Southeast Asia

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.

On Sunday, Myanmar held its first national elections since 2015, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a smashing victory in the first free and fair national elections in the country in decades. This time around, there were multiple questions about the election, which I raised in a recent piece for World Politics Review. For one, the run-up to the election was not truly fair, as a huge number of Rohingya and people from other ethnic minorities were disenfranchised, and the election was held in an environment in which the Suu Kyi government has cracked down on the free press, and the media environment clearly favored the NLD. Second, there were concerns about whether Myanmar could pull off a safe and relatively high-turnout national election at a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in the country, and Myanmar does not have the resources to effectively protect many voters from the virus. Third, there were questions about whether the NLD would win as decisively as it had in 2015, given that its policies toward Myanmar’s peace process, and other approaches to ethnic minorities, had generally gone over poorly with some ethnic minority groups, who seemed prepared to vote for more locally-based parties. The NLD also was challenged by some new parties started by former longtime NLD stalwarts who had tired of the party’s inability to push toward democracy. Several of these questions seem to have been answered by Sunday’s election; results are coming in, although we do not have anywhere near the full results at this point, and the country’s election commission has not made any formal announcements. The election was held in a relatively unfair environment. Despite international criticism, Suu Kyi’s government did not bend in the days before Election Day. Rohingya remained disenfranchised, as did people from some other ethnic minorities, the NLD continued to allow censorship of rival parties’ websites, the press was primarily for the government, and other distortions remained. However, Myanmar appeared to be able to hold a safer and high turnout election that many people, including myself, had anticipated. (A caveat: We cannot know how much the election spread coronavirus for several days.) Still, election officials said that voter turnout was high, perhaps higher than expected, suggesting that Myanmar citizens were both eager to vote and potentially satisfied enough that they could safely vote. Turnout may well match the high turnout of the 2015 election, despite the pandemic. Third, despite concerns that the NLD’s approach toward the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities—which led to challenges to the NLD by ethnic minority parties in many regions—it appears highly possible that the party will actually win more seats than in its 2015 landslide. Although official results are not in, a NLD spokesperson told reporters that not only would the NLD gain a majority of seats in the upper and lower house to form a government, but it would surpass its numbers of seats from 2015. Political analyst Yan Myo Thein told Reuters that “early results showed ethnic parties had won some seats in Kayah, Mon, and Shan states, where many people harbor grievances against the central government but the overall picture was of another NLD landslide.” (Some ethnic parties had merged with each other and will pick up seats in parliament and perhaps do even better in state legislatures, but the NLD still appears to have won a huge majority in ethnic minority areas.) Apparently, the appeal of Suu Kyi and the NLD—as a historic opposition, as a bulwark against military rule, as the only real national party with grassroots outreach across Myanmar—may have been enough for many ethnic minority voters to choose the NLD, despite the failures of the peace process and the rising anger toward the party in some ethnic minority regions. In addition, the NLD seems to have won nearly every seat in areas with majorities of ethnic Burmans, the country’s majority. If the NLD does indeed win by an even larger margin than in 2015, and the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) does worse—it looks like it is getting crushed and the NLD is taking seats from areas the USDP previously held—the NLD would potentially have the opportunity to follow through on promised reforms that would reduce the power of the armed forces, the dominant institution in Myanmar. This indeed would be a major battle in Myanmar politics after the election, and one that could determine the country’s future.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Three months have passed and the protests in Thailand have intensified. One of the main messages of the demonstrations has become clear—the protesters believe the monarchy is in need of immediate reform. In just three months, Thais have repeatedly stretched the boundaries of what is acceptable to discuss in public—and at large gatherings—regarding the monarchy. Today, even in the face of harsh lèse-majesté law, Thais at the demonstrations talk openly about their monarchy, mostly in a fiercely critical way. Meanwhile, the opposition in parliament is demanding that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha resign, though he has so far refused. On Monday, a large group of Thai protesters demonstrated in front of the German Embassy on Sathorn Road in Bangkok. They submitted a letter requesting the German government to investigate whether King Vajiralongkorn has exercised his royal power on German soil. (This is a question that has been raised by German politicians as well, who do not want the king wielding power over Thailand from Germany.) In an even more explosive allegation, the demonstrators accused the king of playing a role in a rash of disappearances of Thai anti-royalist activists, possibly while he was living in Germany. Protesters also continue to use social media to raise questions about the monarchy and make statements about the monarchy that once were taboo. The latest move by the protesters has made the political situation more explosive, but so too have subtle actions by the palace. The king already has played a central role in army politics. His personal appointment of the previous and current army chiefs is testament to this intimate relationship, and he also has overseen the establishment of a Royal Command Guard, with five thousand troops. In the face of these street protests, the king has generally remained silent, taking no position vis-à-vis the call for a monarchical reform. But he also has subtly conveyed his support for a group of royalist demonstrators who also have taken to the streets to defend the palace and display their loyalty to the monarchy—and who have led to violent clashes in areas of Bangkok. Protesters as young as high school students have been attacked in some cases, such as during one incident near Ramkhamheang University. The king has signaled his subtle support for the royalist movement to fight back. As James Buchanan of Mahidol University International College in Bangkok has noted, the king, at his palace, publicly praised a royalist supporter who had faced off with protesters, telling the supporter, “Very brave, very good, thank you.” The king also appeared to greet Buddha Issara, a controversial former monk who has been a force behind a prominent archroyalist group. Buchanan notes—and we concur—that through these messages the king is showing that he will not back down from the demonstrators, and will encourage royalists to fight back. This signaling is a tactic borrowed from earlier periods of conflict in Thailand. During Thailand’s 2010 protests and, ultimately, the harsh crackdown on them, then-Queen Sirikit (now Queen Mother Sirikit) and then–Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn made televised, highly-publicized visits to dead and injured soldiers who had been combating protesters. In this way, they clearly showed their support for the police and the army, and also for royalist supporters, some of whom were egging on violence. The king seems to have recent history on his side as well, and the protesters do not. As Larry Diamond shows in a fascinating new article in Democratization, in recent years most protest movements in developing states have failed. In Thai history, the combination of protesters and counter-protesters has often led to bloody clashes and, ultimately a military coup, under the pretext of restoring order, after pro-royalist counter-protesters try to provoke chaos. Although the current Thai government is packed with military men and was midwifed by constitutional changes created by a junta that lasted from 2014 to 2019, the idea of launching a coup against what is a de facto military-installed government is hardly out of the question, given Thailand’s history of coups. Some reports, like a recent article in the Economist, demonstrate how the king is already pushing the monarchy closer to a restoration of absolute monarchy, and a new coup could lead to a more clear proclamation of absolute monarchy. At the least, the continued demands by the protesters, increasingly touching on once-taboo areas of the monarchy, may eventually provoke a harsh reaction.

Myanmar is set to hold general elections next month, for the second time since the end of military rule in 2011. The last election, in 2015, ushered Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy into power with a landslide victory. Since then, the NLD has had a mixed economic record, and Suu Kyi, now the country’s de facto leader, has gone from human rights icon to international pariah for defending the army’s brutal persecution of the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority concentrated in western Myanmar. More recently, the government has mismanaged its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Myanmar now has more cases and deaths than any other mainland Southeast Asian country. Still, the NLD remains popular among the mostly Buddhist ethnic majority group, the Bamar, and will almost certainly retain control of both houses of the legislature, as well as many state assemblies. Predictable top-line results aside, the elections still raise several important questions: Can Myanmar even hold a safe vote amid the pandemic, with the government imposing lockdowns in major cities like Yangon, its largest population center, and some other areas? Will the NLD lose some ground among ethnic minority voters, many of whom are increasingly dissatisfied with the party? Perhaps most importantly, will the NLD’s victory bring progress or retrenchment in Myanmar’s democracy? After all, the government is creating a climate of repression that, according to Human Rights Watch, makes the Nov. 8 election “fundamentally flawed.” Problems include discrimination against minority voters like the Rohingya, stepped-up prosecutions of government opponents and media favoritism for the ruling party. The coronavirus isn’t helping matters. For months, Myanmar avoided a direct hit from the pandemic, even though the government did little initially to prepare the country. Myanmar seemed to be lucky, and some researchers even speculated that countries in the Mekong River basin enjoyed a natural immunity to the virus, given initial low numbers in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Yet in recent weeks, Myanmar has faced a rising wave of COVID-19 cases, posting a record 2,000 cases during a single day in October. Opposition parties, and some public health experts, say that the government cannot hold a safe and fair election in this environment. But Suu Kyi and the NLD, knowing they hold a commanding advantage with most of the population, have vowed to press forward with the vote. Some Myanmar citizens have already started voting from abroad. Even if Myanmar gets its outbreak under control by early November—a big if—it suffers from a shortage of hospital beds, and has some of the worst public health infrastructure in the world. Without the ability to expand absentee balloting or effectively enforce social distancing at polling places, the way South Korea did in its parliamentary elections earlier this year, Myanmar’s polls could further spread the virus. The government’s management of the recent spike in cases does not inspire confidence; for instance, it has failed to mitigate the lockdown’s impact on food insecurity in the country’s biggest city, Yangon. Despite the criticism over its handling of COVID-19, the NLD-led government remains genuinely popular among the Bamar, mainly due to the party’s history as Myanmar’s main pro-democracy opposition, and also because many voters see it as the only bulwark against the still-powerful military. Global condemnation of Myanmar’s government for its human rights abuses against the Rohingya, which the United Nations’ human rights chief called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” has hardly dented Suu Kyi’s support among the ethnic majority. In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient may have actually rallied Bamar support with her nationalistic defense of the army’s actions against charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice last year. Simply put, there is no other national party with a grassroots organization and countrywide appeal to match the NLD. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has only modest national backing, and the roughly 90 other smaller parties in the country have mostly regional bases of support, or none at all. With rallies and other traditional campaign activities curtailed due to the pandemic, and parties left to campaign mostly online, the NLD’s universal name recognition and massive social media presence gives it a leg up on its opponents. Unsurprisingly, the NLD has also ramped up pork barrel promises as Election Day approaches. The NLD’s main message for the election—that it needs another landslide victory, like its win in 2015, to push forward reforms that could limit the military’s power—appeals to many voters. Indeed, the next few years—while the 75-year-old Suu Kyi remains healthy and in charge of the party—are probably its best shot to follow through on that promise. If it wins big, the NLD is also likely to put renewed effort into peace talks with the many insurgent groups that are fighting for autonomy for their ethnic groups. A handful of ethnic militias signed a nationwide cease-fire in 2015, but there have been widespread clashes in Rakhine state and other regions during Suu Kyi’s time in office. The major peace conferences she has been trying to regularly organize with some of the insurgents have become increasingly stilted and unproductive. Still, the NLD will likely try to use its mandate from a big election win to seek a breakthrough in the peace process. Even with all of its built-in advantages, the NLD has allowed the election to be held in an unfair climate, even when one takes the danger of COVID-19 out of the equation. Last month, a U.N. human rights investigator slammed the Myanmar government at the Human Rights Council for making no effort to ensure that ethnic Rohingya, of whom roughly a million are internally displaced in Myanmar or living in refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh, will be able participate. The government also has cut off 3G and 4G internet services in Rakhine, making it even harder for people there to learn about the election and vote. Conflict in Rakhine and other states home to insurgent groups will also complicate voting, preventing people in many parts of these regions from casting a ballot. Indeed, the government has canceled the election in parts of Rakhine, Kachin, Mon and Shan states, among other areas. The government also has blocked several Rohingya candidates from running, and has made it difficult for many Rohingya to prove they are Myanmar citizens and eligible to vote. Beyond disenfranchisement of the Rohingya, the country’s election commission has censored some parties’ speeches, and even banned the country’s largest election monitoring group, the People’s Alliance for Credible Elections, from observing the vote—reportedly for “receiving assistance from international organizations without being officially registered.” The organization had monitored the last three elections in Myanmar. International election observers will also have a hard time due to restrictions on travel to Myanmar and other public health measures. Moreover, the government has effectively limited journalists’ ability to report on any irregularities by classifying them as nonessential workers. State-backed newspapers have stayed in operation, while many independent media outlets have not, as Human Rights Watch notes—another advantage for the ruling party. Why has the NLD, once a standard-bearer for democracy, allowed the election to move forward in such a restrictive environment? The party’s leadership clearly is less committed to robust democracy than it seemed when it was an opposition movement. And the NLD may know that, while it is not challenged as a national party, it probably would perform relatively poorly in Rakhine and other areas home to ethnic minorities—the same places where voters are being disenfranchised, and where the government has made little headway toward peace. While she publicly claims that election integrity is paramount to her, Suu Kyi appears willing to tolerate a voting process in which the deck is stacked in her favor.