Thailand

Over the past three weeks, several events have dramatically highlighted the growing appeal of the Islamic State based in Southeast Asia. First, on January 14, a group of militants reportedly run by an Indonesian man who had traveled to Syria carried out an attack in a busy neighborhood in Jakarta, leading to at least seven deaths. Several weeks before the attack, the Indonesian police had made a string of arrests of other Indonesian cells linked to the Islamic State. Then, last week, Singaporean authorities made a major announcement. The city-state announced that it was using its Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without charge, to hold 27 Bangladeshis who it claimed had become radicalized, and were considering launching terrorist attacks. It was the Singaporean authorities’ broadest use of the Internal Security Act in three decades. According to several news reports, the Singapore police claimed that some of the Bangladeshis were planning to return to Bangladesh to carry out terrorist attacks. Most of the Bangladeshi laborers were quickly deported from Singapore. Do these events add up to a serious threat from the Islamic State to Southeast Asia , either by Islamic State recruiting and funding of Southeast Asian militant cells or simply by Islamic State inspiration for Southeast Asians? As I mentioned in a previous post, IS created a brigade in Syria for visiting Southeast Asians, including Indonesian fighters. IS also may be providing a small amount of seed money to some militant groups in Southeast Asia, and the Islamic State clearly hopes to spread its ideology more widely. Its propaganda arm has produced videos, shared online, in Indonesian/Malay and targeted at Indonesian and Malay youths. Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine, and Thai authorities believe between 600 and 1,200 Southeast Asians have traveled to Syria and Iraq in recent years to fight with the Islamic State and then have returned to Southeast Asia. In addition, several existing militant groups in Southeast Asia have taken public oaths of loyalty to the Islamic State in the past two years, probably both because they share beliefs with the Islamic State and because the loyalty oaths bring them greater media attention. What’s more, as Zachary Abuza of the National War College has noted, the growing influence of Islamic State in Southeast Asia may be leading to a kind of competition among Southeast Asian militant groups to see who can carry out the most brutal attacks, following in Islamic State’s use of extremely brutal, well-publicized tactics. Such brutal tactics, Abuza notes, are easily spread through social media. But overall, the level of threat to Southeast Asian nations varies widely. It is true that Indonesians have traveled to Syria to fight, and even taken part in their own brigade, but Indonesia also is one of the most open societies in the region, with a government and a religious establishment that has a record of effectiveness at combating militancy. Indonesia’s biggest religious organizations have launched campaigns to combat the influence of IS and other groups. Indonesia’s decentralized, free politics filter Islamists through the political process. In the Philippines, the Aquino government is close to completing a landmark peace agreement that could end much of the fighting that has plagued Mindanao for decades. Although there are holdouts unwilling to accept the deal, the completion of the peace process, combined with a flow of investment and aid to Mindanao, could dramatically undercut any public support for militants in the southern Philippines. In contrast, Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar have political environments that could be conducive to growing militancy. All three are either outright authoritarian regimes or are currently somewhere between democracy and autocracy; the lack of political freedom means there are few legitimate avenues for Islamists to engage in politics. In Thailand, harsh army rule in the three southern provinces has added to southerners’ anger, made it harder to gain cooperation with army units hunting for militant cells, and potentially has fostered radicalization of young men and women. In Myanmar, there has been little violent reaction so far from Muslim populations that have been terrorized for four years now, particularly in Arakan State; many Muslims are so battered that they are focusing all their energy on survival. Still, it is not hard to imagine that years of attacks on Myanmar Muslims might eventually lead to the emergence of militant Myanmar Muslim groups, perhaps with inspiration or even training from Islamic State. And in Malaysia, the environment is perhaps even more favorable for militants inspired by the Islamic State. Since the 2013 Malaysian general election, the Malaysian government has “been competing...to show the Malay heartland” its Islamic credentials, according to Murray Hunter, a business consultant with thirty years of experience in Southeast Asia. Hunter notes that the ruling coalition also has been publicly burnishing its Islamic credentials in an attempt to tar the opposition as dominated by ethnic Chinese. Such strategies are fostering religious and ethnic divisions in Malaysia. “This is a perfect environment for Islamic State dogma…to breed,” Hunter notes.

It’s that time again---time for resolutions that last a couple weeks into the new year and bold predictions that (surely) will turn out right this year. Right? 1. Najib tun Razak will be Malaysia’s Prime Minister at the End of 2016 For most of 2015, many Malaysian politicians, observers, and activists wrote Najib off, sure that the in-fighting within the governing coalition, the scandals around the 1MDB state fund, and the torrent of criticism of Najib by former prime minister Mahathir would ultimately force Najib out of office. They were wrong. In fact, after surviving UMNO’s December general meeting unscathed, Najib passed legislation that will entrench his power. Just before the end of parliament’s sessions for the year, Najib presided over the passage of new legislation that will potentially give the government unprecedented powers to detain critics on national security-related charges. Expect Najib to still be in control in Malaysia as this year ends as well. 2. Thailand’s Elections will be Pushed Back Farther The Thai junta, which took power in a coup in May 2014, has pushed back the date for elections and a handover of power several times, after a draft new charter collapsed. Prime Minister and junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has now promised elections in 2017, but Prayuth also shows signs that he is consolidating his rule. This past year, the military has been busy purging members of its ranks not aligned with Prayuth’s army faction, and launching an even more intensive crackdown on dissent than it did in the months after May 2014. With the Thai king still alive but apparently quite ill, expect Prayuth and the other generals to push elections off even farther, possibly into 2018 or beyond. 3. Jokowi Will Have a Better Year 2015 was a difficult year for Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Struggling to make the transition in his first full year on the job from city mayor to leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world, at times he seemed to zigzag on foreign and economic policies from day to day. His personalized style of decision-making, in which he relied on few close advisors and often made decisions by his gut, proved unworkable in governing such a large and diverse country. Saddled with ministers and other officials who had proven themselves at PDI-P loyalists but did not embody Jokowi’s brand of clean politics, the president also found his reputation as a different type of politician tarnished. It got worse. In the fall, haze enveloped parts of Indonesia and spread throughout the region; Jokowi went home after one day of a planned multi-day trip to the United States to help lead the fight against the haze. By leaving so soon, he may have alienated some of the major corporate leaders he had planned to meet and woo later in the trip on the U.S. West Coast. Given his troubled 2015, 2016 could hardly go worse for Jokowi. And, in all likelihood, the Indonesian president will have a better year. He already has shed himself of several ministers and advisors who had damaged his reputation for fighting graft, and his public image also has benefited from the recent scandal surrounding the speaker of the lower house of parliament, who allegedly tried to extort money from Freeport McMoran. The fact that Jokowi’s energy minister actually reported the allegations against the speaker to the parliamentary ethics committee is, to many Indonesians, a sign that Jokowi’s administration is taking graft seriously. In addition, Jokowi has slowly and steadily begun to push back against economic nationalists within his administration and in parliament. Although the president is unlikely to deliver the massive regulatory reforms he promised in late 2015, the president has set an ambitious economic reform agenda. If he can even push through half of the reforms he has promised for 2016, both local and foreign investors will cheer, and the Indonesian economy will benefit. 4. Laos will not be an Effective Asean Chair In 2015, the Association of Southeast Asian nations was chaired by Malaysia, a country with a wealth of skilled and English-speaking diplomats and officials, and the capacity to capably hold hundreds of meetings annually. Although the Malaysian government was distracted by the 1MDB scandal and in-fighting within UMNO, it still managed an effective chairmanship. Laos will have serious trouble doing the same. Of all the members of Asean, Laos is by far the least prepared to chair the organization; its diplomatic and bureaucratic corps is small, and it has no leaders who could take charge at an Asean meeting and help bridge gaps on divisive issues. Laos is the most authoritarian nation in Southeast Asia, and Laotian leaders already have shown that they are uncomfortable with the nongovernmental aspects of Southeast Asian integration, declining to let Asean civil society groups hold a meeting next year in Laos. 5. China Will Show Southeast Asia both the Stick and the Carrot As I noted in CFR.org’s roundup on Chinese policy in 2016, Beijing this year probably will continue its dual approach to Southeast Asia. Expect China to continue upgrading atolls in the South China Sea and preparing them for use as military bases, while also using ever-tougher tactics to threaten Vietnamese and Philippine ships traveling in disputed waters---tactics like openly displaying guns pointed at Vietnamese and Philippine vessels. But in dealing with mainland Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, which chairs Asean in 2016, China will turn on the charm. In particular, Chinese officials and leaders will be eager to win over the new Myanmar government led by the National League for Democracy. Read Part 2 here. 

Last week, in a move that was shocking despite the cooling U.S.-Thailand relationship, the Thai government announced that the U.S. ambassador in Bangkok, Glyn Davies, was being investigated on suspicion of having insulted King Bhumibhol Adulyadej. Ambassador Davies had spoken to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in late November. During his talk, according to the New York Times, Davies criticized the “long prison sentences handed to some of those found guilty of criticizing [the] king” under Thailand’s lèse majesté laws, generally considered the harshest in the world. (This past weekend, Human Rights Watch warned that one prominent critic of the junta had disappeared after being questioned on lèse majesté charges.) Ambassador Davies enjoys diplomatic immunity, so even if he is found guilty of lèse majesté, he will not be tried and punished under Thai law. However, Thai authorities have hinted that the investigation will continue and that Davies could be subject to some kind of reprimand from the government. Still, it remains unclear what such a reprimand would entail. Does the investigation of the United States’ ambassador suggest that U.S.-Thai relations are deteriorating even more rapidly than some Thailand observers fear? Certainly, the bilateral relationship is at one of its lowest ebbs in years, with the Obama administration having taken a relatively tough stance against the military junta since the May 2014 coup---a stance that clearly rankles Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and many other senior Thai military leaders. For example, even though the junta has cracked down hard on public protests in Bangkok, it has allowed a group of conservative, royalist demonstrators to gather in front of the U.S. embassy, holding profane signs and launching profane chants against the United States and the U.S. ambassador. The fact that these royalists are allowed to protest, in the heart of Bangkok, suggests that at least some members of the junta are extremely angry with the White House’s cooler approach toward Thailand. But the investigation into Ambassador Davies also highlights another significant problem in Thailand today---even the royalist, authoritarian government is increasingly losing control of how the lèse majesté law is applied. To be sure, the Prayuth government appears to be using the law to stifle some forms of dissent, according to numerous human rights groups. But it is not always clear that the government wants all the lèse majesté cases to go forward. Although the law supposedly protects the king and other top members of the monarchy (even though the king himself has publicly questioned whether he should be above criticism), anyone can file a lèse majesté claim against anyone whom they believe has somehow damaged the Thai monarchy under the law’s vague clauses. In recent years, many private Thai citizens have launched lèse majesté claims against other Thais, and against some foreigners. In fact, the number of lèse majesté cases has jumped over the past decade. Since the May 2014 coup, Thailand’s military courts, which have taken over most of the judicial proceedings and which apparently want to appear as protective as the monarchy as possible, have been issuing the harshest sentences for lèse majesté in modern Thai history. In the Davies case, it appears that the case was initiated by a private citizen, a known arch-royalist. Since Prayuth’s government’s legitimacy is based in significant part on its vow to protect the monarchy and---though this part is left unsaid---oversee a peaceful and orderly transition to the next king, it can hardly ignore lèse majesté claims. The government cannot ignore lèse majesté allegations even if those claims appear pointless or potentially detrimental to Thailand’s strategic interests. In other words, an arch-royalist government led by a military man cannot even dictate how the lèse majesté law is utilized, a sign of Thailand’s increasingly out of control politics.

Human trafficking has long been a serious problem in Thailand. For decades, Thailand has been a source country for trafficked people, a transit country, and a destination for trafficked men and women, who come mostly from poorer neighboring states. (By some estimates, at least two million people from Myanmar alone are working in Thailand illegally, and many of these Myanmar citizens were trafficked to Thailand.) Men and women are trafficking to the kingdom to work in Thailand’s construction, sex, seafood, and domestic service industries, among other sectors of the economy. The scope of the trafficking problem is hardly unknown: The Thai government first began high-level discussions of trafficking nearly three decades ago, in 1990, according to a study of regional anti-trafficking efforts by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. In 1997, the government passed a new anti-trafficking law, and since then it has regularly passed anti-trafficking legislation. For decades, however, the Thai government’s and Thai civil society focused mainly on human trafficking related to sex work. The country was commended by international organizations for some aspects of its approach, including public campaigns to inform sex workers about HIV/AIDS and providing free condoms and other types of contraception to some sex workers. (To be sure, the government’s still did little to improve the basic rights of many sex workers---particularly for those outside Bangkok nightlife areas and those living in Thailand illegally.) At the same time, the Thai government, Thai civil society, and many international rights organizations paid less attention to the role trafficking played in other Thai industries---namely seafood canning, fishing, and construction. Demand for foreign labor remains high in these industries in the kingdom. As fewer and fewer Thai nationals want to work in the dangerous and low-paying fishing and seafood industries, Thailand’s fishing and seafood companies have faced a regular shortfall of labor. The United Nations estimates that Thai fishing companies need to employ an extra 50,000 migrant workers every year to fill vacant jobs. Only in the past five years has the focus of anti-trafficking efforts in the kingdom truly broadened to include serious efforts to expose and combat modern-day slavery in the seafood and fishing industries, several of which are dominated by some of Thailand’s largest, most influential companies. The Thai Union Group, for instance, is the world’s biggest processor of canned tuna. The focus has shifted to trafficking in these industries in large part because of the efforts of foreign media outlets, like the Guardian, the Associated Press, and Reuters, and efforts by international rights groups like the Environmental Justice Foundation. (One of the most comprehensive Guardian stories on modern-day slavery in Thailand can be found here.) The Thai government has demonstrated a mixed, somewhat confused response to these revelations of widespread trafficking in the seafood and fishing industries. There are some signs of increased enforcement of Thai labor laws. Thailand has filed charges in the last year against at least one hundred people allegedly involved in trafficking. The junta also has sent several senior officials from the Foreign Ministry around the world to convince important trading partners that the regime is serious about combating trafficking. Yet the Thai government also may be stonewalling investigations that could implicate senior army and police officials in trafficking organizations. Reporting by Reuters and other outlets has suggested that navy officers and other military officials are directly involved in the smuggling of Rohingya and other migrants for the seafood and fishing industries. In part, the junta has tried to intimidate reporters from tracking links between trafficking and the armed forces. The Thai navy filed defamation charges against Phuket Wan, a news site based on the resort island, for essentially republishing a lengthy Reuters report that implicated the navy in the trafficking of Rohingya. (The Phuket Wan pair was acquitted in September.) Indeed, perceptions of Thailand’s failure to take effective action against trafficking in these industries were a major reason why the country was downgraded to the lowest tier in the U.S. State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons report. The clearest evidence that the Thai government is not fully committed to the fight against trafficking emerged last week. As the New York Times reported, one of Thailand’s most senior anti-trafficking investigators, Police Major General Paween Pongsirin, has fled the country and asked for asylum in Australia, after quitting the police last month. The Major General apparently fears that, if he remains in Thailand, senior officials implicated in some of the over one hundred cases he has pursued might try to have him killed. The Thai government now is reportedly considering pursuing a defamation case against Major General Paween. Not exactly a sign of strong intent to follow up on Paween’s charges.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ariella Rotenberg, and Gabriel Walker look at the top stories in Asia this week. 1. Human trafficking investigator flees Thailand. Maj. Gen. Paween Pongsirin, a senior Thai police officer leading an investigation on human trafficking in Thailand, has fled the country to seek asylum in Australia. After more than thirty graves, which are believed to contain the remains of trafficked Rohingyas, were discovered near the Malaysian border this summer, Paween had been tasked with investigating the site and the trafficking network responsible. His investigation resulted in more than 150 arrest warrants and other charges against individuals in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand, including a senior lieutenant general in the Thai Army. Paween reported that the inquiry had been shut down prematurely, and that he now feared retribution from traffickers and corrupt authorities implicated for the crimes. The Thai government is considering whether to bring a defamation case against Paween, as it did recently against two journalists for reporting the Thai navy’s involvement in human trafficking. In a report published earlier this year, the U.S. Department of State found that the Thai government “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and is not making significant efforts to do so.” 2. China merges state-owned enterprises.  Multiple mergers among Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were announced this week. On Tuesday it was revealed that the China Metallurgical Group will be incorporated into China Minmetals, although the timing to complete the merger is unknown. The State Council has also reportedly approved the merger of two shipping companies, China Shipping Group Co. and China Ocean Shipping Co., which will result in the fourth-largest shipping line in the world. Such mergers are hoped to reduce competition between firms and improve economies of scale. Metals and shipping SOEs were recently identified as among those with the worst financial-risk ratings, so it is not shocking that firms in these sectors would be targeted for early restructuring. Not all recent mergers have improved competitiveness, however. In June, two state-owned train makers, the CSR Corp. and CNR Corp., merged but thus far the year-on-year revenue for the new combined company has fallen. The mergers come in the wake of overall SOE reforms presented by the Chinese government in September that seek to promote private investment, establish investment mechanisms for state capital, and potentially restructure certain SOEs to create national champions. SOEs in the telecom and air transport sectors are now also allegedly being considered for mergers. 3. Anonymous hacks Abe’s site to retaliate for whaling. The hacking group Anonymous took credit for temporarily disabling Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s personal website yesterday, claiming the act was a retaliation for Japan’s decision to resume scientific whaling activities last week. Although an investigation as to whether Anonymous was indeed responsible for the cyberattack is still ongoing, Anonymous has hacked the government sites of other whaling countries before, like Iceland, and a Twitter account representing the group threatened to continue if Japan did not discontinue the program. Despite a 2014 International Court of Justice ruling that deemed one of Japan’s “scientific” whaling programs illegal, last week’s program, which sent a fleet to Antarctica’s Southern Ocean to kill 333 minke whales, is new. One scientist called the whaling campaign the same old story with a different name—like putting “lipstick on a pig.” In total, thirty-three countries, including the United States, have protested against Japan’s new whaling program, and Australia has considered taking legal action to put an end to it. 4. Afghan president visits Pakistan. On Wednesday, leaders from Pakistan and Afghanistan announced plans to resume peace talks between the two governments, although the Taliban has not yet agreed to the talks. The announcement was made at the annual Heart of Asia conference where Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani met. Ghani’s visit to Pakistan coincided with a two-day Taliban siege of the Kandahar airport, which left more than fifty people dead and signaled a growing Taliban resurgence. Ghani risked political criticism by engaging with Pakistan, an unpopular nation among many Afghans, to attempt to restart the peace talks. Tensions persist between the two countries over a variety of issues including whether Pakistan harbors terrorists and Pakistan’s desire to repatriate approximately two million Afghan refugees currently in the country. Rahmatullah Nabil, the head of the Afghan intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, resigned this week amidst disagreements surrounding Ghani’s policy toward Pakistan. In July, Pakistan hosted an initial round of peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but the second round was postponed after the announcement of Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s death. 5. Myanmar opens stock exchange. After two decades of delays, Myanmar finally launched its first stock exchange, the Yangon Stock Exchange, on Wednesday. Prior to this, Myanmar was the largest economy in Asia without a stock exchange. The move is an important step towards liberalization for a country that has languished in recent decades due to mismanagement by a military junta; officials hope the exchange will help spur investment and boost the economy. Progress will come slowly, however. Although six companies have already been approved to list on the market, they will not start trading until next spring, and foreign firms are still barred. Bonus: The Islamic State produces a new propaganda song, this time in Chinese. This week, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, released a war chant in Mandarin calling for Chinese Muslim men to take up arms. Al-Hayat Media Center, the ISIS-run media group, released the four-minute acapella chant known in Islam as a “nasheed” that advocates death in service of Islam. By using Mandarin for the song might indicate that ISIS is aiming to attract a broader base of Chinese Muslims, whereas previous propaganda has been aimed at China’s Muslim Uighur minority in the Uyghur language. The spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry said in response to the video that “in the face of terrorism, no country can stand alone.”

Ashlyn Anderson, Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ariella Rotenberg, Ayumi Teraoka, and Gabriel Walker look at the top stories in Asia this week. 1. Antigovernment protests erupt in Seoul. This week, tens of thousands of people filled City Hall plaza in downtown Seoul to protest President Park Geun-hye, demanding her resignation. The protestors wore plastic raincoats to guard against the cannons of water and liquid tear gas fired at them by the police. The grievances against President Park include the replacement of history textbooks in the country with a specific government-issued one. Student protestors argue that the government textbook would whitewash the legacy of Ms. Park’s father, former President Park Chung-hee. Unionized workers also protested against changing labor laws that they believe favor the chaebols, powerful family-run Korean conglomerates, making it easier for them to fire workers. The exact number of gathered protestors was somewhere between 68,000, according to the government, and 130,000, according to the protest organizers; no matter which is the more accurate number, it is unquestionably the largest protest under Ms. Park’s government. 2. Thailand deports two Chinese refugees. Two Chinese dissidents, Jiang Yefei and Dong Guangping, were deported from Thailand after being arrested on October 28, 2015, for lacking valid visas. Canada had already accepted both men as refugees and they possessed “protection letters” from the United Nations. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that the exact rationale for the deportations remained unknown and that many officials from international organizations had tried to prevent it. Jiang Yefei had lived in Thailand since 2008 after being detained in China earlier that year for critiquing the government’s handling of the Sichuan earthquake. Dong Guangping was detained in China between May 2014 and February 2015 following his involvement in a commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Both men are believed to be at risk of torture in China. The deportations from Thailand to China fit into a recent pattern of behavior between the two nations: In July, the Thai government, which has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, deported over one hundred Uighurs back to China. Thailand’s relations with China improved after the Thai military coup in May 2014, which weakened ties with Western nations and led the government to begin seeking out new partners. 3. Tourism in Japan booms thanks to Chinese visitors. The Japanese government will raise its annual target for the number of foreign visitors to Japan to thirty million, as the current target of twenty million by 2020 is likely to be attained this year, five years ahead of schedule. This is largely due to a weaker yen brought about by “Abenomics,” Prime Minister Abe’s economic policies, as well as his policies to encourage tourism such as the relaxation of visa requirements and welcoming low-cost airline carriers. This year, 16.3 million foreign tourists have already visited Japan, beating last year’s record of 13.4 million over the entire year. The number of visitors to Japan was on a constant increase until 2008, before the trend took a hit from the financial crisis in 2009 and the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Abe reversed this trend again when he came back to the office in 2012, as he saw tourism as a central component to his overall economic program. The dramatic uptick in the number of Chinese visitors has played an important role in this about-face: between January and October of this year, 4,283,700 Chinese tourists visited Japan, and accounted for nearly half of the 1 trillion yen (8.1 billion USD) that foreign visitors spent in the country. 4. India sells off 10 percent more of Coal India. This Wednesday, the Indian government approved a 10 percent sell-off of Coal India, the state-owned mining company that is the biggest coal-producing enterprise in the world. The move, which should provide the government with around $3.2 billion, was part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s broader push to privatize state-owned enterprises, and followed up a similar sale last fiscal year that netted $3.6 billion. Although some say that the Coal India divestment will play a part in easing pressure on government finances, Modi may not be able to reach his budget deficit target by the end of this fiscal year by selling other state assets. And while the company’s stock has fallen about 13 percent this year, it may be in a position to benefit as the country attempts to double its coal production by 2020. 5. Come buy from me, Argentina. China and Argentina announced this week that China would provide funding for $15 billion nuclear power plant projects in Argentina. The two plants, one of which will utilize the Chinese-designed Hualong One reactor, will roughly double Argentina’s nuclear power output. The loans, coupled with a nuclear plant project in the UK that China announced last month it would be funding as well, demonstrate the country’s commitment to flaunting its wealth abroad, even as the economy slows back home. And as Chinese investment in Africa declines, the nuclear projects may signal further interest among the Chinese leadership in partnerships with Latin America, which already accounts for 13 percent of Chinese outward foreign direct investment. Bonus: Mobile app enables a collective approach to clearing garbage in Delhi. Following the launch of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Swachh Bharat” campaign to clean up India, a new app was introduced in New Delhi that allows citizens to snap photos of trash piles and send them to the Public Works Department along with corresponding GPS coordinates. All three municipal corporations involved in garbage collection have pledged support for the initiative. The launch of the app comes just in time for a focused cleanliness drive in Delhi from November 22 to 30. The app is also an example of how the Indian government’s “Digital India” mission can be effective in empowering citizens to come up with solutions to societal issues.

As Thailand’s political situation continues to deteriorate, with civilian politicians beginning to push back against army rule, and the deadline for a new constitution and free election delayed again, Thai Prime Minister and junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha seems increasingly frustrated with the debate, compromise, and public scrutiny common in a constitution-drafting process, and a democratic society. The prime minister has become known for his outbursts at the press and other critics, but in recent weeks his speeches have become more vitriolic. Last Wednesday, in the middle of a long speech, Prayuth publicly warned: “I must make it clear. If there is no peace and order [in Thailand], I must stay on” as prime minister. Prayuth has not defined exactly what constitutes a lack of peace and order in the kingdom. It is not the first time the junta leader, already the longest-serving Thai coup leader in decades, has threatened that he could hold the prime minister’s job for an extended period of time; the junta had originally promised that Prayuth would just be a caretaker, until 2015 or 2016 at the latest. Yet Prayuth’s warnings about his hold on power, such as this one, have become increasingly ominous. By now, more than a year into junta rule, the military has taken over or co-opted most institutions in Thai society. Many press outlets are cowed, with some of the most critical reporters having quit or engaged in self-censorship. Thailand’s once independent bureaucracy has mostly toed the junta’s line. And it appears that even the royal palace is not immune from the junta’s power. A series of recent lèse majesté arrests, believed to be of figures close to Thailand’s Crown Prince, suggest the military may also be sending signals that it will weaken the power of the Prince and his associates. Still, Thailand’s civilian politicians have not all accepted long-term junta rule as a fact. Pressure from both Democrat Party and Puea Thai leaders helped force the first constitution-drafting committee to rule out some of the most antidemocratic clauses in their proposed charter, and ultimately to vote down the charter itself. Former Puea Thai politicians and Puea Thai supporters have vowed to begin holding public rallies, wearing red, the symbolic color of Puea Thai and of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Ultimately, a growing group of former Puea Thai politicians and supporters who want to make their voices heard may clash with the increasingly repressive junta rule. The effects of Thailand’s political instability are widely felt. Last month, Thailand’s exports fell for the ninth month in a row, as slowing growth in major Thai partners like China and the political chaos in Thailand combined to undermine export growth. The country continues dropping on surveys of press and Internet freedom, even though the junta has vague plans to position Thailand as some kind of regional IT hub. In the most recent Freedom House report Freedom on the Net, released last month, Thailand was ranked as “Not Free," falling behind countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela in the ranking of Internet freedom. (The junta has proposed further constraining Internet freedoms by creating a single gateway for all content coming into Thailand, though whether it will follow through on that plan remains uncertain.)

After a decade, in the 2000s, in which China aggressively pursued warmer relations with many Southeast Asian nations, using a combination of diplomacy, aid, and soft power to woo its neighbors, the past five years have seen a significant chill in China-Southeast Asia relations. First, Beijing’s more aggressive pursuit of its claims in the South China Sea led to heightened tensions between China and other claimants---most notably Vietnam and the Philippines, but also increasingly Indonesia, where the armed forces are trying to rapidly modernize Jakarta’s naval capacity in part out of fear of China’s actions in the South China Sea. However, even as China alienated countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, it had until recently maintained relatively warm relations with several of the other leading Southeast Asian states, including Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia. These countries were either not involved in the South China Sea dispute or, like Malaysia, they had less at stake in the dispute than the Philippines or Vietnam. Thailand and Malaysia also historically have maintained close links to China for decades. In Myanmar, China’s investment and aid had become so important that, even as Naypyidaw attempted to boost relations with leading democracies, Myanmar leaders rarely offered public criticism of Beijing. After the May 2014 coup, Thailand’s military leaders apparently came to see the kingdom’s relationship with Beijing as even more important than in the past. Unlike democracies that withheld aid or publicly criticized the Thai junta, Chinese officials offered rhetorical support for the junta government and continued several high-profile joint infrastructure projects. But even in these countries, leaders and officials have become more willing to openly criticize Chinese foreign policy, as shown by events in Malaysia and Myanmar over the past week. In Myanmar, where talks over a permanent peace deal between the government and numerous ethnic insurgencies only resulted in a deal involving about half the insurgent armies, government officials this week openly blamed Beijing for meddling in the peace process. According to Reuters, one of the Myanmar government’s top peace negotiators announced that Chinese officials had tried to persuade several of the most powerful insurgent armies, including the Kachin Independence Organization and United Wa State Army (UWSA), not to sign the peace deal. Why exactly Beijing would try to get the groups not to sign remains unclear, but Beijing’s relationships with the UWSA and other groups give China a degree of influence over its border region, and perhaps Chinese leaders fear that a peace deal might undermine that influence. (A permanent peace agreement might stabilize the border and reduce the possibility of refugees fleeing into China, to be sure.) Meanwhile, in Malaysia some senior government officials have lashed out at what they perceive as an inappropriate intervention into domestic politics by China’s ambassador to Kuala Lumpur. As weeks of protests and counterprotests in Kuala Lumpur have taken on a racial tinge, China’s ambassador, Huang Huiking, visited the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown and warned that China would oppose any efforts by protestors to target any racial or ethnic groups. ‘We will not sit by idly” if demonstrators target ethnic Chinese, the ambassador said in a statement.“We sincerely hope that Malaysia will maintain its social stability.” Although the ambassador’s sentiments were certainly understandable---protests at times had involved ugly anti-Chinese incidents---some nationalist Malay politicians reacted to Huang’s statement with anger. Malaysia’s deputy prime minister, a fierce nationalist, called on Huang to offer an official explanation, or apology, for his statement. The ambassador must “lay to rest claims that the Chinese envoy had intended to interfere in local affairs,” said deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Will Chinese leaders now respond in ways that ameliorate concerns about Beijing’s forceful regional diplomacy? China can ill afford to alienate Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia, who have served as effective mediators in the past and often sided with China’s interests within ASEAN.

More than a month after the deadly bombing at central Bangkok’s Erawan shrine, the Thai authorities have made two arrests in the case, and issued at least seventeen arrest warrants overall. On Monday, the Thai police announced that one of the men in custody was the person caught on closed circuit television on the day of the bombing in August---the man who appeared to be leaving a bomb at the shrine. But some Thai commentators remain doubtful that the government has gotten closer to actually solving the case. The lack of trust that the Thai authorities have arrested the actual perpetrators stems from several factors. First, in recent years the Thai police and security forces have demonstrated a pattern of problematic investigations of major crimes, whether the 2006 New Year’s Eve bombings in Bangkok, or the 2014 Koh Tao murder case, in which two foreign tourists were killed on the resort island. In the Koh Tao case, the police initially announced that two indigent Burmese migrants, who are now on trial, confessed to the crime, but the two later recanted their confession and claimed that they only confessed after being tortured. They are now standing trial, but there are significant amounts of evidence that call their guilt into question. Most recently, Thailand’s most prominent forensics investigator announced that DNA on the Koh Tao murder weapon does not match the DNA of the accused migrants. According to Time, “The [Koh Tao] prosecution’s case rests on DNA samples found on [one tourist’s] body that investigators say match the defendants. Defense lawyers had asked for the samples to be retested but police said the evidence had been ‘used up.’” As commentator Saksith Saiyasombut notes, the Thai police also continue to use methods that seem, at the least, outdated. They continue to have people arrested for crimes appear in public to “re-enact” the alleged criminal acts. In early September, Thai police led one of the Erawan suspects, Yusufu Mierili, around central Bangkok, where he went through the steps he supposedly took on the bombing day, with reporters there to cover the re-enactment. Such re-enactments, one would think, would make it more difficult for the alleged criminals to have a fair trial, though what they say at the re-enactment is theoretically not usable in court. In addition, Saksith notes, re-enactments do not further the investigation, and at times they have led to mobs of people attacking the suspect right after the re-enactment. The Thai police also sometimes receive large, publicly announced, rewards when they apparently make breakthroughs in cases, an unusual practice in law enforcement. In the bombing case, the Thai police already have twice announced that they will be keeping two rewards. The first reward, as the Associated Press reported, was originally “offered to the public for tips leading to the arrest of suspects” but police gave it to themselves. Then, earlier this week Thailand’s police chiefs announced the police were awarding themselves a second reward, essentially for making substantial progress in the investigation. The police chiefs brandished thick stacks of cash for the media earlier this week to demonstrate how much money they were getting. Third, there have been a range of inconsistencies in the statements of the people arrested, and in the statements of Thai authorities about those arrested and about the reasons for the attack. The Thai government has at times suggested the bombers acted to avenge a crackdown on their human trafficking network, to take revenge for Thailand’s deportation of a group of Uighurs back to China in July, to strike a blow for the insurgents fighting the Thai government in the deep south, or even for reasons related to Thailand’s domestic politics. At various times in the investigation, government officials have said that one of the men in custody, Adem Karadag, was not the man who planted the bomb; now, government officials say he is. The government also has tried to implicate a range of other suspects in the bombing, mostly local opponents of the military regime. Finally, more than a year in the Thai junta’s rule, the level of popular distrust in the government generally has risen; this distrust carries over to the government’s handling of the bombing case. Opaque policymaking and crackdowns on dissent remain the norm. Earlier this month, prominent journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk, an outspoken critic of military rule, was taken to a Thai army base for an “attitude adjustment” in a tiny cell. After his stay at the army base, he quit his job at The Nation, a prominent Thai paper, apparently under pressure from some of his colleagues.

On Friday, Thailand’s central bank slashed its growth forecast for the Thai economy for 2015, to 2.7 percent. As noted in a summary of the bank’s report in The Diplomat, this was the third time this year that the Bank of Thailand (BoT) has cut its growth forecast, and the BoT’s projected growth for 2015 is about half what it had expected for the Thai economy before the year started. A growth rate of 2.7 percent for the year would almost surely make Thailand the worst performing economy for 2015 in Southeast Asia. Even neighboring Malaysia, buffeted by swirling investigations into the 1MDB state fund, rising political uncertainty, and capital flight, will almost surely grow faster than Thailand. More worrying than even the overall growth figure, Thailand’s export growth has dropped month after month, and the country’s manufacturing index has continued to plummet as well. External factors play a role, as the BoT noted. With all emerging markets, including China, weakening, many of Thailand’s most important export markets are impacted; equity investors are fleeing emerging markets, which hurts Thailand’s stock exchange too. But though all countries dependent on exports are hurt, Thailand is hurting more than many others, as years of political turmoil, uncertainty about the coup government, and a lack of investment in education have finally begun to bite. The failure to upgrade Thai educational institutions to focus on higher-value skills and reduce rote learning was highlighted by the recent release of QS World University rankings, one of the most popular university assessment sites. The top five Thai universities all fell places from their 2014 rankings or stayed in the same place as they were in 2014, while competitors in Singapore leapt up the charts. Thai media reported the rankings drop, but the story of Thailand’s top universities reflects a broader education problem. Throughout primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions, Thai schools continue to fail to produce a workforce suited for an economy that can no longer rely on labor-intensive manufacturing when other countries in the region have cheaper workforces. After more than a decade of political turmoil, Thailand’s big investors and everyday consumers also have become too scared to do much with their money. Consumer spending among lower-income Thais has stagnated, one reason why the government is aggressively pursuing economic stimulus, after previously halting government spending on agricultural subsidies and other projects that primarily help poorer Thais. The lack of a clear roadmap toward the end of junta rule, and the uncertainty over royal succession, also is deterring investment in the kingdom. The deadline for a return to civilian rule remains murky, and Prime Minister Prayuth is now the longest-serving junta leader in Thailand in decades. When Samsung Electronics announced in May that it was closing television production facilities in the kingdom, moving them mostly to Vietnam, company officials did not openly cite political uncertainty as a reason for leaving. But the combination of lower labor costs and greater stability in Vietnam must have been attractive. Prime Minister Prayuth surely recognizes that the Thai economy needs more reliable stewardship, with ministers trusted by domestic and foreign investors---he recently appointed a new economic team headed by Somkid Jatusripitak, a former Thaksin-era finance minister who has since broken with Thaksin and supported the junta. Somkid and the other new appointees have been moving quickly, meeting with major Thai and foreign investors and announcing a new $4 billion stimulus package. But without more clarity on Thailand’s political future, clarity that might unleash new investment in the kingdom, Somkid faces an enormous challenge in his new position.

Ashlyn Anderson, Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ariella Rotenberg, Ayumi Teraoka, and Gabriel Walker look at the top stories in Asia this week. 1. Singapore’s historic elections. Singaporeans took to the polls today in the first general parliamentary election in the country’s history in which every constituency is contested. The People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled the country since it was expelled from Malaysia in 1965 and held more than 90 percent of the seats in parliament prior to the election, won a majority of seats again. However, the elections were a test for the PAP, which fared worse in the 2011 elections than it ever had before and has been criticized recently over its policies on immigration and social welfare. This was also the first election since the death of legendary PAP founder (and father of current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong) Lee Kuan Yew, who ruled Singapore as prime minister for more than forty years. 2. Thailand’s junta rejects draft constitution. Thailand’s junta-appointed reform council rejected a proposed constitution last Sunday—a constitution that had been written by its own drafting committee. As a result, Thailand’s next election will not take place until April 2017 at the earliest. The rejection of this draft will ensure that the junta stays in power at least until that time. The sticking point of this current draft was a provision that allowed for a panel of majority military members to take control of the government during “crisis” situations. If this version had passed, it would have been the twentieth constitution in eighty-three years. The military junta will now appoint another drafting body to start from scratch on yet another constitution. 3. Abe Reelected. On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was reelected without a vote as the president of Japan’s ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Despite the attempted challenge to Abe by Seiko Noda, who has served as a minister in various cabinets and taken key leadership roles within LDP, not one individual in the party was able to garner enough support to enter the race—precisely twenty signatures from party lawmakers—while Abe received support from all seven factions of the party and four groups of members who do not belong to the factions. Reportedly, Abe himself was insistent on having no vote in this election to show party unity, and instead focused on passing controversial security bills later this month. This reelection extends his tenure as the head of LDP to the end of September 2018. He plans to reshuffle his cabinet in early October and shift focus away from security issues to emphasize economics. 4. Twelve convicted for 2006 train bombing in Mumbai. Nine years after simultaneous bombs detonated on seven commuter trains and at a train station during an evening rush hour, leaving close to two hundred dead and eight hundred injured, a Mumbai court handed guilty sentences to twelve individuals for the attack. The men involved in the blasts were members of the Student Islamic Movement of India and thought to have plotted with the help of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the prosecution. Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that carried out other attacks in Mumbai in 2008, denies any involvement in the 2006 train blasts. Although charges against the men were filed four months after the incident, evidence was scant and police had to rely on call records to connect the conspirators. While one of the thirteen men charged was acquitted, the twelve convicted face life in prison or death. 5. Yakuza split in Japan. Yamaguchi-gumi, a prominent yakuza or Japanese organized crime syndicate, divided in early September with the establishment of a new group called Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi. The new group will include approximately three thousand members under the leadership of Kunio Inoue, who formerly directed an affiliate of Yamaguchi-gumi. The split was attributed to resentment of the current leadership and a regional power struggle between gang leaders in Kobe and Nagoya regarding the location of the group’s headquarters. News of the divide ignited fears that deadly violence could break out as occurred in the aftermath of another yakuza split in 1984. However, given the increased severity of anti-gang laws in Japan and the weakening financial positions of the yakuza, some believe the violence may be limited to just a few skirmishes. Yamaguchi-gumi is Japan’s largest yakuza and is estimated to be the world’s wealthiest organized crime group, with revenues of approximately eighty billion dollars in 2014. Bonus: Onomishi’s cat cam. In a country where it’s easy to get a feline fix on one of eleven cat islands or at a cat café, the city of Onomishi in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, has developed its own Google Street View–like map aimed at giving tourists a cat’s-eye view of its local streets. The interactive map, which was developed by Hiroshima’s tourism department using a 360-degree camera, allows users to peer through the eyes of Lala, Hiroshima’s “Manager of Backstreet Tourism,” while learning about the city’s tourist attractions, shops, and even other neighborhood cats. The effort may be part of a broader push to attract overseas visitors, who are a boon to Japan’s flagging economy. In 2014, a record 13.4 million tourists visited the country, which hopes to have twenty million visitors a year by the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Ashlyn Anderson, Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Lauren Dickey, Ariella Rotenberg, and Ayumi Teraoka look at the top stories in Asia this week. 1. Malaysian protestors call for prime minister to step down. Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur last weekend, saying that Prime Minister Najib Razak is unfit to govern following allegations that he took $700 million from a government development fund. They were joined by former prime minister and one-time Najib ally Mahathir Mohamad. The demonstrations were organized by Bersih, a coalition of NGOs that has demonstrated for years against the Najib government, calling for greater transparency and less corruption in elections. Previous Bersih rallies, which drew crowds much larger than this week’s demonstrations, have been shut down by police wielding tear gas and water cannons; this weekend’s protest, though declared illegal, was allowed to continue. 2. Millions of workers signal opposition to Modi’s labor reforms. Spurred by government proposals for labor reform, 150 million workers in India turned out for a nationwide strike. Workers from banks, mines, factories, construction, and transportation joined the cause, which led to an estimated $3.7 billion in economic losses—mostly due to stranded exports at ports. The strike was called by ten trade unions, and marks the sixteenth nationwide strike since the first round of economic liberalization measures in 1991. The labor reform proposal sought to simplify India’s labor laws while offering to raise the minimum wage to appease the unions. Although the trade unions have called the largely peaceful strike a “grand success,” government and industry constituents shrugged off the “partial” losses. 3. Japan’s darkest day. Over the past forty years, more Japanese youth have taken their own lives on September 1 than on any other day of the year. Data provided by the Cabinet Office of Japan came to light when a librarian in Kawasaki tweeted a call to use public libraries as spaces of “refuge” for those who were “thinking of choosing death over school in September.” This news illustrated how social media can be a double-edged sword—while there have been many cases in which social media was used for bullying, this case highlights social media’s ability to reach those in need of help. The large number of youth suicides has been a serious issue for Japan, which ranks fifth in the number of suicides among OECD countries and the second among Asian countries after South Korea. Last year, for the first time, the most common cause of death of those aged ten to nineteen in Japan was suicide, and the fastest growing suicide demographic was young men aged twenty-two to forty-four. 4. World War II victory parade in China. Yesterday, China held a lavish parade in Beijing to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of its victory over Japan in World War II and to display its military might. In total, forty thousand people were present in Tiananmen Square, among them twenty-three heads of state and government leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republic of Korea President Park Geun-hye. The most noteworthy announcement of the event came from President Xi Jinping, who declared that the People’s Liberation Army would be cut by three hundred thousand personnel by 2017. The reduction allows China to redirect spending to weapons systems and focus on expanding the navy and air force, analysts said today. The parade served as a platform for China to showcase its increasingly potent ballistic missile arsenal, including one such weapon that could potentially destroy a U.S. aircraft carrier. Chinese citizens themselves had mixed reactions to the parade, although thanks to censors hard at work over social and conventional media, the public image of the day remained intact. 5. Bangkok bombing suspects arrested. Thai authorities arrested three suspects this week in connection to the bombing of Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine on August 17, which killed 20 people.  One of the suspects, Kamarudeng Saho, is a Thai Muslim, while the other two are foreigners identified as Yusufu Meerailee and Adem Karadak. Eight arrest warrants have been issued, including one for a Turkish man. One of the foreign men was arrested while trying to cross the Thai-Cambodian border and is believed to be an ethnic Uighur from China’s Xinjiang region, although his passport has not yet been authenticated. In the Bangkok apartment where the other foreign man was arrested, police found fake Turkish passports and bomb-making supplies.  Members of the Thai junta had long been adamant that the attack was not a case of international terrorism, but officials admitted for the first time this week that there may be a connection between the Bangkok bombing and the issue of Uighur migrants in Thailand. In early July, Thailand returned to China 109 Uighurs who had travelled to Thailand en route to Turkey. The Chinese government has often linked Uighur migrants to terrorism, and if a connection is found with the Bangkok attack this may strengthen their claims. Bonus: War criminal popsicles. As China celebrates the seventieth anniversary of its victory in World War II, one ice cream chain in Shanghai has taken the festivities to a new extreme by offering an ice cream popsicle shaped in the likeness of Japanese war criminal Hideki Tojo. The store, Iceason, has pushed its product on the Chinese market through a “10,000 people together eat the Japanese war criminal” advertising campaign. If the nationalist sentiment isn’t enough, the 3D-printed ice cream also comes in five flavors—vanilla, blueberry, mocha, mango, and tiramisu—for 30 yuan (around $4.70).

Over the past five days, Thai police have both made arrests in Erawan Shrine bombing case and publicly identified other suspects still at large for whom the police are hunting. Although after the bombing there were many theories about the culprits, both the two men arrested and the suspects identified could have some link to Turkey or to the Uighurs. One man arrested in a Bangkok suburb reportedly possessed hundreds of passports, including one identifying him as Turkish, though it remains unclear whether he is actually Turkish; another man arrested near Thailand’s eastern border also appears to be either Uighur or have links to the Uighurs and potentially to Turkey. Thai media have identified the man arrested in eastern Thailand as Yusufu Mieraili, 25, from Xinjiang province. One of the identified suspects at large, a woman from southern Thailand, reportedly is now living in Turkey. Thai police also reportedly are looking for other suspects of Turkish nationality. What is the connection between the suspects, Turkey, the Uighurs, and violence in Thailand? Longtime Southeast Asia security analyst Anthony Davis, who writes for the Jane’s group of publications, was probably the first to speculate, last week, that Turkish nationalists could have committed the shrine attack as retribution for Thailand’s deportation of over one hundred Uighurs to China in July; the shrine was popular with Chinese tourists. Shortly following the deportation, protestors attacked the Thai consulate in Istanbul, forcing it to close for a time. Turkey long has close cultural ties with the Uighurs, who are a Turkic people and speak a Turkic language; the cause of the Uighurs has been adopted, in the past, by some Turkish military leaders, as well as some of Turkey’s more nationalist groups. Did one of the most infamous ultra-nationalist groups, Turkey’s so-called Grey Wolves, plan the Bangkok bombing as retribution for the deportation? Did another group of Turkish nationalists plan the attack, working with Thais and/or possibly Uighurs? Have Uighur militants taken their battle globally, and should countries be prepared for Uighurs attacking Chinese citizens throughout Asia? Earlier in the investigation, Thai leaders pointedly dismissed any possibility that Uighurs or Uighur sympathizers were behind the shrine bombing, as part of an overall campaign by the ruling Thai junta to play down the international angle of the attacks and generally to reassure the public. (The junta also initially seemed to suggest that antigovernment protestors could be behind the bombing.) Thailand’s tourism industry is a critical foundation of the economy, which is probably a major reason why the junta hopes to play down any threat of international terrorism in Thailand. The junta also clearly desires to show that it is managing the hunt effectively and is capable of restoring law and order in the capital. According to the New York Times, Thai leaders have ordered government officials to officials call the attack a “disturbance,” and ordered all government agencies “to avoid using the terms terrorism or sabotage.” The Thai Interior Ministry, according to the Times, also instructed officials to avoid “mentioning any connection to Uighurs in this incident as it could create problems and have an international impact.” Many Thai leaders also continue to stress that, despite the potential links to Turkey or to the Uighurs, the bombers committed the act out of what the Thai government has called personal motives or “personal revenge” according to Thailand’s police chief, who has suggested that the bombers were attacking the target in response to a crackdown on their people-smuggling operation. However, Thai leaders have kept the wording of their statements vague enough that they might mean the bombers were personally motivated by their rage at the treatment of Uighurs, rather than that the bombers attacked because of anger against one or two other people. If the bombers attacked because they, personally, were infuriated by the treatment of Uighurs, it is hard to understand what the difference is between this kind of “personal” anger and the use of a terrorist attack to express political grievances. The list of suspects now strongly suggests some links to Turkey and to the Uighurs. At some point soon, the Thai government will have to be more forthright about the investigation, if it wants Thais, and the international community, to trust the information it does release.

A week after the bombing at central Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine that killed twenty people, wounded at least 125 more, and set off a massive manhunt for a suspect identified in CCTV video, a man who apparently left a backpack at the shrine shortly before the explosion, no one has been arrested. In fact, amidst a constant swirl of rumors about possible leads, the Thai authorities appear no closer to solving the case. No one has taken credit for the attack, and the police have neither identified the suspect definitively nor released any more information about him or any apparent accomplices. Many Thais fear that the culprits will never be found; previous, smaller bombings in Bangkok and other sites in southern Thailand often have come and gone with no arrests and muddled forensic investigations. Already, the Thai authorities have released multiple conflicting statements about the bombing, and the potential suspects. And so far, none of the major theories behind the bombing have been ruled out---that it was done by insurgents fighting for a separate homeland in the Thai deep south, that it was done by an international terrorist group, that it was committed by military splinter groups, that it was done by groups opposed to the junta’s rule, or that it was done by Uighur militants infuriated by Thailand’s repatriation of Uighurs to China. To read more about the investigation into the bombings and my analysis of how the investigation is being conducted, read my new piece for The National.

Ashlyn Anderson, Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Ayumi Teraoka, and Gabriel Walker look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Bombing in Bangkok. On Monday evening a bomb exploded within the popular Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, killing at least twenty people and injuring over 120 more. Thai authorities are investigating a suspect identified as a foreigner, who was caught on CCTV footage leaving a large backpack near the shrine, in connection with the blast. A motive for the attack is still unclear, but Thai officials have suggested that it may have targeted foreign tourists in order to hurt the economy. Although the bombing was likely planned by a team of at least ten people, officials declared it was probably not connected to international terrorism. This week’s bombing was the worst in a number of attacks in Bangkok since the Thai military seized power in a 2014 coup. 2. Cyanide and censorship in Tianjin. Since a massive chemical explosion killed at least 114 people and damaged over 17,000 homes in Tianjin last week, environmental and political fallout has shaken the city even more. According to China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, levels of deadly sodium cyanide are hundreds of times higher than safe limits in some areas near the blast site. And although city authorities confirmed that air and water in the rest of the city are safe, thousands of dead fish washed up on a riverbank six kilometers from the explosion, and recent rainfall produced a mysterious bubbling foam throughout the city. Other reports have indicated that political misconduct and safety violations played roles in the accident—most notably that over seventy times the permitted quantity of sodium cyanide was in storage at the warehouse that exploded. Although some public criticism of the disaster has been permitted, at least one whistle-blower has been arrested for "fabricating facts and disturbing public order," over 360 social media accounts have been suspended, and online censorship has spiked since the blast. 3. The two Koreas exchange fire across the DMZ. On Thursday, North and South Korea exchanged fire across their fortified border. The North fired single aircraft guns as well as artillery shells, which fell on the southern side of the border. The South Korean military retaliated with dozens of 155-millimeter artillery rounds. Tensions continue to rise as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered front line units to enter “a wartime state,” while South Korea issued an evacuation order to some residents. The result of the scuffle remains to be seen, but some experts are reassured by the lack of response from the North after South Korea’s shelling. Issues came to the fore last Saturday, when Pyongyang demanded South Korea stop its anti-North propaganda, which Seoul restarted after it found two of its soldiers had been injured by a landmine secretly planted by the North. The United States and South Korea are currently conducting the annual military exercise "Ulchi Freedom" from August 17 to August 28, yet the direct causality, if any, between the exercise and the exchange of fire is unclear. 4. Double losses for Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka.  In high-turnout parliamentary elections, the incumbent premier Ranil Wickremesinghe emerged victorious over former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party winning 106 out of 225 seats. Wickremesinghe was chosen to lead the opposition in parliament in January after the surprising snap presidential election in which Maithripala Sirisena defeated Rajapaksa, his former colleague. Although Wichremesinghe and Sirisena hail from rival parties, the two are committed to reforming many of the policies implemented during Rajapaksa’s tenure. The new government is also considering options to resolve ethnic tension between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. Rajapaksa faces not only double losses this year, but also a possible investigation into corruption scandals. 5. Obama administration demands China withdraw covert operatives from United States. The U.S. government has recently warned Beijing about Chinese government agents working secretly in the United States to pressure Chinese expats to return home, as part of a government initiative known as “Operation Fox Hunt.” Many of those targeted by Chinese law enforcement are wanted in relation to China’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign; this includes both those targeted for economic corruption and what the Chinese government calls political crimes. The PRC’s state news agency called the order a “regrettable move” and claimed that the U.S. government had agreed to cooperate with the operation when Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson met with PRC Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun earlier this year, although U.S. officials dispute any such agreement was made. Because the campaign is a high priority for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese agents in the United States are reportedly resorting to coercive measures to convince the wanted individuals to return to China, such as threatening the family members of their targets. The United States and China do not have an extradition treaty, so Chinese efforts to have fugitives repatriated through legal channels are unlikely to be successful given concerns about the lack of transparency in China’s legal system. Chinese government agents aren’t just operating in the United States to track down corruption fugitives, however; in recent years, counterintelligence officials have been catching increasing numbers of economic spies trying to steal industrial secrets—even from corn fields. Bonus: Kim Jong-un turns back time. North Korea, a nation already perceived as behind the times, literally turned back the clock on August 15. The government established a new time zone, “Pyongyang Time,” which differs by thirty minutes from that used in Japan and South Korea and returns the nation to the time zone used prior to Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910. The date of the change coincided with the seventieth anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency proclaimed that the action was necessary because “the wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time.” Given North Korea’s relative isolation the change is unlikely have major global effects, but it may cause disruptions at the Kaesong industrial plant, a joint economic project with South Korea. North Korea also operates on its own calendar, which begins in 1912, the year Kim Il-sung was born.