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Riot police stand guard at a blocked street outside the supreme court in Phnom Penh on Nov. 16 before a ruling ordering the country's main opposition party dissolved. © AP
The China model is winning, at the expense of liberal values
By Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Nikkei Asian Review
January 1, 2018
Excerpt:
The year 2018 will mark the start of a period in which outright authoritarianism and illiberal quasi-democracy are likely to be Southeast Asia's prevailing norms. With few exceptions, liberal values and fundamental freedoms and rights will be manipulated and curtailed, even where elections continue to take place. Where authoritarianism holds sway, rights and freedoms will be suppressed altogether.
The specter of galloping authoritarianism is crucially underpinned by China's successful system of centralized control combined with economic dynamism. Unless domestic forces that stand for rights and freedoms are nurtured, mobilized and galvanized, the struggle for democracy could be lost to a narrative of history that ends not with democracy and free markets but with omnipotent central authority and state-led capitalism.
Not long ago, Southeast Asia's forces of sociopolitical change were trending the other way as countries from Cambodia and Myanmar to the Philippines and Thailand embraced democratization, with its attendant political liberalization and openness. Prior to the rise of Thaksin Shinawatra in the early 2000s, Thailand had a new constitution that promoted checks and balances, together with greater political stability and effectiveness.
But former Prime Minister Thaksin undermined the country's 1997 constitution, and his rule was marred by corruption and conflicts of interest. Thailand has since been stuck in a political tailspin, marked by street protests and two military coups. It is now being run by an authoritarian government that has constitutionally embedded the military's role in politics.
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Elsewhere in the region, China is now a trump card for authoritarianism, its overwhelming influence only weakly challenged by the EU, hampered by popular anger over high levels of immigration, and the U.S., where President Donald Trump sees America as a victim of its efforts to support the international order since World War II. This is a worldview unaffected by the administration's new National Security Strategy, published on Dec. 18, in which China and Russia are identified as threats.
A regional pushback against rising authoritarianism could be rolled out in three directions. First, the electorates in countries such as Cambodia and Thailand should stand up for their own rights and for accountable government.
The challenge for them is a decoupling of political progress and economic performance. Strong economic expansion in the region broadly buys off potential social discontent. People will have to stand up for democratic rights and freedoms for their intrinsic worth rather than because of its potential role in expanding prosperity.
Second, the established democracies must play a part in defending democratic gains in Southeast Asia. This means that people in Europe and America must address internal grievances and prevent populism from gaining more ground.
Established democracies also must perform better on bread-and-butter issues to show that rights and freedoms are compatible with economic growth and development. Australia, India and Japan are key leaders for Southeast Asia. These staunch Indo-Pacific democracies should do more to lead developing Asia.
Finally, China's political dissidents should be supported, and state-nurtured Chinese companies that leverage their large internal markets to win external market shares should be scrutinized and not accepted at face value.
Southeast Asia's history may not end with democracy and free markets, but it should not be allowed to head in the direction of state-led capitalism and centralized political controls that undermine or abolish basic freedoms and fair play.
To read the full article, please click the following link:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Viewpoints/Thitinan-Pongsudhirak/Authoritarianism-is-accelerating-in-Southeast-Asia?page=1
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.@ThitinanP is correct that Southeast Asia is slipping backwards into authoritarianism. But his analysis of Thailand is highly dishonest, blaming Thaksin instead of acknowledging the culpability of royalist liberals like himself for destroying democracy https://t.co/KgWtKuYNFz— Andrew MacGregor Marshall (@zenjournalist) January 1, 2018
