Southeast Asia

On Monday morning Myanmar time, the Myanmar military staged a coup, its first coup since 1988, but hardly unique in Myanmar’s modern history. This coup bore all the hallmarks of previous military takeovers, even in an era in which telecommunications technology is far different from 1988, and information about Myanmar cannot be hermetically sealed off from the world. The armed forces detained most senior civilian politicians, and went beyond just detaining political figures to detain a wide range of critics of the armed forces. The army also instituted many roadblocks, throttled internet traffic, cut phone lines and other types of communication, closed banks, and took control of regional governments and the central government, with power now clearly residing with the army’s top commander, Min Aung Hlaing. Although the army has declared a state of emergency for a year, past history in Myanmar with such declarations could easily suggest that the state of emergency could go on for many years. After all, the Myanmar military still see themselves as the protectors of the country, despite several years of shaky democracy, and they wrote the current constitution, which has a clause that essentially allows for a coup and still gave the military significant powers. The army may have become afraid that Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) would be able to consolidate more power after last November’s elections and cut back the army’s power, that if the army commander retired he could become vulnerable to international prosecution for the army’s actions and might not be able to protect his family’s positions and wealth, and that at some point in the future Suu Kyi and the NLD might be able to change the constitution and diminish the power of the armed forces. Since November, the armed forces have been disputing the election results and claiming they were fraudulent. They also may have believed—possibly correctly—that the global pandemic, Myanmar’s close relationship with China, the democratic regression in other states in South and Southeast Asia, and the general U.S. disinterest in democracy issues in recent years would make it easier for them to launch a coup with little international pushback. And indeed, most South and Southeast Asian states said little about the coup, or simply referred to it as Myanmar’s internal problem. (Singapore did push back and called for Suu Kyi’s release and India expressed significant concern about the coup.) Aung San Suu Kyi had, as de facto civilian leader of Myanmar, done little to marginalize the military or push forward real democratic reform. Instead, she had created a party in which she wielded enormous power, disdained important institutions like a free media, and continually defended the military’s often brutal actions, minimizing the armed forces’ massive abuses against the Rohingya. So, she failed to strengthen democracy in recent years and create democratic bulwarks. Still, her party won victory in last year’s national elections—the fraud that the military claims occurred as a reason for stepping in has not been proven, and observers said that the election had minor irregularities but was relatively free and fair. Now, the coup has numerous potentially dangerous aftershocks. For one, the shift in governance could create even worse management of the COVID-19 crisis, as people may try to flee the country or migrate to other parts of the country, as they did after prior coups, potentially spreading the virus. The army’s closure of banks and the uncertainty could cause even more damage to an already-suffering economy, in the midst of the pandemic. Second, the coup could lead to an unwinding of deals with ethnic minority insurgencies, who could go back to war, further splintering Myanmar and leading to a massive spike in violence in what is already a conflict-ridden country. The insurgencies may now have the incentive to step up their battles, end cease-fire deals, and try to stake more gains in territory. There is also the prospect that, as the NLD and its allies try to rally Myanmar citizens, who now have lived through a decade of some degree of freedom—Suu Kyi has released a statement calling on Myanmar people to oppose the coup—that the army could crack down harder if the NLD, or other groups of Myanmar citizens, try to hold protests or rallies. In the past, during periods of absolute military rule—which has now returned—the military regularly used brutal force against any peaceful protests. Some leading democracies have made strong statements in response to the coup. Australia, Canada, countries in Europe, and the United States condemned the coup and now are considering further actions, despite the weakening of the United States’ image on democracy issues globally, after the United States’ 2020 election. According to NBC News: President Joe Biden said Monday that the military’s actions were a “direct assault” on the country’s transition to democracy and rule of law and said the U.S. would work with its partners to hold to account those responsible for overturning the country’s democratic transition. “For almost a decade, the people of Burma have been steadily working to establish elections, civilian governance, and the peaceful transfer of power,” he said in a statement, using the country's name until it was changed by the ruling military junta in 1989. “That progress should be respected.” But the Biden administration’s policy cupboard, though not bare, is fairly limited, given modest U.S. leverage over Myanmar and the fact that Myanmar’s neighbors mostly seem willing to live with the coup. Still, the United States and its partners do have some options, and I will go into these in the next post.

Charles Dunst is a visiting scholar at the East-West Center in Washington, an associate at LSE IDEAS, and a contributing editor of American Purpose. In January 2017 at Davos, the small alpine town that hosts the annual World Economic Forum, Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping made the case for Chinese global leadership, promising that while the soon-to-be Trump-led United States was promising to close its doors, China would keep them “wide open.” Corporate and political elites may have been somewhat skeptical, but many praised Xi’s speech, seeing it as a step in the right direction. This was only the most recent triumph for China, whose leadership successfully capitalized on the 2008 financial collapse—for which many faulted the United States—to win global goodwill for its authoritarian capitalist model. As the Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab put it while introducing Xi: “In a world marked by great uncertainty and volatility, the international community is looking to China.” Yet as Luke Patey of the Danish Institute for International Studies shows in his clear-eyed new book How China Loses: The Pushback Against Chinese Global Ambitions, much of the world has not liked what it has seen. China, he writes, “seeks to challenge the core values of the world’s liberal democracies: individual liberty, freedom of speech, and rule of law.” This challenge has frustrated countries from Germany to Malaysia and beyond. Indeed, China’s “predatory economic agenda, headstrong diplomacy, and military expansion,” as Patey writes, are undermining rather than advancing its standing in the world, so much so that Beijing, according to him, will fall short of attaining the mantle to global leadership it claims. Ultimately, though, Patey overstates his case: How China Loses does not so much show that China is losing everywhere in the world, but rather only that Beijing is not achieving its goals among developed democracies—a grouping whose collective importance is rapidly declining. Patey’s eye is well-trained both journalistically and analytically. For this book, he traveled to countries including South Sudan, Pakistan, and Germany, deftly presenting these and others as case studies that illustrate his thesis of China failing to reach its goals. In South Sudan, readers learn that Chinese officials do not yet understand how their investments in the country are inherently linked to Sudanese and South Sudanese politics, even when they have fostered war in those countries and actually undermined Beijing’s strategic objectives there. In Pakistan, we see how oft-mismanaged Chinese investment is pulling Beijing into bloody local conflicts, namely the Balochistan insurgency, that it so long tried to avoid. In Germany, we see how China’s nonreciprocal approach to its economy and investment—namely China’s refusal to truly open its markets to many foreign firms and Beijing’s boosting of state-owned enterprises that compete with German industry—antagonizes partner countries. But Patey’s case selection is curious. It is odd, for instance, that he did not travel to Southeast Asia, China’s historical backyard and the gateway for its global expansion. He writes extensively only about one country there, Malaysia. His characterization of this country is similarly peculiar. He portrays the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad as a leader who “left his mark” by pushing back against and changing Malaysian opinions of China—even though some 60 percent of Malaysian elites still say that if forced to choose between the United States and China, they would go with the latter. Mahathir may have campaigned on an anti-China platform in 2018, but by 2019 he had almost entirely reversed course, saying that if forced to choose between Beijing and Washington, he would ally with the “rich” former rather than the “unpredictable” latter, and that there was no point confronting China, so Malaysia should simply defer to the Asian giant as it had done “for the past 2,000 years.” This is hardly the voice of a leader whose country China has lost. Moreover, Patey mentions Cambodia and Laos, perhaps the Southeast Asian countries most like Chinese client-states, only in passing, noting that there is “a tendency for China to avoid blowback to Belt and Road projects”—those funded by China’s massive global development project—“in authoritarian regimes and weak democracies, particularly smaller economies such as Laos and Cambodia.” Therein lies the most serious flaw in Patey’s argument: His examples of countries that China has lost—Denmark and Japan, for instance—are functional democracies responsive to public opinion and discontent. In contrast, countries like Cambodia and Zimbabwe that continue to support Chinese interests can do so precisely because they are not as responsive to public opinion, which is increasingly marked by anti-Chinese sentiment in these states. The qualities of China’s foreign policy may have repelled other states in the democratic world, but many autocrats are happy to fit themselves neatly within Beijing’s hierarchical worldview—which one former Japanese diplomat tells Patey is China’s “most fundamental problem”—if doing so keeps these autocrats rich and in power. Still, Patey argues that China could lose “not because it lacks global power, or that others should work in concert against all its ambitions, but because the actions and visions of its leaders elicit cautious reception and pushback across the world that undermines its potential as a global superpower.” But again, this “reception” matters only in countries where people can vote out leaders perceived as doing China’s bidding. Increasingly widespread anti-Chinese sentiment has not and will not soon force autocratic regimes to fundamentally reorient their approaches to Beijing. Throughout the book, though, Patey seems to assume that leaders act in their countries’ best interests—that well-intentioned presidents and prime ministers the world over will band together and uphold the liberal international order. He writes, for instance, that because “Chinese economic power can bend the will of new political leaders, but not wider society,” many countries will have no choice but to stand up to Beijing. But he does not interrogate how much society’s opinions matter in countries ruled by autocrats. He instead takes it as fact that even illiberal leaders will put their respective national interests first. This assumption is evident in his conclusion, in which he recommends that countries diversify trading and investment partners and privilege multilateral relations with China, rather than engage the Asian giant bilaterally. But leaders, particularly undemocratic leaders, often do not act in their nation’s interest. Developing countries, which include many authoritarian states, remain home to an overwhelming majority of the world’s population, and are in many ways the backbone of China’s “community of shared future”: its Sino-centric alternative to the liberal democratic order. With the world’s political and economic power shifting towards Asia as the continent’s wealth grows, China is arguably better served, at least strategically, by courting Cambodia and Laos than by pursuing deeper ties with Germany and Denmark. And if the United States remains unfocused on Asia and other developing regions, leaving China-countering efforts there to middle powers like Japan and Germany, Beijing will find its construction of an illiberal order all the easier. Nonetheless, Patey’s book is chock full of keen observations, meaningful interviews, and remarkable data, all of which smartly illustrate the flaws manifest in China’s authoritarian capitalist foreign policy. But the grandiosity of both his title and thesis betrays him. Indeed, upon putting down How China Loses, one is left wondering how, if China is so likely to lose, has Beijing made so many countries so pliant to its interests, and why is President Joe Biden’s diplomatic team so forcefully promising to beat back Chinese influence? Beijing’s belligerence certainly has lost it friends, as Patey suggests, but China’s failure to construct a global or at least regional Sino-centric order is far from foreordained. The upshot from this more pessimistic outlook is that proponents of the liberal democratic order must not rest but instead rise in a coordinated manner to meet today’s China challenge. For leaders the world over, taking into account Patey’s prescriptions would be a good start.

This article was first published in the Japan Times.  Over the past 15 years, democracy across Asia has regressed. Although the region still has strong democracies like South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, many other leading Asian democracies and countries with democratic potential have slid backwards, turning into near-autocracies or outright authoritarian states. While Thailand had been one of the freest states in Asia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it has suffered two military coups in the past decade and now is run by a parliamentary government that took power after a seriously flawed election in 2019. Bangladesh had built itself into a shaky but increasingly vibrant democracy by the early 2010s, but in the past decade has deteriorated into a de facto one-party regime, with opposition activists, civil society leaders and journalists jailed and murdered. The Philippines, which had become a solid democracy in the decades following after the Marcos regime, elected President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 and then witnessed mass extrajudicial killings, crackdowns on media outlets and violent targeting of Duterte’s political opponents. And in India, the most populous democracy in the world, recent years have included the Narendra Modi government undermining the independence of the judiciary and cowing independent media. Asia’s democratic regression was part of a global wave. Since the mid-2000s, democracy has regressed on nearly every continent, including in strongholds like North America and Europe. Outright authoritarian regimes have come to power in places that once were promising democracies like Turkey, while even some of the oldest democracies, like the United States, have witnessed significant democratic erosion. Indeed, in its 2020 report “Freedom in the World,” Freedom House noted that the world had seen 14 straight years of democratic decline. The novel coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated this democratic breakdown. In a study of the impact of the virus on democracy, “Democracy Under Lockdown,” Freedom House found that “the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened a crisis for democracy around the world, providing cover for governments to disrupt elections, silence critics and the press, and undermine the accountability needed to protect human rights as well as public health.” The survey showed that since the beginning of the pandemic, the state of rights and democracy has worsened in 80 countries. (I was one of many analysts who contributed to the Freedom House survey.) In Asia in particular, democratic or quasi-democratic governments from India to the Philippines to Malaysia to Cambodia have taken advantage of the pandemic to strengthen their grips on power and subdue opposition. Several governments have utilized the pandemic to give leaders massive new powers, many of which seem to have little to do with protecting public health. In Cambodia, for instance, new laws give Prime Minister Hun Sen, already one of the most authoritarian leaders in Southeast Asia, vast powers: to effect unlimited surveillance of citizens’ telecommunications networks, and to curtail the press, civil society and monitor social media. In recent months, Hun Sen’s government has ramped up repression and overseen mass trials of civil society activists. Other Asian states and territories have used the threat of the pandemic to impose strict controls on public assembly, media coverage, attendance at legislative sessions and elections that it becomes difficult for political opposition to function. To be sure, the dangerous coronavirus requires some limitations on public gatherings. But activists in Thailand, for instance, have shown that it is possible to demonstrate in health-safe ways, and legislatures can use masks, social distancing or online gatherings to meet as well. Yet, the Thai government has argued that protests advocating greater democracy and questioning the monarchy could spread the virus, and has arrested activists and tried to curb demonstrations. Hong Kong, meanwhile, delayed legislative elections scheduled for last September, supposedly because of COVID-19. It took this step even though the Special Administrative Region has enjoyed significant success in containing the virus, and though other parts of Asia, like South Korea and Singapore, have held safe elections during the pandemic. The delay in Hong Kong’s elections has provided time for the city, and China, to arrest many potential candidates from the pro-democracy camp—and possibly to ensure the eventual elections result in a legislature dominated by lawmakers sympathetic to Beijing. Still, other Asian states have scapegoated minorities, or simply the ruling party’s opponents, for spreading COVID-19—usually without any basis in fact. This stigmatization further corrodes political discourse and often leads to violent attacks on minority groups. In India, for instance, leading members of the ruling party have blamed COVID-19 on the Muslim minority, and there has been a string of violent mob attacks on Indian Muslims this year. Asian leaders have been able to use the pandemic to tighten their grip on power for several reasons. For one, there are legitimate public health reasons for some constraints on freedom—although leaders often take steps well beyond what is needed to protect public health and make no promises of relinquishing control when the virus is curbed. In addition, the fact that democracy was deteriorating in much of Asia before COVID-19 left opposition movements enfeebled and unprepared to battle a new wave of crackdowns. Meanwhile, many leading democracies that might have tried to halt regional autocrats, such as Japan, the United States and the European Union, have been distracted by their own public health crises, or—in the case of the United States—their own democratic breakdown. These developed democracies, struggling to contain the pandemic and with their own political weaknesses on show, have mostly remained silent as Asia’s strongmen grab more power. In Myanmar, for instance, the government and the military have stepped up violent crackdowns in ethnic minority regions (including Rakhine State) in recent months, but these abuses have received little international attention as foreign governments and foreign media focus on the pandemic and on political problems in the United States. While leading democracies turn inward, the region’s most powerful authoritarian state, China, has controlled the pandemic domestically and returned to high growth, bolstering its legitimacy. Beijing has used the regional power vacuum, and its domestic strength, to wield greater influence across Asia. In the next year, many Asian states will win the battle against the virus. Some, like Singapore, South Korea and China, already had developed effective anti-COVID-19 strategies. The ramp-up of production and distribution of multiple vaccines will help further curb the virus’s spread, and probably allow normal life to return in much of the region. But even if COVID-19 is controlled, the damage to Asian democracy has already been done.

Over the past fifteen years, democracy across Asia has regressed. Although the region still has strong democracies like South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, many other leading Asian democracies and countries with democratic potential have slid backwards, turning into near-autocracies or outright authoritarian states. While Thailand had been one of the freest states in Asia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it has suffered two military coups in the past decade and now is run by a parliamentary government that took power after a seriously flawed election in 2019. The novel coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated this democratic breakdown. In a study of the impact of the virus on democracy, “Democracy Under Lockdown,” Freedom House found that “the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened a crisis for democracy around the world, providing cover for governments to disrupt elections, silence critics and the press, and undermine the accountability needed to protect human rights as well as public health.” For more on how COVID-19 has sparked democratic backsliding in Asia, see my new Japan Times article.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center of Southeast Asian Studies. King Maha Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne in October 2016, ending the authoritative and long reign of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. But in the period since Thailand’s 2014 military coup, the death of Bhumibhol in 2016, and the current day, the kingdom has entered a period of precarious political transition—an interregnum between the prior political status quo and an as-yet-unknown new political reality. In this precarious interregnum Thailand has undergone massive upheaval. Thailand’s prior political system was one in which King Bhumibhol was invested as the central source of political legitimacy—a source of legitimacy above elected politicians. That system now is dying. Meanwhile, a new political system in which the king would not provide such a source of legitimacy above elected institutions, experimented with in the past decade during a series of Thai elected governments, remains basically unborn. Indeed, a new Thai political model, and what role the monarchy might play in such a model, has not been fully formed or even envisaged. In this critical moment, the key players in Thailand’s prior political system are trying to block any transition. Meanwhile, the protest movement that has built in the streets in Thailand in recent months is calling for constitutional changes and reforms to strengthen democracy and questioning the power of the king. This protest movement has broken the taboo of openly discussing and even criticizing the monarchy, and the current government has struck back by reviving the use of the lèse-majesté law and arresting multiple protest leaders. Meanwhile, the new monarch lacks the moral authority that his father, Bhumibhol, amassed during his decades-long reign, which made him genuinely popular and respected among many Thais. With the new king lacking such moral authority, royalist and military elites in Thailand are able to hold onto power through force, like the arrests of protestors, and by empowering unelected, politicized institutions like the judiciary to harass and disqualify political opponents. The interregnum has produced a legitimacy crisis both in the current Thai government and also likely will produce a legitimacy crisis in any more democratic government in the future. Indeed, the interregnum has triggered a myriad of crises in Thailand. First, there is a crisis of institutions that can determine the fate of Thai politics. The two institutions of the monarchy and the military, seemingly inseparable politically, have been greatly affected by the death of King Bhumibol. Bhumibol’s death brought instability in the monarchy and the armed forces, and despite laws restricting media coverage of the monarchy, Thais are aware of the growing instability within the monarchical institution. One problem with the monarchy is that the institution was immensely personified during Bhumibol’s reign. This personification of the monarchy in Bhumibhol’s person was effective in promoting the monarchy, as the king was personally popular, but royalists disregarded the danger of the interregnum in which the new king would likely fail to match up with the revered charisma of his father. And that is what has happened. The new king cannot match his father’s charisma, yet the monarchy remains enormously powerful and highly personalized—except now in a person lacking the charisma and moral authority. Worse, since the coup of 2014, Vajiralongkorn has actually played a part in sustaining this volatile interregnum, undermining democracy, and trying to restore older, greater royal powers. Meanwhile, the military has continued to exploit the royal institution for its own political benefits, potentially causing severe tensions between these two institutions. Second, there is a crisis of the state, broadly characterized by corrupt systems and a lack of good governance. The royal transition from Bhumibol to Vajiralongkorn has impacted a range of state and quasi-state systems, including the Buddhist Sangha, the judiciary, and the management of the Thai economy. Third, there is a crisis of Thai politics, impacted both by the transitional period and also by Thailand’s persistent economic and political inequality; despite being the wealthiest country in mainland Southeast Asia, Thailand is one of the most economically unequal states in the world. The divisions in Thai politics between “red shirts,” who backed the earlier populist, Thaksinite governments, and the more traditionally conservative and anti-Thaksin “yellow shirts” has morphed into another kind of division now best characterized as between “royalist” and “anti-monarchist.” The gulf between these two sides has widened since the 2014 coup, the repressive period after, and the 2019 election. Civil society, meanwhile—from the media and social media users to nongovernmental and civil society organizations—also has been immeasurably affected by the increasing polarization in Thai society in the period since Bhumibhol’s death. Consequently, Thailand is trapped in a political crisis that has already damaged its prospects for democracy. The crisis has sparked the on-going street protests, and there is no end in sight for how the kingdom could resolve these problems. This post is adapted from the book Coup, King, Crisis: A Critical Interregnum in Thailand.

Late last year, Cambodia finally began oil production, from offshore fields in the Gulf of Thailand. A joint venture between the Cambodian government and Singaporean company KrisEnergy Ltd started production, and will be ramping up new wells in the coming months. Cambodia has known about its offshore oil for more than a decade, and other oil firms like Chevron had invested in Cambodian offshore exploration in the past. But production had been delayed for years as some companies were scared off by the low global price of oil and as the Cambodian government initially could not reach a deal on production with an oil company. The offshore fields will start with a peak production of around 7,500 barrels of oil per day, a relatively small amount: major oil states like Russia produce well over 10 million barrels each day, and neighboring states like Thailand produce more than Cambodia as well. But even that modest output will reportedly create some $500 million in new revenue for Cambodia, where GDP per capita is only around $1,500. Cambodian government believes there are hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in its offshore waters; revenues could increase as new wells are developed after the project’s first phase. Announcing the production online, Prime Minister Hun Sen called the oil output “a blessing.” And yet, in one of the most authoritarian and corrupt countries in East Asia, a place where Hun Sen has throttled the remnants of Cambodia’s pseduodemocracy in recent years, who will actually benefit from the new oil production? For more on Cambodia’s new oil production, and its impact on the country, see my new World Politics Review article.

The effects of COVID-19 on Southeast Asia’s health, economies, and political systems will not be the only stories to watch in the region in 2021, although they will surely be among the most important. But the region also will be impacted by shifting geopolitical and trade tensions and the effects of superpower rivalry. 4. U.S.-China Tensions and Their Impact in Southeast Asia Although the incoming U.S. presidential administration may shift some aspects of the U.S.-China relationship, it is unlikely to alter the overall trajectory of U.S.-China ties, which continues to evolve into outright competition in many spheres. The Biden administration will, however, probably want to bolster relations with Southeast Asia to create a broader coalition to push back against some of Beijing’s actions. While shifting the nature of the relationship with China, the Trump White House simultaneously alienated several important partners in Southeast Asia, which made it even harder to build any regional bulwark against Beijing. The new White House likely will make efforts rhetorically to reset ties with Indonesia, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian states, possibly reduce trade tensions with these states in order to reset ties, and try to restore the United States’ role in multilateral trade integration, although this may be impossible to do given the U.S. political environment. It also may bolster the U.S. focus on regional cooperation related to COVID-19 and climate change, two issues of central importance to Southeast Asian states, which are on the frontlines of climate change in particular. And China’s image in the region has indeed suffered significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it has in some other parts of the world, in part due to regional concerns about Beijing’s more nationalistic and belligerent regional diplomacy despite the pandemic. Yet even with its image suffering, Beijing retains significant pull in Southeast Asia. China will remain the region’s most important trading partner, and its trade relationship will only grow in the coming years; given the shifting nature of U.S. domestic politics, there is little likelihood that in a new administration the United States will participate in Asian trade integration. China’s economy continues to perform well, even as most of the world struggles due to COVID-19, and this economic strength puts Beijing in a powerful position regionally and even in its bilateral trade relationship with the United States. China also likely will provide a significant amount of vaccines to Southeast Asian states, especially poorer countries in mainland Southeast Asia, giving it further leverage. With other powerful blocs like the European Union recently agreeing to trade or investment deals with China, and with Southeast Asian states (and several other Asian countries) pushing through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Southeast Asian states will be even harder for a new U.S. administration to convince that they should work with Washington to make any trade demands of Beijing. Indeed, there is little reason to expect most of them to push back against China’s increasingly assertive diplomacy, crackdown on rights at home, or export of its developmental model.

The past year was a highly eventful one in Southeast Asia. The region suffered significantly from the global pandemic, and yet it also contained some of the states with the best records on COVID-19 in the world, including Vietnam and Thailand. Many Southeast Asian countries, even those that have handled the pandemic effectively, face vast economic distress this year, and the region also faces continued democratic backsliding and major geopolitical and strategic challenges. Here is the first tranche of some events to watch in Southeast Asia in 2021. Vaccinating Populations While Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, and several other Southeast Asian states have had exemplary records in containing COVID-19, especially given that Vietnam and Thailand are not wealthy countries, the region now needs to obtain and vaccinate people to wholly stop the pandemic. Unfortunately, many of the leading vaccine makers have reserved hundreds of millions of initial doses for wealthy countries, and several Southeast Asian states do not seem to have clear plans in place for vaccination. Not surprisingly, Singapore already has begun vaccinations, and seems to have a clear plan in place. Indonesia also has several deals for vaccines, including those from China, but the safety of the Chinese-made vaccines still remains unclear. Other countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines do have strategies in place, but they may be stuck waiting for vaccines as European and North American states get more of the first shipments, and still other Southeast Asian states do not have a clear vaccination plan in place. Much of the region may remain unvaccinated even late in 2021. The Economic Impact   Even Thailand and Vietnam and Singapore, which have handled COVID-19 impressively, suffered major economic hits this year, though their ability to control the pandemic will bolster their economic recovery, making them relatively attractive to foreign investment. (Bloomberg recently ranked Thailand as one the strongest emerging markets economically in 2021, although I have my doubts given Thailand’s dependence on tourism, political instability, and other major challenges.) Singapore, a highly trade-dependent and tourism-dependent economy, is expected to see its economy shrink by at least 6 percent when the final figures for 2020 are calculated, while Thailand also has suffered a severe contraction. The Philippines, meanwhile, with one of the toughest lockdowns in the world, has weathered a horrendous economic contraction, probably of around 8.5 to 9.5 percent—its worst economic performance in decades, which has fallen particularly hard in a country with high rates of poverty and inequality.   While it is possible that some Southeast Asian states will rebound strongly in 2021, the reality for many seems grimmer. Without effective vaccination strategies, many Southeast Asian states will continue to struggle. Tourism, so important to economies like Thailand, is unlikely to rebound quickly until travelers feel much more confident about safety. The region has continued to push through multilateral trade liberalization, most recently with the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, but it will be of little help if most countries do not get people vaccinated, consumer spending remains depressed, infrastructure building remains in limbo, and most tourists are still scared to cross borders.  COVID-19’s Impact on Democracy   Like many other regions of the world, Southeast Asia saw that the pandemic allowed illiberal leaders to entrench their gains. In a CFR Discussion Paper released in November, I documented some of the ways in which COVID-19 had facilitated more democratic backsliding in Southeast Asia, including in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia, among others. Southeast Asia was hardly alone; Freedom House released a study of the pandemic’s effect on democracy, and showed that democracy had weakened during the pandemic in eighty countries. (I contributed slightly to some of the Southeast Asia research for that report.) Will the region’s illiberal leaders consolidate the further gains they made in 2020? It is likely, although not assured in some places like Thailand.   For Thailand in particular, the kingdom’s domestic struggles—partly due to new restrictions enacted after COVID-19 and partly due to pent-up anger at the monarchy and the military—seem poised for a bleak outcome, with the return of the lèse-majesté law in force and the potential for a substantial crackdown if protests continue into the new year.

In early November, Indonesian president Joko Widodo approved a landmark, and controversial, omnibus bill. The bill, over one thousand pages long, is supposed to bolster Indonesia’s economy by reducing regulations and bureaucracy, and cutting red tape, among other goals. Jokowi, who has touted such reforms for years, has claimed that the bill will “create an additional one million jobs a year and increase worker productivity, which is below average in Southeast Asia,” according to the Nikkei Asian Review. Indonesia certainly does need a reduction in red tape and bureaucracy, which have long hindered both domestic and foreign investment into the country. Indonesia’s economy, like most in the world, has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and could use any type of jump-start. The country also remains well-positioned to attract companies that are seeking to move some operations out of China, as the business climate there deteriorates for foreign firms, and Indonesia has become particularly attractive to U.S. tech firms. Combined with the new law, Indonesia could benefit from the incoming Biden administration reducing trade pressure that the Trump White House had placed on Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia. But the bill also contains the seeds of multiple problems. For more on its potential impact on Indonesia, see my new World Politics Review article.

Although President Donald Trump has not conceded the United States presidential election and is mounting multiple dubious legal challenges to the results, President-elect Joe Biden is moving ahead with the transition. While Biden did not focus on Southeast Asia during his time as vice president from 2009 until 2017, he probably has more extensive foreign policy experience than any incoming president in decades, save perhaps George H. W. Bush. In addition, his policy team includes a deep bench of experts on the Asia-Pacific region. When it comes to Biden’s approach to Southeast Asia, persistent tensions in the U.S. relationship with China are a major factor. While perhaps less openly confrontational toward China than Trump has been, many of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy experts have become much more distrustful of Beijing in recent years and convinced that the United States’ previous strategies have failed. The incoming Biden administration probably will recognize that, to pursue a tough approach against China, the U.S. cannot afford to alienate critical partners in Southeast Asia, the way the Trump administration has done. Biden is also likely to reinvest in some areas of American power that were neglected under Trump, from diplomacy to a renewed focus on nontraditional security threats like climate change, which will appeal to Southeast Asian states. Many countries in the region are growing more distrustful of China as well, given its increasingly aggressive behavior and its expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, but Southeast Asia cannot divorce itself from Beijing. China is the region’s biggest trading partner and the largest aid donor to several Southeast Asian states. Still, countries like Singapore and Vietnam, and even to some extent Malaysia and Indonesia, have grown increasingly concerned about China’s heavy-handed approach to the region and have quietly applauded some of the Trump administration’s tough measures toward Beijing. As president, Biden’s approach to the region will in some respects resemble Trump’s. He likely will continue to rebalance the U.S. military toward the Asia-Pacific, boosting regional military cooperation with allies in the region and continuing to harden U.S. defenses and those of its allies. Like Trump, Biden will also need to find ways to counter Chinese influence activities in the U.S. and elsewhere, and will continue pressuring other countries to keep Chinese firms like Huawei out of their new 5G telecommunications networks, though he will have less success with this strategy in Asia than in Europe. Yet Biden might diverge in how he tries to attract other countries to support his China policy. Trump’s trade disputes with many Southeast Asian countries made it harder for them to align with Washington on other issues. For example, the Trump administration repeatedly criticized Vietnam for its high trade surplus with the United States and is investigating Vietnam for currency manipulation. It also recently suspended duty-free access for some $800 million in Thai imports because Thailand has not opened up enough to U.S. agriculture, and seemed to threaten tough trade action against Indonesia earlier this year if it bought weapons from Russia and China. (Indonesia caved and did not follow through with the purchases.) While some of these trade-related complaints may have merit, the Biden administration will probably want to ease the pressure on Southeast Asia when it comes to trade policy. It will likely go easier on Vietnam and Indonesia, both of which are important security partners for the U.S., and on Thailand, a treaty ally. After all, to court Southeast Asian states that are caught between the United States and China, it makes little sense to also tighten the trade screws on these very same countries. Beyond its dealings with individual countries, Biden’s overall approach to trade and investment in the region might be constrained by domestic politics. Trump won election in 2016 while railing against giant multilateral trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he withdrew from as soon as he took office. Subsequently, he focused primarily on bilateral trade agreements, even as East Asian countries forged ahead with major regional deals like the reconstituted TPP, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the recently signed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It will be difficult for Biden to reengage with Asia’s regional trade integration efforts in a meaningful way. Major segments of the U.S. population are skeptical of new trade deals, perhaps even more than in 2016, when even Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in that year’s election, disavowed the TPP, a deal she had once praised. Moreover, Biden will likely enter office with Republicans in control of the Senate—unless the Democrats somehow manage to sweep both Senate seats in Georgia that will be decided in runoffs in January. Even with a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, though, Biden will have little political capital to expend on trade. We can also expect a renewed U.S. focus on nontraditional security issues under Biden, which are important in Southeast Asia. While the Trump administration has mostly eschewed multilateral cooperation on COVID-19, Biden has pledged to work more closely with other countries on strategies to contain the pandemic. Since some countries in Southeast Asia, like Thailand and Vietnam, have had the most successful responses to COVID-19, the new administration could seek out their guidance. More broadly, Biden has tasked his new administration with broadening the definition of national security to include not only public health, but also climate change and other issues. That shift will be welcomed in Southeast Asia, one of the regions of the world most endangered by rising sea levels. In tackling these challenges, simply picking up the phone or dispatching low-level envoys won’t be enough. Southeast Asian leaders value face time from their counterparts. Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama, made it a priority to regularly attend Southeast Asia’s most high-profile summits, barring a few instances when pressing domestic crises prevented him from traveling. Trump at first continued this policy, making a long trip to East Asia during his first year in office to attend key regional gatherings, but U.S. delegations to subsequent meetings were headed by lower-level officials, offending some Southeast Asian leaders. Biden will probably show up in the region more often, and he already has named several officials with Asia experience to top posts in the new administration. Trump also left key national security posts unfilled across the State Department and the Pentagon. The Biden administration will likely take a more professionalized approach and move to fill many of those positions, including a deeper bench of senior and mid-level officials who deal with issues related to Southeast Asia. When it comes to human rights issues and democracy promotion in Southeast Asia, Trump has shown only modest interest, consistent with his overall foreign policy approach. In fairness, the Trump White House has taken a tougher approach to Myanmar and Cambodia. But Trump has praised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs and built closer ties with Thailand, despite a highly questionable election in 2019 and the government’s repression of pro-democracy protests. The Trump administration also invited Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto for a visit to Washington, despite longstanding allegations of atrocities committed by troops under Prabowo’s command when he led Indonesia’s notorious special forces. Southeast Asian countries would do well to temper their expectations. After all, Biden’s focus when he first takes office will be on containing the pandemic and boosting the struggling U.S. economy, all while trying to navigate Washington’s partisan gridlock. But overall, they can expect a more conventional and engaged approach to the region, in an effort to soothe tensions at a time when Biden will have many fires to put out at home and elsewhere in the world.

Although President Trump has not conceded the U.S. presidential election, and is mounting multiple legal challenges, former Vice President Joseph Biden already has begun planning for the transition. While Biden was not focused on Southeast Asia as his time as vice president, he probably has more extensive foreign policy experience than any incoming president in decades, save perhaps George H. W. Bush. In addition, his policy team includes a deep bench of Asia experts, including several with extensive experience in Southeast Asia. Still, Southeast Asia is one region where a Biden administration’s approach might not be as sharply different from that of his predecessor as in some other areas, like Europe, where the differences between a president who disdains NATO and a Biden administration will be stark. While perhaps less openly confrontational with China than some in the Trump White House have been, leading Democratic Party policymakers have become much more distrustful, and much more assertive, in their views toward China as well. At the same time, a Biden administration probably will recognize that, in order to pursue a tough approach to China, the United States cannot afford to alienate critical partners in Southeast Asia, the way the Trump administration has done. It also probably will reinvest in some diminished areas of U.S. power, from diplomacy to a focus on nontraditional security, that will appeal to Southeast Asian states. For more on how a Biden administration might approach Southeast Asia, see my new World Politics Review article.

South and Southeast Asia have demonstrated mixed results in combating the coronavirus pandemic, yet COVID-19 has been a political boon for illiberal leaders in the region. In fact, South and Southeast Asia have had some of the most extreme COVID-19-related democratic regressions in the world. But it is not irreversible. The COVID-19-era consolidation of political influence should be countered to ensure that politicians cannot use the pandemic to permanently amass more power. Across South and Southeast Asia, defenders of democratic norms and institutions should support safe elections and work to ensure that, even if leaders have amassed extensive powers to fight the pandemic, these powers are time-limited and that plans for returning to political normality are in place. In countries where the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths have been relatively low, supporters of democratic rights and institutions should use street protests, parliamentary sessions, and social media, with appropriate health precautions, to pressure governments. In states that have failed to handle COVID-19 effectively, opponents should highlight these mistakes and show that limiting political freedoms does not guarantee better public health outcomes. For more on the region’s democratic regression in the COVID-19 era, and how to combat it, see my new CFR Discussion Paper, Addressing the Effect of COVID-19 on Democracy in South and Southeast Asia.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Thais woke up on Thursday to breaking news: Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha had issued a statement informing the public that the government and all security agencies will adopt much tougher measures in dealing with protesters who have been gathering regularly in Bangkok, to call for constitutional changes, a new government, and even reforms to the monarchy. This statement by Prayuth implies that the draconian lèse-majesté laws, and harsh displays of force, might be employed against some of the demonstrators. “The situation is not improving,” Prayuth declared, and also said there was “a risk of escalation to more violence.” Besides the new order to crackdown issued by Prayuth, other signs suggest that the government and security forces are preparing to use force to end the protests. Although King Vajiralongkorn’s has publicly stated that Thailand is a “land of compromise,” the Thai state has increasingly stepped up pressure on the demonstrators. On November 17, thousands of protesters attempted to gather in front of parliament to put pressure on legislators to accept a proposal calling for constitutional amendments. Parliament rejected most of their requests, refusing any motions to change the country’s constitution. In the streets, the demonstrators were suppressed by high-speed water cannons mixed with toxic agents, and at least fifty-five people were injured. Someone also reportedly used rubber bullets and possibly live ammunition against the demonstrators, although security forces denied they had fired bullets at the protesters. At the same time, hardcore yellow-shirt royalists have attempted to provoke the protesters, potentially to help cause violent confrontations between the two sides that would provide a context for a tougher crackdown by the security forces. The next day, November 18, protesters regrouped and marched toward the Police Department in central Bangkok. The mission was to take action against the police who suppressed the protesters. Demonstrators damaged properties of the Police Department as well as some other public buildings. They sprayed graffiti on the walls and on some roads, including some derogatory messages about the king, such as messages calling for the king to operate under the constitution, rather than exerting political and financial influence not normal in a constitutional monarchy. When the protest was over, the leaders announced a follow-up meeting, on November 25—and this time it will be at the Crown Property Bureau, which the king has taken personal control of. The protest there will be a means of further highlighting desires for monarchical reform. And they could well be met at that protest by a new show of force. While ignoring the protesters’ demands for change, King Vajiralongkorn seems to have decided to appear in more often in public in Thailand these days. One might see this as a strategy of narrowing down the gulf between the monarchy and the people, and potentially defusing public anger. But even with greater outreach from the king, it has remained an uphill task to win the hearts and minds of Thais willing to demonstrate for change. The protesters, and many other younger Thais, want dramatic shifts. They want the monarchy to be accountable, responsible and transparent, in ways it has never been before in the kingdom. So, neither side in the standoff seems likely to compromise. And the potential for a more severe crackdown on the demonstrations is growing.

Over the weekend, 15 Asian states, including China, signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The deal provides a major signal to investors that the region is still committed to multilateral trade integration.