Southeast Asia

As the battle for Marawi, a major city of some 200,000 in the southern Philippines, has dragged on for weeks, it has begun to raise global concern. The conflict pits fighters who have pledged allegiance to the self-declared Islamic State against the Philippine armed forces; leading politicians from the United States and countries in Southeast Asia now fear that the southern Philippines battle, increasingly prominent in Islamic State propaganda, will lure militants from around the world. “They [Islamic State] are certainly trying to get fighters into that region" in the southern Philippines Republican Sen. Joni Ernst told the Associated Press earlier this month. "We need to address the situation. It should not get out of control." Yet although Duterte has already taken an extremely harsh and brutal approach to narcotics, and although he was the mayor of the biggest city on the major southern island of Mindanao, as president he actually paid relatively little attention to the conflict in the southern Philippines—until recently. Meanwhile, his declaration of martial law will not help the Philippine authorities destroy Islamic State-linked groups in the south. For more on Duterte’s misguided approach to militants in the Philippine south, see my new Expert Brief.  

In July, according to spokespeople for Thailand’s government, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha will visit Washington for a White House visit. The visit itself, likely in late July, will be a substantial diplomatic and image boost for Prayuth, who led the coup in May 2014 that deposed Thailand’s most recent elected government. The previous U.S. administration allowed Prayuth to meet with President Obama as part of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in February 2016 held in Sunnylands, California (other authoritarian rulers from the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including the leaders of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia came as well), but it did not offer Prayuth a White House invitation, even though Thailand is a U.S. treaty ally. For more on my assessment of what will come from Prayuth's July visit, read my latest for World Politics Review. 

Over the past two decades, subsequent Chinese governments have invested heavily in soft power, particularly in developing regions of the world. Beginning in the early 2000s, Beijing began dramatically boosting its aid outlays, promoting new cultural and educational exchanges, expanding and modernizing Chinese media outlets overseas (some, potentially, with Russia’s outlets as a model), and increasing training for foreign officials in China, among other measures. Overall, the goal of these soft power efforts seems to be similar to soft power strategies of other major powers, including the United States, France, Britain, and Japan: to bolster China’s reputation overseas, and potentially make it easier for Beijing to gain other, more tangible foreign policy goals. For instance, if China is perceived favorably in foreign nations, it may be easier for Beijing to negotiate free trade deals with other nations, launch joint military operations, boost diplomatic relations, and achieve other goals. A decade or so ago, Beijing appeared to be succeeding in its soft power strategy. It had utilized many of these soft power methods to raise its favorability around the world, and to soothe concerns in Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and South Asia about China’s growing diplomatic, economic, and strategic influence. But that strategy has come into conflict, in Southeast Asia, with China’s hard power aims. I participated in an online forum on China’s soft power organized by the National Endowment for Democracy. You can see my part of it, and all the responses, here.

In the early months of the Donald Trump administration, most Southeast Asian nations have found themselves in a relatively familiar place in dealing with Washington: on the periphery of U.S. policy. The administration has held a friendly call with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and has invited other Southeast Asian leaders to the White House, and Vice President Mike Pence had a short but relatively successful trip to Indonesia earlier this year. But other than the South China Sea—an issue on which Southeast Asian nations themselves are divided about how to respond to Beijing’s increasing dominance—the new U.S. administration has paid only modest attention to Southeast Asia. For more on my assessment of the new administration’s Southeast Asia policy, see my new article for Aspenia Online.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, when I was based in Thailand, Thai military officers frequently claimed to me that the armed forces, which along with the monarchy had been the central player in Thai politics for decades, were returning to the barracks. They would become apolitical, would no longer intervene in Thai politics, and certainly would never stage a never another coup—not since the disastrous situation in the early 1990s, when their coup attempt and takeover of government was rejected by protestors in Bangkok, leading to bloodshed and a royal intervention that shamed some in the armed forces. That fiction has now been totally annihilated, as the armed forces of course staged a coup in 2006 and then a much harsher putsch in 2014; that junta still runs the country, with a tight grip. But notably, the armed forces also seem to be lavishing funds on themselves. Zachary Abuza of the National War College regularly puts together the statistics on the Thai military’s current and potential future budget allocations, and his figures are a valuable resource. At a time when Thailand is considering cutbacks in its national health care service, the country’s economy remains probably the weakest in Southeast Asia, and the poorly managed education system—it produces too many graduates unprepared for jobs in a middle-income economy—is a major impediment to Thailand’s continued competitiveness, the military is consider a very substantial budget increase for … the military. Indeed, as Abuza and Agence France Presse report, the Thai military is requesting a 30 percent budget increase for next year. Overall, they note, if this budget allocation for next year is approved (and it is likely to be, in a country where dissent is punished harshly) the military’s budget would grow by about 50 percent just since the 2014 coup. [Jerome Taylor of AFP and Abuza’s figures can be found here.] Thailand has no external enemies, and it is relatively comfortable with China’s increasing regional dominance. To be sure, Thailand faces an ongoing and brutal insurgency in its southernmost provinces, as well as continued threats in Bangkok and other parts of the country—potentially from southern militants (who have rarely seemed to attack outside of the deep south) but also possibly from people angry at junta rule or international terrorist groups. But much of the military’s expenditures do little to upgrade the Thai army’s skills in the deep south anyway. The Thai navy plans to buy three submarines from China, even though Thailand is not involved in the main regional maritime dispute in the South China Sea, and it is unclear what the Thai armed forces will use the submarines for. The submarines are certainly unlikely to help stop the insurgency in the deep south. The budget increases thus makes one wonder what the armed forces are planning to use all this potential new cash for.

This week’s visit of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to Washington resulted in the usual readout of supposed achievements and breakthroughs. The prime minister seems to have understood that this U.S. administration likes foreign officials to arrive in Washington with promises of new investments and other deals that the White House can quickly tout as a win.  And indeed, during the visit the U.S. president boasted that the two nations were signing deals that would result in “billions” in new trade, as well as, supposedly, creating many new jobs in the United States. At a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Vietnam’s prime minister promised roughly $15 billion in new deals. Reuters noted, however, that the Commerce Department’s figure for how much the deals would be worth was about one-half the Vietnamese prime minister announced in his speech.  Still, President Trump declared, “They (Vietnam) just made a very large order in the United States—and we appreciate that—for many billions of dollars, which means jobs for the United States and great, great equipment for Vietnam.” The two sides further discussed strategic issues, such as Vietnam’s desire to buy more cutters; Hanoi is hardly going to follow the lead of the Philippines and back down from its assertive defense of its exclusive economic zones in the South China Sea.  But this fanfare covers up some major problems in the relationship. The amount of deals announced is unlikely to fully please the U.S. administration, even though Hanoi likely sees the deals, in a way, as a concession to make to please the White House. And Vietnam will almost surely continue to run a major trade surplus with the United States. For an administration that looks at surpluses and deficits in a zero-sum way, trade relations are going to continue to be a primary irritant in the relationship.  Even on Tuesday, with the Vietnamese prime minister in attendance at an event, according to the Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer appeared to tag Vietnam as a country unfairly benefiting from trade by selling more to the U.S. than it buys. Mr. Lighthizer emphasized a $32 billion U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam while introducing Mr. Phuc at an event for businesses.” Indeed, trade hawks in the U.S. administration are likely to continue to view Vietnam warily, and the Vietnamese prime minister received little in the way of concrete action on trade from the U.S. side during his visit. It’s easy to imagine U.S. officials continuing to publicly push and shame Hanoi to try to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam in some way. U.S. defense companies could seek significant deals in Vietnam, which is rapidly modernizing its armed forces, but Hanoi is not going to shift extensively to U.S.-made systems anytime soon, as much of its weaponry is dependent on Russian systems, which Vietnam has relied upon for decades and which Vietnamese officials are comfortable with.  What’s more, Hanoi’s leaders and the leaders of ten other nations could well move forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership without the United States, signaling a further unmooring of Vietnam and the United States’ trade approaches in the Asia Pacific. This does not mean that Vietnam will become even more dependent on trade with China, but it would mean that the trade strategies of Hanoi—which is also negotiating with the European Union—and Washington will continue to further diverge. Vietnam’s prime minister also supposedly came to Washington with the idea that the two countries could, sometime in the future, negotiate a bilateral free trade deal, according to the Wall Street Journal. But such a possibility seems far off—even U.S. officials admit it is a low priority compared to many other potential deals and renegotiations. And in any case it is hard to imagine the two countries generating enough goodwill on trade issues in the next few years to move toward a bilateral deal.   

Richard Javad Heydarian is a Manila-based academic and author of Asia's New Battlefield: U.S., China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific. His forthcoming book is Duterte's Rise. Shortly after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte embarked on a high-profile visit to Russia earlier this month, a self-proclaimed Islamic State affiliate group launched a surprise attack on Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao. As the situation deteriorated, Duterte cut short his five-day trip to Moscow, where he managed to hold an earlier-than-scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Duterte has described as his “favorite hero.” The visit to Russia came only a week after Duterte’s second trip to China in less than a year. During this visit to Beijing, Duterte secured a $500 million long term soft loan to purchase Chinese defense equipment for the Philippine military, which has traditionally relied on U.S.-made and donated hardware. Duterte’s back-to-back visits to China and Russia was part of his broader strategy of diversifying Manila’s strategic relations, as the Philippines pursues what Duterte calls an “independent” foreign policy that would make it less reliant upon the United States. In the past, despite Russia’s desire to boost its ties to Southeast Asian nations and sell arms to countries in the region, governments in Manila usually shunned closer relations with Russia either in deference to the United States or simply out of fear of displeasing Washington. In contrast, Duterte apparently believes East Asia is entering a post-United States international order, where smaller powers such as the Philippines should reach out to alternative poles of influence in the region, such as China and Russia. Duterte also may prefer boosting ties with Beijing and Moscow since they have few concerns about his record on rights and democracy issues, such as the war on drugs and the recent declaration of martial law in Mindanao.  In the past year, rights issues became a major stumbling block between Duterte and the United States, although it remains unclear whether the new U.S. administration will continue to push Duterte on rights. Disturbed by Duterte’s drug war, the Obama administration deferred deployment of firearms to the Philippine National Police (PNP), while postponing renewal of the $434 million Millennium Challenge Corporation aid package. For Duterte, Russia, a leading arms exporter in the world, could be an alternative source of weapons, from light firearms to tanks, drones, helicopters, submarines and other major military hardware. Duterte also sees Russia and China, which have permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, as potential sources of diplomatic support at international organizations, in light of growing international pressure and scrutiny of Duterte’s administration, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite Duterte’s premature departure from Russia, he left key cabinet secretaries in Moscow to oversee the signing of ten major agreements between Russia and the Philippines. Of particular importance was an Agreement on Defense Cooperation (ADC), which paves the way for institutionalized military-to-military exchanges, including training, intelligence-sharing, and, down the road, even joint exercises between the two countries. Specifically, the Philippines is looking at joint naval drills with Russia in the South China Sea or possibly even in the Sulu and Celebes Sea, where Islamic State-affiliate groups like Abu Sayyaf have been conducting piracy operations. The two countries also signed an agreement to promote bilateral intelligence sharing, with a particular focus on counterterrorism cooperation. During his meeting with Putin, Duterte expressly sought greater Russian assistance in dealing with extremist groups. Moscow, which is closely monitoring Islamic State members hailing from Caucasus and Central Asia and returning to Russia, could provide valuable intelligence to the Philippines on how to deal with foreign fighters coming to Mindanao. The Philippine government has reported the possible presence of fighters from Chechnya among the group of militants fighting in Marawi. Russia could potentially provide information on Chechens and others of Russian citizenry who are traveling to Mindanao.  Buoyed by his budding strategic partnership with Putin, Duterte declared martial law across Mindanao, which has faced conflicts for nearly half a century. “It [the martial law] will not be any different from what [former president Ferdinand] Marcos did,” Duterte warned shortly before departing Moscow.  The militants who attacked in Marawi may have been emboldened to strike by the fact that Duterte and the bulk of his key cabinet members, including Duterte’s national security adviser, were thousands of miles away in Russia. Whatever the spark for the fighting, as the 2013 siege on Zamboanga shows, it will likely take weeks before the Philippine government will return things to a semblance of normality in Marawi, with tens of thousands of citizens fleeing for safety. If the militants continue to strike hard in Mindanao, Duterte may be forced to rebuild his ties with the United States. Whether Duterte wants to admit it or not, only Washington has a long history of interoperability with the Philippine military, which has relied heavily on U.S. assistance to develop counterterrorism skills and launch counterterror operations. Neither Russia nor China, which have had limited success in dealing with Islamist insurgencies in their own backyards, can provide as effective assistance as the U.S. military.  In addition, if Duterte wants to purchase weapons from alternative suppliers like Russia, Manila will have to also take into consideration factors that come along with the arms, including the necessity for long-term training on them, quality and maintenance concerns, and compatibility of Russian technology with the Philippines’ mostly U.S.-supplied weapon systems. As the crisis in Mindanao festers, Duterte will have to contemplate patching up differences with Washington. So far, Duterte appears highly encouraged by the Trump administration’s seemingly sympathetic position on the Philippines’ war on drugs and limited interest in human rights issues in the Philippines. And there are plans for a Duterte-Trump summit in the coming months, whether in the White House or during the East Asia Summit in Manila in November. Perhaps, a diplomatic reset between the two allies is in the offing, as counterterrorism begins to dominate Duterte’s policy agenda. 

One year ago, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known by his nickname, Ahok, was riding high. The governor of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and largest city, was widely popular, both for policies like crackdowns on graft and his no-nonsense style, uncommon in a country where high-handed, indirect politicians long had been the norm. Although he had been deputy governor and had inherited the job after the former Jakarta governor, Joko Widodo, ran for president, in early 2017 Ahok had an approval rating of roughly 70 percent, an enviable figure. He was indeed the overwhelming favorite to win the 2017 gubernatorial election, and was often mentioned as a future presidential candidate. After all, his predecessor as governor of the capital region, Widodo, had used his platform and his own practical style to position himself for the presidency. Few have fallen so far in such a short period of time. For more on my analysis of Ahok’s fall and the potentially worrying implications for Indonesia’s secular democracy, see my new piece in The National.

This past week, Southeast Asia observers have been buzzing over a leaked transcript of a phone call, made in April, between U.S. President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. In the call, the two men spoke of each other warmly, with Trump praising Duterte’s brutal drug war in the Philippines. Trump told Duterte he was “doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem,” and invited him to the White House. Trump also seemed to ask Duterte, hardly a specialist on Northeast Asia, for advice on how to deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and his nuclear and missile arsenal. Trump even let slip that the United States had moved two nuclear submarines toward the Korean Peninsula. But the budding relationship could quickly go south, for a variety of reasons. For more on the Trump-Duterte relationship, and what it will mean for the U.S.-Philippine relationship, see my new article for World Politics Review.

In September 2014, several months after the Thai armed forces’ May 2014 coup, I suggested that this coup would be different from other ones in more recent memory, like the 2006 Thai coup—and that the United States should consider that this Thai coup would be harsher and longer-lasting. This time around, it seemed the generals were not going to be willing to follow the 2006 script, in which they quickly handed power to a transitional government, and then allowed elections fairly quickly, without really destroying the power of Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies, or changing the structure of Thailand’s political system. I also believed that the generals, in 2014, would be willing to jail significant numbers of dissidents and major political figures. The U.S. government, I suggested, should be prepared for a long break before any resumption of real democracy in Thailand, which once had seemed like a democratic success story. So far, these predictions seem moderately accurate; in fact, I think I underestimated how serious the armed forces were about putting off elections, radically changing Thailand’s political system, and trying to ensure that the kingdom returns to a form of limited, managed democracy. The coup has indeed cemented the army’s grip on power, and the Thaksinite political parties who ruled Thailand for most of the years between 2001 and 2014 have been relatively quiet since 2014, a sharp change from the environment in the year after the 2006 coup. Dissent in Bangkok and central Thailand has been muted and/or crushed, though the bloody insurgency continues on in the deep south and there have been isolated incidents of violence in the capital, such as the recent bombing at a hospital in Bangkok. The armed forces have overseen a significant increase in the use of lèse majesté laws to silence critics, and the charter they oversaw could fundamentally weaken Thai democracy after elections are supposedly held next year. Unelected institutions will have enormous influence under the new charter, and it will be nearly impossible for any one party to gain control of the lower house of parliament, the way that pro-Thaksin parties did in the 2000s, even after the 2006 coup. The armed forces may indeed never really exit Thai politics, as some imagined they would in the 1990s and early 2000s. If anything, three years after the coup the armed forces are in an even stronger position than I imagined they would be back in 2014. Although I expected the army to change Thailand’s constitution to undermine any comeback attempts by a pro-Thaksin party and to weaken the power of political parties, period, I still expected them to hold elections earlier than 2018, now the target date for a vote. I thought that political pressure, built up from two decades of democracy in Thailand, would force the armed forces to pass a charter and hold elections within about two years—by the end of 2016, I expected. The U.S. government took a relatively tough line toward the coup, as well, which seemed to suggest that the junta would pay, internationally, for behavior that dragged out elections indefinitely. I also thought that the army’s disdain for many of the regions that supported Thaksinite parties would result in more protests against the junta in parts of the north and northeast. Instead, the armed forces have been ruthless in suppressing dissent—dissent against repressive policies and dissent over the continuing weak economic situation, which was noted in the World Bank’s March report on the faltering state of the Thai economy. The junta’s economic strategies, supposedly designed to shore up Thailand’s weak economic growth, have no clear plan for helping much of the north and northeast, and are unlikely to really improve Thailand’s competitiveness with neighboring states like Vietnam. Meanwhile, junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha has recently suggested that elections could be put off even farther than 2018, if the country does not achieve a level of peace, although he remains unclear how that determination will be made. And the new U.S. administration has made clear that human rights will be a lower priority in U.S. foreign relations overall. This benefits the Thai junta, of course; Prayuth recently received an invitation for a White House visit, an honor he was not accorded by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the new king has added further uncertainty into Thai politics, inserting himself into Thai politics in a relatively direct manner, as I discussed in a recent post. Altogether, a distressing situation three years after the coup, with no clear end in sight.

The thirtieth ASEAN Summit, held two weekends ago, and this year’s fiftieth anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, offer opportunities to reflect on ASEAN’s progress—and the mighty obstacles it still faces on issues related to democracy and rights. The organization remains the only substantial grouping in East Asia, and it has utilized its consensus-building style to achieve several important accomplishments—not the least of which is avoiding a major intra-Southeast Asia conflict since 1975. The organization also has gradually pushed for greater intra-Southeast Asian economic liberalization, resulting in the ASEAN Economic Community. Its numerous meetings have provided opportunities for East Asian nations to build a nascent regional architecture, although this has taken off slowly. ASEAN has gradually fostered closer regional cooperation on important nontraditional security issues, including pandemic disease and haze—although this cooperation is still limited by the slow, consensus-building style ASEAN favors, and the fact that ASEAN’s Secretariat remains relatively small in terms of staff and capacities. It has absorbed four new members since the organization was created; of those new members, Vietnam has become a major power within ASEAN, and Myanmar could one day become influential as well, if it can resolve some of its major domestic challenges. In the 1990s and 2000s, however, ASEAN nations also seemed to be moving toward major progress on rights and democracy. As I have frequently written, several Southeast Asian nations, including Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, were at that time considered powerful examples of developing nations making transitions to democratic rule—developing multi-party systems, holding free elections, ushering in free and fair transfers of power (except in Malaysia), and fostering civilian control over militaries. In the 1990s and 2000s, several Southeast Asian leaders even positioned themselves, both regionally and globally, as important fonts of wisdom about successful democratization. Most notably, former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono highlighted Indonesia’s democratization as an example for other developing countries—SBY, with the rhetorical backing of Washington, used the Bali Democracy Forum in particular to make this case. Meanwhile, some Southeast Asian leaders and middle-level officials, especially from the Philippines and Indonesia, pushed for ASEAN as an organization to make rights and democracy a higher priority, and occasionally also criticized fellow ASEAN members for rights abuses. ASEAN did eventually create a parallel civil society forum, and enshrined protecting human rights as part of the organization’s mission, with its 2009 charter on rights. However, that human rights charter contains no enforcement mechanisms, in keeping with the ASEAN spirit of building by consensus and not via enforcement and confrontation. And since the late 2000s Southeast Asia has regressed badly on rights and democracy, especially given that several countries in ASEAN were considered consolidated democracies before the 2010s. The situation now is sobering. Thailand is now run by a junta, Malaysia’s opposition remains fragmented, with little hope of winning the next election; the Philippines last year elected Rodrigo Duterte president. As president, Duterte enjoys high popularity but has often behaved like an illiberal strongman, and there are concerns that he might not only pursue his drug war but also crack down on the country’s vibrant media and vocal opposition. Other countries in the region, such as Cambodia, that appeared to be moving toward more truly contested politics, also have regressed into more outright authoritarianism. Even Indonesia, which has remained a democracy, has been rocked by large-scale movements led by militant groups, which helped alter the course of the Jakarta governor’s election and may ultimately lead to rollbacks in protections for minorities and fundamental changes to Indonesia’s secular democracy. Militants and some politicians in Indonesia also are increasingly utilizing alleged blasphemy charges to potentially stifle free speech. As Philip Robertson of Human Rights Watch succinctly told Agence France Presse, “Human rights is in a precipitous downward spiral in every ASEAN country except perhaps Myanmar, and that’s only because military rule in that country was so horrible for so long.” Robertson’s assessment is backed up by nearly every major monitoring organization, which have documented ASEAN nations’ declining freedoms of speech, expression, and assembly over the past decade. But with Duterte’s Philippines as the chair of ASEAN this year, and a U.S. administration that seems to make rights and democracy a low priority in Southeast Asia, there does not seem much hope for the organization to make rights and democratization a priority any time soon. Whether individual Southeast Asian nations, like Thailand and Cambodia, will make gains in democratic freedoms, will depend in large part on upcoming elections in those states, and how leaders react to the results.

Since the coup in 2014, Thailand’s climate of free speech, already previously threatened by lèse majesté prosecutions and restrictions in online speech, has gotten far chillier. The country has fallen in the annual Reporters Without Borders press freedom index from 129th in the world in 2014 out of 180 surveyed countries to an abysmal 142nd in the world in the 2017 version of the index, only three places above South Sudan, a country at war with itself. Reporters without Borders noted that media freedom, globally, has never been so threatened in recent times, and this is certainly true in Southeast Asia more broadly as well. Since 2014, the Thai military has reportedly detained at least hundreds if not thousands of possible opponents for sessions in army camps, has overseen an environment in which even formerly independent media outlets are increasingly afraid to publish any criticism of the military and the prime minister, and has also overseen a growing number of threats against foreign reporters in Thailand. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, who is based in Bangkok, has had his passport seized, effectively preventing him from leaving the country, while he faces defamation charges after a story he did about alleged fraud in Phuket. But even in Thailand’s already repressive post-coup environment for the domestic and foreign media, the situation has become noticeably worse since late last year. According to Agence France Presse, prosecutions for cases related to lèse majesté already had been rising since 2014, the year of the coup, but in recent weeks the severity of charges for lèse majesté defendants also have increased. Earlier this week, a Thai court brought a wide range of charges related to lèse majesté and other related offenses against a prominent activist, lawyer, and writer, Prawet Prapanuku. If found guilty, he could face a maximum sentence of some 150 years in jail, which reportedly would be the longest sentence handed out in modern times for lèse majesté. Earlier this week, the Thai government also banned an event planned to be held at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand; the military has in the past three years banned other events at the club, which had tended to be an oasis of free speech even during past periods of military rule. Thailand’s rulers have even recently gone so far as to publicly announce, through the ministry responsible for the digital economy and society, that Thais are now prohibited from any interaction with three of the kingdom’s most well-known critics. These three are Thai academic in exile Pavin Chachavalpongpun, author in exile Andrew MacGregor Marshall, and historian Somsak Jeamteerasakul, who also lives in exile. According to the Guardian, “The [Thai] ministry statement said citizens should not follow, contact or share content from the trio on the internet or social media [even though all three do not even live in Thailand.] The letter added that people who disseminate their information, directly or indirectly, could be violating the country’s Computer Crime Act.” Why is Thailand’s media environment becoming even more constrained? In part, this further crackdown may be due to rising uncertainty within Thai domestic politics, as the military and the increasingly assertive king seem to be struggling behind the scenes for greater control in Bangkok. The crackdown could be due as well as the uncertain timetable for elections supposedly promised for next year. It may be due to a lingering fear among some Thai government officials that, despite changing the constitution to reduce the power of major parties, there is still some chance that a Thaksinite party, or the Democrat Party, will gain substantial control of the lower house of parliament in the next election; ensuring that independent media outlets have little space to report allows the military to dominate the daily discourse about domestic politics. The growing suppression of media voices may also be due, in part, to the lack of external pressure on the Prayuth government to take a more accommodating approach to free expression and free speech. The new U.S. administration has said little about the Thai government’s crackdown on the press, and the U.S. president recently invited Prayuth to a visit to the White House. Other nations in the region that historically have spoke up for press freedom, like the Philippines, are now led by presidents and prime ministers who also have taken a harsh approach to the independent media, and are unlikely to push for rights in other Southeast Asian nations. Given that the new U.S. administration, the leader of the Philippines, the secretary-general of ASEAN, and other major regional figures, are unlikely to pay more attention to rights in Thailand in the next two years, the crackdown on journalism in the kingdom will almost surely get worse.

Over the weekend, the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations held the Thirtieth ASEAN Summit, in Manila—the Philippines is the chair of ASEAN this year. As has become usual, much of the discussion before the summit centered on a potential joint statement about the South China Sea, which has become one of the most divisive issues in Southeast Asia. Countries growing closer to China, like Cambodia and Thailand (which also have no direct claims in the South China Sea), and those that have direct claims and are increasingly suspicious of Beijing’s activities, like Vietnam, have faced off over South China Sea statements at many ASEAN meetings. In addition, the summit provided an opportunity for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to play up his role as a statesman and host. The fact that, over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump invited Duterte for a White House visit, essentially praising Duterte for his brutal approach to narcotics and claiming that the two had a very friendly chat, only further bolstered Duterte’s image in the region—and probably at home. Duterte, of course, then reacted with bizarre mixed messages, making it sound like he was too busy to visit the White House in the near future. This is probably bluster by the Philippine leader to make it clear that: he takes orders (or even invites) from no one; and, that he will continue to chart an independent foreign policy, even if he visits the White House. Some of the winners from the summit: 1. China While Southeast Asian states may still be divided about how to respond to China’s approach to the South China Sea—the region is witnessing a rapid arms race, led by countries like Vietnam, yet Beijing is supposedly pushing for a Code of Conduct, which seems to further befuddle many ASEAN nations—the ASEAN summit produced a relatively tepid statement on the Sea. In fact, the final statement was one of the most tepid on the South China Sea released by ASEAN in years. As Rappler reported, “The ASEAN Chairman’s Statement on Sunday merely ‘took note of concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments’ in the South China Sea.” Any discussion of China’s land reclamation projects in the South China Sea, which supposedly had been included in earlier drafts of the statement, was gone by the time the final statement was released. A reference to all parties respecting “legal and diplomatic processes” related to the South China Sea, essentially a reference to the need to respect last year’s Hague tribunal ruling, was gone by the time the final statement was released as well, another victory for Beijing. As the Cambodia Daily noted, the final statement also omitted a mention of China’s “militarization” of parts of the South China Sea and claimed that Southeast Asian states and China were cooperating more effectively on South China Sea issues—a dubious claim. 2. Rodrigo Duterte Duterte seems to have incurred little public backlash in the Philippines for shifting Manila’s approach to the South China Sea and Beijing in general—a strategy that was on display in the weeks leading up to the summit, and possibly at the summit as well. Earlier in April, Duterte had vowed to visit Thitu, an island in a disputed area of the South China Sea. Reportedly after pressure from Beijing, he abruptly cancelled his visit to Thitu. On Duterte’s watch, the ASEAN Summit then ultimately released a statement sure to please Beijing. Yet Duterte’s high popularity ratings at home seem unchanged, even though some data also suggests that Philippine citizens desire a tough approach to protecting Philippine claims in the South China Sea. 3. Thailand’s Military Timed to the ASEAN Summit, President Trump also called the leaders of Singapore and Thailand over the weekend and extended an invitation for a White House visit to them as well. The invitation for Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was completely uncontroversial. But Thailand’s prime minister is coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, the path to future elections in Thailand still seems unclear, and the military essentially enshrined its long-term power over government with the new constitution; any return to real and robust democracy in the kingdom is far off. Yet Prayuth’s legitimacy, and the Thai military’s actions, are going to essentially be endorsed by the White House with a visit to Washington. To be sure, former president Barack Obama included Prayuth as part of the U.S.-ASEAN summit last year in California. But Obama could at least claim that Prayuth was invited as part of the entire group of ASEAN leaders. Inviting the coup leader to the White House individually connotes a stronger endorsement of Prayuth.

Although Southeast Asia was not mentioned often during the presidential campaign, the new U.S. administration will face several imminent regional challenges. For one, the relationship between the United States and the Philippines has deteriorated significantly since the election of President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this year. Duterte has publicly blasted U.S. officials and U.S. policy in the region, suggested he wants to move Philippine foreign policy closer to China, and threatened to scale down joint military exercises. Duterte expressed seeming approval of Trump’s election, presenting a possibility to restore closer ties, but the fact that Trump—a figure with some similar characteristics as Duterte—was elected will probably not change the Philippine president’s underlying anti-American worldview. Over decades, Duterte has grown increasingly suspicious of the United States and U.S. intentions in the Philippines, and it is hard to imagine that, in his seventies, his fundamental views of the United States will change that much. The Trump administration may please Duterte by criticizing his brutal war on drugs less than its predecessor did, and the death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is unlikely to affect Philippine views of the United States, since the Philippines was not (yet) in the TPP. But the new U.S. administration likely will still want to pursue close bilateral ties, joint exercises, and a continuation of the new enhanced defense partnership with the Philippines, all of which Duterte apparently is skeptical of. Figuring out some way to maintain continuity in the bilateral security relationship and continue preparing the Philippine military for its own defense, while simultaneously assuring Duterte that the United States respects Philippine sovereignty and respects Duterte, will be a complex task. At the same time, the next U.S. administration will have to recognize that, even if it criticizes Duterte, it must be sure not to encourage critics within the Philippine security establishment to oust Duterte by illegal means. In addition, the new administration in Washington will have to handle the United States’ other treaty ally in Southeast Asia, Thailand, which has been ruled by a military junta for more than two years and appears ready to hand back government to civilian leaders next year, albeit under a new constitution that will dramatically weaken the powers of elected politicians. The country’s economy is stagnating, its politics are in crisis, and like the Philippines it appears to be drawing closer, strategically, to China. The new U.S. administration will probably be less critical of any Thai government’s abuses, but it will need to shore up support within the Thai political and military leadership for a continued close bilateral security relationship. At the same time, a new U.S. administration will need to ensure that, in a time of regional crisis, the United States could count on Thailand for basing access and other critical support. Third, the United States will have to address the increasingly contentious South China Sea issue. Countries like Vietnam, Singapore, and to a lesser extent the Philippines (under Duterte), Malaysia, and Indonesia, all fear that China is militarizing the sea and will soon be able to limit freedom of navigation in regional waters. Indeed, with some reason they fear that China’s long-term strategy is total dominance of the South China Sea. Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia have been aggressively modernizing their navies, coast guards, missile capacities, and air forces, and the incoming U.S. administration will have to decide how much to help them. This is especially true in the case of Vietnam; the United States only recently lifted the embargo on lethal arms sales to Hanoi, and Vietnamese leaders, alarmed by the Philippines’ shift toward China, may want to dramatically expand Vietnam’s U.S. arms purchases and other strategic ties. Meanwhile, a new presidential administration that appears committed to modernizing and expanding the U.S. navy will have to decide whether to take more assertive, regular actions of deterrence in the South China Sea, as some current U.S. admirals have proposed—a plan endorsed by many top Singaporean, Vietnamese, and Australian defense specialists and naval officers. These could include more regular patrols of the South China Sea, building floating bases in the South China Sea, sending U.S. planes and ships through areas of the South China Sea every time China takes assertive steps, such as potentially announcing an air defense zone, and sanctioning Chinese companies involved in the buildup of artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. Read more about how the Trump administration should approach U.S. policy toward China (here and here), Japan, Korea, and South Asia.