China’s dominance in Southeast Asia is obvious anywhere you look. Long-standing ties and investment in Cambodia earned Beijing the opportunity to act as Prime Minister Hun Sen’s proxy vote in ASEAN during a pivotal year. China’s upstream dams and subsequent hydroelectric power demand compromised livelihoods for Mekong River countries and created leverage over downstream economies.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread disruption in Southeast Asia, in terms of the number of deaths, the livelihoods lost, and the major interruptions to supply chains. Moreover, the recent rise in inflation, which has resulted in higher food prices, has severely eroded the purchasing power of households. This has raised questions about the region’s food security, which up until recently, was primarily the domain of the NGO community, regional organizations, the United Nations, and individual states.
As the calendar turned to February, it brought the solemn first anniversary of the 1 February 2021 military coup d’état in Myanmar, which saw the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) ousted from power. Since then, the human toll has been severe. More than 14 million people are in immediate need of humanitarian assistance, more than 8,800 remain locked behind bars under weak or false pretenses and more than 1,500 have been killed.
2021 did not augur well for many in Southeast Asia. One month in, a military coup occurred in Myanmar, implemented by generals who were humiliated at the ballot box the previous November, ousting the democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD). Democracy since then, like many who participated, now rots in a prison cell.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken almost made it to Thailand. Blinken had planned to visit his counterpart, Thai foreign minister Don Pramudwinai, but a journalist following the secretary tested positive for Covid-19. linken’s Thailand visit was supposed to be the last leg of a tour of Southeast Asia. Instead, it ended up being a microcosm of US inattention to the Kingdom, as well as president Joe Biden’s inability to forge greater relationships with strategic partners as the US looks for ways to contain China.
It was the power of social media that propelled two Buddhist monks in Thailand to become household names, their online broadcast on Facebook mixing jokes with unconventional wisdom. Well versed in the language and slang of today’s Thai youth, Phra Maha Paiwan Warawanno and Phra Maha Sompong Talaputto aimed to speak to a new, younger generation, some of whom find traditional Buddhism inaccessible.
The United Nations signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and now marks the event annually on 10 December with the commemoration of Human Rights Day. As this day passes year after year, however, the environment for human rights in Thailand continues to degrade. A torrent of recent news underscores how alarming conditions in the country have become.
Each member state of the United Nations takes part in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process every five years. The aims are simple enough: evaluate and improve the human rights situations in all 193 UN countries and assist the fulfilment of each state’s human rights obligations through an objective, transparent, constructive process.
After almost two years of interrupted education in Thailand due to the drawn out effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, children are feeling drained, exhausted, and depressed. The United Nations warned recently that a return to school cannot be delayed, citing additional risks from exposure to violence and abuse, mental distress, missed meals, and routine vaccinations. The plight of Thailand’s exhausted youth also caught the attention of the much-maligned National Human Rights Commission (NHRCT), who noted that nearly a third of Thai students were at risk of depression.