing in Malaysia that a court had to convict him. It did so, too, in a clearly-stated and thorough judicial opinion. And the verdict may reduce Najib’s power significantly; he cannot run for parliament now if a snap election is called, and the ruling may deprive him of his ability to wield influence behind the scenes within the governing coalition. But still, this initial step in Najib’s case may not signal that much has changed in Malaysia. If Najib’s allies remain in control of parliament—a big if, given their narrow majority in parliament—he might still be spared. James Chin, a leading Malaysia expert, told the New York Times that he expected Najib’s case would be overturned on appeal, as long as UNMO held the government. And even if Najib is not ultimately acquitted, the verdict against him may allow UMNO and its allies to remain in power, purging themselves of the taint of Najib and seeming somewhat impartial in the court decision—and thus keeping UMNO in control. 

China’s decision to ban most trash imports has left waste-exporting countries in the lurch and Southeast Asian landfills overflowing.

In recent weeks, Malaysian politics have been upended by a series of dramatic moves, countermoves, and reversals. Less than two years after the landmark May 2018 election that ousted Malaysia’s long-ruling coalition, in-fighting within the new government exploded into the open. Nonagenarian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned on February 24, though the king asked him to briefly remain as caretaker prime minister. Apparently, Mahathir had attempted to ditch most of his May 2018 allies and form a broadly ethnic Malay government consisting of a few members of his coalition plus the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which had ruled the country for decades, and the Islamist group Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS.)  But the king did not appoint Mahathir as prime minister. Instead, he chose Muhyiddin Yassin, who cofounded Bersatu, the small party Mahathir was aligned with in the May 2018 coalition. The choice of Muhyiddin sparked ire among many Malaysians. They took to social media or public protests, arguing that they had not voted for Muhyiddin—his party was a junior partner in the May 2018 coalition—and condemning him for allying with UMNO, long known for autocracy and graft.   Now, with Muhyiddin as prime minister and a cabinet full of UMNO ministers, Malaysia seems poised at a crossroads. For more on the path of Malaysia’s democratic experiment, see my new World Politics Review article. 

Brian Braun is resident program officer in Malaysia for the International Republican Institute. Follow him at @BR_Braun. Malaysia made history on July 16 when, in the country’s first unanimous parliamentary vote, it adopted a constitutional amendment lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years of age. The amendment, also known as Undi18 (“Vote 18”), is a laudable achievement for both youth inclusion and democratic reform. In approving the measure, not only did Malaysia’s government fulfill one of the promises it made before the May 2018 general elections, it also could add an estimated 3.8 million young Malaysians to the voter rolls, making them an increasingly important part the electoral map. The ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition credits its victory in the 2018 elections in part to youth who overwhelmingly supported its insurgent campaign against the then-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. In the 2018 election, Malaysian voters aged 21-39 constituted the country’s largest voting bloc—totaling 41 percent of registered voters, while 21-to-30-year-olds alone made up a fifth of registered voters. This is an important statistic for politicians to remember when automatic voter registration is implemented ahead of the next general elections in 2023 and the number of young registered voters likely will increase. While the constitutional amendment was a success for the governing coalition, it is a reminder to all political parties of the necessity to address issues important to young voters. According to a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI), economic growth is the most important issue for Malaysians between the ages 18 and 35. Forty-nine percent of Malaysians in that age group think the economy should be the top priority for the national government, while majorities believe the government is doing a “bad” or “very bad” job reducing unemployment (54 percent) and addressing the cost of living (50 percent), respectively. To make meaningful progress on young Malaysians’ top priorities, political leaders will need to identify ways to provide more employment opportunities for youth and to slow the rising cost of living, which disproportionately affects the young. Since 2011, the unemployment rate for Malaysians between 15 and 24 has been rising. In 2018, the national unemployment rate stood at only 3.3 percent, but the unemployment rate for youth between the ages of 15 and 24 was 10.9 percent, making jobless 15-24-year-olds nearly 60 percent of Malaysia’s total population of unemployed. At the same time, surveys about wages and standards of living show that unmarried diploma and degree-holders earn less in entry level wages than what is necessary to live in peninsular Malaysia, which is where the majority of jobs are being created. In addition, the starting pay for graduates with a basic degree has remained virtually stagnant since 2010.  One reason for this stagnation in starting pay for new graduates is that the Malaysian economy is not producing enough high-skilled and high-paying jobs. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of diploma and degree holders in Malaysia’s workforce increased by an average of 173,457 annually, outnumbering the 98,514 high-skilled jobs created over the same period. Indeed, a 2016 report by the Penang Institute shows, an increasing share of Malaysian graduates are working in mid- or low-skill occupations that do not require the degrees they obtained at university. Malaysia’s top job-creating industries between 2011 and 2015—retail, agriculture, accommodation and food, education—employ mid-to-low-skilled workers. However, many Malaysians graduating from university do not have the skills to take these higher-value jobs, and political leaders need to take measures to ensure that universities are setting students up for success as competitive job candidates. According to a 2014 survey by the World Bank and Talent Corporation, Malaysia’s graduates are entering the job market without the skills employers are seeking. Of the businesses surveyed, 80 percent think Malaysian universities need to revise university curricula “to reflect the current realities of the labor market,” including strengthening students’ critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills. Political parties should not wait until the next general elections in 2023 to address these challenges. In Sarawak, where the PH coalition specifically called out low wages as “unjust” and promised in its election manifesto to create more employment opportunities, will hold state legislative assembly elections as early as mid-2020. Hoping to make gains in a state long dominated by local parties that once were aligned with Barisan Nasional, the elections may be a key test of PH support among youth. Although it is still uncertain whether the voting age amendment will be implemented in time for 18-to-21-year-olds in Sarawak to vote in state elections, Malaysian youth are undoubtedly a crucial constituency. Asked in the same IRI survey how likely they are to vote in the next general election, 84 percent of Malaysian youth indicated they are likely to vote, a staggering percentage within the electorate’s largest voting bloc. The question for Malaysia’s politicians is who will get their vote.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering May 9 to May 16, was compiled by Rebecca Hughes and Rebecca Turkington.

In addition to regression on the issue of press freedom, Southeast Asia witnessed backsliding on rights and freedoms in many other areas in 2018, with Malaysia as a notable exception to this trend. Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, and even Indonesia exemplified a continued democratic regression. Cambodia became a clearly one-party state after a sham election in July, although at the end of the year Hun Sen and the CPP, under pressure from foreign governments, slightly relaxed their pressure on the opposition and civil society. However, this relaxation was probably just a means of convincing major foreign donors not to impose tougher sanctions against Cambodia, and not really a shift in how Hun Sen treats the opposition or civil society. Meanwhile, the Thai junta did everything it could to prevent real political opposition from coalescing. It banned political parties from organizing for most of the time before the February 2019 elections, putting most parties at a disadvantage before the election. The ban was only lifted in December. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte cracked down hard on press freedoms, as I noted in a previous blog, including trying to shut down the Rappler, one of the country’s best-known independent outlets. But he also appears to be trying to intimidate other journalism outlets, and has floated plans of launching more extrajudicial killing squads, in addition to those already tasked with wiping out drug suspects – these new squads would purportedly attack anyone linked to a communist insurgent group. Duterte also continued to weaken the independence of the judiciary and the power of the political opposition. In Laos, where the country’s new leadership has promised to take tough measures to root out graft, there are signs of progress on fighting corruption, including the firing of two provincial governors alleged to have been involved in corruption. But overall, the anti-corruption campaign has made modest inroads at best, and promises by the new leadership to bolster transparency and accountability have had no real effect on what remains a highly authoritarian and opaque government. And in Myanmar, the National League for Democracy/Aung San Suu Kyi government has proven a massive disappointment, overseeing stalled democratic reforms, regression on press freedoms, and a scorched earth policy toward the Rohingya in western Myanmar. However, 2019 might not be so grim for rights and freedoms in Southeast Asia. Although Thailand’s junta has tried to stage-manage elections called for February to ensure that the outcome is favorable to the military – and possibly even one resulting in a former general as prime minister – it cannot completely control the actual election. There is considerable reason to believe that, although the election will not be totally fair – the military is trying to slant the playing field against the long-ruling Puea Thai party – the actual Election Day will be free, marking some progress after nearly five years of military rule. In addition, an election brings some degree of uncertainty, and there is a chance that the vote will result in a parliament that has real authority and popular legitimacy and puts the country back on the path to democratic rule. There are other potentially hopeful signs in 2019 for rights and freedoms in the region. An election in Indonesia could showcase continued democratic consolidation there, even despite Jokowi’s increasingly authoritarian actions in the past year, and his selection of a cleric as running mate who has, in the past, made harsh statements about a range of minority groups in Indonesia. Malaysia’s government, which has made a strong start on democratic reforms, needs to move quickly to reform the country’s institutions, and set the stage, via legislation, for making lasting inroads against graft. In 2019, the Malaysian government has a chance to push through serious reforms designed to battle corruption, improve government transparency, and protect civil society, showcasing real democratic progress.

Beginning tomorrow, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Asia for a trip to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, three important U.S. partners in Southeast Asia. In addition to bilateral meetings in these states, he will attend the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Singapore this coming weekend. Two of the countries he is visiting are going through dramatic political upheaval; Malaysia’s former governing coalition lost power in May for the first time in history, and in Indonesia politicians are gearing up for next year’s national elections, which could give President Joko Widodo a second term, or possibly lead to a government run by an alignment of populist, military, and Islamist forces. In addition, Southeast Asian states have generally been skeptical of several strands of the Trump administration’s regional policy. Even Singapore, a close U.S. partner, has worried that the White House’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” concept, which Pompeo will discuss in detail on the trip, is too binary an idea. Several have worried that the Trump administration could force countries in the region to choose openly between Washington and Beijing, a move that they say would backfire. (Pompeo spoke in detail about the Free and Open Indo-Pacific idea at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on July 30.) Meanwhile, countries in Southeast Asia are worried about escalating U.S.-China trade disputes, and about the White House’s tough trade policies rebounding against them, too, as the administration harangues Southeast Asian states with trade deficits with the United States. The secretary of state surely will spend considerable time, at the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting this weekend, discussing North Korea, and U.S.-North Korea relations, and possibly about other White House priorities like U.S. relations with Iran. (North Korea’s foreign minister will attend the ASEAN meeting.) Regarding U.S.-Southeast Asia relations, however, several aspects of the trip will be important to watch for. (For an excellent overview of the Trump administration’s response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which Pompeo rolled out before the trip, see Alyssa Ayres’s piece on CNN.com.) How Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad responds. Mahathir, who led the surprising May victory over Malaysia’s former ruling coalition, has announced that Kuala Lumpur intends to scrutinize Chinese state-backed projects in Malaysia, and has expressed skepticism about Beijing’s landmark Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure project. (The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Malaysian government is investigating whether funds from BRI were involved in paying off debts in the massive 1MDB scandal.) He also has announced that Malaysia, which had been relatively quiet on South China Sea issues under former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak, will take a more assertive posture to protect freedom of navigation and its interests in the South China Sea. But Mahathir also historically has had frosty relations with senior U.S. leaders, and at times has been vocally anti-American. Will he be willing to push Malaysia toward closer strategic ties with the United States, and will he really embrace the White House’s nascent Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept? China, after all, remains Malaysia’s most important economic partner. Whether any Southeast Asian states publicly endorse the Free and Open Indo-Pacific idea. Not only Singapore but also other Southeast Asian states generally do not want to be pushed into choosing between Washington and Beijing, but many countries in the region also privately share the White House’s concerns about China’s dramatic militarization of the South China Sea, and also about unfair Chinese trade practices. Vietnam, among Southeast Asian states, has taken the most assertive approach to Beijing’s South China Sea claims, and Vietnamese leaders have recently echoed the White House’s framing of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept, as Derek Grossman of the RAND Corporation has noted. Will Vietnamese leaders support the Free and Open Indo-Pacific idea, solidifying Vietnam’s closer embrace of the United States, as part of Hanoi’s multi-faceted strategy of deterrence in the South China Sea? How will Pompeo address issues of rights and democracy? In Malaysia, Mahathir has made restoring the rule of law, cleaning up corruption, and (at least somewhat) curtailing the repression of previous Malaysian administrations, a priority of his. In addition, Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir’s probable successor, is a longtime democracy activist, and senior leaders of the Malaysian ruling coalition also are prominent rights and democracy activists. Will Pompeo use the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept to focus on rights and democracy regionally, or is a real focus on rights and democracy impossible given the White House’s own focus on sovereignty and general de-emphasis of rights issues in U.S. policy? Similarly, in Indonesia, Pompeo will have an opportunity to address not only the regional democracy regression but also growing challenges to democracy within Indonesia, including from Islamist groups that have become increasingly active in local and national politics.

Earlier this month, the Malaysian government arrested former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak on charges of corruption and criminal breaches of trust, in allegations related to the 1MDB state fund scandal. The charges were brought swiftly; the new Malaysian government has been in office less than two months, after winning elections in May that turned in part on voter anger at the perceived high levels of graft in Najib’s administration.  Najib’s arrest, after years of rumors surrounding the 1MDB fund, and investigations into it by authorities in the United States and other countries, is certainly a major signal that the new, Pakatan Harapan government, intends to take steps to improve the rule of law, which had been deteriorating badly in Malaysia However, simply pursuing charges against Najib, though an important signal of change, will not be enough to rebuild the rule of law in Malaysia. For more on how the Malaysian government can rebuild the country’s institutions, see my new piece in Pinter Politik.

In early May, Malaysia was stunned by the victory, in national elections, of the opposition coalition, led by Mahathir Mohamad and essentially (from jail), longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. Although some journalists had, in the run-up to the election, noted that the opposition’s support appeared to be cresting, in the wake of years of massive corruption allegations against former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak and his allies, the win still came largely as a shock. Najib had governed increasingly autocratically, including by detaining many prominent opponents, and his coalition—which had ruled Malaysia since independence—also benefitted from control of state media, massive gerrymandering, and the ability to hand out large amounts of cash in the run-up to election day, a strategy it had used repeatedly in the past to ensure victory. Yet despite these obstacles, the Malaysia opposition won—and Najib and his coalition (eventually) conceded, marking the country’s first democratic transfer of power. Yet democrats throughout the rest of Southeast Asia, where many elections are due this year and next, should not take too much heart from Malaysia’s example. For more on why they should not, see my new piece in the Globalist.

In my previous post, I discussed how, after a surprising victory in May elections, and jubilation among supporters of the former opposition coalition that they had finally broken through, ending the ruling coalition’s domination of Malaysian politics, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and other leaders of the governing alliance are now facing tough realities on many fronts. For one, they remain unsure of how much state money was allegedly stolen or lost by the previous government, and how much worse Malaysia’s national debt is than previous imagined—an issue of great significance to investors and ratings agencies. The new ruling coalition may well find it difficult to reconcile key planks of different parties within the governing alliance, especially on issues related to longstanding affirmative action programs for ethnic Malays—but also on other issues. Regarding the longstanding affirmative action programs for ethnic Malays, it seems almost impossible to imagine how Mahathir, supported by ethnic Malays, could take steps to reform the programs, even though other parties in his coalition would like to do so. Yet the programs have, in many ways, outlived whatever utility they had for the Malaysian economy and society. The new government also is struggling, to some extent, to balance demands from the various members of its somewhat unwieldy coalition for key cabinet positions—and, generally, for influence in the government’s decision-making processes. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad recently announced that his cabinet will have twenty-nine ministers, a larger number than he originally envisioned, probably in order to keep the peace within the ruling coalition. And, looming over the coalition government’s long-term viability is the question of whether Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim can get along, and how long Mahathir plans to stay on as prime minister—staying too long could well lead to Anwar’s supporters eventually trying to push Mahathir to the exits. But the new government also confronts major challenges in foreign strategic and economic relations. During the election campaign, Mahathir had questioned a wide range of investments in Malaysia backed by the Chinese government, Chinese lenders, and Chinese state firms. In recent weeks, he has taken steps to try to bolster Malaysia’s economic ties with Japan, which Mahathir apparently sees as a key counterweight to China’s growing economic dominance in Malaysia. Mahathir went to Japan for his first overseas visit after becoming prime minister, and in Japan he called for several steps to reinvigorate the bilateral economic relationship. As the Diplomat noted, Mahathir “signaled his determination to reduce Malaysia’s indebtedness to China. He requested yen-denominated soft loans in a bid to reduce debt servicing costs, made a pitch to Japanese investors, and pledged to strengthen Malaysia’s overall relationship with Japan.” Japanese officials, who see Tokyo in an almost existential struggle with China for strategic and economic influence in Southeast Asia, may indeed be receptive to Mahathir’s strategies. (Even as China has, in recent years, become Malaysia’s biggest trading partner, Japan remained one of the most important investors in Malaysia, and the biggest source of inbound foreign investment in Malaysia last year.) Reuters has reported that Japanese firms may be interested in taking stakes in some Malaysian state-linked companies, and increasing investments in a wide range of sectors in Malaysia. And yet Malaysian leaders must walk a very tight balance beam. Mahathir indeed seems serious about avoiding working on megaprojects with Beijing that could result in high debt burdens, and in readjusting Malaysia’s external relations, to create a more even balance between Japan and China. But Beijing is a dominant force in trade with Malaysia, and has extensive diplomatic tools to deploy as well. China will respond forcefully if it believes Mahathir intends to seriously diminish Beijing’s influence in Malaysia.

Following the surprise victory by Malaysia’s (former) opposition coalition in national elections in May, a spirit of jubilation erupted in much of the country, at least in regions not won by UMNO, the former key party in the ruling coalition. The once-docile state press, which had basically avoided coverage of the allegedly enormous 1MDB state fund scandal, began to report on investigations into 1MDB, allegations against former Prime Minister Najib tun Razak, and next steps in possible government actions against Najib. Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir, as well as the new finance minister, Lim Guan Eng, moved quickly to try to get to the bottom of how much money had allegedly been taken from the state, both in the 1MDB scandal and also in numerous other projects. The prime minister told virtually any media outlet that would listen that his administration would be committed to reform—reform in government to reduce graft, reform in politics to restore the rule of law (possibly by creating new limits on the length of time ministers could serve), and reforms in the investment environment that would make Malaysia more attractive to foreign investors. Former Prime Minister Najib and his wife reportedly are being held in Malaysia, possibly so that they can be charged in a criminal inquiry. Former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, meanwhile, is out of jail and appears ready to reassert a major role in politics, perhaps in preparation for assuming the job as prime minister two or three years from now. Although Mahathir was hardly known for his kind treatment of free expression during his previous stint as prime minister, prominent critics of the former government, like famous cartoonist Zunar, seem to have had some restrictions on them lifted. But after the initial euphoria, Mahathir and his government now confront major challenges on nearly all fronts. For one, as the finance minister and other officials have repeatedly admitted, the new government was shocked by how little information they got in the transition period—papers were shredded at the finance ministry and computers locked—and the Mahathir government is still struggling to completely ascertain how much money was stolen in the previous era, and how much greater Malaysia’s debts are than was previously assumed. Mahathir’s government has even turned to crowdfunding to pay some government debts, a strategy unlikely to make a major dent in the debt burden. In addition, Mahathir continues to struggle to put together his cabinet, which needs to draw upon the diverse political parties in the somewhat-unwieldy coalition that won the May elections. Mahathir has called for a much smaller cabinet than Najib had—perhaps to reduce government excess and perhaps to give Mahathir more control—but horse trading over many cabinet posts has gone on for weeks, and threatens to continue on for weeks more. The prime minister already has given some top posts to key allies—people who did not come from Anwar’s party, which is the biggest part of the coalition—and the tussle over cabinet posts could signal that the government will struggle, in the long run, to reconcile the fact that Mahathir is the prime minister but that he has to rely on Anwar’s party for his support. Despite the promises of reform, too, some members of Malaysian civil society are not totally willing to believe that Mahathir, once a longtime autocrat, is willing to really alter the deep-rooted nature of the Malaysian state, including laws and practices that suppress free speech. As the New York Times noted in a recent piece on Mahathir’s approach to speech and expression, although some writers and cartoonists like Zunar seem to have had restrictions lifted, Mahathir has yet to jettison laws on sedition dating back to the colonial era, and laws restricting online speech, although he has promised to abolish an anti–fake news law passed in the waning days of the Najib government. Mahathir also faces major challenges on two other fronts, which will be examined in the subsequent post: How to rebalance Malaysia’s external economic relations, which he has promised to do, and how to reconcile the desire, among major parts of his coalition, to reform the country’s affirmative action laws benefitting ethnic Malays, with Mahathir’s own Malay base.

Since China’s Belt and Road Initiative was formally launched in 2013, Southeast Asia has been one of the major priorities of the infrastructure investment project. Beijing launched a new high-speed railway from Kunming to Laos (a line that is supposed to eventually stretch through Southeast Asia), a high-speed rail link connecting Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and multiple other projects throughout the region. The giant infrastructure project still has many fans in Southeast Asian governments, and in Southeast Asian private companies. Laos’ government is pushing forward with the $5.8 billion railway, which it has touted as critical to transforming Laos into a transport hub for the region, to spark growth in parts of the landlocked state, and also to boost tourism in the country. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, at the recent Future of Asia conference held in Tokyo, Laotian Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith touted the rail as a project “of great importance” to the country’s development, downplaying concerns raised by some financial institutions of the railway’s potential debt burden; Laos could wind up assuming most of the cost of the $5.8 billion project, and piling up unsustainable amounts of debt. Meanwhile, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, among other Southeast Asian leaders, has continued assiduously wooing Belt and Road projects and other infrastructure investments from Beijing. Indonesian president Joko Widodo, too, apparently continues to see Chinese infrastructure investment and financing as critical to his plans to upgrade Indonesia’s aging physical infrastructure. But in recent months, leaders and publics in some Southeast Asian states have become worried about the potential downsides of Belt and Road investments. Leaders in Southeast Asia are surely aware of the situation last year in Sri Lanka, in which the country, increasingly dependent on Chinese financing, wound up giving China a 99-year lease on the important port of Hambantota, in order to get a reduction in Sri Lanka’s debts. As the Nikkei noted, even International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde warned, in April, that some Belt and Road projects—mostly delivered through loans and not grants—could wind up saddling recipient developing countries with debt traps, unable to repay Chinese state firms and lenders back in the long run. Such concerns in Southeast Asia about Belt and Road remained relatively muted until recently; many countries do indeed need infrastructure investment, did not want to alienate their biggest trading partner, and were waiting to see how Belt and Road’s specific initiatives developed. But now, several of the largest Southeast Asian states—countries with close trade ties with Beijing—are voicing concerns. Before the Malaysian opposition’s surprise victory in May elections, now-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad vowed to take a new look at many China-backed projects in Malaysia, including the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore rail line, to scrutinize how much they benefit Malaysia, how essential they are, and whether they involve wasteful spending. Although Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim, who may be the next prime minister after Mahathir, have promised to maintain a strong relationship with China—Malaysia is China’s biggest trading partner in Southeast Asia—they are still expected to review multiple deals with Beijing. In Thailand too, a country that has become much closer to China economically and strategically over the past decade, some government leaders appear to be reassessing the value of Belt and Road projects. Thailand had promised to link up its eastern seaboard development project with Belt and Road initiatives, and also had welcomed the high speed line. But other countries’ Belt and Road debt problems, and the potential high cost and high debt associated with the rail line, could have soured the junta government on these Chinese initiatives. Construction has finally started on the rail line through Thailand, but this month the Thai government announced that it was, with other Southeast Asian states, considering launching a regional investment fund. The fund may be similar in some ways to Belt and Road (albeit on a much smaller scale)—a possible sign that Thailand wants to promote modest Belt and Road alternatives. The region’s smallest states, like Laos, have become so heavily dependent on China that they may feel they have no choice but to accept Belt and Road projects and other China-backed initiatives, even if they come with debt worries. But larger, more powerful economies may, at this point, be ending their honeymoon with Belt and Road.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering June 2 to June 8, was compiled with support from Lucia Petty and Rebecca Turkington.