Showing 31 - 40 of 57
Maintaining what's left of rules-based order
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/07/2018
» For anyone who is alive today, the world as we know it has never been so stirred and shaken. The international order based on a common set of institutions, rules and norms that used to be widely cherished and universally beneficial is unravelling before our collective and helpless eyes. From an emerging United States-China trade war and Beijing's militarised occupation of the South China Sea to Russia's revanchist annexation of Crimea, world order over the past several years has been breaking down. Those who once set the rules, principally the US, are breaking them, while aspiring new rule-setters, mainly China, have not found sufficient international reception. Rule-takers, such as the smaller states in Asean, suffer the most when set rules lose cohesion, lustre and abidance.
The Trump-Kim summit and its aftermath
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 15/06/2018
» The unprecedented and dramatic summit meeting between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un, the current leaders of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (otherwise known as North Korea), will go down in history as another case of "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". Since the Korean War stopped without a permanent truce in 1953, the world has become accustomed to the North Korean regime as a menace to regional peace and stability with ominous global ramifications because of its nuclear weapons.
Thailand's global standing at a low point
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/05/2018
» When the fourth anniversary of Thailand's coup comes to pass later this month, Thailand's foreign relations will be one of the many costs to be counted from the military government. While the Thai administration of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha insists otherwise, Thailand's international standing has sunk to its lowest point. One of the immediate tasks facing the elected government after the poll will be to rectify and restore Thailand's international reputation.
Regional order in East Asia after summits
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/11/2017
» While Asean-related leaders' meetings tend to come and go with a lot of spectacle and brouhaha without much lasting substantive impact, the recently concluded summits of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Vietnam and the United States-Asean and the East Asia Summit in the Philippines will be seen in hindsight as highly consequential. The geopolitical and geoeconomic positions of just about all attending countries were more or less known before hand. This most recent summit season was about the policy orientation and preferences of the US under President Donald Trump.
Myanmar's Rohingya issue handled poorly
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/09/2017
» Less than a year after its last major upsurge in communal violence underpinned by religious tensions between Buddhism and Islam, the northern section of Myanmar's western Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh is again beset with another bout of similar turmoil and bloodshed. The pattern of conflict and violence this time is similar to late last year but the scale and scope are much wider and more lethal. At its root, the ongoing violence in Rakhine is more mixed than the Manichean images of good versus evil being portrayed in the international media.
Asean regionalism amid authoritarianism
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 05/08/2017
» If three Asean members -- Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines -- have led the way in shedding their authoritarian past, three others -- Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia --have gone the other way. After 50 years of ups and downs in domestic politics and governance, Asean has seen a resurgence of authoritarian practices. How this trend is manifested, and whether it intensifies or reverts to more democratic characteristics, will determine how Asean's regionalism takes shape over the next few decades.
Thai-US relations back on the move again?
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 09/06/2017
» Soon after the Asean Summit in April, United States President Donald J Trump placed phone calls to three Southeast Asian leaders and invited them to the White House.
'New normal' after South China Sea ruling
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 15/07/2016
» However the Philippines-China verdict is viewed and whatever its immediate consequences, the landmark ruling by the dispute-settling Arbitral Tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will bring about a "new normal" in Southeast Asia that portends more regional tensions and potential conflict in the longer term. This "new normal" means that the status quo ex ante prior to Philippines' recourse to the Tribunal in January 2013 will not be restored.
Asean's 'centrality' faces growing threat
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/06/2016
» The debacle earlier this week when Asean foreign ministers opted for a watered-down joint statement after issuing a firmer version following their meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is yet another testament to the challenges facing the 10-member group's "centrality" in building Asia's regional order. That China has been calling in its chips with smaller pliant Asean states and effectively driving a wedge through the organisation over the South China Sea will exacerbate regional tensions and lead to security dilemmas and a dangerous tit-for-tat guessing game in this neighbourhood. To avoid future conflict, a rules-based region under mutual accommodation is the only way forward.
Thailand's reversal of fortune with Vietnam
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/05/2016
» First, it was Myanmar that took over the democratic space which Thailand used to occupy. Now, it is Vietnam that has eclipsed Thailand as a major regional player in regional trade and geopolitics. It is not a lot of fun for Thais to be counting the costs of their country's sagging political fortunes and sliding economic prospects but doing so is necessary to remind Thailand's ruling generals that we are in bad shape and that they are not quite up to scratch in coming up with what we want to do and where we need to go.