Southeast Asia Archive

In the run-up to this year’s high-level meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, there were almost too many issues to address: a global pandemic, climate change, renewed and continuing conflicts and great power competition, to name a few. But when it came to the crisis in Myanmar, attention focused on a single question: Who should represent the country in New York? The answer would determine how much the international community can do to help Myanmar, a country now teetering on the edge of civil war, in the months ahead. The turmoil began on Feb. 1, when Myanmar’s military, known […]

In July, British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that the U.K. had agreed to pay France roughly $72 million to fund border personnel and equipment that would be used to stop asylum-seekers from crossing the English Channel. The deal came amid a dramatic rise in the number of channel crossings. In the first half of 2021, more than 8,000 asylum-seekers completed the voyage to land on England’s southern shore. The deal with France was controversial, including within Patel’s own Conservative Party. Noting that this was the second such payment to France in the past year, Tim Loughton, a leading Conservative […]

In recent weeks, Thailand, like several other Southeast Asian countries, has erupted in increasingly ferocious street protests. Throughout August, thousands of Thais, including many young people, took to the streets to express their anger at the current government and demand changes at the top. Some younger, desperate and increasingly uncompromising demonstrators have started driving around in groups, battling police and destroying small police stations. The demonstrations initially seemed to take the government, led by former coup leader and now Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, by surprise. But the situation has now become far more dangerous. Thai police have resorted to force, beating demonstrators and firing rubber bullets […]