Thailand

Brazil’s Lula Charged with Corruption After months of speculation, Brazilian judge Sérgio Moro allowed bribery charges against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) to move forward. He is accused of accepting $1.1 million in improvements for his beachfront apartment from OAS, one of Brazil’s largest construction companies, in exchange for Petrobras contracts. Lula is the latest and most prominent figure to be charged in the Lava Jato investigations, joining dozens of other political and business leaders, including former lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha, former Worker’s Party (PT) treasurer João Vaccari Neto, and construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht. Next up may be President Michel Temer, already named in Odebrecht’s plea bargain for soliciting illegal campaign contributions during the 2014 presidential election. Thailand Convicts Labor Rights Activist The United States and United Kingdom have stepped up efforts to curb labor abuses in global supply chains through new laws. Many require companies to report on whether their products are made with forced or slave labor (relying on “naming and shaming,” an approach with limited efficacy). Others go further, including the recently-passed Trade Facilitation and Enforcement Act, which allows U.S. customs officials to seize goods they believe were made by forced or slave labor—putting the burden on exporters to prove otherwise. Yet local governments at times push back against investigations. Thailand is the latest example, charging and convicting a British activist of criminal defamation for reporting alleged migrant worker exploitation. This intimidation makes it all the harder for multinationals to be good corporate citizens, and to comply with legislation in their main consumer markets. Countries Chase Corporate Taxes Services today span the globe, bringing in nearly $5 trillion in sales. Countries are already fighting over who should tax—and benefit from—these transactions. This week, Indonesia made a significant claim, sending Google a $400 million bill for back taxes and fines on advertising revenue earned in Indonesia, but taxed in Singapore. Their claim follows several from wealthier countries, including Japan’s $118 million and the European Union’s record $14.5 billion in back taxes claims, both against Apple. As services continue to increase as a driver of economic growth and a percentage of global trade, these conflicts are sure to rise.  

After the junta-managed referendum was approved by voters earlier this week, Thailand plans to hold elections in November 2017, according to the military regime. As I wrote earlier, the charter contained numerous provisions that seem designed to weaken the power of the two biggest political parties, the Democrat Party and Puea Thai. The new charter will potentially make the lower house of parliament nearly unmanageable, and possibly pave the way for the unelected upper house, the judiciary, the military, and the bureaucracy to wield the real levers of power in the kingdom. Still, the charter passed with sixty-one percent of the vote, in an environment of intense repression that included bans on public gatherings to protest the charter, arrests of dissenters, and an expensive and nationwide campaign by the junta to promote a yes vote. As Columbia University’s Duncan McCargo notes in a new piece for the Nikkei Asian Review, the referendum is not going to solve the deep divide in Thai politics, between the rural poor who comprise the majority of voters and middle class elites, mostly in Bangkok, who disdained the Shinawatra governments. Sixty-one percent is a solid victory. Yet is only a slightly higher figure than the yes vote for the last constitution, which was put before voters in a similar, though slightly less repressive post-coup environment in 2007. As McCargo notes, voters in this referendum may have chosen the yes option for a range of reasons, not simply because they approve of the army-backed charter: “Most voters had to be content with short and highly misleading summaries provided in leaflets distributed by the Election Commission, which glossed over most of the controversial issues at stake. Those expressing critical views of the draft charter were openly derided and often ruthlessly suppressed by pro-government elements. The majority of those who voted ’Yes’ were voting in favor of promised elections, which the government has pledged to hold within 2017. Many clearly hope that approval of the charter will lead back to a degree of political normalcy. Those who voted ’No’ doubted the sincerity of the junta’s promises, and feared that the draconian draft would allow the military to retain a veto over the country’s politics for many years to come.” No matter why voters approved the referendum, the armed forces have reestablished themselves as the central, most powerful institution in Thai politics. Since the coup, junta leaders have not only pushed through the charter but also cowed many prominent elected politicians. The army has overseen a period of repression more akin to the harsh eras of military rule in the kingdom in the 1950s and early 1960s than the less repressive post-coup period in 2007. The king and the queen are ailing and rarely involved in politics. The junta leaders have pushed into retirement or meaningless positions the few army officers who did not support placing the armed forces back at the center of politics. Puea Thai and the Democrats, despite both having reasons to oppose military rule, are unable to work together toward any common goals. Whatever Thais’ reasons for voting yes, the charter now provides a veneer of legitimacy to the military’s continued involvement in politics, and to the elevation of unelected, appointed men and women over elected politicians. However, it now appears that the junta leaders may not be satisfied with stage-managing the referendum and leaving pro-military, unelected institutions with the greatest power. On the heels of a 1950s/1960s-style coup, they may be planning to ensure that army officers dominate parliament and actually run the next government. This would also be a throwback to Cold War-era Thailand, when military men formed political parties and ruled as civilians following coups. Yesterday, the Bangkok Post reported that a small political party that supported the May 2014 coup would try to enlist retired officers; the party may maneuver to get junta leader Prayuth chosen as prime minister. Prayuth has not commented on whether he would take up the offer, but he left open the possibility of serving in the next parliament. Don’t count out the prospect that the new boss will be the same as the old boss.

On August 7, Thais hold a national referendum on a new charter. As I noted in my previous blog post, Thailand has had twenty different constitutions since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932. Constitutions have been shredded by military governments after coups, rewritten during times of political upheaval, and even (as in the mid-1990s) written with thought and considerable public input and implemented under elected governments. Now, the junta, which took power in May 2014, has stage managed the drafting of a new proposed charter. The charter was written by a military-appointed committee. As I noted in my previous post, the new proposed constitution would significantly undermine Thailand’s democratic future, as it would weaken political parties and likely lead to weak leadership in parliament, with larger parties having to form unwieldy coalitions with many smaller and medium-sized parties. It also would entrench the long-term power of the armed forces to meddle in politics, which have, of course, returned to the center of politics. After a period, between 1992 and 2006, during which Thailand had no coups and the military appeared to have actually withdrawn to the barracks, the army has staged two coups in the past decade. The military government has gone all-out to get a yes vote on the constitution, banning public criticism of the charter and deploying army cadets and other groups of volunteers to urge Thais to vote yes. Last month, the junta charged a group of eight-year-old girls with “obstructing the referendum process” for supposedly tearing pieces of paper that voter lists were printed on. The regime has set up monitoring centers across the country to watch citizens’ actions in the run-up to August 7, and has arrested at least fifty people (not including the girls) for supposedly trying to hold rallies or other events to criticize the charter. But as I noted in my previous posting, dissatisfaction with the junta could potentially lead to a no vote. There is no accurate public polling available on how Thais will vote, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the millions of Thais who supported the previous, elected government are dissatisfied with junta rule. (Polls that have been released showing voters’ intentions are hard to take seriously, since they are being conducted in an authoritarian state and in a period of intense repression.) There are many reasons to think that, if Thais vote no to the constitution, the junta government will continue in power—perhaps until King Bhumibol Adulyadej passes from the scene and a royal succession takes place. Although the king is eighty-eight and reportedly very unwell, this succession still could take years; the king normally lives in a hospital wing and receives some of the finest medical care in the country. Junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha has publicly stated that he will not step down if Thais vote no on the charter, even though leaders of both of the kingdom’s largest political parties oppose the charter, and the biggest party, Puea Thai, has called on Prayuth to step down if the referendum fails. Instead, if Thais vote no, expect Prayuth and the junta government to set an indefinite timeline for the junta’s continued rule.  In the worst case scenario, the army could wind up ruling into the next decade, operating without a new charter and continuing to rely on military courts and new laws they announce by fiat. There would likely be no progress on any type of political decentralization, which is critical to resolving some of Thailand’s regional divides, and no progress in combating the insurgency in the south. Prayuth and other junta leaders have taken a hard line on talks with southern insurgents. Perhaps only when the king passed from the scene and the crown prince seemed ensconced, stably, in power, would the military allow the writing of another draft charter and then a process toward a new election. And if Thais vote yes on a charter that many elected politicians and civil society leaders see as highly flawed? There will probably be an election next year, even though the charter does not guarantee that; Prayuth and other army leaders have promised an election next year. Thais will wind up with a wider range of parties in parliament, including many smaller and medium-sized parties, and will be unlikely to have any prime minister as powerful as those of the past fifteen years. The Senate, which will be unelected, will have a greater role in policymaking, and could play a central role in choosing the prime minister if there is a deadlock in the lower house. Continued policy paralysis will not only add to Thailand’s lack of progress on critical economic and education issues but also will anger the rural Thais who support Puea Thai en masse, and will believe that their voices are now unheard. Overall, either a yes or no vote could well lead to chaos in Thailand.

On August 7, Thailand will hold an up or down national referendum on a proposed new constitution. Drafting new charters are hardly unusual in the kingdom, which has had twenty constitutions since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932. (One famous Thai joke told to me by many friends involves a Thai student visiting a library to read a copy of the current constitution, only to be told to check in the periodicals section.) This charter has been drafted by a group of pro-military/royalist former officials, and stage managed by the junta, which took power in May 2014 after months of destabilizing street protests against the elected Yingluck Shinawatra government. To make it as likely as possible that the charter passes, the junta has essentially banned all critical public discussion of the proposed constitution. In one notable example, the military arrested student activists last month just for handing out leaflets that criticized the draft charter. As Shawn Crispin writes in the Diplomat, the junta has implemented “a draconian Referendum Act that carries potential 10-year prison penalties for misrepresenting the draft constitution, criticizing its content, or disrupting the vote.” The junta also has dispatched squads of army cadets across the country to encourage Thais to vote yes on the constitution. The charter is designed, in many ways, to undermine Thailand’s democratic institutions, preserve the power of the armed forces and other unelected institutions, and ensure that either the military or pro-military parties are in power whenever Thailand goes through a royal succession. The military, and pro-military middle and upper classes in Bangkok, may fear that unless they weaken democratic institutions, including political parties, whenever another election is held it will be won by the populist Puea Thai party, a party linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. So, the proposed charter would make it harder for any one party to gain a working majority in the lower house of parliament. The charter also would create a fully unelected upper house of parliament and invest it with sizable powers. It also would create the possibility that parliament could select an unelected person as prime minister—possibly someone from the military establishment. Fears about royal succession are well-founded. The current king, Bhumibhol Adulyadej, is eighty-eight, rarely appears in public, suffers a range of ailments, has lived on and off for years in a hospital wing, and yet is revered by most Thais. Bhumibhol is revered in part because he has played a stabilizing role in Thai society, but also because a massive personality cult has been created around him, built by the palace and the military, over six decades of his rule. Thailand now exists in a state of fear, with many royalists worried that the period after Bhumibhol’s passing will usher in civil conflict, since Thais will reject the next king, or the next king will prove so unstable that he will destabilize the entire country. The current crown prince, Bhumibhol’s heir, is known for his unpredictable behavior, is rumored to be widely disliked by business and military elites, and has rarely shown wise political judgment. Indeed, he enjoys little public trust. Yet although the crown prince would technically be a constitutional monarch when he becomes king, he will inherit a wide range of powers unparalleled anywhere except the absolute monarchies of the Middle East—informal powers, but sizable powers nonetheless over the security establishment, the rich Crown Property Bureau, and the business and political elite. Unlike Thai juntas going back to the 1960s, the current junta has overseen a very harsh government. In 2006–7, during the last coup era—and in most coup governments dating back to the late 1960s—military regimes allowed a certain degree of free expression, as long as people did not hold massive public protests against a coup government. These past juntas also usually appointed technocrats to head up most major ministries—under military rule or de facto military rule Thailand posted some of the highest growth rates in the world between the 1960s and early 1990s—and they eventually handed power back to the public via elections. In Thailand’s 2006–7 coup, that junta followed the same script that had been used in coup after coup dating back to the 1960s. (Thailand has had more coups or attempted coups in its modern history than any other nation in East Asia.) After a year in power, the 2006 junta, which had ousted Thaksin, oversaw relatively free elections, which were won by a pro-Thaksin party, although Thaksin himself was not at the helm. The junta stood down. The current junta is doing everything it can to avoid a scenario where a pro-Thaksin party comes to power again. Besides trying to stack the charter to weaken parties and institutions, the junta has hinted that, if the voters reject the charter, the coup government will stay in power—possibly for an indefinite amount of time. In addition, it has over the past two years launched an aggressive crackdown on all types of dissent in Thailand. The junta has sent hundreds of civil society activists, journalists, opposition politicians, and other potential critics to re-education sessions, which are often held at army camps, and subjected them to worse torture, according to Human Rights Watch and other organizations. It has overseen a growing number of questionable lèse-majesté cases, which are tried in military courts. It has forced many former opposition politicians to sign coerced agreements vowing not to be involved in politics again. However, because the junta has made it so hard to express dissent in Thailand, it has also created a situation in which voting no on the charter could be, for many Thais, the only way they have to show displeasure at the coup government. Though there may be some fraud, the actual voting will likely be relatively free and fair; there is little evidence to suggest that the coup government plans to blatantly rig the polls on August 7. So, it is possible that Thais will reject the draft charter as a rebuke to the military government, and a way to resist giving the army even more, and more entrenched, powers. In the next post, I will discuss what might happen if Thais reject the charter—and what might happen if it passes. I am not optimistic about Thailand’s future under either scenario.

Now You Can Find out What Happens to U.S. Aid In a bipartisan vote, Congress passed legislation to require U.S. agencies—the U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. State Department among them—to measure the success (or failure) of billions spent on development and economic assistance programs—and share the findings on foreignassistance.gov. Once signed into law the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act will also make public program budgets by country, showing where and how U.S. money is spent. Notably exempt is security assistance, leaving details about how the United States funds, trains, and equips foreign militaries still opaque. Naming and Shaming in the U.S. Human Trafficking Report The U.S. State Department released its sixteenth annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, ranking 188 countries’ efforts to prevent human trafficking from best (Tier 1) to worst (Tier 3). Myanmar and Uzbekistan joined six other nations downgraded to the U.S. blacklist—in Myanmar’s case for recruiting and using child soldiers, smuggling minority Rohingya migrants, and official complicity in forced labor. Thailand rose from the bottom rung, despite criticisms that labor abuses in its multibillion dollar fishing industry remain unchecked. Last year investigations revealed top U.S. diplomats manipulated TIP rankings for political ends; this year’s calling out of strategic partners may help restore the report’s credibility. UK Bribery Act Turns Five Five years ago the United Kingdom (UK) passed the Bribery Act. It not only makes it illegal for companies to bribe foreign officials (in line with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), it also holds them to task for failing to prevent bribery among subsidiaries and business partners within their supply chains. Others have followed the UK’s lead. Brazil passed its Clean Company Act in 2014, imposing fines of up to 20 percent of revenue for companies that bribe foreign or domestic officials. Ireland has proposed legislation that includes the UK’s rules and adds provisions to force stricter corporate due diligence. The UK Bribery Act’s first half decade only saw two cases resolved: convicting Sweett Group of bribing a UAE official, and settling with Standard Bank for bribery in Tanzania. Last year the Serious Fraud Office took on sixteen new investigations—expect more decisions before the law’s next milestone birthday.

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Bochen Han, Theresa Lou, and Gabriella Meltzer look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Nepalis seeking employment in Afghanistan face severe risks. Faced with a faltering economy and few job opportunities following the devastating April 2015 earthquake, thousands of Nepalis have sought employment in Afghanistan as security contractors at foreign missions, military bases, and embassies. An attack by the Taliban that killed fourteen Nepalese guards hired by private security firm Sabre International for the Canadian embassy in Kabul demonstrates the inherent risk involved in this venture. Many of these foreign employees have remarked that they are more financially and physically vulnerable than their Western counterparts. The Nepalese guards must work several months to recover enormous debts incurred by broker fees to secure their posts and are paid lower wages. In addition, they are escorted around the city in regular minibuses rather than armored cars, and live in separate facilities with far more stringent rules. Following the attack, the Nepalese government has announced that it is restricting all citizen travel to Afghanistan and will facilitate the travel of those who wish to return to Nepal. 2. China suspends diplomatic communication with Taiwan. This week, China suspended communication mechanisms between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan due to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s failure to endorse the 1992 Consensus. The 1992 Consensus refers to the tacit understanding that both parties recognize the “one China” principle, but each side has its own interpretation of the term. Beijing views the acceptance of the consensus as the prerequisite for normalized cross-strait relations and thus blames Taiwan for the suspended communication. Tsai maintains that Taiwan will seek other options to continue dialogue with China. Ties between the two sides have chilled after Tsai and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party took power in January’s presidential and legislative elections. The decision to cut communication with Taipei is seen as Beijing’s latest effort to hinder Tsai’s domestic agenda of reviving the island’s slowing economy. 3. United States upgrades Thailand in human trafficking report. The U.S. Department of State raised Thailand from Tier 3, for those doing most poorly in addressing human trafficking issues, to Tier 2 in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. In recent years sex trafficking and the trafficking of Rohingya involved in fishing were major concerns in Thailand. Observers largely attributed this year’s upgrade to improvements in labor conditions and anti-trafficking efforts in the seafood industry. Some speculate, however, that geopolitics may color the objectivity of the TIP report. Last year, Voice of America reported that the rankings of fourteen nations with strategic value had been increased. Particularly controversial was the upgrade of Malaysia, which the Bangkok Post called “blatantly politicized” due to Malaysia’s involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which were ongoing at the time. Some speculate that Thailand’s upgrade this year occurred not only because of actual improvements, but also because the United States was worried that the Thai government was listing too far towards China. Still, one can hope that the desire to maintain Tier 2 status will encourage further Thai efforts to crack down on trafficking. 4. UN human rights rapporteur wraps up visit to Myanmar. Today, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee concluded her first official visit to the National League for Democracy-led regime. The twelve-day visit, made at the invitation of the Myanmar government, allowed Lee to assess the progress in implementation of recommendations she had made in March to the administration, the findings of which will be released in a report to the UN General Assembly in September. Lee’s meetings with authorities and civil-society groups struck a firm but uncontroversial tone amidst an ongoing battle over words that had her previously condemned by the government and continuously reviled by radical nationalist Buddhist groups. Myanmar’s state counselor and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi received Lee early last week, during which Aung San Suu Kyi reiterated that the government will—and that outside entities should—avoid using “divisive” and “emotive” terms like “Bengali” and “Rohingya” to describe the persecuted Muslim minority group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state (and rather use “Muslim community in the Rakhine state”). Lee’s delicate balancing hasn’t fully pleased either side, however, with Muslim groups lamenting her lack of commitment to them on behalf of the UN, and Buddhist groups preemptively dismissing her upcoming report as “biased.” 5. Vietnam considers motorcycle ban. As traffic congestion in Hanoi worsens, local officials have announced a plan to ban motorcycles in the city center starting in 2025. The city currently has more than 4.9 million motorcycles, with between eight and twenty thousand new ones being registered in the city each month in 2015. However, meeting growing demand for transportation will require expanding public transit systems, and Hanoi officials also intend to double the number of buses and construct two new urban rail lines. China has also begun implementing similar restrictions in recent months, banning electric bikes and limiting traffic in the nation’s congested capitol. Bonus: Falun Gong fights back on the street and in court. Flushing, NY, home to one of the largest Falun Gong followings in North America, is also now the birthplace of a Brooklyn court battle between two Chinese immigrant groups. In a federal lawsuit filed in March 2015, Falun Gong members have accused the Chinese Anti-Cult World Alliance (CACWA), a group with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party, of pursuing an “ongoing campaign of violent assaults, threats, intimidation, and other abuses” against them. Falun Gong practitioners are a stalwart presence on crowded Flushing streets, often handing out flyers that promote the spiritual practice and raise awareness about persecution the group faces within China. CACWA has its own counter-propaganda that refers to Falun Gong as an evil cult. Members of the two groups occasionally engage in scuffles, described as anything from “typical” New York City street arguments to “attacks,” depending on the perspective. With the final ruling impending, the latest official news is that the plaintiff’s motion to seal the case from the public record has been denied. But in a battle for hearts and minds, can there really be a winner?

Earlier this month, Thai junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha lamented the ongoing bloodshed in southern Thailand and implicitly criticized his own government’s feeble attempts to restart talks with the insurgents. In his weekly address in early May, Prayuth lamented the “sad and terrible waste of lives” in fifteen years of fighting in the south. More than 6,500 people have reportedly been killed in the southern insurgency since 2001. The general also essentially said that the insurgency’s negotiators, who have held talks about how to hold talks with the junta, make unreasonable demands and have not shown they actually represent the interests of most southerners, according to the Bangkok Post. Prayuth also has said that the insurgency has failed to slow down the pace of violence in the south, a shift that would be a sign that the militants are committed to a peace process. The southern insurgency clearly is not petering out. Southern insurgents have utilized increasingly brutal tactics, and in the past five years insurgent cells have mastered more sophisticated bombing and shooting attacks. Attacks may be spreading outside of the south. Thai intelligence and police officials believe the southern militants were behind a bombing in Koh Samui last year. Insurgents have repeatedly launched large-scale, military-style offensives in the deep south in recent years, attacking Thai army posts with waves of fighters shooting and throwing grenades at soldiers. But Prayuth’s speeches ignore the military’s own role in keeping the southern conflict going, and the armed forces’ inability to protect its own soldiers in the south. Successive Thai governments, dating back fifteen years, have utilized brutal tactics in the south, further alienating many southerners who might not be inclined to support the insurgency. In one of the most horrific examples of brutality in the south, after a protest in October 2004 at a police station in Tak Bai in Narathiwat province, the security forces detained hundreds of demonstrators. Police and soldiers tossed protestors into cramped trucks and vans in stifling heat. Left for hours without enough water or air, eighty-five of the detainees died of suffocation and organ failure en route to an army camp. Tak Bai was hardly unique. According to Human Rights Watch, Thai security forces routinely detain suspects in the south without charge, torture them, and disappear them. Besides being brutal, the security forces’ counterinsurgency strategy has yielded no obvious results. No review of the southern insurgency---whether by outside groups or Thailand’s own national security council---has concluded that the security forces could defeat the insurgents through a military solution alone. The security forces also have invested little in protecting Thai soldiers operating in the south. Thai soldiers, many of whom come from other parts of the country and have no knowledge of southern terrain or customs, are often placed at roadblocks, at night, with insufficient weaponry and armor. Training programs for soldiers heading to the deep south place little emphasis on tactics to win popular support or understand southern society. As a result of this poor preparation, privates and lower-ranking officers know few locals who might be able to give them intelligence on where to situate roadblocks or how to anticipate insurgent attacks. Although Thailand’s army is top-heavy with flag officers, few senior commanders regularly travel to the south. The insurgents, meanwhile, can draw on significant local support despite killing mostly local civilians. According to the International Crisis Group, “official Thai estimates consistently indicate about 3,000 trained fighters and 10,000 active supporters … [but the]number of those ‘who view the struggle favorably and may be prepared to provide logistical and intelligence support’ [is] 100,000 to 300,000.” Posted on unfamiliar roads, facing an incensed population and skillful militants, lacking modern armor, Thai soldiers and paramilitaries in the south are often easy targets. In one typical daylight strike in July 2012, insurgents murdered four Thai underequipped Thai soldiers. After becoming prime minister in 2011, Yingluck Shinawatra attempted to change course in the south, broaching the idea of decentralization and curbs on the security forces. She relaunched the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center. She appointed a new government body, in Bangkok, to coordinate all ministries’ activities in the three southern provinces, an attempt to exert greater government control over all state actors in the south, including the army. She made some cosmetic attempts to reduce the security forces’ use of brutal tactics, including by attempting to quietly transfer out some officers alleged to have overseen abuses. However, these cosmetic shifts did not include any real reckoning with abuses committed in the past in the deep south. More importantly, Yingluck took a step toward substantive peace talks with the insurgents---talks that might have led to a deal that changed the way Thailand is governed. Previous Thai governments had broached peace talks through interlocutors, but Yingluck’s approach was more substantive. For the first time under Yingluck, ICG notes, a Thai government had admitted that the conflict in the south had political and cultural roots---that it was not simply a battle of bandits or militants with no cause against the Thai state. The Yingluck government also “identified decentralization and dialogue with militants as components of a resolution” at the peace table, ICG noted. But Yingluck’s government was not fully prepared for the ferocity of the opposition to the idea of decentralization from the military, Thailand’s bureaucracy, and many other Bangkok opinion leaders. As anti-Yingluck protests expanded in Bangkok in late 2013 and early 2014, Yingluck’s government found it almost impossible to govern the country, and the southern peace talks stalled. After the coup in May 2014, the junta essentially called a halt to the peace negotiations, although it has held talks about talks with insurgency representatives based in Malaysia. Prayuth’s speeches suggest even these exploratory talks will go nowhere. In addition, the coup government’s control of nearly all the functions of the state---the exact opposite of decentralization---makes it hard to imagine it will ever restart peace talks based upon the concept of reducing Bangkok’s power over other parts of Thailand. Prayuth and other junta leaders publicly affirm the idea that Thai identity rests on adherence to a Bangkok-centered notion of religion, monarch, and nation. They also show no signs of changing the harsh legal structures in place in southern Thailand. Indeed, since the coup the junta has implemented new legislation that gives the armed forces draconian powers to detain virtually anyone without charge.

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

Rachel Brown, Lincoln Davidson, Gabriella Meltzer, Gabriel Walker, and Pei-Yu Wei look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Nearly a quarter of India’s population affected by drought. After two years of weak monsoons, over 330 million Indians are suffering from the debilitating effects of an intense drought. In some locales, forecasts predicted temperatures climbing to over 113 degrees—their highest seasonal levels in over a hundred years—and across the country reservoirs are at 29 percent of their storage capacity. India has faced extreme droughts throughout history, but water shortages have been especially acute in recent years because of rapid population growth, urbanization, and deforestation. The poor and agricultural workers are especially effected by the drought, forcing many farmers to sell their livestock and migrate to cities to work as construction laborers. The extreme conditions may also cause a spike in farmer suicides as well because of increased crop losses and economic hardship. Local and central authorities have taken a variety of methods to combat water shortages, including sending water-laden trains to parched regions and banning borewells deeper than 200 feet. 2. Chinese vaccine scandal heightens public’s distrust of health system. Late last month, police in east China’s Shandong Province arrested thirty-seven people involved an illegal vaccine ring that had been in operation since 2011. The mother and daughter–led black market ring had sold $88 million worth of expired vaccines produced by forty-five licensed pharmaceutical companies for diseases such as a polio, rabies, chickenpox, and Japanese encephalitis to health institutions across twenty-four provinces. Since then, 357 government officials will either lose their jobs or be demoted for their involvement in the scandal, and an additional 202 individuals have been detained for further investigation. Over 1,000 protesting parents, seventy of whom have filed lawsuits, gathered this week at Beijing’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, where they complained of “intimidation and arbitrary arrest by security officials.” Their fears have been not been assuaged by China’s World Health Organization branch, which simply stated that “improperly stored or expired vaccines rarely cause a toxic reaction and the most common risk is that they are ineffective.” This latest episode has fanned the flame for widespread distrust of the Chinese food and medicine regulatory system, and many view it as further evidence of Xi Jinping’s governance style that fails to prioritize people’s health amidst a crumbling health infrastructure. 3. Indonesia holds conference to reflect on anti-Communist purges. The two-day symposium, examining mass killings perpetrated and encouraged by the Indonesian government in 1965 and 1966, was the first such meeting with the government’s official sanction. At the conference, coordinating minister for political, legal, and security affairs Luhut B. Pandjaitan declined to pursue a criminal investigation of the atrocities, but left open the possibility that the government could release a statement expressing “remorse for past events” at some point. The “past events” referred to are the well-documented murder by the military and government-supported groups of an estimated 500,000 people suspected of being Communists following an incident the government claimed was an attempted coup by the Indonesian Communist Party, known as the PKI. Hundreds of thousands of others were imprisoned for up to ten years. Some human rights groups suspect that the U.S. government, concerned with fighting communism in Southeast Asia and the ongoing war in Vietnam, was complicit in the atrocities. The purges led to the removal from office of Indonesia’s first postcolonial leader, Sukarno, and ushered in three decades of rule by a dictatorship. 4. United Nations wary of Thai junta’s tightening grip. On Friday, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, expressed growing concern about the increasing authority of Thailand’s military government. Rather than strengthening the military’s powers, as would be the case under a new draft constitution, Zeid exhorted the government to “strengthen the rule of law… not undermine it.” The statement coincides with a recent spate of increasingly authoritarian measures, such as one that grants Thai officers broad, police-like powers of arrest, and a new law that imposes a ten-year jail sentence on anyone who campaigns ahead of an August referendum on the new constitution. Just a few days ago, a former minister of social development and human security, also a prominent critic of the draft, was detained for speaking out against it. Since the beginning of the year, at least eighty-five people have been summoned or detained in Thailand for “attitude adjustment.” 5. First AIIB Projects in Central Asia and Pakistan. The first investments of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will go toward building a ring road in the Kazakh city of Almaty, a new road connecting the Tajik capital to the Uzbek border, and a Pakistani highway. The recipients of the AIIB’s initial investments are all nations that enjoy warm relations with China and are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and are also included in China’s massive “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang announced the AIIB in October 2013 during trips to Southeast Asia, and the bank became operational in January 2016 with fifty-seven founding members. The AIIB provoked controversy and initial opposition from the United States and some American allies; particular concerns were raised as to whether it would adhere to the lending standards used by other development banks such as the World Bank.  However, the president of the AIIB, Jin Liqun, has recently emphasized that the bank will adhere to strong governance standards. Indeed, all of the initial projects will be financed in conjunction with other international development banks including the Asian Development Bank, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Bonus: Beijing jianbing come to NYC. Jianbing, or Chinese pancakes, have become the latest Chinese food trend in New York City. Made from eggs, cilantro, chili, scallions, shards of fried dough, and sauce spread on a crepe of mung bean and wheat flour, jianbing is a street food from northern China and is a ubiquitous breakfast food found throughout the streets of Beijing. Jianbing is said to have originated from Shandong province as early as the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD), when famed military strategist Zhuge Liang told his soldiers to cook pancakes made from rice and flour on their shields over fires after all woks the army brought were lost. Now the jianbing is making waves in New York, with several food trucks selling the snack appearing around Manhattan. Most of the founders of the trucks learned the art of jianbing-making in China, though some have added variations to the typical jianbing one would find in Beijing. For example, Flying Pig Jianbing adds lettuce to its concoctions, while Mr. Bing touts a menu with sweet options, which is a break from the traditional savory jianbing in China. Authentic or not, jianbing is undoubtedly one of the best new soft power tools China has.

In Washington last week to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha tried to reassure foreign policymakers that Thailand was indeed headed back to democracy next year. Three years after Prayuth launched a coup, he promised, in an interview with Voice of America’s Thai service, the generals would hand over power and hold an election. But events in Thailand suggest that Prayuth and his allies actually are digging in for the long haul. After months of wrangling over a proposed new constitution, the draft revealed by the charter writing committee contains clauses that seem extremely undemocratic. The charter will allow the junta to control the selection of the vast majority of senators who will sit in the upper house of parliament, if the constitution is approved. In addition, the charter gives the unelected upper house, and other unelected government bodies, far more power than they had under the previous constitution. And the proposed constitution also contains a clause that could allow for an unelected prime minister, potentially another avenue for the armed forces to continue wielding power even after an election for the lower house next year. In total, the constitution appears designed to ensure that political parties remain weak, and no one can gain a working majority in the lower house of parliament. Meanwhile, last week the junta granted soldiers essentially unrestrained police powers. The new order allows Thai officers above the lieutenant rank to arrest and search virtually anyone they want, without having to produce significant evidence that the suspects actually committed a crime. Conveniently, the same soldiers will also be able to interrogate suspects, according to a statement by Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon. On the ground in Thailand, the junta also is stepping up repression of critics, in advance of a national plebiscite on the constitution to be held in August of this year. The junta apparently will bar any public discussion sessions about the draft constitution, except for those organized by the government. The army has suggested that anyone who offers tough public criticism of the proposed charter could be jailed. Prayuth also recently announced that the army may step up its Orwellian-named “attitude adjustment” sessions for critics---conveniently held at military bases and other unknown sites, and featuring tactics like tossing journalists, politicians, and civil society activists in tiny, bare cells for extended periods of time. The regime’s paranoia has extended so far that, last week, the government arrested a woman in Chiang Mai for posing for photos with a red bowl---a bowl that was inscribed with a Thai New Year message from exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The woman faces a possible term of seven years in jail on charges of sedition. Even if the junta does hold an election next year, and one of Thailand’s two major political parties wins enough seats to control the lower house, the clauses in the constitution designed to limit politicians’ power, and the threat of another putsch, will limit any prime minister’s authority. The most likely near-term scenario is a return to the semiauthoritarian style of government that ruled Thailand in the 1980s, under former army chief-turned-prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda. Such as “Premocracy 2.0”, as Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University calls it, might put Thailand under an arrangement in which, as in the 1980s, “elected politicians and political parties could contest polls and divide up [less powerful] ministries” while the armed forces maintain a grip on the most important Cabinet positions, and have behind-the-scenes control, managing the government even though there are regular parliamentary elections, Prof. Thitinan notes. But Thailand’s population is no longer living in the 1980s. It is politically empowered, used to representative democracy, and much more educated. Despite the junta’s repression, Thai citizens are able to access relatively unfiltered news through social media. And the country’s economy is staggering, not growing at the high rates that Premocracy 1.0 delivered. As Thitinan notes, Prayuth and the other junta leaders do not seem interested in delegating authority over financial and economic policymaking, the way Prem did, to great success; partly as a result, there is little reason to believe Thailand’s economy can even recover to growth rates comparable to other regional peers today, let alone the turbocharged growth of Cold War-era Thailand.

After the attacks in Jakarta in January, in which a group of gunmen, apparently overseen by a man affiliated with the self-declared Islamic State, shot and bombed their way through a downtown neighborhood, Southeast Asian governments began to openly address the threat of Islamic State-linked radicals. The region’s intelligence agencies, and especially Singapore intelligence, had been warning for at least two years that Southeast Asian men and women were traveling to Islamic State-controlled territory for training and inspiration, and that the region’s governments had no effective way to track these militants’ return. According to estimates by several regional intelligence agencies, between 1,200 and 1,600 Southeast Asians had traveled to Islamic State-controlled areas and possibly returned to their homelands. Other estimates put the figure even higher. The Islamic State clearly recognizes the potential for radicalizing Southeast Asians, one of the largest pools of Muslims in the world. The Islamic State has released a series of videos, posted on the Internet and social media, appealing directly to people speaking Bahasa (Malay or Indonesian.) The group has created a brigade of fighters in Syria for incoming Malaysians and Indonesians, a brigade known as Katibah Nusantara, or “Malay archipelago.” The brigade reportedly has been involved in battles with Kurdish forces, capturing territory from the Kurds last year. Returning to the region, Islamic State-trained militants may plan attacks to demonstrate their devotion and establish themselves as leaders to be feared. The Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) wrote in early February that in the coming months, “more terrorist attacks in Indonesia are likely as local ISIS leaders compete at home and abroad to establish their supremacy.” Following the Jakarta blasts, Indonesian authorities arrested at least two dozen people (the exact number remains unclear) suspected of possibly planning future attacks. Sensing that the number of Islamic State-inspired radicals was higher than original estimates, in March the Indonesian National Intelligence Agency drew up plans to hire roughly 2,000 more intelligence agents focused on counterterrorism. The Jokowi administration, and the Indonesian parliament, also is considering passing “preventive detention” laws that would allow the authorities to hold terror suspects for up to six months without charging them. Yet the Jakarta attacks did not send Southeast Asian governments most vulnerable to the Islamic State threat---Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand---into a total panic. After all, the Islamic State, though a danger, is not as much of a threat to Southeast Asia as the group is to countries in the Middle East, Africa, or Europe. For one, many regional leaders and intelligence analysts understand that, compared to regions like Europe and the Middle East, the number of Southeast Asians who have traveled to Syria or Iraq to receive training and funding is relatively small. This number remains small in part because of the openness and democracy of countries like Indonesia, which allows Islamists to air their grievances heard through the political system. Even if 2,000 or 2,500 Southeast Asians have made the journey, as some Malaysian intelligence officers believe, this figure pales in comparison to the number of Tunisians or French and Belgian citizens who have traveled to join the Islamic State. For more on my analysis of why the Islamic State does not pose a great threat to Southeast Asia, see my new piece on Southeast Asia and the Islamic State in The Diplomat.

Though former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose family originally came from the northern suburbs of Chiang Mai, has lived in exile for years, in the Chiang Mai area, until the spring of 2014, it was almost as if he never left. Cab drivers displayed his photo on their dashboard right next to Buddha images and pictures of ancient Thai royals. Community radio stations broadcast his speeches from exile, and vendors in nearby villages sold posters of the politician grinning and T-shirts bearing his image. Billboards featuring Thaksin and other local politicians from his party dominated the landscape on the sides of roads. “Thaksin was the first politician who listened to poor people,” said one store owner in the Chiang Mai suburbs. “He came here and he heard our problems and he didn’t just tell us what to do, like the Democrats [the other main political party in Thailand, which has less support among the poor] … No one from Bangkok was like that before.” But it was not only Thaksin’s willingness to appear to be listening to poorer, rural Thais that won him office in 2001 and that made his organization the most powerful political party in the country---until a 2014 military coup essentially banned Thai political parties in another attempt to defang Thaksin’s political machine. Thaksin’s state capitalist policies were enormously popular with the majority of poor and working class Thais. Even in Thaksin’s 2000-2001 campaign, he was the first Thai politician to really promise a platform of policies to voters, including many types of state intervention in the economy such as new state credits for microenterprises, a new state-funded universal health care scheme, and many others. The platform was credited by many Thai voters and political scientists as the most important reason for his smashing 2001 win. For more on the rise of Thailand’s state capitalism, and its possible fall, see my new piece in The Diplomat.