[Not long ago, democracy seemed to
be surging in the region. But in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and
elsewhere, it is in trouble.]
By Hannah Beech
That very day, the military, which
had seized power on Feb. 1, gunned down more
than 100 of its own citizens. Far from publicly condemning the brutality,
the military representatives from neighboring countries — India, China,
Thailand and Vietnam among them — posed grinning with the generals,
legitimizing their putsch.
The coup in Myanmar feels like a
relic of a Southeast Asian past, when men in uniform roamed a vast dictators’
playground. But it also brings home how a region once celebrated for its transformative
“people power” revolutions — against Suharto of Indonesia and Ferdinand Marcos
of the Philippines — has been sliding back into autocracy.
From Cambodia and the Philippines
to Malaysia and Thailand, democracy is languishing. Electoral politics and
civil liberties have eroded. Obedient judiciaries have hobbled opposition
forces. Entire political classes are in exile or in prison. Independent media
are being silenced by leaders who want only one voice heard: their own.
At the same time, external bulwarks
against dictatorship have eroded. The Americans — inconsistent crusaders for
human rights, who backed Southeast Asian dictators during the Cold War — have
turned inward in recent years, though President Biden recently urged an “alliance
of democracies.” With China and Russia involved, the United Nations
Security Council has done nothing to punish Myanmar’s generals.
“It’s a perfect storm against
freedom and pluralism sweeping across Asia,” said Richard Javad Heydarian, a
regional political scientist based in the Philippines. “The upshot is democracy
fatigue and authoritarian nostalgia across Indonesia and the Philippines, while
authoritarian consolidation has taken place elsewhere, most dramatically in
Cambodia and Thailand and now even more violently in Myanmar.”
The era of regional strongmen —
they are all men — has returned. And the new configuration could make it easier
for China to exert its influence, though many consider the region more
noteworthy for its impressive economic growth than as a proxy battleground for
superpowers.
The likelihood of renewed refugee
outflows from Myanmar, in the heart of Asia, could destabilize Southeast Asia.
Already, thousands are crowding the border with Thailand, provoking fears that
they will bring Covid-19 with
them.
A scheduled special meeting on
Myanmar by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations offers little hope of
action. That consensus-driven group avoids delving into members’ internal
affairs. Earlier negotiations among regional foreign ministers didn’t result in
a single policy that would deter Myanmar’s coup-makers.
Besides, many of the region’s
leaders have no wish to uphold democratic ideals. They have used the courts to
silence their critics and met protest movements with force.
But if authoritarians are looking
out for one another, so, too, are protesters. In Thailand, students have stood
up to a government born of a coup, using a three-fingered salute from the
“Hunger Games” films to express defiance. The same gesture was adopted after
the putsch in Myanmar, the leitmotif of a protest movement millions strong.
“Democratization is taking a
beating around the world,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, the director of the
Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in
Bangkok. “The resurgence of authoritarianism in Southeast Asia is part of that
overall retreat and rollback.”
A decade ago, the region appeared
to be on a different trajectory. Indonesia would soon elect its
first commoner president, and Malaysia would shunt
aside a governing party bloated by decades of graft and patronage.
Thailand’s generals had managed to go years without a coup. Even in Vietnam,
the Communist leadership was pushing forward with liberalization.
The most significant transformation
seemed to be in Myanmar. The military had led the country since a 1962 coup,
driving it into penury. In 2015, the generals struck a power-sharing agreement
with a civilian leadership fronted by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate
who spent 15 years under house arrest. President Barack Obama went to Myanmar
to sanctify the start of a peaceful political transition.
Now Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is again
locked in her villa, facing possible life imprisonment. Her supporters have
been arrested and tormented. Soldiers picked up one of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s
followers and burned a tattoo of her face off his arm.
Much of the rest of Southeast Asia
is in full-fledged democratic retreat. The leader of Thailand’s last coup,
Prayuth Chan-ocha, is still the prime minister. His government has
charged dozens
of student protesters, some in their teens, with obscure
crimes that can carry long sentences. Thai dissidents
in exile have turned up dead.
After a brief interlude out of government, Malaysia’s
old establishment is back in power, including people associated with
one of the largest
heists of state funds the world has seen in a generation. Vietnam’s
crackdown on dissent is in high gear. In Cambodia, Hun
Sen, Asia’s longest-ruling leader, has dismantled all opposition and set in
place the makings of a family political dynasty.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the
Philippines may enjoy enduring popularity, but he has presided over thousands
of extrajudicial
killings. He has also cozied
up to China, presenting it as a more constant friend than the United
States, which once colonized the Philippines.