ISEAS Perspective provides analysis of specific current events and their significance for the Southeast Asian region. This will be published occasionally, and is aimed at keeping decision-makers in both the public and private sectors informed; as well as scholars, laymen and the interested public. This series undergoes a peer-review process.
2020/70 “Japan’s Weapons Transfers to Southeast Asia: Opportunities and Challenges” by Victor Teo
2021 No. 70
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Japan’s long history of indigenous weapon development and export was curtailed by Japanese law and the US-Japan alliance after the Second World War. Japan’s re-emergence as a weapon exporter is fuelled by desires to increase Japanese capabilities, counteract China’s rise, hedge against possible future strategic abandonment by the US, fund next-generation weapon research, […]
2021/69 “The Mekong River Ecosystem in Crisis: ASEAN Cannot be a Bystander” by Hoang Thi Ha and Farah Nadine Seth
2021 No. 69
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Despite being the premier regional organisation in Southeast Asia, ASEAN remains a bystander in the imminent collapse of the Mekong River ecosystem which runs through five of its member states. ASEAN’s compartmentalised sub-regional approach characterises and justifies its heretofore indifference to Mekong environmental woes despite their impact on the region’s food security and […]
2021/68 “An Early Election For Thailand? Will It Matter?” by Termsak Chalermpalanupap
2021 No. 68
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Speculation is rife in Thailand that Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha will dissolve the House of Representatives before the end of this year and call an early general election. The ongoing “third wave” of COVID-19 infections in the country has aggravated political insecurity and given rise to a vicious blame game inside the […]
2021/67 “Crisis upon Crisis: Fighting Covid-19 Becomes a Political Struggle after Myanmar’s Military Coup” by Courtney T. Wittekind
2021 No. 67
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the aftermath of Myanmar’s coup, a nationwide strike by civil servants and lack of trust in the military regime that staged the February 1 takeover has reversed the country’s hard-won progress in the fight against COVID-19. While COVID-19 data have gone unreported since February, staff shortages, military violence against medical staff, and […]
2021/66 “Fighting COVID-19: China’s Soft Power Opportunities in Mainland Southeast Asia” by Chheang Vannarith
2021 No. 66
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The COVID-19 pandemic provides a window of opportunity for China to exert its international leadership and influence. It has managed to turn the crisis into a diplomatic and strategic opportunity in mainland Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Public health diplomacy has become one of the key sources of China’s soft power projection, enhancing China’s […]
2021/65 “Borderland without Business: The Economic Impact of Covid-19 on Peninsular Malaysia’s Southernmost State of Johor” by Serina Rahman
2021 No. 65
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Covid-19 has had an exceptionally harsh impact on the Johor economy due to the combined factors of border closure (and loss of Singaporean visitors), local movement restrictions and economic slowdown, as well as unemployment amongst former Malaysian workers in Singapore. The combination of these difficulties has resulted in (amongst others) a 70 percent […]
2021/64 “Facilitating Investment in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and WTO Initiatives” by Tham Siew Yean
2021 No. 64
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY While investment facilitation is part and parcel of investment treaties and trade agreements, current WTO Investment Facilitation for Development (WTO IFD) negotiations include far more dimensions than those in existing ASEAN agreements. ASEAN is proposing an ASEAN Framework Agreement on Investment Facilitation (AFAIF) as part of its regional economic recovery plan. Although ASEAN […]
2021/63 “Indonesia’s First Sovereign Wealth Fund (INA): Opportunities and Challenges” by Manggi Taruna Habir
2021 NO. 63
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Indonesian government is stepping up its efforts to kickstart its economic recovery by attracting more direct investment into the country. The 2019 Omnibus Law and the recent launch of the Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), the country’s first sovereign wealth fund, are deliberate steps in that direction. INA is largely modelled after India’s […]
2021/62 “Vietnam and the Great Powers: Agency Amid Amity and Enmity” by William Choong
2021 no. 62
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Vietnam’s domestic and foreign policy structures held up well in 2020 in the face of significant challenges involving Covid-19, chairing ASEAN, and relations with China and the United States. At home, it managed the Covid-19 pandemic commendably and kept economic growth going at a steady clip. As ASEAN chair, it steered the grouping […]
2021/61 “Is the East Asia Summit Suffering Erosion?” by Hoang Thi Ha and Malcolm Cook
2021 NO. 61
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Over the last decade, the East Asia Summit has established itself at the peak of the ASEAN-led regional architecture and key to ASEAN’s broader centrality aspirations. ASEAN has however had difficulties improving the institutional efficacy of the EAS and lifting it out of its default ‘talk shop’ mode. ASEAN dialogue partner developments also […]