#Southeast Asia autocracy

[futurefatum]

Important predictions for 2024-25 (Tone: 175)

Big shifts are coming in 2024! India enters Mars Mahadasha, with potential geopolitical changes & global tensions brewing. #Astrology #Predictions

Published January 13th, 2024 by @AbhigyaAnandAstrology Important predictions for 2024-25 | Analyze with Abhigya Anand ABOUT THIS VIDEO: The video by Abhigya Anand focuses on predictions for global and Indian geopolitics in 2024 and 2025, grounded in astrological analysis and historical cycles. Anand emphasizes that 2024 will be a significant turning point, especially for India, as it enters a…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Dave Granlund

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 10, 2024 (Wednesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 11, 2024

Prime minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and his wife, Yuko Kishida, are in Washington, D.C., tonight at a state dinner hosted by President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. The dinner is part of a state visit, the fifth for this administration.

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have worked to strengthen ties to countries in the Indo-Pacific to weaken the dominance of China in the region, and Japan is the key nation in that partnership. “We celebrate the flourishing friendship between the United States and Japan,” Dr. Biden said Tuesday. “Our nations are partners in building a world where we choose creation over destruction, peace over bloodshed, and democracy over autocracy.”

During talks today, Biden and Kishida committed to strengthening the defense and security frameworks of the two countries so they can work together effectively, especially in a crisis. The new frameworks include intelligence sharing, defense production, satellite cooperation, pilot training, cybersecurity, humanitarian assistance, and technological cooperation. Affirming the ties of science and education between the countries, the leaders announced that two Japanese astronauts would join future American missions and, Biden said, “one will become the first non-American ever to land on the moon.” 

That cooperation both takes advantage of and builds on economic ties between the two countries. In a press conference with Kishida on Wednesday, Biden noted that Japan is the top foreign investor in the U.S., and the U.S. is the top foreign investor in Japan. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have announced investments of $2.9 billion, $1 billion, and $15 billion respectively in Japan over the next several years, largely in computer and digital advances. Japanese corporations Daiichi Sankyo, Toyota, Honda Aircraft, Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Mitsui E&S, and Fujifilm announced investments in the U.S., primarily in manufacturing.

In a press conference, Kishida told reporters that “[t]he international community stands at a historical turning point. In order for Japan, the U.S., the Indo-Pacific region, and, for that matter, the whole world to enjoy peace, stability, and prosperity lasting into the future, we must resolutely defend and further solidify a free and open international order based on the rule of law.”

“This is the most significant upgrade in our alliance…since it was first established,” Biden said. While he noted that lines of communication with China remain open—he spoke with Chinese president Xi Jinping last week—the strengthening of ties to Japan comes in part from concern about the Chinese threat  to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that the Chinese government considers its own. Leaders are increasingly concerned that the Republicans’ refusal to fund Ukraine has emboldened not only Russia but also China. 

Tomorrow, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., of the Philippines will join Biden in a bilateral meeting before Marcos, Biden, and Kishida join in the first trilateral meeting of the three. Kishida will also address a joint session of Congress.

Kenneth Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, suggested today that Japan “has quietly become America’s most important ally,” “playing a central role in meeting our nation’s principal strategic challenge: the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China, especially the defense of Taiwan.” Weinstein also notes that Japan’s longstanding engagement in Southeast Asia means it has “forged relations of deep trust” there among countries that often eye the U.S. with deep distrust. 

Outside of news about the Japanese prime minister’s visit, U.S. news today was consumed by reactions to yesterday’s decision by the Arizona Supreme Court to permit the enforcement of an 1864 law that is currently interpreted as a ban on all abortions except to save the mother’s life. 

President Biden issued a statement condemning the “extreme and dangerous abortion ban,” calling it “a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.”

“Vice President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose,” he continued. “We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade for women in every state.”

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Tucson, Arizona, on Friday to respond to the ruling. According to Hans Nichols of Axios, she had been planning to travel to Arizona anyway but quickly shifted her visit to make it a campaign trip, allowing her to comment more freely on Trump and the Republicans who were responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the imposition of abortion bans since. 

Harris has been out front on the issue of reproductive rights, meeting more than 50 times with groups in at least 16 states since the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the right to abortion. This year, on the January 22 anniversary of the Roe decision, she announced a “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour. 

“Extremists across our country continue to wage a full-on attack against hard-won, hard-fought freedoms as they push their radical policies,” she said. “I will continue to fight for our fundamental freedoms while bringing together those throughout America who agree that every woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body—not the government.”

Yesterday illustrated what the overturning of Roe v. Wade has wrought. The Republicans who were celebrating that overturning two years ago are now facing an extraordinary backlash, and they are well aware that Arizona is a key state in the 2024 presidential election. Former president Trump has boasted repeatedly that he was responsible for nominating the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, supported a national abortion ban, and even called for women who get an abortion to be punished. 

But today he swung around again, telling reporters that he would not sign a national abortion ban if it came to his desk. To be sure, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t sign such a bill, but the fact he is denying that he would and is running away from the issue shows just how much it hurts the Republicans with voters. 

Harris’s trip, along with Biden’s constant travel, shows a willingness to crisscross the country to meet voters that dovetails with new statistics out about the Biden-Harris campaign. While Trump has largely stayed at Mar-a-Lago, has fewer than five staffers in each of the battlefield states, and has closed all the offices that made up the Republican National Committee’s minority outreach program, the Biden-Harris campaign has 300 paid staffers in 9 states, and 100 offices in regions crucial to the 2024 election. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[southeastasianists]

It is now common knowledge that whenever protest movements could make political gains through digital media and technologies, the regimes these very movements seek to challenge would catch up with their progress.  From the 2010-2011 Arab Spring to popular contestations of Southeast Asia’s autocracies in 2020-2021, optimism regarding digital activism has been met with regime adoption of digital repression. 1 This development has reinforced ‘digital authoritarianism’ in the region. 2 Digital arsenals to suppress dissent have multiplied and diversified over the past decades, following disruptive mass mobilizations that challenged the status quo in countries such as Cambodia (2013), Malaysia (2015-16), Myanmar (2021-present), Thailand (2020-21) and Indonesia (2020). In long-standing autocracies like Vietnam in which the Internet is a potential regime destabilizer, stringent cyber laws and information manipulation through cyber troops enable ruling elites to tighten their grip on the population. 3 While domestic factors are key drivers, there is reason to believe that governments in Southeast Asia‘cross-learn’ tactics of digital repression and inspire one another. 4

Digital arsenals to suppress dissent have multiplied and diversified over the past decades, following disruptive mass mobilizations that challenged the status quo in countries such as Cambodia (2013), Malaysia (2015-16), Myanmar (2021-present), Thailand (2020-21) and Indonesia (2020). In long-standing autocracies like Vietnam in which the Internet is a potential regime destabilizer, stringent cyber laws and information manipulation through cyber troops enable ruling elites to tighten their grip on the population. 3 While domestic factors are key drivers, there is reason to believe that governments in Southeast Asia‘cross-learn’ tactics of digital repression and inspire one another. 4

Digital repression encompasses various methods of social control to preemptively deter and lower the impact of protest movements. Digital repression toolkits include Internet filtering, surveillance via high-tech spyware 5 and social media monitoring, state-aligned misinformation online, 6 prosecution of activists through cyber- or information-related laws, 7 and Internet shutdowns. 8 These can help governments achieve the goal of control, in many cases, without resorting to armed clampdown of challengers.

Governments in the region possess varying degrees of digital capacities, leading to their different tactical preferences.  Based on the 2019 Digital Society Project data, the most oft-used form of digital repression in Singapore and Vietnam is prosecuting online users, while in Cambodia, it is Internet filtering. In Malaysia and Thailand, social media monitoring was the most common trend. The two remaining electoral democracies – Indonesia and the Philippines – lean toward misinformation campaigns. Myanmar seems to be the only one among its autocratic counterparts that most frequently relies on Internet shutdowns.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Arctic weather reports (Reuters) A radio station in China has begun broadcasting weather of Arctic sea ice conditions off the coast of Russia, and will publish bulletins twice a day from July 1 to October 31. As sea ice recedes, shipping goods from China to Europe over the Northern Sea Route becomes feasible during longer and longer periods of this year. The 13,000-kilometer route from Murmansk to the Bering Strait through the Arctic Ocean is a vastly shorter leg than the 21,000-kilometer trek from Asia to Europe by way of the Suez Canal.

America’s image (NYT) Whatever its ultimate effect on the campaign, the first presidential debate of 2024 certainly did not cast the United States in a favorable light. It featured two elderly men—one 81, one 78—who insulted each other and who most Americans wished were not the two major-party candidates for president. One candidate told frequent lies and portrayed the country in apocalyptic terms. The other struggled at times to describe his own policies or complete his sentences. The image of the nation as some combination of unhinged and doddering was especially striking at a time when the U.S. is supposed to be leading the fight against a rising alliance of autocracies that includes China, Russia and Iran. “I am worried about the image projected to the outside world,” Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, wrote on social media. “It is not an image of leadership. It is an image of terminal decline.”

Immune (NYT) Yesterday, the court issued a ruling in Trump v. United States. The case sought to determine whether prosecutors could seek charges against Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election or if he was immune from prosecution because he was president at the time. But the Supreme Court’s actual decision went beyond Trump. The court ruled that presidents are presumed to be shielded from prosecution for official acts. That includes policy changes, military decisions and discussions with other administration officials. It doesn’t include, for example, private acts taken exclusively as a political candidate. On specific legal questions concerning Trump’s role in election interference and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Supreme Court was less clear. It largely punted to the judge in the federal case to decide which of Trump’s actions qualify as an official act or a private one. “Any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law,” President Biden said in a speech from the White House. He called the ruling a “dangerous precedent.”

Hurricane Beryl razes southeast Caribbean islands (AP) Hurricane Beryl strengthened to Category 5 status late Monday after it ripped doors, windows and roofs off homes across the southeastern Caribbean with devastating winds and storm surge fueled by the Atlantic’s record warmth. Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou in Grenada as the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic. The storm is now headed toward Jamaica and sustaining wind speeds of 155 miles per hour.

Cuba announces new measures for “war-time economy” amid growing crisis (Reuters) Cuba’s government said late on Sunday it would double down on price controls and continue to fight tax evasion in an increasingly desperate bid to tamp down on a ballooning fiscal deficit and spiraling inflation that have devastated its economy. The measures will bring the 2024 budget and goals in line with what the government refers to as a “war-time economy,” according to a state-run media summary of a meeting of the Council of Ministers, the country’s top executive body. Cuba’s economy has been decimated by a combination of factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, stiffened U.S. sanctions and a state-dominated business model plagued by bureaucracy, mismanagement and corruption. The social and economic crisis is widely seen as among the worst since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, leading to a record-breaking exodus of Cuban migrants in the past two years.

Swedes take a new step in parental leave (AP) Sweden launched a groundbreaking new law on Monday, allowing grandparents to step in and get paid parental leave while taking care of their grandchildren for up to three months of a child’s first year. Under the law, parents can transfer some of their generous parental leave allowance to the child’s grandparents. This Scandinavian country of 10 million, known for its taxpayer-funded social welfare system, has over generations built a society where citizens are taken care of from cradle to grave. In Sweden, you are entitled to be fully off work when your child is born. Parental benefit is paid out for 480 days, or about 16 months, per child. Of those, the compensation for 390 days is calculated based on a person’s full income while for the remaining 90 days, people get a fixed amount of 180 kronor ($17) per day.

Ukraine's killer drones (NYT) In a field on the outskirts of Kyiv, the founders of Vyriy, a Ukrainian drone company, were recently at work on a weapon of the future. To demonstrate it, Oleksii Babenko, 25, Vyriy’s chief executive, hopped on his motorcycle and rode down a dirt path. Behind him, a drone followed, as a colleague tracked the movements from a briefcase-size computer. Until recently, a human would have piloted the quadcopter. No longer. Instead, after the drone locked onto its target—Mr. Babenko—it flew itself, guided by software that used the machine’s camera to track him. The motorcycle’s growling engine was no match for the silent drone as it stalked Mr. Babenko. “Push, push more. Pedal to the medal, man,” his colleagues called out over a walkie-talkie as the drone swooped toward him. “You’re screwed, screwed!” If the drone had been armed with explosives, and if his colleagues hadn’t disengaged the autonomous tracking, Mr. Babenko would have been a goner. Vyriy is just one of many Ukrainian companies working on a major leap forward in the weaponization of consumer technology, driven by the war with Russia. The pressure to outthink the enemy, along with huge flows of investment, donations and government contracts, has turned Ukraine into a Silicon Valley for autonomous drones and other weaponry.

Turkey’s highest court upholds expulsion of 9 foreign Christians for ‘missionary activities’ (Christian Post) Turkey’s Constitutional Court has confirmed the government’s decision to expel nine foreign Christians for alleged “missionary activities,” labeling them a national security risk. Since 2018, about 185 foreign Protestant ministers have been deported or banned from reentering Turkey, often without clear justification or access to the intelligence reports used against them, according to ADF International. The decision underscores a worrying trend in Turkey, where nationalism and Islamization pose increasing challenges to religious minorities, especially the Christian community, which numbers about 170,000 in a predominantly Muslim population of 83 million, said ADF International.

Stampede at Religious Gathering in Northern India Kills more than 115 (Foreign Policy/NYT) More than 115 people were killed during a stampede at a Hindu religious event in India’s Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday. Local officials believe that heat and overcrowding may have set off the crush, which mostly killed women and children. Others are saying that people flooded a too-narrow exit when a dust storm blew in. The tent where the event took place was permitted to hold 5,000 people, but initial reports suggest that the crowd may have been larger. In India, deadly stampedes with mass casualties during religious pilgrimages are common because of poor enforcement of public safety measures.

As Inflation Soars, Myanmar Shop Owners Are Jailed for Hiking Wages (NYT) With Myanmar’s currency plunging and inflation soaring, the owner of three cellphone shops in Mandalay announced he was giving his employees a raise. Word of his generosity quickly spread on Facebook, and his workers cheered the news. But the military regime that rules Myanmar saw it differently. Soldiers and police officers arrested the owner, U Pyae Phyo Zaw, shuttered his three shops and charged him with inciting public unrest under a vaguely worded law often used to suppress dissent, his brother and an employee said. Mr. Pyae Phyo Zaw is one of at least 10 business owners arrested in recent weeks after word circulated online that they were increasing their workers’ pay. Hiking wages has not been outlawed, but the business owners are charged with undermining the regime by making people believe that inflation is rising, one legal expert said. They all face three years in prison.

Lebanon: Living under the shadow of war (BBC) For months, the question of whether Lebanon will be dragged into another war has dominated life in this country. It is what people often describe as “the situation”, a constant backdrop casting a shadow across the whole place. But the Lebanese have carried on, an attitude that was perfectly captured in a picture of unfazed sunbathers in Tyre last month as plumes of smoke billowed out in the distance after an Israeli strike. Tensions, already fraught, ratcheted up further after a speech by Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. While Hezbollah insists it’s not seeking all-out war, Nasrallah said that if there was one, it would fight “without constraints or rules”. As I watched him on TV, I observed through the window a man who was putting up pink-and-blue posters on walls in Ashrafieh announcing a party. “If we shut down our lives... the country will stop. We have to keep going,” the organiser, 35-year-old Raymonda Chamoun, told me days later. “We’ll think about it when it happens. I have a grab bag [in my flat]. It’s next to my door, with essentials: water, first aid, power bank. My parents taught me that a long time ago, because they were born and raised during the [Lebanese civil] war.”

Riot police patrol Nairobi as Kenyan activists call for more protests (Reuters) Riot police patrolled Kenya’s capital Nairobi on Tuesday morning as young activists called for more protests following last week’s deadly clashes. Members of the protest movement, which has no official leaders and largely organises via social media, have rejected appeals from President William Ruto for dialogue, even after he abandoned proposed tax hikes. Infuriated by the deaths last week—at least 39 according to the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNHCR)—many are now demanding that Ruto step down. The protests that started as an online outpouring of anger over nearly $2.7 billion of tax hikes in a proposed finance bill have grown into a nationwide movement against corruption and misgovernance, and become the most serious crisis of Ruto’s nearly two-year-old presidency.

ANC Stands For “A New Cabinet” (Reuters) South Africa has a new multi-party Cabinet following a historic loss for the African National Congress (ANC) in elections held in late May. While the ANC has held control over South Africa since the end of apartheid, just 40% of voters threw their weight behind the party. After weeks of negotiations, politicians were able to come to an agreement regarding the composition of the new coalition government. With South African President Cyril Ramaphosa still at the helm of the country, ANC officials will make up 20 of the 32 Cabinet minister roles, with the main opposition party and nine other groups taking up the rest of the seats. The new government will now have to deal with the challenges of rampant poverty and inequality that brought down the ANC in the first place—though the issue of effectively governing with a Cabinet split between a dozen different parties will probably not end well.

[iwantjobs]

4/26/2024: Oh America. Welcome to the end of your empire for no one supports a leader or a police state that send 2,000lb bombs to bomb out a population of 35% is children in Gaza, and billions to Israel who uses genocidal tactics to kill indigenous people who have been living their for 400 years by stealing their land (terrorists' land of 400 years) by moaning a out being victims of anti-semites. Your Christian-judeo autocracy has been unveiled underneath your facade of democracy. You might be winning now, but the empire has already crumpled in the minds of your young generation for Palestine belongs to the youngster after we die. Lower your obese egos and end the war in Gaza now to lire your children back to you to show them you are willing to move to a peaceful that preserves both Israelis and the terrorists (Palestinians and the Hamas) to secure a safe future for them with no WWWIII and a healthier planet--after all, none of this would happen if England return it's colonized terrorists land back, the holocaust Jews remains in Europe, and there's no stealing land back from 3,000 years by kicking out and killing the terrorists and stealing their land. You decide America: your big aging ego or the death of your children and the planet in a WWWIII. I have lowered my ego as the female Buddha by giving up a rich comfortable life living on your disability checks and go back to roach and snakes infested with dirty water southeast Asia (Vietnam, or Cambodia and Laos) to live as the female Buddha for I know this is Jesus, Maria, and Judaism territory.

[bunnygiggles]

Is diversity in political regimes in Southeast Asia a blessing or a curse?

The Southeast Asia (SEA) consists of different and rich collection of states that has its own set of history, culture, economy, and political systems. The countries that belong in it are no other than Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, East Timor, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, and the Philippines. These countries are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in which it is an intergovernmental organization that deals about the improvement of economy, cultural development, and promote orderliness in the region.

In terms of political regimes, they are classified into three groups:

The first group of countries like Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar belong to electoral authoritarianism. In this type of regime, they have formal democratic institutions that co-operate with authoritarian political practices. People can participate in elections and believed that through their desired choice, they can elect a genuine leader but on the other way around, leaders who run for candidacy and want to have the seat in the government see this as a ladder of opportunity to power. The governments that belong in this regime usually abuse their powers by using their positions to control the media, the people who criticize, and sometimes shutting up those dissent.

The second group of countries like Brunei, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand belong to closed autocracies in which this type of regime does not practice multiparty elections and does not tolerate limited political competition.

The third group of countries like Philippines, Indonesia, and East Timor belong to defective democracies in which this type of regime does have a weak rule of laws that results to political violence, military rules the civilians, and limited grant of civil liberties. However, the right to suffrage is widely practiced, not wisely.

Now, going back to the question… Is diversity in political regimes in Southeast Asia a blessing or a curse? Well, diversity is somewhat a big word that is associated with uniqueness and differences. It is both a blessing and a curse depending on the lenses that are being used to see them. It is a matter of perspective.

It may be a blessing because each country has various political beliefs, cultures, and governments that can be beneficial for some researchers who would like to divulge in comparative or any political studies. It is also a blessing because their political regimes would help describe on how a country’s government address to any political situations. It is their identity as a nation, and it denotes how a country is progressing or deteriorating.

On the other hand, it can be a curse. Differences can sometimes lead to conflicts and misunderstandings. Even if the countries in Southeast Asia have different state powers, governmental transparency is not that reassuring. No matter how perfect an ideal government should be, if there is a rampant corruption among the officials or leaders, most likely the state would fall. Sometimes, different regimes can also bring pressure in terms of governing. Just because a state has its own type of ruling and is different from the others, does not mean that it should follow the rest of the countries as well. Different political phenomena have different responses.

[alexsmitposts]

Opposition or Terrorists: Who is Syria and Russia Bombing in Idlib? Scott Lucas – a professor at the University of Birmingham UK – would decry with the rest of the Western media – resumed joint military operations carried out by Syria and Russia in and around the northwestern governorate of Idlib. Reuters in their article, “Syrian army resumes military operations against rebels in northwest Syria,” would claim: The Syrian army said on Monday it was resuming military operations in a Russian-led campaign in northwest Syria that has uprooted tens of thousands and killed hundreds, blaming Turkey for not abiding by its commitments under a truce deal. Both Lucas and Reuters – like many other Western media fronts and personalities – are careful never to fully characterize who the “opposition” actually consists of – instead attempting to imply Syria and Russia are waging war on civilians and “moderate rebels.” When asked by journalist Peter Hitchens to give a run down on who the Syrian opposition actually was, Lucas in a post on social media would respond: Hi, Peter! #Syria situation, across not only northwest but northeast, is web of local councils, local military groups, and local activist organizations to provide services. You’ll need to specify a particular area, such as a town or city in #Idlib or #Hama Province. Yet the accompanying picture Lucas used to illustrate his point was of a meeting organized by the IHH (Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief). IHH is based in Turkey and is by no means “local.” IHH is also linked directly to Al Qaeda, serving as a logistical support network for the terrorist organization, merely couching itself behind its humanitarian mission statement. IHH’s ties to terrorism are not recent. A 2012 article by Israeli media outlet Ynet titled, “Report: IHH financially linked to al-Qaeda,” would report: IHH director Bulent Yildirim is reportedly being investigated by Turkish authorities for allegedly creating a financial partnership with the infamous terror group. Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily reported Friday that Yildirim has allegedly been transferring funds to al-Qaeda through his organization. The Israeli-based International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in a much more recent report titled, “IHH: The Nonprofit Face of Jihadism. An In-Depth Review,” would admit: IHH (The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief) is a Turkish NGO active in 135 countries and seemingly dedicated entirely to humanitarian aims. In fact, mounting evidence suggests that IHH also operates as a hidden arm of the Turkish government in the conflict zones of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel since 2012 and has been investigated by European prosecutors as a key logistical supporter of Al Qaeda. It is a particular irony that Israeli media and policy institutions have helped expose IHH when many elements of the current Israeli government have been involved in backing terrorist organizations in neighboring Syria alongside Turkey, the United States, other Western states, as well as several Persian Gulf autocracies since the conflict began in 2011. That the one picture Lucas was able to find where the “opposition” wasn’t overtly exposing itself as armed terrorists still depicted a known, verified foreign terrorist organization operating within Syrian territory – masquerading as humanitarians – speaks to just how deeply rooted terrorists are in Syria’s Idlib governorate. Strategic Patience Were the situation reversed and the West was faced with an entire province or state occupied by Al Qaeda and its myriad of affiliates – total war would commence and would not end until the targeted region was purged entirely of militants. Civilian causalities would either go uncounted and under-reported, or spun as a necessity in confronting an otherwise intolerable bastion of armed terrorism. In fact – similar narratives were used during the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan despite Washington’s objectives being geopolitical rather than counter-terrorism related. The strategic reality is that despite how well Damascus and its allies have weathered and overcome Washington’s proxy war in Syria – the US remains a potent military, political, and economic threat. Strategic patience, multiple “truce deals,” and geopolitical concessions will be required to finally wrest Idlib back from foreign-backed terrorist forces currently entrenched there. Terrorist forces have been concentrated in Idlib as Syrian forces pushed them out of virtually every other populated region of the country. Even the liberation of the City of Aleppo took years to achieve. Idlib is an entire governorate bordering Turkey which is still arming and protecting terrorist organizations both within Turkish territory itself and in Syrian territory occupied by Turkish forces. While Turkey has recently shown signs of shifting objectives and moving closer to Russia geopolitically – it will be a long and agonizing process to undo the tensions this 8-year conflict has created. If there is one point of hope amid this still dangerous and deadly conflict – it’s that the Western media and inveterate war propagandists like Scott Lucas are no longer able to conceal the true nature of terrorists they have aided and abetted since 2011. They will continue trying nonetheless – but as Lucas just managed to do – will succeed only in exposing more of the network the US and its allies used in their proxy war against Damascus – thus further undermining regime change efforts in Syria and complicating similar attempts to target and overthrow other nations in the future.

[poliphoon]

Democracy on Deathbed

Democracy is bedridden and its health is deteriorating by the day in Southeast Asia. Will democracy in the region escape from certain death? Our new post on poliphoon.com: "Democracy on Deathbed". A must-read. https://poliphoon.com/democracy-on-deathbed/

Reports of democracy’s death in Southeast Asia are not exaggerated. The writings are loud and bold across the walls. Democracy is fast dissolving in the crucible of autocracy in the region. A menacing military junta holds the reins in Myanmar. Democracy elsewhere in Southeast Asia is pathetic as well. Rapidly rising autocrats are cracking down mercilessly on voices and vehicles of democracy. This…

[southeastasianists]

The tragedy of what appears could be a long-running civil war remains a distinct possibility in Myanmar today. Nevertheless, the term “civil war” itself is inappropriate. Rather Myanmar today resembles Europe during the Nazi occupation. While the sense of occupation by a foreign force had always existed in the ethnic minority areas with their well-armed insurgent organizations, there is a sense today that this is also the case in the Bamar heartland. The occupying army is Myanmar’s own national army (the Tatmadaw) which, from its foundation, has largely functioned as an autonomous state within a state. Those civilians who support the military, such as the members of the USDP, are treaters as collaborators.

Seen even from the conventional paradigm of military coups replacing a democratically elected government the reaction of the international community, and above all the “West”, is disappointing. Yet, once we change perspective to conceive of Myanmar as an occupied country then the reaction of the international community is simply irresponsible. To use a metaphor, Myanmar today is an international orphan. This is not to say, to pursue the analogy, it does not have a family. This ‘family’, in our view, can be divided into three: the kindly, but unengaged aunts, the self-serving and self-indulgent uncles and the feckless cousins.

The kindly, unengaged aunts

The first group, of kindly but unengaged aunts, is a caricature of the United States, the EU and the United Kingdom. Other countries, particularly the other three members of the Quad—Australia, India and Japan—can be considered part of this grouping. Certainly, they rapidly condemned the coup and, in some cases, introduced targeted sanctions against the generals and their immediate families. These were later reinforced to include military-linked conglomerates.

In recent years their political leaderships have heralded a pivot towards the Indo-Pacific with the aim, declared in various official strategy papers, of promoting democracy and confronting autocracy. By not making Myanmar a priority concern in their democratic Indo-Pacific posturing they have revealed the emptiness of these pompous declarations. Is there any post-coup situation in the world today of any greater moral clarity?

The failure of the Australian government to even introduce a basic system of targeted sanctions is puzzling. Cynically, in the context of Sino-Australian tensions doing so would send a clear message to Beijing on the unacceptability of its support for authoritarian regimes, while not being seen to directly criticize the PRC itself. The Morrison governments hesitancy to even provide permanent resident status to the 3,000 or so Burmese students in Australia represents a repudiation of Canberra’s bipartisan principled middle power tradition dating back to Dr Evatt.

This attitude is understandable from Narendra Modi in India in the light of his own autocratic ethno-nationalist agenda. However, it represents the betrayal of the Nehru tradition in foreign policy and, in realpolitik terms, is counterproductive given the continuing aggravation in Sino-Indian relations. Is it really in Delhi’s interest to see Mizoram and Manipur destabilized through a further influx of Myanmar refugees? In the context of Sino-Indian hostility is it in Delhi’s interest to see the PRC providing recognition, and carving out new economic benefits, with the Myanmar junta?  It is puzzling why India’s vaunted Look East Policy does not begin with its closest eastern neighbour but, so far, the Indian government has even prevented the Quad from making a clear statement on the release of political prisoners. India abstained in the 18th June vote in the UN General Assembly demanding an arms embargo and he release of political prisoners, unlike the other three Quad members who voted yes. Yet for Quad members, with their principle objective of constraining China, Myanmar is of secondary importance. This, once again is amazingly short-sighted: constraining, but also cooperating with China for mutual benefit, begins in Myanmar.

The United States bears, at least indirectly, responsibility for the coup. It was the leader of the world’s greatest democracy, President Donald Trump, himself who in propagating the Big Lie of a stolen US presidential election in November 2020 provided a rhetorical fig-leaf for would be dictators everywhere to justify their actions. Certainly, in the Myanmar case it gave occasion for Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to play by the Thai playbook and undertake a coup in order to defend democracy against democratic irregularities, corruption, etc. with a vague promise of “free and fair” elections in the future.

The junta is implementing the next steps in the Thai playbook in using a subservient and compliant judicial system to imprison the leaders of the democratic opposition, making Aung San Suu Kyi ineligible to run again. As with the Future Forward Party in Thailand, the banning and dismantling of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy, is just a matter of time.

The Biden Administration’s overwhelming priority is the strengthening and reinvigorating of alliances in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific, to both constrain China and check Russia. Objectively drawing a redline in Myanmar would be a concrete way of achieving these multiple objectives but, alas, with the withdrawal from Afghanistan and other overriding issues, Myanmar remains largely invisible in the “Washington beltway”

In Europe as a result of Brexit, Myanmar no longer has a champion in the “Brussels bubble” and even in the United Kingdom, the PRC’s turpitude in Hong Kong is the key Asian issue, alongside mercantilist policies to promote a Global Britain.  Elsewhere in the European Parliament political representatives would rather spend their time making rhetorical points on the Uighur and Hong Kong, than come to the aid of the Myanmar people who overwhelmingly ask for their support.

How can this be explained? We would suggest that the close link in Western eyes between the person of Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s democratic trajectory has been a double-edged sword.  When she was under house arrest and in opposition, she was perceived as incarnating the democratic aspirations of the Myanmar people and maintained these in the arena of public debated. However, when the democratic icon of the 1990s and 2000s fell from her pedestal due to both her autocratic demeanour and, above all, her defence of the Tatmadaw against charges of genocide in the International Criminal Court, concern with Myanmar evaporated. The orphan baby of Burmese democracy was thrown out, so to speak, with the bathwater of personality-centred politics.

Rather than acting decisively on Myanmar, the “kindly but unengaged aunts” have has chosen to delegate the resolution of the Myanmar crisis to the “feckless cousins” of ASEAN discussed below. In Europe this appeals to the somewhat narcissistic encouragement of regional integration elsewhere as well as the hubris surrounding interregionalism.  As the world’s most institutionalized regional entity the EU has a rather optimistic view of its oldest regional partner, ASEAN. Yet, to date none of the mechanisms provided in this partnership—such as EU-ASEAN parliamentary dialogue or the ASEAN Strategic Partnership Agreement—have been activated.

The self-interested and self-indulgent uncles

The second part of the family is the self-interested and self-indulgent uncles, namely China and Russia. While it is debatable whether Beijing encouraged the coup, it is clear that since it has been most accommodating in providing recognition to the junta. The PRC has legitimate security, especially energy security, interests in Myanmar and real concerns about instability on its southern borders. The paradox is that these would best be protected under a civilian administration supported by the people of Myanmar than by a Sinophobic and incompetent junta. Yet, as with Modi’s India, Beijing’s ideological blinkers on the benefits of authoritarianism has meant that the PRC is not the loveable country Xi Jinping seeks to project.

Russian behaviour in Myanmar, namely ensuring sales of its weaponry and promoting Putin’s autocratic agenda worldwide, is more perfidious and self-indulgent. Like in the Donbass and Belorussia, Myanmar provides an occasion for Putin’s macho promotion of Russia as a great power. Having largely lost both Vietnam and now India to the West, Moscow is left with Naypyidaw and Vientiane as its last Asian playgrounds.

The feckless cousins

Finally, the third group is the feckless cousins, Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbours of ASEAN, to whom the international community has bestowed responsibility to resolve the crisis. In our view, this misconceived sub-contracting is premised on the vague notion of ASEAN’s regional centrality. Yet, it is one thing to pay lip service to “ASEAN centrality” out of diplomatic politeness. It is another thing to actually believe that it can bring results.  “Centrality” is a question of positioning and, indeed, by default ASEAN has been the core around which other regional bodies such as the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum, APEC, the RCEP, etc, have been grafted. But “centrality” per se indicates to us nothing about capability or capacity, let alone political willingness.

It took almost three months after the coup for ASEAN on 24th April to organise a summit on Myanmar to which the junta leader, and he alone, was invited. Five months after the coup ASEAN’s promised special envoy has not been appointed both due to internal failure to agree on a candidate and a lack of approval from the junta itself . All ASEAN has achieved so far is to provide de facto legitimacy to the junta and buy it time. At both its emergency summit of 24 April and in the visit of two of its emissaries on 5 to 7 June, ASEAN has given legitimacy to the junta, without even any contact with the democratically elected leaders in Myanmar. It is hard to see how an even-handed dialogue can be organised between the jailers and the jailed, as calls from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore for the release of political prisoners have gone unheeded.

ASEAN has been successful over 50 years in maintaining peace between its members. However, it has neither the “carrots” nor “the sticks” to bring about change within one of them. For example, under the 2008 ASEAN Charter there are no provisions for any member to be expelled. Above all, the sacrosanct, and self-serving, principle of non-interference will always negate the application of the seventh of the Charter’s purposes and principles: the strengthening of democracy and the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Moreover, not only is there a serious systemic issue, but there is also clearly a lack of political will to promote a return to democracy in Myanmar: the majority of ASEAN members have authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes. What is the interest of the Thai master of coups, ex-General, now PM Prayut, in seeing the Burmese civil disobedience movement succeed? Would it not further encourage the Thai members of the Milk Tea Alliance who periodically occupy the streets of Bangkok to continue denouncing a kindred patriarchal regime? Does the Politburo of the Vietnamese Communist Party want to see netizens succeed in virtually challenging an authoritarian regime? As for Cambodian PM Hun Sen, and Philippines President Rodrigo ‘Digong’ Duterte, aka The Punisher, democratic values are the least of their concerns. Finally, ASEAN is chaired at the moment by the Sultan of Brunei, the last remaining absolute monarch in Asia.

The divisions within ASEAN came into focus during the non-binding vote in the UN General Assembly on 18 June, calling for an arms embargo and the release of political prisoners (item 34-A/75/L.85.Rev. 1). Six ASEAN countries voted yes: Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar itself, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. The other four—Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand—abstained. Divisions of this kind within a regional entity based on the principle of consensus have only one result: procrastination and a degree of immobilism, otherwise known as the ASEAN Way.

Conclusions

When an orphan’s extended family fails lamentably, fortunately there is an alternative: turning to your friends. In the countries of the “kindly and unengaged aunts” their parliaments—for example the French Senate, the US Congress and the Australian Parliament—pushing for more assertive action from their country’s respective executives. Civil society groups in Southeast Asia increasingly see the combat for Myanmar’s democracy as their own. In the West a vocal Burmese diaspora, advocacy groups, academics and other supporters are pushing to ensure that this orphan is not forgotten. It remains a moot point whether this will lead to concrete and tangible actions, such as the recognition of the National Unity Government, and international intervention of the basis of the Right to Protect will ensue.

[socialboxworldnews]

"Myanmar Coup Puts the Seal on Autocracy’s Rise in Southeast Asia" by BY HANNAH BEECH via NYT World https://ift.tt/3sbDlBK

[patrickwritessometuff]

State of Democracy in South East Asia

Southeast Asia has an incredibly diverse range of different political regimes from authoritarian and democratic. Previous entries in this blog explored Electoral Authoritarian and Closed Autocracies; this entry will explore the “flawed democracies” of the region, which are democratic but fall short of western liberal standards.

Starting with the Philippines, a country that one could call the very example of a flawed democracy. Allegations of electoral fraud are thrown out and about at almost every election (a big recent one being former senator Bongbong Marcos’ allegations against VP Leni Robredo and the LP) and reports of electoral violence continue to be prevalent, especially in the provinces leading to wide-scale gun bans during every election season. The country’s President, Rodrigo Duterte, has been criticized by Human Rights watchdogs and various activist groups for his bloody campaign against illegal drugs, which his critics claim disproportionately targets the poor. The controversial Republic Act No. 11479, a.k.a. The Anti-Terrorism Bill of 2020, something the President and his allies championed, is also being criticized as it allegedly impinges upon various civil liberties and could be abused to target activists and other groups opposing the regime.

Indonesia is in the same boat as the Philippines. Its most recent presidential elections in 2019 led to wide-scale riots in the country’s capital of Jakarta and even government censorship of social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram.  Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo himself, has many parallels with Duterte, with his tenure as Mayor of Sukartara, through his use of populist methods to launch himself into Presidency, to his own campaign against illegal drugs.

Thailand is a country that, as of the writing of this entry, is currently going through massive political turmoil. Anti-Government Protests have been raging through the country for the last few months in the aftermath of irregularities in the 2019 elections, targeted towards the Monarchy and the post-coup government mostly run by the Military. These protests have turned violent, with parallels being drawn to the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy protests. Two people viewed as the country’s figureheads, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and King Vajiralongkorn, have been extremely controversial figures, the former, a former military officer and notable figure in the 2014 coup and the latter being the current reigning monarch who took over in 2016.

Timor-Leste is a young country that has only gained democracy quite recently. It appears, as of the writing of this entry, to have the most liberal democratic out of all the democracies in the region. Though there were some fracas regarding the proposed 2020 budget, most of it seems to be more rooted in the Parliament's disagreements. President Francisco Guterres, a.k.a. Lú-Olo, seems to be well-liked and has not garnered as much controversy as his contemporaries in other Southeast Asian countries.

The State of Democracy in South East Asia looks a bit bleak with political instability in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. However, Timor-Leste presents a silver lining and a model for other countries in the region to follow if it continues to stay the course that its currently in now. 

[markclcastro]

Corruption has been widely known as a political phenomenon where resources are being taken away from people who must actually benefit from it. It is an age-old political issue in all governments where efforts and initiatives of world leaders are being challenged every time as to how this problem be pushed into a cliff. In Southeast Asia, corruption also exists. For this blog, I will be talking about two countries, Malaysia 🇲🇾 and Singapore 🇸🇬, which are under authoritarian regime and will be trying to discuss the issues of corruption in these two nations.

Having been colonized and belonging to the Malay Peninsula, how is Malaysia and Singapore?

Singapore was able to establish political and economic stability, hence became progressive after being honored with independence. Though under an authoritarian regime, the Singaporean government was able to express benevolence and furnished their system of governance which focused on developments and strengthening the system of providing basic needs to the people such as education, health and etc. According to the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance project, Singapore got the highest score among other Southeast Asian countries in terms of embracing the principle of ‘rule of law’ and in taking effective measure in combatting or controlling corruption. Moreover, despite the strong state intervention, Singapore is considered as one of the freest market economies. They have mechanisms in making sure that economy would do great and would continue to increase. They exemplify how autocracy and rule of law could work together regardless of its strong rejection to the modernization theory.

Malaysia is known to be the only country in the Southeast Asia that is upholding a federal form of government as it can be traced way back from the colonial period. Unlike Singapore, the Malaysian government’s efforts to eliminate or at least control the culture of corruption in the country is lacking or weak. In 2015, a corruption controversy, ‘1MDB’ scandal, was put into light involving the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. It was already exposed enough that the said official had something to do with the issue, however he firmly negates to the accusation despite of the persistence of the Conference of Rulers to dispose the truth behind this anomaly. However, the government was big enough to cover for the official since it handles the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). This portrays that Malaysia is not known to engage in the persecutions of officeholders who try to damage its laws.

The culture of corruption of these two countries in the Malay Peninsula falls under two extremes where one is among the corrupt countries and the other as least corrupt. Checks and balances is more of an impossible process in the two countries since authoritative rulers are more powerful and this disables the legislative or other coalitions to question those involve in the crime. Extensive measures in cracking this culture of corruption are needed. Though provisions against corruption are crafted, it still needs to be fully embodied and pondered upon by every political leaders and elites. This age-old culture of corruption, I believe, could be put to an end through putting right leaders, not just basing on a country’s form of government.

[southeastasianists]

Despite decades of democracy promotion by international organisations and donors, illiberalism and autocracy still largely prevail across Southeast Asia. The return to military dictatorship in Myanmar, Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody drug war in the Philippines, identity politics in Indonesia and frequent military coups in Thailand present fresh challenges for international actors seeking to support civil society and promote human rights. Ethno-nationalism, religious persecution and the emerging appeal of “strongman” rule are sustaining illiberal headwinds across the region and reinforcing a shift toward authoritarian statism. In 2021, Freedom House ranked four Southeast Asian countries partly free (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore) and six countries not free (Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam). Only one country, Timor-Leste, was free.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality and state repression across Southeast Asia. In Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia, which have comparatively poor health infrastructure, the pandemic has revealed limitations in state resources and governments’ ability to provide for the needs of their citizens. Some state leaders, such as Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, sought expanded emergency powers and rolled back democratic freedoms. The Philippines, Myanmar and Indonesia also failed to mount effective responses to the virus, which wreaked havoc on vulnerable populations and dramatically slowed economic growth. In Thailand, the Royal Thai Army has set up additional field hospitals to face a surge in cases, while the regime’s response to popular protests has triggered broad resistance from youth activists and civil society. Timor-Leste, which has the lowest GDP per capita in Southeast Asia, managed to contain the virus throughout 2020 despite weak public health infrastructure. However, preventing community transmission entirely proved impossible, and in February, the first cases of COVID-19 were detected near the border. Since then, 983 cases have been detected, and the nation reported its first COVID-19 related death on 6 April.

Despite the pandemic, elections went ahead in several Southeast Asian states including Singapore, Myanmar and Indonesia, while Malaysia held elections in eastern Sabah State. Rather than pave the way for a progressive younger generation in Southeast Asia to take the reins, electoral institutions have demonstrated the pervasiveness of illiberalism and durability of authoritarianism across the region. Despite decades of efforts by both the international community and Cambodian civil society, Hun Sen continues to rule Cambodia with near total impunity, jailing critics, banning opposition parties and reportedly orchestrating the murder of outspoken dissidents. In Myanmar, the military coup in February has brought the armed forces back to power and displaced the elected civilian government. The military has arrested opposition leaders and violently quashed protests, killing more than 750 civilians as of mid-April. All the while, it has continued to justify its actions with erroneous allegations of fraud in the November 2020 election.

PAPER HERE

Autocrats have wielded “authoritarian innovations” within democracies as well as autocracies to corrode institutions and norms and move their societies in increasingly illiberal directions by manipulating elections, controlling the internet, suppressing independent media and intimidating critics. Oftentimes, elected leaders insist such tactics will make their societies more, not less, democratic. In Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, electoral democracies have seen populists come to power by promising an end to corruption, stronger law enforcement, and conservative immigration policies. In the Philippines for instance, Duterte gained notoriety for his brutal crime eradication tactics as mayor of Davao. Since becoming president in 2016, his war on drugs has killed more than 8,000 civilians, and his administration has arrested prominent journalists and critics, including outspoken senators. Even Indonesia has become increasingly illiberal. President Joko Widodo has appealed to conservative Islamist groups and voters to safeguard his political power, while muzzling independent media and detaining prominent critics.

Just as there is no simple correlation between democracy and good governance, we can no longer draw a straight line between authoritarianism and weak governance. Today certain undemocratic states boast good governance despite the absence of human rights. For instance, one-party authoritarian Vietnam proved among the most effective in the world at containing the pandemic and has shown greater transparency and more effective performance by local government, according to the UN-administered Provincial Administrative Performance Index (PAPI). Meanwhile, quasi-authoritarian Singapore is renowned for its cleanliness, quality infrastructure, and low levels of corruption. By comparison, democratic states such as Indonesia and the Philippines have had disastrous responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authoritarian states such as Cambodia and Vietnam have found ways to co-opt civil society, approving and restricting activity areas which they deemed as more or less threatening to regime survival. In 2017 Cambodia expelled staff from the National Democratic Institute on erroneous charges of violating Cambodia’s “national sovereignty.” By contrast, international practitioners have been able to cooperate with municipal officials in Vietnam on less sensitive matters that nevertheless directly impact the lives of ordinary people. Even in outwardly democratic states like the Philippines, CSOs are vulnerable to state pressure. Philippine civil society increasingly finds itself operating at odds with an illiberal and coercive government, while critics of Rodrigo Duterte frequently become targets.

Therefore this paper proposes focusing on government accountability to bridge the growing divide between defective democracies and increasingly sophisticated authoritarianism. We can measure government accountability by examining a state’s ability to effectively deliver public goods and respond to citizen demands, be they basic health resources to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, physical infrastructure such as roads and water sanitation, or increased transparency from state officials. Focusing on government accountability has important implications for practitioners seeking to identify civil society partners that can improve subnational governance while advocating for democracy and human rights more broadly. Government accountability can also empower civil society organisations to demand greater transparency and public goods from illiberal states. Southeast Asia’ authoritarian turn and entrenched illiberalism require foreign donors to rethink the ways they engage local civil society in the face of new challenges.

[vonnamoc]

"Is diversity in political regimes in Southeast Asia a blessing or a curse?"

I believe it has an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages since each country has unique political regimes on its own. Countries Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia are subscribing to Electoral authoritarianism where co-existence of democratic institutions and authoritarian practices they practice authoritarianism behind representative democracy's institutional facades of representative democracy. Myanmar recently installed a hybrid military/pseudo-democratic parliament, where the military retained seats for itself permanently. This model represents the army taking over veto control on anything the civilian government wants to do. So it is a mild version of a military dictatorship. The military does not dictate when it does not feel like it. On the other hand, Cambodia is politically stable for now. Hun Sen is the current Prime Minister and has been the top dog for over 30 years. He is pretty much the best at executing the game and has amassed power to such an extent that he may be untouchable. On the other hand, Singapore has one of the least corrupt governments in the world, whereas corruption in Malaysia is commonplace, especially after the recent 1mdb scandal. Laos and Vietnam are subscribing to Closed Autocracies wherein they devoid of multi-party elections. These two countries are famous for their single communist party, The Laotian People's Revolutionary Party is a Communist-influenced from the Vietnamese Communist Party. Both of them are ruling two countries, respectively. Vientiane has maintained close, cordial relations with Hanoi for this. Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste, Indonesia, on the other hand, are labeled as countries with Defective Democracy wherein flawed democracy is evident. Thailand is Military Junta, Although the junta themselves pretty much admitted that this is a transition government toward "democracy." However, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste are on alternating periods of governance stability yet have the profound flaws of using this form of government to address their citizens' socio-economic concerns.  Poverty and corruption are evident in these countries. Each country has its unique political regime; for me, diversity in SEA's political regimes is a curse since I am from the Philippines and our political status is unstable and ineffective, maybe for a country like Singapore, it is for sure a blessing since their economic status is evidently better.

[presssorg]

US vs China trade war puts Cambodia in potential peril

Asia Times | US, China tensions put Cambodia in potential peril | Article In a now common refrain, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe publicly denied at a recent defense forum that Beijing intends to build a naval base in Cambodia. It was Beijing’s latest response to widespread speculation that a China-backed eco-tourism project in Cambodia’s coastal Koh Kong province is secretly designed to have military purposes. “There is no such thing as for China to establish its military presence in Cambodia. There is no such thing out there,” said Wei at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore last weekend, an event also attended by Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh. Debates about the issue have raged since last November when this journalist co-authored a piece for Asia Times that correctly predicted US Vice President Mike Pence would raise the allegations in a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen during his tour of the region. Several US officials and a Defense Department report published last December have stressed that Washington takes the allegations seriously. If built, a naval facility in Cambodia would potentially give China access to a new southern flank in the South China Sea, where China is locked in a rising dispute with the US over freedom of navigation issues. China’s speculated intent to actually base its troops in Cambodia, strongly denied by Phnom Penh, would certainly put the region on edge at a time pressure is building to take sides between the US and China. Cambodian soldiers stand by as Chinese naval vessels dock in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, January 2019. Photo: Twitter Local law currently forbids the stationing of foreign troops on Cambodian soil. But while the functional state of China-Cambodia military-to-military relations is still largely opaque, it is clear that Beijing is now primus inter pares – top among Phnom Penh’s strategic allies. After Cambodia suspended joint military operations with the US in 2017, Beijing stepped up as the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces’ (RCAF) main creditor. Last June, Beijing gave US$100 million in military aid to Cambodia, on top of rich donations in previous years. Sihanoukville, a coastal city, hosted three Chinese warships in January. Meanwhile, the largest joint military exercise between the two countries, codenamed Golden Dragon, took place in Kampot province in March. Cambodia’s shift towards Beijing comes as the US and China ramp up their trade war into a far more serious arms race over technology and military might. China’s decision to send its defense minister to last week’s Shangri-La Dialogue summit for the first time in eight years spoke volumes, as did Wei’s comments that China is willing to “fight until the end” against the US.

It was Beijing’s latest response to widespread speculation that a China-backed eco-tourism project in Cambodia’s coastal Koh Kong province is secretly designed to have military purposes. China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe attends the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 2, 2019. Photo: AFP/Roslan Rahman Bradley Murg, assistant professor of political science at Seattle Pacific University, reckons that while there is “extremely strong interest in Washington” over Cambodia’s political affairs, most of interest is centered on “the development of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia.” “The topic of Koh Kong is increasingly a core, almost dominant theme in discussions of the future of US-Cambodian relations in my view. I would go so far as to say that it is now the primary focal point as to how the future of the relationship will develop,” he said. An updated Indo-Pacific Strategy report released by the US Department of Defense in early June states that Washington remains “concerned about reports that China is seeking to establish bases or a military presence on its coast, a development that would challenge regional security and signal a clear shift in Cambodia’s foreign policy orientation.” The latest annual report from the office of the director of US national intelligence, Dan Coats, likewise stressed that “Cambodia’s slide toward autocracy…opens the way for a constitutional amendment that could lead to a Chinese military presence in the country.” “It seems that China is hurrying to complete its Union Development Group project in Koh Kong; this is a very strategic location should it magically become a for China’s Navy,” said Sophal Ear, associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College at Los Angeles. “The US sees this as the tip of the spear. Stop China now before it’s too late. Cambodia hosting any kind of for China is unacceptable to the US. Not intervening is being asleep at the wheel for the US,” he added. Charles Edel, who served on the US Secretary of State’s policy planning staff from 2015 to 2017, wrote in a May 9 article at War On The Rocks that satellite imagery appears to show that the “Union Development Group has been rushing to complete a runway in Cambodia’s remote Koh Kong province on the southwestern coast.”

Recent satellite imagery depicting an airport runway in Cambodia’s remote Koh Kong province is long enough to support Chinese military reconnaissance, fighter, and bomber aircraft. Source: War on Rocks/EO Browser/Twitter “It appears long enough to support military aircraft and matches the length of the runways built on the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea to support military reconnaissance, fighter and bomber aircraft,” he added. Asia Times has reviewed satellite imagery of this area for months and, although development has quickened, interviews with experts on Chinese military installations have not provided adequate proof that the site is definitely for military purposes. Some experts say the runway could serve dual commercial and military purposes, while others assert that its distinguishing features, including its oversized runway length and juts, could be just coincidence and do not necessarily point to military applications. Despite repeated warnings from Washington, Cambodian Ambassador to the US Chum Sounry said in an interview that “Cambodia-US defense ties have been mended,” a statement that contradicts what many see as still frosty relations after the severance of joint exercises in 2017. Chum Sounry pointed to the visits made to Cambodia by Joseph Felter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, in January, and by Colonel Scott Burnside, of US Indo-Pacific Command, in March, as proof of warming ties. He also noted that Hun Manet, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son who was promoted last year to Deputy Commander-in-Chief of RCAF and commander of the army, was invited to the US in April to take part in a counterterrorism conference.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, front left, and by his son Lieutenant General Hun Manet, right rear, Phnom Penh. January 24, 2019. Photo: Handout/AFP Hun Manet, seen by many as Hun Sen’s heir apparent when the long-ruling leader eventually steps aside, also joined the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s 37-member Permanent Committee, the party’s key decision-making body, for the first time last year. The US Embassy in Phnom Penh, meanwhile, has maintained a tough line on Hun Sen’s anti-democratic clampdown, epitomized by the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision to ban the main Cambodian National Rescue Party opposition. Kem Sokha, the CNRP’s president, was arrested in September 2017 on treason charges of allegedly trying to foment a US-backed “color revolution” to overthrow Hun Sen’s government. He remains in pre-trial detention. “We will not resume full military cooperation with Cambodia until the Cambodian government makes substantial progress on increasing the political space and restoring full democracy, including by dropping all charges against Kem Sokha and allowing civil society and media to operate independently,” said Michael Newbill, chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy in Cambodia. Even if full military cooperation is not on the cards in the near-term, it appears that US officials see military-to-military channels as a possible way to influence politics while relations with Hun Sen’s CPP-led government remain strained. Government spokesman Phay Siphan responded angrily after Felter’s visit in January during which he reportedly discussed politics with Cambodian military officials. “We cannot accept it that a US military representative came here to talk with the Cambodian military on political issues,” the spokesman told local media. Felter also is believed to have discussed ways of re-starting joint US-Cambodia military exercises during his visit. Even so, Cambodia is at rising risk of being seen as a Chinese satellite at a time when pressure is mounting for regional states to take superpower sides, particularly in relation to the South China Sea.

Cambodia’s armed forces on display in Phnom Penh, July 25, 2018. Photo: Twitter But it isn’t just the US that is trying to rekindle military ties with Cambodia to diminish its dependence on China. Indeed, Hun Manet appears to be hedging the country’s strategic bets as Sino-American rivalry threatens to tilt towards conflict. Since February, Hun Manet has led military delegations to China, Russia and Thailand; participated in a counterterrorism conference in the US; and accompanied a military delegation on a four-day visit to Vietnam, where he met with the most senior defense officials in Hanoi. After Hun Manet’s visit to Vietnam last month, a Communist Party outlet noted that Chief of the General Staff Phan Van Giang “stressed that defense relations have always been one of the most important pillars of Vietnam-Cambodia relations.” This comes as Vietnam, Cambodia’s historic military ally, has aligned itself closer to the US for protection against China, which Hanoi claims is militarizing contested parts of the South China Sea. Yet Hun Sen’s government’s extolment of “permanent neutrality and non-alignment” often appears more rhetoric than reality in light of how far it has swung behind China. Phnom Penh clearly doesn’t want to be drawn any closer to the fray of increasingly hawkish defense officials in the US and China. As with Vietnam, Cambodia clearly doesn’t want to become a proxy in a new Cold War. But as speculation runs high around the emerging China-backed facility in southwest Cambodia, and unless Phnom Penh shifts ties somewhat back towards the US, the risk is rising that it will become just that if US-China tensions boil over into conflict. Read the full article

[itunesbooks]

Asia's Cauldron - Robert D. Kaplan

Asia's Cauldron The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific Robert D. Kaplan Genre: Foreign Policy & International Relations Price: $12.99 Publish Date: March 25, 2014 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group Seller: Penguin Random House LLC NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY  FINANCIAL TIMES From Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, comes a penetrating look at the volatile region that will dominate the future of geopolitical conflict.   Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion barrels, an estimated nine hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and several centuries’ worth of competing territorial claims, the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential conflict. The underreported military buildup in the area where the Western Pacific meets the Indian Ocean means that it will likely be a hinge point for global war and peace for the foreseeable future.   In Asia’s Cauldron , Robert D. Kaplan offers up a vivid snapshot of the nations surrounding the South China Sea, the conflicts brewing in the region at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and their implications for global peace and stability. One of the world’s most perceptive foreign policy experts, Kaplan interprets America’s interests in Asia in the context of an increasingly assertive China. He explains how the region’s unique geography fosters the growth of navies but also impedes aggression. And he draws a striking parallel between China’s quest for hegemony in the South China Sea and the United States’ imperial adventure in the Caribbean more than a century ago.   To understand the future of conflict in East Asia, Kaplan argues, one must understand the goals and motivations of its leaders and its people. Part travelogue, part geopolitical primer, Asia’s Cauldron takes us on a journey through the region’s boom cities and ramshackle slums: from Vietnam, where the superfueled capitalism of the erstwhile colonial capital, Saigon, inspires the geostrategic pretensions of the official seat of government in Hanoi, to Malaysia, where a unique mix of authoritarian Islam and Western-style consumerism creates quite possibly the ultimate postmodern society; and from Singapore, whose “benevolent autocracy” helped foster an economic miracle, to the Philippines, where a different brand of authoritarianism under Ferdinand Marcos led not to economic growth but to decades of corruption and crime.   At a time when every day’s news seems to contain some new story—large or small—that directly relates to conflicts over the South China Sea, Asia’s Cauldron is an indispensable guide to a corner of the globe that will affect all of our lives for years to come. Praise for Asia’s Cauldron   “ Asia’s Cauldron is a short book with a powerful thesis, and it stands out for its clarity and good sense. . . . If you are doing business in China, traveling in Southeast Asia or just obsessing about geopolitics, you will want to read it.” — The New York Times Book Review “Kaplan has established himself as one of our most consequential geopolitical thinkers. . . . [ Asia’s Cauldron ] is part treatise on geopolitics, part travel narrative. Indeed, he writes in the tradition of the great travel writers.” — The Weekly Standard   “Kaplan’s fascinating book is a welcome challenge to the pessimists who see only trouble in China’s rise and the hawks who view it as malign.” — The Economist   “Muscular, deeply knowledgeable . . . Kaplan is an ultra-realist [who] takes a non-moralistic stance on questions of power and diplomacy.” — Financial Times http://dlvr.it/R3Cb0Y