Southeast Asia Archive

The politically motivated prosecution last month of opposition leader Sam Rainsy was a rude interruption to Cambodia’s so-called culture of dialogue, the name for the political settlement Cambodia’s government and the opposition reached in 2014 after contested elections. The interruption to this rapprochement was not very surprising: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is Asia’s longest-serving ruler, and he has not achieved this feat by acting benignly toward his political opponents. As Stephanie Giry documented in Foreign Affairs, over the course of his 30 years in power, Hun Sen has “coaxed or cowed, corrupted or co-opted, defanged, sidelined, or otherwise neutralized […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, joins host Peter Dörrie in the Briefing to discuss the issues dominating global politics this week, including Cuba’s migrant crisis, the COP21 climate conference and France’s military strategy in Africa. For the Report, Sebastian Strangio joins us to talk about the challenges of Myanmar’s ongoing democratization. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant WPR coverage: Obama’s Cuba Policy Triggers Unintended Migrant Crisis Sidetracked: Obama’s Cybersecurity Legacy Is COP21 Climate Change Deal Multilateralism’s Swan Song? France’s Overstretched Military Not Enough to Stabilize the Sahel Great Expectations: Will Myanmar’s Election Bring Real […]

On Nov. 8, an estimated 30 million people took part in Myanmar’s first free national election in a quarter-century. From the shores of the Andaman Sea to the Himalayan uplands, many lined up in the pre-dawn gloom before voting stations officially opened at 6 a.m. Vying for citizens’ votes across some 1,171 constituencies were 6,189 candidates from a total of 93 parties. For most voters, however, it came down to two. On one side was the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the drab political proxy of the powerful Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, which has ruled the country for more […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the South China Sea territorial disputes and the various claimant countries’ approaches to addressing them. The Philippines received its first new fighter jets in a decade over the weekend. The acquisition is the country’s latest move to strengthen its military amid growing tensions with China over disputed claims in the South China Sea. In an email interview, Aileen Baviera, a professor of Asian studies at the University of the Philippines, discussed the Philippines’ claims in the South China Sea. WPR: What are the Philippines’ territorial claims in the […]