In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

As Mongolians prepare for next week’s Mongolian Lunar New Year festivities, government and non-governmental organizations are celebrating the passage of two long-awaited pieces of legislation that the Parliament of Mongolia passed in January. The passage of a standalone Law on Combating Trafficking in Persons marks a milestone in Mongolia’s anti-trafficking efforts, and signifies the culmination of more than three years of intense advocacy.

On the same day the anti-trafficking law was passed, Mongolia's Parliament also passed another ground-breaking law: a Law on Preventing Conflict of Interest in Public Service. This is particularly critical now in Mongolia; with mining investment continuing to pour into the country, Mongolia is predicted to have the second fastest growing economy in the world in 2012. Photo by Kristin Colombano.

Passage of the legislation comes at a crucial time in the country’s efforts to end trafficking in persons. Over the past decade, hundreds of trafficking victims have been identified. Many are young women who, lured into false promises of employment and study abroad, instead end up in China, Macau, South Korea, and other Asian countries, either sexually exploited or forced into labor with little to no wages. In 2010, the State Investigation Department of Mongolia’s National Police Agency established a specialized counter-trafficking unit to focus on investigating cross-border trafficking. Now, the law further clarifies the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in anti-trafficking activities, including government agencies, civil society, the private sector, and media. The landmark law also includes a critical provision for a state shelter and victim support for both Mongolian and foreign victims, as well as victim confidentiality and compensation.

Last week, to commemorate the law’s passage, more than 100 guests, including members of Parliament, senior government officials, and civil society representatives, gathered at a ceremony held in Ulaanbaatar organized by the Human Security Policy Studies Center (HSPSC). Despite temperatures reaching -25 degrees Celsius outside, spirits were high at the ceremony, with some guests even dressed in traditional Mongolian deels. During the ceremony, several dignitaries reflected on the importance of the law, and highlighted the strong collaboration between government partners, local NGOs, and the international donor community both during the development and drafting of the law and advocacy for its passage.

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The Philippines has many cultural similarities to the rest of Southeast Asia. Some similarities, take cockfighting for example, puzzle some Filipinos and give great pride to other Filipinos (particularly males). Cockfighting is pre-colonial (as the chronicler of Magellan’s voyage when it arrived in the Philippines, Antonio Pigafetta observed) and is shared with Southeast Asia as is obvious from the classic anthropological essay by Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight.”

Interestingly, though, Samuel Huntington in his “Clash of Civilizations” places the Philippines in the category of Western civilization. Perhaps this is unsurprising – the old stereotype is that the Philippines was “350 years in a convent, and then 50 years in Hollywood.”  The religious impact of the “convent years” is a topic for another post, and the governance impact of the Spanish friarchy (a decentralized state with a weak center) was treated in last week’s post. In this week’s blog, I’m exploring the governance impact of the “Hollywood years” and efforts by Philippine presidents to overcome this impact.

American influence over the Philippines was far-reaching, with significant impact on the nation's culture and system of governance. Photo by Karl Grobl.

Almost immediately after America took colonial rule over the Philippines, it instituted elections:  first municipal, then provincial, and then in 1907, it established elections for the Philippine Assembly. Filipino elites at the local level thrived under this deliberately decentralized regime that allowed the buildup of networks to the national level. Of course, since it was a colonial regime, the executive power was in the hands of Americans, but that was not long-lasting. In 1912, Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison began a rapid process of “Filipinization” and by 1919, Americans held only 5 percent of senior positions.

The point here is that there were powerful Filipino politicians before there were Filipino civil servants, so that, in Alfred McCoy’s words, the colonial bureaucracy was “effectively penetrated and manipulated” by the Filipino elites. This is the opposite of the general colonial pattern where the colonizer would allow indigenous bureaucrats before indigenous politics (since the former helped the colonizer carry out policy while the latter would challenge the colonizer). Renowned political scientist (and SAIS fellow) Francis Fukuyama points out that the same pattern held for the United States, with Jacksonian democracy being introduced in the 1830s whereas meritocratic civil service waited until the 1880s. He (perhaps controversially) thinks the quality of governance in the United States tends to be low – it certainly is not controversial that in the Philippines it is not. Bureaucrats in the Philippines lack the autonomy and prestige of bureaucrats elsewhere – which is obvious to anyone who has witnessed interactions between politicians and bureaucrats in a number of other countries.

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Global economic recovery in 2012 remains tenuous, with the World Bank recently downgrading its forecast for this year’s global growth from 3.6 percent to 2.5 percent. This slide in expectations and persistently high unemployment rates in many countries has sparked a resurgence of protectionist tendencies toward trade. These tendencies are couched in the language of “bringing jobs back,” while tariffs are euphemistically coined as “flexibility” needed to protect domestic producers.

In addition to significant consumer gains from increased trade in South Asia, these countries would benefit from enhanced export opportunities, more jobs, and greater competition. Photo by Kristin Kelly Colombano.

South Asia has suffered for decades from a low level of intraregional cooperation, both politically and economically. Despite efforts at regional integration through the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), trade in the region as a percentage of global trade volume has stagnated at an estimated 5 percent since the 1950s, lagging far behind other trading blocs, like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Area or South America’s Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). At the SAARC Business Summit held in New Delhi recently, India’s Minister for Commerce, Industry and Textiles, Anand Sharma said: “SAFTA had a vision of creating a common market where tariff and non-tariff barriers will be revised, and we had expected that the peak tariff rates should be no more than 5 percent for most of the tradable commodities between member countries in SAARC.” Sadly, this has not been the case.

While this low level of trade among South Asian nations is often presented as a constraint to the economic competitiveness of the region, its negative impact on consumers is rarely acknowledged. Consumers are often neglected in trade analyses and debates about the benefits to trade, as the focus is primarily on producer gains (or losses).

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While a lucrative deep-sea fishing industry places Thailand among the world’s leading exporters of sea products, a grim specter of human rights abuse lurks below the surface of an industry whose contribution to the national economy is estimated to exceed $4 billion a year.

It’s estimated that Thailand’s deep-sea fishing industry contributes $4 billion a year to the national economy. But, the industry also creates opportunities for unscrupulous employment and a high risk of human trafficking. Photo by flickr user soma-samui.

A combination of factors – including a shortage of labor in this dangerous and physically demanding industry and pressures on marginalized populations – create opportunities for unscrupulous employment brokers and traffickers to prey on those desperate for work. Trafficking of migrant men and boys from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and within Thailand itself into the deep-sea fishing industry (DSFI) is an issue of growing concern to the governments of Thailand and neighboring countries, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the international community. A combination of economic pressures, language constraints, and lack of information on the risk of trafficking puts migrant populations at especially high risk of labor exploitation and trafficking. Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 250,000 migrants from Burma alone work in sea and land-based sectors of Thai fishing industry. Many of them are trafficked or subject to labor exploitation, while many more are at risk.

The 2011 U.S. Department of State’s global Trafficking in Persons Report placed Thailand on the Tier 2 Watch List for a second year in a row, underscoring the persistent challenges posed by various forms of human trafficking in Thailand. Concerns about trafficking in the DSFI feature prominently in the State Department report’s Thailand country analysis, which notes that “investigations of alleged human trafficking on Thai fishing boats, as well as inspections of these boats, were practically nonexistent.” The report urges the Thai government to take further action to bring traffickers to justice.

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One of the interesting things about team-teaching a course on “The Domestic Politics of Southeast Asia: The Philippines and Thailand” is that I myself have never taken a course on Southeast Asia. I was an American politics specialist as a graduate student, with a dissertation on “Interpretation and American Electoral Studies.”  On the Philippines in particular, and on Southeast Asia more generally, I am an autodidact – I’ve learned it all by myself through 30 years of experience in the country and the region, and by reading.

There are limits to this approach, though, in that I have been “present centric” – my studying tends to start with the current situation and/or problem on which I’m working (as a researcher into contemporary politics, or as a development professional concerned with better governance). Rarely do I work my way back to, say, a 14th century Javanese kingdom to which the kingdom of Buayan in Mindanao claimed connection.

This sabbatical, and this blog, will, I hope, be an opportunity for me to look at broader, contextual elements of Southeast Asia in a way that formally-trained Southeast Asianists might find natural. My co-teacher, Karl Jackson, has assigned some of the classics of Southeast Asian studies, and they certainly provide food for thought. Robert Heine-Geldern’s “Conceptions of State and Kingship in Southeast Asia,” originally published in 1943, is ambitious in looking at the “cosmo-magic principle” of parallels between human reality and the universe. In “Indianized” states – those influenced by Hinduism or Buddhism – often there is a representation of the holy Mount Meru in the center of the capital city, in a temple or a palace. This allows the influence of the King to radiate outwards.

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No sooner did I warn in last week’s blog on my way to Washington, D.C., that there is “a danger that U.S.-Philippine relations will be viewed entirely through the lens of ‘the rise of China’” than I was greeted upon arrival by the morning front-page story in The Washington Post entitled, “Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence in reaction to China’s rise.”

News that the Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence sparked controversy. However, SWS surveys consistently show that the majority of Philippine citizens feels that they benefit from military cooperation with the United States. Photo: U.S. Navy.

The article stated that “the sudden rush by many in the Asia-Pacific region to embrace Washington is a direct reaction to China’s rise as a military power and its assertiveness in staking claims to disputed territories, such as the energy-rich South China Sea.”  Immediately, other pundits piled on, agreeing that “U.S.-Philippines Relations Benefit from China’s Poor Public Image” or discussing “The Great Game:  Philippine Edition.”

Unsurprisingly, neither China nor Philippine opponents of the United States were pleased. A Global Times editorial said, “Make Philippines pay for balancing act,” and this was certainly noticed in the Philippine press. But then diplomats began to calm the roiled waters. The Joint Statement on Friday after the finish of the 2nd Philippines-United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue listed a whole host of items being discussed – well beyond a focus on China. Over the weekend, the Presidential Palace in the Philippines insisted that territorial disputes in the South China Sea (which the Philippines calls the West Philippine Sea) was not the main motivation behind the Strategic Dialogue. In turn, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a more measured statement, taking note of the report. Finally, some U.S. analysts argued that the entire “pivot” to Asia, much less specific U.S.-Philippine initiatives, were “not all about China.”

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After a series of reports emerged across the archipelago in recent weeks of children being arrested and prosecuted for petty crimes, Indonesians are raising questions about the state of juvenile justice in the country. The first was a confounding case that resonated around the globe: a 15-year-old boy from Central Sulawesi was incarcerated and tried last month after a police officer accused him of stealing a pair of used flip-flops worth about $3. Claims emerged that the boy was badly beaten by police during interrogation, and the officer who reported the minor was formally punished. The case galvanized the Indonesian public, and infuriated citizens collected over a thousand of pairs of sandals and dumped them on the steps of police stations across the country.

Days later, news surfaced of a teenager from West Timor who was put on trial for stealing bouquets of flowers from his aunt, and a Balinese teenager who was tried for stealing a wallet containing Rp. 1,000 (around 10 cents). The cases prompted similar outrage and hatched wry campaigns from a frustrated public, with citizens gathering flowers and coins to mock law enforcers for their heavy-handedness.

Juvenile inmates wait to be inspected at Indonesia's Tangerang Juvenile Prison, located just outside Jakarta. The prison is considered to have the best rehabilitation program and most spacious facilities for young detainees in Indonesia. Photo: Leo Sudaryono.

Sadly, such cases are not uncommon here. If you are a child over the age of eight, are Indonesian or just happen to be in Indonesia, and take someone’s property – intentionally or not – and are then reported to the police, there is a high chance you will be prosecuted. According to UNICEF, around 80 percent of children over age eight who were reported to police ended up being tried, with 91 percent of them spending between three months to three years behind bars. Today, there are 5,515 child inmates in Indonesia, 85 percent of whom are in adult detention facilities.

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Since Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war ended in 2009, we’re now witnessing the beginning of reconstruction in the country’s battered North and East. The government is rapidly investing in roads, rail, ports, and telecommunications that help connect marginalized communities with the vibrant, growing capital of Colombo. Meanwhile, the local economy is coming to life, and small businesses – typically on the margins of the private sector – are eager to take advantage of their long pent-up demand to grow their businesses. This is welcome news for people that have endured so much, but there are of course still challenges.

After a 30-year war that has rewarded Sri Lanka's banks and enterprises for playing it safe, they are hesitant to take on risk by offering loans to small businesses. Recently, however, new initiatives are reviving trust between banks and businesses owners. Photo: Karl Grobl.

“The small and medium enterprise sector is the backbone of the Sri Lankan economy – even more so in the North and East,” Anushka Wijesinha, Research Economist at Sri Lanka’s Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) who has been studying access to credit, recently said to me. “The majority of large businesses continue to take a wait-and-see approach, but it’s the small businesses that are ready to take some risks.”

Unfortunately, as ready as the smaller businesses are to take these risks, they lack the collateral needed to do so. Micro and small business owners constantly say how difficult it is for them to even get credit to expand their business, for example. Most small businesses can’t meet banks’ collateral requirements to get a loan, even though Sri Lanka’s financial system is flush with more liquidity than ever, due to lower interest rates and government policies and programs that are meant to push credit down to the grassroots.

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Colombo is shedding its image as Sri Lanka’s charming but dilapidated capital. Pulsing with new energy and growth, major investments and improvement is palpable since the end of the war. But in the North and East and bordering regions, clashes, attacks, and decades of economic neglect have left a legacy of division and hardship. The government has responded by linking these cities through improved roads, rail, and telecommunications; business owners and local leaders want to catch up with the rest of the island nation. Entrepreneurs and local officials hold the keys to growth and peace in these former conflict-affected towns. This new slideshow series shows how The Asia Foundation is working in Jaffna, Vavuniya, and Batticaloa to spark private sector growth by helping local governments and businesses work together.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say that panic swept the development community in Manila when word spread that after 12 years on the scene as country representative of The Asia Foundation I was disappearing into a 4-month teaching sabbatical at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. But some folks – donors, academics, and civil society types – did take notice, occasionally flatteringly making sure I would only be gone a short time.

Truth be told, this absence from the Philippines will be my longest since a 1989 stint at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, and my stay in the States will be my longest since departing for the Philippines in 1981. I’m looking forward to stepping off the treadmill of heading a dynamic office full of energetic, brilliant staff and devoting some deeper thinking time to a wide range of issues.

I’ll be team-teaching “Domestic Politics of Southeast Asia” with Karl Jackson, who directs the SAIS Asian and Southeast Asia Studies programs. I get to talk about the Philippines, a subject which I find endlessly fascinating. (That I have opted to spend my life in the country makes this quite obvious.) The immediate audience will be SAIS graduate students, but I’ll also be engaging in discussions with policy-makers in D.C. and beyond. I’m also looking forward to blogging here weekly during my sabbatical.

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