Southeast Asia Archive

Hundreds of Malaysian lawyers and rights activists have staged a rare protest march in Kuala Lumpur, the country’s capital, demanding that the government abandon plans to pass a new law they say would stifle the freedom of public assembly.

Three have been killed and another 27 injured after a bomb went off in a guest house in the southern Philippines.

It is hard to think of a period in the past five decades in which this country was more painfully bereft of national leadership than it currently finds itself. On one side we have an increasingly isolated president who, as Edward Luce opined recently, “prefers to campaign than govern.” On the other is a House-controlling GOP that, in the words of Thomas Friedman, “has gone nuts.” What’s more, the highly negative campaign that 2012 is shaping up to be will secure no governing mandate for the eventual winner, meaning that things are likely to get far worse. The result will […]

It is usually difficult to judge with certainty the outcome of international summits in their immediate aftermath. But last weekend’s East Asia Summit in Bali, Indonesia, made at least one thing clear: The Obama administration has managed to mend the rift with the member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations that emerged under President George W. Bush. At Bali, President Barack Obama received strong and positive feedback from ASEAN countries. And in advance of the summit, he strengthened the United States’ historic alliance with Australia, a country that seems to be emerging with a new role in […]

President Barack Obama’s Asian trip is being hailed as a diplomatic triumph, and to the extent that the three-stop tour delivered both concrete and symbolic accomplishments, that assessment is correct. In Hawaii, Obama strengthened the chances that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will become the cornerstone of future trade integration in the region. In Australia, he announced a small but symbolically resonant agreement to station U.S. Marines at an Australian base. And at the East Asia Summit in Indonesia, he very visibly underscored America’s renewed commitment not just to Asia, but to the region’s multilateral institutional architecture that the Bush administration had […]

Geopolitical tension between China and United States seemed to reach new heights this week, with the U.S. announcing a new troop presence in Australia and China reacting to the announcement with a predictable level of irritation. But China’s own evolving posture is equally worthy of scrutiny as the strategic chess match between the two grows increasingly militarized. Most recently, China announced that five patrol ships from one of its maritime forces — the Yunnan Provincial Border Control Corps — will be deployed along the Mekong River, which runs from China along Laos’ borders with Myanmar and Thailand, and into Cambodia […]

The absence of the European Union from the Sixth East Asia Summit (EAS), which will be held in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 18-19, is a sign that the EU may play only a secondary role in what many see as the unfolding “Asian century.” Though the EU is the longest-standing partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the lead organization for the EAS, EU leaders will be totally excluded from the summit, which will bring together leaders of the 10 ASEAN states, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. This exclusion should […]

Philippine President Benigno Aquino and Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang signed an agreement last month to allow the two countries’ navies and coast guards to better monitor foreign incursions in the waters around the disputed Spratly Islands. In an email interview, Carlyle A. Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy, discussed Vietnam-Philippines relations. WPR: What is the recent trajectory of Vietnam-Philippines diplomatic and trade relations? Carlyle A. Thayer: Vietnam and the Philippines were on opposing sides during the Vietnam War. They exchanged diplomatic relations in July 1976, but political and […]

Thailand’s worst flood crisis in decades has spawned a political battle now threatening the fragile government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who came to power this summer as the nation’s first female prime minister. Prior to the flooding, Yingluck’s election appeared to represent a long-awaited respite from the paralysis that has defined Thai politics in recent years — a paralysis that often resulted in violent clashes between the “Red Shirt” supporters of Yingluck’s brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and nationalist “Yellow Shirts” in central Bangkok. However, the natural disaster, and particularly the fight over how best to respond to […]

An estimated 240,000 people have been displaced by flooding in Cambodia, and concerns are growing about the onset of disease.

As the leaders from the 20 largest developed and emerging economies gather this week in Cannes, France, observers will catalogue the difficulties in forging consensus around decisive steps to remedy global ills. To be sure, a roomful of the world’s most powerful leaders are bound to disagree about the causes and consequences of global economic instability and the arc of global order. But this G-20 summit will highlight another central challenge to coordinated international action: the rise of democratic powers that are ambivalent about the prevailing international order and have yet to decide whether to bolster it, replace it or […]

Burmese workers have found themselves trapped in Thailand’s ongoing flood disaster. Many entered the country illegally and now have no money or identity documents, exacerbating an already difficult humanitarian crisis surrounding the floods.