Southeast Asia

In recent weeks, Malaysian politics have been upended by a series of dramatic moves, countermoves, and reversals. Less than two years after the landmark May 2018 election that ousted Malaysia’s long-ruling coalition, in-fighting within the new government exploded into the open. Nonagenarian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned on February 24, though the king asked him to briefly remain as caretaker prime minister. Apparently, Mahathir had attempted to ditch most of his May 2018 allies and form a broadly ethnic Malay government consisting of a few members of his coalition plus the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which had ruled the country for decades, and the Islamist group Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS.)  But the king did not appoint Mahathir as prime minister. Instead, he chose Muhyiddin Yassin, who cofounded Bersatu, the small party Mahathir was aligned with in the May 2018 coalition. The choice of Muhyiddin sparked ire among many Malaysians. They took to social media or public protests, arguing that they had not voted for Muhyiddin—his party was a junior partner in the May 2018 coalition—and condemning him for allying with UMNO, long known for autocracy and graft.   Now, with Muhyiddin as prime minister and a cabinet full of UMNO ministers, Malaysia seems poised at a crossroads. For more on the path of Malaysia’s democratic experiment, see my new World Politics Review article. 

The planned summit between representatives from the ten countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and U.S. President Donald J. Trump in Las Vegas has been postponed, because of the coronavirus threat. The summit was supposed to be a sign that the administration is not ignoring Southeast Asia. Postponing it right now makes sense. But even with a summit, the administration cannot paper over ASEAN’s internal problems or the tensions between ASEAN and the United States. Many Southeast Asian leaders have become so wary of the White House’s unreliability that they have reluctantly embraced China. The administration has proclaimed that the Indo-Pacific region is a top priority, but last autumn the administration sent a relatively low-level delegation to the U.S.-ASEAN summit in Bangkok. A recent survey of regional opinion leaders by Singaporean think tank ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute found Southeast Asians trust China less than the United States or Japan. Yet the survey showed that, if forced to choose, 70 percent of Southeast Asians would align with Beijing rather than Washington. Whenever the meeting is actually held, the White House will emphasize how ASEAN fits into its “Free and Open Indo Pacific” vision, which focuses on promoting fair and reciprocal trade, supporting regional institutions including ASEAN, protecting sovereignty, and promoting good governance, among other priorities. Trump will likely emphasize how the administration has stood up for these concepts, including by conducting more freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea and launching new governance initiatives in places like Myanmar. The administration also will outline U.S. economic alternatives to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). One U.S. response is the nascent Blue Dot Network, a plan for governments, civil societies, and private sectors to create a set of high standards for infrastructure projects. This higher-quality infrastructure would supposedly contrast with the BRI, which administration officials claim supports poor-quality infrastructure and traps countries in debt (a debatable argument). Some White House policies are relatively popular in Southeast Asia. Frustrated with China’s influence activities and militarization in the South China Sea, countries such as Singapore and Vietnam have mostly welcomed the Free and Open Indo-Pacific idea, which resists Beijing’s encroachment on other states’ territorial waters and meddling in other societies. Yet other mainland Southeast Asian states care less about the South China Sea. And the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, has shifted toward China’s orbit. The Trump administration has had little success convincing regional states that it has an alternative to the BRI or an effective trade policy. And Many Southeast Asian states still welcome the massive infrastructure funding BRI can provide, seeing Blue Dot and other U.S. initiatives as limited, in terms of actual aid amounts, compared to BRI. Beijing has launched prominent BRI projects in Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian states. And ASEAN is faltering on its own, limiting what it could accomplish with any partner. ASEAN members cannot agree on how to handle long-term issues, such as Beijing’s South China Sea policy or climate change, which could place much of Southeast Asia underwater by 2050. ASEAN’s structure, in which major decisions are made consensus, enables this disunity. Even on pressing short-term issues, including the coronavirus and the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, ASEAN usually punts. When the Rohingya crisis accelerated in 2017, with the Myanmar security forces reportedly committing ethnic cleansing, ASEAN could only agree to provide some minimal relief for refugees, whitewashing abuses facilitated by Myanmar’s government. Since the prospect of ASEAN changing how it operates remains miniscule, and the Trump administration prefers to deal with states bilaterally, ASEAN is likely to be even more marginalized in the coming years—whether or not a summit is eventually held.

Last week, Thailand’s constitutional court dissolved the Future Forward Party, a powerful opposition group in a country that has just emerged from five years of military rule. The court also banned the party’s executives, including its leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, from participating in politics for the next decade. For more on the implications of the dissolution, see my new CFR In Brief.

Thailand could be headed toward unrest after the disbandment of Future Forward Party, an opposition group popular among young people.

Last week, after hinting at it for some time, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte officially announced he would terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States. Under the agreement, in place for two decades, the Pentagon can keep rotations of troops in the Philippines. As Richard Heydarian has noted, the deal also provides a legal basis for U.S.-Philippine joint exercises. Although Duterte often makes bold statements and then recants, he appears determined to go through with this move. But while Duterte proclaims that shifting away from Washington, and toward Beijing, will improve the Philippines’ strategic position, tearing up the VFA carries bigger risks for Manila than for Washington. For more on the implications of potentially ending the VFA, see my new World Politics Review article.

Although Southeast Asia remains the region where the coronavirus is most likely to spread in significant numbers, most of the region’s states remain significantly underprepared to deal with the virus. Many started off slow as the outbreak emerged in China, with some Southeast Asia ministers strangely downplaying the severity of the virus or offering public suggestions of folk remedies to combat it. Many Southeast Asian states, perhaps fearful of drawing China’s anger, and heavily dependent on Chinese tourism, aid, and investment, did not initially close border links or substantially crack down on tourism from China, an unwise decision. In recent weeks, some Southeast Asian states have begun to respond more forcefully. (Singapore, the wealthiest state in the region, unsurprisingly responded to the outbreak from the get-go, with highly praised measures.) Thailand has proven more effective and responsive than at first, and other regional states have begun strengthening their defenses, though some remain wary of taking more stringent measures that might offend China by further restricting bilateral ties. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, for instance, was very slow to shut down flights to and from China. But most Southeast Asian states are vastly underprepared. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines have extremely poor public health systems, and a very limited ability to respond to a major disease outbreak. The Philippine government has come under criticism for slashing its health budget for 2020, and for panic-like conditions at hospitals dealing with the virus, where some suffer from a reported lack of basic supplies. Add in these countries’ autocratic governance, and allergy to transparency in public policy, and you have a further recipe for disaster. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen initially claimed that the country had no cases of the virus, an impossible declaration. Then, just this past week, Hun Sen made another fateful decision. He allowed the cruise ship Westerdam to dock in the port of Sihanoukville. Although this was a compassionate measure, and widely praised, the Cambodian prime minister, and the Cambodian authorities, treated the threat of coronavirus from the ship with total blitheness. As if to show he was not worried about the virus, the strongman Hun Sen, in his typically grandiose style, did not wear a mask when greeting passengers (others with him did not wear masks, either.) The Cambodian authorities allowed people to exit the ship, and then leave the country, claiming that there were no infected people on board—another grandiose claim not backed up by evidence. Unfortunately, as the New York Times reported, “Only 20 people out of the 2,257 onboard were tested for the virus before disembarking, and that was because they had reported themselves to ship medical staff with various ailments.” It later turned out that one person on board was positive for the virus, but by then many passengers had traveled to other destinations around the world—a potential public health nightmare. Infectious disease experts believe the number of cases already known in Southeast Asia probably does not reflect the real spread of the disease, because of the region’s weak public health systems, and because people can be asymptomatic at first when they have the coronavirus. Given the region’s extensive trade and tourism links with China, it probably would be the next place for a massive number of coronavirus cases. But states in Southeast Asia will need massive assistance from the international community if the virus does spread en masse in the region.

Over the weekend, Thailand suffered a horrific mass shooting, in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima, known as Korat. A gunman apparently angered about a land dispute attacked his commanding officer, the officer’s mother-in-law, and another person. He then seized ammunition and powerful weapons from his army camp, grabbed an army vehicle, and shot soldiers who tried to stop him. He drove to the Terminal 21 shopping mall in Korat, fired randomly at people on the streets and then entered the mall and embarked upon a prolonged rampage against civilians inside. After around seventeen hours, commandos killed the gunman. The bloodshed was Thailand’s worst-ever mass shooting by an individual. Thirty people were dead, including the killer, and at least fifty-seven injured. I have lived in and traveled back and forth to Thailand for two decades, and while the kingdom has had many tragically violent incidents—army massacres of civilians in 1992 and 2010, among other military killings—and the country has the second highest gun homicide rate in Southeast Asia, I cannot remember a mass shooting like this in Thailand. It was one that seemed so sadly familiar to shootings that have taken place in recent years in countries from New Zealand to the United States to France. Indeed, the Thai shooter’s motivations might have been different from those of the Christchurch gunman, the killer at the El Paso Walmart, or other lone gunmen, but the style of action was horrendously similar. The Thai gunman killed innocents at will, and he seemingly wanted to glorify his activities by streaming his murders live on Facebook, before the platform pulled down his profile. Yet Facebook waited around five hours to take down the gunman’s profile, a long time lag. The rampage also raised several other questions. Some Thais criticized the prime minister and other cabinet members for their seeming inability to console the country, instead seeming more focused on inserting themselves the news coverage. It also was a reminder than even though the Royal Thai Army is the dominant institution in the kingdom, has ruled politics directly or indirectly for many years, and has boosted its budget in recent years, it often seems unable to securely store its weapons. (It also, as the Associated Press reported, had to rely on “a journalist, a drone operator for a local TV news channel” to help find the gunman after the security forces could not locate his position in the mall). In Thailand’s south, insurgents have broken into Royal Thai Army weapons depots and stolen caches of arms, some of which they then use against army soldiers. James Buchanan, a PhD candidate at the Department of Asian and International Studies at the City University of Hong Kong, notes that in 2004 about four hundred rifles were stolen from an army depot in Narathiwat, in the south, and in 2010 about six thousand rifles, as well as explosives, were stolen from an army base in Phatthalung. These were just a few of the cases of weapons being pilfered. And here again, in the Thai northeast, the shooter was able to get weapons at an army outpost before heading into Korat to kill. Facing a shocked populace and scorn on social media and in the press for the army’s poor security protocols, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has now ordered a review of the security of Thai armories, admitting poor security of military weapons made the massacre worse. A few weeks before the massacre, the Thai army commander had given a media interview in which he said he had ordered all units to protect their weapons—although he seemingly meant protect them from political opponents of the military, not the army itself. General Apirat Kongsompong, in that interview, told the Bangkok Post that “All weapons must be kept under good care and ready for use … The army will never let ill-minded people steal them.” After the massacre, army spokesman Winthai Suvaree told reporters that the incident was “unprecedented.” Indeed, this style of mass shooting was unprecedented in the kingdom, but the army’s lax control of its own weapons was not.

Daniel Flitton is the editor of The Interpreter, a digital magazine published daily by the Lowy Institute in Sydney. When political dramas unfold in real life, they never seem to feature that one crucial moment you commonly see watching a classic emergency room television series. You know—the kind where frantic doctors desperately struggle to revive a patient, pumping his or her chest and charging defibrillators, only to be defeated, and to mournfully mark the precise instant it all came to an end, with lines like “I’m calling it. Time of death, 11:04 AM.” But future historians likely will look back on what has been a scorching Australian summer as the moment Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s previously successful political career flatlined. Morrison is still far from gone, politically speaking. Yet the jolt to his fortunes after his government’s inept response to bushfires that have raged across the country in recent months has clearly hurt his carefully crafted personal brand. The damage to Morrison’s political prospects looks to be permanent, though in unpredictable realm of Australian politics, one can never be sure. Sometimes, moments arrive in politics where reputations are forever tarnished. A relatively newly re-elected George W. Bush, who still had a favorable approval rating in early 2005, found this out later that year after being seen to botch the initial reaction to Hurricane Katrina. Morrison already has suffered a sharp dip in opinion poll ratings after his performance this Southern Hemisphere summer. The reason why such damage may prove lasting is the baggage he brings to his job—a belligerent and highly personalized style that had to date been a great strength, allowing him to be portrayed as a man who takes on the responsibility to get things done. Only in the case of the fires, he seemed to exert no leadership at all, exactly counter to his brand. As the fires ramped up, he literally took a holiday to Hawaii—and was publicly condemned for it. Later, with smoke blanketing many of Australia’s biggest cities and authorities warning people to avoid exercise and the risk to health, Morrison cheerily gathered with the national cricket team by Sydney’s harbor for a photo-op at New Year’s, still appearing oblivious to the depth of public concern about the fires. It had already been revealed he ignored the pleas of prominent fire chiefs in the months leading up to summer about the dangers ahead. When Morrison did eventually visit some communities battered by the fires, he was treated to that most Australian of sarcastic welcomes: “go on, piss off.” Morrison subsequently conceded he made a mistake by going overseas in the days before Christmas. It was a rare concession that he had gone wrong, and one that will open the way for opponents to question his judgment. Morrison never gave an inch, in the past, on almost any political issue, especially during his years as the face of the conservative coalition’s “stop the boats” policy to prevent asylum seekers crossing dangerous seas to Australia. Even when caught in blatant exaggerations related to the asylum policy, he stood stubbornly firm. Later, when in charge of the nation’s finances as treasurer between 2015 and 2018, he marched into parliament brandishing a lump of coal, taunting the opposition in the face of calls to transition the economy from a dependence on fossil fuels. Morrison’s first instinct when taking a holiday during the fire crisis was similarly not to give ground to the critics. His staff sought to cover up his absence—with journalists insisting his office sought to deny that he was even away, only to be discovered lounging on a Hawaiian beach. When Morrison did return, he stumbled further. His awkward appearances and forced handshakes in areas devastated by the fires were broadcast nationally and across the world, and proved a striking contrast to his usual efforts to present himself as an everyman. And the still relatively recent prevalence of smart phones and social media ensured that the scale of the fires—with footage from deep inside the inferno—was seen by the Australian public much more broadly than it would have been even five years ago. Yet Morrison, the supposedly can-do character, responded in a way that was seen to pass the buck, saying, “I don’t hold a hose, mate.” His subsequent decision to produce an advertisement to promote his response to the fires, only for the ad to feature a way to donate to the ruling Liberal party at a time people were reaching into their own pockets for charity, rankled some Australians. In part, Morrison was caught by a confluence of events beyond his control. His Hawaii holiday coincided with the sad death of volunteer firefighters, further amplifying attention on his absence. And people are understandably angry when their house has burned down, and look for someone to blame. A public survey suggested more than half of the Australian population felt affected by the fire crisis—whether by direct property damage, health concerns from smoke haze, or holiday plans upended. Morrison has not only suffered a fall in his own approval ratings, his poor handling of the fire crisis saw him criticized in influential media outlets usually welded to the conservative side. Even from within his own party, state politicians in New South Wales complained about a lack of consultation with and leadership from the national government. The prime minister remains in office. Morrison’s position is now protected somewhat from revolt within his ruling coalition, because it has become far harder to oust leaders from within parties, between elections, thanks to new procedural rules adopted by both parties. The new rules were put in place to end the cycle of continual fighting from within parties, and replacing prime minister after prime minister without elections. Morrison won power in an internal party leadership contest in 2018, becoming the sixth prime minister in a decade, amidst nonstop petty squabbling and personality clashes within the two major political parties. Morrison won a national election just last May, a result not foreseen by most pre-election polls; that victory should have netted him enduring political capital. He now has more than two years until he faces another national election, under Australia’s system of three-year terms. And the country has enjoyed a roaring economy: It has not had a recession in twenty-seven years. Yet the extra-long season of bushfires in the southern and eastern states, which began much earlier than usual in September and came after a long and painful drought in rural districts, not only damaged Morrison’s personal brand but also again focused the public mind on the problem that has loomed in the background of Australia’s recent decade of political strife. That is, the need to craft a credible and durable response to climate change. Indeed, Australia faces the difficult challenge of balancing combating global warming, securing sources of energy for the domestic market, and keeping Australia’s economy booming through exports of coal, gas, and minerals to regional giants like China, Australia’s biggest trading partner. Even if he can right his personal brand, Morrison will continue struggling because of the fundamental divisions within Australian conservative ranks about how to handle environmental challenges. Australia is in many ways the rich country most endangered by climate change. And some parts of the conservative Liberal-National coalition, supported by prominent voices in the business community, wish the government would take the lead on planning for the changes stemming from global warming, and develop a strategy of more ambitious cuts to carbon emissions to limit the dangers. Other portions of the ruling coalition deny climate change exists, or view any focus on climate change as driven by a “cult-like” global green movement to undermine capitalism and hurt the Australian economy. As the crisis built, Morrison spent weeks pointing to Australia’s long past experience with bushfires, refusing to countenance climate change as a meaningful factor that has made fires worse, more devastating, and more regular. Morrison has shown no sign that his summer scare will change his approach or that he will seek to resolve the schism in his coalition on climate change—a schism that undermines policy-making and leaves Australia as a laggard in both climate diplomacy and responses to global warming at home. He insists, to the cost of relations with neighboring Pacific island nations, that Australia only produces 1.3 percent of global carbon emissions, while neglecting to point out that these emissions stem from a country with 0.3 percent of the world’s population. He has emphasized that the fires result from conservation policies allowing too much forest growth—or even arson—with only the barest nod to problems exacerbated by rising temperatures or declining rainfall. As a result, the ruling coalition remains divided, and any progress on climate change in Australia likely remains stalled. Instead, Morrison has attempted to revert to promoting the image of himself as a man of action. He has called out the military to assist with firefighting and clean-up, and pledged to pass legislation to allow the federal government to respond more swiftly to fires in future. “Further practical resilience measures” was the Morrison mantra in a major speech delivered last week in an attempt recapture the political agenda. But this approach continues to treat the symptoms of what troubles Australia, not the cause. Although he faces no serious prospects of being challenged until election time, the public is again eager for substantive action on climate change, and Morrison surely knows from recent history that leaders rarely recover for a second chance.

The coronavirus which originated in Wuhan, China, continues to spread around the globe. New cases are being discovered every day. This past week, the first domestically transmitted cases were reported in Japan, in the United States and in Germany. New cases also recently emerged in Singapore, the Philippines, India and other countries. In light of those developments, the World Health Organization declared the virus a global emergency and the U.S. State Department warned Americans not to travel to China. The downside of intense China links The nations of Southeast Asia have extensive trade, transport and border links to China. It was thus no surprise that the region was one of the first outside of China and Hong Kong to face coronavirus cases. It is highly probable that no level of regional preparation would have stopped some spread of the virus. Southeast Asia is one of the biggest tourism destinations for Chinese travelers and, because of the Chinese New Year’s holiday, many people had already left Wuhan before the city began to shut down. It certainly did not help that the Chinese authorities were initially slow to release information to other countries. Only Singapore gets the job done But even if the Chinese side had been far more circumspect, the fact remains that several Southeast Asian governments have responded poorly to the spreading pandemic. This, in turn, has raised the risk of larger outbreaks in their countries. In fact, many Southeast Asian governments, with the exception of Singapore, have not responded effectively. Singapore, of course, is not only just a city state, but also very rich by comparison to all its neighbors and has an extensive track record in organized public health campaigns. ASEAN’s poorer cousins Not all of Singapore’s poorer cousins are fully at fault. Some regional states, like Cambodia and Vietnam, have limited public health resources. The areas of mainland Southeast Asia which are near the Chinese border are by their nature very porous when it comes to human flows. Moreover, in some cases like the Myanmar-China border, those places are not even under central government control. As it happens, Myanmar has been lucky to date as it has not yet had a confirmed case, although cases have been confirmed in Cambodia and Vietnam. Authoritarianism vs. public health But caution as to the actual factual situation is warranted. Mainland Southeast Asian states that are authoritarian are not used to sharing information. In fact, the authoritarian governments in mainland Southeast Asia worry that any transparency will spark public anger. Indeed, they are often more afraid of their own publics than of an outbreak of the coronavirus. Understandably enough, their inability to share information, as well as the lack of urgency in putting in place effective control measures, is scaring their citizens. The attempt to engage in information control is also making it more likely that the virus will spread. Under pressure, in order to combat the coronavirus more effectively, Vietnam this week finally took some tougher measures. It shut part of its land border with China and cracked down significantly on tourism from China. The wealthier cousins Even in wealthier Southeast Asian states, the response often has been ineffectual and slow. Indonesian authorities have dragged their feet. The country’s health minister Terawan Agus Putranto affected a strange air of nonchalance about the virus. He told the public, “Don’t be anxious. Just enjoy it” (although he seemed to mean enjoy life, not enjoy the virus). He also reminded Indonesians to pray and to think good thoughts. (At least he also told his fellow Indonesians to wash their hands). Thailand flunks the test But Thailand has been the prime example of a Southeast Asian government flunking the Coronavirus test. The kingdom, whose tourism economy relies heavily on Chinese visitors and whose biggest companies have extensive trade and investment links with China, now has the most cases of the virus of any country other than China. All of these cases are Chinese visitors, but a local outbreak is possible. Thailand moved slowly to shut down links to China, probably for fear of hurting diplomatic ties with Beijing and undermining a lucrative tourism connection. The government also dragged its feet on establishing information centers to teach the Thai people about the virus. It also failed to pass out pertinent information about protection at all. The probable cause for this stance is that, although Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government is technically democratically elected, it was effectively installed in power by the 2014 coup regime. It thus only has a narrow mandate. Prayuth remains less popular with the public than the leading opposition leader, and his coalition only took control of parliament following extensive irregularities during and after last year’s election. Even with the power of the military behind him, Prayuth’s own coalition remains unwieldy. Self-defeating information policies When it has informed the public, the Thai government often has put out misinformation that confused people or underestimated the virus. Government officials seemed angered that they even had to be transparent about how they were handling the outbreak. The results have been scary. Thai authorities are warning that there could be virus outbreaks in big tourist centers, like Bangkok and Phuket, which would quickly lead to a spike in cases. When Prime Minister Prayuth came down sick earlier this week, his health minister even rushed to assuage concerns that the he had come down with the coronavirus. As the virus spreads, the kingdom’s initial fumble could cost it dearly.

The coronavirus which originated in Wuhan, China, continues to spread around the globe. New cases are being discovered every day. Last week, the first domestically transmitted cases were reported in Japan, in the United States and in Germany. On Sunday, the Philippines reported the first confirmed death from the virus outside of China. The nations of Southeast Asia have extensive trade, transport and border links to China, and the region is a major travel destination for Chinese tourists, particular during Lunar New Year.  It was thus no surprise that the region was one of the first outside of China and Hong Kong to face coronavirus cases. Nonetheless, multiple several Southeast Asian governments have responded poorly to the spreading pandemic. Thailand in particular has bungled the response, but it is hardly unique. These failures, in turn, have raised the risk of larger outbreaks in their countries. For more on my analysis of how Southeast Asian states are responding to the outbreak, see my new piece in the Globalist.

In a major new defense white paper, its first in ten years, Vietnam has signaled that it could abandon its long-standing foreign policy strategy of hedging between major powers like China and the United States and move more definitively into Washington’s orbit. These documents are generally full of turgid Marxist-Leninist jargon, but this one, released late last year, is unusually blunt, with an unprecedented warning to China about the consequences of stepping up its aggressive behavior toward Vietnam in the South China Sea. For more on my analysis of Vietnam’s new defense white paper, and what it means for Vietnamese foreign policy, see my new World Politics Review piece.

Southeast Asia has never been an easy environment for reporters. The region contains two of the most repressive states in the world, Laos and Vietnam, which are ranked by Freedom House as “not free” in terms of freedom of the press. Less repressive regional states, like the Philippines and Thailand, still are difficult, often highly dangerous places to work in journalism. The Philippines has one of the highest numbers of journalists killed of any country in the world, and the International Federation of Journalists actually ranks the country worse, in terms of impunity for attacks on the media, than states like Cambodia whose overall media climate is more constrained. At least thirteen journalists have been killed in attacks related to their work since Rodrigo Duterte became president in 2016, but even before Duterte, killings of journalists were common in the country. Most infamously, in 2009 the Philippines witnessed what is considered the deadliest single attack on journalists in history, when thirty-two reporters and other media workers were killed in a massacre in the southern Philippines, along with twenty-five other people. Yet even by the region’s already-low standards, press freedom has taken a hit in Southeast Asia over the past two years. The decline in press freedom is one sign of the region’s overall political backsliding, with Malaysia and Timor-Leste being notable exceptions. Beyond the broader political backsliding, countries in the region have taken advantage of international disinterest in press freedom, and growing global concerns about disinformation, to use laws about online speech against journalists, or to pass new laws that could make it harder to report. The region’s worst offenders, like Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, have remained just as closed, if not more so, for journalists than they were in the middle of the decade. But the freer states have cracked down on reporters as well. It appears that in his second term in office Indonesian President Joko Widodo will be no more committed to rights and freedoms than he was in his first term. Last week, for instance, the Indonesian government released an American journalist, Philip Jacobson, from prison on a visa violation and reportedly planned to deport him—though he remains under city arrest in Central Kalimantan as of this time. Jacobson works for a groundbreaking environmental reporting site, Mongabay, that often reported on thorny issues in Indonesia like graft, the Jokowi administration’s environmental record, and the powerful palm oil lobby. Jacobson had been arrested because the government claimed he was doing reporting while traveling on a business visa, but he had been in Indonesia to attend a conference, and the arrest was condemned by international press freedom organizations. His arrest was part of a broader trend in the country; press freedom has declined under Jokowi. Press have largely been banned from West Papua, journalists regularly face intimidation from the security forces, and the stepped-up enforcement of blasphemy laws chills reporting as well. In Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand press freedom also is getting worse. Both the Myanmar military and the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi have tried to crack down on journalists, often by accusing them of defamation under a section of the draconian Telecommunications Act. Myanmar’s score in Reporters without Borders’ annual press freedom index has dropped in the past three years, in part also because of the jailing of two Reuters reporters. In the Philippines, while reporting was dangerous before the Duterte administration, Duterte’s administration has singled out journalists as enemies of the state and specifically targeted some of the most prominent journalists in the country, like the outlet Rappler and its head, Maria Ressa, which published multiple exposes of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs. And in Thailand, journalists from neighboring states have been abducted, while the government has suspended critical outlets like Voice TV, intimidated journalists, and used every tool possible to shut down independent reporters.

This week, Thailand’s constitutional court found Thailand’s Future Forward Party, one of the two most prominent opposition parties, not guilty of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy. This verdict kept Future Forward from being disbanded—for now. The evidence against Future Forward was, shall we say, slight. The case that it was trying to overthrow the monarchy was based in part on bizarre, interpretive readings of Future Forward’s party platform and even its logo, mixed in with a stew of allegations about some Future Forward members’ comments on Facebook and other platforms. But the court’s decision does not put Future Forward in the clear. Far from it. Its leader, Thanathorn Juangroonruangkit, poses the clearest challenge to the ruling Palang Pracharat party and to the military. There are more than twenty cases still pending against Future Forward, including a major case that came before the Election Commission and now heads to the constitutional court. If recent history holds, the party will eventually be banned somehow. So, Thailand’s treadmill will continue running in place. If Future Forward is eventually banned, public frustration will continue to mount, especially among the young. The military and its allies appear to be using a strategy against Future Forward that they have utilized since the early 2000s, against any parties that threatened the army. For more than a decade, the military’s strategy against Puea Thai (and its predecessors in name), the other large opposition party, was to use the courts and bureaucratic agencies to harass and ban Puea Thai politicians or disband parties, while also courting some Puea Thai defectors, trying to entice them to break away and form a government with other, more pro-military parties. After overseeing a post-coup rewrite of the Thai constitution in a way that, by shifting the electoral system, seemed to make it harder for any one major opposition force to emerge, the army probably thought it was in the clear. It only had to continue to deal with Puea Thai, an opponent whose power had been whittled over the years. Yet Future Forward emerged from the election last year as a powerful force, and has more momentum as a locus of opposition than Puea Thai. Its strong electoral showing shocked the army and its proxy party. Future Forward’s leader, Thanathorn, presents a more appealing face to many young voters than Puea Thai’s leaders, tied to over a decade of political battling and inexorably linked to the Shinawatra family. In December, a leading Thai research organization, the Nida poll, found that a plurality of respondents thought Thanathorn was best suited to be prime minister, more so than the current prime minister, former coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha. Future Forward has been able to put together large street rallies, on short notice. And in some ways Future Forward is more willing to take on the army than Puea Thai (and its similar, predecessor parties) were. Future Forward has openly called for reforming the Royal Thai Army to make it a more professional body that operates under civilian rule and does not meddle in politics—which is what the Royal Thai Army really does best. Puea Thai and its predecessors focused more on placing party allies and Shinawatra allies in the top ranks of the military than trying to reform the Royal Thai Army. (However, in the run-up to the 2019 election, Puea Thai focused more on military reform, probably in part because Future Forward had made reform a theme, and the concept seemed popular with the public.) The army and its party, Palang Pracharat, do not know any other strategies for dealing with opposition. So, it is highly likely that, via one of the court cases, Future Forward will be disbanded, and Thanathorn hit with more punishment than already has been levied against him. (He has been prevented from taking his seat in parliament in a different court case.) The military will hope that, with Future Forward blocked and perhaps even disbanded, public opinion will eventually sour on the party. Future Forward did lose a by-election in October, perhaps in part because the party could get nothing done in the current political climate. But the fact that, even as Puea Thai’s star wanes, opposition to the military and its proxies has remained solid suggests that if Future Forward is destroyed, the vacuum left will be filled by another opposition force.

In a country ruled for much of the 2010s by a repressive military junta, and where information about powerful actors can be dangerous to dig up, Khao Sod has built a reputation as one of the most respected news outlets in Thailand. Although Khao Sod is a mass market daily with a broad readership, it is known for aggressive reporting. It has hired reporters like Pravit Rojanaphruk, one of the most fearless writers in the country. Pravit resigned in 2015 from his former employer, The Nation newspaper, after being detained by the Thai army for an “attitude adjustment session” for the “offense” of writing critically about the junta. (He also claimed in a tweet that he had been essentially fired by The Nation, and that management had asked him to resign to spare The Nation from more military pressure.) Khao Sod still hired him. Khao Sod is part of the bigger Matichon Group, also known for its quality, independent journalism. Matichon’s weekly magazine, heavy on politics, is as much a must-read for Thai politicians and other Bangkok political influencers as Politico’s top stories are in Washington. Khao Sod also produces an English language website that publishes tough investigative reporting, even on sensitive topics like the military and the monarchy. Yet this reputation for quality, independent journalism did not stop Khao Sod and Matichon Group from partnering with state media from a country with one of the most repressive media environments in the world. In 2019, as Foreign Policy has reported, Khao Sod and Matichon announced a partnership with Xinhua, and Khao Sod began running Xinhua articles. Among the first Xinhua pieces Khao Sod ran, Foreign Policy noted, were articles on the Hong Kong protests that portrayed the protestors as tools of Western agitators and an article saying that China’s Xinjiang province as a place where “equality, solidarity and harmony among ethnic groups and religions have prevailed, and people are enjoying peace and stability.” After the respected Khao Sod and Matichon Group inked a content sharing deal with Xinhua, other Thai news outlets followed suit. By November 2019, as Khao Sod itself reported, outlets including Thai state broadcaster NBT, the publication Manager Online, a mass market outlet with a smaller following than Khao Sod, and Voice Online, the website of one the most progressive, toughest television stations in Thailand, had signed deals with Xinhua. (Voice TV has proven so critical of the Thai military that the armed forces had repeatedly banned Voice TV from the airwaves for brief periods of time.) In total, by the end of the year twelve Thai language outlets had signed content sharing deals with Xinhua. Meanwhile, The Nation had its own content sharing deal with Chinese state media. The Nation participates in the Asia News Network, a media colloquium in which more than twenty news outlets, from across the region, reprint stories from each other. Most, though not all, of the Asia News Network members are not owned or controlled by governments, and are not in any way state media. And yet all of these media outlets, many of which are prestigious organizations, share content with China Daily, a member of the Asia News Network. They regularly pick up content from China Daily, even though China Daily is a state media outlet with none of the editorial independence enjoyed by most of the other Asia News Network outlets. Some Thai outlets touted the deals with Xinhua, although Khao Sod and Matichon executives seemed more reluctant to publicize these agreements. “Thai media [will] receive news directly from a Chinese news agency, instead of a second hand information from Western media only,” Chaiwat Wanichwattana, a journalist who has worked at the business outlet Than Sethakit and heads the Thai-Chinese Journalists Association, said proudly at a discussion timed to some of the signings. “This kind of cooperation is most welcome.” The Thai media executives who attended the discussion with Chaiwat seemed happy about how Chinese state media stories performed on their sites, too, according to a report in Khao Sod. Some executives reportedly said that, since they started picking up Xinhua copy, Thai readers had displayed a growing interest in stories about China’s domestic affairs. Bhuvadej Chirabandhu, from the Thai site Sanook, another of the media outlets that had started picking up Xinhua copy, said that 1.4 million of Sanook’s readers had read Xinhua content posted on its site, according to a Khao Sod report. Given how many Thai news outlets are signing up for Xinhua partnerships, the Chinese government surely is happy as well.

Two months into his second term, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, has announced bold new economic plans. He has vowed to push through major deregulation, and launch massive new infrastructure projects. But whether Jokowi can implement his economic agenda remains less clear. He has built a cabinet that is an uneasy mix of veteran politicians, including some with unsavory backgrounds, and younger, reform-minded technocrats. This combustible cabinet could undermine his economic plans. And Jokowi’s disinterest in political reforms could prove a hurdle as well, hindering his abilities to get anything done. For more on Jokowi’s second term, see my new World Politics Review column.