Malaysia

Last week, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to jail for the second time in his life on charges of sodomy. Anwar’s jail term was set by Malaysia’s highest court at five years, and the opposition leader likely will never be able to hold a position in Malaysian politics or government again. Amidst outcry by the opposition, as well as international rights groups, about the Anwar trial and decision—Human Rights Watch called the verdict “politically motivated proceedings under an abusive and archaic law”—some in the three-party opposition alliance also worry that the coalition will face challenges holding together with the charismatic Anwar gone. Of the three parties comprising the opposition alliance, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) appeals primarily to liberal, urban ethnic Chinese, the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) appeals mostly to religious Malay Muslims, and Anwar’s Keadilin, or People’s Justice Party, appeals mostly to middle and upper-income, urban Malays. On the face of it, the three have little in common other than a shared desire to get rid of the long-ruling governing coalition. PAS and the Democratic Action Party have vastly divergent views of the role of religious authorities—principally, Muslim religious authorities—in a secular state, while the parties in the coalition also have somewhat differing views on the role of the state in economic policymaking and other key policy issues. For years, Anwar’s leadership skills, public persona, and relationships with the leaders of the three parties in his coalition helped the opposition stick together, well enough, to present united policy platforms and united fronts in national elections. This unity did not mean that, if the opposition had ever won control of Parliament, they would have been able to survive without massive in-fighting. But a coalition put together just to win power that cracks upon getting power is hardly unusual. Anwar’s coalition never even got the chance. It won the most votes in the 2013 national election, but never won a majority of seats in Parliament. Now, many opposition supporters are publicly worrying about internal bickering undermining the coalition in the post-Anwar era. The coalition lacks another figure with Anwar’s status and ability to bridge the chasms between the parties on many issues. Anwar’s wife, who has served as a kind of stand-in for him at times when he has been jailed, is almost surely unacceptable to the conservative PAS leaders as a potential head of the coalition. The likely next head of the coalition, the leader of Selangor state, Azmin Ali, is a skilled politician and former Anwar aide accepted by all three parties. But Azmin Ali does not have Anwar’s years of experience, towering personality, and international contacts. Still, one analyst of Malaysia’s politics, Mohamed Nawab of the Malaysia Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), believes Anwar’s jailing might not be so detrimental to the opposition. He argues that some of the leaders of the DAP and PAS had tired of Anwar’s leadership style, that Anwar’s jailing will unite the opposition in a show of solidarity, and that younger coalition leaders will now be able to emerge and build greater grassroots support for the opposition. I think there is some truth to this argument, but is an overstatement. With Anwar gone, the opposition may be forced to bolster its ground game before the next election, boosting grassroots politicking, gaining new members, and showcasing potential young, rising politicians that could run for MP or for state office in the future. Anwar was always more focused on high-level politics, and international affairs, than on the grassroots. A new coalition leader may place emphasis on rebuilding and expanding the coalition’s support across Malaysia, and especially in East Malaysia. This rejuvenation at the grassroots level could pay off in the next national election, if the opposition is able to better match the ruling coalition’s get-out-the-vote efforts, to field better candidates across the board (and especially in East Malaysia), and to fight back more effectively against the state media. However, to get to this next election, and make use of a grassroots rebuilding effort, the coalition has to survive until then. Will it? Anwar would have held it together by the force of his personality. Another leader might not be able to.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, Ariella Rotenberg, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. After nearly a year of president’s rule, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sweeps to power in Delhi state elections. The AAP won sixty-seven out of the seventy legislative seats in the Delhi assembly, a stunning victory that surprised many. The party was founded by Arvind Kejriwal in 2012 and grew out of a protest movement against corruption; it made its debut in the December 2013 Delhi elections when it joined with the Congress party to form the Delhi government—with Kejriwal serving as chief minister. Kejriwal resigned after only forty-nine days due to a lack of support for an anti-corruption bill, even after staging sit-ins and protests in Delhi. He will be sworn in as chief minister of Delhi for the second time on Saturday, ending almost a year of president’s rule. With AAP’s historic win, many are left wondering what this means for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which holds the majority in India’s national parliament but only won three seats in the Delhi elections. 2. Malaysian court rejects opposition leader’s appeal. Anwar Ibrahim, the charismatic leader of Malaysia’s opposition, will serve a five-year prison sentence for sodomy after his final appeal to the Federal Court was rejected. He was acquitted in January 2012, but the acquittal was overturned in March 2014 after a government appeal. This will be Anwar’s second stint in jail for a sodomy conviction (the first conviction, in 2000, was overturned in 2004). Anwar, at age sixty-seven, will be stripped of his parliamentary seat and banned from running for office for five years after his release, effectively ending his political career. Many analysts see the conviction as politically motivated, as Anwar was the linchpin of an ideologically varied opposition that won the popular vote in 2013 general elections (but failed to gain a majority in parliament). 3. United States files World Trade Organization (WTO) case against China. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced that the Obama administration was filing a broad case at the WTO, accusing China of providing illegal export subsidies for seven industries ranging from textiles to seafood. The request for formal talks at the WTO focuses on a Chinese program that allows local officials to subsidize smaller exporters through “common service platforms” at nearly 200 “demonstration bases,” or special government-supported industrial clusters. While difficult to quantify the amount of subsidies involved, the WTO case alleges China provided around one billion dollars over three years to suppliers offering discounted or free services to Chinese companies through the common service platforms, thereby undermining fair competition. The Chinese Commerce Ministry has “expressed regret” over the Obama administration’s decision to elevate the case to the WTO, defending its policies as “part of the transformation and upgrade of [Chinese] foreign trade.” 4. Tony Abbott survives recall vote. Lawmakers in Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party voted against a “spill motion," effectively a no-confidence vote, to oust the prime minister and the foreign minister. Abbott said that the “matter is behind us,” and vowed to focus on job, families, and the economy. The vote was initiated because of growing dissatisfaction with the prime minister; the governing party had trouble getting any major initiatives from last year’s budget passed through the senate, and Kate Carnell, the head of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that business confidence had fallen in the country. The opposition Labor Party had twice gotten rid of leaders when in power before losing an election in September 2013, a fate that Abbott has said he wants to avoid. 5. Chinese billionaire given death penalty. Chinese mining tycoon Liu Han was executed this week on orders from the High People’s Court in the central province of Hubei. Liu had been sentenced to death last May for charges of organized crime, gang activity, and murder, “the largest prosecution of a criminal gang by mainland authorities in recent memory.” As chairman of the Hanlong Group, a congolomerate of real estate, mining, and energy businesses, Liu had assets close to $6.4 billion at the time of his arrest. Investigators have linked Liu to the son of Zhou Yongkang, China’s former security chief, whose arrest was one of the highest profile since President Xi Jinping began his effort to root out graft and corruption at all levels of government. BONUS: Japan opens robot-run hotel. The Henn-na Hotel, set open this July in Nagasaki, will be staffed by ten humanoid robots that speak Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English, and will serve as receptionists, porters, and housekeepers. The seventy-two-room hotel will also feature face recognition technology on doors rather than room keys. The hotel will employ some human staff, but the owning company Huis Ten Bosch’s president aims to have 90 percent of hotel services operated by robots in the future.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, Ariella Rotenberg, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Forty-four commandos killed in the Philippines. On January 25, forty-four commandos in the Philippine Special Action Force (SAF) were slain in a firefight with two Muslim rebel groups in the southern province of Maguindanao. The area in which the raid took place is currently held by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who signed a peace deal with the government last year to end years of fighting; MILF was apparently uninformed of the planned raid. The team of 392 had been deployed to capture two high-value terror suspects: suspected bombmaker Abdul Basit Usman and Malaysian Zulkifli Bin Hir, also known as Marwan. President Benigno Aquino held a ceremony to honor those killed and urged the nation to support the ongoing peace process. 2. China clamps down further on the Internet. China’s Internet filter, called the Great Firewall, has made it more difficult for users using virtual private networks (VPNs), which help circumvent blocked websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and the New York Times, and are heavily relied upon by expats and businesspeople in China. Blocking VPNs has also hurt Chinese businesses, engineers, and academics trying to access information from abroad. At the same time, many Chinese technology companies have been able to flourish because of the lack of foreign competition, an essential part of China’s new search for “cyber sovereignty.” 3. After Obama’s visit, Indian ambassador to the United States appointed foreign secretary. In the immediate wake of President Barack Obama’s lauded trip to India, the Indian government appointed a new foreign secretary, Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar—the Indian ambassador to the United States until this Wednesday. He replaced Sujatha Singh, an appointee of the previous Indian government whose tenure was “curtailed” with immediate effect. Jaishankar is regarded as a highly competent diplomat with a breadth of experience. His management of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States in September impressed the Indian government, and many are claiming the U.S.-India relationship has reached a turning point after Obama’s visit for Republic Day celebrations earlier this week. 4. Alibaba investigated for fake goods in state regulatory white paper. China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) released a white paper of an investigation into the online sale of counterfeit goods by e-commerce sites owned by Alibaba. The paper alleged that Alibaba allowed fake alcohol, cigarettes, and luxury goods to be sold by vendors, and that staff took bribes from merchants to boost their search rankings. Alibaba called the report an “inaccurate and unfair attack,” and accused a top SAIC official of “procedural misconduct” and “irrational enforcement of the law.” On Friday, however, Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma met with the head of SAIC, agreeing to fight counterfeit goods together. The report resulted in a 4.4 percent drop in New York-traded shares on Wednesday, and another 8.8 percent on Thursday after disappointing revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2014. Alibaba raised $25 billion from investors last year in the world’s largest-ever initial public offering. 5. Malaysia declares MH370 an accident; new information on AirAsia crash emerges. The Malaysian government has officially declared the disappearance of MH370 an accident with all 239 onboard presumed dead after the Beijing-bound plane disappeared on March 8, 2014. While the declaration cleared the way for Malaysia Airlines to pay compensation to families, officials have made clear that the systematic search of the Indian Ocean will continue. New developments in the investigation of the AirAsia Flight 8501 crash suggest that the pilots cut power to a critical computer system normally used to prevent planes from going out of control. The co-pilot was in charge of the aircraft as it climbed abruptly, losing lift, and ultimately plunging into the Java Sea. BONUS: A historic McDonald’s in Hangzhou? McDonald’s has applied to lease the home of former Taiwanese leader Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek, on the historic West Lake in Hangzhou. The outcry from the public has been swift, with one Weibo user asking, "Can we turn Mao’s old house into a KFC?"

A version of this post also appeared at The National, and can be found here. From the air, the Spratly Islands, a cluster of miniature rocks and sandbars 160,000 miles square in the middle of the South China Sea, are almost imperceptible. Even up close, the Spratlys do not look like much – a few islands have tiny rocky beaches or occasional makeshift buildings. A tiny contingent of Filipino Marines camp on a rusty hulk of an American World War II-era ship grounded in the Spratlys. It is hard to believe these outcroppings could be at the center of an international dispute, let alone one that could lead to a future Asian war. But the Spratlys are claimed not only by China, which argues that most of the South China Sea is Beijing’s exclusive economic zone. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei angrily retort that parts of the South China Sea belong to them, including areas that Beijing insists is China’s alone. The Southeast Asian countries and China have been unable to resolve their overlapping claims to the sea, believed to be rich in oil and strategically vital – over five trillion dollars in trade passes through annually.  The Philippines and Vietnam have asked an international tribunal to rule on what areas of the South China Sea are within Beijing’s exclusive economic zones. But any decision will be meaningless; China argues that the tribunal has no power. The Philippines, Vietnam, and every other nation in Asia are preparing to combat China in other, far less legalistic and peaceful ways. In the past three years, under China’s new leadership, Beijing has for the first time since Mao stated its desire to be the dominant nation in Asia. China is asserting its long-dormant claims to unsettled land borders and large portions of Asia’s waters, including the South China Sea and the East China Sea in Northeast Asia, and demanding that it, not America or Japan, lead regional organizations. And with the United States desperately trying to maintain its influence in Asia, countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and many others that relied on U.S. protection are scrambling to build up their own armies and navies. For more on Southeast Asia’s arms race and its implications, see my new piece in The National.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, Ariella Rotenberg, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. New  Year’s Eve stampede in Shanghai. A deadly stampede broke out among the hundreds of thousands of people gathered along Shanghai’s Huangpu River waterfront on New Year’s Eve, resulting in thirty-six deaths and forty-nine hospitalizations. This past Wednesday, grieving loved ones gathered in memorial of those lost. Ahead of the festivities, the government feared overcrowding and went so far as to cancel a planned light show along the Bund; predicting smaller crowds than in previous years, five thousand fewer officers were posted during the celebration, and those on duty were unable to control the crowds. Beijing’s censors and police have been hard at work in the days following the stampede to restrict interviews with relatives of the victims and independent reporting of the incident. Some experts, including CFR Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy, have argued that Chinese President Xi Jinping has squandered an important opportunity to demonstrate leadership through compassion and understanding for his people during this time of mourning. 2. Sri Lankan president concedes defeat in electoral upset. In the first presidential election since the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa conceded defeat to former ally and government minister, Maithripala Sirisena. Winning 51 percent of the vote, President Sirisena was sworn in on Friday in the wake of a contentious election. President Sirisena has promised to reform the island’s corruption-laced government and establish “equal relations” with India, China, Pakistan, and Japan. Though the United States welcomed the new president and peaceful elections, some experts speculate that Sri Lanka may begin to distance itself from China under the new administration. 3. AirAsia Flight 8501 from Indonesia to Singapore crashes. An Indonesian affiliate of the Malaysia-based airline AirAsia crashed in the Java Sea with no survivors en route from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore on December 28. The crash was the third fatal airline accident involving a Malaysian airline in 2014. Thus far, rescuers have recovered 48 bodies out of 162 passengers and crew, and search and rescue teams detected pings believed to be from the plane’s black box recorder on Friday. The plane was found to have taken off without proper permits, and as a result, Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry levied sanctions against five airlines that have flown routes without authorization. It will also conduct investigations in five of the country’s largest airports. As CFR Senior Fellow Joshua Kurlantzick notes, Indonesia is known to have a poor flight safety record, especially when compared to other middle-income countries. 4. Violence in Bangladesh on the anniversary of January 2014 elections. On Monday, the one-year anniversary of the 2014 national elections in Bangladesh, four people were killed in political protests by the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP). In last year’s elections, which was boycotted by the BNP, over half the seats were uncontested, helping the Awami League to win more than a two-thirds majority. Opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia, who has been confined to her office by security forces this week, called on her supporters to enforce a “nonstop blockade” after the government banned demonstrations. In another incident on Wednesday, police shot dead two protesters and rounded up hundreds more; a third person was killed by anti-government protesters in a separate incident as well. 5. The United States steps up sanctions on North Korea; South Korean nuclear plants hacked. Citing a U.S. FBI report that concluded North Korea was behind the damaging cyberattack on Sony Pictures last month, the White House issued an executive order on January 2 for sanctions that target North Korean leaders. The sanctions apply directly to three North Korean state-owned businesses and ten high-level individuals associated with the regime. The executive order expands U.S. sanctions on North Korea for its “provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies.” North Korea has denied it was involved in the attacks. The Korean Peninsula has been the focus of not just one but two cyberattack events, as a South Korean civil nuclear energy company was hacked in December, accompanied with the release of personal information of the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company’s ten thousand employees. South Korean authorities have traced the attack to internet protocol (IP) addresses based in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang (which is also where the Sony attack is purported to have originated). Bonus: “Nuts” Korean heiress indicted for endangering a flight. Cho Hyun-ah, former vice president at Korea Air and daughter of its chairman, is being indicted for violating aviation safety after going nuts on an airplane for being served macadamia nuts in the incorrect fashion. She stalled a flight bound for Seoul from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport because a flight attendant gave her nuts in a bag instead of on a plate, and ordered the plane to return to the gate. She was indicted on five counts of violating aviation safety laws and interfering with safe navigation.

In the past year, Malaysia’s aviation industry has suffered an unprecedented number of tragedies. Although the odds of any person boarding a flight dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 11 million, three Malaysia-based aircraft have apparently gone down, with no survivors. The latest, AirAsia Flight QZ8501, had been traveling from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore when it vanished over the Java Sea. To some extent, the three Malaysian air disasters are just brutal bad luck. Still, they point to several disturbing trends that raise the question of whether flying in peninsular Southeast Asia is completely safe. The air market in the region has embraced low-cost carriers, leading to a proliferation of flights throughout Southeast Asia, stretching air traffic controllers, and possibly allowing some airlines to expand too rapidly. Indonesian carriers, air traffic controllers, and Indonesian airspace in general have become notorious for weak safety regulations. AirAsia has responded to this crisis much more rapidly than state carrier Malaysian Airline did after the disappearance of Flight MH370 last March, but the opaque, authoritarian politics of Malaysia—which are common in Southeast Asia—will likely make the search and rescue operation, and any inquiry into why the flight crashed, more difficult than necessary. For more on my analysis of Southeast Asia’s aviation climate, go to: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-29/why-air-disasters-keep-happening-in-southeast-asia#r=most%20popular.

Following up from last week, I am now counting down my top five predictions for 2015. 5. Jokowi wins over majority of parliament Currently, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s coalition still lacks a majority in parliament, which is hindering Jokowi’s ability to pass legislation. But by the end of 2015, I think Jokowi’s party, PDI-P, will be at the head of a coalition that includes of majority of members of parliament. Jokowi has for weeks been wooing former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), whose Democrat Party lawmakers could, if they switched from the opposition to Jokowi’s coalition, give Jokowi a majority in parliament. Although Yudhoyono and PDI-P chief Megawati Sukarnoputri still reportedly detest each other, SBY and Jokowi have reportedly gotten along well at a series of private meetings since early December. In addition, SBY, who always saw himself as a major figure in Indonesian history, clearly is worried that people will remember only his behavior at the end of his second term, when he did nothing as the opposition in parliament passed legislation that would drastically reduce the number of direct elections for regional governors and other local offices. This is a strikingly anti-democratic piece of legislation, and one that, polls show, is not supported by most Indonesians. (SBY also probably still hopes to eventually find some sort of senior job at the United Nations or another global agency, for which his reputation matters as well.) Now, SBY may be trying to move the Democrat Party into Jokowi’s camp to show the public that Yudhoyono will fight to maintain direct elections, and to bask in some of the reflected Jokowi’s democratic glow. 4. The NLD dominates Myanmar elections In the run-up to next fall’s national elections in Myanmar, some analysts have begun suggesting that the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, might not win such an overwhelming victory as it did in 1990, or in by-elections held in 2012, when the NLD won nearly every seat contested. The military and its favored party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), have allegedly already begun handing out money, and surely will provide more handouts as Election Day gets closer. In addition, the USDP is the party of President Thein Sein, who helped launch Myanmar’s reform process; many foreign analysts, still besotted with Thein Sein despite Myanmar’s backsliding in 2013 and 2014, believe the linkage to Thein Sein will help win the USDP seats next year. In addition, the NLD remains a party too dominated by Suu Kyi and lacking an effective apparatus for research, for developing policy positions, and potentially for governing. It won’t matter. The NLD is going to sweep the polls in late 2015, though Suu Kyi will remain barred from the presidency by the Myanmar constitution, and the Myanmar military will continue to wield excessive power through its allocation of 25 percent of seats in parliament and through its enormous network of various security forces throughout the country. Then, the NLD will have to govern. The party’s policy weaknesses will be exposed, it will have to work with a president other than Suu Kyi – perhaps current parliament speaker Shwe Mann – and it will face the tough task of trying to slowly reduce the military’s influence over politics. But the NLD will win the election, and win big. 3. Hillary Clinton walks back her embrace of Burma policy As she lays plans in 2015 to run for president, Hillary Clinton will have to grapple with the legacy of U.S. rapprochement with Myanmar, which Clinton helped launch as secretary of state in Barack Obama’s first term. Up to now, Clinton has continued to point to this rapprochement as a highlight of her time as secretary, a foreign policy victory in which the United States helped spark reform in one of the most isolated nations in the world. Clinton made Myanmar a central success story in Hard Choices, her book on her time as secretary. Yet since 2013, Myanmar’s political reforms have stalled, and though the NLD will win the 2015 election, its victory will hardly guarantee a return to democracy. Instead, the country is likely to face chaos, as the NLD fights the military and its allies to retain control of the government, civil strife continues in several parts of the country, and violence against Muslims rises. A consummate strategist, Clinton will find some way in 2015 to write herself out of the troubled story of U.S.-Myanmar rapprochement. 2. Southeast Asia survives (and even thrives on) low oil prices Low oil prices already have wreaked havoc on Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, and other oil producers, particularly those whose state companies, like Gazprom or Petrobras, have issued large amounts of corporate debt. Cheap oil will hurt some Southeast Asian countries that are significant exporters, like Brunei, Malaysia, and, to some extent, Vietnam. Of all the large Southeast Asian economies, Malaysia, which has developed a range of sophisticated oil-related industries that together account for about 30 percent of GDP, will be hurt worst. Yet none of these countries’ state petroleum companies have issued as high the levels of debt as Gazprom or Petrobras. Despite Malaysia’s many economic challenges, its state oil company, Petronas, is well-managed, a far cry from Petrobras, which is now facing a massive corruption scandal. In addition, the drop in the price of oil will be a huge boon to Indonesia, significantly cushioning the impact of President Joko Widodo’s recent cut in fuel subsidies – and possibly allowing Indonesian consumers to spend more on other items, helping goose the economy. Cheaper oil also will be a boon to consuming nations like Thailand, the Philippines, and other oil consumers in the region. 1. Congress smacks down Barack Obama’s policies Granted, that could be a headline related to almost any foreign or domestic policy issue in 2015; you have an incoming Congress dominated by the GOP, with leaders angry that, after the November elections, President Obama issued several groundbreaking executive orders that will transform relations with Cuba, immigration, and climate change. But on Southeast Asia, Congress has always played a much larger role than it has played in many other areas of foreign policy. Congress has for two decades been central to policy-making on Myanmar, Vietnam, and other authoritarian states in mainland Southeast Asia, partly successive presidents mostly ignored these countries, partly because of the legacy of American wars in mainland Southeast Asia, and partly because of genuine concern in Congress that American presidents, of both parties, ignored human rights abuses throughout Southeast Asia. Seeing a void in policy-making, Congress imposed tough sanctions on Myanmar, injected human rights questions into U.S.-Vietnam rapprochement, restricted U.S. military sales to Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries in the region, and took other measures over the past two decades to make human rights a centerpiece of U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia. Combine Congress’s historical interest in Southeast Asia with anger at Obama and you have a recipe for a Congress active on Southeast Asia issues, and possibly hostile to the administration’s efforts to build relations with Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia, all of which are authoritarian states of one kind or another. New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell long has been a hawk on Myanmar, critical of the Myanmar military and skeptical of the chances of reform there. Though McConnell warily went along with the Obama administration’s plan for rapprochement with Myanmar, the slowdown in Myanmar’s reforms and a desire by the White House to continue moving forward with closer military to military ties with Myanmar are likely to lead to pushback from McConnell’s office, especially if the Myanmar constitution remains rigged so that Suu Kyi cannot become president. Other Republican senators also clearly see Myanmar as an issue on which they can stake their human rights bona fides, and question Obama’s commitment to rights as well.  As Roll Call noted earlier in the year: McConnell certainly isn’t alone in taking interest in the development of Myanmar’s political system. Fellow Republican Sens. Mark S. Kirk of Illinois and Marco Rubio of Florida fired off a joint letter to Kerry Thursday, asking him to address political issues while in the country. In addition to the specific problems with the constitution, Kirk and Rubio point to ongoing human rights abuses and what they term “the national phenomenon of anti-Muslim violence that is rooted in a narrative of Buddhist grievance. Expect similar congressional pushback on other human rights-related issues in Southeast Asia, including the administration’s rapprochement with Cambodia and Malaysia, the White House’s desire to move quickly toward significant arms sales to Vietnam, and many other issues.

Throughout much of the 1990s and early 2000s, Southeast Asia was one of the world’s bright spots for democracy. Even Myanmar, long one of the most repressive nations in the world, seemed to be changing. In 2010 and 2011, the xenophobic leadership of the Myanmar army, which had ruled the country since 1962, began a transition to civilian government by holding elections that ultimately helped create a partially civilian parliament. The country seemed poised for free elections in 2015 that would solidify its democratic change. Since the early 2010s, however, Southeast Asia’s democratization has stalled and, in some of the region’s most economically and strategically important nations, it has even reversed. Over the past decade, Thailand has undergone a rapid and severe democratic regression and Malaysia’s democratic institutions and culture have regressed as well. While less drastic, there have also been troubling developments in a number of other countries. In Malaysia, the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition has cracked down on dissent and tried to destroy what had been an emerging, and increasingly stable, two-party system. However, this has changed since Malaysia’s BN government won a narrow victory in the 2013 election in large part because of its strong support from the most conservative and anti-opposition ethnic Malays. Following the election, the government has “rewarded” these loyal constituents by proposing a raft of new legislation that aims to suppress the opposition and entrench economic and political preferences for ethnic Malays, disempowering ethnic Indians and Chinese, who together represent about one-third of the country’s population For example, the government essentially reinstated the despised Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows Malaysia’s government to detain people without trial indefinitely, often on vague charges. Things have been just as bleak in Thailand, which has been mired in political crisis since 2006, when the Thai military launched a coup while then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was abroad. Since that time, Thailand has been plagued by repeated cycles of street protests and counterprotests, rising street violence and political instability, short-lived governments brought down through extra-constitutional means, and the return of harsh crackdowns on dissent. Thai institutions have become increasingly polarized and politicized, and few Thais now trust the integrity of the judiciary, the civil service, or other national institutions. Even the king, once so revered that Thais worshipped him like a god, has had his impartiality questioned by many Thais. For more on how Southeast Asia’ s democracy has regressed, and the role of U.S. policy in this regression, see my new piece for The Diplomat.

It’s nice, in a way, to see issues one has worked on appear in major, globally important publications. This past week, just before President Obama’s trip to Asia, the Banyan column in The Economist, a column that focuses on Asia, detailed the Obama administration’s general disinterest in issues related to democracy and human rights in Asia. Banyan notes that President Obama has kept quiet as protests for suffrage have raged in Hong Kong. Banyan also writes that the Obama administration also has ignored a serious regression in political freedoms in Malaysia, maintained the close bilateral relationship with Thailand even as a military junta took over in Bangkok, and spent little time working on relations with the new Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, as authentic a democrat as you will get anywhere. The Washington Post editorial board last week echoed these same sentiments. In an editorial, the board focused on the growing crackdown on dissent in Malaysia, noting that, “Mr. Obama has made a point of cultivating [Malaysian Prime Minister] Najib [tun Razak] and his government as part of his policy of ‘rebalancing’ toward Asia, and so far the administration has had little to say about the political crackdown [in Malaysia].” I have been detailing the administration’s lack of interest in democracy promotion and human rights issues in Southeast Asia for several years now, including in a book, a working paper, and many articles. But though it’s nice to see others hitting the same notes, I see little evidence that the White House’s policies are changing. The president still has said nothing about Anwar Ibrihim’s trial, which almost surely will conclude with him being sentenced this week or next. The White House has been mum about the general deteriorating climate of free speech in Malaysia, which Anwar’s case fits into. The administration also has decided to push ahead with rapprochement with Myanmar despite the country’s deteriorating political environment, and the White House has made the decision to keep the Cobra Gold multilateral military exercises in Thailand in 2015. The decision to retain Cobra Gold in Thailand is a choice the Thai (military) government is interpreting as a signal that U.S.-Thai relations are returning to normal, even though Thai politics surely is not. As Human Rights Watch notes, the Thai government continues to ban public gatherings and has detained hundreds of activists and journalists and academics; the initial reporting of the government’s plans for a return to legislative rule suggest that the legislature will be comprised in an extremely gerrymandered way that allows people in Bangkok to dominate despite being, numerically, a minority of the population. As the Banyan column notes, these decisions have a cumulative effect, and that effect is not just a symbolic tarnishing of ideals. Ignoring rights in Asia, Banyan writes: Has a cost....It squanders part of America’s “soft power,” a great asset.…For all its flaws and missteps, [America] represents not just economic and military might, but an ideal to aspire to, in a way that China does not. And when American leaders appear to give less weight to that ideal, they not only diminish America’s attractions, they also lend more credence to the idea of its relative economic and military decline. Having written for The Economist, I know its editors love one-word sentences, so I can say only...Indeed.

Amidst the gushing over the inauguration of new Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the first outsider, non-elite president in Indonesia’s democratic era, there is a significant void of international interest in neighboring Malaysia, where the climate for freedom of expression and assembly has deteriorated badly in the past year. Over the past year, the government of Prime Minister Najib tun Razak, which in Najib’s first term had promised to improve the climate for civil liberties and abolish long-hated laws that allowed detention without trial, has shifted course. The government has pursued a sodomy case against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim that, next week, almost surely will end with Anwar being sentenced to jail, though the case was a comedy of ridiculous “evidence” and coached witnesses. (To be clear—I don’t think sodomy should be a crime, but it is in Malaysia; even so, there was no verifiable evidence Anwar actually engaged in this “crime.”) In addition, over the past year the Malaysian government has investigated and/or charged at least thirty people with sedition, under an archaic law it had promised to eliminate, according to the Malaysian Bar Council. Most of those investigated and charged have been journalists, opposition politicians, and prominent civil society activists. The situation has gotten so dangerous for Malaysian civil society that last week hundreds of Malaysian lawyers, who normally are relatively passive in the political arena, marched through the capital to protest the government’s use of sedition laws to stifle dissent. Why has this crackdown occurred? Najib has had to satisfy hard-line voices within his ruling coalition, and to fend off increasingly public criticism from former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. To satisfy hard-liners and Mahathir supporters—often the same people within the ruling coalition—Najib apparently has acceded to this harder-line policy against civil society and opposition politicians, whether or not he actually supports the crackdown. In many ways, Najib seems increasingly divorced from the business of governing at all, taking long overseas trips while the country stagnates economically, state carrier Malaysian Airlines faces severe trouble, and the political environment becomes increasingly partisan and dangerous. Although the Obama administration made improving relations with Malaysia a policy priority, it has mostly ignored the deteriorating climate for human rights and democracy in the country. When President Obama visited Malaysia earlier this year, he declined to meet with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and held a brief grip-and-grin with a few Malaysian civil society activists. Other than that, Obama spent most of his time praising the Najib government. The White House has released just a perfunctory statement about Anwar’s trial and likely sentencing next week. Ignoring the crackdown in Malaysia will eventually have long-term repercussions for the United States. Young Malaysians overwhelmingly support Anwar’s opposition PKR coalition, which won the popular vote in national parliamentary elections in 2013 but did not take control of parliament due to fraud and massive gerrymandering. They also tend to voice support for the civil society activists and journalists who have recently been targeted by the government in Kuala Lumpur. Many reform-minded young Malaysians have been mystified when the United States, which a decade ago had been so vocal about democracy in Southeast Asia, and which still has significant influence in the region, has said almost nothing about the regression from freedom in Malaysia. In previous eras, American rhetorical support for democracy, American pressure against authoritarian leaders, and American linkage of aid and investment to political change had played a critical role in fostering democratization in East Asia. In the 1980s, concerted American pressure on the governments of the Philippines and South Korea—after years of American tolerance of Ferdinand Marcos and a series of South Korean dictators—was a major reason why democracy prevailed in Manila and Seoul. A decade after Marcos gave way to the original “People Power” movement, sustained foreign pressure on governments in Cambodia and Indonesia and Thailand, in addition to many other domestic factors within these countries, helped precipitate political reform in these nations. Unfortunately, that type of pressure is absent today.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Asia responds to Ebola crisis. In preparation for the possible spread of Ebola into East Asia, governments in the region are building on lessons learned from SARS and other Asia-based health epidemics, stepping up aid to Africa, and taking precautions at home. This week, China sent thousands of doses of an experimental Ebola drug to Africa. South Korean President Park Geun-hye announced she will send medical personnel to Africa. Meanwhile, Japan authorized the use of an anti-influenza drug that was shown to fight Ebola in animal tests in Europe, and amended an infectious disease law to allow medical samples to be taken from suspected carriers without their consent. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke this week with U.S. President Barack Obama as well as British, French, German, and Italian leaders, vowing to provide support to contain the epidemic, echoing earlier statements he made at the UN General Assembly. According to the latest count from the World Health Organization, nearly 9,000 people have been confirmed with or suspected of contracting Ebola, and over 4,000 people have died from the disease. 2. Police squeeze Hong Kong protests. Hong Kong police forces have started to move in more aggressively toward protest sites, using pepper spray and batons on protesters in Mong Kok on Friday. Earlier in the week, a similar operation successfully cleared an underpass in Hong Kong’s business district. In the process, police arrested dozens of demonstrators, and a local TV station caught footage of an arrested activist being taken to a dark corner by plainclothes officers and beaten. Seven officers have been suspended for the incident, but more importantly, the abuse seems to have given the sputtering Occupy Central movement renewed momentum. The possibility of negotiations, both directly and through negotiators, continues, though the government has made clear that it will not make concessions to the protesters. 3. Japan asks for and denied revision of UN comfort women report. The Japanese government requested a partial retraction from a 1996 report detailing abuses by Japanese military forces against Korean and other women forced to provide sexual services during World War II. Conservative politicians and activists in Japan challenge the veracity of some of the women’s testimonies. The Japanese government had sent a top diplomat to request the revision from the author of the 1996 UN report, former UN rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy, who had called upon Japan to apologize and pay reparations to the women. The renewed controversy comes as Japan’s leading left-leaning newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, printed a retraction of several articles it published on the topic in the 1980s and 1990s that were based on discredited claims by a former Japanese soldier. Coomaraswamy rejected the request for the revision, and it is unclear whether further actions will be taken. 4. South and North Korea military talks end without progress. The rare meeting took place Wednesday at the border village of Panmunjom. Among the issues discussed was North Korea’s objection to the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea; on October 7, the North and South Korean navies exchanged fire near the NLL, prompting Pyongyang to suggest this week’s talks. Another of the Northern delegation’s complaints was South Korean activists’ slander of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un; South Korea has refused to concede on the point, citing freedom of speech. South Korean President Park Geun-hye has also urged North Korea to set a date for the high-level talks agreed to during the surprise visit by North Korean officials to the South earlier this month. 5. Malaysia takes the lead on combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Southeast Asia. Malaysian authorities arrested fourteen militants with suspected links to ISIS this week, bringing the total ISIS arrests in Malaysia to thirty-seven since April. Among the arrested suspects are men, women, students, and a Malaysian civil servant. The country’s defense minister called for regional cooperation to combat the terrorist threat in Southeast Asia and labeled the U.S.-led coalition efforts in Iraq and Syria “ineffective.” As ISIS continues to expand its recruitment efforts in Southeast Asia, concern is growing over the group’s potential to attract followers—particularly in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Bonus: Strange sea ‘alien’ discovered in Singapore. An angler in Singapore was in for a surprise when he reeled in what appeared to be a hundred-armed wriggling alien. He uploaded a video to Facebook that attracted almost eight million views, but experts have since identified the creature as a harmless basket star—a relative to the starfish with an underwhelming five arms.  

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. China fines GlaxoSmithKline nearly $500 million for bribery. A Chinese court fined British pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 3 billion yuan ($489 million) after the one-day, closed-door trial ended, finding the company guilty of bribery. Several officials of the company, including Mark Reilly, the former head of GSK in China, were also given suspended jail sentences. GSK said that it remained committed to operating in China despite the ruling. The company is also being investigated in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and has been accused of corrupt practices on smaller scales in Poland, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. By some estimates, GSK’s actions in China led to over $150 million in illegal revenues. 2. Tension flares at the disputed border during Xi-Modi meetings. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on Wednesday--Indian Prime Minister Modi’s sixty-fourth birthday--to sign a slew of agreements, including a pact to make Ahmedabad the sister city to Guangzhou in China. Xi pledged $20 billion in Chinese investment, significantly lower than the expectations in the media, but still substantial. Despite the cordiality of the meetings, around a thousand Indian troops were mobilized on Thursday to face an equivalent number of Chinese troops near the Line of Actual Control. Modi hinted that a transformation of China-India relations depends upon a border resolution. 3. China injects $81 billion into top banks. The Chinese central bank, the People’s Bank of China, is injecting 500 billion yuan into the country’s top five banks in an effort to combat slower-than-expected growth in the Chinese economy. Those five banks—all state controlled—account for three-fifths of the market and are well positioned to make loans to the government’s favored industries. The injection will be in the form of a three-month, low-interest-rate loan to the banks, and it is predicted to have an impact similar to that of a 0.5 percent cut in the reserve requirement ratio. Cutting the reserve rate, however, would be a broader and longer-lasting move and would not allow the government to dictate where the money goes. 4. Report cites ‘modern slavery’ in Malaysian factories. According to a report released this week, nearly one in three migrant workers in Malaysia’s electronics industry suffer from conditions of modern-day slavery. The monitoring group, Verité—which conducted the survey on commission by the U.S. Department of Labor—also found that 92 percent of the migrant workers in Malaysia’s electronics industry had paid recruitment fees in excess of legal or industry standards. Other migrant workers were employed in forced situations because their passports had been taken away. While no companies were singled out, the findings could prove troublesome for consumer electronics companies if the United States and others move to adopt standards to eliminate indentured servitude from the global supply chain. 5. Japan’s Noguchi elected president of space explorers’ group. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi was elected president of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), a Houston-based association of current and former astronauts from thirty-five nations at their annual planetary congress. The meeting was held in Beijing for the first time, and at a press conference Noguchi said that he would seek greater Chinese inclusion in international space cooperation. Noguchi is the first Asian to assume the post, and his election comes at a time of growing interest and investment in space among Northeast Asian nations. Japan’s Ministry of Defense recently announced that it wants to establish a new unit to track space debris; China’s military has plans to establish a space force; and South Korea is investing heavily in satellite technology. Bonus: Beijing hosts first-ever all-electric car race. The race, which included Formula E race cars, is the first of ten such races to take place through June next year. Team Audi, driven by Brazil’s Lucas di Grassi, took first place. There are fewer safety concerns because the cars do not carry petroleum-based fuel. The series is designed to drum up interest in electric cars.

The past week has been so busy with events, both tragic and hopeful, related to Southeast Asia, that I barely have time to keep up with the news.  A few short thoughts: 1. Is Prabowo Going to Concede? No way. Prabowo Subianto is now tacitly hinting in interviews that, on July 22, he might be declared the loser of Indonesia’s presidential election, and he is now using interviews to argue that, whatever the result announced on July 22, it is likely a fraud. This is a shift from his earlier position stating simply that he was going to win. On July 22 he will expand on his fraud argument and file a case to the Constitutional Court. Jokowi – and Indonesia – better be prepared for a long and drawn-out legal contest. 2. Should Malaysia Airlines Have Used a Different Route for MH17? Obviously, most of the news about MH17 has focused, naturally, on who brought down the plane, who was behind the missile strike, the grief of relatives of the dead, and the long-term implications for great power politics in Eurasia. There has been a kind of truce in Malaysian politics, as everyone in Malaysia is stunned by the tragedy; this kind of truce did not happen with the previous disaster, the disappearance of MH370 – opposition politicians and many commentators (including myself) blasted the Malaysian government for their inept handling of MH370. I think that this truce in Malaysian politics is likely to break down next week, as relatives of the dead from MH17, already angry at what they perceive as government stonewalling about information (though I think that the Malaysian government has done nothing wrong this time around), ask more forcefully why Malaysia Airlines was still flying through airspace above war-torn eastern Ukraine. True, some other Asian carriers also had continued flying through this airspace, probably because it was the cheapest way to get from Europe to Southeast Asia, but other regional carriers, like Qantas and Cathay Pacific, had been avoiding eastern Ukraine’s airspace for months now. Expect family members to put more pressure on the Najib government this week to more fully explain why MH17 was still flying the route. 3. Does China’s Moving a Rig out of Disputed South China Sea Waters Matter? Last week, China moved the China National Petroleum Corporation rig in waters disputed with Vietnam to an area of the South China Sea closer to China. The decision defused, to some extent, the growing tension in the South China Sea between China and Vietnam, which had sparked riots in Vietnam and clashes on the waters. The move was touted by some Southeast Asian analysts as a sign that China is adopting a more moderate approach to South China Sea disputes. Some speculated that Beijing might even be willing to finally agree to a formal code of conduct on the sea or to address Southeast Asian countries’ concerns through international arbitration. (The Philippines has taken its sea dispute with China to international arbitration, but China thus far has essentially refused to respond to the arbitration.) I really doubt that China is going to modify its South China Sea stance in any substantial way. Beijing is never going to agree to go to international arbitration, which would set a precedent that could be used by other countries in disputes with China over seas or land borders. And there are no signs that China is going to make any real moves toward a formal code of conduct on the South China Sea either. Instead, the removal simply signals that, for now, Beijing wants to cool tensions with Hanoi, Manila, the United States, and Jakarta, which also was becoming increasingly angry over Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea. Expect no change in Beijing’s position that it claims most of the South China Sea, and expect another rig to be moved into disputed waters in the next six months to a year. 4. Is Yingluck Shinawatra Going to Return to Thailand? Thailand’s junta last week allowed Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to leave the country to attend a party for her brother Thaksin in France. She took her only child with her. During her absence from Thailand, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) recommended that Yingluck be indicted for dereliction of duty in relation to the former government’s rice subsidy program. The former prime minister, ousted by the May coup, has vowed to return to Thailand to fight the charges. I’m not so sure that will happen. In Paris, Yingluck’s brother, in exile himself, might counsel her to stay abroad as she is almost sure to be found guilty as long as the junta runs the country.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 on board. Though the Ukrainian and Russian militaries, along with pro-Russian separatists, all possess weaponry capable of shooting down a plane flying at 33,000 feet, evidence is increasingly pointing to separatists as the perpetrators. The incident comes just five months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean, along with its 239 passengers and crew. 2. Controversial Chinese oil rig near Vietnam to be moved. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) announced that the billion-dollar oil rig that was deployed in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam two months ago has been relocated to an area closer to the Chinese province of Hainan. Chinese state media said that the rig was being moved “as planned” after discovering evidence of oil and gas. The establishment of the rig near the disputed Paracel Islands worsened already tense relations between China and Vietnam and  prompted clashes at sea between Chinese coast guard vessels and smaller Vietnamese boats. The announcement came one day after U.S. president Barack Obama called Chinese president Xi Jinping to discuss Sino-U.S. relations; though Washington previously expressed disagreement with the placement of the rig, it is not clear whether the cancellation was related to the phone call between the two leaders. 3. Japan set to restart nuclear power plant. On Wednesday, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) announced that, for the first time since the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, a nuclear power plant has met the country’s newly revised strict safety standards. Kyushu Electric Power Company will restart two idled reactors at Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, and they could be operational as early as autumn. The NRA plans to accelerate safety screenings of another seventeen reactors at eleven more plants. Prior to the 3/11 disasters, Japan obtained nearly a third of its power supply from nuclear plants, and has struggled in recent years to offset the loss imposed by the new restrictions. However, an Asahi Shimbun poll conducted in March 2014 found that nearly 60 percent of respondents oppose restarting Japan’s nuclear power plants. 4. New Development Bank established at BRICS summit. Heads of state from the five members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) gathered in Fortaleza, Brazil, this week for their six annual summit. The New Development Bank (NDB) was established with $50 billion in capital to finance infrastructure and development projects. In addition, there will be a $100 billion contingency reserve pool to help member countries experiencing financial difficulties. The NDB is viewed as a potential rival to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which disproportionately favor the United States and Europe. For example, although the BRICS make up more than one-fifth of the global economy, together their vote share in the IMF is only 11 percent. The bank’s headquarters will be in Shanghai, and India will provide its first president. 5. Crackdown on media in China and Myanmar. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television alerted Chinese journalists not to provide any information obtained in their work to foreign media groups or competing domestic media groups. Chinese journalists were told that their credentials would be revoked if they leaked information, and they could be put on trial for sharing state secrets. Elsewhere in Asia, five journalists convicted of violating Myanmar’s state secrets act for their piece on an alleged chemical weapons factory were sentenced to ten years in prison. In both China and Myanmar, this week’s developments are a clear step backward for press freedoms. Bonus: Nepal’s former crown prince arrested in Thailand for drugs, again. Former Nepalese crown prince Paras Shah was taken into custody after officers found marijuana in his Bangkok hotel room. Known for his hard-partying lifestyle, this is the second time he has been arrested for possession of marijuana in Thailand in the last two years. He was released on bail three days after his arrest.

What has gone wrong in Southeast Asia? Between the late 1980s and the late 2000s, many countries in the region were viewed by global democracy analysts and Southeast Asians themselves as leading examples of democratization in the developing world. By the late 2000s, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore all were ranked as “free” or “partly free” by the monitoring organization Freedom House, while Cambodia and, perhaps most surprisingly, Myanmar had both taken sizable steps toward democracy as well. Yet since then, Southeast Asia’s politics have been stuck in neutral or reverse. Asia Sentinel today has an excellent adaptation of my recent CFR working paper on the regression of democratic politics in Southeast Asia. The Asia Sentinel adaptation is available here.