The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

THE EDITORS

Series Chairman:

Choi Shing Kwok

Series Editor:

Ooi Kee Beng

Editorial Committee:

Daljit Singh

Francis E. Hutchinson

Norshahril Saat

Introduction

On 28 April 2021, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) dissolved the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Kemenristek-Dikti) and bestowed the authority to oversee research in the country upon the National Research and Innovation Agency (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, or BRIN). He also replaced Bambang Brodjonegoro as the head of BRIN, with Laksana T. Handoko, who was previously the head of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

During his speech in front of Indonesian scientists in Busan, South Korea (25 November 2019), Jokowi stated that in the second term of his presidency, besides continuing the building of infrastructure, research and innovation would be his other focus and priority. He also revealed that he had established BRIN and that he hoped that it would become a “grand house” for national research.Research institutions and various research agencies in some ministries, including their budgets, will be consolidated into BRIN. Currently, Indonesia has in total a large budget for research and innovation, around Rp26 trillionor US$69 million per year.This is however “scattered” or distributed to several ministries and research agencies which sometimes conducted overlapping research.Indonesia is also considered as having a low level of innovation. Based on the Global Innovation Index, Indonesia ranks 85th out of 131 countries. In Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania, Indonesia ranks 14th out of 17 countries.This has been a cause for worry among its leaders; without effective research and innovation, Indonesia cannot compete in the global arena.

To overcome shortcomings in national research and innovation, Jokowi issued Presidential Decree No. 33 of 2021 (28 April 2021) and then revised it with Presidential Decree No. 78 of 2021 (24 August 2021) on BRIN. One point in the decree states that all research agencies, such as LIPI, the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), the National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), and the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN), and research agencies in some ministries will be merged, or “integrated”, to use the official term, into BRIN.

Following the dissolution of the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Kemenristek-Dikti) and the appointment of L.T. Handoko as the head of BRIN, there were some simultaneous discussions on the future of research and innovation in the country under the umbrella of BRIN.

The Chinese Indonesian Muslim community has been active again in recent years. The presence of Chinese Muslims in Indonesia is not new; there were Chinese Muslims prior to the coming of Cheng Ho (also spelled as Zheng He), a Muslim admiral during the Ming Dynasty, to Indonesia and the Chinese Muslim community was boosted in size with his visit (1405–33) but those Muslims who came then had been largely assimilated and merged into the local population. The present Chinese Muslims are relatively newer; some of them are new converts during the Suharto era and after. This chapter attempts to briefly examine the Muslim Chinese in Indonesia in terms of their origins and developments with special reference to the post-independence development. The chapter would also address the issue of Chinese-ness and Indonesian-ness among the Chinese Muslim communities.

Pre-Colonial Era

Prior to the arrival of Western colonialists, some Chinese Muslims had migrated to the Malay archipelagos. When Cheng Ho visited the areas which are now known as Indonesia, he discovered Chinese Muslim enclaves. Many argued that although Cheng Ho’s mission was not to spread Islam, but it is believed that as a Muslim, he was involved in spreading the religion. In addition to Chinese temples, he built many mosques. More researches in the spread of Islam in the Malay archipelagos during the Cheng Ho period are needed, but it is interesting to note that they are many Islamic legacies attributed to Admiral Cheng Ho. From historical records such as Lidai Bao’an (Ryukyu Kingdoms Records) and also Raffles’ History of Java, it was reported that some Chinese Muslims were engaged in spreading Islam in Sumatra and Java. The rise of Islamic kingdoms in Java has also been attributed to Chinese Muslims. Although some Muslim scholars doubted this as a historical fact, the historical legacies, including the architecture of mosques and Muslim tombs, and local legends pointed to the influence of China and the Chinese in Java. Many Chinese Muslims gradually integrated into local society and disappeared, and new Chinese migrants were mainly non-Muslims, giving rise to a different type of Chinese community. Nevertheless, there were still Chinese Muslim enclaves in Indonesia even after the coming of the Dutch.

INTRODUCTION

In late 2018, Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2018 made headlines in Thai media after a well-known financier publicized the report’s key findings on his Facebook page. The post subsequently became viral as his followers and the media shared it to wider audiences. The report placed Thailand among the most unequal countries in the world, thanks to a wealth concentration in a tiny fraction of wealthy families. This finding dealt a heavy blow to the junta-established government since it showed that inequality has worsened since the coup d’état of 2014. The report estimated that the top 1 per cent of population owns a staggering 66.9 per cent or two-thirds of total wealth in Thailand. This figure is up from the 2016 report which estimated that the richest 1 per cent held 58 per cent of the country’s wealth. As a result, Thailand ranked in the top four of the world most unequal countries in terms of wealth distribution.

The report was quickly dismissed by the government, which argued that the wealth concentration indicators were estimated from inaccurate and outdated data. The government officials went further to claim that the current income distribution is much improved from the past. Meanwhile, the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), a government think-tank, stepped forward to lend supporting evidence of reduced income and consumption inequality over the past years.

The debate between the government and its critics subsided as time passed but whether Thailand has become a more unequal nation remains a resonating question. Critics point to signs of wealth concentration, while the government rallies to its defence indicators of improved income and consumption distribution. Both sides need to be critically examined, but it is also possible that there is actually no conflict; opposing trends in wealth and income inequality can coexist. Underdeclaration of wealth-based income in household income and expenditure surveys, from which we derive income and consumption inequality, undercounts wealth ownership. Educational advancement and policy interventions such as minimum wage may foster reduced wage and income inequality, even while wealth concentration at the top increases.

This chapter unpacks the multiple facets of inequality, and engages with the debate.

Over the course of the last decade, Cambodia’s relations with China have gone from strength to strength, deepening across every field imaginable, and at a pace that gives new meaning to the phrase “breakneck speed”. While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed—and for a brief period entirely halted—the constant stream of official and business delegations from China, Phnom Penh has been expecting their rapid return (some more eagerly than others) when normalcy and regularly scheduled flights resume. The sheer scale of Chinese engagement with Cambodia was well encapsulated by one Cambodian official who noted to the author that the number of official visits to his department was so high they could barely keep up—with at least one group arriving every week. At the same time, the vast amount of Chinese aid and foreign direct investment is omnipresent—hundreds of miles of new roads (of varying quality) built under the ambit of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), new Phnom Penh skylines dominated by Chinesebuilt office buildings and condominiums, and once-sleepy provincial towns and suburbs packed to the gunwales with Chinese-owned factories and shophouses. A visit to the port city of Sihanoukville, constantly touted as the kingdom’s “New Shenzhen”, regularly yields the inevitable joke by Cambodian colleagues when entering the city: “Did you remember your passport? We’re in China now.”

While English remains the second language of choice for the kingdom’s elite, professional class and students, one can easily live and work in Cambodia fully ensconced in putonghua—a far cry from the early 2000s when “Chinese language” meant Chaozhou and Hokkien, and traditional rather than simplified characters on shop signs. Confucius Institutes abound, including branches at various ministries (including the Ministry of Defence), and the kingdom’s Chinese language media regularly trumpets in laudatory terms a daily drumbeat of new initiatives demonstrating the unbreakable ties of Sino-Cambodian friendship. The appointment of Chinese-born, naturalized Cambodian businessman Chen Zhi—chairman of the Prince Group conglomerate—as advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen last year demonstrated to many observers the incredible depth and new reality of Sino-Cambodian relations.

Somdet Phra Srinagarindra Boromarajajonani (Sangwan; 1900–95)

In the history of Thailand or old Siam, no mother of any king played a more important role in national affairs than Somdet Phra Srinagarindra Boromarajajonani. She was the mother of two monarchs, King Ananda (1925–46) and King Bhumibol (1927–2016). A self-reliant, highly independent woman, she is among the most flamboyant characters of twentieth-century Thailand. Her strong willpower and resolve arguably played a role in a historic battle against the spectre of Communism in the Kingdom.

Best known as Somdet Ya, the Royal Grandmother, or Princess Mother, her original name as a commoner was Sangwan. By the middle of the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War in Asia, the Princess Mother had become a leading national figure.

In 1964, she returned from Switzerland to live permanently in Thailand. She was sixty-four years old, and her nation had become a staunch ally of the United States of America. In that same year, Prime Minister Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn strongly supported the US Congressional resolution on the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved a confrontation on 2 August 1964 and a claimed or presumed confrontation two days later between ships of North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. In this incident which occurred in a medium-sized gulf at the northwestern portion of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and South China, the original American report blamed North Vietnam for both incidents.

Although later informed reports discounted the veracity of the second incident, it was used at the time by the US State Department and other government personnel to justify an escalation by the United States to a state of war against North Vietnam.

On Sunday, 2 August 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox claimed to have been attacked by North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats.

As early as the 5th century CE, Śaivism had risen to eminence on the Indian subcontinent as an established religious institution. Prosperous maritime trade routes between India and China brought Śaivism to the new lands of Southeast Asia, including Campā, a chain of small coastal polities that developed during the first millennium CE in present-day central and southern Vietnam. The name ‘Campapura’ first appeared in a local Cam inscription, the Mỹ Sơn Stele of Prakāśadharma (C. 96), which is dated to 658 CE. A few years later, in the Khmer Kdei Ang inscription (K. 53), the name ‘Campeśvara’ is mentioned as well (Coedès and Parmentier 1923: 46; Schweyer 2010). But Campā did not exist throughout its history under the same name, as it was referred to in several Chinese sources under different names such as Linyi 林邑 (Viet. Lâm Ấp) from 192 to 758, Huanwangguo 環王國 (Viet. Hoàn Vương quốc) from 758 to 886 and Zhancheng 占城 (Viet. Chiêm Thành) from 886–1471 (Vickery 2011: 369). In addition, if early French scholarship often described Campā as a unified kingdom, the last few decades have seen a wave of new studies concerning Campā not as a single entity, but as a multi-polity Cam ‘network state’ comprised of five regions or principalities located from North to South in present-day Vietnam: Indrapura, Amarāvatī, Vijaya, Kauthara, and Pāṇḍuraṅga. Keith Taylor (1999: 153) defined Campā as ‘a generic term for the polities organized by Austronesian-speaking peoples along what is now the central coast of Vietnam’, while Vickery (2011: 378) asserts that there was no single kingdom named ‘Campā’, and that the regions as distinguished in epigraphy corresponded to distinct geographical, and even rival, polities. This prompts the question as to what kind of political relationships and connections there existed between different parts/regions of Campā, and whether these regions can be conceptualized as polities, states, or principalities. There are of course differences between these terms but for the time being, as my chapter focuses more on artistic rather than political aspects, I will use these terms interchangeably. And for the sake of convenience, I will use the term Campā to include all Cam polities.

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights stresses that human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone has equal rights to access public services and to take part in the political process and decision-making in their own country. This universal declaration also emphasizes the need for global collective efforts to ensure equal access to social services, free choice of employment, and rights to health and wellbeing and education, among others. Failing to do so can bring about severe consequences to the economy, society and environment, ranging from economic inefficiency and unsustainable growth to poverty and hunger, social injustice and disparity, and environmental depletion. As a result of this universal call, there has been a sharp reduction in global poverty over the last twenty-five years, in which more than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty (World Bank 2018). This global phenomenon is possible due to global economic growth in Asia, including continental giants China and India.

Despite these achievements, the gains from global economic growth have not been shared equally. The world’s richest 1 per cent, numbering 60 million, receive more than 20 per cent of global income, and a select few in the top 0.01 per cent (600,000 individuals, with approximately 1,200 billionaires) have been living extravagant lives (Institute for Policy Studies 2017; Slater 2013). While poverty has declined sharply, inequality has dramatically increased in the same period (Oxfam 2020). Since global resources are finite, resource distribution should be more equal for poverty to be continually reduced, and sustainable growth maintained. Rising inequality erodes the middle class, which is the backbone of society; adversely affects incentives and motivation of workers in sectors that fall behind, thereby lowering labour productivity; hampers investment in human capital because lower income classes do not have access to credit; and, in general, undermines social cohesion (Yap 2013).

Introduction

Using the various “determinants” discussed above as a backdrop, this chapter examines Indonesia’s foreign policy before Suharto came to power. What was its nature? What were the major issues? Who made the policies? A brief study of Indonesia’s foreign policy before the New Order is important because Suharto’s foreign policy, to a certain extent, has shown continuity with that of Sukarno.

Various factors which have been identified in the previous chapter, such as leaders’ perceptions of Indonesia’s territory and role, the dominant political culture and Indonesia’s capabilities, have affected Indonesia’s foreign policy throughout the period from the revolution to the Suharto era.

Pre-New Order policy can be divided into at least three periods: the revolutionary period (1945-1949), the Liberal Democracy Period (1950-1958), and the Guided Democracy Period (1959-1965).

The Revolutionary Period (1945-1949)

Before considering Indonesia’s foreign policy during the revolutionary period, it is necessary to ask whether there was a foreign policy before December 1949. Some observers argue that, prior to that time, Indonesia was not an independent state because the Dutch had not transferred sovereignty. Accordingly, prior to 1949-1950, Indonesia did not have any foreign policy.

Indonesian nationalists argue that Indonesia was already a sovereign state when independence was declared. A state is defined in terms of independent government (a republic), clear boundaries (those of the Dutch East Indies, although before December 1949 the nationalists were not in full control) and a population (Indonesian peoples who lived in the Dutch East Indies). Moreover, when independence was proclaimed, the Republican Government was the only government because the Japanese had capitulated on 15 August 1945, and Allied troops only arrived a few weeks later. After mid-September, the Allied Forces led by the British intended to restore Dutch rule in Indonesia. Their actions brought them into physical conflict with Indonesians who were then struggling for their independence. Although the republic was initially confined to a limited area and was not recognized by all the major powers, it was recognized by some small states (in the Middle East) and by some major powers (the Soviet Union in 1948, before the Dutch transfer of sovereignty). Since Indonesia was already a state in 1945, its foreign policy also began in that year.

In any case, the fact remains that the Republicans were able to establish a foothold in Java and expand their influence.

Introduction

This chapter examines Indonesia’s policy towards China under Suharto. It explains why it took so long for Jakarta to normalize relations with Beijing and what obstacles arose in the process. What were the factors that contributed to the diplomatic breakthrough in 1989? What were the roles of the military and the President in this normalization process? Are there any issues which may affect the relations?

Sino-Indonesian Relations under Sukarno

It is a well-known fact that, during Sukarno’s time, Indonesia was on good terms with the PRC, especially in the mid-1960s when Indonesia, together with the PRC, attempted to set up the Conference of New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) headquartered in Jakarta. CONEFO was supposed to be a United Nations of poor countries because at the time, the PRC had not yet been admitted to the UN, and Indonesia had just left the organization. This did not mean, however, that all socio-political forces in Indonesia were in support of close Beijing-Jakarta relations. On the contrary, the army was worried about a Beijing-Jakarta axis but was not able to move Indonesia away from the PRC anti-colonialist coalition.

In the 1960s, prior to the emergence of the New Order, there were three political forces competing for influence in domestic politics. Communist influence continued to grow after the 1957 by-elections and the Army also gained in strength after crushing the 1958 regional rebellions in Sumatra and Sulawesi. The President, who was becoming more left-wing in his political orientation, initially attempted to balance the PKI against the Army and vice-versa, but gradually he moved closer to the PKI. Fearing the rise of the military, the PKI wanted to establish a Fifth Army under its control made up of peasants and workers. Sukarno lent his support to the idea and sent Omar Dhani, the chief of the Air Force, to negotiate with the PRC in the hopes of getting small weapons for the Fifth Force. Apparently, the President wanted to balance the army’s strength by aligning himself with the PKI and the Air Force.

This balance of power game came to a sudden end on 30 September 1965 when an alleged communist coup took place. Six generals were kidnapped and slain, but General Nasution escaped. General Suharto, who was the commander of the Strategic Unit in Jakarta, was not on the list.

Introduction

This chapter sets out to answer the following questions. Is the present pandemic an out-of-the-ordinary event or something that could have been expected, given past history, but for which we were not prepared? What are the basic causes of pandemics? How are these causes related to the way humans interact with nature and environment? These are addressed in Section 1. Section 2 of the chapter asks: what are the different ways societies have responded to the pandemic crisis? What factors explain why some are doing better than others? What lessons can be learned to prepare for the next pandemic?

With hindsight, a global pandemic was inevitable. History is peppered with pandemics including in recent times, and today’s globally connected world could hardly be better optimized to breed new outbreaks and allow them to spread. High population densities, intensive farming and deforestation all make the emergence of novel viruses and pathogens more likely; trade and modern travel make their transmission inevitable. What was not inevitable though was our collective response to the threat.

We begin with a brief tour of the history of pandemics from ancient to modern times, focusing on the latter and in particular on the present pandemic—the COVID-19 pandemic. We will look at influenza and coronavirus pandemics in turn, but we will also include a few pandemics that do not neatly fall under these headings and attempt to balance this loose categorization with a historical chronology.

Section 1: A Brief History Of Pandemics Historical Background: Plague Pandemics

There have been three major bacterial pandemics since the sixth century AD: the Justinian plague, the bubonic plague (or Black Death), and the third plague pandemic (we will also briefly look at the Manchurian plague). All are noteworthy for the devastation that ensued both in terms of loss of life and in the far-reaching socio-economic impacts they made.

Throughout the course of the first two pandemics, spanning both the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, a poor understanding of the cause of plague led to a persistent curtailment of control. In these periods the pathogenic agents or bacteria had yet to be discovered. People were unaware that rats were transmitting agents. The belief at that time was that miasmic bad air was to be blamed, sometimes associated with malevolent astrological signs (Watts 1997, pp. 8–15).