Southeast Asia Archive

After almost 40 years of intermittent and fruitless talks, Bangladesh and Myanmar appear close to a final settlement of their maritime boundary dispute in the Bay of Bengal. Frustrated with stalled negotiations, Bangladesh submitted the case to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in 2009. After a series of oral hearings in September, which included numerous technical arguments, the court recently adjourned and plans to deliver a ruling in March 2012. The speed with which the case has progressed is in stark contrast to other maritime boundary disputes in Asia, but that is not surprising: There […]

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung recently visited Indonesia, where he and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed to establish joint patrols of their countries’ maritime border. In an email interview, Donald Weatherbee (.pdf), a professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina, discussed Indonesia-Vietnam relations. WPR: What is the recent history of Indonesia-Vietnam diplomatic, trade and defense relations? Donald Weatherbee: Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to Indonesia earlier this month was the usual courtesy call by a newly named head of government to his counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Indonesia and a Hanoi-based […]

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement last week that he will introduce sweeping reforms has mostly met with a positive reception. Some observers have also added that in seizing the political initiative on reform, he has stopped the momentum of Bersih, a grouping of 62 civil society organizations closely associated with the opposition coalition. There are grounds for a less-rosy assessment, however. What Najib has promised, and how Bersih is likely to respond, needs to be seen in the context of both Najib’s recent slump in popularity and indications that he wants to burnish his image before calling a snap […]

China has strongly condemned US plans for a $5.3bn upgrade to Taiwan’s US-built F-16s, calling it a “grave interference” in its internal affairs and threatened to undermine relations with the United States.

This is the second of a two-part series examining the policies and political challenges facing the new government of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Part I examined domestic issues. Part II examines foreign policy and the implications for regional stability. With its domestic opponents watching closely for missteps, the government of Thailand’s recently elected prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, will have to tread extremely carefully in matters of foreign policy. The mishandling of relations with Cambodia by the administration of Yingluck’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, had resulted in border skirmishes that killed 28 people this year alone. Yingluck’s Pheu […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series examining the policies and political challenges facing the new government of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Part I examines domestic issues. Part II will examine foreign policy and the implications for regional stability. CHIANG MAI — Weeks into Yingluck Shinawatra’s term as Thailand’s first female prime minister, the streets of Bangkok are so far free of the protests that have indelibly marked recent years of Thai political life. But that could change. Yingluck’s government faces formidable challenges in implementing the ambitious platform that brought her Pheu Thai Party a sweeping […]

An archipelago of 17,000 islands stretching 3,000 miles from east to west, Indonesia sits astride some of the world’s most important sea lanes of communication. Its 240 million people make it the world’s fourth-most-populous state and third-largest democracy, and with 88 percent of its population Muslim, Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim community. Indonesians believe that their country’s size, strategic location and domestic achievements entitle it to a leadership role in global affairs, and that case is strengthened by the country’s experience with various transnational threats: Indonesia faces homegrown and transnational terrorism, is the world’s fourth-largest emitter of […]

In February 2002, U.S. Special Forces arrived in southern Philippines, hot on the trail of various Islamic organizations that had taken sanctuary in Mindanao — including some that had allegedly relocated there from Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion. The 2002 deployment marked the opening of the so-called Second Front in the Global War on Terror, which would go on to include Indonesia. A decade later, assessing the results of America’s post-Sept. 11 involvement in the region depends on which perspective one examines it through. The U.S. response, though multifaceted, has been largely characterized by its support for the Philippine […]