What to watch for at ASEAN’s Myanmar summit

Regional bloc's extraordinary meeting on Myanmar's deteriorating crisis could hold the key between war and peace

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) holds an in-person summit in Jakarta today, the first concerted international effort to address the crisis in Myanmar. Regional leaders will reportedly try to persuade Myanmar’s junta to agree to a cessation of hostilities to allow international aid to be delivered to the turmoil-hit nation.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s junta chief and key engineer of the February 1 putsch, will controversially be in attendance, a move panned by critics who see the invitation to sit alongside other ASEAN leaders as tantamount to lending legitimacy to his democracy-suspending regime, particularly in light of the recent establishment of a parallel authority by pro-democracy forces.

Ousted elected lawmakers, leaders of anti-coup protests and ethnic minority organizations announced on April 16 a National Unity Government (NUG), which says it is the country’s legitimate interim authority. It has requested international recognition and called for an invitation to the ASEAN meeting in place of the junta leader, but to no avail.

Asia Times’ correspondent and Southeast Asia Insider editor Nile Bowie reported on expectations for the summit and what it could potentially achieve in light of Myanmar’s military rulers persistent brutality despite appeals from neighbors to refrain from violence. He shared his thoughts on the situation in this week’s Q&A.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Do or die moment for ASEAN in Myanmar

Bloc's extraordinary Myanmar crisis meeting on April 24 could be the last diplomatic chance to prevent a regional catastrophe

When Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders meet in Jakarta to discuss the worsening political crisis in Myanmar on April 24, it will mark the first time that the regional organization holds a highest-level meeting to address a specific situation of concern involving one of its members.

Non-interference in domestic affairs has traditionally been one of ASEAN’s basic operating principles, along with decision-making by consensus. As such, Saturday’s summit is seen as a test of the grouping’s code of constraint as regional leaders find themselves under mounting pressure to engineer a workable, face-saving resolution before the crisis spirals further out of control.

To be sure, the situation in Myanmar is on a knife’s edge. Its ruling military junta has intensified a brutal campaign of suppression in defiance of world condemnation. The cycle of protests and bloody crackdowns has left at least 738 people dead, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) monitoring group.

Inflexible repression by the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, has pushed segments of the urban-based protest movement into using low-level guerrilla warfare tactics, while escalating hostilities with ethnic armed forces in the north and east threaten a wider war on multiple fronts in the country’s borderlands.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Malaysia inches back toward ‘elder brother’ China

China-Malaysia ties are on renewed if not controversial upswing under PM Muhyiddin's beleaguered administration

On his first official visit to China as Malaysia’s foreign minister, Hishammuddin Hussein sought to exude a touch of personal charisma. In a live televised press conference on April 2, he referred to his Chinese counterpart Minister Wang Yi as “elder brother,” speaking in rehearsed Mandarin as he beamed with an ear-to-ear smile.

Appearing surprised by the remark and even visibly uncomfortable, Wang responded by saying: “We are brothers.” Chinese social media users widely interpreted Hishammuddin’s remark, which was broadcast on state media, as a show of Malaysia’s respect and deference to China.

Back at home, however, Hishammuddin was widely criticized for a perceived diplomatic faux pas. Against the backdrop of China’s increasingly assertive stance in the South China Sea, where the two countries have competing claims, the foreign minister was widely seen as kowtowing to Beijing.

For many Malaysians, the gaffe revived anxieties about rising Chinese influence in Southeast Asia and raised new questions about the country’s foreign policy direction under Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, with the two sides having officially committed to deepening cooperation in the post-Covid-19 era.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Singapore leadership succession back to square one

Questions swirl about who will be the next PM after Heng Swee Keat withdraws in major setback for the ruling PAP

Singapore’s leadership succession plans were thrown into disarray on Thursday (April 8) when Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat told a press conference he was taking himself out of the running to be the Southeast Asian city-state’s next prime minister after being chosen for the role less than three years ago.

Heng, 59, said he decided to step aside as leader of the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) fourth-generation, or “4G,” team to allow a younger person to lead the country once incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong retires. Heng cited his age, the governance challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the exacting demands of the top job.

“I do not want to take on any job which I cannot deliver,” Heng told reporters, adding that he had questioned whether he was the right person for the role and that his decision was taken after careful deliberation and discussion with his family. “I think it is better for someone who is younger, with a longer runway, to take on this job.”

Like a bolt out of the blue, the widely unexpected announcement took observers by surprise. After what many regarded as an indecisive and drawn-out selection process that resulted in Heng being chosen as the 4G’s leader and Lee’s designated successor in late 2018, the PAP now finds itself back at square one and facing uncomfortable questions.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Singaporeans standing up to Lee’s libel lawfare

PM Lee's use of punitive defamation suits to stifle dissent comes back to bite as Singaporeans galvanize to pay convicted blogger's bills

Leong Sze Hian playfully describes himself as the first person ever to be sued for sharing a news story on Facebook with no accompanying comment.

The 67-year-old financial advisor, blogger and opposition politician is the latest critic to lose a punitive libel suit against Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who is widely seen as following in his national founder father Lee Kuan Yew’s footsteps in using lawsuits to stifle dissent.

The offending post came at a steep price. Last month, a court judge ordered Leong to pay the premier, the world’s highest-paid political leader, S$133,000 (US$98,867) in damages for defamation. Justice Aedit Abdullah found that Leong could not “reasonably claim that the defamatory words” in the link he shared “did not impugn [Lee’s] character.”

The article in question was published by Malaysian website The Coverage in November 2018, and falsely alleged that Lee was involved in financial fraud and working in cahoots with former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak to launder funds in the multi-billion dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

A parting of political paths in Malaysia

Ruling coalition coming undone as UMNO party announces it will compete against PM Muhyiddin's smaller Bersatu at elections expected this year

When Malaysia’s largest political party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), held its annual general meeting last weekend, its delegates endorsed a plan to contest against Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s shaky ruling coalition at the next general election – the same coalition it is currently propping up.

The Malay nationalist party is currently the largest bloc in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) governing alliance. UMNO president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s announcement that the party will contest elections as part of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition it separately leads and not cooperate with any other parties was, however, a foregone conclusion.

A feud between UMNO, which continuously governed Malaysia for more than 60 years until 2018, and Muhyiddin’s smaller Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) party, an UMNO splinter group, has stoked infighting and ultimatums, effectively destabilizing the premier’s 13-month rule as his government maneuvers to get a handle on a resurgent Covid-19 outbreak.

Despite the rupture, power-sharing between UMNO and Bersatu is set to continue until at least August, when a declared state of emergency that has suspended Parliament and the holding of elections will expire. UMNO’s president has said its ministers, deputy ministers and lawmakers would withdraw support from PN once a clear exit date is decided.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Why Muhyiddin won’t reopen Malaysia’s parliament

Malaysian leader is presiding over a Covid-19 emergency that critics say has cynically suspended legislative democracy

When embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin delivered a speech marking his first year in office earlier this month, the leader reiterated his vow to dissolve Parliament and hold a general election after the Covid-19 pandemic is brought under control, reassuring voters that they will ultimately decide the fate of his unelected ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.

With vaccinations now being rolled out and coronavirus restrictions easing as the still high national caseload trends lower, bipartisan pressure to reopen Parliament is coming to a head. The bicameral legislature was controversially suspended with the proclamation of emergency rule on January 12 amid an alarming rise in daily infections, a move that effectively suspended democracy.

But there is no indication yet when Parliament will reconvene as the premier ramps up efforts to court opposition defectors to shore up his coalition’s razor-thin legislative majority. It’s also unclear if the political stability Muhyiddin has sought to provide through the emergency will hold after the declaration expires in four months.

Malaysia’s politics have been in tumultuous flux since the collapse of the elected Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration last February, a political convulsion that brought Muhyiddin to power. The 73-year-old premier has since faced daunting health, political and economic crises, all while his government has struggled to maintain its slim ruling majority.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

North Korea-Malaysia frayed friendship finally breaks

Pyongyang severs diplomatic ties after Malaysia agrees to extradite North Korean citizen to US on money laundering charge

A Malaysian federal court decision earlier this month to approve the extradition of a North Korean citizen accused of money laundering to the United States has been hailed by some as a major coup in Washington’s efforts to uproot Pyongyang’s sanctions-evading activities.

A high court judge rejected the appeal of businessman Mun Chol Myong on March 9, making him the first-ever North Korean citizen extradited to the US to face a criminal trial. At the same time, the ruling has caused a diplomatic rupture, with North Korea ten days later announcing the total severance of its decades-old bilateral ties with Malaysia.

Relations had been uneasy ever since the 2017 assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, on Malaysian soil. Pyongyang’s decision to end its diplomatic ties with Putrajaya will deepen its isolation in Southeast Asia, a region that has traditionally kept its doors open to North Korea.

Some analysts see the timing of North Korea’s move as aimed at the Joe Biden administration and a sign that Pyongyang intends to shun offers to rekindle talks in favor of more a provocative strategy of resuming missile and nuclear weapons tests.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Unlawful assembly of one in Singapore

Singaporean politician Louis Ng is latest to face police investigation for his single-person 'smiley face' activism

Police in Singapore are investigating whether a ruling party lawmaker broke a strict law barring virtually all forms of protest when he held up a placard encouraging support for local food businesses, a case that has sparked debate over the proportionality of the city-state’s broadly-defined public order legislation.

Louis Ng, a member of the People’s Action Party (PAP), posted four pictures on Facebook last June of himself with hawkers at a food center in his constituency. He held up a piece of paper that read “support them” alongside a smiley face. That act alone could be deemed an offense if found by courts to constitute an illegal public assembly.

Though freedom of speech and assembly are enshrined in Singapore’s constitution, civil liberties are significantly circumscribed in practice by the country’s Public Order Act, under which a single person demonstrating support for or opposition to a cause without a police permit can be deemed an unlawful assembly and fined up to S$5,000 (US$3,760).

The investigation into Ng drew immediate comparisons with charges leveled last November against Jolovan Wham, a civil rights campaigner who posed in public with a smiley face drawn on a cardboard sign in a show of solidarity with young climate change activists who were questioned by police last year over similar single-person protests.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Myanmar crisis now or never moment for ASEAN

Bloc is well-placed to coax Myanmar's generals to compromise but it will need to do more than just express grave concern

More than a month on from a democracy-suspending military coup in Myanmar, many see the junta’s increasingly violent crackdown on dissent as approaching a point of no return. As the United States and others press for tougher sanctions on the junta’s leaders, Southeast Asian nations are under pressure to intervene to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

With its credibility on the line after past failures to tackle human rights crises in the region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is still widely seen as the best hope for a diplomatic solution amid uncharacteristic outspokenness from some of its member states who are pushing to build a regional consensus on the need for Myanmar to return to democracy.

But the grouping isn’t speaking with one voice, with some of its members describing the putsch as an internal matter, consistent with the bloc’s long-held tradition of non-interference in members’ domestic affairs. Moreover, the organization’s diplomatic efforts have been met with skepticism by those protesting across Myanmar who are staunchly opposed to any engagement that would confer legitimacy onto Naypyidaw’s generals.

Questions persist as to whether ASEAN will pragmatically endorse new elections in the country as part of a negotiated compromise, which critics fear would ultimately lead to a military-engineered outcome – potentially with the nation’s powerful army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, 64, taking the reigns as elected president under a so-called “guided democracy” framework.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.