An overheated time (for the planet and in politics), how China can make its dams more Mekong-friendly, and keeping Myanmar's exiled kids in school
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An overheated time (for the planet and in politics), how China can make its dams more Mekong-friendly, and keeping Myanmar's exiled kids in school
It's been hot - in more ways than one.
After a scorching summer, it hasn't been really rainy; it has pretty much been hot and humid here in Bangkok. After Southeast Asia's experience with extreme heat, places like Europe and North America, and parts of China, are going through multiple heat waves.
The world experienced the hottest day ever on July 6, and July is expected to be the warmest July and as the warmest month since global temperature records began. The oceans too have been absorbing a lot of heat. In half a year, we’ve seen a wide range of weather and climate extremes, from wildfires to floods to record ice melts, going beyond previous projections. What we’re seeing are graphic warnings of what extreme heat can do to the natural balance that allows our species and the natural world to thrive.
In Southeast Asia, drought conditions are being reported across Laos, Cambodia, north-east Thailand and the Philippines. Much of the region is on El Niño watch.
But along with the physical heat, it has also been a sizzling hot time in the region’s politics.
Thailand is wading through uncharted political waters, in an uneasy waiting period ahead of a second round (reports say 4 August) of voting for prime minister after Pita Limjaroenrat of the Move Forward party, which was the leading party in the May national elections, failed to get enough votes to become PM this month. He needed a majority from a joint sitting of Parliament, which includes a military-appointed Senate.
Waves of online scorn are being directed against senators, and more recently, against the Pheu Thai party, which many speculate may well drop Move Forward, its coalition partner, in order to form a government. ‘Mint choc’ drinks, the beverage that Pheu Thai leaders and pro-military parties had in publicized photos, are now being derided as ‘betrayal drinks’. Cartoons, including those showing pro-establishment politicians as dinosaurs, have gone viral.
Further roiling the situation is the news that former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is, this time, really flying back after 15 years of self-imposed exile on 10 August. (Pheu Thai is the latest edition of a political party loyal to Thaksin, where his daughter Paetongtarn is a senior member.)
Next door in Cambodia, after the ruling Cambodian People’s Party won in the 23 July national election without the participation of genuine opposition, Prime Minister Hun Sen said he is resigning after nearly four decades in power. He is passing the baton on to his son, army chief Hun Manet, who won a seat in the National Assembly and will be named prime minister in the government to be formed in August.
Singapore had its share of controversy in July. This month, Transport Minister S Iswaran was arrested was part of a corruption investigation. Two members of Parliament with the ruling People’s Action Party, Speaker Tan Chuan-Jin and lawmaker Cheng Li Hui, resigned from their posts after admitting they had an “inappropriate relationship” with each other.
Myanmar continues to burn, with the junta’s aerial attacks on civilian communities continuing and Asean’s divisions showing even more. On the eve of Asean’s annual meetings, Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said he had met detained State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on 9 July. Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim said individual Asean member states needed “some flexibility, room and space" to engage with Myanmar informally.
Below, our feature story looks into education for Myanmar’s children in exile, and a commentary discusses the need for ethnic unity in a federal future. Our infographics on displaced people - whose numbers continue to climb since the 2021 coup - and asylum seekers tell more of the country’s story.
Finally, our Q&A goes into how China’s management of its upstream dams on the Mekong River is undercutting its natural flood pulse – one that is central to food security and irreplaceable for life in the region. As of late July, the US Stimson Centre’s Mekong Dam Monitor reports that “extreme heat and low rainfall are now driving a severe wet season drought”.
Johanna
Editor/founder, Reporting Asean
1 S is for Sustainability
Q&A | The Mekong Region: ‘China’s Dams Can be Operated in a More Sensible Manner’
“We focus on China’s dams impacts not because we have the anti-China agenda – we focus on China’s dam impacts because the dams are huge,” Brian Eyler of the Mekong Dam Monitor said. “They’re two of the largest dams of the world there, and they wield tremendous power over the outcomes of the downstream.”
He says that China’s dam operations can be adjusted in a way that respects the river system’s natural flood pulse, the value of Tonle Sap’s fishery to food security of Cambodia and other communities. “If the Tonle Sap is doing well, then the rest of the Mekong is doing well,” Eyler said.
2 Myanmar on Our Minds
For Myanmar’s Children in Exile, School is a Lifeline
BY MAY SOE
It’s 9 am, before classes start, and children’s shouts and squeals of laughter fill the air around three cottages in a school compound, located in a hilly area not far from the centre of this north-western Thai city that borders Myanmar.
The school is like many others, but also different. It is among the more than 65 schools and learning centres in Tak province that many children of exiles and others who fled Myanmar after the 2021 coup go to.
Uniting Myanmar’s Ethnic Minorities: A Challenging but Still Hopeful Task
BY RUTH COLLINS AND JAMES SHWE
It’s often said that the differences among Myanmar’s ethnic communities are irreconcilable. But possibilities emerge from governance forum set up in June in Sagaing, the heartland of resistance by the Bamar ethnic majority.
3 Insight
Amando Doronila: A True-blue Newshound
BY JOHANNA SON
The passing of Amando Doronila, one of the Philippines’ most respected journalists and former chief editor of the ‘Manila Chronicle’, brings back the journalistic lessons I learned from him. Among them – let your story speak for itself, and keep writing.
4 Data box
How do Southeast Asians consume news?
Explore the answers to this question in our data viz, done by Yvonne T Chua. It presents data from survey responses in five countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) that are included in Digital News Report 2023 by Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023– including those that are not in the full report.
4 Clickworthy
Southeast Asia Climate Outlook Survey 2023
Share your views! It’ll take just 10 minutes to fill out this annual survey, done by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
Thai Political Legitimacy in Question
The ongoing distortion of election results and systematic subversion of the popular will in Thai politics raise questions of political legitimacy at home and abroad. (Thitinan Pongsudhirak in the ‘Bangkok Post’)
How Will Cambodia’s Incoming Leader Affect the Country’s Foreign Policy?
Despite the fact that Cambodia and Western governments may well view the advent of the 45-year-old Manet as a chance to initiate a diplomatic reset, there is unlikely to be a significant shift in the country’s foreign orientation. (Sebastian Strangio in ‘The Diplomat’)
Rum and Coke and Automatic Rifles: Myanmar’s Gen Z Guerrillas
On a sweltering afternoon in March, three recruits to the Albino Tiger Battalion – a paramilitary group resisting Myanmar’s junta regime – were studying the rules of war. (Irena Long in The Economist)