2023/1 “Dangerous Unintended Consequences Loom in the Wake of Thailand’s Hasty Legalisation of Marijuana” by Termsak Chalermpalanupap
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Thailand has hastily ventured into the legalisation of marijuana and hemp without first putting in place necessary control measures.
- The push to legalise the two cannabis plants was led by the Bhumjaithai Party, whose leader is Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul.
- Legal ambiguities have led to confusion and widespread concerns about illicit trade and abuse of “legalised” marijuana, especially among young Thais. Follow-up legislation on marijuana and hemp to close the existing loopholes has met serious opposition in the House of Representatives.
- Democrat Party, the third largest party in the ruling coalition underpinning the premiership of General Prayut Chan-o-cha, has joined opposition parties in opposing the revised law, which was drafted chiefly by Bhumjaithai Party. The disagreement between the Democrat Party and Bhumjaithai Party is destabilising the Prayut Administration, and delaying crackdowns on abuses of “legalised” marijuana
- The confusing and dangerous marijuana situation in Thailand threatens to disrupt ASEAN’s regional effort to create a “drug-free” community. It has drawn international attention to Thailand’s apparent failure to fulfil its commitments under the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961.
*Termsak Chalermpalanupap is a Visiting Fellow in the Thailand Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. Previously he was a researcher on ASEAN political and security cooperation at the Institute’s ASEAN Studies Centre.
ISEAS Perspective 2023/1, 9 January 2023
INTRODUCTION
Thailand’s hasty legalisation of marijuana and hemp,[1] mainly for medicinal use, has produced several adverse unintended consequences. Worst of all is a lack of necessary control measures to safeguard against illicit trade and abuse of marijuana.
Serious disagreement within the ruling coalition on how to impose necessary control of these two cannabis plants is endangering Thai society, and undermining unity of the fragile Prayut Administration. Major opposition parties want to roll back the legalisation of marijuana and hemp, and to return them to the official list of banned narcotics.
Since 9 June 2022, marijuana and hemp, and their resin extracts with less than 0.2% of the THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol, the substance that gets people “high”), have no longer been classified as narcotics in Thailand. Instead, they have become “controlled herbs” under the law of 1999 on protection and promotion of Thai folk wisdom in traditional medicine. Under this law, the minister of public health shall determine what are “controlled herbs” and how to regulate their use in traditional Thai medicine.
A great deal of the confusion stemmed from misinformation spread by Bhumjaithai (BJT) Party’s vigorous campaign for “free marijuana” (กัญชาเสรี, “ganja seri”) prior to the March 2019 general election. BJT leader Anutin Charnvirakul, who is now a deputy premier and minister of public health, could be seen in one video clip extolling the benefits of legalised marijuana – including smoking it for recreation at home.[2]
Later on, during a no-confidence debate in the House of Representatives in July 2022, Anutin apologised for “joking” about smoking marijuana, insisting that he did not and will not advocate the recreational use of marijuana.[3]
However, the continuing ambiguities about “free marijuana” remain a serious public health threat to Thai society. Talking about marijuana and hemp in the same breath also tends to create more confusion, because they are different things—marijuana has more of the intoxicating THC substance than hemp, whose fibres have wide industrial use.
Thailand’s hasty legalisation of the two cannabis plants also threatens to disrupt ASEAN’s regional effort to create a “drug-free” community; the other nine ASEAN members still treat marijuana as a banned narcotic. Thailand’s lack of control measures of the “free marijuana” may even violate UN conventions on narcotic control which Thailand has joined out of concern for “the health and welfare of mankind”.[4]
SINGLE CONVENTION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS
Thailand signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 on 24 July 1961, and ratified it on 31 October 1961. It also ratified on 21 November 1975 and 3 May 2002, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, and the UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988, respectively.[5]
Cannabis plants were narcotic drugs in Schedule I and Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention. If a country permits the cultivation of these plants, Article 28 of the Single Convention requires the country to put in place a “system of controls” as had been done for the opium poppy, including setting up a national agency to regulate cultivation, designating cultivation areas, issuing licences to cultivators, and allowing the purchase of cannabis plants only from the licenced cultivators. The national agency shall also be in charge of importing, exporting, wholesale trading, and maintaining stocks.
In November 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) recommended, among other things, deleting cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The recommendation was subsequently conveyed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in January 2019, who requested the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) to consider the deletion of cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV.
WHO’s experts believe that cannabis and cannabis resin have medicinal potential. And in order to encourage worldwide research into their medicinal benefits, cannabis and cannabis resin should be removed from Schedule IV, a list of dangerous narcotic drugs with little or no medicinal properties, such as heroin, which are subject to very strict control measures.
Established under the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the CND has 53 UN member states on a rotational membership. On 2 December 2020, a slim majority of the CND endorsed the recommendation of the ECDD in a vote of 27 in favour, 25 against, and one abstention (Ukraine). Thailand was among the 27 member states voting for the deletion of cannabis and cannabis resin from the Schedule IV.[6]
Singapore, which was not on the CND, expressed its disappointment with the decision. Its Ministry of Home Affairs issued a statement warning that the move could “fuel public misperception, especially among youths, that cannabis is no longer considered to be as harmful as before, despite strong evidence showing otherwise. …” And the Ministry of Home Affairs also stressed that the CND’s move “will not impact Singapore’s zero-tolerance stance towards drugs. …”[7]
In fact, cannabis and cannabis resin have remained on Schedule I of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, a list of substances including LSD, methcathinone, and heroin, which are highly addictive and liable to abuse, and are therefore subject to national and international controls.
For Thailand, the CND’s decision created a new impetus to speed up legalisation of marijuana and hemp. Unfortunately, the haste to liberalise marijuana and hemp cultivation, and failure to institute necessary control measures have created legal ambiguities and loopholes. This has led to widespread concerns about illicit cultivation and trade, and abuse of marijuana among Thai youths.
CONTROLLED HERBS ARE NOT NARCOTICS
Marijuana can be found in rural Thailand, especially in the north-eastern region where locals have used it in cooking, treating certain illnesses, and undoubtedly smoking for recreation. But in fact, marijuana was outlawed since 1934 under the Marijuana Act of B.E. 2477. The law prohibited, among other things, the smoking of marijuana.
Subsequently, marijuana was classified as a narcotic in the Marijuana Act of B.E. 2522 (1979), which prohibited its cultivation, distribution, import, export, and possession, unless with the permission of the Minister of Public Health on a case-by-case basis. The 1979 law was superseded by the Narcotic Drugs Act (7th edition) B.E. 2562 (2019), which opened the door wider for the cultivation and the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. And the Minister of Public Health has continued to be the authority for issuing licences, including the permit for marijuana cultivation.
Additional liberalisation of marijuana and hemp took place on 9 June 2022 when “every part” of the cannabis plants and their resin extracts with less than 0.2% of THC or CBD (Cannabidiol)[8] were declassified as narcotic drugs.
As a consequence of the legalisation of marijuana, all those who had been convicted in marijuana cases were immediately released. A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice reported that 3,071 marijuana convicts were released on 9 June 2022. All pending marijuana cases in court or under police investigation are to be dropped; and confiscation of marijuana can no longer be done. Owners of marijuana and properties confiscated in arrests prior to 9 June 2022 may apply for their return.[9]
Marijuana and hemp have been reclassified as “controlled herbs” under the Ministry of Public Health’s Announcement of 16 June 2022. They are no longer under the purview of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB).
EVERY HOUSEHOLD CAN GROW MARIJUANA
All Thais who are 20 or older can possess, use, look after, transport, and sell marijuana legally. Those who need the cannabis for treatment of some illnesses may be in possession of the “controlled herb” or its resin up to 30 days for their medicinal needs.
However, still prohibited under the 16 June 2022 Announcement are: smoking in public places, the use of marijuana by women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, and the selling of marijuana to these women and to youths under 20 years of age.[10]
Every Thai can freely cultivate marijuana and hemp for personal and medicinal use without any cultivation permit, except to register with the Foods and Drugs Administration (FDA) of the Ministry of Public Health through its “Plook Ganja” (marijuana cultivation) app.
As of 6 December 2022, the FDA had received about 1.12 million applications, to which 1.08 million permits had been issued. The FDA’s website for the registration had received more than 49 million hits.[11]
However, cashing in on planting marijuana for sale is actually difficult. On the one hand, resin extracts of marijuana and marijuana products with more than 0.2% of THC are still regulated. Permits are needed to plant high-grade marijuana or to use it in products for sale. Commercial-grade marijuana with a high percentage of THC needs careful attention in a temperature-controlled greenhouse. Ordinary people may not have enough money or technical know-how to invest in the necessary facilities and to plant high-grade marijuana successfully.
Moreover, marijuana with high content of THC can be sold only to a government agency which is to be set up for marijuana trade. Export and import of marijuana are also highly regulated, and not open to ordinary people. International trade of marijuana and its products is also tightly control under the UN conventions.
Unfortunately, marijuana has appeared in foods, ice cream, cookies, drinks, herbal medicines and ointments, and cosmetics in Thai markets and online platforms – sometimes without clear labelling and warning on its possible adverse side-effects. Existing laws and regulations seem inadequate to provide the necessary safeguard for public health and for protecting vulnerable young Thais.
The confusing and dangerous situation alarmed the Thai Medical Council (TMC) to such an extent that it had to mobilise all of its members to warn the Thai public of the dangers of marijuana, and to oppose all forms of recreational use of marijuana. The TMC also issued its proposals on Thailand’s marijuana policy, and reiterated its objection to recreational use of marijuana, even though it continued to support careful use of marijuana for medical purposes.[12]
Buddhist,[13] Islamic,[14] and Christian bodies in Thailand all have voiced their objections to “free marijuana” and warned their followers to stay away from it. The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Interior, and the Ministry of Defence have banned marijuana and hemp from all schools, provincial government offices, and military areas, respectively.
Sensing that the rampant abuse of “free marijuana” was getting out of hand, Public Health Minister Anutin issued on 11 November 2022 a new regulation to tighten control of topping buds and flowers of marijuana, which tend to contain a high percentage of the intoxicating THC substance.
However, several problems remain unresolved. For example: How to prevent children and youths from smoking home-grown marijuana? This failure to protect children from marijuana is a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 33; or how to determine which crop of marijuana, or which food products have how much of the THC substance? Furthermore, some available test kits cost 4,000 baht per set. Sending a sample to a government lab will incur a test fee of 5,000 baht.[15]
Thai police and highway patrolmen cannot yet determine on the spot whether a motorist in a road accident is under the influence of THC or not. Foreign tourists smoking marijuana in Thailand or bringing marijuana or marijuana products back home may face arrest on arrival, even though those products are legally sold in Thailand.[16]
NEW MARIJUANA LEGISLATION BLOCKED
The Prayut Administration’s government policy announced in the parliament on 25 July 2019 included, as one of 12 “urgent policy issues”, the promotion of research and development of marijuana and hemp as herbs for medicinal use and medical industry and for creating economic opportunities and income generation for the people. In order to follow up on the legalisation of the cannabis plants, Public Health Minister Anutin and his colleagues submitted a bill on marijuana and hemp on 27 January 2022.
On 8 June 2022, the House of Representative accepted the bill for further consideration. The approval vote was overwhelming: 373 for, 7 against, and 23 abstentions.
Subsequently, however, many MPs, including those in the Democrat Party, the third largest government party, have changed their minds. Others on an ad hoc House committee scrutinising the draft bill have proposed many new provisions to create additional control measures. Consequently, the revised draft bill has expanded to 95 articles from the 45 found in the initial draft.
The revised draft bill will, among other things, allow every household to grow up to 15 marijuana plants for personal use, and to cultivate hemp up to 5 rai (about 6,400 squares metre). Those who wish to sell marijuana or hemp must apply for permission from the FDA. And smoking the cannabis in public places will remain prohibited.
However, the proposed bill has no role for the ONCB, the main anti-narcotic agency of the Thai government.
The revised bill returned to the House for its second reading on 14 December amid threats of a sizeable number of MPs – including those from the Democrat Party on the government side – to scuttle it on the grounds that it will not prohibit recreational use of marijuana. MPs from the top two opposition parties, Pheu Thai, and Move Forward have vehemently criticised the proposed law, and have vowed to return marijuana to the list of controlled narcotic substances if they are in the new government after the next general election.
For Democrat Party, its ulterior motive in trying to undercut the BJT’s legalisation of marijuana is partly because the two parties are bitterly competing for support in Thailand’s southern provinces, where 55 House seats will be at stake in the next general election.
Some opposition MPs have raised the question whether Minister Anutin has some unlawful conflict of interest in pushing for the legalisation of marijuana and hemp, since his family’s business included a subsidiary involving in hemp cultivation.[17] The head of the House ad hoc committee scrutinising the draft bill, Supachai Jaisamut of the BJT, deplored the lack of support from fellow government MPs, calling it a “political game” to undermine his party. He also emphasised that the draft bill is the government’s legislation effort – not just the BJT’s.[18] He claimed that the proposed law will impose necessary control measures to regulate the marijuana business, which is estimated to be worth at over 70,000 million baht a year.[19]
In his introduction of the revised bill in the House on 14 December, Supachai emphasised the need to further support medicinal use of marijuana with the proposed comprehensive new law. He claimed that before the legalisation of marijuana, only about 16% of those who needed marijuana as medicine could get it from safe and legitimate sources. A large majority of them had to buy marijuana from unreliable sources on the black market at high prices.[20]
Due to serious opposition from many MPs, the House Speaker initiated a new solution on 22 December, with concurrence of the chief government whip and the opposition whip, to postpone the further reading of the revised draft bill to January 2023. This will avoid wasting too much time on debating the controversial bill; and the House could then turn its attention to finalising five draft bills that have been revised by the Senate.
The current final regular session of the House ends on 28 February 2023. Should the revised draft bill fail to pass into law, BJT leader Anutin has vowed to continue to highlight legalisation of marijuana and hemp in its election campaign in the next general election. In his capacity as the public health minister, Anutin has assured the Thai public that adequate control measures have been put in place, and additional measures can be added to plug all remaining loopholes.
Efforts by Anutin and the BJT suffered a new setback on 21 November when the Central Administration Court accepted for further hearing a petition from a group of opposition MPs and critics of his “free marijuana” drive. The group is asking the court to put marijuana and hemp back to the official list of narcotic drugs.
ASEAN DRUG-FREE COMMUNITY?
As early as in July 1998, ASEAN foreign ministers put forth a lofty vision of a “Drug-Free ASEAN”. In their Joint Declaration for a Drug-Free ASEAN, they called for “all modalities to eradicate illicit drug production, processing, trafficking and use in ASEAN by the year 2020.[21]
The 2020 target has been missed. But ASEAN cooperation to create the drug-free regional community remains on course (at least on paper) under the 2016-2025 ASEAN Work Plan on Securing Communities Against Illicit Drugs, and in the Blueprint of the ASEAN Political and Security Community (APSC) 2025.
In the chairman’s statement of the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits in Phnom Penh, issued on 11 November 2022, ASEAN Leaders “reaffirmed our commitment towards a drug-free region. We also remained steadfast in realising this commitment amidst global attempts to reschedule certain types of illicit drugs. …”[22]
However, Thailand has already ventured into its own way of marijuana legalisation, whereas the other nine ASEAN members still consider marijuana as a dangerous narcotic which must be eradicated from the ASEAN Community if it is to become “drug-free”. How ASEAN members are going to tackle this serious discrepancy is not yet clear.
As things stand now, the Prayut Administration’s approach seems to focus first on securing necessary control measures of marijuana and hemp domestically. Regional commitments to support the creation of the Drug-Free ASEAN, and to fulfil its international commitments to protect the “health and welfare of mankind” under the UN’s Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs will have to wait.
CONCLUSION
Anutin and his BJT have been blamed for recklessly promising too much regarding “free marijuana” during the 2019 election campaign. Serious confusion and legal ambiguities followed after marijuana and hemp stopped being considered narcotic drugs under Thai law, starting on 9 June 2022. Furthermore, mentioning marijuana and hemp together has tended to create more confusion; the two are in fact quite different things.
Illicit trade and recreation use of marijuana have created serious concerns not only in Thailand, but also among fellow ASEAN members for whom marijuana remains a banned narcotic.
Slow follow-up legislation on control measures on marijuana and hemp will continue to haunt Thai society, and aggravate rivalry between the BJT and Democrat Party in the unstable Prayut Administration.
Whether or not continued legalisation of marijuana and hemp will become a hot campaign issue in the next general election remains to be seen.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document here.
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“The Indonesian Military Enjoys Strong Public Trust and Support: Reasons and Implications” by Burhanuddin Muhtadi
2022/120 “China-educated Malaysians and China’s Educational Outreach to Malaysia” by Ngeow Chow Bing and Fan Pik Shy
FaceBook Page of Xiamen Univeristy Source: https://www.facebook.com/xmumalaysia. Snapshot taken on 22 December 2022.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- There are at least four different kinds of China-educated Malaysians: Malaysians pursuing university education in China; Malaysians doing short-term training courses in China; Malaysians learning Chinese language at Confucius Institutes within Malaysia; and Malaysians studying at Xiamen University Malaysia.
- Those Malaysian students studying in China universities are associated with two different circles, the non-Chinese-educated (mostly Malays) and the Chinese-educated (mostly ethnic Chinese Malaysians). Both circles exhibit clear differences in terms of financing, size, social impact, fields of study and career tracts. Due to an active alumni network, the Chinese-educated circle possesses more social influence within Malaysia and stronger connections with China.
- Confucius Institutes and Xiamen University Malaysia provide opportunities for Malaysians to experience China’s education in Malaysia. The former focuses on basic language training while the latter is a comprehensive institution offering a wide range of courses.
- Short-term training courses for foreign participants are another cost-effective way for China to project its educational soft power and outreach.
- From the perspective of China’s soft power, all categories of “China-educated Malaysians” generally hold positive views of China. However, they remain a minority group among Malaysians receiving foreign education. Additionally, there are still no important political leaders, top civil servants, or think tank analysts in Malaysia that have a China education background.
* Ngeow Chow Bing is Director at the Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Fan Pik Shy is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/120, 27 December 2022
INTRODUCTION
Education is a “soft power” resource, and China has been investing in its universities for decades, and utilizing its higher education sector for educational outreach. Malaysia is one of the countries which have a large group of students receiving education provided by China. This has especially been the case after 2011, when Malaysia and China signed an educational agreement on mutual recognition of their university degrees.
Malaysians who receive China-provided education are not confined to those who pursue university education in China. Broadly speaking, “China-educated Malaysians” can be grouped into the following categories: Malaysians receiving university education in China; Malaysians undertaking short-term courses in China; Malaysians receiving basic Chinese language training within Malaysia (Confucius Institutes); and Malaysians receiving China’s university education within Malaysia (Xiamen University Malaysia).[1] This paper discusses these “China-educated Malaysians,” their demographic characteristics, their social impacts and their views on China.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN CHINA
China emerged as an important choice for Malaysian students in the late 2000s. Table 1 below provides data on the numbers of Malaysian students studying in China’s universities in recent years. There are discrepancies between the data provided by Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education and China’s Ministry of Education, however; in some years the numbers provided by both countries differ by a wide margin, and in other cases the numbers match, but appear in different years.
Table 1: Malaysian Students Studying in China’s Universities
(Sources: For Malaysian statistics, the annual volumes of Statisik Pendidikan Tinggi are available at: https://www.mohe.gov.my/muat-turun/statistik; For Chinese statistics, these are compiled from sources such as China’s Ministry of Education and China Association for International Education)
Malaysian data display two categories: “sponsored” and “self-sponsored”. Generally, the Malaysian students who are under the “sponsored” category generally (but not exclusively) come from a non-Chinese-educated background (mostly Malays); they are sponsored by the government, government-owned companies, public universities and private sector companies. In contrast, the students under the “non-sponsored” category are mostly Chinese-educated ethnic Chinese Malaysians. Hence, among Malaysian students receiving higher education in China, there is a clear distinction between the two different circles (see Table 2).
Table 2: Non-Chinese-Educated and Chinese-Educated Malaysian Students Studying in China
| Non-Chinese Educated | Chinese-Educated | |
| Financing | Public and private sector sponsorship | Self-sponsorshipCommunity sponsorship |
| Size | Small, a few hundred at most | Large, at least in the thousands |
| Ethnicity | Mostly Malays | Overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese (Chinese-educated and Chinese-speaking) |
| Fields of Study | Basic Chinese language trainingTeaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL) Economics and business-related | Diverse fields Popular majors: Chinese Studies/Chinese Literature (中文系), Journalism, Business, Engineering, International Relations, Natural Sciences, Medicine |
| Universities | Mostly concentrated in these universities: Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) | More diverse and in different cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou, etc. |
| Social Organization and Connections | Informal connections and circles among graduates of BFSU and BLCU Limited social impact so far | Associations of Graduates from Universities and Colleges in China, Malaysia Various alumni organizations (Jinan, Peking, Tsinghua, Huaqiao, Zhejiang, etc.) Vibrant participation in community affairs as Chinese community organizations (huatuan/华团) Alumni bodies’ continuous engagement with the Chinese government’s “Overseas Chinese Affairs System” (侨务系统) |
| Career prospects | Mostly public sectorGovernment schoolsChinese language teaching centers | Mostly private sectorChinese schools |
The non-Chinese-educated circle is small compared to the Chinese-educated one. They are mostly funded under several programmes initiated by the Malaysian government, and mostly study at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU). These programmes are meant for non-Chinese-educated students to learn the Chinese language as a second language and to specialize in an academic major known as “Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages” (TCSOL). The goal is to train Chinese language teachers to serve in Malaysia’s national primary and secondary schools (but not the local Chinese schools of Malaysia). Some of these students also undertake advanced training (master or even doctoral training in the TCSOL field). The students with post-graduate TCSOL degrees will often come to teach at public universities,[2] with some opening up private Chinese language tutoring businesses.
The Chinese-educated circle are mostly self-funded or funded by the community (such as clan associations). Because of their natural Chinese language ability, these students are exempted from taking the Chinese language standard test in the admission process for China’s universities. Since the learning of the Chinese language is unnecessary, the fields of study pursued by Chinese-educated Malaysians are much more varied. Unlike the non-Chinese-educated circle, many of the graduates in the Chinese-educated-circle end up working in the private sector.
Another notable and important aspect of this circle is its active alumni network; there are several alumni organizations formed among the graduates of various China’s universities (Peking, Xiamen, Fudan, Jinan, etc.). There is also the umbrella organization known as the Associations of Graduates from Universities and Colleges in China, Malaysia (commonly known as Liu Hua 留华).[3]
Liu Hua is actively involved in Chinese community affairs in Malaysia and plays a major role in maintaining and advancing people-to-people ties between China and Malaysia. It is the main organizer of the “China Winter Camp” activity, which brings thousands of ethnic Chinese Malaysian youths to visit China, especially their ancestral hometowns. Liu Hua actively promotes universities in China to the Chinese-educated Malaysians and was one of the most active organizations lobbying for the recognition of Chinese university degrees by the Malaysian government. It also plays a role in connecting the Malaysian educational sector to their Chinese counterparts, for example, by organizing field trips for Malaysia’s education officials, school officials (headmasters), and school board members to China for educational exchanges and collaboration. Several teachers’ training programmes are also conducted under the coordinating role of Liu Hua. Moreover, Liu Hua maintains a productive working relationship with the Overseas Chinese Affairs organizations of China, including the State Council’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the provincial Overseas Chinese Affairs Offices, and Zhigong Party (致公党). It collaborates with these entities in educational, cultural and youth activities.
With a much larger group of students and the support of various alumni organizations, the social impact of Chinese-educated Malaysians is considerably stronger than that of the non-Chinese-educated Malaysians. Interactions between these two circles of China-educated students, however, while growing, appear to be limited.
SHORT-TERM TRAINING COURSES IN CHINA
In addition to the formal multi-year higher education, various entities in China also encourage and provide funding and opportunities for Malaysians to undergo short-term training. These courses last from either a few weeks to a few months in China’s universities or other training institutions, and the subjects range from technical/engineering training to language training and political governance (especially under party-to-party cooperation). Due to their diverse and decentralized nature, there is no known total tally of the training programmes that Malaysians participate in.
This kind of short-term training programme is very useful for China’s soft power. Compared to the conventional academic scholarships that usually cover tuition fees and stipends that last for several years, sponsoring foreign course participants in short-term training programmes is less costly and easier to organize. Course participants in short-term programmes are mostly mid-career individuals who are not able to undertake a lengthy period of leave to pursue conventional higher education in China. Hence, by sponsoring short-term programmes, China has an opportunity to extend its educational outreach beyond university-age youths. The relatively short duration of these programmes allows participants to experience China in an extended time frame beyond a short tourist visit, allowing them to form a lasting – and hopefully for China – a positive impression of the country.
CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES IN MALAYSIA
China’s most popular soft power project is the Confucius Institute. Its main task is to teach the Chinese language to non-native speakers. As of today, six Confucius Institutes have been established in Malaysia.
Table 3: Confucius Institutes in Malaysia
| Confucius Institute | Year | Partnering institution of China | Official Website/social media | Number of students |
| Kong Zi Institute University of Malaya | 2009 | Beijing Foreign Studies University | http://www.kongzium.edu.my/ https://www.facebook.com/KZIUM/ | In 2021, students totalled 14,221. |
| Confucius Institute, SEGi University | 2015 | Hainan Normal University | https://university.segi.edu.my/?page_id=18172 https://www.facebook.com/Segiconfucius/ | Each year: 250 |
| Confucius Institute, Universiti Malaysia Pahang | 2011/2018 | Hebei University | https://ci.ump.edu.my/index.php/en/ https://www.facebook.com/Confucius-Institute-100623258174139/ | Around 1,600 students annually registered in both credit and non-credit courses. |
| Confucius Institute, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) | 2019 | Changsha University of Technology | https://www.ums.edu.my/ci/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064972362454 | NA |
| Confucius Institute, University College of Technology Sarawak | 2020 | North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power | https://confuciusinstitute.uts.edu.my/about-us/ | NA |
| Confucius Institute at Shen Jai Education Group | 2022 | Xidian University | https://ci.shenjai.edu.my/newsite/?page_id=8 | NA |
Among these Confucius Institutes, the most well-developed is Kong Zi Institute at the University of Malaya (KZIUM). Established in 2009 with a first batch of 300 students enrolled in 2010, by 2021 the student body had grown to 14,221 in number (see Figure 1).
What is notable about KZIUM is that it has teaching sites all over Malaysia, essentially making itself an equivalent to several functional Confucius Institutes. All teaching sites are hosted within public universities and a handful of secondary national schools, with the number of students ranging in the hundreds and sometimes thousands. Many of these teaching sites are also located in relatively rural or remote areas outside the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan region, within satellite campuses of public universities that otherwise have very little formal engagement with China’s universities or entities. The presence of KZIUM teaching sites in these remote campuses provide opportunities for KZIUM to connect China’s universities with institutions hosting these teaching sites, therefore increasing China’s soft power in the more remote regions of Malaysia.[4]
Figure 1: Annual Numbers of Total Registered Students at KZIUM
(Source: Annual Report of Kong Zi Institute 2018, Annual Report of Kong Zi Institute 2019 and through personal contacts with Kong Zi Institute)
The vast majority of KZIUM students are university students. However, it is worth noting that most of them had only completed HSK 1 or HSK 2, whereas the basic requirement of entry into China’s universities for foreign students is HSK 5. Before the pandemic, KZIUM also provided Chinese language training to selected officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Royal Malaysian Police and the Immigration Department. These courses were designed in a specialized way to cater to the professional needs of these agencies and differed from the standard curricula that follows the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi or 汉语水平考试) standard and the “Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages” (TCSOL) teaching structure.
KZIUM also engages more with the industry by creating a “Chinese language +” structure where students who have undergone training can be readily hired by China’s enterprises. This structure also allows for local employees of China’s enterprises to undertake basic Chinese language training at KZIUM. In this regard, the Confucius Institute at Universiti Malaysia Pahang has done better. Benefitting from its location (Kuantan), where there is a major China-backed industrial park (the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park) and China-backed railway (the East Coast Rail Link), the Confucius Institute at Universiti Malaysia Pahang is highly involved in several joint degree programmes (with Beijing Jiaotong University) related to engineering.[5]
XIAMEN UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA
Malaysia also hosts the most ambitious international branch campus project undertaken by any Chinese university. This is Xiamen University Malaysia. Xiamen University Malaysia has a 150-acre campus in a town on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, accommodating up to 10,000 students. As of 2022, the student body numbers around 6,000 students, one-third of which come from China. The rest are mostly Malaysian students, predominantly from the ethnic Chinese community. In contrast to the Confucius Institute, Xiamen University Malaysia does not offer Chinese language teaching. Instead, it is a truly comprehensive university, offering a wide range of academic programmes ranging from the humanities and business studies to natural sciences and engineering. More interestingly, most courses are taught in the English language.
Xiamen University Malaysia enrolled its first batch of students in 2016. From 2019 to 2021, three batches of students – totaling 2,140 students –graduated from the university. Among them, 1,285 are Malaysians (see Table 4). In his convocation speech in 2022, Professor Wang Ruifang, the president of Xiamen University Malaysia, said that after graduation, many of its graduates had been able to join renowned private sector enterprises (some of which are Chinese companies such as Huawei or Bank of China) or to continue post-graduate studies in other prestigious universities in the world such as Oxford, Columbia, London School of Economics or others.[6] As of now, not many graduates of Xiamen University Malaysia have joined the public sector, an employment pattern similar to that of the ethnic Chinese students graduating from universities in China.
Table 4 Number of Graduates of Xiamen University of Malaysia[7]
| Year | Malaysian Students | International Students (mostly from China) | Total |
| 2019 | 242 | 129 | 371 |
| 2020 & 2021 | 1,043 | 726 | 1,769 |
| Total | 1,285 | 855 | 2,140 |
(Source: Sina News 2019; Sinchew Daily 2022)
CONCLUSION: CHINA-EDUCATED MALAYSIANS, THEIR INFLUENCE AND CHINA’S SOFT POWER
Among the four groups of “China-educated Malaysians.”, the largest and the most transformative group (in terms of personal immersion in China) are those who pursue higher education to obtain a university degree. There are two different circles within this group: the non-Chinese-educated (mostly Malays) and the Chinese-educated (mostly ethnic Chinese). Each circle has its own characteristics, demography, career track, social impacts, and influences. The most influential “China-educated Malaysians” almost certainly are those from the Chinese-educated circle; this circle possesses a longer history, has a larger community, and boasts an active alumni network vigorously engaged in community affairs and in people-to-people ties between China and Malaysia. The most influential alumni organization is Liu Hua, which serves as an organizational platform to connect members, articulate and magnify their voices and interests, mobilize resources, and liaise with other bodies and entities, including those from China.
All these categories of “China-educated Malaysians” generally (though not necessarily entirely) hold positive views about China. Particularly those who have been to China are in general impressed by China’s rapid development economically and technologically, the orderliness of its cities, and the dynamism of its people and society. Some, however, do note the growing political restrictions within China and feel uncomfortable about this trend. For the Malaysians who experience China’s education within Malaysia (Confucius Institutes and Xiamen University Malaysia), although the exposure to China at the personal level is limited, China is still largely perceived positively, albeit at a more superficial level.
Although increasing, “China-educated Malaysians” remains a minority group among the many Malaysians receiving foreign education. Notably, there are still no important political leaders, top civil servants, or think tank analysts in Malaysia who have a China education background. Outside of the ethnic Chinese community, no notable Malaysian businesspersons are known to have a China education background. However, this could change in the future.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document here.
| 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). |
2022/119 “The Promise and Peril of Patronage Politics for Authoritarian Party-Building in Thailand” by Napon Jatusripitak
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The Palang Pracharath Party’s (PPRP’s) decision to mobilise support through patronage politics in the 2019 general election has resulted in its failure to develop a strong and coherent party organisation with effective control over its MPs and durable ties to its local electoral base.
- This outcome is best understood as an enduring consequence of how the PPRP’s tacit alliance with the military regime both empowered and encouraged the party to co-opt leaders of vote-canvassing networks at the subnational level to substitute for party-building.
- The PPRP’s use of candidate selection to share power with its factions, and these factions’ capacity to leverage their party affiliation to consolidate power locally saw the emergence of an anarchy of factions with growing autonomy from the party.
- In the face of a looming threat posed by the Pheu Thai Party and an ongoing factional strife stemming from a rift between the party leader, General Prawit Wongsuwan, and Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the PPRP may be vulnerable to a mass exodus by its factions and MPs to other parties.
*Napon Jatusripitak is Visiting Fellow in the Thailand Studies Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He is a PhD Researcher at Northwestern University.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/119, 14 December 2022
INTRODUCTION
Despite significant changes in Thailand’s political landscape since 1997, many Thai political parties and candidates continue to compete for votes in general elections by offering money, favours, jobs, and preferential access to government resources to their constituents.[1] This practice, called patronage politics, has long been organised in Thailand through vote-canvassing networks (rabob huakhanaen) made up of local government officials, politicians, and influential leaders.[2] Reaching deep and wide, these networks are typically entrusted to deliver selective benefits to voters who may be expected, or persuaded, to vote for candidates preferred by the networks in return.[3]
The prevalence and persistence of patronage politics and vote-canvassing networks in Thailand may be interpreted in several ways: as a result of longstanding inequality and extreme concentration of resources; as a symptom of weak parties and ineffective institutions, or as a pattern set in motion by contingent historical events related to the country’s uneven and interrupted democratisation. Nonetheless, the ills of Thailand’s patronage democracy—corruption, nepotism, factionalism, and money politics—have largely been blamed on provincial politicians who appear to have bought their way into power, and on the recipients of their handouts, primarily the rural poor, who have come to be viewed as victims of these vote buyers or, worse, their accomplices.[4]
This point of view, shared by many Bangkok-based and reform-minded elites and widely publicised in the mainstream media and anti-vote-buying campaigns, served as the moral underpinning for the design of the 1997 Constitution.[5] In 2006 and 2014, this viewpoint became part of the rhetoric used to justify the overthrow of democratically elected governments.[6] Democratic failure in Thailand was once again pinned on patronage politics—but with a sleight of hand. The quintessential patron deemed responsible for hijacking democracy in Thailand had now taken the form of the former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his party, despite evidence that their electoral dominance was built on a new kind of party-voter linkages fostered through populist leadership and policies rather than through traditional vote-canvassing networks alone.
Given this background, the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP)’s heavy reliance on vote-canvassing networks in the 2019 general election marked the comeback of old strategies for sharing and consolidating power.[7] At the risk of alienating urban and conservative supporters who had previously expressed discontent with patronage tactics, the party was unabashed in its attempt to co-opt old-style politicians, families, and factions, many of them former allies of Thaksin and the Pheu Thai Party. The party exploited its links to the military regime, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), to secure the backing of these individuals, promising them assistance and protection in return for their support. Taking advantage of an uneven institutional playing field and the regime’s influence over the state apparatus, it empowered these individuals’ vote-canvassing networks. In short, rather than curtailing patronage politics, the PPRP took it to new heights, fostering the kind of democracy whose dysfunction provided the rationale for authoritarian solutions in the first place.
This article provides an overview of the PPRP’s engagement in patronage politics, and how its strategy of co-opting provincial and local elites unfolded and with what consequences for the party and democracy in Thailand. Based on this analysis, it makes the case that the resurgence of patronage politics under the current electoral-authoritarian framework may destabilise the regime’s capacity to maintain power through elections.[8]
DOMINANCE THROUGH CO-OPTATION
In parallel to building its party brand on policies already implemented by the NCPO government and on the personal appeal of the NCPO leader-cum-prime minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the PPRP formed strategic alliances with provincial and local political elites, factions and families.[9] These individuals’ networks laid the groundwork for building support for the party at the local level, notably in regions such as the North and the Northeast, where the party could not campaign on its overt pro-military stance, or in constituencies where awareness of the newly-formed party was lacking.
Tapping Provincial and Local Constellations of Power
Actual recruitment occurred long before formal candidate selection and, in many cases, even before the party was officially launched. Sontaya Khunpluem, leader of the Phalang Chon Party and Chon Buri’s dominant Khunpluem family, was the first of many big names to join the alliance that eventually became the PPRP. Sontaya was appointed as a political advisor to the prime minister and Mayor of Pattaya in 2018 under the authority of Section 44 of the Interim Constitution. The move was designed to signal that the NCPO was eager to work with politicians and that a military-backed party was in the works.[10] Sontaya’s group eventually joined the PPRP and fielded candidates under the PPRP’s banner in Chon Buri.
At around the same time, former TRT cabinet ministers and Wang Nam Yom faction leaders Somsak Thepsutin and Suriya Juangroongruangkit, along with Anucha Nakasai and Pirom Pholwiset, formed the Sam Mitr (“Three Allies”) faction. The Sam Mitr faction’s deal-making and recruiting activities made national news on a regular basis, sending shockwaves across Pheu Thai, whose MPs, particularly in the upper-Central, lower-Northern, and Northeastern provinces, had personal links to Sam Mitr’s leaders. The group also succeeded in bringing on board Preecha Rengsomboonsuk, former Pheu Thai cabinet minister and MP, and his faction in Loei Province, demonstrating the strength of Sam Mitr’s connections as well as Pheu Thai’s failure to stop its political heavyweights from defecting.[11]
By September 2018, the PPRP had secured the backing of over a hundred former MPs from various political parties, drawn from more than a dozen factions and influential families. Beyond the factions already mentioned, the PPRP recruited Varathep Rattanakorn’s faction in Kamphaeng Phet, Virat Rattanaset’s faction in Nakhon Ratchasima, Supol Fongngam’s faction in Ubon Ratchathani, Santi Prompat’s faction in Petchabun, Pinit Jarusombat’s Wang Phayanak faction, Suchart Tancharoen’s Ban Rim Nam faction, Aekkarat Changlao’s faction in Khon Kaen, the Thianthong family in Sa Kaeo, the Asavahame family in Samut Prakan, and the Teekananond family in Udon Thani.[12]
This patchwork of factions and families, spanning laterally across Northern, Northeastern, and Central Thailand and extending down to the local level, was put together in a relatively short period of time—less than one year before the March 2019 election. Substituting for the party infrastructure, it served as a “political power grid” for the party that not only attracted former MP candidates and local politicians from the region and neighbouring provinces, but also filled the gap between the party and voters.[13]
An Unholy Alliance
From the party’s perspective, mobilising support through vote-canvassing networks appeared vital for success.[14] Despite its attempt to create a party brand in advance by adopting the name pracharat (ประชารัฐ a civil state) from policies implemented long before the party’s founding, the PPRP had no local roots. Worse, in a landscape marked by a sharp ideological divide between pro-Thaksin and pro-military parties, the PPRP could not count on the ebbs and flows of voter sentiments (krasae) to work in its favour, especially in areas where Thaksin’s popularity remained strong.
Against this backdrop, reliance on factions controlling vote-canvassing networks conveyed a sense of assurance and predictability, comparable to “pushing a button,” in terms of producing a favourable election outcome or at least one that was acceptable to the junta. Accordingly, relying on polling instruments and intelligence from military officers, police officers, and bureaucrats, the party checked for the popularity of prospective candidates as well as the credibility of their vote-canvassing networks, which were treated as metrics for determining the amount of informal financial support promised to each candidate or faction.[15]
The incentives for joining the PPPR, on the other hand, ranged from a general desire to be part of the future governing coalition, and thereby secure access to patronage, to protection and legal assistance from the military regime. First, the PPRP was situated as a party backed by the NCPO, which oversaw the appointment of the 250-member Senate, which would participate in the selection of the prime minister in a joint session involving both Houses. This generated an air of certainty that the PPRP would be in the lead in terms of approving a prime minister of its own choosing and forming the government. Second, the NCPO was widely associated with “total and exclusive access to state power,” wielding influence over the courts, regulatory agencies, and the bureaucracy—an impression that the PPRP capitalised on in order to “to persuade, coerce or offer protection to targeted individuals that had potential.”[16] Therefore, no matter how diverse the incentives for joining the PPRP were, they were inextricably tied to the PPRP’s tacit alliance with the military regime.[17]
THE ROOTS OF PARTY FRAGMENTATION
A grand coalition large enough to ensure that no defection by any single faction can jeopardise the coalition as a whole may, in principle, bring stability to a party’s organisation.[18] In the case of the PPRP, however, the amalgamation of factions, political dynasties, and provincial elites that formed the party produced splinters and infighting so intense that the party leadership had to be reshuffled on three occasions.[19] Individual faction leaders’ ambition to attain cabinet positions served as the impetus for intra-party struggles, something that was characteristic of most Thai political parties. Yet, these struggles could not have resulted in large-scale party overhaul unless the party structure was fragile to begin with.[20] This fragility is best understood as a long-term by-product of how the PPRP empowered itself using patronage and military backing. The use of candidate selection as a power-sharing arrangement, combined with a campaign strategy that allowed factions to entrench themselves locally, saw the emergence of an anarchy of factions with growing autonomy from the party.
An Anarchy of Factions
The PPRP delegated candidate selection in several provinces to the leaders of the faction recruited by the party.[21] This arrangement shared power among the factions who had made an early investment in the party—in a start-up like fashion—allowing the party to be built quickly. However, where factions had overlapping claims and interests, this strategy produced tensions and disputes that were settled, not through party channels but through internal competition and shifting alliances involving the PPRP’s factions and the party’s stakeholders.
This dynamic is best illustrated using the case of Kamphaeng Phet Province. One of the Sam Mitr’s leaders, Somsak Thepsuthin, advocated for his own team of candidates to run in all four constituencies in the province. This raised concerns among members of Varathep Rattanakorn’s faction, many of whom were incumbent MPs in the province, and had already deserted Pheu Thai to run as PPRP candidates. The faction requested that party leaders intercede on its behalf, but no agreement was reached. Finally, the conflict was resolved in favour of Varathep’s faction via bargaining with a third faction in the region, balancing out Sam Mitr’s influence in the process.[22]
This seemingly isolated dispute between factions reflects a broader trend in which the party distanced itself from intraparty struggles in order to divide and rule. This pattern is not uncommon for larger parties in Thailand, but the situation was even more complicated in the case of the PPRP since affiliates of the NCPO and the military were also actively pulling the strings behind the scenes, in some cases to determine which individuals should be the party’s nominees.[23] As a result, each faction competed for nominations and candidate selection not only by balancing power amongst themselves but also by leveraging ties to influential figures in the party and, in many cases, above the party. These informal adaptations bolstered the impression that real power in the PPRP was vested not in the party executive committee but in elite settlements involving factions in the party and influential party stakeholders operating from the shadows. Ultimately, the party was but a hollow shell designed to give the illusion of a robust party organisation; in reality, accommodating factional differences and interests often meant undermining or bypassing the party.
Faction-building, not Party-building
On the surface, the PPRP’s aggressive recruitment activities reflect its overwhelming bargaining power over politicians. At the local level, however, the factions that joined the PPRP were adept at using the party’s association with the military regime to strengthen their political base under the guise of building support for the party. During the election campaign, this affiliation played to many factions’ advantages, including turning former foes—the military’s Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC)—into powerful allies, overcoming local rivals, and unifying previously divergent loyalties among local officials and vote canvassers. These manoeuvres were, of course, aligned with the party’s immediate interests and priorities in 2019. Yet, the factions’ success in consolidating power locally also signifies the PPRP’s failure to establish local roots independent of these factions’ support in the long run.
To revisit the case of Kamphaeng Phet, the faction that joined the PPRP from Pheu Thai was contesting in areas populated by Pheu Thai’s supporters. Campaigning for a party associated with the junta that deposed Pheu Thai was political suicide. To address this challenge, the faction selectively played up and downplayed its connection to the military. To its vote canvassers and local leaders in the province, the faction warned that those who failed to support the PPRP could be targeted by security officials or even removed from office.[24] However, when appealing to voters, the faction emphasised local unity and continuity of the faction’s leadership and contribution to Kamphaeng Phet, making little to no mention of General Prayut, the PPRP’s prime ministerial candidate, throughout the campaign.[25] With this two-pronged strategy, the faction was able to offset the PPRP’s negative image of being a military-backed party while also exploiting the party’s ties to the military to cement its own influence over local government officials, politicians, and community leaders in the province.[26] In short, the faction used its alliance with the PPRP to ensure its political survival without necessarily developing a genuine local support base for the party.[27]
IMPLICATIONS
Despite its military backing, the PPRP has not been able to avoid the usual pitfalls of garnering support through reliance on patronage politics and vote-canvassing networks. Its co-optation strategy, unmatched both in ambition and scale, produced yet another under-institutionalised and incoherent electoral vehicle, reminiscent of numerous Thai parties in the past. Neither did the strategy translate consistently into strong electoral performance in regions where the party was most successful at recruiting political heavyweights.[28] Furthermore, the party was plagued by continual struggles among factions to obtain or buy the support of nearly half of elected PPRP MPs who had no strict factional allegiance from the beginning—a practice known as “fishing in each other’s pond.”[29] Ultimately, in the case of the PPRP, the long-run trajectory of party development was shaped more by the party’s initial organisational contour than the immediate results of the election.
While the PPRP has remarkably survived the symptoms of its ill-fated party-building strategy for four long years, these symptoms have visibly worsened due to a crisis of leadership emanating from an ongoing rift between the party leader, General Prawit Wongsuwan, and General Prayut. After General Prawit’s takeover of the party and former secretary-general Captain Thammanat Prompao’s attempt to unseat Prayut in a no-confidence debate, the PPRP’s allegiance to General Prayut has become questionable. Furthermore, since Prayut is eligible to serve for only two additional years into the next term, the PPRP may or may not nominate him as its candidate for prime minister.[30]
The Ruam Thai Sang Chart Party (รวมไทยสร้างชาติ United Thai Nation), formed by former Democrat and PPRP member Pirapan Salirathavibhaga and former Democrat MP and PDRC leader Akanat Promphan, has emerged as Prayut’s new electoral vehicle. While it remains unclear whether Ruam Thai Sang Chart will be able to muster enough support to propel Prayut back to power under the new electoral rules,[31] the party is well-poised to attract MPs from other parties, including those in the PPRP who remain loyal to Prayut or have feuds in the past with Captain Thammant’s faction, which is expected to re-join the PPRP.[32]
Meanwhile, the Pheu Thai Party, which many factions in the PPRP were originally part of, has vowed to deliver a landslide victory in the next general election, doubling down on its promise by revamping the party image and placing the party under a more centralised, though informal, leadership by members of the Shinawatra family. The new set of electoral rules is also expected to work in the party’s favour and against smaller parties seeking to gain seats primarily by winning party-list votes. This combination of internal strife and external pressure has created a high level of uncertainty that has left the PPRP vulnerable to a mass exodus by its factions and MPs to other parties.[33]
Ultimately, the PPRP’s faltering struggle to maintain unity reflects a failure to forge enduring loyalties either to voters, or to the military regime and the conservative establishment. While the party succeeded in co-opting the regional, provincial, and factional leaders of vote-canvassing networks, this success was accomplished only by empowering and giving autonomy to such leaders which have long-term ramifications for party development.
The result of combining patronage politics with authoritarian legacies and an uneven playing field is this: an electoral vehicle with no real connection to the populace other than through factions whose devotion to the party is only as strong as the backing the party receives from the regime, and that regime’s hold on power. The upcoming general election will determine whether Thailand’s military regime can continue to count on the PPRP, or some other parties, to maintain the status quo. If not, the military/conservative establishment will be backed into a corner which may prompt it to withdraw from politics or, more likely, seek to dominate the political system through other means, including, quite possibly, another coup d’état.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document here.
| 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. 5: 2022 – Neither Indigenous nor Foreign: Reconceptualising the Port Cities of Southeast Asia by Jeff Khoo
““STANNING” NAJIB: Fanning a Personality Cult in Malaysian Politics” by Clarissa Ai Ling Lee and Amirul Adli Rosli
“Real Exchange Rate and Firm Productivity: The Case of Vietnamese Manufacturing” by Minh Hong Phi
2022/118 “The Struggle for International Recognition: Myanmar after the 2021 Coup” by Joanne Lin and Moe Thuzar
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The military coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021 created huge diplomatic repercussions, throwing into uncertainty the country’s international position and representation.
- The coup’s unconstitutional basis and the resistance to military rule in Myanmar also presented challenges for international and regional bodies to engage with stakeholders in Myanmar.
- The United Nations and ASEAN have approached these challenges on the basis of existing procedures and guidelines. Although the UN’s existing guidelines seem to favour democratic legitimacy, it prefers not to be perceived as taking sides in Myanmar’s representation.
- ASEAN, lacking similar guidelines regarding credentials and representation, has created its own precedents regarding the level of representation at key political meetings. Neither the UN nor ASEAN have accorded outright recognition to the State Administration Council (SAC) or the parallel National Unity Government (NUG), although individual member states have exercised unilateral initiatives to engage in dialogue with the NUG. Additionally, some members and dialogue partners of ASEAN have turned to existing treaty practices that allow arrangements for non-recognition disclaimers in concluding regional treaties and agreements involving Myanmar.
- Differing views and interests among member states at either UN or ASEAN tables also add to the continued ambiguity on engaging Myanmar. This de facto de jure divide in and on Myanmar seems likely to continue in 2023, with the SAC’s election plans likely to exacerbate tensions.
* Joanne Lin is Co-coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS, and Lead Researcher (Political-Security) at the Centre. Moe Thuzar is Acting Coordinator of the Myanmar Studies Programme at ISEAS, and was previously a lead researcher at the ASEAN Studies Centre. The authors thank Dr Marcus Brand of International-IDEA for insights added to this paper.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/118, 1 December 2022
INTRODUCTION
The coup mounted by Myanmar’s military on 1 February 2021 has thrown the country’s international representation into ambiguity and confusion. The State Administration Council (SAC) regime, headed by Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who also appointed himself head of a caretaker government on 1 August 2021, asserts that the SAC is the sole representative and voice of the country.
However, the SAC’s creation as an instrument of arbitral military rule and the legality of its assertions were unconstitutional. While the coup leaders physically prevented the imminent convening of the Hluttaw, Myanmar’s legislature, the parliament nevertheless proceeded to swear in its members and establish a Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH; Committee Representing the Union Parliament). Three days after the coup, about 70 lawmakers-elect from the incumbent National League for Democracy (NLD) proceeded to take their oaths of office, as an act of upholding the 2020 election results and their legislative commitments.[1] The CRPH eventually grew to 20 Members, with the support of 80 percent of the elected MPs, and it has been extended recognition in inter-parliamentary cooperation, including by the European Parliament and the International Parliamentary Union. Legal experts have highlighted the coup’s unconstitutionality,[2] particularly the military’s unproven and implausible claims of electoral fraud as a reason to justify declaring a state of emergency and deposing and detaining the internationally recognised leaders and senior officials, including President Win Myint, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Chairman of the Election Commission,[3] Chief Ministers and senior cabinet members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government.
Since the coup, and particularly since the appointment in April 2021 of the National Unity Government (NUG),[4] which draws its legitimacy both from the elected CRPH and a wider group of appointed representatives, both the SAC and those opposing military rule have put considerable effort into gaining international recognition by asserting the extent of their domestic reach and control as well as in their respective external engagements.[5]
The physical control of government buildings and the state machinery gave the military an initial upper hand, although mass resignations, strikes, and protests by an estimated 400,000 civil servants[6] hampered the military’s efforts to exercise administrative power.
The issue of representation and recognition presents challenges internationally and regionally. Both the United Nations (UN) and ASEAN operate on the basis of what they refer to as “recognising states rather than governing entities”. While Myanmar’s status as a member state is not in doubt, recognising the competency of a representative acting on behalf of a state presents a challenge in the post-2021 coup scenario.[7]
For the time being, the UN Credentials Committee has agreed that the incumbent Myanmar ambassador to the UN, Kyaw Moe Tun, would continue to represent Myanmar, and has deferred further decision.[8] In October 2021, ASEAN made an unprecedented decision to limit the SAC’s attendance at the 38th and 39th ASEAN Summits to a “non-political representative”,[9] upholding this for ASEAN’s special summits with China in November 2021 and with the United States in May 2022, respectively. In February 2022, ASEAN further expanded the non-political representative application to foreign ministers’ meetings. The practice was extended to the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus on 23 November 2022.[10] However, for all practical purposes, ASEAN interacts with Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and embassies which are under SAC control.
At the same time, in February 2022, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) resumed hearings of the case brought against Myanmar by the Gambia regarding the Myanmar state’s responsibility for preventing genocide towards the Rohingya population, under the Genocide Convention.[11] The ICJ hearings proceeded with the SAC in the defendant’s seat.[12]
In August 2022, international civil society/rights organisations supporting the UNESCO World Education Summit, mistakenly addressed the SAC chief as head of government.[13] Even in ASEAN, other than the Summit and foreign ministers’ meetings, other sectoral and functional meetings and activities have continued with SAC representatives.
There is thus a level of ambiguity surrounding the accreditation and acceptance of Myanmar representatives to ASEAN and international meetings, and in dealings with the various regional and international instruments to which Myanmar is a party.
APPROACHES TO RECOGNITION OF GOVERNMENTS AND THE ISSUE OF CREDENTIALS
As a member of the UN and ASEAN, Myanmar’s statehood is clear and undisputed. Myanmar meets the legal requirements of statehood under the 1933 Montevideo Convention.[14] What is of greater concern, however, and particularly for ASEAN, is the recognition of competent representatives acting on behalf of a State, especially when the SAC and the NUG are both asserting their right to Myanmar’s ASEAN seat.[15]
Under international law, the recognition of government (as opposed to states), is largely left to individual members’ discretion. Most states or international institutions often resort to the Estrada Doctrine[16] to avoid accusations of meddling with sovereignty when different parties contest authority in a country. This bears some resemblance to ASEAN’s non-interference principle, as it is based on the principles of non-intervention and self-determination. Even so, considering the Estrada Doctrine in the context of the February 2021 coup in Myanmar runs the risk of condoning unconstitutionality. ASEAN member states had recognised the NLD’s second landslide victory in 2020. The ASEAN Chair’s statement on 1 February 2021 also emphasised the importance of “adherence to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms” and a “return to normalcy in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar”.[17]
The general preference to recognise states and not governments does not resolve the question of recognising governments, especially concerning the establishment of embassies, the accreditation of ambassadors, or the signing of agreements.[18]
Thus, when the recognition of a new government needs to be considered, three criteria are usually referred to, namely: (i) the entity’s effective control of the territory; (ii) its democratic legitimacy; and (iii) its adherence to international law.[19] Before 1990, UN Credentials Committees usually referred to the traditional criterion of effective territorial control for recognising a government.
Apart from these three criteria, states may also consider moral considerations, based on whether a government gained effective control legitimately or otherwise, preferences for values or systems such as democracy, or asserting control through violence and authoritarian means. Such considerations are important, as they help to ensure that the coup in Myanmar is not a fait accompli.[20] The UN’s credential practices post-1990 have also demonstrated the importance of these values, including factors such as human rights records.[21]
In the 21st century, democratic legitimacy has emerged as having a greater claim to recognition than the earlier characteristic of effective control. The UN chose to recognise democratic legitimacy in Cote d’Ivoire (2011) and Gambia (2017).[22]
States may sometimes also use the terms de facto or de jure when the authority in a country is contested. Governments with de jure status are considered legal and constituted. In contrast, a de facto government may be in control of the political/executive affairs of the state although not legally recognised or enjoying a legal mandate.[23]
In the case of Myanmar’s representation at the UN, the 76th UNGA Credentials Committee[24] has deferred its decision indefinitely, based on the understanding that the incumbent, Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun (appointed by the NLD government in 2019) retains Myanmar’s seat.[25] Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun states that he represents the NUG when participating in UN procedures and votes on UNGA resolutions. Inconsistent with the UN’s own precedents and requirements, this position has not been reflected in other UN bodies, such as the secondary seats in Geneva and Vienna, or Myanmar’s representation at ESCAP in Bangkok.
ASEAN does not possess a similar mechanism to examine the credentials of member states’ representatives. The established rules in ASEAN do not have any guidelines to deal with cases in which appointments or credentials are contested, let alone the competency of the government that issues them. As such, in light of the non-recognition of the SAC’s authority by some member states and dialogue partners, ASEAN has faced an unprecedented challenge of finding options for the conclusion (and entry into force) of ASEAN instruments and agreements.
In ASEAN, treaty practices[26] allow arrangements to consider the issue of non-recognition in concluding treaties. For example, states can issue a statement that their accession to a multilateral treaty does not imply or confer recognition to certain state(s). This practice allows ASEAN member states or dialogue partners that do not recognise the SAC as the government of Myanmar to introduce a statement or declaration as a non-recognition disclaimer. Admittedly, this disclaimer may have more to do with a country’s position rather than a legal effect on the document.
Several member states and some dialogue partners of ASEAN have taken this approach in ratifying the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement. Similarly, in consideration of external parties’ accessions to ASEAN’s foundational document, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), the ASEAN parties to the TAC now submit individual written consent to the depository, replacing the previous (pre-February 2021) established practice of physical signatures to indicate consent.
SAC AND NUG: THE LEGITIMACY QUESTION
Although the SAC considers itself the ruling entity, and has styled itself as a provisional government since August 2021, experts have highlighted the military’s deposing and detention of existing officeholders as unconstitutional.[27] The SAC had justified the military takeover under the 2008 Constitution, but that same document contains provisions that charges relating to impeachment can only be initiated by the Union Parliament. Furthermore, the President has to inform the Union Parliament of a decision to declare a state of emergency, which did not happen in February 2021.[28] Senior NLD leaders and party members were also detained without charges presented against them (lists of charges were only presented after detention). In this aspect, the military’s actions cannot be considered as actions of a de jure government.
Apart from the unconstitutional basis of the takeover, the use of lethal force, extra judicial killings, and using the legal system to carry out the first judicial executions in decades, add to the violations of international law (in addition to the earlier legal action brought by the Gambia against Myanmar over atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine State).[29]
The nationwide protests and coordinated civil disobedience movements across the country following the coup, the breakdown of SAC-controlled local administration in several parts of the country, and the escalation of a cycle of violence in response to the military’s harsh crackdowns (which include airstrikes), also point to the reality that the SAC is unable to fulfil the criterion of “effective control” of the country.[30]
However, the SAC regime seems to enjoy some measure of pragmatic acceptance by China and to a lesser extent India, and outright strong support by Russia.[31] ASEAN has come under scrutiny for engaging the SAC to negotiate the cessation of violence in the country and facilitating humanitarian assistance, even as ASEAN members seek to differentiate engagement and acceptance. As at May 2022, four ASEAN member states – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, have not appointed/replaced their ambassadors to Myanmar. Thailand accepted the credentials of an SAC-appointed Myanmar ambassador to Thailand in June 2022.[32]
ASEAN’s negotiation of the Five-Point Consensus with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in Jakarta in April 2021 at the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting, working with the SAC-led Myanmar National Task Force to deliver humanitarian assistance,[33] accepting the SAC’s defence minister General Mya Tun Oo’s presence at the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting,[34] and the 2022 ASEAN Chair Cambodia’s approach to engaging the SAC could be construed as ‘normalisation’ of military rule in Myanmar.[35]
The NUG was formed out of a coalition of NLD law-makers, representatives of several ethnic nationalities, and members of civil society. Appointed in April 2021, it is part of a political roadmap outlined in the Federal Democracy Charter adopted by the CRPH—a body of lawmakers, largely from the NLD who had received the people’s mandate through the 2020 democratic election.[36]The NUG’s goal is to restore democratic rule and uphold the results of the 2020 election.[37] It also commits to a vision of an inclusive federal democracy.
The NUG seeks to: (i) gain formal recognition from the international community by collaborating with international governments and international organisations including the UN; (ii) work on ratification of international conventions and treaties that will protect the nation in line with international laws; (iii) collaborate with partner countries; and (iv) work through diplomatic approaches to bring effective sanctions of the international community against the council of the military junta.[38]
The NUG has spared no effort to establish its diplomatic presence despite its constraints. To date, there are NUG representatives in Australia, Czech Republic, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Norway. However, NUG representatives do not have diplomatic accreditation.[39] Several countries have dialogues with the NUG but have not officially recognised it. In this vein, various NUG ministers have held meetings with lawmakers from Canada and Spain, as well as senior government representatives from the US, Germany and Sweden.[40]
The NUG has tried to justify its legitimacy, and capacity to govern, by stating its adherence and commitment to international norms. For example, in addition to its withdrawal (in February 2021) of objections on the case against Myanmar at the ICJ,[41] the NUG has accepted the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction and role in reviewing the crimes committed by the military against the Rohingya people since 2002, including the alleged genocide in 2017.[42]The NUG has also offered potential citizenship to the Rohingyas.
At the UN and at international fora, the NUG continues efforts to highlight the SAC’s atrocities and illegitimate claims and to prevent/deny SAC participation in these platforms, through Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun’s statements and meetings with the UN officials and member state representatives. Despite the obvious challenges to gaining formal recognition from the international community, the NUG seems nevertheless to have gained an advantage from existing UNGA rules that stipulate “the incumbent ambassador keeps the seat if there is a credentialing dispute”.[43] However, this does not translate into the UN recognising the NUG. In the absence of a firm decision by the Credentials Committee, the UN does not want to be seen as taking sides on Myanmar.[44]
The NUG is also emphasising the ‘responsibility to protect’ as justification for its capacity to prove a responsible counterpart for dialogue towards a federal system in Myanmar.[45] In this endeavour, the NUG also recognises the importance of an ASEAN member state’s obligations. It has appointed an Ambassador to ASEAN,[46] who has been urging the regional bloc to uphold the principles enshrined in the ASEAN Charter and to at least recognise the duality of competing political forces in Myanmar.[47]
Notwithstanding the public meeting between Malaysia’s Foreign Minister, Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah and NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung, on the sidelines of the ASEAN-US Special Summit in Washington DC in May 2022, the NUG is aware that attaining formal recognition from ASEAN will be extremely challenging.
Limited support for the NUG may stem from perceptions of its limited long-term strategies and structural maturity, as well as uncertainty over the extent to which the NUG can represent the diverse populations in Myanmar (and their aspirations).[48] Operationally, the NUG is also limited in its ability to deliver public and consular services (including for Myanmar citizens abroad), such as issuing identity cards, passports, or visas to foreign visitors.[49]
Furthermore, several ASEAN member states (especially those that share a border with Myanmar) remain disinterested in putting further pressure on Myanmar’s military government nor do they seem keen to improve human rights, fundamental freedoms, and democracy in Myanmar.
CONCLUSION
The self-appointed nature of the SAC has limited justification to be recognised as the legitimate government of Myanmar. The sustained nature of the resistance against military rule close to two years after the coup also shows that the SAC has not proven able to establish effective control over the country. Furthermore, sanctions targeted against SAC elites and associates by the US and EU, among others, show that it is the SAC, rather than the Myanmar government, whose actions are unacceptable. Similarly, ASEAN’s decision to invite only non-political representatives from Myanmar to ASEAN’s high-level meetings, and the non-recognition disclaimers used by several ASEAN members in regional legal instruments indicate a disinclination to accord the SAC recognition.
The NUG’s democratic legitimacy and its status as the entity broadly representing the forces for democracy in Myanmar, and its stated commitment to uphold international obligations and standards of human rights, are being increasingly viewed as important in considering credentials in international settings.[50] Even in the ASEAN setting, the argument that ASEAN has used in the past concerning the SAC, i.e. that engagement does not necessarily constitute conferring legitimacy, could also be applied to the actions of any member state seeking to engage with the NUG, as illustrated by Malaysia’s action and proposals. Additionally, the Five-Point Consensus’ provision that the Special Envoy of the ASEAN Chair meets with “all parties concerned” indicates that ASEAN does not necessarily need to seek further permission to carry out that mandate. The ASEAN Leaders have now given the special envoy of the ASEAN Chair more leeway to proceed accordingly.[51]
Although NUG may seem to be the more popular choice for the international community, the path ahead for its formal recognition remains uncertain. China and Russia’s veto power at the UN Security Council and differing preferences in ASEAN may continue to provide SAC with the expectation that it could still pursue recognition and legitimacy via its plans for an election in 2023 under the SAC’s five-point roadmap. Scepticism abounds on whether this planned election will be free and fair. Even so, seasoned Myanmar watchers are cautioning that the military will doggedly continue its election plans, most likely limiting polls to areas that it deems sufficient to make the vote “legitimate”.
Members of the international community that have clearly stated their rejection of the February 2021 coup will maintain their positions, while the SAC will continue to find ways to retain its participation in ASEAN and strengthen its ties with countries such as Russia. Finally, even with stricter measures by ASEAN related to the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus,[52] and a more favourable attitude towards unilateral engagements with the NUG, the NUG may still find itself still in need of exploring diplomatic tools and opportunities for wider recognition by the international community.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document here.
| 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). |
2022/117 “Setbacks for Moscow, Progress for Kyiv: The Russia-Ukraine War and its Impact on the ASEAN, G20 and APEC Summits” by Ian Storey
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The Russia-Ukraine War complicated but did not derail the ASEAN, G20 and APEC summits in Southeast Asia.
- The host nations stood their ground and refused to heed calls from Western countries to exclude Russia. All three meetings were a qualified success thanks to skilful diplomacy.
- President Putin did not travel to Southeast Asia due to a series of humiliating military setbacks in Ukraine and to avoid being shunned by other leaders.
- The language of the final summit statements was highly critical of Russian aggression in Ukraine.
- The ASEAN Summit was a success for Ukraine as it acceded to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and strengthened relations with Cambodia.
* Ian Storey is Senior Fellow and co-editor of Contemporary Southeast Asia at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
ISEAS Perspective 2022/117, 29 November 2022
INTRODUCTION
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has impacted the countries of Southeast Asia in many ways. The most important, and damaging, ones have been in economics. The rising price of energy, food and other commodities has lowered GDP growth forecasts and slowed the region’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Kremlin’s invasion has undermined the rules-based international order, further aggravated US-China tensions and inserted another wedge issue in ASEAN unity.[1] The conflict has forced regional states to reassess their defence and arms procurement policies, particularly those that have purchased military hardware from Russia.[2] Myanmar’s tightening ties with Russia have the potential to worsen the country’s civil war.
The conflict also complicated the preparations for, and hosting of, three major back-to-back international summits in Southeast Asia in November: the ASEAN Summits in Phnom Penh (11-13 November); the G20 in Bali (15-16 November); and the APEC Leaders’ Summit in Bangkok (18-19 November).
The three summits tested the ASEAN countries’ convening power and their ability to resist calls from outside the region to disinvite Russia. That none of the events were derailed, and final statements were issued, is a testament to the hosts’ diplomatic skills in navigating complex geopolitical tensions. However, the events also underscored their limited ability to influence the dynamics of the conflict.
For the combatants themselves, the meetings provided important opportunities to lobby participating countries and articulate their competing narratives. Ukraine was able to advance its agenda and interests in Southeast Asia, especially at the ASEAN meetings. However, for Russia, the summits highlighted the difficulties the invasion has created for Moscow’s diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region, including in its relations with traditional partners.
THE RUN-UP TO THE SUMMITS
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the viability of the three summits was called into question. Some Western leaders declared that it could not be “business as usual” in multilateral forums which included Russia, and even raised the prospect of boycotting the meetings if Russian officials were invited.[3] As the first major in-person summits to be held in Asia since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand had a great deal at stake ensuring that the meetings took place without incident. More importantly, they felt that because there were many pressing global problems that required international cooperation to address, multilateral processes should not be held hostage to the Russia-Ukraine War.
Accordingly, on 4 May, the foreign ministries of the three countries issued an unprecedented joint press release. The statement emphasised the importance of maintaining ASEAN centrality through “constant engagement based on the principle of equal mutual respect and interest”, the important role the G20 played in facilitating a “strong and inclusive [economic] recovery for all” and the need for APEC to “accelerate regional economic integration to achieve shared prosperity”. The hosts declared they were “determined to work with all our partners and stakeholders to ensure a spirit of cooperation, as we in Southeast Asia continue to strengthen ASEAN centrality, credibility and stability in our regional and global endeavours”.[4] Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand stood their ground, arguing that it was neither in the interests of the region nor in their power to exclude certain countries. Invitations were thus issued to Russia by the three states. However, to assuage Western discomfort, Indonesia also extended an invitation to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend the G20.
By mid-year, the threat of a boycott had receded, but the preparatory meetings highlighted how the war had impeded multilateral processes that involved Russia. In July, for instance, the G20 foreign ministers and G20 finance ministers held separate meetings in Bali. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attended the former in person, but walked out of the meeting following withering criticism of the invasion from his Western counterparts.[5] No joint communique was issued. Russia’s finance minister, Anton Silvanov, attended the latter meeting virtually, and although it too ended without a communique, Indonesia issued a chairman’s statement which noted that “many members” had condemned the war while noting one member believed sanctions had added to existing economic challenges.[6]
In the run-up to the three summits, much of the media coverage centred on which leaders would attend, especially Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the Kremlin had accepted the invitations to all three events, it remained non-committal on whether Putin would attend in person. It was widely assumed that Moscow would make a last-minute decision, and that his attendance would depend on how Russia’s armed forces were faring in Ukraine. By late October, it had become clear that Putin would not attend the summits but this was not confirmed until 7 November.[7] The Kremlin was always concerned about the poor optics of Putin being ostracized by other world leaders at the summits (as he had been at the G20 summit in Brisbane in 2014 a few months after Russia had annexed Crimea). Putin may also have weighed the personal risks to his own position while travelling overseas, though the prospects of a palace coup were always remote. But the deciding factor was a series of disastrous setbacks for Russia’s armed forces on the battlefield in the face of a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive. Most significantly, on 11 November, Russian occupation forces retreated from the strategic city of Kherson, the only major city captured by the Russians since the invasion and which in September the Kremlin had declared Russian territory “forever”.[8] As a result, Putin did not participate in any of the three summits, not even virtually. However, his absence may well have come as a relief to the hosts as it spared them the potential headache of having Putin in the same room as other leaders opposed to the war.
THE ASEAN SUMMITS
No matter how the war was going in Ukraine, it was always highly unlikely that Putin would have travelled to Phnom Penh. This was for two reasons.
The first is Putin’s lack of interest in the annual East Asia Summit (EAS). Since Russia joined in 2011, Putin has only attended once in person (in 2018 in Singapore) and twice virtually (in 2020 and 2021). Putin, it seems, is only interested in attending multilateral forums in which Russia can exert real influence, such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The presence of the US and China at EAS tends to overshadow Russia.
ASEAN has always viewed Putin’s participation in the EAS as a yardstick of how serious Russia is about its dialogue partnership with ASEAN, especially as the member states regard it as the key forum for leadership-led dialogue on the major issues facing the region. Putin’s absence will reinforce the belief among some ASEAN members that Moscow does not see relations with the bloc as a high priority.
The second reason is Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s vehement opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Hun Sen has called it “an act of aggression”, and a “grave breach of the UN Charter” which threatens “the foundation of international order”.[9] Cambodia co-sponsored the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution condemning Russia’s invasion on 2 March.
Hun Sen has not only denounced Putin’s invasion but has also thrown his political support behind Ukraine. In a telephone call with President Zelenskyy on 1 November, Hun Sen condemned Russian aggression and supported the Ukrainian leader’s request to address the ASEAN meetings virtually. However, Zelenskyy was unable to do so because the ASEAN members could not reach a consensus.[10] Reports suggest that Myanmar, which has pursued closer relations with Russia since the February 2021 coup,[11] was the only ASEAN member to oppose Zelenskyy’s request.[12]
According to the chairman’s statement of the EAS issued by Cambodia, “most” of the EAS countries had condemned the “aggression against Ukraine”, called for an immediate end to the war and the non-use of nuclear weapons.[13] However, in a concession to Russia’s concerns about NATO expansion, including Ukraine’s possible membership of the alliance, it also noted the “view that the root cause of the situation in Ukraine should be addressed and the legitimate concerns of all countries must be taken into consideration”. But this phrase was of little consolation to Moscow.
Speaking at a press conference after the EAS, the head of the Russian delegation, Foreign Minister Lavrov, objected to the “absolutely unacceptable language regarding the situation in Ukraine”. Lavrov also accused the West and its allies of “militarising” the Indo-Pacific region with the aim of “containing” Russian and Chinese interests, and establishing “inclusive structures” that undermined ASEAN centrality, including the 2021 Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) technology-sharing agreement. Russia and China were, he argued, the only two major powers still supporting ASEAN centrality.[14]
For Ukraine, the ASEAN Summits were a diplomatic success. Although Zelenskyy was not able to address the meeting, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba attended as a guest of Cambodia. Most significantly for Ukraine, Kuleba signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) which enshrines the principles of friendly and peaceful relations among member states, including respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, and which is open to accession by countries outside the region (Ukraine became the 50th country to accede to the TAC). Ukraine had only applied to join the TAC in June, so its accession in November clearly indicated that ASEAN had fast-tracked the approval process. Although the ASEAN member states have taken different positions on Russia’s invasion, the bloc’s rapid approval of Ukraine’s application was a gesture of political support for Kyiv.
In a wide-ranging interview with a Cambodian media outlet, Kuleba called Ukraine’s accession to the TAC “a big political achievement”.[15] He thanked Cambodia for its support at the UNGA and for offering to send de-mining trainers to Ukraine. He announced that the two countries had agreed to establish embassies in each other’s countries. Kuleba also held bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. He urged the ASEAN countries to condemn Russia’s invasion, not only because it was an attack on Ukraine, but also the UN Charter and international law, adding “I’m confident that none of the ASEAN countries is interested in seeing any country following the pattern of behaviour of Russia here in Asia”.[16]
THE G20 SUMMIT
From February onwards, Indonesia had repeatedly argued that the G20 was an economic forum that should not be politicised by the war in Ukraine, and that the participants should focus their attention on post-pandemic economic recovery. However, among the three hosts, Indonesia went the furthest to try and bridge the gap between Western countries and Russia. In June, President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo himself travelled to Kyiv and Moscow to personally deliver invitations to Zelenskyy and Putin.[17] Yet Jakarta was under no illusions how difficult it would be to bridge the gap between the two opposing camps. Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi admitted that Indonesia’s presidency was “among the most difficult, or even the most difficult to date of all G20s because of the geopolitical issues, economy and others”.[18] Jokowi was clearly passionate about the necessity for the G20 to achieve concrete results. In his opening address he warned “If the war doesn’t end, it will be difficult for the world to move forward” and that the G20 “must be the catalyst for inclusive economic recovery”.[19]
President Zelenskyy addressed the G20 leaders by video, prompting Lavrov to walk out. Although a final statement was not expected, the G20 was able to issue a Leaders’ Declaration largely thanks to the behind-the-scenes diplomacy of Indonesia and India.[20] Moscow could not have been pleased with the language of the declaration. It referenced the UNGA resolution of 2 March which “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine” and added “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy.” In reference to Russian threats to use nuclear weapons, the declaration stated “The use or threat to use nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” And in a push back to Jokowi’s plea not to politicise the summit, it recognised that while the G20 was not a forum to resolve security issues “we acknowledge that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy”.[21] In response to the declaration, Lavrov accused the West of just that: politicising the G20.[22]
In addition to the harsh declaration, Russia failed to find support for its military operation in Ukraine from two of its closest partners, China and India. Although both countries have tried to maintain a neutral but sympathetic stance since February, it is becoming clearer that both countries are increasingly dissatisfied with Putin’s war. The White House reported that at a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the two leaders had expressed their opposition to the use or threat to use nuclear weapons.[23] President Xi also warned against the “weaponisation” of food and energy (but expressed opposition to unilateral sanctions).[24] Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his call for a “return to the path of ceasefire and diplomacy in Ukraine”.[25]
The Kremlin was to receive more bad news related to Ukraine as the summit got underway. On 14 November, Zelenskyy made a triumphal visit to the liberated city of Kherson. On the same day, the UNGA passed a resolution calling on Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine for damage to property and loss of life caused by its illegal invasion.[26] Three ASEAN states―Myanmar, the Philippines and Singapore―voted in support of the resolution while the other seven abstained. Three days later, a Dutch court sentenced in absentia two Russians and a Ukrainian for their role in the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 with a Russian-supplied missile in July 2014 with the loss of 298 passengers and crew, including 43 Malaysians.[27] The G20 meeting itself was interrupted by an emergency meeting of G7 and NATO leaders to discuss an accidental missile strike on Poland.[28]
Overall, however, despite the problems caused by the war, the G20 was a relative success for Indonesia as agreements were signed on a number of issues, including pandemic preparedness, energy transition and the financial sector.[29] It also provided a venue for a cordial meeting between Biden and Xi, which appears to have eased tensions between the two superpowers.
THE APEC SUMMIT
Of the three summits, Putin would most likely have attended APEC had he travelled to Southeast Asia. Russia was a founding member of APEC in 1988, and as president, Putin has attended most of the leaders’ summits. Putin’s participation in APEC summits underscores his transactional approach to the region. He regards it as an important venue to build trade and investment ties with the largest economies in the region, and promote investment in the infrastructure-poor Russian Far East. Putin was proud to host the APEC Leaders’ Summit in Vladivostok in 2012.
Thailand seemed eager to have Putin attend, especially after President Biden announced in late September that he would not participate and that Vice President Kamala Harris would go in his place. On 12 October, seemingly to avoid offending the Kremlin, Thailand abstained on the UNGA vote which called on member states not to recognise Russia’s illegal annexation of four territories in the Donbas.[30] In another concession to Russia, Thailand did not invite Zelenskyy to address the APEC leaders. Putin did not attend, however, and Russia was instead represented by the relatively unknown figure of Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov.
As with the G20 summit, the APEC leaders defied expectations and issued a joint statement. And in yet another setback for Moscow, the language in the declaration on the conflict in Ukraine was identical to the G20 statement.[31]
CONCLUSION
The Russia-Ukraine War bedevilled preparations for the three summits in Southeast Asia but did not derail them. The three hosts successfully rebuffed calls for Russia’s exclusion, and in the case of the G20, Indonesia was able to assuage Western criticism by inviting President Zelenskyy to address the meeting virtually. But for Russia, the meetings amounted to an embarrassing diplomatic failure. Putin was unable to attend any of the summits due to a series of humiliating military setbacks in Ukraine and the prospect of being marginalised by other world leaders. All three of the summit statements contained language highly critical of Russian aggression. Even China and India issued thinly veiled criticism of the Kremlin’s invasion. Ukraine did much better, especially at the ASEAN Summit where, thanks in large part to Cambodia’s support, it was able to raise its diplomatic profile with the bloc. Kyiv would also have been satisfied with the references to the conflict in the final statements of the three meetings.
Despite the relative success of the three summits, the ongoing conflict in Europe will continue to pose challenges for multilateral processes in the Indo-Pacific. As the chair of ASEAN in 2023, Indonesia will face many of the same problems it did during its presidency of the G20, and will need to continue to play the role of an honest broker between Russia and the West. India will take over the presidency of the G20 and has been touted as a possible mediator between the two sides. The US will host APEC in 2023 and the Leaders’ Summit will take place in San Francisco in November 2023. Given the fraught relationship between the US and Russia, President Putin will thus miss another APEC meeting.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document here.
| 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). |
2022/116 “China’s Hydro-Politics Through the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation” by Hoang Thi Ha
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- China has actively pursued water diplomacy with Lower Mekong countries through the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) to ensure a stable and friendly periphery and to counter US criticism and securitisation of Chinese cascade dam-building.
- Central to the Chinese discursive construction is the positive framing of its dams as providing regional public goods through “regulating floods and replenishing droughts” for downstream states.
- The LMC embodies China’s top-down, state-centric approach that places emphasis on engaging with the Lower Mekong governments, using political and policy dialogues, economic cooperation and development assistance as the main conduits of engagement.
- This state-centric approach has served to soft-pedal and suppress riparian communities and local civil society which have been more vocal on the Mekong’s environmental problems and the impact on their livelihoods.
- The LMC is a prime example of Sino-centric multilateralism, in which China is the one who sets the rules and frameworks rather than being absorbed into pre-existing institutions such as the Mekong River Commission (LMC).
*Hoang Thi Ha is Senior Fellow and Co-coordinator of the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/116, 22 November 2022
INTRODUCTION
The Mekong basin – covering China upstream and Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam downstream – is emerging as an ecological and geopolitical hotspot in Southeast Asia. Home to the world’s largest inland freshwater fishery, highly biodiverse basins and fertile farmlands,[1] the Mekong ecosystem – and the livelihoods of riparian communities along the river and its tributaries – are being jeopardised by the accumulative impact of climate change and unsustainable uses of water resources, including upstream and downstream hydropower dams.[2]
China controls the Mekong’s headwaters and has built 11 mainstream dams and 95 tributary dams within its portion of the river (“Lancang” in Chinese).[3] It is also the largest financier of energy projects in the basin, a large bulk of which is hydropower.[4] In the past few years, China’s Lancang dams have come increasingly under international scrutiny, especially from the US[5] as the two great powers get locked in a contest for primacy in Asia. This – together with China’s broader foreign policy goals in mainland Southeast Asia – has prompted Beijing to shift towards “a more active and more preventive hydro-political strategy regarding the Mekong”.[6] Central to this strategy is the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) established in 2016 as the multilateral platform for China to engage downstream states on Mekong water resources management.
Using discourse and content analysis, this article canvasses LMC documents, websites of China-administered LMC institutions and Chinese media to examine how China has exercised its water diplomacy through the LMC while remaining faithful to its water sovereignty. In this process, the LMC’s institutional design and cooperation activities are engineered to co-opt downstream countries towards endorsing the Chinese approach to Mekong water governance, legitimise its upstream dam-building, and construct a counter-discourse to US criticism of Chinese framing of Mekong water resources.
CHINA’S APPROACH TO MEKONG WATER GOVERNANCE
Upholding water sovereignty as the overriding principle
China exerts its sovereignty and jurisdiction over water resources of all international watercourses in its territory, including the Mekong, shying away from global or regional transboundary water governance regimes. Its transboundary water treaties “are primarily bilateral… rather than embracing a basin-wide approach.”[7] China voted against the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses at the United Nations General Assembly in 1997,[8] which is the first global instrument regulating international cooperation over transboundary water resources. A key obligation under the Convention requires that States “take all appropriate measures to prevent the causing of significant harm” to other States sharing an international watercourse.[9] In the Mekong context, Beijing is a dialogue partner and not a member of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) – a transboundary basin organisation operating on the principle of integrated water resources management between Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
China’s insistence on its water sovereignty is driven by geographical, historical and economic factors. First, thanks to its upstream position and the precipitous terrain of the river’s upper reach, China can afford a maximalist approach to water sovereignty and hydropower development. According to Sebastian Biba, an upstream hegemon has little incentive to engage in cooperative arrangements “as these would only be seen as a constraint to unlimited future action and discriminatory use of a river’s resources”.[10] Similarly, Salman Salman pointed out that in international water law, upstream states emphasise the principle of equitable and reasonable utilisation over the obligation against causing significant harm because “it provides more scope for states to utilise their fair share of the watercourse for activities that may impact downstream states.”[11]
Second, as noted by James Nickum, there is historically “little awareness of the international dimensions of river flows” among Chinese public, policymakers and experts, a condition that he attributes to objective factors such as “geography, history, and the minority ethnicity of most of China’s borderlands”.[12] This deficit of situational awareness has led to the silence “on the international dimensions of China’s river basins, much less that there might be some controversy over their development”, hence the lack of “an overall operational plan or management organisation for international basins”.[13] Few Chinese people know of the Lancang’s extended life beyond the Chinese border.[14] According to a 2004 report by Evelyn Goh, “existing Chinese studies largely do not take into account environmental costs downstream of the Lancang cascade” while “a few more recent studies of downstream impacts focus on the potential positive effects and dismiss the likely negative ones.”[15]
Third, hydrological engineering holds a significant place throughout Chinese history and nation-building where “competence in water management is seen as a proxy for fitness to rule”.[16] The Chinese’ ability to conquer floods along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers enabled the birth and expansion of their ancient civilisation. In the modern era, this “taming the rivers” spirit has turbocharged China to build the colossal Three Gorges Dam and become the world’s largest hydropower superpower.[17] The “man must conquer nature” mindset has shaped China’s interventionist approach to the Mekong water resources such as leveraging the cascade for dam-building, regulating the flows to alleviate floods/droughts or blasting the rapids for navigation.[18] Enabled further by advanced hydrological engineering, China’s predominant approach to the Lancang-Mekong river in the past three decades has been development-centric.
Reconciling water sovereignty with water diplomacy
While retaining its water sovereignty, China has actively engaged in water resources cooperation with downstream states in recent years, especially through the LMC. Some analysts attribute such cooperation to a gradual shift within the Chinese policy elite towards “more comprehensive and non-traditional, even cooperative concepts of security”, which “would allow more consultation and coordination with neighbours, and participation in regional institutions governing Mekong development.”[19] Domestically, the growing tension between untrammelled economic development and environmental degradation has led President Xi Jinping to declare China’s “principal contradiction” between “unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life”.[20] China’s own experience of more severe and frequent droughts and floods along its riparian plains also brings home the urgency to prioritise sustainability in the country’s national – and potentially global – development agenda.
The extent to which China externalises this imperative of development-environment balance beyond its borders, including in the Mekong basin, remains unclear. Despite Xi’s pledge to make the Belt and Road Initiative more “green and sustainable”, the roll-out of Chinese investment and overseas development financing involves various Chinese stakeholders. These include local authorities of borderland provinces (especially Yunnan in the Mekong context) and Chinese hydropower companies. These stakeholders’ vested interests – i.e. growth targets, energy consumption demands and corporate profits – often dictate that development comes first and environment remains an afterthought.
Geopolitics is arguably the most important driver for China’s increasingly active Mekong water diplomacy, with two foreign policy objectives in mind. First, to ensure a stable and friendly periphery in the basin, China cannot completely disregard the need to engage with downstream countries on the river issues, given the latter’s growing concerns over unpredictable changes in the Mekong’s hydrological conditions, especially excessive droughts, drying flows and dwindling fish stock which have had serious ramifications on their socio-economic well-being.[21] To this end, China has employed the “shared river, shared future” discourse in its diplomatic and economic outreach towards Lower Mekong countries.
Second, China’s water diplomacy has become more urgent as the Mekong emerges as a “new front for U.S.-China rivalry in Southeast Asia”.[22] During the Trump administration, the US stepped up its criticisms of Chinese dams and upgraded American engagement in the sub-region through the Mekong-US Partnership (MUSP).[23] The Trump administration adopted a securitisation strategy – defined as “the discursive construction of particular issues as security threats”[24] – regarding water and environmental issues in the Mekong basin, pointedly connecting these problems to China’s upstream dam-building. Following the release of the Eyes on Earth report in April 2020 that showed how Lancang cascade dams were altering the river flows in Lower Mekong, many high-level US officials, including then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, sharply criticised China’s upstream dam operations and lack of transparency on its river water use.[25] The methodology of the Eyes on Earth report, however, is assessed by the MRC as not providing “robust scientific evidence” for its findings, and its data has been criticised as “being overinterpreted for political ends”.[26] In its counter-moves as analysed in the subsequent section, China has instrumentalised the entire architecture of the LMC to de-securitise Mekong water issues and bolster the legitimacy of its upstream dams.
CHINA’S HYDRO-POLITICS THROUGH THE LMC
Overview of the LMC and its water resources cooperation
In 2014, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang proposed the establishment of the LMC to promote socio-economic development, narrow the development gap, support sustainability and advance South-South cooperation. The first LMC Foreign Ministers Meeting in 2015 adopted the 3+5 cooperation framework covering three pillars (i) political and security issues, (ii) economic and sustainable development, and (iii) cultural and people-to-people exchanges; and five priority areas (i) connectivity, (ii) production capacity, (iii) cross-border economy, (iv) water resources cooperation; and (v) agriculture and poverty reduction. In 2016, the inaugural LMC Leaders’ Meeting adopted the Sanya Declaration, setting the strategic guidelines and institutional framework for LMC cooperation.[27] The LMC has since outpaced other Mekong sub-regional platforms in terms of institution-building, cooperation scope and project financing. Its institutional architecture spans from leaders to ministers, senior officials and working groups.
The LMC is led and invested in by Beijing in a hub-and-spokes fashion. The website of the LMC China Secretariat effectively serves as the LMC website which features all-round cooperation between China and Mekong countries, bilaterally and through the LMC, including high-level exchanges, connectivity projects, and economic and socio-cultural interactions.[28] The LMC Special Fund – comprising US$300 million of Chinese concessional loans – is administered by China to support small and medium-sized projects by Mekong countries, with disbursement made through bilateral agreements.[29] As of 2021, the LMC Special Fund had reportedly supported over 500 projects in agriculture, health, poverty reduction, environment and other areas.[30] Most LMC water cooperation activities are also hosted and sponsored by the Chinese.
The LMC is an important instrument for China’s water diplomacy in the Mekong basin. One of its objectives and priority areas is to “enhance cooperation among LMC countries in sustainable water resources management and utilisation”. Its water agenda has made significant milestones in setting the cooperation framework and establishing relevant institutions (Table 1).
Table 1: Highlights of LMC Water Resources Cooperation[31]
The LMC approach: state-centric, all-round cooperation, and development-first
The LMC embodies China’s top-down, state-centric approach that places emphasis on engaging with the Lower Mekong governments, using political and policy dialogues, economic cooperation and development assistance as the main conduits of engagement. According to the 2016 Sanya Declaration, the LMC cooperation will feature “leaders’ guidance” and follow a “government-guided model”. The biennial LMC Leaders’ Meeting is the top policy-making body that maps out “strategic planning for long-term LMC development” while the annual LMC Foreign Ministers’ Meeting conducts “policy planning and coordination”.[32] The role of local governments in fostering LMC cooperation is also promoted through the Initiative on Deepening Cooperation among Local Governments of Lancang-Mekong Countries.[33] The 2018-2022 LMC Five-Year Plan of Action (POA) seeks to enhance political dialogues, official exchanges and visits, including among law enforcement agencies, police, judicial bodies and even political parties.
On water resources cooperation, the POA intends to “carry out top-level design for cooperation among LMC countries in sustainable water resources and utilisation” and “strengthen policy dialogue on water resources”.[34] This state-centric approach has been criticised as “giv[ing] limited opportunity to the public to participate in its processes”.[35] It could soft-pedal and even suppress the voices of riparian communities and local civil society groups which have been more vocal on the Mekong’s environmental problems and the impact on their livelihoods.[36] Granted, the Sanya Declaration also refers to “multiple-participation” and “broad participation”, i.e. the inclusion of non-official actors such as journalists, students, youths, academia and media in LMC activities. However, all LMC activities are organised and coordinated through the inter-governmental channel over which China retains control in administering the process, shaping the outputs, and narrating the outcomes.[37]
Given the LMC’s all-round cooperation, water security is not its only and central concern. Instead, it puts emphasis on “economic development” as both the incentive and the main prism for Mekong basin cooperation. The LMC’s preoccupation with economic benefits “from and beyond the river”[38] is reflected in the goals of its 2018-2022 POA, namely “(i) contributing to the economic and social development of sub-regional countries, (ii) enhancing well-being of the people, (iii) narrowing the development gap within the region, and (iv) building a Community of Shared Future of Peace and Prosperity among Lancang-Mekong Countries”. As noted by Nickum, “the bases for cooperation are more strategic and economic than environmental”, and therefore “the fate of shared river basins may remain an afterthought.”[39]
Bringing water governance “back to the realm of normal politics”
China’s approach towards de-securitising Mekong water issues through the LMC fits into what is coined as the “transformation strategy”, i.e. “moving issues off the security agenda” and “back into the realm of normal politics”.[40] As part of this “transformation strategy”, water resources cooperation is incorporated into the LMC agenda with a broad aperture that includes (i) water resources and green development, (ii) climate change adaptation, (iii) water infrastructure, (iv) agricultural water use, (v) sustainable hydropower development and water-food-energy nexus, (vi) transboundary river cooperation and information sharing, and (vii) coordination with other areas such as agriculture, fishery, tourism, health and poverty reduction.[41] This holistic approach makes sense, given the multitude of socio-economic, environmental and governance problems facing riparian states. However, it also serves to dilute and de-escalate the scrutiny over dam-building, which is the most controversial aspect of Mekong water development.
Most importantly, the LMC provides a multilateral platform to co-opt downstream countries towards endorsing the Chinese approach to Mekong water governance and legitimising Lancang dam-building. To this end, key Chinese initiatives are embedded in the LMC’s institutional set-up. These include the Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Information Sharing Platform (LMC-ISP),[42] the Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Center (LMC Water Centre), and the Lancang-Mekong Environmental Cooperation Centre (LMECC), all headquartered in China and administered and represented by Chinese officials.[43]
The LMECC is considered the “main implementing agency” of the Lancang-Mekong Environmental Cooperation Strategy (2018-2022),[44] and one of its objectives is to “disseminate China’s theory of environmental governance”.[45] Similarly, apart from sharing hydrological data from Yunjinghong and Man’an stations,[46] the LMC-ISP website focuses on disseminating China-centric news and perspectives about Mekong water resources cooperation. This infosphere basically mirrors Chinese media reports that “downplay negative impacts downstream, and instead bring forth the commonly repeated narratives of flood control, carbon-neutral energy generation, and national development”.[47]
Central to this Chinese discursive construction is the positive framing of Lancang cascade dams as providing regional public goods. According to this narrative, which is emphasised throughout LMC engagements, Chinese dams help regulate the Mekong’s seasonal flows, which in turn have “brought benefits to drought relief, water supply, navigation and ecology downstream”.[48] The LMC has also been utilised to co-opt the voices from downstream in pushing positive messages about Chinese dams through various study tours and visits to China by officials, diplomats, youth and media from downstream states.[49]
Apart from amplifying the positive impact of cascade dams and negating their detrimental effects, China has zeroed in on climate change as the main reason for the Mekong’s hydrological changes.[50] The modality of conducting joint studies has been leveraged to shift the weight of evidence to the climate change factor. The LMC’s 2018-2022 POA directs its joint research and analysis towards “Lancang-Mekong water resources and influences of climate change” (without any mention of dam impact).[51] This includes a joint study to be undertaken by the MRC and the LMC Water Centre on the changing hydrological conditions in the Mekong basin,[52] with its scope and direction as prescribed in the 2021 LMC Foreign Ministers’ Joint Statement being to provide “engineering and non-engineering measures to tackle climate change”.[53] Although climate change plays a big part in the Mekong hydrological uncertainties, the single focus on this factor runs the risk of obscuring the controversy over hydropower development from the river.
Water diplomacy within the bounds of water sovereignty
China’s water diplomacy through the LMC has not fundamentally shifted towards embracing greater accountability or a basin-wide perspective in its use of Mekong water resources. As noted by Biba, de-securitisation does not mean China’s complete renunciation of unilateral actions and embrace of full-blown cooperation. Rather, it indicates that “China may pursue cooperative strategies of non- or de-escalation – despite a possible continuation of unilateral actions” which he coined as “on and off cooperation”.[54]
It remains to be seen whether China’s cooperative gestures through the LMC would have any meaningful impact on the ground. In 2020, China agreed to share year-round hydrological data from Yunjinghong and Man’an stations, which was hailed by the MRC as supporting its “independent analysis of the flow regime in the upper part of the basin”.[55] While useful, the data is assessed to be “incomplete” (about water levels rather than dam operations, from two stations only, not all upstream dams)[56] and not timely enough.[57] In 2021, the MRC continued to urge wider exchange of data among all riparian states, including prior notification of the Lancang cascade’s planned operations.[58]
It also remains to be seen whether the MRC can undertake “independent analysis”[59] with the LMC Water Centre’s direct and – apparently directive – involvement. While benefiting from China’s data-sharing, their joint studies may be influenced by Chinese narrative-control. For instance, in January-February 2021, the MRC issued media releases indicating that the Mekong water levels dropped due to power grid maintenance in Yunjinghong dam,[60] that the blue-green colour in some sections may return to its sediment-rich brown if upstream and tributary dams release large volumes of water,[61] and that there was discrepancy between the MRC and Chinese data on the outflow at Yunjinghong.[62] At a follow-up meeting with the MRC, Chinese experts indicated that Yunjinghong’s average discharge levels in January and February 2021 were respectively 79% and 94.7% more than the average charge between 1960-2009 (when the Lancang flows were not regulated by dams). They also noted that the MRC’ technical error had caused data discrepancy, and that the MRC would “use the latest updated rating curve provided by China … to maintain the scientific nature and consistency of hydrological data”.[63] While China’s sharing of additional data would enable more accurate and comprehensive analysis of the river’ hydrological conditions, this also means that the script of the Mekong story would likely be written according to China’s narratives while alternative views could be suppressed.
The crux of the matter remains the unilateral discretion of Chinese dam operators to utilise Lancang water resources, not subject to any basin-wide oversight or consultation mechanism with downstream states to properly take into account the impact in the Lower Mekong. A Mekong Dam Monitor report in 2022 pointed out that the two big reservoirs upstream, Xiaowan and Nuozhadu, generally restricted a similar amount of water regardless of low flow and drought conditions downstream between 2018 and 2020, and that the 2020 wet season flows at Stung Treng (Cambodia) and Chiang Saen (Thailand) would have been 9.3% and 63% higher respectively without restrictions from the two dams.[64] For all its image-building and propaganda, altruism for downstream states is neither the operating principle nor a consistent practice of Chinese dams’ operations.[65] The consistent Chinese view on the Mekong remains that “water in China is China’s to do with as the state sees fit.”[66]
CONCLUSION
While China has invested substantially in LMC water cooperation, it is doubtful that its water diplomacy has led to any moderation to its water sovereignty principle. In the broader scheme of things, the LMC is not only an instrument of China’s hydro-politics but, more importantly, a vehicle of its statecraft in the basin. It is designed not only to shape the discourse and direction of Mekong water governance but also to bind mainland Southeast Asia economically and strategically into a Chinese hub-and-spokes system. Powered by China’s diplomatic activism, geographical advantage and financial largesse, the LMC is a prime example of Sino-centric multilateralism, in which China is the one who sets the rules and frameworks rather than being absorbed into pre-existing norms and institutions.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document here.
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