The year 2022, dominated by intensifying fears of a global recession and armed conflict between major powers, was difficult enough for a healthy government to navigate, but the governing Thai coalition was nowhere near healthy. Generalturned– prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who was initially greeted with a wave of enthusiasm after staging a bloodless coup in 2014 and was re-elected after the 2019 general election, had become immensely unpopular for a combination of reasons: his snappish public persona, his failures to implement meaningful reforms and bridge the political divide, his weak economic performance, and his favouritism of powerful family conglomerates. With the end of the four-year parliamentary term drawing near, infighting within the crowded eighteen-party coalition that Prayut led and inside the military grew more palpable. These developments, coupled with the controversy around Prayut's tenure, fuelled never-ending talk about a House dissolution, a snap election, and even a counter-coup.

In late August, Thailand's Constitutional Court suspended Prayut from office after opposition lawmakers filed a petition asking whether Prayut, who ascended to the premiership in 2014, had violated the eight-year constitutional term limit. The suspension only lasted five weeks. Prayut returned to take the helm in early October on the grounds that the eight-year term limit dictated by the current constitution came into force only in 2017, meaning that the countdown clock must start ticking from that point onwards. The final green light from the Constitutional Court, ruling in favour of the regime and granting Prayut roughly two more years of eligibility for the premiership, was more or less predictable. What was uncertain, however, was the extent of public opposition. Polls indicated that much of the Thai public wanted Prayut out right away, and this popular frustration threatened to spill over because of the court's seemingly biased ruling and the waves of anti-government protest in other countries.

The rocky governing coalition eventually managed to survive and host this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leader's Meeting in Bangkok on 18 and 19 November without popular domestic resistance.

The year 2022 marked the second year of Indonesia's economic recovery after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from the economic, health and social scourges of the pandemic, Indonesia also felt the effects of the war in Ukraine. As has been the case for many other countries, rising fuel and food prices brought into sharp focus the need to prioritize food security through both domestic measures and international diplomacy. Indeed, 2022 was the year for Indonesia, and President Joko Widodo (also known as Jokowi), to make its mark on the international stage with the hosting of the Group of Twenty (G20), where it could raise the issues of food security, environmental protection and economic growth. With the controversial passing of the new criminal code, however, Indonesia's successes will be tempered by questions about the quality of its democratic institutions as it moves into a heated campaigning season ahead of the 2024 elections.

Election Ferment and Jokowi's Legacy

Election ferment for the 2024 polls was on the rise in 2022. Several prominent figures indicated their interest in running in the presidential race, with some already securing major party endorsements. These include Jokowi's former rival and current defence minister Prabowo Subianto, the recent governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan, and Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo. Popular vicepresidential candidates include minister of tourism and creative economy Sandiaga Uno, minister of state-owned enterprises (SOE) Erick Thohir, West Java governor Ridwan Kamil, Democrat Party chairman Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (the eldest son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono), and Speaker of the House of Representatives Puan Maharani (the daughter of Megawati Sukarnoputri, another former president and the current chair of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle [PDI-P]).

For the most part, Indonesian politics in 2022 was marked by expediency and flexibility over strict loyalties. With the popularity of Jokowi and of other political figures who have made their mark as capable technocratic managers, solid track records are likely to appeal to Indonesian voters. Jokowi's party, the PDI-P, was the only party in the 2019 elections that won the required twenty per cent of legislative seats to be allowed to unilaterally nominate a presidential ticket in 2024.

Any discussion on political Islam in Malaysia will necessarily centre around the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS). This is largely because of its Islamist and revivalist goals, which aim to incorporate Islam into every aspect of life, including politics, law and governance. In the 1980s and 1990s, PAS and its arch-rival, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), engaged in a fierce battle to out-Islamize one another. This also resulted in the party leaders labelling each other deviant (kafir-mengkafir). Today, the competition to out-Islamize one another seems to have waned, with both parties having recently entered into an alliance called Muafakat Nasional (MN). In the 1970s, both UMNO and PAS were part of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition when the parties were united by the aim of national reconciliation. However, their partnership in MN was based on Malay- Muslim unity. Founded in September 2019, the MN lasted less than three years as the two parties contested against one another in the 15th General Election (GE15) held in November 2022. In this most recent election, PAS contested under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) banner and won the highest number of seats in its history, outnumbering even UMNO.

PAS has historically championed political Islam and the promotion of an Islamic state. In 1993, the party wanted to introduce the Syariah Criminal Code Bill II in Kelantan, and in 2002 the Syariah Criminal Offences (Hudud and Qisas) in Terengganu. In 2003, they published the Islamic State Document, which detailed the party's idea of an Islamic state governed by hudud laws. The president of the party, Abdul Hadi Awang, continues to advocate for an Islamic state in Malaysia, although the form may not be the same as what PAS proposed two decades ago.

However, recent developments in the Malay(sian) political scene suggest that PAS is no longer the only party championing political Islam; UMNO appears to be just as big a player as PAS. As long-standing historical rivals, UMNO has traditionally been viewed as the party that champions the protection of Malay supremacy and nationalism, while PAS has almost consistently advocated Islamism and conservative Islam.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• • In Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, democratic regression and the reconsolidation of authoritarian regimes have triggered the rise of social media-driven protest movements. These are pioneered by a new generation of activist youth, distinguishing themselves from previous student and youth movements by the digitally mediated, decentralized and diverse nature of their protest.

• • While experimenting with digitally mediated repertoires of action adopted and adapted from similar struggles elsewhere, these protesters forge transnational links that give rise to new protest assemblages across and beyond the region. This is exemplified by the social media-based #MilkTeaAlliance, in which the distinct protests in Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar and other countries are conjoined through extended solidarity and affinity ties in a common “generational” struggle against entrenched authoritarianism. The youth resistance in Hong Kong was instrumental in driving this trend.

• • Like a “rhizome” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), these movements are characterized by connectivity, heterogeneity, multiplicity and “unbreakable” expansion. This allows for a fluid participation of various activist and non-activist groups (such as K-poppers) and the inclusion of various issues and demands in the protest, which merge into the cause of fighting systemic injustice. It also heightens the movements’ viability and resilience to repression.

• • However, besides physical repression, protesters in all three countries face the added challenge of new modes of cyber-repression. The combined effect of repressive cyber laws, intrusive

• cyber surveillance and aggressive cyber troops took its toll on the protest movements’ capacities for online agitation and mobilization, thus contributing to the movements’ silencing and suppression. Yet, the resistance did not die out, as activists dodge cyber-repression and make creative uses of digital media and technologies to cultivate their resistance online, at the grassroots level, or in the cultural sphere.

• • Meanwhile, as long as authorities remain repressive and tone-deaf to this generation's criticism and concerns, the gulf between them looks set to widen. The longer-term implication is that this generation will remain alienated and continue to express their struggle in novel and unpredictable ways.

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.

INTRODUCTION

In various Southeast Asian countries, already weak democracies are being eroded by processes of democratic regression and reconsolidation of dynastic, autocratic and authoritarian regimes.2\ At the same time, these countries have seen the rise of new protest movements, pioneered by a new generation of activist youth. Youth fuelled spectacular mass protests in Indonesia (2019–20), Thailand (2020–21) and Myanmar (2021–22), mounting a daring resistance to the erosion of democracy. In doing so, they experimented with new instruments and repertoires of action, characterized by creative uses of digital media and technologies. The digitally mediated nature of their protest allowed them to forge new links across national and sectoral borders. This has given rise to new assemblages of protest that extend across and beyond the region, bound together by shared imaginations of generational struggle.

Organizationally, ideologically, and in strategy and style, these protest movements and their participants differ from the student and youth movements of the 1960s and 1970s, which were driven by centralized, hierarchical organizations and mono-directional targets oriented towards

the nation-state. Southeast Asia has a long history of student movements that pioneered key political events—from anti-colonial struggles in the early twentieth century, to regime overthrows in Indonesia in 1966 and 1998, in Thailand in 1973, and the People Power Uprising in Burma (Myanmar) in 1988. In the 1960s and 1970s, students also played a leading role in democracy and social justice movements in the region. Despite this legacy, the role of student movements has since declined, mainly due to their suppression, pacification and de-legitimation in the context of state consolidation. The decline was also due to their burden of “rootedness” in national histories and political cultures, which limited them to fixed repertoires of student protest. Those fixed roles and repertoires no longer appeal to younger generations known vernacularly as the “Millennial Generation” (roughly, born in the 1980s and 1990s) and “Gen Z” (born in the 2000s), whose political identifications have greatly diversified. So have their own modes of protest.

Rather than sprouting from the single “root” of national histories of student activism, today's youth movements form a heterogeneous assemblage with multiple origins and nodes that expand in multiple directions, much like the digital communication flows that shape their protest.

Malaysia and Indonesia have a rather skewed agricultural sector, as the national agriculture policy is shaped by export competitiveness with a specialized product: palm oil. This is especially applicable to Borneo as a major producing region; it produces more oils and fats than carbohydrates based on the current levels of consumption. In the past few decades, the model (export CPO and import cereals and other foods) worked reasonably well for both countries until the sharp decline in 2008–9 (see Figure 7.1). Another period of decline in 2015–18 clearly shows that such a model was no guarantee of food security in economic terms. The situation is severe in Indonesian Borneo, where per capita cereal supply has declined significantly throughout the major oil palm-producing sites in remote districts (MoA Indonesia 2018). This is reflected in the high prevalence of stunting (30–40 per cent) in many districts. While there are no comparable statistics in Malaysian Borneo, a similar trend of stunting (43 per cent) was found among the Penan groups in Belaga, Sarawak (Bong, Norimah A. Karim, and Noor 2018).

In this context, the concept of self-sufficiency has been frequently mentioned in land-use-related discussions with conservation also considered a core element. It is an alternative to the productivity-oriented mentality that essentializes development into economic outputs, especially in rural areas in the context of transforming land-based economies into eco-economies. It prioritizes food-fibre-fuel security and other provisioning services by creating a diversified agroecological and socio-economic landscape, which can sometimes be termed “neo-productivism” (Almstedt et al. 2014). Furthermore, it also advocates for the appreciation of the “traditional” way of living, in the hope of maintaining or regaining health and spiritual benefits through forging a healthy human-environmental relationship as in the past (Dounias and Froment 2011; Abram, Meijaard, et al. 2014; How and Othman 2017). This is not unusual in the developing world, where farming, hunting, and gathering are treated as integral parts of social life and not only for economic productivity (Hisano, Akitsu, and McGreevy 2018). Additionally, some have suggested that the preservation of indigenous agro-ecological and socio-cultural settings can enhance conservation efforts (Altieri 2004; Yuliani, Adnan, et al. 2018).

This book has so far described various ways or lines of inquiry to improve productivity and support conservation in Chapters 3 to 12, attempting to answer the three subquestions set in “Scope and Structure” in Chapter 1. Importantly, the chapters also invoked concerns about the immense challenges that come with these strategies, with monitoring and communication as the most prominent ones. This chapter suggests that the digital revolution, also called Industrial Revolution 4.0, may provide new solutions to overcome these challenges, and at the same time bring new options to the table for development planning. While there are studies that touched on the different aspects of the application of digital technologies in Borneo, an overview of the opportunities and impacts brought by the digital transformation of land-based economies of the island remains largely missing. How will the developing, land-relying populations in Borneo fare in their experiences with the digital revolution will be an important question for researchers in the coming years.

This chapter first illustrates the recent trends of digitalization in Borneo. This is followed by an overview of technological vectors in the context of land-based economies. With this basis, the chapter continues to explore how the digital revolution can be practically operationalized in Borneo, using the framework of ten strategies described in previous chapters, populating with cases found across the island or elsewhere but applicable to Borneo collected from literature, through personal communications, and from field observations.

RECENT TRENDS IN BORNEO

The digital revolution has become a major policy focus in Malaysia and Indonesia to ensure the nations survive and evolve in the face of disruptive changes in the global economy. Digital and smart technologies are perceived as key modular building blocks for sustainable development in the next few decades (Sachs et al. 2019). Transformative efforts and initiatives have been made primarily for urban areas, especially on integrating infrastructure and various services via digital platforms, with labels like “smart cities” or “digital cities”; see, e.g., Yau et al. (2016), Jurriëns and Tapsell (2017), and Beschorner et al. (2019).

Sustainable branding and certification of agricultural and forestry products, especially those produced on an industrial scale, is thought to be a key solution in addressing sustainability concerns in developing a bio-economy. Certification has increasingly become a prominent component not only for commercial branding purposes but also in non-state market-based sustainability governance. It involves sets of standards and instruments to regulate and monitor the sustainability of commodities from cradle to gate. A certification of approval which may also come in the form of a seal or label is given to a product that meets the standards, adding visible extrinsic information that underpins the “sustainability” attributes of the products.

Such endowment may enhance market access or even provide a price premium to the producers. For producers in Borneo, one potential strategy might be to increase economic output by gaining access to high-value markets in wealthier regions. This is built upon the premise that consumers in these regions are more likely to pay a price premium if the materials came from sustainable sources. For most cases of industrial cash crops, this is a “carrot” with a “stick”, as producers do face enormous pressure from environmental NGOs to adopt more sustainable land-use practices (Gnych, Limberg, and Paoli 2015; Purwanto 2019). Actors along the value chain, especially large buyers of primary agricultural commodities such as food manufacturers, middlemen, retailers, as well as NGOs may also actively work with the producers in developing voluntary standards and certification schemes (Pye 2016).

However, such market-based tools may overlap with various legal frameworks in either producing or importing countries, causing unwanted competition between the public and private sectors in sustainability governance. Also, commodity-centred systems may significantly intersect with other regimes that focus on different lines of inquiry like climate change, biodiversity, haze, and economic development, forming a polycentric regime complex that involves a wide range of actors. The emergence of different standards, schemes, and legal requirements may stir confusion among the stakeholders and substantially increase transaction costs.

In Borneo, two important commodities, palm oil, and timber have been in the limelight. Many companies as well as smallholdings are in pursuit of various certification schemes to tap into price premiums, and more particularly, to gain access to the EU market.

Transformation of exploitative land-based economies to sustainable bio-economies entails boosting upstream productivity and production volume and, more importantly, driving structural changes. This implies the reallocation of economic activity across the broad sectors of primary agriculture and forestry, manufacturing, and services. Historically, countries would pull out of low-cost, unsustainable land exploitation when they were able to diversify away from primary production. As incomes from downstream expand, land-based economies may enter a transitional period towards a more advanced, and possibly more sustainable form of development, gradually increasing the efficiency of resource exploitation. Peninsular Malaysia is a remarkable example of a region that has experienced such a transition (Vincent and Ali 1997).

A dominant feature of Borneo's export profile is the extent to which a primary land-based product, i.e., palm oil, still looms large. Due to the growing pressures over land-use sustainability, Borneo is gradually losing its previous “comparative advantage”, i.e., large tracts of cheap land, in furthering oil palm expansion. This mode of development has also suppressed other forms of land use and economic activities, as well as increased the risk of social conflicts. It is unlikely that Borneo will continue to see similar economic growth through low-cost expansion as in the past.

Therefore, creating and keeping added value in the territories is deemed essential to secure long-term economic interests. This has been regarded as a key step to transforming the Bornean territories from primary sector models to advanced bio-economies. It can be a turning point in moving the island away from rampant timber extraction and agricultural expansion while at the same time improving the welfare of the local population (Sadhukhan et al. 2018; Novindra et al. 2019). Shifting the local industries up in the commodity value chain requires advancement in manufacturing technologies, with products spanning from base oleo such as fatty acids to end products such as polymers and cosmetics (Salimon, Salih, and Yousif 2012). This chapter first elaborates on the downstream development in Borneo, particularly oleochemical industries and advanced biorefineries. Then the issues of infrastructure and investment are discussed.

Malaysia and Indonesia have been relying on the export of cash crops for revenue and, in exchange, the import of other food products to meet local demand. Especially, Borneo is a prominent region for such a model of development—it has relatively limited rice production (the staple food throughout Borneo) but extensive export-oriented oil palm plantations. This model, unfortunately, has proven to be highly risky to both the economy and food security when prices of commodities drop substantially (Figure 7.1). After enjoying almost a decade of growth in the 2000s, the palm oil sector was hit by several market shocks with the greatest one in 2009. The global economic instability in recent years, especially the US-China trade war, the Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price war, and the global COVID-19 pandemic have imposed serious risks on such export-oriented economies. A few times, fresh fruit bunches were left to rot on smallholdings when prices were too low and unattractive; so plantations refused to accept the fruit and farmers had no alternative market.

Creating new local demands to take up the excessive stock as a buffer for sudden price dips has been a strategy adopted by the governments in the face of great economic uncertainties. In addition, domestic markets for various bio-based products, including those made of waste materials, may also help to stabilize local economies and farmers’ incomes. This is tagged along with the multiple objectives of replacing fossil-based with bio-based materials and establishing a self-sufficient circular economic ecosystem. It can also stimulate the growth of local bio-based industries. Several successes observed around the world are often cited, such as the case of Brazil (sugarcane ethanol) and Sweden (woody biomass for heat and power) (Silveira and Johnson 2016). This strategy closes the loop of a bio-economy from supply to demand. To do so, proper policy directives and incentives to boost local demand would be necessary.

This chapter provides an overview of two categories of potential markets in Borneo as well as on a broader national scale in Malaysia and Indonesia: (i) the food sector, and (ii) the non-food sector. This chapter mainly uses a country perspective as this strategy relies on policies at the national level. However, the situation in Borneo is discussed wherever applicable or data is available.

Conservationists have long realized the importance and potential of binding conservation with service-based livelihood strategies for local communities. For regions suffering from unsustainable land-based development, establishing a prosperous tertiary sector can be a potential avenue for shifting the development pressure away from land exploitation to alternative eco-economic activities that prioritize conservation. Alongside primary and secondary production activities, multiple conservation-related economic opportunities like eco-tourism can be featured. This has been found to assist local development in many cases around the world and can be particularly instrumental in places facing imminent threats of resource extraction or agricultural expansion (Das and Chatterjee 2015).

In the case of Borneo, the service sectors contributed the highest percentage to the regional GDP in the past few years (except for East Kalimantan) as displayed in Figure 5.1. Specifically, the development of the tourism industry has been widely considered a useful policy instrument for achieving the dual goals of poverty eradication and conservation, especially for communities surrounding ecologically important areas. Eco-tourism businesses have always been important income sources for Borneo, especially Sabah, ranging from highly commercialized packages to rural homestay programmes (STB 2020). Notably, business opportunities that are labourintensive, unspecialized, and take advantage of local natural assets are the major foci, including tour services, transportation, accommodation, food, handicrafts, and cultural performances. This strategy not only supports conservation by providing alternative income sources but also can instil a sense of nature appreciation and community ownership.

Further expanding the service sectors beyond eco-tourism and creating more “green jobs” in this space for local communities could be a strategy to steer rural development onto a more sustainable pathway. Opportunities include environmental restoration projects, agricultural and forestry services, as well as waste management businesses with new income opportunities that grow upon healthy landscape management. These services are important to repair previous damage and fix current unsustainable practices.

This chapter is divided into two major parts: eco-tourism and eco-based services. For each part, overviews of the sector are provided. These are then followed by a discussion about the infrastructure and investment required to develop specific eco-based service sectors in Borneo.

Resilience to agroecological disturbances, i.e., the capacity of the landuse systems to anticipate and adapt to environmental changes in a timely and efficient manner, has gained more and more attention not only for its environmental implications but also for socio-economic importance. A resilient production system is able to absorb shocks and stresses like droughts, floods, pests, and diseases while maintaining production. Some shocks and stresses can be predictable, but some can come at unexpected times. Coping with these is therefore critical to protect the economies (Walker et al. 2010). This requires rethinking and redesigning the existing production systems from a conventional economy that focuses on maximizing short-term production to an eco-economy that considers long-term resilience.

The recurring droughts and uncontrolled peat fires throughout Borneo are prominent examples. In 2015, the direct economic loss due to peat fire was estimated to be US$16 billion for Indonesia alone (Glauber et al. 2016) and the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere in one month was more than the annual emission of Japan (Field et al. 2016). Not yet included are indirect health impacts and ecological damage, e.g., increased tree mortality (Kumagai and Porporato 2012). Neighbouring countries, especially Malaysia and Singapore have experienced tremendous economic losses due to transboundary haze (Nguitragool 2010).

One of the key factors is the large-scale degradation of peatland as a result of the Mega Rice Project (MRP) by the Indonesian government in 1995 which aimed to convert 1 million ha of peatland for rice production (see Chapter 2). Not only did it fail to achieve its objective of rice production, but it has also drastically exacerbated the impacts of droughts and fire. In addition to protection, careful restoration of degraded peatland and damaged ecosystem services are necessary to ensure the long-term resilience of not only Borneo but also the entire region (Possingham, Bode, and Klein 2015). However, reversing the natural systems that have been altered for decades is a very challenging task (Laurance 2016). The rising temperatures and extreme precipitation regimes due to global climate change may further increase the frequency, duration, and severity of the drought and fire events in Borneo.