All in the family

[reader]

From AFP

Cambodian leader Hun Sen's eldest son was officially promoted to the rank of four-star general on Thursday, in another sign of plans for him to succeed his father.

Hun Sen has publicly backed Hun Manet to lead the kingdom in the future.

Hun Manet, who is commander of the army, received the four-star rank at a ceremony attended by more than 1,000 senior military officials.

Defence minister Tea Banh, who presided over the ceremony, said Hun Manet's promotion reflected his efforts "to serve the nation, military and Cambodian people".

Hun Manet -- who was educated in Britain and the United States -- has been officially backed by the ruling party as a future prime minister, and has been active on social media in recent months to increase his public profile.

The prime minister, who has wound back democratic freedoms and used the courts to stifle opposition, frequently characterises his children's achievements as the product of education and training, and rejects claims of nepotism.

At the last general election in 2018, Hun Sen's party won every seat in parliament after the Supreme Court dissolved the main opposition, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) a year before.

A court last month found Kem Sokha, a co-founder of the CNRP, guilty of conspiring with foreign entities to overthrow Hun Sen's government.

He was sentenced to 27 years in prison and immediately placed under house arrest.

[Vessey]

Is there any free and open democracy in SEA?

[Marc in Calif]

4 hours ago, Vessey said:

Is there any free and open democracy in SEA?

Of course not totally free and open!

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is #1 and the Philippines is very closely behind at #2 in terms of relative democratic societies.

Thailand and the others are far behind. 

[vinapu]

9 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

 

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is #1 and the Philippines is very closely behind at #2 in terms of relative democratic societies.

 

very relative but at least their rulers don't cling to power by any means and step aside when their terms is over

[PeterRS]

10 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

 

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is #1 and the Philippines is very closely behind at #2 in terms of relative democratic societies.

Thailand and the others are far behind. 

If Thailand really is "far behind" then it is largely because corruption is so rife in this country. Yet the comment by @Marc in Calif fails to note that Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index has all three countries virtually tied well into the lower half of the list. Democracy in The Philippines is largely a joke. True, registered voters have a vote. But the country has for far too long been effectively ruled by a clutch of mega-rich families who ensure that the vast majority of Filipinos are kept poor - many desperately so. When it comes to Presidential elections, The Philippines has a near dire record. After the murdering, thieving dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, propped up for decades by the USA as a pawn in the Cold War, and his luxury-loving wife Imelda - who has still not been jailed for her many crimes, one President was a popular actor who found himself ousted and jailed on massive corruption charges. Impeachment claims were made against his successor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in four consecutive years. Athough the economy improved under her rule, corruption remained rampant. With a rise in vigilante murders, Human Rights organisations condemned her government. A government enquiry found that most of the extra-judicial killings had been carried out by tmembers of the armed forces. But no one was charged. Duterte who was voted President in 2016 was also guity of approving thousands of extra-judicial killings. He even announced publicly that he would issue "thousands of pardons" a day  to members of the police and military accused of human rights abuses. Yet early in his Presidency, a Pulse Asia survey showed that he enjoyed a 91% rating, the highest of all six Presidents since Marcos.

Now the Marcos name has been whitewashed by the electorate with the son of Ferdinand Marcos elected as President. This is another indication of the corruption rampant in the country and in particular in the Province which the Marcos family has ruled virtually with a rod of iron.

Re Indonesia, as the Journal of Democracy stated in January 2023, "democracy is regressing and endangered in Indonesia". After B. J. Habibe became President in 1998, there was universal hope that democracy and a freer press would become more entrenched. He tried to clean up what had been called a pollitical swamp but in 2001 legislators pressed by the pollitical elite and military leadership voted to get rid of him. An article in The Diplomat illustrates that under the present President, Indonesia has slid down democracy indices. In 2017 it was the worst performer in the Economist Group's Democracy Index when it fell 20 places. Now freedom of speech and presenting facts have regressed further. The President has now also followed the example of many dictators by promoting family members into positions of power and inflluence. Behind the scenes there are moves to permit the country's President to serve 3 consecutive 5-year terms in place of the present 2.

The much admired founding father of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew, frequently stated that the west had to realise that Asia enjoyed democracy "with Asian characteristics". It was not the same as democracy in the west. How true! Yet it is important to accept that true democracy can never evolve  in Asian countries until a range of democratic institutions, the rule of law and freedom of the press are introduced and allowed to take root. That is unlikely to happen in any of our lifetimes, IMHO.

[vinapu]

18 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

....the rule of law and freedom of the press are introduced and allowed to take root. That is unlikely to happen in any of our lifetimes, IMHO.

if only because we don't have that much time left, LOL

[thaiophilus]

17 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

Of course not totally free and open!

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is #1 and the Philippines is very closely behind at #2 in terms of relative democratic societies.

Thailand and the others are far behind. 

Maybe, if that ranking is  based on some kind of simple "democracy" checklist (universal franchise, fair elections, representative government, freedom to form parties etc etc), but if you look at equally political issues like minority human rights or religious freedom I think the ranking would be quite different.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Indonesia  for instance.

[reader]

And let us not forget the horror that is Myanmar where the profits from jade and drugs keep the powerful in control.

From the BBC

Children perish as bombs rain on resistance

By Moe Myint, Grace Tsoi and Joel Guinto

in London and Singapore

"The earth shook," says cattle farmer Win Zaw, recalling the sunny morning last week when he heard a military aircraft approaching, and then an explosion.

He didn't think it was his village - Pa Zi Gyi in north-east Myanmar - that had been hit. But when he phoned his wife, he learnt that the military had bombed the place where villagers had gathered for a rare feast of curried noodles, rice and pork. Their seven-year-old daughter, Soe Nandar Nwe, had been among them.

He says he rushed to the site of the attack and tried looking for her among the carnage. "I searched for my daughter in the smoke, and through the charred remains. All I could think of was finding her."

He was looking for any sign of her favourite outfit - a white, floral dress that she wore that day. But he says he found no trace of her, or his mother-in-law who had been with her when the bomb fell.

Villagers later told the BBC that a military jet dropped a bomb where people had gathered for the meal, and then a helicopter gunship fired at the village for 20 minutes.

Soe Nandar Nwe, 7, wanted to become a teacher

Two years after a coup plunged Myanmar into a civil war, the country's military rulers have increasingly taken to the skies to reduce resistance literally to ashes. Last Tuesday's attack, which killed 168 men, women and children, is among the deadliest so far. Last year, the military struck a school, killing several children, and later that month, a bombing of a concert killed about 50 people.

Between February 2021 and January 2023, there had been at least 600 air attacks by the military, according to a BBC analysis of data from the conflict-monitoring group Acled (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project). The civil war has claimed thousands of lives, displaced some 1.4 million people and left nearly a third of the country's population in need of humanitarian aid. The United Nations has said the regime could be liable for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hnin Yu Wai was three years old

Continues at

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65295867

[Marc in Calif]

13 hours ago, PeterRS said:

If Thailand really is "far behind" then it is largely because corruption is so rife in this country. Yet the comment by @Marc in Calif fails to note that Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index has all three countries virtually tied well into the lower half of the list.

I never said that Indonesia and the Philippines have vibrant democracies! The question posed was whether there are any "democracies" in Southeast Asia. So I presented an answer based on countries' laws and political/judicial systems, including the fact that Indonesia is ranked higher than the other SEA nations based on political/judicial systems. 

You can look here for a full range of criteria on a different website, including a detailed global ranking. "Corruption" is included under Independence of the government and Independence of the Judiciary:

https://www.democracymatrix.com/

https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

[Marc in Calif]

6 hours ago, thaiophilus said:

Maybe, if that ranking is  based on some kind of simple "democracy" checklist (universal franchise, fair elections, representative government, freedom to form parties etc etc), but if you look at equally political issues like minority human rights or religious freedom I think the ranking would be quite different.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Indonesia  for instance.

The original question was about free and open democracy in Southeast Asia. My answer included the fact that no SEA nation was "free and open."

I simply described where different SEA nations ranked globally in the sphere of laws as well as political and judicial systems. Rights and religious freedoms aren't typically codified in political/judicial systems, so that's part of another question.

You can see a detailed matrix of the major political/criteria at another site, along with a global ranking. Indonesia is still #1 for SEA, with the Philippines a distant #2:

https://www.democracymatrix.com/
https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

[PeterRS]

10 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

You can see a detailed matrix of the major political/criteria at another site, along with a global ranking. Indonesia is still #1 for SEA, with the Philippines a distant #2:

https://www.democracymatrix.com/
https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

Inevitably in discussions on this type there will be different results depending on the source material used. I had never heard of the Democracy Index before. It is in fact drawn up by just one small organisation, the University of Wurzburg in Germany. How extensive it might therefore be, how detailed and how costly the research may result in its being somewhat questionable compared to the more wide-ranging research undertaken by the Economist Intelligence Unit and major world organisations.  For example, it describes itself on its home page thus -

"The specific construction of the democracy matrix and its 15 fields gives rise to detailed quality types. On the one hand, these allow for the classification of political systems into hard autocracies, moderate autocracies, hybrid systems, and deficient and functioning democracies . On the other hand, they make apparent at a glance where democratic strengths and weaknesses are found in a country. Thus, for instance, free and fair elections can be held regularly in a country, but the standards of the rule of law are not assured. Further information on the individual regime classifications is to be found here."

Quite what all that really means rather beats me! On another page it lists 5 keys to democracy. 1, Quality of Elections. 2. Quality of Parties, Interest Groups and Civil Society. 3. Quality of Media. 4. Quality of the Rule of Law. 5. Quality of Effective Power of Government and Horizontal Accountability.

Given the above, though, it is obvious it can only be read when one also reads the description of the type of democracy within a country. In terms of rankings in SE Asia, I'm sorry that @Marc in Calif is not accurate. Taiwan is in fact ranked first at # #26. Few who know the island will question that. Indonesia is second at #77. Next comes Singapore at #86, followed by Myanmar at #91  (the rankings were published in 2020 and presumably reflect the situation in 2019 at the latest), Malaysia at #95, Hong Kong at #107 (similar siituation to Myanmar) with The Philippines a very long way back from Taiwan at #112.  So it is hardly fair to suggest that The Philippines is No. 2. 

As for the type of democracy, the list identifies different types - Working Democracy, Deficient Democracy, Hybrid Regime, Moderate Autocracy and Hard Autocracy. The only Working Democracy is identified as Taiwan. It claims Indonesia is a Deficient Democracy. Singapore, Malaysia and The Philippines are defined as Hybrid Democracies. Thailand which comes in at #135 is a Moderate Democracy. I cannot find out exact definitions of the classifications! So I have no idea precisely what a Hybrid Democracy might be and comments I make are therefore somewhat in the dark!

But to those who know the region, it is perfectly clear that despite its democratic institutions, Singapore is more akin to a right-wing dictatorship. And Malaysia with its constitutional in-built preference to be given to Malays at the expense of indigenous Chinese is more a Delficient Democracy. And I maintain that by comparison to all others (excluding Myanmar and Hong Kong) both Indonesia and The Philippines are Deficient Democracies.

Last word. According to this listing, the USA comes in at #36 after countries like South Korea (huh?), disfunctional democracies like Italy and Israel, and Japan (another country where democracy is little more than surface deep).

[Marc in Calif]

21 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

Taiwan is in fact ranked first at # #26. Few who know the island will question that.

Hong Kong at #107 (similar situation to Myanmar).

 

Few who know the Southeast Asian region well will agree that Taiwan and Hong Kong are part of it. Rather, they're part of East Asia. Big difference! 😇

[PeterRS]

Just now, Marc in Calif said:

Few who know the Southeast Asian region well will agree that Taiwan and Hong Kong are part of it. Rather, they're part of East Asia. Big difference! 😇

After more than 4 decades in South East Asia, I have always heard of Taiwan and Hong Kong as being part of South East Asia! If you wish to be pendantic, The Philippines is further East than Hong Kong and roughly 90% of it is further east than Taiwan! Look up any map of South East Asia and you'll see both HKG and Taiwan as part of it!

[Marc in Calif]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

After more than 4 decades in South East Asia, I have always heard of Taiwan and Hong Kong as being part of South East Asia! If you wish to be pendantic, The Philippines is further East than Hong Kong and roughly 90% of it is further east than Taiwan! Look up any map of South East Asia and you'll see both HKG and Taiwan as part of it!

Doesn't matter how you long you've been there or what you've "heard." I've formally studied the region for more than 50 years. ☺️

What counts are the recognized geographic, political, and cultural definitions. Even the Southeast Asia Research Centre at the City University of Hong Kong agrees about the nation states that constitute the region. 

And I am most definitely NOT being "pendantic." I don't wear one. 😇

Here's more...

The term "Southeast Asia" was first used in 1839 by American pastor Howard Malcolm in his book Travels in South-Eastern Asia. Malcolm only included the Mainland section and excluded the Maritime section in his definition of Southeast Asia. The term was officially used in the midst of World War II by the Allies, through the formation of South East Asia Command (SEAC) in 1943. SEAC popularised the use of the term "Southeast Asia," although what constituted Southeast Asia was not fixed; for example, SEAC excluded the Philippines and a large part of Indonesia while including Ceylon. However, by the late 1970s, a roughly standard usage of the term "Southeast Asia" and the territories it encompasses had emerged. Although from a cultural or linguistic perspective the definitions of "Southeast Asia" may vary, the most common definitions nowadays include the area represented by the countries (sovereign states and dependent territories) listed below.

Ten of the eleven states of Southeast Asia are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), while East Timor is an observer state. Papua New Guinea has stated that it might join ASEAN, and is currently an observer. Sovereignty issues exist over some islands in the South China Sea.

Political divisions

Sovereign states

State	Area (km2)	Population (2020)	Density (/km2)	GDP (nominal), USD (2020)	GDP (PPP) per capita, Int$ (2020)	HDI (2021)	Capital
Brunei	5,765	449,002	77	12,003,000,000	$85,011	0.829	Bandar Seri Begawan
Cambodia	181,035	16,718,965	92	25,192,000,000	$5,044	0.593	Phnom Penh
East Timor	14,874	1,320,942	89	1,777,000,000	$5,321	0.607	Dili
Indonesia	1,904,569	273,753,191	144	1,059,638,000,000	$14,841	0.705	Jakarta
Laos	236,800	7,425,057	31	18,820,000,000	$8,684	0.607	Vientiane
Malaysia	329,847	33,573,874	102	337,008,000,000	$34,567	0.803	Kuala Lumpur *
Myanmar	676,578	53,798,084	80	81,257,000,000	$7,220	0.585	Nay Pyi Taw
Philippines	300,000	115,559,009	380	361,489,000,000	$10,094	0.699	Manila
Singapore	719.2	5,921,231	8,261	339,981,000,000	$105,689	0.939	Singapore
Thailand	513,120	71,601,103	140	501,712,000,000	$21,361	0.800	Bangkok
Vietnam	331,210	97,468,029	294	343,114,000,000	$8,677	0.703	Hanoi

[Marc in Calif]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

Look up any map of South East Asia and you'll see both HKG and Taiwan as part of it!

I cannot find a single reputable map that includes both Hong Kong and Taiwan. Can you point me to one of your sources?

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

I cannot find a single reputable map that includes both Hong Kong and Taiwan. Can you point me to one of your sources?

I sugest you may be thinking of the 11 ASEAN countries. Here are a few maps. But this is a small issue and I am happy hereafter to withdraw.

[Marc in Calif]

8 hours ago, PeterRS said:

I sugest [sic] you may be thinking of the 11 ASEAN countries. Here are a few maps. But this is a small issue and I am happy hereafter to withdraw.

It's a hugely embarrassing issue if you think that merely showing a country's location on a map means inclusion in a particular region.

Even your first map (from ontheworldmap.com) includes this legend beneath its SEA map:

Description: This map shows governmental boundaries of countries in Southeast Asia. Countries of Southeast Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, East Timor, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos.

Note that Japan, India, and Australia are also shown on your maps. I guess this means you conclude that Japan and India are part of Southeast Asia  simply because that's the name of the map. 🙃