A Short History of South-East Asia

by Peter Church

  International pressure for reform came mostly from the European Union and the United States, both of which imposed economic sanctions and placed travel restrictions on government officials. In contrast, neighbouring countries mostly refused to condemn the SPDC, stating that this would amount to an unacceptable interference in the country's internal affairs. In 1997, Myanmar entered ASEAN and the other members have relied on a policy of “constructive engagement” in an effort to quietly persuade the SPDC to be more accommodating of the aspirations of its citizens and to seek a political compromise with Aung San Suu Kyi. But following the 1997 Asian financial crisis ASEAN had other issues to deal with and international controversy regarding its support for the SPDC became a liability. Thus, during a visit in January 2001, one of ASEAN's most influential leaders, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir, stated quite baldly that his hosts had become an “embarrassment to ASEAN” because of their failure to enact reforms to address the pariah status accorded their country by Western nations. This, he said, was tarnishing not only Myanmar's reputation, but those of other ASEAN member‐states, too. In 2005 a group of South‐East Asian parliamentarians demanded that Myanmar be expelled from ASEAN unless the regime improved its human rights record. While their calls went unheeded, ASEAN members did become concerned that the Association's image would suffer irredeemably if Myanmar insisted on taking its turn as ASEAN's rotating chair in 2006. Subtle pressure was applied behind the scenes and in July 2005 the government announced it would forgo its right to chair ASEAN, citing the need to concentrate on domestic considerations.

  Throughout her house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi continued to call for a continuation of foreign boycotts on trade, aid, and tourism. Indeed, foreign donor countries have largely cut off development aid since 1998. To add to Myanmar's woes, in 2002 the United Nations announced that the country was facing an AIDS epidemic, with one in 50 adults estimated to be HIV positive, one of the highest rates in the world. In the same year, the US State Department reported that “poverty is widespread and the economy has continued to show the effects of a growing government deficit, rising inflation, shortfalls in energy supplies, and continuing foreign exchange shortages.” In September 2007 major riots, triggered by fuel price rises, broke out in the capital. Thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns joined the protests, which were ruthlessly suppressed by the authorities, sparking sharp international condemnation.

  Also attracting international criticism was the government's response to Cyclone Nargis, which wrought havoc in the Irrawaddy Delta (the source of 65 percent of the rice grown in Myanmar) on May 2–3, 2008. The cyclone is said to have killed an estimated 134,000 people, affected 2.4 million farmers, and swamped 200,000 hectares of delta rice paddies (16 percent of the total) with seawater, rendering it unusable for several harvests. The tragedy was compounded by the government's refusal to avail itself of offers of assistance which flooded in from the United Nations, foreign aid groups, and other governments. These offers were either delayed or rejected outright, which needlessly led to the deaths of many thousands of cyclone victims. This was further evidence of the extent to which the regime remained and still remains insular and suspicious of outside interference, even during a humanitarian catastrophe such as Nargis.

  In January 2004, the government and the Karen National Union (the most significant ethnic group fighting the government) agreed to a ceasefire. Since then, however, sporadic clashes between Myanmar's army and the insurgents have occurred. In October 2004, Khin Nyunt was dismissed as prime minister ostensibly for corruption, but more likely the victim of a power struggle. In July 2005 he received a suspended sentence of 44 years from a special tribunal and was placed under house arrest but released in 2012. Khin Nyunt was replaced by General Soe Win, the former first secretary of the SPDC, who had a reputation as a hardliner in dealings with the NLD. Soe Win stepped aside due to ill‐health in May 2007 (and died in October that year), and was in turn replaced as prime minister by SPDC first secretary Lt‐Gen Thein Sein. However, the real power in Myanmar at that point lay (and to a large extent even today lies) with the military. In 2007 the most‐senior general was General Than Shwe, who was chairman of the SPDC, commander‐in‐chief of the defence force, minister of defence, and also took on the functions of state president. Senior General Than Shwe was replaced in 2011 as Commander in Chief of the military by General Min Aung Hlaing, who was subsequently promoted to senior general in 2013.

  In an announcement that took most Yangon‐based diplomats by surprise (including, it was reported, those representing other ASEAN countries), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in November 2005 that government ministries and military headquarters were to be transferred to Naypyidaw, approximately 350 kilometres north of Yangon. The government also promised a tenfold increase in salaries paid to civil servants required to relocate to the new site. The official reason given for the creation of a new administrative capital was that Naypyidaw was centrally located and therefore more accessible from all parts of the country. However, observers have speculated an enhanced capacity to quarantine key government and security installations from potentially debilitating unrest in Yangon (such as that which swept the capital in 1988) to be a more plausible explanation. It continues to be the administrative capital despite the huge inconvenience caused to everyone who has to travel there to meet with government officials, let alone the thousands of officials who have had to uproot from Yangon to move to a city with few positive attributes. Many have left their families behind in Yangon.

  In 2010 and two weeks before the election, the government announced changes to the country's flag, anthem, and official name to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, instead of the Union of Myanmar. They also passed new election laws with provisions for an electoral commission to be handpicked by the military.

  The first election for 20 years was finally held in November 2010. While NLD decided to boycott polls, a splinter party—National Democratic Front (NDF)—managed to obtain legal rights to compete in the election. When the election results were announced, it was not surprising that the newly formed military‐backed party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), won with a resounding victory. Many claimed that the elections were a sham and merely a means for the government to be seen as transitioning from a military to a civilian rule. The leader of USDP, Thein Sein, was subsequently sworn in as president of Myanmar.

  A week after the election in November, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was prevented from taking part, was finally released from house arrest. She met with President Thein Sein in Naypyidaw for the first time in August 2011, which many saw as a sign of the new partially civilian government opening up to the opposition and seeking their cooperation.

  From 2010 up to the general elections in 2015 President Thein Sein also introduced a series of reforms—from the easing of media censorship laws to the release of many political prisoners. These reforms have allowed Myanmar to open slowly to the outside world.

  In a parliamentary by‐election that changed the course of history in Myanmar, NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory in 2012. By claiming 40 out of 45 seats parliamentary seats in what was largely a “free and fair” election, the result has been hailed as the “beginning of a new era,” and though full democracy is a long way off, it was certainly a giant forward step.

  There were more remarkable political developments when a national election in 2015 swept Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD to power in another resounding victory. While the elections ended 50 years of total military rule, the military still holds a very strong position. It controls important ministries such as defence, home affairs, and border affairs and constitutionally the military is entitled to 25 percent representation in the Hluttaw (parliament). This control prevents the NLD from changing the constitution without the approval of the military. It also includes any change to the constitution to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to become president. Instead she has opted to be appointed foreign minister and state counsellor in t
he president's office. She also engineered the appointment of her old friend, Htin Kyaw, as president.

  Now largely in control, the NLD government, despite the loosening or removal of sanctions by many countries, including recently the United States, faces multiple massive challenges, including re‐energising a largely stagnant economy, settling long‐running wars with many ethnic groups dating back to independence from the British, and solving the status of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Of these issues the last two are likely to take many years, if not decades, to find a solution. As mentioned earlier, a number of ethnic groups (which are numerous and include Karen, Kachin, Shan, and Chin) want their own autonomous states or even independence as promised by Aung San Suu Kyi's father when he was governor of Burma (and which was later ignored by successive governments post‐independence). Given some groups have been in armed conflict with the military‐controlled Myanmar government for the last 60 years, they are unlikely to give up just because there is a civilian government in power. In any event the NLD cannot make any decision on these issues without the support of the military that controls the relevant ministries of defence and border affairs. Finding a solution for the political and economic situation of the Rohingya Muslims who live near the border with Bangladesh is just as difficult. In recent years there has been a rising tide of anti‐Muslim sentiments amongst right wing Buddhist groups, who pressed for laws which came into force under the previous Thein Sein government, preventing non‐Buddhists from marrying Buddhists and requiring approval from the government to change one's religion. The anti‐Rohingya sentiment seems to be particularly deep seated amongst the Burmese and even Aung San Suu Kyi has done little to address the plight of the Rohingya.

  The NLD came to power with the considerable (albeit unrealistic) expectations of its supporters that the new civilian government could solve all of the massive economic, social, and political issues that had built up over the decades when the military had been in total power. Whether NLD can satisfy these expectations in a meaningful time frame is likely to be critical to its continuing support.

  8

  Philippines

  In 1967, the Philippines joined Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore to form ASEAN. At that time the Philippines was seen by many as a model of what its partners might become. It had a strong economy, a well‐educated English‐speaking workforce, strong technical and managerial classes, and an apparently thriving industrial sector. Within the South‐East Asian region it was favoured by foreign investors. Moreover, it was a parliamentary democracy with a vigorous press and a strong civil society, again pointing to what the rest of ASEAN might become. But that was not to be. Although stability has now returned, for many years the Philippines experienced enormous social and political instability, including a civil war in the south and private armies in many other areas. If one characteristic of many contemporary ASEAN countries is the presence of a strong state and a weak civil society, then the Philippines has been the major exception. It had a weak state and a fragmented society. That seems to have changed through the successive leadership of presidents Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, and Arroyo with their compliance with the Constitution although whether the new president, Duterte, will do the same is unclear at the time of publication.

  The Philippines stands out from its neighbours in having a low dependency on traditional exports of goods. While domestic spending is the main driver of its economy, that is supported by some US$26 billion a year in overseas worker remittances (who represent an extraordinary 10 percent of the population). Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has grown significantly in recent years and currently earns some US$17 billion in export earnings.

  The Philippines is different from the rest of South‐East Asia in a number of ways. It shares with Indonesia and Malaysia a Malay ethnic base (its underlying animistic beliefs have much in common with other countries in the region) and it has, for many centuries, been part of regional trading networks, albeit in a minor way. Yet unique among South‐East Asian countries, it was unaffected by Hinduism or Buddhism. The great majority of the Philippines' 101 million people are Roman Catholic. The Spanish colonisers strongly pushed Roman Catholicism throughout the main islands and only the southern islands of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago are Islamic. It is also unique in another way. The absence of Hindu/Buddhist influences meant that sophisticated concepts of the state and cosmologies which linked the temporal and the spiritual realms were lacking in the precolonial Philippines. There were no precolonial state structures, socially integrating ideologies, or “great traditions.”

  One important consequence is that contemporary Filipinos lack a concrete precolonial history from which they can draw inspiration and create national myths. There is nothing in the Philippines' past remotely comparable to the “golden eras” of Angkor in Cambodia, Pagan in Burma, or Majapahit in Indonesia. There is only a pattern of regionalism under the control of local trading families and kinship networks.

  EARLY HISTORY

  We know little about the political, social, or economic structures of the islands now known as the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish in the mid‐16th century. The islands were sparsely populated with largely kinship‐ and village‐based political organisations. There were well‐established trading networks between the islands and links into wider regional trading networks in South‐East Asia and beyond to China and India. There were also some relatively large entrepots exchanging local products, ranging from exotic foods to gold, for Chinese pottery, silk, and other wares.

  Islam was the first of the world religions to have an impact upon the folk‐religious base of the peoples of the Philippines. It is impossible to date precisely the arrival of Islam in the southern islands of the Philippines, but we do know that Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra converted to Islam in the middle of the 14th century and that when Melaka was closed to Muslim traders as a consequence of the Portuguese conquest in 1511 the process of Islamisation in the Indonesian archipelago quickened. The ruler of the northern Borneo state of Brunei converted to Islam soon after the fall of Melaka. Brunei then became the base for the spread of Islam into the southern islands of the Philippines. By the middle of the 16th century, the ruler of Sulu had converted to Islam, as had the court in Mindanao island. The influence of Islam slowly moved north to the island of Luzon. By the middle of the 16th century, the Manila region was under the control of an Islamic ruler.

  SPANISH RULE

  In 1494, the Pope endeavoured to settle the commercial and political rivalries of Europe's major powers, Portugal and Spain, by determining that Spanish expeditions should sail westwards and Portuguese expeditions eastwards of an imaginary north/south line in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Hence, Portugal established colonies in Africa, India, Malaya, the Indonesian archipelago, and on the China coast while Spain moved into the New World, establishing a base in New Spain (present‐day Mexico) and from there moving to conquer much of Central and South America. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mexico was a valuable source of silver and gold, carried across the Atlantic to Spain in great galleon fleets.

  The Portuguese‐born explorer Ferdinand Magellan led an expedition that became the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1522. Magellan did not survive the trip. He was killed in a skirmish with natives in the Philippines. A few years later, another expedition arrived in the Philippines in search of the fabled “spice islands,” which were known as the Malukas in the Indonesian archipelago. They had long been the source of expensive spices traded in Europe. Spanish, Portuguese, and later Dutch merchants dreamed of acquiring control of the islands in order to monopolise the supply of spices to Europe. The dreams of the Spanish expedition were shattered when they discovered that Portugal had beaten them to it in 1512. The world proved to be spherical rather than flat, as believed at the time. Sailing east, the Portuguese arrived in the Indonesian archipelago a decade before the Spanish.

  Other expeditions were sent to the western Pacific by the Spanish gove
rnors of New Mexico, but it was not until 1564 that the New Mexican governor decided to occupy the islands of the Philippines. Two motives drove the Spanish to the Philippines: first, a determination to spread the Christian faith; second, the possibility of opening new trading posts and expanding trade to Asia. The first Spanish settlement was established on the island of Cebu, in the southern Philippines, in 1565. In 1571, Spanish headquarters were moved to Manila, then a thriving entrepot dominated by Chinese merchants. Thus began more than 300 years of Spanish influence on the Philippines. The islands were named after the Spanish Crown Prince Felipe, quickly becoming known as the Philippines.

  In the 17th century, Spain tried to create an Asian trading empire, based on Manila as both an entrepot and a naval base from which it could challenge the Dutch in the Malukas. The attempt failed. Spanish economic and political power steadily declined and Spain was no match for the resurgent northern European Protestant nations of Britain and the Netherlands, both of which aggressively sought Asian empires. The economic base of Spanish occupation of the Philippines in the 17th and 18th centuries was the galleon trade between the Portuguese port of Macau on the south China coast, Manila, and Acapulco in New Mexico. It underpinned the Philippines until the Mexican Revolution in 1820 brought it to an end. The first Spanish governor of the Philippines, Miguel Legaspi, admired the fine Chinese silks traded at Manila by Chinese merchants and recognised a commercial opportunity for Spanish merchants to supply silk direct to the European market by exchanging silk for Mexican silver and gold. Great galleons left Acapulco for Manila, laden with silver. At Manila, the silver was exchanged for Chinese silk brought across from Macao. The silk was then transported to Acapulco and on to Europe, where it graced the lives of the European elite, in the process providing very profitable returns to the traders.