2024/10 “Vietnam-U.S. Security Cooperation Prospects under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” by Phan Xuan Dung and Hoai Vu
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- In the past decade, Vietnam and the United States have incrementally strengthened security cooperation across various areas, including maritime security, defence sales, search and rescue, humanitarian and disaster relief, war legacy issues, and peacekeeping.
- Hanoi and Washington have pledged to enhance and broaden their security relations under the recently established comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP).
- Several conducive factors support the advancement of Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation in the upcoming years. These include growing strategic convergence, a deepening network of shared defence partners, and Vietnam’s military modernization efforts.
- However, sudden leaps or dramatic breakthroughs in Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation are unlikely due to certain constraints. These include Vietnam’s cautious approach, defence cooperation not being the top priority under the CSP, defence interoperability gaps, and lingering trust deficits.
- Therefore, despite the recent upgrade in diplomatic status, Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation has not reached a new level. Nonetheless, expanded defence collaboration in soft areas could help overcome some of the existing constraints and advance mutual strategic interests.
* Phan Xuan Dung is Research Officer in the Vietnam Studies Programme of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. Hoai Vu is Research Assistant at the Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies under the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.
ISEAS Perspective 2024/10, 6 February 2024
INTRODUCTION
Since establishing a ‘comprehensive partnership’ in 2013, Vietnam and the United States have incrementally expanded their security relations, a domain that was hitherto sensitive and limited in scope. In 2015, the two countries adopted the Vietnam-U.S. Joint Vision Statement on Defence Cooperation, which codified activities already undertaken under the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Advancing Bilateral Defence Cooperation.[1] Vietnam and the U.S. also engage in two dialogue mechanisms — the Political, Security, and Defence Dialogue and the Defence Policy Dialogue. Guided by these bilateral frameworks, Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation has progressed significantly across various areas, including maritime security, defence sales, search and rescue (SAR), humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), war legacy issues and peacekeeping.
Despite these remarkable strides, Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation remains at a low level, and primarily involves soft forms of engagement.[2] The recent upgrade of bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP) raises the question of whether this will change.
This article examines the recent progress in Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation and discusses its prospects under the CSP. It argues that given the current facilitators and constraints, the two countries will continue to advance defence collaboration at a measured pace, focusing on areas of low sensitivity.
RECENT PROGRESS IN VIETNAM-U.S. SECURITY COOPERATION
Maritime Security and Defence Articles
Maritime security and defence articles are key components in Vietnam-U.S. growing defence links. From 2017 to 2023, the U.S. State Department granted Vietnam approximately US$104 million in security assistance through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme, aiming to bolster Vietnam’s maritime security and law enforcement capabilities.[3] Additionally, Vietnam received a separate US$81.5 million from FMF in 2018 as part of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy.
A notable aspect of bilateral maritime security cooperation is U.S. port calls to Vietnam and joint naval exercises. After Vietnam opened the Cam Ranh Bay Military Port to all foreign naval vessels in 2010, the USNS Richard Byrd transport ship became the first to use the port’s logistical services in 2011.[4] Since then, U.S. ships have docked at the port for logistics and maintenance services almost every year. Three U.S. aircraft carriers — USS Carl Vison, USS Theodore Roosevelt, and USS Ronald Reagan — made port calls and held exchange activities in Vietnam in 2018, 2020 and 2023, respectively. Several U.S. naval vessels have visited Vietnamese ports and conducted non-combatant drills known as Naval Engagement Activity (NEA), with the Vietnam People’s Navy. The latest iteration of NEA, conducted in 2017, focused on diving, search and rescue operations, and undersea medicine.[5] Moreover, since 2016, Vietnam has participated in U.S.-led multilateral maritime exercises, including the Southeast Asian Maritime Law Enforcement Initiative (SEAMLE), the ASEAN-U.S. Maritime Exercise, and the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC).[6]
The U.S. fully lifted its lethal arms embargo on Vietnam in 2016, enabling Vietnam to procure U.S. equipment to modernize its military. From 2016 to 2021, the U.S. authorized the permanent export of more than US$29.8 million in defence articles to Vietnam.[7] The U.S. Defence Department’s active Foreign Military Sales with Vietnam has also surpassed US$118 million. Key U.S. arms transfer to Vietnam includes the handover of two decommissioned Hamilton-class cutters, currently the largest cutters in the Vietnam Coast Guard (VCG). In 2023, the U.S. promised the delivery of the third one,[8] making Vietnam and the Philippines the only countries to receive three U.S. Hamilton-class cutters (other recipients have received either one or two).[9] The U.S. has also supplied the VCG with six Boeing Insitu ScanEagle tactical drones and 24 Metal Shark patrol boats.[10] Additionally, Vietnam has bought 12 Beechcraft T-6 Texan II trainer planes as part of a package that comes with logistical and technical support.[11]
SAR and HADR
Given Vietnam’s vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change impacts, enhancing disaster preparedness and recovery capabilities is crucial. Thus, cooperation with the U.S. in SAR and HADR activities plays a vital role in augmenting Vietnam’s security. In 2014, the USS John S. McCain conducted a SAR exercise with the VPN off the coast of Da Nang as part of its NEA with Vietnam.[12] This marked the first SAR training activity between the two navies. Subsequent NEAs also included exercises on SAR and HADR. In 2016, the two countries signed a letter of intent to form a working group to explore the possibility of storing supplies in Vietnam for HADR purposes.[13] Vietnam has also participated in multilateral cooperation projects on HADR and joint HADR exercises under the Pacific Partnership and Pacific Angel engagements.
War Legacy Issues
Collaboration to address the consequences of the Vietnam War, including unexploded ordnance (UXO), Agent Orange, and soldiers missing in action (MIA), continues to serve as the foundation of Vietnam-U.S. defence relations. The U.S. has provided over US$230 million for UXO mitigation efforts in Vietnam.[14] In 2018, the two governments celebrated the completion of the six-year joint dioxin remediation project in Da Nang. A year later, joint cleanup efforts commenced at Bien Hoa Air Base, the largest remaining dioxin hotspot in Vietnam. The U.S. government’s financial contribution for this project currently stands at US$218 million, including US$90 million from the U.S. Defense Department.[15] In addition, as of 2023, the U.S. has provided US$139 million to fund health programmes that support Vietnamese with disabilities linked to Agent Orange exposure.[16] Regarding the search for American MIAs, as of June 2023, 151 unilateral and joint remains evacuation missions have been conducted, leading to the repatriation of the remains of 734 American soldiers.[17] In 2021, Washington officially began assisting Hanoi in identifying the remains of Vietnamese MIAs through a programme funded by the U.S. Defense Department.[18] Since then, the U.S. has provided Vietnam with more than 30 sets of documents related to Vietnamese MIAs, along with many war artifacts.[19]
Peacekeeping
In recent years, Vietnam has actively participated in United Nations peacekeeping missions, with support from several partners, including the U.S. In 2015, the two countries signed an MOU on peacekeeping, cementing their cooperation in experience sharing, personnel training, technical assistance, equipment, and infrastructure support.[20] Such cooperation lays the groundwork for future bilateral cooperation on peacekeeping missions. Under the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), the U.S. has spent US$10.87 million to support Vietnam’s peacekeeping contributions, including the deployment of a level-2 field hospital to the UN Mission to South Sudan in 2018.[21]
VIETNAM-US SECURITY COOPERATION UNDER THE CSP: FACILITATORS AND CONSTRAINTS
Over the past decade, Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation has witnessed substantial growth under the comprehensive partnership. This positive trajectory is expected to continue under the CSP established during President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi in September 2023. The joint leaders’ statement on the Vietnam-U.S. CSP reaffirms continued cooperation on maritime security, SAR, HADR, war legacy issues, and peacekeeping operations.[22] On defence industry and trade cooperation, the statement underscores the U.S. commitment to assist Vietnam in developing self-reliant defence capabilities. A new development is the establishment of a Law Enforcement and Security Dialogue between relevant law enforcement, security, and intelligence agencies.[23]
This section discusses the facilitators and constraints that will shape Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation under the CSP in the upcoming years.
Facilitators
First, the two countries share growing strategic convergence, aligning on key bilateral and regional security issues. As stated in the joint statement on the CSP, the U.S. supports a strong, independent, self-reliant, and prosperous Vietnam in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity.[24] Regionally, the U.S. envisions a unified and robust ASEAN where Vietnam plays an active role in promoting the group’s centrality in addressing regional security issues. The joint statement also reiterates the two countries’ mutual interests in promoting freedom of navigation and upholding international law in the South China Sea. Moreover, the importance of Vietnam’s geostrategic position in the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy has been increasingly stressed by U.S. officials and U.S. national security documents.[25] This underscores Washington’s commitment to work with Hanoi in promoting a shared vision of regional security.
Second, Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation stands to benefit from a deepening network of shared defence partners. Vietnam has been strengthening bilateral ties with key U.S. allies and partners in Asia, many of which are its comprehensive strategic partners (India, Japan, South Korea) or soon-to-be comprehensive strategic partners (Australia,[26] Indonesia,[27] Singapore,[28] and Thailand[29]). In 2022, ASEAN also upgraded its relations with the U.S. to a CSP, paving the way for new maritime and defence initiatives.[30] These developments position Vietnam and the U.S. to expand the scope of their defence cooperation, particularly on maritime security and peacekeeping, under trilateral, quadrilateral, and multilateral frameworks.[31]
Third, Vietnam’s military modernization efforts present opportunities for further collaboration on defence articles and technology. After the 13th Party Congress in 2021, Vietnam approved a plan to build a streamlined and strong army by 2025 and a revolutionary, regular, elite, and modern army by 2030.[32] Vietnam has also strived to diversify its arms imports and boost domestic defence production capabilities to become more self-sufficient. The U.S. is recognized as a key partner in these efforts. This was made evident in the presence of several major American defence firms at Vietnam’s first international defence expo in December 2022. U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Marc Knapper, said that the event “represents a new stage in Vietnam’s efforts to globalize, diversify, and modernize, and the United States wants to be part of it.”[33] Indeed, following the expo, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Textron reportedly held discussions with top Vietnamese government officials regarding the possible sales of helicopters and drones to Vietnam.[34]
Constraints
Despite these conducive factors, sudden leaps or dramatic breakthroughs in Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation are unlikely due to several constraints.
The first is Vietnam’s cautious approach to deepening ties with the U.S. in order to avoid negative reactions from China. Despite concerns over China’s maritime ambitions, Hanoi prioritises maintaining a stable and peaceful relationship with its northern neighbour. China might feel threatened by bolstered Vietnam-U.S. defence ties and respond with punitive actions against Vietnam. Thus, Hanoi has made efforts to reassure Beijing that its CSP with Washington is not an anti-China security pact. During recent Vietnam-China high-level meetings that occurred around the upgrade, Vietnamese leaders repeatedly reaffirmed positive bilateral ties with China and Vietnam’s ‘four nos’ defence policy.[35] Notably, Vietnam hosted President Xi Jinping in December 2023, just three months after Biden’s visit. On this occasion, Vietnam elevated ties with China by establishing a “community of a shared future”,[36] seemingly to balance the upgrade with the U.S.
Given its sensitivities to rising tension between the two great powers, Vietnam might scale back on joint naval activities and military training with the U.S. to keep a low profile. This could explain why Vietnam cancelled 15 defence engagement activities with the U.S. in 2019[37] and did not participate in RIMPAC in 2022, despite having participated in 2018.[38] Vietnam will also be hesitant to engage in combat military exercises with the U.S. in the South China Sea.
A second related constraint is that defence cooperation is not the top priority under the CSP. In the joint statement on CSP, economic and technological cooperation are clearly the main focus, while defence and security ties receive less attention. Moreover, the statement leans towards non-traditional security issues that the two countries have already been collaborating on.
This makes sense as Vietnam’s primary motivation for seeking a CSP with the U.S. was not defence needs. The upgrade aligned with Vietnam’s desire to create a robust and diverse network of strategic partners to ensure three key long-term objectives — security, prosperity, and international status. While the U.S. is seen as an important partner in all three aspects, Vietnam currently emphasizes economic development goals.[39] Hence, for Vietnam, the CSP is more about economics than defence and security.[40]
Washington initially expected that a strategic partnership with Hanoi would result in stronger bilateral defence ties to counter Beijing’s maritime ambitions. However, leading up to the establishment of the CSP, the U.S. had progressively understood that Vietnam would not be comfortable with making the CSP all about defence and security. In various official and unofficial exchanges, U.S. officials and scholars recognized Vietnam’s delicate approach, as well as the need for more patience on the U.S. side.[41]
The third constraint are the defence interoperability gaps between Vietnamese and American forces. A major obstacle is the language barrier. Proficiency in English is still a challenge for the Vietnamese military, and few American personnel can speak Vietnamese.[42] Another obstacle is the low level of cooperation on defence sales, exemplified by Vietnam’s limited import of U.S. weapons. Some scholars have suggested that Vietnam could elevate bilateral defence ties with the U.S. by concluding large-scale arms deals.[43] However, since the lifting of the U.S. arms embargo in 2016, no such deal has transpired. The U.S. is reportedly in talks with Vietnam on the possible sale of F-16 fighter jets.[44] Vietnam has yet to confirm this information, and the deal might not materialize. In the past, Vietnam has shown reluctance to buy major U.S. weapons, such as a second-hand F-16 fighter jet and a P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft.[45] Hanoi worried that purchasing major offensive weapons from the U.S. could irk Beijing, especially after the high-profile CSP upgrade. Moreover, there are interoperability concerns over Vietnam’s limited capacity to acquire and integrate U.S. military technology. These include high costs, a steep learning curve, and incompatibility with Russian-made equipment, which currently forms the majority of Vietnam’s weapon systems.[46]
Last but not least, trust deficits between the two countries remain. Despite the increased U.S. recognition of Vietnam’s one-party state system, political differences could still impede defence cooperation. In particular, Hanoi fears that the U.S. Congress might reject equipment sales due to concerns over human rights conditions in Vietnam.[47] Divergent stances on the Russian-Ukraine war, along with Vietnam’s continued reliance on Russia for major arms supplies, also hinder greater strategic trust. Vietnam is cognizant of potential sanctions under the U.S. Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act for buying Russian weapons.[48] Finally, Hanoi has reasons to doubt Washington’s commitments to the region in the upcoming years, given the U.S. ongoing preoccupation with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.
CONCLUSION
Despite the recent upgrade in diplomatic status, Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation has not reached a new level. Instead, bilateral military relations will continue to concentrate on areas of low sensitivity, including maritime law enforcement, SAR, HADR, war legacy issues, and peacekeeping. Nonetheless, expanding collaboration in these fields could mitigate some of the existing constraints in Vietnam-U.S. defence ties and advance mutual strategic interests.
The US should provide more funding and equipment for Vietnam to enhance its self-reliant defence capabilities, as stated in the CSP. However, it is imperative that the U.S. consider Vietnam’s post-upgrade sensitivities and refrain from pushing for large-scale arms trade that could alarm China. The priority should be to help Vietnam modernize the VCG and improve its maritime domain awareness through equipment transfers and technical assistance. This serves the mutual interests of both countries by promoting freedom of navigation and upholding international law in the South China Sea.
In addition, boosting education and training for Vietnamese military officers will help bridge interoperability gaps between US and Vietnamese military forces. This could include more opportunities for Vietnamese officers to join English language training programmes and study in U.S. institutions. The U.S. should also invite Vietnam to join more non-combat bilateral and multilateral naval exercises. This will foster professional and operational relations between the two countries and with other defence partners.
Finally, increased U.S. efforts to address Agent Orange and UXO, as well as assisting Vietnam in the search for its MIAs, can play an important role in reducing trust deficits. Vietnamese leaders have consistently indicated that greater U.S. efforts to address war consequences are a prerequisite for bilateral cooperation in other areas.[49]
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
2024/9 “Advancing the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific Beyond Indonesia’s Chairmanship” by Joanne Lin
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Indonesia’s Chairmanship in 2023 has advanced the AOIP’s implementation through tangible projects and activities, thereby elevating the AOIP as a pivotal platform for promoting ASEAN’s central role.
- Beyond Indonesia’s Chairmanship, ASEAN needs to prioritise a consistent and impactful implementation of the AOIP across successive Chairmanships. This is essential to solidify the AOIP’s standing as a strategic document to reinforce ASEAN’s central role in the region.
- To advance the AOIP and ensure its ongoing strategic relevance, ASEAN can adopt some key strategies. These include assuming a leadership role in implementation, formulating a multi-year work plan, maintaining a commitment to quality-focused approaches, transforming bilateral activities into regional projects, and establishing a dedicated fund.
- While the AOIP alone may not fully address escalating strategic competition, leveraging ASEAN-led mechanisms for its implementation positions the organisation as a “bridge-builder”. This role allows ASEAN to actively contribute to inclusive multilateral solutions, and foster dialogue and cooperation among regional powers.
* Joanne Lin is Co-coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, and Lead Researcher (Political-Security) at the Centre.
ISEAS Perspective 2024/9, 2 February 2024
INTRODUCTION
ASEAN embraced the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP)[1] in 2019 as a strategic response to escalating geopolitical tensions[2] and the growing influence of major powers in the region. The Outlook reflects ASEAN’s commitment to maintaining its centrality and leading role in the region by promoting its mechanisms and adhering to key principles such as inclusivity, openness, and a rules-based framework.
Specifically, the Outlook aims to foster practical and tangible cooperation with ASEAN’s external partners in four key areas: maritime cooperation, economic, connectivity, and sustainable development. Despite Indonesia’s advocacy and support from ASEAN’s dialogue partners, the initial implementation faced criticism for its sluggish progress and perceived lack of concrete initiatives during the first four years.
Apart from discussions and sporadic activities[3] with dialogue partners, there was no course of action for the implementation of the AOIP until November 2022, when ASEAN leaders adopted the Declaration on Mainstreaming Four Priority Areas of The ASEAN Outlook on The Indo-Pacific within ASEAN-Led Mechanisms.[4] The declaration acknowledged the need for collective leadership with ASEAN to proactively address emerging challenges in the region. It also endorsed a List of Criteria on Mainstreaming the AOIP (an internal document) to implement the four priority areas of the AOIP through ASEAN-led mechanisms such as the ASEAN Plus-One, ASEAN Plus Three (APT), East Asia Summit (EAS), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus).
This development helped set the stage for Indonesia’s Chairmanship in 2023 to advance AOIP’s implementation through tangible projects and activities. A notable achievement was the inaugural ASEAN Indo-Pacific Forum in September 2023[5] focusing on green infrastructure and resilient supply chains, sustainable and innovative financing, digital transformation and the creative economy. The Forum brought together ASEAN member states and external partners and reportedly identified 93 cooperation projects worth US$38.2 billion, with an additional 73 potential projects amounting to US$17.8 billion.[6]
For the first time since the AOIP’s adoption, the initiative seems to yield tangible benefits to the region, attracting new commitments by ASEAN’s external partners. As a result, regional leaders increasingly recognise the AOIP as a pivotal platform for promoting ASEAN’s central role and mechanisms.[7] The initiative has also been praised by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who commended it for being “omnidirectional and inclusive”.[8]
Despite the success of the Forum, questions linger regarding the AOIP’s effectiveness in shaping the regional architecture as well as in addressing current and future geostrategic challenges. There are also uncertainties in the prospect of advancing the AOIP beyond Indonesia’s Chairmanship. This Perspective addresses these questions and explores potential strategies for ASEAN to ensure the continued relevance and successful implementation of the AOIP across all chairmanships.
ASSESSING THE IMPACT AND LIMITATIONS OF THE AOIP
Despite its lack of a strategic dimension, the AOIP has been deemed successful in securing buy-ins from ASEAN’s external partners, mainly owing to its mild and apolitical nature, and for focusing on cooperation rather than rivalry.[9] The document’s neutrality (which differs from most Indo-Pacific strategies) makes it possible for most countries to accept the AOIP’s values and cooperation.
The overwhelming support from ASEAN’s dialogue and external partners, including China (a target of various Indo-Pacific strategies) has led to an increasing recognition of the AOIP’s benefits by more ASEAN countries. Currently, seven dialogue partners, namely India, Japan, the US, Australia, China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and New Zealand have issued standalone statements with ASEAN regarding AOIP cooperation. While Canada and the EU have not issued separate statements, they have incorporated similar language in joint leaders’ statements with ASEAN. This has therefore enabled ASEAN to be a norm-setter and to play a leading role in the Indo-Pacific.
Beyond dialogue partners, most other external partners of ASEAN have committed to various forms of concrete cooperation across AOIP’s priority areas, enhancing the prospects for sustained implementation and for more partners in the long run.
While the AOIP has increased ASEAN’s standing in the regional architecture through the support of external partners, its strategic impact in addressing or mitigating the negative consequences of major power strategic competition in the region remains in question.
Despite garnering support from ASEAN’s partners, the AOIP’s lack of a strategic thrust hampers its ability to effectively manage external threats, particularly those posed by China. The inclusive nature of the AOIP makes it challenging for ASEAN to be viewed as a “like-minded” partner by countries that have a vested interest in the Indo-Pacific, such as the US, Japan, Australia and India (QUAD members), as well as countries such as the ROK, UK, Canada, France and Germany. This is especially so when ASEAN refuses to speak out against China for its aggression in regional flashpoints such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
Essentially, the AOIP’s limited strategic perspective and its absence of a hard power component constrain its efficacy in addressing conflicts. Apart from preventive diplomacy, it is unable to deter security threats or provide a strategic balance[10] in the region. This has prompted Indonesia’s former Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa to claim that the AOIP was more of a defensive and programmatic approach than a bold one seeking to actively confront geopolitical challenges.[11]
The proliferation of non-ASEAN security groupings like the QUAD and AUKUS demonstrate that ASEAN-led initiatives such as the AOIP may not adequately meet the region’s security needs. Opinion polls, as reflected in surveys like the State of Southeast Asia Survey reports,[12] suggest that major powers’ security initiatives may weaken ASEAN’s centrality, despite their rhetorical support for the AOIP and ASEAN centrality.
Although there is increasing interest for ASEAN to take on a greater responsibility in managing major power rivalries, the region is far from being a provider of regional security.[13] Notwithstanding the AOIP being created to address geostrategic tensions, the defence sector, in particular, has been hesitant to adopt the Indo-Pacific concept. The ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) has only recently adopted a concept paper on the implementation of the AOIP from a defence perspective,[14] four years after the AOIP was published. Moreover, despite the expansive scope of maritime cooperation, the ADMM can only approve one AOIP activity each year and the activity should be one-off and informal in nature – signalling a lack of enthusiasm to mainstream the AOIP in the defence sector.
As such, under Indonesia’s leadership, the AOIP’s implementation has focused on softer cooperation and easier objectives like green infrastructure, digital developments, sustainable development, and the promotion of trade and investment.
This has led some observers to argue that the AOIP primarily symbolises the group’s aspirations rather than offering a concrete pathway to achieve specific outcomes.[15] Therefore, the Outlook may only be sufficient to kickstart and support more processes, dialogues, and lower-hanging cooperation rather than achieving tangible strategic outcomes, particularly those pertaining to security.
AOIP’S IMPLEMENTATION BEYOND INDONESIA’S CHAIRMANSHIP
The significant advancement of the AOIP’s implementation in 2023 was not surprising. Indonesia’s fervent push for extensive implementation was notably in line with President Joko Widodo’s priority of establishing the country as a Global Maritime Fulcrum. However, the enthusiasm for the AOIP’s continued progress beyond Indonesia’s Chairmanship remains uncertain.
During the early stages of formulating this Outlook, ASEAN countries were not unified in their perspectives on the narratives surrounding the Indo-Pacific or their level of support for the concept.[16] As such, despite the ultimate endorsement of the AOIP by all ASEAN countries, one of the significant challenges in its implementation is the varying degree of ownership among the member countries, along with their willingness and ability to allocate resources for its implementation.
Encouragingly, the AOIP is gradually becoming internalised within ASEAN as an instrument that brings tangible benefits to the grouping. As noted in the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on ASEAN As an Epicentrum of Growth[17] adopted in September 2023, ASEAN leaders have committed to further efforts in operationalising the AOIP by expediting AOIP projects and activities initiated by ASEAN or jointly with external partners, and to support the list of concrete projects identified at the inaugural ASEAN-Indo-Pacific Forum[18].
The Foreign Minister of Laos as the Chair of ASEAN in 2024 has given the reassurance that Laos will continue the implementation of ASEAN’s initiatives, including the AOIP.[19] Similar to Indonesia’s priorities in 2023, it is expected that Laos will strengthen the connectivity and sustainable development aspects of the AOIP by focusing on integrating and connecting economies, digital transformation, and climate change resilience.[20] Additionally, the Secretary-General of ASEAN Kao Kim Hourn has expressed hope that Laos might consider convening the 2nd ASEAN-Indo-Pacific Forum this year, with a theme that is in line with Laos’ Chairmanship priorities.
Importantly, Indonesia’s efforts in pushing for the mainstreaming of the AOIP has resulted in some level of institutionalisation through the creation of processes such as the “List of Criteria on Mainstreaming the AOIP”. Systematic processes have been put in place to identify, evaluate, track and monitor programmes, projects and activities under the AOIP undertaken by the ASEAN Secretariat. This form of tracking is expected to persist across Chairmanships, irrespective of the levels of motivation and aspiration that each Chair may have towards the Indo-Pacific and the Outlook. Overall, these developments suggest a growing recognition of the AOIP’s significance within ASEAN.
POTENTIAL STRATEGIES IN ADVANCING THE AOIP
In advancing the implementation of the AOIP, ASEAN may consider the following strategies. Firstly, a multi-year work plan encompassing a list of activities is crucial for maintaining a consistent trajectory of progress and ensuring a more impactful implementation. While external partners may propose recommendations for joint activities, ASEAN should also assess its own needs to prioritise specific areas of cooperation to align with frameworks such as the ASEAN Maritime Outlook (AMO),[21] which can offer a clearer direction for ASEAN’s maritime efforts in the Indo-Pacific.[22]
Secondly, to reinforce ASEAN centrality, the grouping should take the lead in proposing programmes and projects under the AOIP that will contribute to ASEAN community building and meet sectoral bodies’ priorities. ASEAN should identify the most appropriate partners to implement specific projects based on the strength of each country. ASEAN should also ensure synergies in the activities across ASEAN-led mechanisms. This approach will prevent overlaps in activities or workshops proposed by external partners for a more streamlined implementation.
Thirdly, the identification of AOIP initiatives should involve meaningful efforts rather than a mere re-packaging of existing cooperation under various Plans of Action. ASEAN should focus on innovative initiatives that can enhance AOIP’s strategic value across ASEAN-led mechanisms including the EAS, ADMM-Plus, and the ARF, prioritising quality over quantity. Quantity-focused approaches may lead to competition among dialogue partners and undermine the strategic essence of the AOIP. ASEAN should shift its focus from an obsession with numbers or statistics to activities that yield not only output but meaningful outcomes that can increase its members’ capabilities in a strategic competition.
Fourthly, although ASEAN has identified an extensive list of concrete projects, predominantly of a bilateral nature, as seen at the inaugural ASEAN-Indo-Pacific Forum, there is a crucial need to transform these isolated initiatives into cohesive ASEAN strategic objectives. The transformation can be achieved through the process of “connecting the connectivities”[23] or fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing among member states to produce innovative projects. Moving forward, a concerted effort should be made to ensure that AOIP projects or activities deliver benefits to as many ASEAN member states as possible, thereby solidifying their status as true “ASEAN” initiatives.
Lastly, there is a pressing need to establish a dedicated fund to implement AOIP activities. This will allow ASEAN to rely more on internal funding for its neutrality and centrality, and to assert more control over its priorities. While cooperation with external partners should persist, having an independent funding mechanism will let ASEAN determine the nature and execution of projects. Furthermore, this will ease the burden of the current and future Chairs in organising larger-scale events such as the ASEAN-Indo-Pacific Forum, and provide more incentives for them to host more such activities.
CONCLUSION
The AOIP has experienced significant success during the Indonesia Chairmanship. However, achieving consistent and impactful implementation of the AOIP across successive Chairmanships is imperative to solidify the Outlook as a strategic document that can bolster ASEAN’s central role. The analysis above highlights crucial factors for ensuring AOIP’s success, emphasising the importance of ASEAN’s leadership, developing a multi-year work plan, ensuring commitment to quality-focused approaches, transforming bilateral activities into regional projects, and establishing a dedicated fund. These will not only foster a sustained momentum in advancing the AOIP but also ensure its strategic relevance.
The analysis also underscores that relying solely on the AOIP may prove inadequate in addressing the rising strategic competition and the multitudes of initiatives led by major powers. However, leveraging ASEAN-led mechanisms, particularly the EAS (the region’s premier leaders-led forum) in the implementation of the AOIP, has the potential to position ASEAN as a pivotal “bridge-builder”. Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres has emphasised ASEAN’s crucial role in ‘building bridges of understanding’ and advancing multilateral solutions.[24] This approach empowers ASEAN to facilitate extensive dialogue among regional powers and foster interactions between countries like China and the US. Furthermore, it allows ASEAN to actively contribute to shaping guiding principles and norms, advocating for multilateralism, and working towards a more inclusive regional architecture.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
Temasek Working Paper No. 7: 2024 – The Changing Fortunes of the Raja Negara and the Orang Laut of Singapore in the 18th Century by Benjamin J.Q. Khoo
2024/8 “Understanding Indonesia’s 2024 Presidential Elections: A New Polarisation Evolving” by Max Lane
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The coalition developing around the candidacy of Prabowo shows characteristics of being a regrouping of core elements from Suharto’s New Order. Incumbent President Joko Widodo is also supporting this coalition. One of Widodo’s sons is Prabowo’s vice-presidential running mate.
- While polls put Prabowo in the lead, scoring in the mid-40 percentages, support for him may nevertheless be stagnating.
- A polarisation is developing between this coalition and the other parties, especially the PDI-P, and some elements of civil society, especially the liberal media and students. This polarisation is connected to tensions between modes of politics: one strongly influenced by Suharto era cronyism and one connected to those disadvantaged for being outside that elite.
- A differentiation between an approach emphasising policy discussion and one emphasising rhetorical image-making has become sharper. This is paralleled by stronger criticism by the two other candidates, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, of Prabowo’s support for Widodo’s dynasty-building manoeuvres, his accumulation of wealth, and alleged mismanagement of the defence equipment procurement.
- As this polarisation is still in its early stages, it is not clear how significant it will be in the thinking of Indonesia’s 200 million voters. But while it develops, there is increasing potential for collaboration between the Baswedan and Pranowo camps, and more support from civil society for them.
ISEAS Perspective 2024/8, 31 January 2024
*Max Lane is Visiting Senior Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He is the author of “An Introduction to the Politics of the Indonesian Union Movement” (ISEAS 2019) and the editor of “Continuity and Change after Indonesia’s Reforms: Contributions to an Ongoing Assessment” (ISEAS 2019). His newest book is “Indonesia Out of Exile: How Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship” (Penguin Random House, 2022).
INTRODUCTION
According to almost all recent polls, Indonesia’s Defence Minister Prabowo. Prabowo is the leading presidential candidate, scoring always over 40%[1] for “electability”. He has the support of the incumbent President, Joko Widodo, whose eldest son is Prabowo’s vice-presidential candidate and whose youngest son is chairperson of the fanatically pro-Prabowo Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI). Prabowo also has the support of former two-term president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and prominent New Order military figure General Wiranto. There is also a kind of blessing from well-known members of the Suharto family, with Prabowo elevating his former wife, Titiek Suharto, to vice-chair of his party Gerindra’s Advisory Board.[2]
What is surprising is that despite all the support, his poll results less than a month out from the election on 14 February are considerably lower than those of candidate Widodo in the lead-up to the 2019 presidential election. At that time, Widodo was polling at over 50% with his opponent then, Prabowo, at 33%.[3] Today, even with Widodo’s and Yudhoyono’s ostensible support, Prabowo is scoring around 43%, up only 10% from 2019.
A NEW DIFFERENTIATION OR EVEN POLARISATION IN THE ELITE
The 20-year period after the fall of President Abdurrahman Wahid has been characterised by the theatre of rhetorical polarisation among the Indonesian political elite. Although there is still some time left for campaigning, the contestation between the three presidential candidates – Baswedan, Prabowo and Pranowo – is revealing new cleavages which may reframe Indonesia’s political life. On the other hand, a consensus over the fundamentals of the status quo, as defined by government policies of the last ten years, may see a relapse into the politics of unanimity.
There are two types of political differentiation being revealed in the current electoral process.
The first relates to the nature of the coalition formed in support of Prabowo. As indicated above, this coalition comprises many elements associated with the New Order. Apart from Prabowo, Yudhoyono and Wiranto, there is also former Coordinating Minister Luhut Panjaitan, Widodo’s business partner since at least 2008.[4] Another is General Moeldoko, former Commander of the Armed Forces between 2013-2015, who Widodo appointed his Chief of Staff. Also appearing is long-term Golkar figure and oligarch, Aburizal Bakrie, the Mentor of Prabowo’s campaign team. While Widodo successfully portrayed himself in 2013-2014 as a novelty from outside the New Order elite, this image was belied by his immediate appointment of Luhut as a de facto ‘prime minister’, who was assigned more than 14 crucial policy implementation tasks.[5] This was followed later by Widodo’s rapid appointment of Moeldoko as his Chief of Staff and then his total rapprochement with Prabowo. Prabowo further indicated the process of Widodo’s integration into this milieu. His association with figures from Suharto’s New Order was further emphasised when Golkar recently posted an AI-generated video of the long-dead Suharto speaking for the Prabowo campaign.[6]
While there are also big business supporters of both the Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo candidatures,[7] this combination of ex-generals, Golkar figures and the Suharto family exposes Prabowo’s coalition as harking back to the Suharto era’s New Order. There is even talk of Prabowo and Titiek Suharto remarrying to bring a Suharto back into the presidential palace.[8] The Baswedan coalition and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) both receive support from business figures who came into prominence during the New Order. Baswedan is supported by former Golkar figure and oligarch businessman, Surya Paloh. However, it can be argued that the latter supporters do not represent core New Order elements in the way that Prabowo’s coalition does.
The PDI-P itself, under the leadership of chairperson and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, had opposed Suharto when he was moving towards a dynastic approach to politics. Suharto’s government intervened in the internal affairs of Megawati’s party to stop her from becoming its leader, and in 1998 Suharto appointed his daughter, Tutut, to the Cabinet in a clear attempt to pave the way for a dynastic succession.[9] For ten years, during the two presidential terms of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the PDI-P was outside of government. The party is not based on or embedded in cronyism with the oligarchs at the level of national government. During the two terms of Widodo’s presidency, Widodo prioritised positions for his own cronies, especially Luhut Panjaitan but also others such as the academic, Pratikno. In the process, PDI-P has been kept out of the most important business-linked ministries.[10]
Baswedan, as a politician and an academic prior to that, has not been embedded in any party or other institution. He courted the Democrat Party (PD) in 2013, then the PDI-P during Widodo’s 2014 campaign, and was nominated by the Justice and Welfare Party (PKS) and Gerindra when he stood for Governor of Jakarta in 2017, prior to being supported by the National Democratic Party (Nasdem) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), as well as the PKS for his presidential campaign now. This is the history of an ambitious politician, but one not embedded within the core of the elite coming out of the New Order.
This new polarisation between core New Order elite elements, now including Joko Widodo, and those outside has meant that the polarisation is creating concern beyond the political parties, among some elements of civil society. This is most visible in sections of the media – led by the liberal TEMPO magazine[11] – as well as human rights NGOs and students opposing the Prabowo-Gibran Rakabuming Raka (read: Widodo) camp. There are two reasons for these concerns. First is the use of Widodo’s incumbency to build a dynasty for his family, and second is the displayed impunity (Prabowo’s) for past human rights violations. The liberal media has led in expressing these worries, but in early January 2024, the first signs appeared of what may well become a student protest movement.[12]
This polarisation also envelopes the political parties. The Widodo-Prabowo camp has alienated the key party outside the New Order core, the PDI-P. Widodo and Prabowo owe their access to the national political stage to Megawati and her PDI-P.[13] For 2024, however, they have united to defeat the PDI-P’s candidate, Ganjar Pranowo. In Widodo’s case, the betrayal may be seen to have begun with the rapprochement with Prabowo in 2019, although Widodo kept up a semblance of loyalty to the PDI-P until 2023. The alienation from the PDI-P was underlined by Widodo’s absence at the party’s recent 51st anniversary celebrations while other major figures such as Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani as well as Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (“Ahok”), now a member of the PDI-P, were in attendance. At this event, Megawati referred to all the ministers who attended as “those willing to attend”, an obvious implied sneer at Widodo who arranged to be overseas at this time.[14]
The alienation of the PDI-P by and from Prabowo and Widodo now aligns that party with the media and some civil society elements whose primary orientation is “Asal Bukan Prabowo” (Anybody but Prabowo) – a theme often reported as “trending”.[15] It should be noted that there are significant civil society elements who are not supporting any of the three presidential candidates. Even so, that alignment adds to the dynamic of polarisation.
The position of the Anies Baswedan campaign in this new polarisation is also clear, although its origins are different. Baswedan is now solidly situated as key to the opposition against Prabowo. Unravelling the nature of the oppositional relationship requires also considering the political culture of the New Order core. The basis for an alliance between the three parties – Nasdem, PKB and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) – may seem to be primarily opportunistic, although all three can claim to be outside of the New Order core. While Surya Paloh was a significant figure in Golkar in the last years of the New Order, his small Nasdem party has kept itself at arm’s length from the New Order elements. A prominent spokesperson for Nasdem in the current campaign is Surya Tjandra, who is historically associated with civil society criticism of the New Order. Tjandra was a human rights lawyer close to the trade unions until he joined the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) in 2018, when it was still perceived as a party with a democratic ideology. He became a deputy minister (agrarian affairs and spatial planning) in Widodo’s Cabinet. Now, in Nasdem, he is campaigning for Baswedan as a candidate who can propound development and ideology against a purportedly hapless Prabowo on that score.[16]
Both through the televised presidential debates (12 December 2023 and 7 January 2024; 4 February forthcoming) as well as general campaigning, Baswedan presents himself as a candidate with deep ideas and who can explain the concepts involved. He is considered a technocratic intellectual. Symbolic of this approach, although not the only example of it, is Baswedan’s proposals for alternatives to a new national capital in Kalimantan, the latter being depicted as a glamour project, and at the same time pushing his team’s proposal for developing 40 other cities throughout Indonesia to a higher level.[17]
However, it is not so much the content of Baswedan’s policies that differentiates him from the Prabowo campaign but the very notion of a serious policy discussion. This contrasts totally with Prabowo’s strategy of creating a new image for himself as the “adorable grandpa” who can joget (dance), and spreading the message that politics should be “fun”.[18] His campaign has flooded social media with animations of the “adorable grandpa” in the form of a dancing Prabowo.[19] Running a election campaign as entertainment can be said to contain an element of “Jokowism”. Candidate Jokowi would use political rallies to entertain the crowd with quizzes, with prizes being given out to audience members who could answer simple questions.
Another key aspect of Baswedan’s campaign are the “desak Anies” (“Press Anies”) meetings where constituents are invited to press (question) Baswedan on any issue, face to face. This seems particularly popular among young people;[20] the sessions can be watched live on YouTube[21] and some excerpts can be viewed on TikTok.
This aspect of the polarisation – a technocratic vision for managing Indonesia versus the personalised character of Jokowi-ism and Prabowoism – came across in the third (second for the presidential aspirants) round of the televised debates on 7 January. Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo critically questioned Prabowo on his implementation of policies as minister of defence, to which the latter reacted defensively.[22] Prabowo seemed not to be armed with the data needed to defend himself, lamenting afterward that he did not expect to be quizzed in this way. Almost ten years of rhetorical polarisation rather than real polarisation means he was equipped only with rhetoric, expressed sometimes with somewhat uncontrolled emotions.[23]
On 7 January, Baswedan tested Prabowo on issues underlying this polarisation, especially in relation to Widodo’s political dynasty-building. In an exchange on ethics, Baswedan asked Prabowo whether it was ethical for him to continue with his current vice-presidential running mate even after the Constitutional court process which cleared the way for Gibran to be nominated was judged to be ethically flawed. Prabowo reacted defensively and emotionally, declaring that Baswedan did not have the moral authority to talk about ethics.[24]
Baswedan also raised issues aimed at depicting Prabowo as being guilty of New Order style wrongdoing, including his alleged accumulation of 340,000 hectares of land – a figure disputed by Prabowo – and procurement of military equipment “using middle-men”, implying possible corruption.[25] This latter issue had been reported by TEMPO newsmagazine.[26]
Almost all polling following this debate rated Baswedan and Ganjar much higher that Prabowo in terms of performance.[27] Ganjar had clearly prepared himself to be technically well-informed, and his confident and combative interrogation of Prabowo saw some polls rating him the winner.[28] The debate went some ways towards contouring the differentiation between the candidates.
HOW WIDE IS THE NEW POLARISATION?
The 2014 and 2019 elections were marked by rhetorical rather than real polarisations.[29] The current polarisation is different in that it has a base in the legacy of the 32 years of the New Order, with its mode of governance built around dynastic power, cronyism, and a right to rule presumed by members of the New Order elite. This legacy is also characterised by the division between those integrated into that culture or hankering to be a part of it, and those excluded from it. Over time, the latter, as the consequence of different personal/political histories, have attained starkly different political outlooks.
Be that as it may, this new polarisation does not reflect fundamental variances based on basic economic or social divides. Rather it is a differentiation around mode of governance. Should governance be subordinated to personal ambition and dynasty-building or to the technocratic management of society and of its economic growth?
While this appears to be a genuine differentiation, it is important to note two factors. First, this differentiation is still in an early stage. Second, it is not yet clear to what extent this differentiation is important to the political players involved – especially the parties supporting Baswedan and Ganjar. It is no doubt a differentiation closely connected to Baswedan’s academic/intellectual background and ideology, but the dynamics go beyond that. Even the PDI-P, together with the smaller political parties, will benefit from a more regulated form of governance, where the personal wealth of political players and their oligarchical connections, are a lesser determinant of electoral success.
At the same time, the strength of commitment to a modern, technocratic management of society and economic growth among all the major parties – the PDI-P, the United Development Party (PPP), Nasdem, PKB and PKS – is still untested.
Unlike the rhetorical polarisations of 2014 and 2019, this new polarisation so farappears to be primarily confined to and visible within the political elite. This elite is defined here as going beyond political parties to include to a significant extent the mainstream media, civil society and its social media. To what extent these differences are being discussed or being perceived as important among Indonesia’s 204 million voters[30] is still unknown. Prabowo was scoring 43-46 per cent for his electability in December 2023 – early January 2024 in polls, but according to survey firm Indikator Politik Indonesia, his numbers possibly stagnated thereafter.[31]
It is worth noting, however, that some polls are recording high numbers for undecided voters. A Kompas poll recorded 28.7 per cent of respondents as being undecided in early December 2023.[32] Another poll on party support for the legislative elections (also on 14 February) noted a 5.9 per cent increase in undecided voters from August 2023, up to 17.3 per cent.[33] There are no polls yet that show what the conscious abstainer or spoiled vote (called golput in Bahasa) might total.[34] The reported stagnating of support for Prabowo in more recent poll results raises questions over what is going on in the minds of voters.
As of 24 January, there are limited signs of the Baswedan and Pranowo campaigns coordinating their efforts, with this scenario being discussed by former vice president Jusuf Kalla, who supports Baswedan.[35] Their immediate aim would be to ensure that Prabowo’s level of support does not exceed the crucial level of 50 per cent, thus ensuring a run-off second round in late June 2024. It is possible that the two coalitions will work together to increase the vote for their individual parties by directing their supporters to vote for each other’s parties in some districts.[36] Baswedan’s running mate, PKB chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, in his formal greeting at the PDI-P’s 51st anniversary celebration, spoke positively about cooperating with PDI-P, including in a run-off.[37]
The novelty of the current differentiation makes it harder to predict an outcome for the elections. The assumption that Prabowo, with the support of the incumbent Widodo, was assured of a clear win is now being questioned. Has Prabowo’s support stagnated or will some unforeseen element revitalise it? Or has support for him peaked, and will henceforth move downwards?
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
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“China as a Rising Norm Entrepreneur: Examining GDI, GSI and GCI” by Manoj Kewalramani
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• This paper discusses Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship global initiatives’ normative implications for the world order.
• It argues that the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), which are key pillars of China’s proposal to build a community of common destiny for mankind, are driven by Beijing’s desire to cultivate authority in the international system.
• Analysing the speeches by Chinese leaders, policy documents, media and analytical discourse in China, along with policy decisions, this study provides an assessment of the Chinese leadership’s worldview. It places the launch of GDI, GSI and GCI within this context, before detailing the elements of each initiative and offering a critical analysis.
• This study concludes that through GDI, GSI and GCI, the Chinese leadership hopes to shape an external environment that not only ensures regime security but is also favourable to China’s development and security interests. In doing so, however, it is reshaping key norms of global governance towards a fundamentally illiberal direction.
Trends in Southeast Asia 2024/2, January 2024
“TIMOR-LESTE IN ASEAN: Is It Ready to Join?” by Joanne Lin, Sharon Seah, Sithanonxay Suvannaphakdy and Melinda Martinus
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• After more than a decade of deliberations, ASEAN leaders agreed on 11 November 2022 in principle to admit Timor-Leste as the eleventh member of the regional organization and to grant Timor-Leste observer status to attend all ASEAN meetings. Timor-Leste has demonstrated positive developmental progress, and fact-finding missions across the three ASEAN Community pillars have returned generally optimistic results.
• However, an assessment of Timor-Leste’s ability to fulfil its commitments and obligations reveals that the country will need to close the gap with the ten existing members on matters such as the ratification and implementation of legally binding agreements and derivative work plans. Creating enforcement mechanisms and finding ways to implement commitments at the local level will be important.
• Timor-Leste has put in place institutional structures and implementing agencies for advancing cooperation with ASEAN. It is also moving towards harmonizing its laws with ASEAN instruments. However, its capacity remains in question due to a lack of substantive knowledge and technical expertise among government officials, as well as inadequate infrastructure, logistics and facilities for hosting ASEAN meetings.
• Strengthening human capital will be a top priority for Timor-Leste. This includes not only enhancing its personnel’s knowledge and technical expertise on ASEAN processes and procedures but also skills such as English language proficiency and negotiation. Coordinated capacity-building assistance from ASEAN and dialogue partners will be important. These efforts must also be met with economic diversification and growth of its nascent private sector.
• Apart from bridging gaps, ASEAN needs to grapple with its reservations that Timor-Leste’s economic limitations may slow down the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community. There are also concerns that Timor-Leste’s membership may entrench differences within the bloc, particularly with regard to geopolitical issues, and dilute the organization’s effectiveness or further complicate the consensus-based decision-making process.
Trends in Southeast Asia 2024/1, January 2024
2024/7 “Mohd Na’im Mokhtar: Business as Usual in JAKIM?” by Mohd Faizal Musa
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Mohd Na’im Mokhtar was appointed by Anwar Ibrahim to be Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Religious Affairs, although he is not an elected politician nor a member of any political party.
- Unknown to many, Na’im had previously served as Chief Judge of the Shariah Court, and was also Director-General of the Shariah Judiciary Department (Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah Malaysia, JKSM) during Pakatan Harapan’s administration from 2018 to 2020.
- According to regulations stipulated by the National Islamic Religious Affairs Council (Majlis Keagamaan Islam, MKI) in 2022, any Prime Minister’s choice for the role of Minister of Religious Affairs requires special consent from the Council of Rulers. This has therefore given rise to some speculation that Na’im’s appointment might not have been due to Anwar’s sole discretion.
- Although credited for various reforms within the Shariah legal system, Na’im also faces criticisms from conservative circles. Furthermore, growing public criticism of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia, JAKIM) makes his leadership of the institution all the more challenging.
- This paper argues that, judging from his track record in handling various episodes, Na’im is likely to navigate a delicate balance between the conservatives and the progressive advocates in the country. With the legacy of revivalist ideals moderated with pragmatism by previous administrations within Malaysia’s multi-racial context, Na’im can be expected to proceed very cautiously on reforms while keeping at bay the extremist voices on both ends of the conservative-liberal spectrum.
* Mohd Faizal Musa is Visiting Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and Research Fellow at Institute of the Malay World and Civilisation (ATMA), National University of Malaysia (UKM).
ISEAS Perspective 2024/7, 29 January 2024
INTRODUCTION
On 2 December 2022, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim unveiled a 28-member Cabinet for his unity government. Of the 28 members, four of them were not Members of Parliament (MP), and had instead been made Senators in order to be appointable as ministers. One of these four was Mohd Na’im Mokhtar, a figure unknown to most; he was chosen by Anwar to be Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Religious Affairs.[1] What made his appointment intriguing is that he is the sole Cabinet member who is not with a political party. While he may be unknown to many political enthusiasts, law practitioners—those working in Shariah law—know him very well.
During Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) administration in 2018, Na’im served as Chief Judge of the Shariah Court, as well as Director-General of the Shariah Judiciary Department (Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah Malaysia, JKSM). Given his experience in dealing with Islamic affairs, it was unsurprising that immediately after the announcement of Na’im’s ministerial appointment, Mujahid Yusof Rawa—the individual who previously held Naim’s position during PH’s administration and who was in charge of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia, JAKIM), praised Anwar’s choice.[2]
Na’im is not the first non-political figure to hold the portfolio. The former Federal Territories Mufti, Dr Zulkilfi al-Bakri, held the same portfolio from March 2020 to August 2021 under Muhyiddin Yassin’s administration. However, what makes Na’im’s position unique is that according to the new regulations stipulated by the National Islamic Religious Affairs Council (Majlis Keagamaan Islam, MKI) in 2022, a prime minister’s choice for this particular position requires special consent from the Council of Rulers.[3] JAKIM, which is headed by the minister in question, reports to the MKI which is chaired by the Selangor Ruler, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah.[4] Consequently, the perception arose among political activists that Na’im’s appointment was a privileged decision which was not necessarily made by Anwar himself.
Na’im’s parachuting into the Cabinet therefore calls for an examination of his professional background and its relevance to his portfolio. As the man who has been given a lavish allocation of Malaysia’s 2024 Budget amounting to RM 1.9 billion,[5] it is crucial to analyse how he may perform as minister. While conservative Muslims such as those in Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), right-wing Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and even professionals and netizens who are close to the party have claimed he is weak, those in progressive circles are paying careful attention to how he plans to deal with extremist groups and ideas. This paper will look at Naim’s background, his approach to various issues, and perceptions of his performance thus far. In doing so, I will refer to some of the remarks he has made, and also include findings from my engagements with ten Shariah law practitioners from Klang Valley, Negeri Sembilan, and Kelantan. These engagements—which occurred between October and November 2023—reveal observers’ predictions and perceptions of his current and future performance as minister, and whether or not he will undo old religious trends, or even set a new one. Overall, it is believed to be unlikely that Na’im will spark new religious trends or undo old ones, and changes are high that he will maintain the status quo.
GETTING TO KNOW MOHD NA’IM MOKHTAR
Right after being elected as Minister of Religious Affairs, Na’im said that he had an enormous task ahead of him, especially since he did not have a deputy minister to assist him. He was also quick to assure people that he would lead JAKIM as a neutral civil servant, and that any decisions made would be free from political interference.[6] This could be interpreted as his commitment to not entertaining political tantrums in a post-GE15 Malaysia which saw the rise of conservatism and non-violent extremism among segments of the Muslim community. His intended neutrality as a civil servant also implies that he would be answerable to the King (Agong) who is the Head of the Religion, and not necessarily to the government of the day. His neutrality was evident in his handling of various issues including the management of the hajj pilgrimage in 2023, calling out a government agency for not acting quickly enough in taking down dangerous social media content, reprimanding Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) leader Muhyiddin Yassin, and various affairs related to Shariah law, including standardising it as instructed by the Council of Rulers.[7] Na’im also gave strict warnings to the opposition not to use and exploit mosques and prayer halls (surau) to propagate their political agenda.[8]
Born on 25 November 1967, Mohd Na’im Mokhtar graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), after which he obtained a Masters in Laws from the University of London, and subsequently a PhD in Shariah Law from the National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM). Prior to his entry into the civil service, Na’im started his career as law lecturer at IIUM from 1990 to 1997, after which he practised as a Shariah lawyer in Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and the Federal Territories from 1997 to 1998. Later in 1998, Na’im was elected as a Shariah judge in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, and also sat on the advisory board of several Islamic banks such as CIMB Islamic Bank, Salihin Trustee Bhd, Sun Life Insurance and the American and British Investment Bank Mauritius.[9] On 1 July 2017, Na’im was promoted to be a judge in the Shariah Court of Appeal. Other notable achievements include his receipt of a Chevening Scholarship from the University of Oxford from 2008 to 2009, and a Visiting Fellowship at Harvard Law School from 2012 to 2013.[10] In 2016, Na’im gave a speech on Shariah law in Selangor at an official dinner hosted by the Trial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States.[11] This positioned him at the centre of attention and earned him praise from many Shariah practitioners.
BALANCING MINISTERIAL DUTIES AND POLITICAL COMPETITION
As Na’im’s previous appointment was as Director-General of the Shariah Judiciary Department (Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah Malaysia, JKSM) during the time Mujahid was minister, it was soon perceived that Na’im was either friendly towards Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) and PH, or that his policies would be similar to that of Mujahid’s. Mujahid praised Na’im for a few reasons. First, during Mujahid’s leadership of JAKIM from 2018 to 2020, it was Na’im who played an important role in introducing Gagasan Negara Rahmah (A Vision of a Merciful Country) and Dasar Rahmatan Lil Alamin (Mercy to All Policy). Second, Mujahid observed that Na’im was instrumental in implementing reform within the Shariah legal system by standardising Shariah laws, establishing the Mahkamah Hadhanah (Custody Court), ensuring the strict enforcement of Shariah court decisions regarding alimony for divorcees, and improving the quality of Shariah judges and the Syarie Legal Profession Act (Akta Profesion Guaman Syarie).[12]
Prior to the Cabinet reshuffle on 12 December 2023, there were rumours that Na’im’s position might be affected. Nevertheless, he was quick to master the political game, and given the above-mentioned achievements, he stated that he will continue to carry on his responsibility to the best of his capabilities.[13] Ministers often tend not to make such statements when a Cabinet reshuffle is due, as it is understood that one’s position in the Cabinet is entirely the prime minister’s choice. After the reshuffle, Na’im’s position was safe and he was even given a deputy minister in the form of Dr Zulkifli Hasan, a Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Angkatan Belia Islam, ABIM) strongman to assist him. Similar to Na’im, Zulkifli was made a Senator before his ministerial appointment.
However, despite his success in keeping himself in Cabinet, many political activists have claimed that he has failed to stifle PAS’ attacks against the Madani administration, especially during the intense campaign period before the 2023 state elections.[14] Thus, in recent months, Na’im has been trying to gain political credit by actively signalling to Islamic authorities to investigate and quell the allegations surrounding Anwar’s past sodomy charges. Since a recent row in Parliament between Anwar and Bersatu MP Radzi Jidin, PH supporters have taken to the Internet to argue that Anwar has been a victim of qazaf (false accusations), which is considered a crime punishable by Shariah and Hudud law, which is in turn enforced by the relevant state government.[15]
Na’im has also been trying hard to respond to Abdul Hadi Awang’s claims that the government has been helpless in countering the challenges posed by those who are against Islamic law.[16] In responding to these claims and countering the challenges listed below, and to assist JAKIM with the implementation of the vision for Malaysia Madani, Na’im has sought help from four Muslim NGOs namely, Persatuan Wadah Pencerdasan Umat Malaysia (Malaysian Association of Enlightenment Platforms, Wadah), Pertubuhan Ikram (Ikram), ABIM, and Pertubuhan Himpunan Lepasan Institusi Pendidikan Malaysia (Organization of Graduates of Educational Institutions Malaysia, Haluan).[17] However, this move is arguably ambiguous. While Ikram and ABIM are often cited as relatively progressive groups (Hew 2018), Wadah and Haluan tend to be more right-wing. For example, the latter two are intolerant of religious minorities such as the Shi’as.[18] Thus, his working relationship with right-wing groups proves that Na’im is simply continuing what previous administrations always dd. In fact, if one were to focus on his close circle as minister, one might notice that his special officer is Dr Mohd Razak Idris, who was formerly the president of ABIM from 2009 to 2011.[19] This is in addition to the newly elected Deputy Minister Dr Zulkifli Hasan.[20] This strongly indicates that ABIM-like policies on Islamic issues could come to be imposed.
Thus, it is safe to say that interms of administering Islamic affairs, Na’im has been maintaining the status quo. For instance, he has not stopped JAKIM from overstepping boundaries in advising art practitioners about what they can or cannot do. Na’im is behind the banning of a film entitled Mentega Terbang, alleging that it promotes pluralism. He was also critical of the television drama Surat Dari Tuhan which allegedly featured the actors uttering words of vulgarity.[21] To further maintain his authority, Na’im reproached Ipoh Timur’s Democratic Action Party (DAP) MP Howard Lee for quoting Qur’anic verses on his social media platform.[22]
In terms of dealing with LGBT issues, Na’im has maintained the position that JAKIM will not recognise their rights as a community, but that their rights as citizens will not be violated.[23] He also stated that JAKIM will be stern towards Muslims involved in LGBT activities.[24] Even outside of the LGBT community, Muslims are subject to state regulation and scrutiny. For example, JAKIM has been mulling over the idea to send some of its staff to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to assist in monitoring “deviant postings” on social media. There has also been great scrutiny on Muslims visiting graveyards.[25]
As for non-Muslims, there have been doubts among them with regard to Na’im’s plan to form an out-of-court mediation centre to resolve disputes involving Muslims and non-Muslims, especially in custody cases.[26] In fact, Na’im’s call to harmonise Shariah and civil law has been met with scepticism, especially given his intention to “dignify syariah law to its rightful sovereign position”, thus evoking doubt amongst proponents of the Federal Constitution and Malaysia’s civil laws.[27]
RESPONSES FROM SHARIAH PRACTITIONERS
My interactions with Shariah practitioners show that there are mixed feelings about Na’im. While many have positive sentiments about his legacy and the work that he has done for the legal system, there are those who doubt that he can implement the reforms which they feel are most needed for the country. By reform, these Shariah lawyers refer to the need to ensure that the Shariah court is more powerful than the civil court. In other words, these lawyers would like to see the decisions made by the Shariah court surmount the decisions made by civil judges, especially in cases relating to custody and inheritance.
In terms of politics, most of the Shariah practitioners think Na’im should not bow down to the “liberals”. For example, Yuslan Yusoph, a Shariah lawyer, is critical of Na’im for being too idealistic and believes that the standardisation of Shariah law is not a great achievement. To him, it would be a greater feat to ensure that Shariah law emerges victorious in its potential clashes with civil law. Another lawyer, Mohd Solahuddin, said that Na’im should be “courageous enough to dignify the Islamic agenda and not be too cautious”.[28] While there are those who hope that Na’im will be more aligned with progressive ideas, they are in the minority. For example, Raja Mohamad Haziq expressed his hopes that Na’im will “control religious teachers who have extremist ideas and prevent them from teaching in mosques”.[29] In saying so, he expressed his concerns about the links between PAS and the growing spread of extremist ideas.
The main grievance which many Shariah lawyers share have to do with the challenge brought up by Kelantan-born lawyer Nik Elin Abdul Rashid and her daughter Tengku Yasmin Natasha Tengku Abdul Rahman, who have argued that as many as 20 provisions under the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code (I) Enactment 2019 are unconstitutional. Some of these provisions address false claims (Section 5), destroying places of worship (Section 11), giving away a Muslim child to a non-Muslim or a morally corrupt Muslim (Section 13), sodomy (Section 14), necrophiliac sexual intercourse (Section 16), bestiality (Section 17), words that break the peace (Section 30), and sexual harassment (Section 31). The Shariah lawyers feel that Na’im has not done enough to address this challenge. Similarly, PAS has also expressed that Na’im is not taking the matter seriously and is putting the primacy of Shariah law at risk. They have also blamed the unity government for not intervening, and have threatened to hold rallies to defend the Shariah, as was done in 2017.[30]
It can be argued that the above doubts about Na’im are without basis. Firstly, Na’im himself is of the view that Shariah law is “the law of the land”, just as the British had stated when Malaya was a British colony.[31] It is therefore unfair to assume that he does not take seriously the challenges confronting the position of Shariah law in the country. Secondly, the concern that Shariah law at the state level is at risk as a result of challenges from “liberal entities” is a politically motivated accusation, as this concern was first expressed on 25 May 2022 while PAS and PN were in power, and nothing was then done to counter their move.[32]
Furthermore, it would be inaccurate to say that Na’im’s silence on the issue means that he is undermining the position of Islam, when the issue has nothing to do with Islam. In fact, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Man who headed the nine-person Federal Court bench hearing the legal challenge from Nik Elin and Tengku Yasmin has dissuaded the notion that the case is about Islam. In her opinion, “the matter is unrelated to Islamic doctrines and was solely based on interpretations of the wording in the Federal Constitution, the nation’s supreme law”. Tengku Maimun further stressed that the question of the family wishing to undermine the position of Islam in Malaysia is irrelevant.[33]
In other words, it is inaccurate to say that Shariah law is under threat or that Na’im is not doing enough to ensure its primacy. Na’im’s commitment is evident from the fact that he has announced his plans to study and close the loopholes in the Shariah legal system so as to ensure that it is not manipulated by irresponsible parties. He has also proposed to form a cadre of legal advisers at the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan, JAWI), thus illustrating that this government is dedicating resources to religious authorities.[34]
Na’im is also committed to dealing with growing extremism, and has previously warned certain quarters not to manipulate religious and racial sentiments.[35] In order to counter the threat of extremism, JAKIM under Na’im’s leadership organized the Madani Honorary Lecture Series with Anwar’s blessings and with the help of ABIM at Seri Perdana.[36] There is also the Majlis Ilmu Madani which consists of lectures organized “in line with efforts to give the people an understanding of the meaning of the Madani nation introduced by the government”. These lectures are aligned with “the basic values of the formation of a Madani state, which were strong beliefs, good morals and the development of true Islamic character”.[37] However, while such lectures are important, there is uncertainty as to whether they are accessible to the Muslim masses or only to a select group of Muslims.
Hence, the real challenge for Na’im is to balance demands from both ends of the spectrum. While he needs to ensure that religious policy aligns with the progressive voices within the unity government, he also has to placate conservative Muslim groups who expect a greater implementation of Islam in social, religious and political affairs.
Na’im is thus walking on eggshells trying to placate both sides, and this could mean that the overall reform promised by Anwar may not be implemented as quickly as hoped. He is likely to be highly selective in executing certain reforms, and will have to balance that with the work of civil servants within JAKIM.
CONCLUSION
Based on his performance so far, it is unlikely that Na’im will set a new trend or change the sphere of Islamic administration. It is more likely that he will maintain the status quo, especially since JAKIM has been allocated more funding in Budget 2024. While some fellow Shariah practitioners have praised the past reforms he introduced to the Shariah legal system, there are also those who are doubtful of his capabilities.
When he was elected Director-General of the Shariah Judiciary Department during PH’s administration, Na’im laid out his plan to reform the administration of Islamic affairs with three visions for guidance. These include Rahmatan lil Alamin, Maqasid Syariah (Higher Objectives of Shariah), and Fiqh Model Malaysia (local Islamic jurisprudence).[38] It seems that he is adopting a similar approach as Minister of Religious Affairs. It is therefore safe to say that the idea of Malaysia Madani according to Na’im is simply a continuance of Malaysia’s historical obsession with institutionalised Islam.
While it all started with the introduction of Dasar Penerapan Nilai-Nilai Islam (Policy on Inculcating Islamic Values) during Mahathir Mohamad’s premiership in the 1980s, it is arguable that there is a thread linking succeeding visions of Islam. These include Abdullah Badawi’s Islam Hadhari (Civilisational Islam) as a brand of progressive, democratic, and tolerant approach towards Islam, Najib Razak’s Islam Wasatiyah (Moderate Islam), PH’s Rahmatan lil Alamin in 2018, and now, Anwar’s Madani. A closer look at each of these policies reveals that there is a tendency towards the revivalist ideals of the 1980s, which were championed by Anwar and ABIM even then. Thus, it is expected that Na’im will continue to administer Islam according to revivalist ideals.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
- “Anwar’s Cabinet Line-Up,” Free Malaysia Today, 2 December 2022, https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2022/12/02/anwars-cabinet-line-up/.
- Khairulanuar Yahaya, “Mujahid Harap Pelantikan Naim Kurangkan Serangan Penunggang Agama” [Muhajid Hopes Naim’s Appointment Will Lessen Attacks from Exploiters of Religion], Malaysia Gazette, 4 December 2022, https://malaysiagazette.com/2022/12/04/mujahid-harap-pelantikan-naim-kurangkan-serangan-penunggang-agama/.
- Muhammad Hafiz Badarulzaman, “Cabaran Menteri Agama Perkasa Mahkamah Syariah, Tabung Haji” [Challenges for Minister of Religion to Strengthen Shariah Courts and Tabung Haji], Berita Harian, 6 December 2023, https://www.bharian.com.my/rencana/komentar/2022/12/1035961/cabaran-menteri-agama-perkasa-mahkamah-syariah-tabung-haji.
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2024/6 “Digital Transformation in Indonesia’s Labour Market: Gainers and Losers” by Maria Monica Wihardja, Abror Tegar Pradana, Putu Sanjiwacika Wibisana, Arya Swarnata, and Aufa Doarest
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Digital transformation in Indonesia, driven by the declining cost of digital technology and massive investment in the digital sector, has changed the nature of jobs. Since 2002, the digital task content of jobs has been rapidly increasing, while routine and manual task contents of jobs have been rapidly decreasing.
- There are at least three channels through which digital transformation can widen wage disparity: First, digital technological change tends to be skill-intensive, increasing skill premium – measured as the wage ratio between skilled and unskilled workers – as demand for skill increases; second, digital technological change displaces jobs with high content of routine tasks through automation, such as factory work and sales work; and third, new investment projects in various digital sectors favour higher skilled and better educated workers.
- Evidence from Indonesia shows that workers with higher skills and better education, including white-collar professionals, gain more from digital transformation compared to those with lower or middle-level skills and education, such as blue-collar manual labourers and sales and clerical workers.
- To accelerate Indonesia’s digital transformation, it is important to complement the investment liberalisation in the sector with policies to improve educational outcomes and facilitate learning, make market policies adaptable to the changing nature of work, and improve access to and quality of internet connections.
* Maria Monica Wihardja is Economist and Visiting Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and Adjunct Assistant Professor at National University of Singapore; Abror Tegar Pradana is Consultant at the World Bank Group’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice; Putu Sanjiwacika Wibisana is Consultant at the World Bank Group’s Urban Global Practice; Arya Swarnata is Master’s candidate in International and Development Economics at Australia National University and Australian Award Recipient 2022; and Aufa Doarest is Private Sector Specialist at the World Bank Group’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation.
ISEAS Perspective 2024/6, 25 January 2024
INTRODUCTION
Developing countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, often view digital transformation as a universal solution for their economic and social problems. Some examples include the use of electronic wallets and payments by the unbanked and underbanked population obviating the need to open a bank account, and opening businesses on e-commerce platforms without physical offices. These countries also pin high hopes on emerging technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to make businesses and workers more productive.[i]
As of 2022, the digital economy already accounts for a significant share of the GDPs of these countries; in the Philippines, it accounts for 9.4 percent of GDP, Thailand 13 percent, Indonesia 5 percent, and Laos 3 percent. In more developed Southeast Asian countries, this share is much higher, with Malaysia at 25.5 percent and Singapore at 17.3. percent, albeit these are still relatively low compared to China’s 41.5 percent. Others have set higher targets on the share of their digital economy to the GDP, for example, 10-15 percent for Indonesia by 2030 and 10 percent for Laos by 2040.
Despite promises of more inclusivity and better productivity, there is not much evidence showing how different kinds of workers in developing Southeast Asian countries have been impacted by the digital transformation in the last ten years.
In this essay, we focus on three key issues to understand better how digital transformation has impacted different types of workers in Indonesia, and how it may widen wage inequality. First is the widening skill premium due to increased internet penetration and higher demand for skills relevant to the digital era. Second is the hollowing out of routine, middle-skilled jobs, due to lower costs of technology and structural transformation of the economy. Third is the impact of new investment projects in various digital sectors favouring higher skilled and more educated workers.
We begin by looking at how the nature of jobs in Indonesia has changed and how investment and employment in three digital sub-sectors have evolved. Then, we look at the three key issues mentioned above. We conclude with some policy recommendations.
CHANGING NATURE OF JOBS
One indicator of how the nature of jobs in Indonesia is changing is the task content of jobs. A job can be characterised by the skills required to carry out the main activity (cognitive vs. manual) and by the nature of those tasks (routine vs. discretionary/non-routine processes). Five categories have been identified in the literature on the task content of jobs:
- Non-routine cognitive and analytical tasks require the person carrying out the task to analyse and process abstract information and actively use it to solve complex problems.
- Non-routine cognitive and interpersonal tasks require the person carrying out the task to manage people and relationships.
- Routine cognitive tasks require the person carrying out the task to perform repetitive mental tasks with a higher degree of accuracy without the use of their discretion.
- Routine manual tasks require the person carrying out the task to perform repetitive motions.
- Non-routine manual tasks require the person carrying out the task to exercise judgement and physical dexterity.
Wihardja and Cunningham (2021) have added a sixth category, namely (6) digital tasks which require the person to carry out such tasks by working with computers and electronics.
In general, jobs in Indonesia still involve a lot of manual work. But from 2001 to 2015, a big decrease in manual tasks took place alongside a significant increase in tasks that require digital skills (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Evolution of task content of jobs in Indonesia, 2001-2015
Source: ONET 5.0; Sakernas 2001–10, 2013–15; authors’ calculations
Note: The methodology to calculate task contents can be found in Box 5.2 in Wihardja and Cunningham, 2021
The changing nature of jobs in Indonesia is also marked by changing occupational shares, although not as evidently so. The share of sales workers (mid-skilled occupations) decreased from 2001 to 2019, while the share of managerial, professional, and technical workers (high-skilled occupations) increased (Table 1).[ii] The shares of clerical workers; production, transport equipment workers, and labourers; and service workers remained relatively stable. As will be shown later, these changes are partly driven by the declining cost of digital technology as proxied by the price of hard disc drives, and changes in the economic structure.
Table 1. Share Occupation (%), 2001, 2006 and 2019
Source: Sakernas 2001, 2006 and 2019, authors’ calculations
Note: The agriculture sector is excluded from the calculations.
Investment and Employment in the Digital Sector
The digital transformation of the economy is driven in part by private investments. To understand how digital investment has evolved, we use highly disaggregated investment data across Indonesia’s economic sectors from 2010 to 2016. This data is sourced from Indonesia’s Ministry of Investment. We also use the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) definitions of a digital sector, as shown in Annex Table 1.
This definition can be further broken down into three sectors: manufacturing, trade, and services based on their main economic activities. Examples of industries in the digital manufacturing sector are consumer electronics, electronic components and computers. Examples of industries in the digital trade sector are wholesale and retail sales of consumer electronics, electronic components and computers including those via mail order or internet order. Examples of industries in the digital service sector are computer programming and data processing activities. The complete list of industries in each digital sub-sector can be found in Annex Table 1.
Digital investment has been growing rapidly in Indonesia, even if it still accounts for a relatively small share of all investments. The share of new investment projects in the digital sector relative to the non-digital sector significantly increased in 2013 and since then, has hovered at around five percent of the total new investment projects. The digital service sector dominates new digital investment projects, accounting for 50 percent of total new digital investment projects between 2010 and 2016.
In the same period, the number of new investment projects in the digital manufacturing sector grew more slowly than the number for digital trade and digital services. While the number of new digital manufacturing investment projects almost doubled (from 57 to 93) between 2010 and 2016, the number of digital services investment projects increased four-fold (67 to 246) and the number of digital trade investment projects increased forty-fold, albeit that it started from a low base (4 to 166) (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Total Number of New Investment Projects by Digital Sub-Sectors, 2010-2016
Source: Authors’ calculations based on investment data from the Ministry of Investment. Retrieved 2020.
However, increases in digital investment are not proportionately followed by increases in employment in the digital sector. Between 2011 and 2016, the share of employment in the digital sector hardly changed, hovering around 1.2 percent of total employment. This shows that the digital sector is less labour intensive than the non-digital sector. Within the digital sector, the employment share of digital services remained stable at 45 percent, the employment share of digital manufacturing declined from 15 percent in 2011 to 9 percent in 2016, and the employment share of digital trade increased from 39 percent in 2011 to 45 percent in 2016.
Workers in the digital sector usually get paid more than those in the non-digital sectors (Figure 3). In 2016, people working in digital manufacturing were earning the most, followed by those in digital services, while those in digital trade were earning the least. Although wages in both digital and non-digital sectors grew at a similar pace, there are differences in wage growth rates within the digital sector itself, with wage growth in digital manufacturing growing the fastest.
Figure 3: Real wage across sectors, 2011-2016 (million Rupiah 2010)
Source: Authors’ calculations based on Sakernas 2011–16
In the next three sections, we will discuss the channels through which digital transformation can widen wage inequality.
WIDENING SKILL PREMIUM
Recent evidence from Indonesia indicates that as internet penetration increases, the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers – known as the skill premium – has also grown. This means skilled workers are earning relatively more compared to unskilled workers. Using data from 2005 (post arrival of the internet) to 2019 (before COVID-19), Jacoby et al. (2021) show that the incremental benefits of internet penetration are greater for more educated workers, further widening the skill premium between less and more educated workers in Indonesia (Table 2). These effects survive intact after controlling for contemporaneous local trends/other lurking/confounding variables such as GDP, urbanisation, a district’s average expenditure per capita, and the sectoral composition of jobs. These effects did not pre-date the arrival of the internet.
The last column in Table 2 shows that a one-percentage point increase in internet penetration increases the wage return to education for workers with college/university degree or higher by 0.6 percentage point but only by a 0.1-percentage point increase for workers with lower secondary school education and a 0.3-percentage point increase for workers with higher secondary school.
Table 2: Internet penetration has exacerbated the skill premium
Source: Jacoby et al (2021)
The same study, which uses 2005 to 2015 firm census data from medium and large manufacturing companies, confirms this widening wage gap due to increasing skill premium. Non-production workers (a proxy for more educated workers) earn more than production workers (a proxy for less-educated workers), and an increase in internet penetration increases this wage gap. This additional wage return of the internet on non-production workers does not pre-date the introduction of the internet (1990–2004).
At this point, however, little is known about how to attenuate the impacts of skill-biased technological change. Building on this work, Wihardja et al (forthcoming, 2024) explore channels that could attenuate the impact of internet penetration in widening the wage gap. There are indications that having certified training might help reduce the widening wage gap caused by the move towards digital adoption. Although we cannot distinguish between training in digital skills and training in other skills, this estimate provides a lower-bound estimate of the impact of certified training in attenuating the impact of internet penetration in widening the wage gap.
HOLLOWING OUT OF ROUTINE, MIDDLE-SKILLED JOBS
Digital technological change is not always labour augmenting, i.e., helping workers increase their productivity, but sometimes it can be labour replacing, i.e., cutting jobs. However, low-skilled jobs that need personalised care or services such as masseuses, may not be easily replaced by technology, but routine jobs will be. These jobs are likely to be middle-skilled jobs; this will, in turn, create job polarisation or hollow out middle-skilled occupations including (door-to-door) sales workers and clerical workers.
More affordable technology as proxied by the price of computer memory (hard disc drive)[iii] has been turbocharging digital transformation globally, but this has benefited high-skilled workers while adversely affecting middle-skilled workers, especially clerical and sales workers, not only in developed countries but also in developing countries like Indonesia (Wihardja et al, forthcoming 2024). There are also other factors such as the supply and demand of different types of skills in the labour market resulting from educational improvement and structural changes that adversely affect middle-skilled workers (Annex Table 2). Premature deindustrialisation in the early 2000s in Indonesia, for example, has increased the demand for low-end skills and high-end skills but hollowed out mid-level skills due to the decline in manufacturing employment.
EFFECTS OF DIGITAL INVESTMENT ON WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT
A new investment project in the digital manufacturing sector, such as in new manufactures of consumer electronics, computers and electronic components, differentially impacts wages of workers, disproportionately benefiting workers at the top of the wage distribution. A new investment project in the digital manufacturing sector decreases wages for workers in the lower quantiles (bottom 60 percentiles of the wage distribution), while increasing wages for those in the upper quantiles (upper 40 percentiles of the wage distribution) (Figure 4). This presumably occurs through automation and other skill-intensive technological change as shown below. In contrast, new investment projects in digital trade and digital services have no significant incremental impact on wages across the wage distribution.
Figure 4: Marginal Impact of New Investment Projects on Wage
Sources: Wihardja et al (forthcoming, 2023).
Data from Sakernas 2010-2016; investment data from Ministry of Investment.
Note: Bars show 95% confidence interval.
A new investment project in the digital manufacturing sector reduces employment in the sector by 0.5 percent. The negative impact on employment of a new investment project in the digital manufacturing sector is most pronounced among female workers; less-educated youths and older workers; and blue-collar (both low- and high-skilled) workers (Figure 5). Blue-collar, low-skilled workers include plant and machine operators and assemblers, while blue-collar, high-skilled workers include electrical installers and repairers. Meanwhile, highly educated youth and white-collar workers benefit the most from a new digital manufacturing investment project.
A new investment project in digital trade, such as wholesale and retail sales of computers, electronic and telecommunication equipment via mail or internet order, reduces employment by 4.1 percent. The negative employment impact of a new investment project in digital trade is most pronounced among female workers; less-educated older workers; and white-collar, low-skilled workers (often associated with clerical and sales workers) (Figure 5). Meanwhile, highly educated older workers and high-skilled, blue-collar workers (such as specialised traders of electrical and electronic equipment) benefit the most from such an investment project.
A new investment project in digital services, such as software publishing, computer programming activities and satellite telecommunication activities, only increases employment of highly educated older workers (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Marginal Impact of New Investment Projects on Employment, by Worker Group, 2010-2016
Sources: Sakernas 2010-2016; authors’ calculations
Note: Bars show 95% confidence interval.
All of the abovementioned findings show that less-educated workers and workers with high routine task content – whether in blue- or white-collar jobs – are more vulnerable and easily replaced at the onset of digital technological change. There are, however, cases where high-skilled, blue-collar workers with higher non-routine task contents such as electrical installers and repairers in the digital manufacturing sector may also be adversely affected, especially by automation.
Although traditionally disadvantaged workers, including females, rural workers, lower educated, and older workers, run higher risks of being left behind; they are also the ones who potentially benefits the most if they were more equipped with digital skills and had higher digital task content in their jobs. In fact, increasing digital task content of job among these workers could significantly boost their incomes.
CONCLUSION
To address the digital divide arising from digital transformation, we recommend that policies to accelerate Indonesia’s digital transformation and liberalise its digital investment are accompanied by complementary policies on education, labour, and internet infrastructure (Table 3).
Table 3: Complementary Policies to Ensure an Inclusive Digital Transformation in Indonesia
Source: Authors’ analysis
Our analyses, however, do not take into account the effects of new and emerging digital technologies post-2019 such as generative AI. Contrary to our analysis, a study by Felten et al (2023) and Hui et al (2023) shows that generative AI exposes mostly highly educated, highly paid, and white-collar workers including in online freelancing world to job losses. Hence, different digital technologies may have different impacts on the labour market. Our policy recommendations shed light on the findings in this essay while considering that digital technologies will continuously evolve.
REFERENCES
Felten, E., M. Raj, and R. Seamans (2023), ‘How Will Language Modelers like ChatGPT Affect Occupations and Industries?’ https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2303/2303.01157.pdf
Hui, Xiang, Oren Reshef, and Luofeng Zhou (2023), ‘The Short-Term Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Employment: Evidence from an Online Labour Market’, cesifo Working Papers, https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10601.pdf
Jacoby, H., S. Tiwari, A. Swarnata, and M. M. Wihardja (2021), ‘Evidence of Skill-Biased Technological Change in Indonesia’, background paper to World Bank, 2021.
Muhtadi, Burhanuddin, Hui Yew-Foong, and Siwage Dharma Negara (2022), ‘The Indonesia National Survey Project 2022’, Trends in Southeast Asia, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute publication, /wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TRS3_23.pdf
Norbäck, Pehr-Johan, Lars Persson, and Joacin Tåg (2014), ‘Acquisitions, entry, and innovation in oligopolistic network industries’, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 37, pp. 1-12
OECD (2021), ‘How Emerging Markets Can Leapfrog into the Digital Age’, OECD Development Matters. https://oecd-development-matters.org/2021/10/06/how-emerging-markets-can-leapfrog-into-the-digital-age/
UNSD (United Nations Statistical Division) (2008), International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC). New York: United Nations.
Wihardja, Maria Monica, Abror Tegar Pradana, Putu Sanjiwacika Wibisana, Arya Swarnata, and Aufa Doarest (Forthcoming, 2024), ‘The Heterogenous Impacts of Digital Transformation and Investment on Indonesia’s Labour Market’, ERIA Discussion paper.
Wihardja, Maria Monica, and Abror Tegar Pradana (2022), ‘Examining the Drivers of Changes in Mean Earning and Earning Inequality in Indonesia’, Economics Working Paper, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute publication, /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ISEAS_EWP_2022-2_WihardjaPradana.pdf
Wihardja, Maria Monica, and Wendy Cunningham (2021), Pathways to Middle-Class Jobs in Indonesia, Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/indonesia/publication/pathways-to-middle-class-jobs-in-indonesia
World Bank (2022). Beyond Unicorns: Harnessing Digital Technologies for Inclusion in Indonesia, Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/indonesia/publication/beyond-unicorns-harnessing-digital-technologies-for-inclusion-in-indonesia
ANNEXES
Annex Table 1: Industry code-based definition of digital sector
UNSD ICT Sector
Manufacturing:
2610: Manufacture of electronic components and boards
2620: Manufacture of computers and peripheral equipment
2630: Manufacture of communication equipment
2640: Manufacture of consumer electronics
2680: Manufacture of magnetic and optical media
Trade:
4651: Wholesale of computers, computer peripheral equipment, and software
4652: Wholesale of electronic and telecommunications equipment and parts
4741: Retail sale of computers, peripheral units, software, and telecommunication equipment in specialised stores
4791: Retail sale via mail order houses or via internet
Services:
581: Publishing of books, periodicals, and other publishing activities
5820: Software publishing
591: Motion picture, video and television program activities
592: Sound recording and music publishing activities
60: Broadcasting and programming activities
6110: Wired telecommunications activities
6120: Wireless telecommunications activities
6130: Satellite telecommunications activities
6190: Other telecommunications activities
6201: Computer programming activities
6202: Computer consultancy and computer facilities management activities
6209: Other information technology and computer service activities
6311: Data processing, hosting and related activities
6312: Web portals
639: Other information service activities
9511: Repair of computers and peripheral equipment
9512: Repair of communication equipment
Note: Blue denotes additional definition based on OECD (2021).
Annex Table 2: Drivers of Job Polarisation
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
2024/5 “Rhetorical Sympathy for the Palestinian Struggle in Malaysia and the Poignant Misuse of ‘Zionism’” by Benjamin Y H Loh and Sarah Ali
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Malaysia’s online and offline support for Palestine in light of the 7 October 2023 attacks seems to indicate a dualism in solidarity— voluble support for the Palestinian cause juxtaposed with opposition to taking in Palestinian refugees and asylum seekers.
- Online sentiments show that netizens were against allowing Palestinian refugees into the country and according them basic rights, citing that Malaysia already had a huge number of refugees in the country—most of whom are Rohingya—and was struggling with its limited resources, which should be channelled to its own citizens first.
- Others contended that allowing the Palestinians into Malaysia would mean victory for Zionist imperialism and depriving the Palestinians of the right to their own homeland and the chance at so-called martyrdom.
- Interestingly, discourses on social media have also taken on an ethno-nationalist dimension, with some netizens equating the Rohingya to Zionists. The term “Zionist” has been expropriated by Malay supremacists to target individuals challenging Malaysia’s established ethno-nationalist order.
- The Rohingya are deemed to be a threat to Malaysian society and responsible for a host of social problems. It is argued that the influx of Rohingyas in Malaysia will result in the community taking over the country and displacing locals in the future, similar to events taking place in Palestine (ignoring the drastically different circumstances). Ironically, these Malay supremacists espouse a similar divisive rhetoric as the Israeli Zionists they claim to despise.
- Conditional support for Palestinians, influenced by ethno-nationalist rhetoric, raises concerns about understanding and empathy of intricate geopolitical and humanitarian issues. It is imperative to confront and question these ideas to promote enlightened and empathetic discussions on the ground.
* Benjamin Y.H. Loh is Visiting Fellow of the Media, Technology and Society Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and Senior Lecturer at Taylor’s University. Sarah Ali is PhD candidate at the Gender Studies Programme at Universiti Malaya.
ISEAS Perspective 2024/5, 22 January 2024
INTRODUCTION
Despite Malaysia being a staunch supporter of Palestine, a closer analysis of both online and offline support for Palestinians since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent retaliatory operations in Gaza suggest that Malaysia’s support tends to be rhetorical or limited. It can be argued that Malaysians’ conditional support for Palestine but not its refugees reflect a strong desire to preserve Malaysia’s domestic stability in the face of its own challenges with refugees.
At the start of the conflict, there was a huge outpouring of support for Palestine across Malaysian online spaces. Most of the comments were statements of solidarity with Palestine, condemnation of Zionist forces, and support for the bravery of Palestinians in defending their land. However, it seemed that this support was contingent, as illustrated by the furore caused by a post advocating that Malaysia permits Palestinian refugees into the country and accord them certain rights. The post read:
@Iqtodabal [1]
This comment was viewed one million times and started a huge debate over refugee rights in Malaysia. The vast majority of X users who attacked this statement—mostly from the Malay-Muslim community—were vehement in denying any form of asylum and rights to Palestinian refugees. The core of their argument was that they supported the Palestinian fight to protect their homeland and, thus, accepting Palestinians as refugees would be counter to that goal, as illustrated in a sampling of tweets in Figure 1.[2]
Figure 1. Montage of tweets from netizens who were against allowing Palestinians to seek refuge in Malaysia, citing that they had their own land and should therefore not be deprived of the right to defend it.[3]
Today, there are at least 600 Palestinian refugees in Malaysia who are unable to work or send their children to school.[4]
Analysis of online narratives since the spate of violence began in early October 2023 showed that sentiments were highly ethno-nationalist in nature, which also saw a curious twist in how the term “Zionist” was weaponized to demonise Rohingya refugees in Malaysia.
METHODOLOGY
The data for this article were collected from three social media sites: X, as well as the Lowyat.net and cari.com.my forums between 7 October-6 December 2023. Keywords such as Israel, Palestine/Palestin, Rohingya, and Zionist/Zionis were inputted into a social media listening platform, with the location narrowed down to Malaysia, and limited to posts in English and Bahasa Melayu. Throughout the period, 718 posts were analysed.[5]
In general, X users are a balance of both genders and are multiracial. Whereas Lowyat.net is a traditional web forum which caters to a largely English-speaking male demographic and Cari.com.my is a Malay language-based (and also male dominated) forum. Discourse was mainly driven by the Malay-Muslims, as it is widely perceived that the Israel-Hamas conflict hinges on a religious dimension.
It was found that X was the most balanced space for digital public discourse; comments on Lowyat were widely jingoistic, especially when it came to the discussion of refugees, while Cari had the most heated and concentrated presence of ethno-nationalists. Overall, the majority were sympathetic and supportive of the Palestine resistance. However, others drew a line at Malaysia taking in refugees, arguing that the country’s resources were already stretched thin and that its citizens should come first. Interestingly, a strand of discourse also morphed into the misappropriation of the term “Zionist” to refer to the Rohingya in Malaysia.
SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIANS AT A DISTANCE BUT NOT AT HOME
Malaysia has always had a contentious history and relationship with refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of November 2023, there are an estimated 185,000 refugees in Malaysia, all of whom are not given any legal status and access to basic services such as healthcare, education, or the right to work, as Malaysia is not a party to the Refugee Convention. The vast majority of these refugees are from Myanmar, of which over 100,000 are Rohingya. The Rohingya community has generally been unwelcome in Malaysia due to their large numbers and lack of access to resources, which has caused the community to be associated with crime and other social ills.
Malaysian antipathy towards Rohingya refugees has been used to dissuade and deny Palestinian refugees from making their way to Malaysia. Some netizens argue that if Malaysia opens its doors to these refugees, then it was akin to letting the Zionists win. There is no irony in the way these comments are presented, even as reports of the high death toll among Palestinian civilians continue to stream in daily. Some Muslim commenters consider these deaths as martyrdom and therefore allowing them to leave would be seen as denying these civilians their right to “mati syahid”.[6]
Figure 2. Examples of tweets which highlight the perceived glorification of martyrdom among the Palestinians who staunchly defended their homeland[7]
When the debate on refugees began, some netizens began comparing Palestinians and the Rohingya. They argued that if Palestinians were allowed to become refugees, they would be no better than the Rohingya. In contrast to the brave Palestinians who stayed in their country despite being under attack, the cowardly Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar were labelled as weak. The discourse started to turn incredibly toxic when the attention shifted towards the Rohingya community in Malaysia. The storming of the Balee Meuseuraya Aceh (BMA) which housed Rohingya asylum seekers by Indonesian university students on 27 December 2023 was lauded by Malaysian netizens, many of whom enjoined the same proactive measures to be taken in Malaysia in response to the presence of Rohingya in the country.[8]
WEAPONIZING ZIONISM
The narratives against the Rohingya have also taken on a curious twist with the misappropriation of the term “Zionism”. Originally used to denigrate Israel and its widening occupation of Palestine, there has been a misappropriation of the term by Malay ethno-nationalists seeking to attack anyone that threatens the status quo of the majority group in Malaysia
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rohingya faced accusations of practising Zionist-like settler colonialism from Malay supremacist groups on social media. Allegations have been suggested that their settlement in Malaysia was aimed at integrating into society, increasing the size of their population, and eventually displacing Malays as the dominant ethnic group. This narrative gained traction after a COVID-19 hotspot emerged in a migrant market in Selayang in mid-2020, leading to increased xenophobia, online racism, and discrimination against the community. Malaysian authorities and mainstream media portrayed the Rohingya as a threat to national security, accused them of committing crimes, and blamed them for taking over the jobs of locals. As a result, Rohingya asylum seekers were turned away from Malaysian shores over fears of exacerbating the spread of COVID-19.
Recently, boats carrying Rohingya refugees attempted to land in Aceh, Indonesia, and were turned away, even as the occupants ran out of food, water, and fuel.[9] Many ethno-nationalist accounts on X latched on to this event and applauded the Indonesians for preventing their entry.[10] This started a deeply racist-driven discussion about how the Rohingya were not wanted across Southeast Asia (especially amongst Muslim countries) and countries needed to be vigilant in not accepting them.[11] Both Indonesian and Malay commenters reused and reinforced many stereotypical and dehumanising terms to describe the Rohingya, including calling them Zionists.[12]
An infographic depicting the “Zionist strategy” of the Rohingya (as illustrated in Figure 3), which was first formulated in 2020, started making the rounds on Malaysian social media in light of the Aceh incursions. One Facebook post featuring this image drew up to 16,000 engagements, 4,000 comments and 4,000 shares.[13] The post was written in a sarcastic tone, picturing a future where Rohingya had successfully embedded themselves in Malaysia (enabled by corrupt government officials), with the comments engaging in discussing stereotypes of Rohingya.
Source: @blackmerz101 X account.[14]
Figure 3. Infographic of Malaysia being taken over by the Rohingya in the future if the country continues to accept them as refugees and asylum seekers. Original source is unknown but first circulated in 2020
A CRITIQUE OF THE USAGE OF “ZIONISM” IN THE MALAYSIAN CONTEXT
The term “Zionism” has been used by Malay supremacists to refer to any attempt by migrants seeking to displace local populations. It completely disregards the different context in which Israeli Zionism exists and the different power dynamics between Israel and Palestine. In simple terms, Zionism constitutes a form of Jewish nationalism, an ideological and political movement which advocates the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Israel.[15] Zionism essentially posits that Jews living outside of Israel are considered aliens in the countries they live in and therefore, must “settle” in the Jewish nation state, which effectively implies the secondary status of its non-Jewish citizens.[16]
Many Malaysians have a misconception regarding the concept of being Jewish and being pro-Zionist. Oftentimes, the two are considered to be one and the same, when in reality, one can profess the Jewish faith without being an advocate of Zionism. Hence, this misunderstanding manifests itself as an expression of anti-Semitism (a misnomer for referring to all peoples who speak Semitic languages), and as hostility and discrimination against Jews. An incident involving Malaysian singer, Kaka Azraff, is a case in point.[17] In her tirade against Australian actor, Nathaniel Buzolic over his pro-Israel stance, she was documented calling for the eradication of “all Israel” by Hitler and using a slur typically used against the queer community, resulting in her losing her contract with Warner Music Malaysia.
Ironically, ethno-nationalists labelling the Rohingya Zionists share more principles with Zionists than they realise. Many of them espouse Malaysia as being a “Malay country” and other ethnicities as being “pendatang” (migrants). The rhetoric from these groups has always been hostile toward non-Malay communities (including indigenous groups from the Borneo territories and the Orang Asli), based on a perception that Malaysia is a Malay state that had had the grace to let non-Malays live in the country but not to complain or to interfere in its politics.
Source: Jew Hate Database.
Figure 4. Screenshot of Kaka Azraff’s reply to Nathaniel Buzolic’s story on Instagram.
CONCLUSION
Rising intolerance has been detected in both mainstream and niche sections of Malaysia’s digital public sphere. If allowed to go unchecked, xenophobia and hostility towards migrants on the basis of different ethnicity, nationality, or cultural background could potentially give rise to further polarisation within Malaysian society, stemming from an us-versus-them mentality. Simmering tensions may come to a head by culminating in violence which targets foreigners, thus jeopardising the stability and harmony of the country.
The misappropriation of the term “Zionist” by Malay ethno-nationalists to refer to the Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers in the country reflects a concerning trend of using loaded language to perpetuate negative stereotypes and advance prejudiced narratives. This mislabelling not only inaccurately characterises the Rohingya’s plight, but at the same time also underscores broader issues within Malaysia’s response to international conflict, particularly the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The conditional nature of support for the Palestinians, influenced by Malay supremacist rhetoric, raises troubling questions about the depth of understanding and empathy involved in addressing global humanitarian issues. It is crucial to challenge and correct these narratives, emphasising the importance of accurate terminology and fostering a more informed and compassionate dialogue surrounding such complex geopolitical events.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
2024/4 “Thailand Awaits Momentous Changes in the First Two Months of This New Year” by Termsak Chalermpalanupap
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Five explosive issues will come to a head in Thailand in the first two months of this new year.
- Two rulings of the Constitutional Court will be consequential. One will determine the future of Pita Limjaroenrat, the ex-party leader of Move Forward Party, and the other the fate of that party itself.
- A third ruling of the Constitutional Court will affect the well-being of Bhumjaithai, the second largest government party, and hence the stability of the Pheu Thai-led coalition government of 11 parties.
- What will directly affect Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin is the legality of his plan to borrow 500 billion baht to fund the controversial “digital wallet” programme. Advice from the State Council on whether the huge borrowing is lawful is still being digested by a national committee headed by the prime minister.
- But what could ultimately determine how long Srettha can last in office is how well he can manage the controversy of favourable treatment for former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been spending more than four months receiving treatment in a police hospital instead of being in prison serving a one-year jail term for corruption.
* Termsak Chalermpalanupap is Visiting Fellow and Coordinator of the Thailand Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
ISEAS Perspective 2024/4, 19 January 2024
INTRODUCTION
Thailand enters 2024 with growing trepidation as five explosive political issues will come to a head in the first two months of the new year. Soon it will be evident how the Thai political landscape will change, either for the better or for the worse. And, in particular, it will be clearer how much longer Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin can stay in office.
The 30th prime minister of Thailand took office barely four months ago and has been trying to cope with a lingering “crisis of confidence”.[1] His self-assessment late last December was: “So far, so good.”[2] Nevertheless, he expressed his determination to go the full distance of his four-year term.[3]
The 61-year-old former real estate CEO is a newcomer in Thai politics. He is not an MP and he holds no leadership post in Pheu Thai, the chief government party.
Since 27 October, Pheu Thai has been led by Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 37, the youngest daughter of former prime minister Thaksin. She is widely seen as the “prime minister in-waiting”.[4]
Officially, Paetongtarn holds three government posts, including chairperson of the Committee on National Soft Power Development.[5] In a recent move apparently aimed at widening her connections, Paetongtarn has applied to the National Defence College’s new (six-month-long) training course for young leaders and entrepreneurs.[6]
This could indicate that she is not in a hurry to replace Srettha any time soon. After all, her recent popularity has dropped to fourth place behind ex-leader of Move Forward Party (MFP) Pita Limjaroenrat, Srettha, and in a recent survey, she even came behind the pool of undecided respondents.[7]
For now, Pheu Thai, with 141 MPs, is quite comfortable leading the government coalition of 11 parties with 314 MPs, making up a strong majority of nearly 63% of MPs in the 500-member House of Representatives. This has led the Pheu Thai leadership and Srettha to dismiss recurring rumours about co-opting the Democrat Party with 25 MPs into the government coalition.
Democrat Party has been in disarray since its poor showing in the May general election last year. Party leader Jurin Laksanawisit stepped down to accept responsibility for the defeat. Subsequent party infightings delayed the selection of a new party leader until early December.
Finally, Chalermchai Sri-on, the party secretary-general who had vowed to quit politics after the electoral defeat, accepted the party leader post on 7 December.[8] He received strong backing from 21 of the 25 MPs of the party, amid speculation that those MPs want Chalermchai to lead the party to join the government coalition.
The turbulence in Democrat Party has little effect on the opposition led by the MFP, the winner of the May general election, which now has 148 MPs.[9] How effective the MFP can be in holding the Srettha Administration accountable depends directly on two upcoming decisions in the Constitutional Court.
FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
On 24 January, the Constitutional Court is due to announce its ruling on whether Pita is qualified to serve as an MP. He has been accused of unlawfully holding media shares, which all legislators are prohibited from doing, and has been suspended from the House membership by the Constitutional Court since 19 July 2023[10] – the day his second bid for the premiership was rejected in parliament.
Pita defended himself by insisting that he had held shares of iTV in his capacity as the estate manager of his family after the death of his father on 19 September 2006. And on 24 June 2019, he transferred the 42,000 shares in question to his younger brother because he intended to enter politics as a member of Future Forward Party.[11]
iTV was closed down by a cabinet’s decision on 7 March 2007 for failing to pay broadcasting concession agreement fees. It was delisted from the Stock Exchange of Thailand on 24 July 2014. The move rendered almost worthless the estimated 1,200 million shares of iTV which could no longer be traded in the stock market. However, iTV has not dissolved itself because of a pending litigation with the Office of the Permanent Secretary of the PM’s Office. iTV is seeking a compensation of 2,890 million baht for the closure and termination of its broadcasting licence by the government authority.
Pita has, therefore, pointed out that iTV had already ceased broadcasting operation long before he entered politics; and thus he has never derived any political advantage from holding the iTV shares.
Pita intends to return to lead the MFP if he is acquitted. He is still the MFP’s sole candidate for the premiership.
Should the Constitutional Court disqualify him from serving as an MP and holding ministerial posts, Pita wants to play new roles outside of parliament, like his predecessor Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit has been doing.[12]
Meanwhile, the MFP, which is the successor party to Thanathorn’s dissolved Future Forward Party, awaits a ruling from the Constitutional Court, scheduled to be announced on 31 January. The MFP has been accused of undermining the constitutional monarchy by using as one of its main campaign issues a call for reform of the controversial Section 112 in the Criminal Code, the so-called “lese-majeste” law.
If found guilty, the Constitutional Court will order the MFP to refrain from repeating the violation. However, the Election Commission can – and most probably will – follow up by dissolving the party as punishment for the violation committed during the election campaign early last year.
Worse, the Election Commission can also ban from national politics for up to 10 years, all members on the MFP’s executive committee in office during the May election campaign. This will hurt the party more, because those facing the ban include Pita who was then the party leader, and Chaithawat Tulathon, who was then the party secretary-general, and now the incumbent party leader.
Others not affected by the ban are expected to move to join another party.[13] Several young MFP MPs took prominent roles during the debate on the draft budget bill on 3-5 January. They appeared to be preparing themselves as the next generation to carry on the struggle for reforms if and when the MFP is dissolved.
BHUMJAITHAI HOLDS ITS BREATH
Another party holding its breath is Bhumjaithai, the second largest government party with 71 MPs, whose leader Anutin Charnvirakul, is a deputy prime minister and minister of interior (home affairs). On 17 January, the Constitutional Court announced its ruling on a case involving Bhumjaithai party secretary-general Saksayam Chidchob. He was found guilty of conflict of interest.
A group of 54 MFP MPs has accused Saksayam of unlawfully and secretly owning a construction firm, Buri Charoen Construction Limited Partnership, which had won lucrative government construction contracts, including some worth more than 1 billion baht from the Ministry of Transport in which Saksayam was the minister.[14] The Constitutional Court found enough evidence against Saksayam to suspend him from the ministerial post on 3 March 2023, and to proceed with the hearing.
In a decision of 7 to 1, the Constitutional Court found Saksayam guilty as accused and reaffirmed that he is no longer qualified to hold any ministerial post. He immediately resigned from the House and relinquished his post as secretary-general of the party.
This will weaken his party, whose support and well-being in the coalition government is crucial to the stability of the government coalition, and to the longevity of Srettha’s premiership. Saksayam is known as the “engine” of the party, acting on behalf of his influential but enigmatic elder brother Newin. Another lesser-known elder brother of Saksayam, Pol Gen Permpoon (a retired former deputy national police chief), is now the minister of education.
DIGITAL WALLET QUAGMIRE
In the meantime, PM Srettha will be struggling to survive a worsening ordeal of his own making – delivering on one of his biggest election campaign promises: the “digital wallet”.
On 10 January, the State Council submitted its written response to Srettha, who is concurrently the minister of finance, on whether his administration can lawfully borrow 500 billion baht (US$14 billion) to fund its controversial “digital wallet” programme. The State Council reportedly reiterated the need to abide by the State Fiscal and Financial Disciplines Act of B.E. 2561, which went into force in 2018. The law requires every government administration to give due consideration to transparency and cost-effectiveness of public borrowing, as well as economical treatment of discretionary spending.[15]
A national committee headed by Srettha will study the response of the State Council. It is also waiting for views of the National Anti-Corruption Commission on this issue.
Srettha will be in deep and hot water if he cannot move forward. He has insisted that the Thai economy has been in “crisis”[16] and it is crucial to remedy the situation by speeding up the launching of the “digital wallet” programme, which has already been postponed from 1 February to sometime in May.
Initially, Pheu Thai had campaigned early last year on giving every Thai adult 16 years old and above a “digital wallet” containing spending credit of 10,000 baht (US$286). About 56 million Thais would be eligible and thus about 560 billion baht would be needed. It was Srettha, in his capacity as one of Pheu Thai’s three candidates for the premiership, who on 4 April 2023 made the fanciful announcement unveiling the “digital wallet”.
On 20 November, under growing criticism of wastefulness, Srettha announced new criteria to reduce the number of eligible recipients. Those earning a monthly salary of 70,000 baht or more, or having 500,000 baht or more in bank deposits, are no longer eligible. This will reduce to about 50 million the number of eligible recipients.[17] But the consumption stimulation programme will still cost 500 billion baht.
Srettha believes the injection of 500 billion through the “digital wallet” will help stimulate growth in 2024 and help Thailand overcome the economic “crisis”.
However, he has overlooked one inconvenient statistic: domestic consumption in the private sector, grew about 8.1% in the third quarter, and 7.8% in the second quarter.[18] Moreover, the Thai economy is forecast to grow from 2.5% in 2023 to 3.2% in 2024. In fact, the Government House is advertising a (nominal) growth rate of 5.4% this year, when 2.2% of inflation in 2024 is included.[19]
The massive new borrowing will undoubtedly be challenged in the Constitutional Court, because it violates the 2018 fiscal discipline law. And such a court case will further delay the launching of the “digital wallet” programme.
Should the verdict go against the borrowing, then Srettha’s premiership will be in jeopardy, because the “digital wallet” is supposed to be his first flagship achievement. Pheu Thai – which campaigned under the slogan “คิดใหญ่ ทำเป็น” [Think Big, Can Do] will be forced to abandon the “digital wallet” programme. But even then, will it be enough to keep Srettha in the premiership?
DEVADA (ANGEL) ON THE 14TH FLOOR
Bangkok, or “Krungthep” (The City of Angels), now has a new famous but controversial “devada” (angel) residing on the 14th floor of the Police Hospital’s “premium ward”. After returning to Bangkok on 22 August from 17 years in overseas exile, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra surrendered to the Corrections Department to face eight years of combined jail terms from three convictions for corruption.
On his arrival, the 74-year-old two-time former Thai premier looked healthy and cheerfully greeted his family and supporters. The Corrections Department however reported receiving Thaksin’s medical records showing that he has four physical sickness issues: Ischemic heart disease, abnormalities in lungs from past COVID infection, hyper-tension, and Spondylosis (weakened spine bones).[20]
After less than 12 hours in a Bangkok prison, Thaksin reportedly became seriously ill and had to be whisked to the hospital for emergency treatment. He has since stayed in hospital and become known as the “Devada[21] on the 14th Floor”. The area has become “off limits” to all outsiders.
On 1 September, the Royal Gazette published a royal command to reduce Thaksin’s jail term to one year, in light of his repentance and his appeal for clemency owing to old age and sickness.[22] In the royal command, Thaksin was referred to as a “male absolute prisoner” [นักโทษเด็ดขาดชาย] (a convict who has exhausted all judicial appeals).[23] This means he has a criminal record – which, according to the national police chief, cannot be erased.[24] Consequently, Thaksin will no longer be eligible to hold most public offices after his release.
Thaksin is now quietly awaiting the time when he will have served half of the one-year jail term, on 22 February, when he will qualify for release under parole next month. The parole law went into effect in 2017, and regulations concerning parole implementation procedures were issued on 6 December 2023. A committee headed by a deputy director-general of the Corrections Department is in charge of deciding on the parole.
This has enabled both Justice Minister Pol Col Tawee Sodsong and PM Srettha to deny any “special treatment” for Thaksin, saying that the parole law was enacted during the Prayut Administration in order to ease overcrowding in the prisons. Both of them have chosen not to discuss Thaksin’s illness[25] on the grounds of respect for Thaksin’s privacy.
On 6 January, the Corrections Department issued a press statement insisting that “every convict serving term outside of prison must follow rules and regulations strictly, just like all other convicts in prison. … There are no privileges [for Thaksin]…”[26]
So far, Srettha’s only involvement in the Thaksin case was to remove on last Christmas Day Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thapsutin of Pheu Thai from supervising the Justice Ministry, and assigning Deputy Prime Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga of United Thai Nation (UTN) to supervise the Justice Ministry, which controls the Corrections Department. The change could be aimed at distancing Pheu Thai from the growing criticism about alleged “special treatment” for Thaksin.
With his background as a judge, Pirapan has experience and deep knowledge of the Thai legal system. He also has close connections to ex-premier General Prayut Chan-o-cha. General Prayut is now a member of the Privy Council. Prior to the May general election, General Prayut was one of the two premiership candidates of the UTN; the other candidate was and still is party leader Pirapan.
It would seem therefore that Pirapan is the ideal choice not only to prepare for the controversial release of Thaksin, but also to clear all legal obstacles for a smooth return of Thaksin’s younger sister, former prime minister Yingluck, from overseas exile.
Yingluck (56) fled the country through the Thai-Cambodian border in August 2017 just days before a court announced a guilty verdict against her for dereliction of duty in failing to stop the massive corruption in the paddy purchase scheme launched by her Administration.[27] She was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.
In order for her to request for royal clemency, Yingluck must first return and surrender to face the existing five-year jail term. She could follow Thaksin’s footsteps in serving the jail term in a hospital while awaiting her eligibility for parole.
The crux of the problem is that Thaksin, as well as Yingluck soon, appears to be exploiting legal loopholes to avoid imprisonment with apparent assistance of the Corrections authorities in contradiction to the royal command for Thaksin to serve a one year jail term. This has seriously undermined Srettha’s claim of trying to restore “rule of law” and equality in Thai society.
When Thaksin becomes eligible for parole next month, and if he is indeed released without actually serving time in prison, anti-government protests and political turmoil could erupt to trouble the Srettha Administration. Yingluck’s return under similar extraordinary circumstances will add fuel to the political fire.
CONCLUSION
Undoubtedly, how well Srettha handles the Thaksin controversy will make or break his premiership.
Pheu Thai is playing a dangerous game in trying to whitewash Thaksin.
The Pheu Thai-led coalition government’s failure to pay due attention to “the rule of law” in helping Thaksin avoid imprisonment will set Thailand backwards, and encourage a large number of alienated voters to be supporters of the embattled Move Forward.
Before long, the Constitutional Court will show in its upcoming rulings how the Thai political landscape will change. Unfortunately, it could change for the worse.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
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