APN fall 2015

VOLUME 7 / ISSUE 2 / FALL

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Taiwan’s Forgotten POW Camps Vietnam-Laos Regional Integration Thailand: Feudal Practice in Modern Guise Domestic Struggles and East Asian Regional Strategy NGO Involvement in Ecotourism in Myanmar The TPP: Obama’s Economic Legacy Conference Report, Turkey

Call for Papers EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Lucy Gunn GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Mark Henderson COORDINATOR

Angel Li CONTRIBUTORS

Filippo M. De Filippis Fanny Guinot David Prentice Dan Josephson Roi Ariel Mark Henderson Olga Daksueva

The Asia-Pacific Newsletter publishes a diversity of content created by IDAS/ IMAS students and faculty, as well as others interested in regional affairs.

This content includes original research, opinion and editorial columns, book reviews, conference reports, alumni experiences, current events briefs, blurbs, photography, graphics, and other creative work. Submissions, including text and images, must not have been previously published in other media, either in print or online.

Text submissions should be sent in an editable format (not .pdf).

Endnotes and bibliography should be kept to a minimum and follow the Chicago Manual of Style’s “Notes and Bibliography” system. Please include the citations in brackets directly in the text (i.e., [1]), and do not use the softwarebased footnote tools. Please also include a brief biosketch and portrait photo.

Submissions, questions, and other ideas for inclusion should be sent to nccu. apn@gmail.com.

For complete and updated Submission Guidelines, please visit: goo.gl/eoVNz2

This issue’s cover photographs were taken by Olga Daksueva (top) and Roi Ariel (middle and bottom). All other photographs in this publication are used courtesy of the photographers, attributed appropriately, and licensed as indicated. The text of the Asia-Pacific Newsletter is licensed as Creative Commons BY-NC-SA. The Asia-Pacific Newsletter is a publication by the student body of the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS) at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei, Taiwan. It is based on purely amateur and informal collaboration, and it is a strictly non-commercial publication that is not for sale under any circumstances. We do not derive advertising or sales revenue, or donations of any kind. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of National Chengchi University or the various programs in Asia-Pacific Studies at NCCU.

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Contents LETTERS

CONFERENCE REPORT

3 4

35

DAVID HOLM IDAS Director’s Welcome

OLGA DAKSUEVA Conference Report Turkey

LUCY GUNN Letter from the Editor

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5 11 15 17 23 29

FILIPPO FILIPPIS Thailand: Feudal Practice in Modern Guise FANNY GUINOT Vietnam and Laos: Policies Toward China DAVID PRENTICE The Forgotten POWs of the Pacific War DAN JOSEPHSON Domestic Struggles and East Asian Strategy ROI ARIEL NGO Involvement in Ecotourism in Myanmar MARK HENDERSON Obama’s Economic Legacy

VOLUME 7 | NUMBER 2 | FALL 2015 • 2

IDAS Director’s Welcome

Welcome to another stirring edition of APN, put together by IDAS and IMAS students. For those of you who have just arrived, a very warm welcome.

We hope that you will find your coursework and studies here intellectually challenging and rewarding.

We also hope that you will find time to venture out and explore Taipei and Taiwanese society and culture.

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For our other, non-student readers, we hope that you find this issue of APN stimulating.

We live in interesting times, as the saying goes, and it is at times like these that we all find we need to pay more attention to the world scene. We also find that we need to re-examine some of our old understandings about the world.

NCCU is an excellent place in which to do that. You will find some of these new departures in this issue.

Dr. David Holm DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN ASIA-PACIFIC STUDIES

We live in interesting times, as the saying goes, and it is at times like these that we all find we need to pay more attention to the world scene.

Letter from the Editor

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this fall semester issue of the AsiaPacific Newsletter. Mark and I would like to thank all the students who have sent in their articles, contributing to this issue’s wide range of topics.

months, many students from our department have presented their work at conferences, and we invite you all to share your experiences and the insights gained during these meetings.

Finally, the APN staff wishes all professors and students a successful semester, and we look We would like to re- forward to receiving your submismind all those interest- sions for the spring edition of the ed in handing in piec- APN. es to the APN that we welcome a wide variety of All the best, submissions, ranging from articles and book reviews, Lucy Gunn to opinion pieces and creative works, such as photography and calligraphy. In the past

Lucy Gunn EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, APN PHD CANDIDATE, INTERNATIONAL DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN ASIA-PACIFIC STUDIES

What is IDAS? The International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS) at National Chengchi University, Taipei, is the first to offer an Englishtaught doctoral program in Asia-Pacific Studies in Taiwan. The IDAS program brings an interdisciplinary understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and offers students courses and research related to many aspects of the region. We offer four tracks – political economy, sociocultural research, public governance, and international relations – that take advantage of NCCU’s excellent academic talent as one of Asia’s top universities. This program focuses on training professionals and places an emphasis on the combination of theory and practical research.

Mark Henderson GRAPHIC DESIGNER, APN PHD CANDIDATE, INTERNATIONAL DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN ASIA-PACIFIC STUDIES

VOLUME 7 | NUMBER 2 | FALL 2015 • 4

Feudal Practice in Modern Guise: The Case of Thailand Filippo M. De Filippis The most recent coup in Thailand once again surprised many, although it really should not, as the military has been involved in the ruling of the country since the 1932 “revolution,” which ended the absolute monarchy of the Rama Dynasty. More astonishing is the resilience of this pattern – which alternates democratically-elected governments with military juntas – well into the 21st century, while Thailand has undergone many changes in other domains, such as economic, cultural, and social. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on this issue by reversing the usual approach of measuring the power legitimacy of a country using a scale that goes from democratic to hybrid to fully authoritarian. This shift is deemed necessary because democracy as we conceive of it today is a purely Western construct, grown out of an environment entirely different from that of Asia, and therefore hardly applicable to Asia in its entirety. Democratic institutions have indeed been introduced to Asian countries, especially in former colonies, but also in nations such as Thailand and Japan, which had escaped colonial rule. The fundamental difference is that in former colonies, the precolonial social and political practices were partially or totally wiped out by the long occupying colonial power, while in Thailand and Japan this did not happen: The social and political mechanisms that had ruled the two states for centuries have been preserved with mere superficial adaptations. As one of the earliest authors on Thailand, Walter F. Vella (1955), has argued: a comprehension of the Thai state polity and its modus operandi over the course of the past centuries is necessary to understand the present government and administrative situation in Thailand today. This is due to two reasons: First, a substantial continuity of tradition in the government of Thailand; second, the country has never been colonized by external powers, and therefore it has not suffered a discontinuity with its past and practices. Thus, in the light of these two statements, it might be possible to hypothesize a direct consequential connection between present Thailand and ancient Siam that gives a better account for the major changes occurred during the last two centuries.

Here it is argued that there is a connection between the feudal system of sakdina – which assigned a hierarchical status to every citizen in the ancient Kingdom – and the precarious balancing of power among political, bureaucratic, and financial elites in today’s Thailand, resulting in a succession

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of military coups and instability. This work will, first, present the historical background in which the sakdina system was conceived and its main institutional and social functions. Then, it will analyze the passage to a more complex bureaucratic polity, which eventually led to the formal abolition

of the sakdina, though its main conceptual principles were internalized in the Thai social structure. Finally, it will explain and interpret the relation between the sakdina and the present situation.

The Sukhotai Period (1238-1583) According to Udyanin and Suwangul (1965), the slow decline of the Khmer Empire allowed the first Thai kingdom to emerge at Sukhotai in 1238. It soon acquired a strong military character, in which the king had supreme military power, helped by high-ranking princes serving as officers. In times of war, all able civilians automatically became soldiers, subjecting to the order and regulations of the king. The king was called pho khun (great father), while chief administrators were called luk khun (great sons) and the populace, luk ban (sons of the village). The foundation of this social structure was the important Sukothai concept of a paternal king who, like a father, looked after his people as his own children. In this capacity, the king fulfilled many functions: He was not only a supreme commanderin-chief in battles, but also a judge in civil and criminal cases. The principle of pho-luk (father-son) was especially made important

by King Ramkhamhaeng (1276-1317), who epitomized the kingly ideal of the brave, wise, and compassionate “father of his people,” as was illustrated in his famous inscription: “… this city of Sukhotai is prosperous. In the water there are fish, in the fields there is rice. The lord of the country levies no taxes on his subjects. Whoever wishes to trade in elephants or horses does so; whoever wishes to trade in silver or gold does so…. If the people, nobles or chiefs disagree, the king makes a true inquiry, and then decides the matter for his subjects with full impartiality; he does not connive with the thief and the dishonest man; if he sees the rice of another he does not covet it; if he sees the riches of others he is not jealous….” (Girling, 1981: 21) Since the early centuries, the primary unit (above the village) of social and political organization among Tai populations was the muang (town). The muang had the important function of linking land to labor, since the former was plentiful, but the latter scarce (Aphornsuvan, 1998). The Sukothai Kingdom was divided into larger administrative units, called muang luk luang (towns of the royal sons) which were in all

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effects provinces with substantial autonomy, required to pay tributes, and in the hands of royal offspring, as the name suggests. As Prince Damrong famously stated (quoted in Chaloemtiarana, 2007: 112): “[In] the Thai concept administration, the king is honoured as the father of all the people … The father is the head of his family … Many families join together to become the ban, or village, under the leadership of phoban. Those under his responsibility were called lukban. Many ban join together to become the muang [city]. If the muang is under the authority of a phomuang prathet rat [autonomous phomuang], its leader would be called khun. Many muang join together to become a country under the rule of a king, which the ancients called phokhun. The various officials were then called lukkhun.

Therefore we see that the method of Thai administration followed the manner of a father looking after his children, or as it is called in English ‘paternal government,’ which is employed as the principle of administration in Siam even until the present time.”

The Ayutthaya Period (1350-1767) After a glorious century, the Sukothai Kingdom declined rapidly with the death of Ramkhamhaeng in 1317, and was later incorporated by an emerging Tai state in

the lower Chao Phraya area, the Ayutthaya Kingdom. This is regarded by historians as the first modern Thai kingdom, during which the four basic foundations of the Thai political system were established: (1) a new concept of kingship, shifting from phokhun (father-ruler) to devaraja (godking), (2) a more centralized and specialized administrative structure, (3) a personally based feudalism, and (4) a new social order built upon intensive hierarchization.

Chaloemtiarana (2007: 112-114) argues that the transformation of the Ayutthayan Period was accelerated after the third conquest of Angkor Thom – the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire – probably in 1431, when a large suite of Khmer courtiers and Brahmans were brought to Ayutthaya as captives. Through their close influence, Thai rulers adopted many concepts of the Khmer culture, therefore the Sukhotian leadership principle of father-son relationship was gradually replaced by the Hindu-Khmer idea of divine kingship, the Devaraja (royal god), in which the monarch has unlimited power over his subjects. The Thai king became an absolute monarch surrounded by court Brahmans, who had the primary functions of transforming the king into a mystical remote figure through the performance of particular rituals and ceremonies – still in use today – as well as the elaboration of an obscure court language. At the same time, the populace were no longer viewed as children, but

rather as servants and slaves to the throne, whose main obligations were to pay taxes, do corvée labor, and serve as soldiers during times of war. The Thai social system was further verticalized into a three-tier pyramid made up of the king, the civil servants, and the masses. Consequently, the old Sukothai social control based on land and the people occupying it changed into one based on the hierarchical system of patrons and clients.

The patrons (masters) were known as nai or munnai, while the clients (servants) were called phrai (freemen). The lowest rung of the social ladder was occupied by the thaat, or slaves.

The dominant figure of this period remained King Borommatrailokkanat (also known as King Trailok, 1448-1488), who brought about innovations in the state shifting toward a more centralized control of the provinces. Previously, the Tai nation was a loose conglomeration of principalities ruled by phomuang and chaomuang. As a first step, Trailok sent his close relatives to govern the larger towns and provinces; these royal officials became the first effective governors directly responsible to the king. At the same time, he carried out a clear separation between the civil and military administration by creating functionally specialized units of government known as krom, the precursors of the modern ministries. The various krom were further subdivided into smaller krom

Thai King Naresuan in battlem with the Burmese Crown Prince Mingyi Swa at the battle of Yuthahatthi in 1593.

Photo by (CC), Victor Cuoto

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King Bhumibol Adulyadej Wikimedia Commons

(departments), kong (divisions), and mu (sections), all run by princes at the top and nai lower down. A phrai (client) attached to a nai (patron) automatically belonged to the krom assigned to that nai, “thus patronal status and bureaucratic power were combined in the social control system of Ayutthaya” (Chaloemtiarana, 2007).

The Sakdina System (1454-1932) Since ancient times, Thai society possessed a system of property distribution through which every man was allowed to hold a certain lot of land. In 1454, King Trailok introduced an important measure meant to lay down definite rules regarding the number of rai of land each subject could own, which was determined by his social status.

Thus, from the royal princes to the lowly thaat, status and dignity were certified by the amount of sakdina (“control over the fields”) that each person had. Therefore, the Sakdina Law established that the Crown Prince could hold 100,000 rai (2.5 rai=1 acre), while the king’s brother by a royal queen (chao fa) in charge of an official department (krom) received 50,000 rai, but without office only 20,000. High officials could not get more than 10,000 rai, while common people (phrai) were allowed to hold only 25 rai, but even thaat could command as many as 5 rai. As an example, officials with a grant of 400 rai controlled 16 men, each of whom was estimated to cultivate up to 25 rai (Reynolds, 1987: 90).

Therefore control of manpower, rather than territory, was essential since the land was

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abundant and the population small. It has been estimated that in the mid-nineteenth century Thailand was inhabited by only 5 to 6 million individuals. People were then necessary both to cultivate the land and to defend it, and also constituted a source of wealth for the ruling class through obligatory labor (corvée), taxes, and slavery. Until very recently, the great mass of the population was made up of phrai (common people) and slaves, the latter being debtors rather than real slaves until they paid off their debts to their patron. As previously noted, every single phrai had to be associated under a nai (master) since phrai had no legal status and therefore no protection.

The more phrai a single nai could command, the more powerful and wealthy he would be. In many respects these were like small armies, and at times throughout Thai history high officials would use them as troops to overthrow the rulers.

Later, the sakdina system lost its exclusive territorial significance and acquired other social values, such as indicating the status of an official in the bureaucracy, the place where an official could take during the audience with the king, as well as the amount of fines he had to pay if convicted of an offense, or the size of compensation he was entitled to in case of injury by others (Udyanin, 1965). By the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) (1868-1910) land distribution was abolished, and eventually the sakdina system faded away with the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932.

The Rattanakosin Period (1782-present) During the first three reigns of the Chakri Dynasty, the system of government remained substantially the same adopted in the Ayutthayan period, until the rise to the throne of King Mongkut, Rama IV (18511868). Feeling the pressure of the colonial powers at its borders, King Mongkut realized that Thailand needed to introduce modern standards of administration and new technologies in order to remain independent. By this time, “the Hinduistic ideology of the divine kingship had been replaced by the Buddhistic ideal of the Great Man, who rules so that the welfare of all may increase” (Riggs, 1966, p. 96). When King Mongkut died in 1868, he had laid the foundations for future in-depth reforms

carried out by his son King Chulalongkorn, Rama V (1868-1910). In 1891, the new king launched a sweeping reorganization of all the ministries and introduced modern techniques of operation in many fields, from tax collection to a new wage system for government officials. The long reign of King Chulalongkorn ended with his death in 1910, and the throne was inherited by his son King Vajiravudh, Rama VI (1910-1925). This reign was shorter in comparison, but left its mark via two main things: a revival of cultural and political nationalism, with the coinage of “Nation, Religion and King” (chat, satsana, phramahakasat) to inculcate devotion to the Thai fatherland and its main representative; and the lavish royal expenditures of his court, which caused a huge state budget deficit.

Clientship As illustrated above, Thai history has experienced the emergence of two different yet complementary models of governing: the Sukothaian and the Ayutthayan. The Sukothai Kingdom was founded on personal loyalty to a paternalistic wise ruler who protected his people, improved their welfare, and sat as a judge in disputes. The Kingdom of Ayutthaya combined a personal rule by a divinized monarch with an elaborate civil law and a complex bureaucracy. Over time, then, Thai society has been functioning by virtue of a constant dialectic between bureaucratized, formal hierarchy, and personalized, informal clientship (Girling, 1981). According to Wongtrangan (1988: 53), Thai society was not one of equals, but rather of superior and subordinate, though it was not necessarily an exploitative relationship, but often a mutually beneficial one: “Clientship lay at the core of the crucial nai-phrai (superior-subordinate) relationship.

On the one hand, phrai provided the gifts on which the nai subsisted. In general, clients (male phrai) constituted an important source of income for their nai (master). If the latter did not oppress his clients but let them earn their living in peace, they would give him not inconsiderable gifts of rice, fruit, vegetables, and fish (Pallegoix, Jean Baptiste, 1854.

Description du royaume thai ou Siam, Vol. I, p.

298.) On the other hand, nai settled disputes among their phrai and provided protection and assistance.”

This social pattern has oriented all the power and bureaucratic practices too. A

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modern formal system of bureaucracy was indeed introduced in the country, but it was regarded as an alien value in the traditional Thai system, since it emphasized “rationality,” that is, impersonalization, secularization, specialization, efficiency, optimization and all the modern concepts introduced from the West. On the other hand, the informal pattern of clientship attaches greater importance to personal relations, friendship, superior-subordinate dependence, and so forth (Wongtrangan, 1988).

The 1932 Revolution The 1932 Revolution constituted a shift in power, but not in the system. Organized and arranged by no more than 70 people in four different groups (senior army officers, junior army officers, navy officers, and civilian officials) it was far from a democratic or mass movement – it simply removed the royal oligarchy and replaced it with a more common one (Girling, 1981: 59-60). Four main reasons have been given for the 1932 coup: (1) the monopoly of power by the king and royal princes; (2) the frustration of young, able, and ambitious commoners – especially those educated in England and France and imbued with ideas of democracy and progress; (3) the indecisive character of King Prajadhipok (Rama VII), caught between a sincere belief in the necessity of radical reforms and the attachment to his royal prerogatives; and (4) the king’s plan of balancing the budget deficit left by his predecessor by reducing salaries for bureaucrats and by dismissing military and civilian officials. The coup was meant to revolutionize the distribution of power in Thailand, but in the end the entrenched concept of paternalistic power and clientship prevailed over the initial democratic aspirations.

martial law (Girling, 1981: 111). Nonetheless, according to Thak Chaloemtiarana (1979: 111), he captured the favor of the public for his personal style which was very Thai in character. His paternalistic style of leadership was modelled on the idea of the pho-luk (father-children) relationship – a ruler who looked after the nation in different functions: as prime minister, army commander, minister of development, judge (in ordering executions), and police chief. He also revived the patriotic slogan of “Nation, Religion, King” coined by King Vajiravudh, which has also been reiterated at every military coup since then. Unlike his predecessors, who put constraints on royal appearances, Sarit encouraged the young King Bhumibol (Rama IX) to tour the country and show himself to the public, in order to elicit awe and reverence for the monarchy – the epitome of an idealized past and benevolent power. The construction of the kingly image as a Buddhistic ideal of the Great Man (which later degenerates into a royal cult) along the model first launched by King Mongkut started in this period.

After Sarit died in 1963, his legacy of power was divided among his close followers: the faithful Thanom Kittikachorn became prime minister, supreme commander, and minister of defense; Praphat Charusathien became deputy prime minister, army commander-inchief, and minister of interior. The military regime continued along the pattern set by Sarit, but the lack of a charismatic figure slowly but surely eroded its legitimacy.

1973: The Civil Society There are similarities between the 1932 and 1973 turning points in Thailand’s history.

Both happened at a time of world recession accompanied by rising costs of living, and both signalled the end of absolute regimes – first royal (1932) and then military (1973). After a decade of unchecked and unchallenged power, the regime of Thanom and Praphat became increasingly arbitrary, corrupt, and incompetent. A generation of political stability and continued economic growth in the country, as well as exposure to Western ideas and behaviors, helped form

Sarit Thanarat Regime (1958-1963) Marshal Sarit’s rise to power came at a time when international relations between the Communist block and the Free World were deep into the Cold War. In this international scenario, Sarit had an easy game of labelling all his opponents as communists and installing an authoritarian regime. Following his coup of 1958, immediate measures were taken: the 1952 constitution was abolished, the assembly dissolved, parties banned, trade unions forbidden, the press controlled, the “leftists” arrested and the country ruled by decree (the notorious article 17) under

Sarit Dhanarajata posing for a photograph as field marshal and supreme commander of the Royal Thai Armed Forces HQ. Wikimedia Commons

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Thaksin Shinawatra Photo by (CC) Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

The importance of Thaksin Shinawatra in the political history of Thailand has probably been underestimated. a civil society which showed an improved awareness of its role in Thai society. Amidst a deep economic crisis, people took to the streets demanding a new constitution and more democratic practices. In urban areas, the inspirational and organizing force behind the public protests was the nationwide student network (National Student Centre of Thailand); in the countryside, the farmers’ associations – whose members were hit hard by the recession and who had pleaded in vain to the government for help and debt relief – showed an unprecedented united and well-organized front that managed to put forward their grievances, quickly acquiring a large consensus. Both forces united in anti-government demonstrations, but their requests for democracy were met with repression by the regime, including authorities firing on unarmed demonstrators.

The king, genuinely horrified by the brutal military reaction, distanced himself from the violence and named a new government, while Thanom and Praphat went into exile.

The period of 1973-1976 that followed

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constituted the first democratic period in Thai history, with the drafting of a new constitution, proposed labor and land reform legislation, and the first fully democratic elections in 1975. However, internal and external forces soon started to influence the course of events toward a reinstatement of undemocratic practices and the return of the military. Internally, labor unrest (with strikes and lockouts) continued, student activism became more and more ideologically inclined, and peasant organizations gained larger support and membership. Externally, the communists conquered the neighboring countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, sparking fears among the military, the business community, the royal court, and the wealthy elite of an imminent communist takeover in Thailand led by students, workers and farmers. The April 1976 elections gave a victory to the left-wing Democrats, confirming the worst worries of the establishment and raising political tensions in the country again. The climax was reached on October 6, 1976, when, following a student demonstration,

the military-police attacked Thammasat University and staged an unprecedented brutal crackdown, terminating the country’s first democratic experience.

Thaksin Shinawatra (2001-2006) The importance of Thaksin Shinawatra in the political history of Thailand has probably been underestimated. More attention has been given to his controversial government policies, to his blatant arrogance and abuse of power, and also to the rampant corruption during his tenure. Less notice has been given to the clear challenge he posed to the bloated power of the established elites, which he mounted with the landslide legitimacy gained in democratic elections and the vast support of the medium-low strata of the population.

The financial crisis that struck Thailand in 1997 and ended a ten-year long economic boom was in form a repeat of the 1973 crisis, but in substance more brutal. Its effect on the medium-lower class of small owners, urban workers and farmers was devastating, while the upper class of wealthy elites and metropolitan business escaped almost unhurt. The disgruntled sections of the population came to form the core of supporters for the newly formed Thai Rak Thai party led by Thaksin. In reaction to the economic policies introduced by the preceding governments – that revolved essentially around the IMF-inspired government spending cuts and privatizations

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– the Thai Rak Thai party won the January 2001 elections with a substantial majority in an otherwise fractioned parliament (248 seats out of 500).

As prime minister, Thaksin enacted unprecedented policy innovations aimed at relieving rural debts, offering microcredit schemes, extending cheap healthcare, and launching development projects (Pongsudhirak, 2012: 48). These measures helped the country recover completely from the 1997 financial crash and assured the prime minister had the initial support of the elites and the king. In February 2005, he was re-elected, this time with an overwhelming majority in the assembly (377 seats out of 500) that allowed him to become bolder in asserting his own way vis-à-vis the prerogatives of the power cliques within the royal court, the military, and the wealthy elites.

As aptly observed by Pongsudhirak (2012: 48), the conflict with the Palace dated from this time. Thaksin laid bare the deep distortions of the power system in Thailand, where a chosen array of unelected people in the upper echelons ruled the country without any democratic legitimacy from the bottom, often taking decisions that benefited only them at the expense of the large majority of the population. This had always been the case in Thailand, but before Thaksin, no single political leader had ever been in the position to oppose this common practice. After he repeatedly brushed aside his opponents by affirming: “I have the people’s support,” the obvious response arrived: “We have the army.” And in September 2006, the coup finally came while he was out of the country on official business. Privy Council (note 1) President Prem Tinsulanonda was quoted

by US Ambassador Ralph Boyce (Hewison, 2014: 857): “Prem remarked that from the outset of his time as Prime Minister, Thaksin had been personally unprepared for the fawning reception he gets, especially when he travels around the country. It had gone to his head, Prem said, and made him believe that ‘he’s number one.’ But Thailand was not like America, Prem added. ‘We already have a number one [the king].’ Thaksin needed to learn that he was the manager of the shop, not the owner. The people upcountry liked Thaksin and voted for him, but they didn’t revere him … Thaksin should understand that he cannot rival the King for the people’s affection …”

Conclusion In most Western countries the basic assumption of democracy is that everyone is born equal. On the contrary, in Thailand since ancient times it was taken for granted that social status affects (but does not determine) an individual’s life. The concept of fundamental inequality was thus preserved almost in its entirety, informing all societal constructions. At some point, the Thai state did open up to the West to introduce modernization, technology, and more efficient practices in every field, but the elite kept democratic institutions at a distance, judging them unfit for Thailand. As aptly argued by Aphornsuvan (2009: 401): “Western knowledge and science thus provided the ruling classes with a modern perception of themselves and the world.

Nevertheless, the persistence of Siamese sakdina [feudal] social relations ultimately prevented complete modernization.

Modernity therefore ended up in the hands of the elite and did not extend to the wider populace.”

Over time, this dichotomy has created a dual system with formal democratic institutions operating on the surface, but informal undemocratic practices prevailing today. In a way, the Western democratic model was just superimposed as a mask of modernity on a fully formed society, regulated by old and well-functioning machinery underneath. To sum up, actors and the balance of power have shifted over time, but the fundamental idea of a rule by the unelected elite – be it royal, military or wealthy – has not changed. More research on this will be needed to extend this interpretative model to the present day and test its validity.

Notes The Privy Council is an advisory body to the Thai monarch, constituted by 18 members, among which are senior civil and military royalists (often referred to as “mandarins”).

For long periods it has acted as the real executive body.

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Vella, Walter F. (1955). The Impact of the West on Government in Thailand. Oakland (USA): University of California Press.

Wongtrangan, Kanok (1988). “Thai Bureaucratic Behaviour: The Impact of Dual Values on Public Policies.” Reflections on Development in Southeast Asia. Lim Teck Ghee (ed). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Filippo M. De Filippis holds an MA in Literature from Florence University, Italy, and an MA in AsiaPacific Studies from National Chengchi University (NCCU). He is currently a PhD student at NCCU. His primary research interests are Southeast Asian state formation and policy, as well as population and culture, with a particular focus on Thailand.

He can be reached at fmdefilippis@yahoo.it.

VOLUME 7 | NUMBER 2 | FALL 2015 • 10

Vietnam and Laos: Policies toward China A Comparative Case Study on their Regional Integration Fanny Guinot On May 14, 2014, Vietnamese demonstrators against the deployment of a Chinese oil platform in the disputed waters near the Paracel and Spratly Islands set fire to factories owned by Chinese companies. This type of incident is rather unusual in Vietnam, a country run by an authoritarian, one-party Communist regime. The violence began in the context of increased tensions between Hanoi and Beijing. The demonstrations were staged by thousands of Vietnamese workers in industrial zones with high levels of foreign capital investment and many of the targeted companies were owned or managed by Chinese. Although no injuries were reported, the police refused to comment due to the location of the protests, as foreign-owned factories are one of the key elements of the Vietnamese economy. Following these events, China urged Vietnam to take all necessary measures to put an end to the strikes and punish protest leaders. China and Vietnam have longstanding territorial disputes concerning the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos. The islands are located in important international waterways, and their grounds are thought to be rich in oil. Since Beijing’s announcement in 2014 that it would deploy an oil platform in these waters, bilateral tensions have risen sharply. Indeed, even though China and Vietnam are not the only claimants to the archipelagos, the US has labeled this announcement as a very provocative move. Vietnam has denounced it as an illegal decision and demanded that the platform be removed. These events could be seen as a good illustration of how preponderant the relations that regional countries maintain with China are. Indeed, Vietnam’s case shows how these relations influence the way in which countries can be integrated within the region.

Although Laos is close to Vietnam in terms of geography and also maintains close ties with China, events similar to the 2014 industrial zone incidents have not occurred there. Why is that? Obviously, Laos, which does not border any sea, is not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute. However, the issue is more complex than it looks: One of the main elements here is that this country adopts a very different approach toward China than Vietnam does.

In many aspects, Laos and Vietnam

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are quite similar, allowing us to compare the two. These similarities are made up of mainly domestic elements. First, both are neighboring, former French colonies on the Southeast Asia mainland. Second, they both saw the rise of communist parties to nationwide power in the mid-1970s, and underwent a process of “reform” involving a shift from central planning to a market economy. Third, they have experienced rapid economic growth and decreasing poverty rates since the 1990s. Finally, despite rapid economic growth and reduced poverty, they

remain bastions of “il-liberalism” and oneparty rule.

These domestic similarities also make it interesting to compare Vietnam and Laos in terms of foreign policy: On the one hand, both countries are increasingly focused on integration in Southeast Asia, while on the other hand they have adopted different strategies toward China. To what extent have these different approaches vis-à-vis China determined the actions of these two countries within the ASEAN community?

Vietnam looks more successful and dynamic than Laos in terms of regional integration and economic development. Here, the argument is that their respective strategies toward China and how these affect both countries is a deciding factor. In the case of Vietnam, the government makes continuous efforts toward putting the South China Sea disputes on ASEAN’s agenda, in an attempt to ensure that “conflict is dealt with in a constructive way” (Chauhan, 2013).

However, Vietnam’s interests in ASEAN are not only related to security issues. Its government also aims to create an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). In addition, Vietnam has undergone domestic reforms to integrate itself within the regional community. For instance, the country has gradually restructured its administrative apparatus to better suit a market economy.

Moreover, one year after joining ASEAN, it reorganized its bureaucracy to include a National ASEAN Committee.

While this increasingly dynamic regional community will offer Laos opportunities, it also poses considerable and (as yet) unknown threats to the country’s social, economic, and environmental development.

Increasing market integration may lead to stiffer competition from other countries in the region, and implementing the complex reform processes demanded by the AEC is presenting Laos with significant legislative and administrative challenges. Regardless, the Lao government’s main objective is to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by this regional trade integration.

Without underestimating other elements such as geography and Laos’ landlocked status, our main focus will be on the relations both countries maintain with China and how this explains the differences in Vietnam and Laos’ integration strategies within Southeast Asia. In other words, we will compare both countries in terms of foreign policy strategy

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toward China, and link that to their differing degrees of regional integration. What strategies do both countries employ, and to what end? Also, what are the implications of these approaches for both countries?

Two countries, two strategies Laos, Vietnam, and China are relatively peaceful neighbors that maintain complex relations and interactions. Economically speaking, these countries are at three different levels of development, and therefore have different strategies toward dealing with one another.

As a regional power, China is a claimant for a re-evaluation of the world order. It has a strong influence on the region, and is trying to extend this influence on its neighbors.

Despite its impressive economic growth in recent years, Vietnam remains a sub-regional power, and does not pretend to compete with China on a global level. However, there is no doubt the Vietnamese government is trying to develop and extend its influence abroad.

As a result, smaller and less developed countries in the region, such as Laos, are facing a dilemma: With which country should they deepen their partnership? China and Vietnam are competing to secure Laos’ allegiance and include it in their sphere of influence. Laos, rather pragmatically, seems to prefer China: It has a lot to offer and is giving Laos more aid than Vietnam could ever provide (Hiebert and Poling, 2013).

Based on this rationale, China and Laos are becoming ever closer. Over the past decade, Sino-Laotian relations have grown deeper and stronger, while exchanges and meetings between the leaders of these two countries have become more frequent.

China and Laos have witnessed growing friendly exchanges and cooperation in the political, economic, military, cultural, and even healthcare spheres. China, as a world power, is undoubtedly diversifying its foreign relations mechanisms and using soft and hard power to strengthen its position. The two countries maintain close cooperation in both international and regional affairs. However, it is prudent to remain cautious toward this relatively new cooperation. Although there is no doubt that both sides have a vested interest in increasing integration and interdependence, we must not forget that Laos is a follower and China a strong leader.

In other words, Laos’ strategy toward China is essentially bandwagoning, a strategy which

consists of kowtowing to China as a “little brother” in exchange for assistance, aid, and infrastructural support. Laos is aligning itself with the stronger China, the adversarial power, a strategy employed by comparably weak states because the stronger party can take what it wants by force.

According to Kenneth Waltz (1979), a country bandwagons because the cost of opposing this power exceeds the benefits. In order to convince the weaker state to join this “tributary” system, the stronger power may propose some benefits: For example, it can offer territories, or the signing of treaties or agreements. In the case of Laos and China, the latter is showing its intentions to increase trade agreements and to some extent offering protection. Following a realist approach, Laos is bandwagoning, aware of its lack of alternatives for building a counterbalancing (or even hedging) coalition. As a result, China is growing stronger and gaining influence in the region.

Over the past years, China and Laos have increased and deepened their economic and trade relations. Reports by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China show that “[d]ocuments on cooperation in trade, investment protection, tourism, and automobile transport were signed respectively and the committee on bilateral economic, trade and technological cooperation was set up between both sides.

In 2000, Sino-Laotian trade volume reached US$40.84 million, up 28.8 percent from the previous year, and in 2001, it rose to US$61.87 million, up 51.4 percent from 2000.” (Ibrahim, 2010.)

Although Laos may have privileged Russia for a while, there is no doubt that since the end of the 1990s, it shifted toward China and redirected its policy toward more cooperation with Beijing. There has been collaboration between the foreign ministries of the two countries in many areas. For instance, the Chinese and Laotian foreign ministers have visited one another. As Sheriff Ghali Ibrahim (2010) states, “[m]ilitary relations between China and Laos have also developed very well. Since 1989, China and Laos have signed agreements on cultural and press cooperation as well as memorandums of understanding on cooperation in education, health, broadcasting, film and TV.” Even though there is competition over Laos between Vietnam and China, the latter

is strongly influencing Laos and has vested interests in doing so. First of all, Laos is on the route to Thailand: an important new market as well as potential partner for China.

Above all, Laos has natural resources, such as coal, gold, gemstones, and copper, but lacks the infrastructural and financial means to exploit these. At the same time, Laos also needs aid and subsidies, which China is more willing to give than any other nation, as well without asking for any change of regime for what it provides (unlike France, Australia, the US or international organizations). Finally, it could be argued that Laos does not have many alternatives: It seems difficult for the country to compete with China’s cheap labor force and the quality it provides.

Vietnam’s strategy toward China, on the other hand, is rather different. Since the normalization of bilateral relations, it concentrates more on hedging and balancing.

Since 1991, Vietnam’s policy toward China has been shaped by a combination of approaches: “a multi-tiered, omni-directional hedging strategy,” with hedging being “the most rational and viable option for Vietnam to manage its relations with China given its historical experiences, domestic and bilateral conditions, as well as changes in Vietnam’s external relations and the international strategic environment.” (Hiep, 2013) According to Le Hong Hiep, Vietnam’s strategy has four major components, namely: “economic pragmatism, direct engagement, hard balancing, and soft balancing.” First, if we look to the definition of hedging which can be seen as “a purposeful act in which a state seeks to insure its long-term interests by placing its policy bets on multiple countering options that are designed to offset risks embedded in the international systems.”

The objective of hedging is to “cultivat[e] a middle position that forestalls or avoids having to choose one side at the obvious expense of another” (Goh, 2005). In this regard, states will continue to stay in the “middle” of balancing and bandwagoning (Tran, et al, 2013).

Vietnam’s approach toward China undoubtedly helps it cope with the threats and constraints Beijing imposes in terms of its economy, diplomatic efforts, or even military since the start of China’s rise.

This approach can improve the ability of the hedging state (Vietnam) to decrease its dependence on public goods or direct subsidies provided by the country being

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hedged against (China). Even though we would not assert Vietnam’s strategy of economic diversification, China’s prevailing influence is undeniable. Generally speaking, strong reliance on one country is doubleedged sword. Even though the Vietnamese government sees Chinese investment as a solution to the problem of deficit reduction as well as a precondition for the increase of its exports – which have become critical after Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007 – it is acutely aware that the encouragement of Chinese investment also has negative consequences.

Due to Vietnamese enterprises’ weakness and, in some cases, lack of competitiveness vis-à-vis their Chinese counterparts, Vietnam’s economic dependence on China has been reinforced. Beijing’s leverage has increased with the possibility of introducing (economic) sanctions against Vietnam in the context of tensions in the South China Sea. As stated previously, this hedging strategy also implies hard and soft balancing toward China. One of the indicators of this balancing is Vietnam’s efforts to strengthen its military. The country is one of Russia’s main weapons purchasers, begging the question: Why would Vietnam adopt a policy of military strengthening if not to balance against its Chinese neighbor? Even though we can question its ability to directly challenge China, there is little doubt that these military assets are being accrued to be used as a deterrent. Regarding the soft balancing approach, Vietnam has intended a shift to Southeast Asia to bolster its position in the region, focussing on economic exchanges and trade partnerships with these countries.

In summation, while Vietnam is trying to redirect its strategy toward other Southeast Asian partners, and balance China’s power in the region; Laos seems bound to follow China as it lacks alternatives to survive the regional integration competition.

The reasons for such divergence The relations both countries maintain with China seem to be a key element to explaining their regional integration. Their varying strategies and experiences can be explained by the differences both countries are facing.

Even though both countries are neighbors, similar in size, and share a border with

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China, they are facing very different issues.

Indeed, Laos is a continental country with unexploited natural resources, on the route to Thailand. Vietnam is a coastal country and claimant in the South China Sea disputes. In addition, although both countries rely heavily on tourism, it is obvious that such geographic disparities lead to a rather dynamic Vietnam, taking advantage of its Halong Bay and coastal landscape infrastructure, and a leftbehind Laos whose tourism sector mostly relies on neighboring countries. Such differences must be taken into consideration when looking at the economic development of Vietnam and Laos and their relations with China. In fact, economic development is arguably the decisive factor in these relations.

At the domestic level, Laos “remains a country with an underdeveloped infrastructure, particularly in rural areas.

Nevertheless, its economy has benefited from high-profile foreign direct investment in hydropower, copper and gold mining, logging, and construction (even though some projects in these industries have drawn criticism for their environmental impact).

The government appears committed to raising the country’s profile among investors, opening the country’s first stock exchange in 2011 and participating in regional economic cooperation initiatives”(International Mundi Index Data Base, 2013 data). Still, the lack of infrastructure makes it difficult for Laos to compete with its neighbors.

Regarding its economic development, Vietnam is seemingly forced to adopt a hedging strategy. It walks a very fine line regarding its relations with the US, ASEAN, and China, making adjustments along the way depending on its national interests.

The reason behind the adoption of a hedging strategy is that “small” states, such as Vietnam, cannot get too close to more powerful states, in this case either the US or China, because this might raise concerns in the other country. Vietnam does not want to be seen as a defensive wall for Chinese containment. It also does not want to court trade with US firms exclusively, nor does it want to court US support in security relations in Southeast Asia. Keeping very close partnerships at bay, Vietnam is trying to spare both sides, while taking as much advantage as it can from its bilateral relations.

As Phuc Thi Tran, et al (2013) put forward: "Vietnamese foreign policy has paid special attention to regional institutions,

predominantly ASEAN, due to its capacity to keep China engaged, while simultaneously restraining Beijing’s assertive and sometimes even aggressive behavior in the [South China Sea]. [...] Vietnam uses its economic relations to deepen both bilateral ties with China and engage it in multilateral forums, such as ASEAN. Vietnam is expected to continue further developing exchanges with major external players in addition to ASEAN, as part of its quest for economic growth and security.”

Finally, in order to understand Vietnamese policy regarding China, it is important to take into account that, historically speaking, the relationship between Vietnam and China has always been asymmetric. Consequently, Hanoi’s main strategic preoccupation has been the issue of how to use diplomacy, economic relations, and military ties to maintain its autonomy. At the same time, Vietnam’s space to maneuver has been decreasing.

Implications: regional integration As a member of ASEAN, Laos (Hiebert and Poling, 2011) shares the aim of creating a common economic community (the AEC) similar to the European Union. Such an integrated market would offer Laos great opportunities, but would also pose considerable, and as yet unknown, threats to the country’s social, economic, and environmental development.

Also, implementing the complex reform processes demanded by the AEC is presenting Laos with significant legislative and administrative challenges. Therefore, the government and the business sector in Laos have no choice but to take advantage of the opportunities offered by regional trade integration, without asking too much in return. In 2012, an overall strategy for the commercial Lao sector was adopted.

The accord made clear reference to the significance of the ASEAN area to the socioeconomic development of Laos. This has caused rising concern among both the public and private sectors in Laos about the possible opportunities and risks that a common ASEAN free-trade area would entail. At the same time, it has also increased the likelihood of successful integration by improving Laos’ overall framework.

Regarding Vietnam, the implications are obviously standing on a different level. Hanoi

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joining ASEAN had preponderant social, political, economic, and security implications.

Among others, it created a favorable environment for economic development.

Moreover, it boosted Vietnam’s global image, increasing cooperation and partnership among Southeast Asian countries.

Consequently, Vietnam, along with multiple players in the region, has greater influence to bargain with superpowers like the US and China and attract more foreign direct investment.

Because an increasing number of companies are reluctant to settle down in China due to the increase of labor costs, Vietnam represents an interesting cheaper alternative. “Vietnam also led efforts within ASEAN to ensure regional security.

Soon after becoming a member, Vietnam signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone and was one of the founding members of the ASEAN Regional Forum,” reports Chauhan (2013).

Nevertheless, one of the most important arguments for regional stability has revolved around disputes in the South China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines – another claimant in the South China Sea – have made constant efforts to put the issue on ASEAN’s agenda in attempt to ensure that conflict is dealt constructively.

In addition to security issues, Vietnam also has personal economic interests involved in ASEAN: its leadership of the AEC. The aim here is to narrow the development gap in the region. Indeed, ASEAN is trying to focus on integrating Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar further into ASEAN’s economic standards.

The organization identified “four priority areas of economic reforms: infrastructure, information and communication, technology and human resource development, and regional economic integration” (Chauhan (2013).

Despite its leading regional position, Vietnam still had to launch a set of reforms, notably on a domestic level, to integrate itself into the community. Hanoi has gradually restructured its administrative apparatus to suit a market economy to guarantee growing ASEAN-Vietnamese trade.

Conclusion Despite espousing similar features and backgrounds, Vietnam and Laos do not play the same role in the region. Vietnam,

as a regional power in Southeast Asia, has a foreign policy strategy geared toward engaging China, and tries to be competitive on a sub-regional level, while Laos tries laboriously to open itself up and develop.

Laos is the 135th-poorest country in the world – out of 177 – and therefore seeks to benefit from whatever foreign aid and subsidies it can get. While Vietnam is hedging and trying to balance China’s regional influence, Laos has no other option than to remain under its influence, bandwagoning on its neighbor’s policies.

Their differing strategies toward China have important consequences on a regional level. Vietnam has adopted a leading role in ASEAN, whereas Laos is trying to benefit from any opportunities it sees. Vietnam and China are undoubtedly vying to influence Laos, which seems to have chosen China due to its economic power and reach, yet despite that Laos still maintains special ties with Vietnam, as it has done in the past.

References Chauhan, Sadhavi (2013). Vietnam’s Role in ASEAN. Observer Research Foundation. http://www.eastasiaforum. org/2013/10/23/vietnams-role-in-asean/ Chheang, Vannarith and Wong Yushan (2012). Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam: Economic reform and regional integration. Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace.

Dogan, Mattei and Palessy, Dominique (1990). How to Compare Nations: Strategies in Comparative Politics, Comparative Politics and the International Political Economy Series. Chatham House Publishers.

Ghali Ibrahim, Sheriff (2010). “Chinese Diplomacy in the South-East-Asia-Region: An Eagle View of Inter-State Party Relations of Mainland-China and Three Communist States (North Korea, Vietnam and Laos).”

The Social Sciences, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp. 33-44.

Goh, Evelyn (2005). “Meeting the China Challenge: The US in Southeast Asian Regional Strategies.” Policy Studies, No. 16.

Hiebert, Murray and Poling, Gregory B. (2011). Engaging Laos: Strategic Part of the ASEAN Puzzle, Vol. II, Issue 16, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Hiep, Le Hong (2013). “Vietnam’s Hedging

Strategy against China since Normalization.”

Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 333-368.

Ishi, Kotaro (2010). “The Lao People’s Democratic Republic: growth, reform and prospects.” Globalization and development in the Mekong economies. Suiwah Leung, Ben Bingham and Matt Davies (eds). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Landman, Todd (2008). Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics: An Introduction. Routledge.

St John, Ronald Bruce (2006). Revolution, reform and regionalism in Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. London and New York, Routledge Storey, Ian (2004). “China and Vietnam’s Tug of War Over Laos.” China brief, Vol. 5, Issue 13, The Jamestown Foundation Tran, Phuc Thi; Vieira, Alena Vysotskaya G. and Ferreira-Pereira, Laura C (2013).

“O hedging estratégico do Vietnam face à ascensão da China: o papel da União Europeia e da Rússia.” Rev. bras. polít. int. Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 163-182.

Waltz, Kenneth (1979). Theory of International Politics.

International Mundi Index Data Base (2013 data) http://www.indexmundi.com/ factbook/compare/vietnam.laos https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/17473. html http://www.aseancenter.org.tw/upload/ files/201209073-1.pdf http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/ compare/vietnam.laos http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3867#.

U52wzU1OI1L h t t p : / / w w w. i n s i g h t g u i d e s . c o m / destinations/asia-pacific/laos/culturalfeatures/neighbourly-relations Fanny Guinot is a doctoral student in the IDAS program at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Her research interests include cross-strait relations and Taiwanese businesspeople in China.

She can be reached at fanny.guinot@gmail.com.

VOLUME 7 | NUMBER 2 | FALL 2015 • 14

The Forgotten POWs of the Pacific War The Story of Taiwan’s Prisoner of War Camps David Prentice Jinguashi, a small, somewhat secluded town on the north-eastern tip of Taiwan, wakes to the same scene every day: bus­loads of tourists spilling over from excursions in neighboring Jiufen to wander through the town’s old streets marvelling at temples and scenery. Teapot Mountain and the Gold Waterfall fit effortlessly into the background, the kind of breathtakingly beautiful terrain that this part of the island has become so famous for, and which pulls tourists in from every stretch of the globe. The town is also home to Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park, a popular destination for visitors and a historical testament to the region’s rich mining past. It consists of a number of hiking trails ideal for exploring old mines, and a small educational museum displaying various cultural artifacts. However, it was in these very mines some sixty years ago at the height of the Pacific War that thousands of Allied servicemen slaved away, mining ore in the largest copper mine of the Japanese Empire. In 1942, a Prisoner of War (POW) camp was established at Jinguashi, ­or “Kinkaseki” as it was then called by the Japanese colonial government. The camp, which at its peak housed over a thousand POWs, and the horrors endured by those interned at Kinkaseki represent an almost hidden past, a dark era of Taiwanese colonial history largely forgotten, or conveniently glossed over by past governments. Only recently has recognition of Taiwan’s POW camps entered the public conscience.

Kinkaseki POW Camp, pictured during the 1940s.

Photograph courtesy of www.powtaiwan.org

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The origins of the POW camps across Taiwan at places like Kinkaseki lay with Japan’s conquest over the British at Singapore in February 1942. Japan’s victory resulted in the largest ever surrender of British military personnel in history. Some 80,000 men from Britain, India, and Australia were subsequently shipped off on Japanese “hell ships” to other parts of Asia to be used as forced labor. They joined a further 50,000 Allied servicemen captured by Japanese advances in Malaya, and together they were sent to work on infrastructure projects across newly claimed Japanese Empire projects like the Burma Siam Railway, also known as the “Death Railway.” Likewise, a significant proportion were taken to the Japanese mainland, Manchuria, or the Philippines.

Between 1942 and the end of the war in Asia in September 1945, more than 4,000 POWs docked in the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung in Taiwan.

In order to maximize the exploitation of this newfound labor force, 14 POW camps were built in Taiwan.

Officers were intentionally kept in separate camps in order to disrupt the chain of command, and dent morale amongst the ranks. Conditions differed from camp to camp, but in Kinkaseki the unduly harsh and inhumane conditions of both camp and mine meant that the health of the prisoners rapidly deteriorated. Prisoners were required to march over the side of a steep mountain in order to start the day’s work. Considering the terrain and difficult-to-reach location, just getting to the copper mine proved a difficult enough exercise for the men, who were already in poor physical condition.

The ordeals of one prisoner at Kinkaseki,­ Sergeant Jack Edwards, are recorded in his book Banzai you Bastards, in which he describes his first time entering the mine as if he were “descending into hell.”

The primitive state of the mine also made work a treacherous task. Working in constant fear of the mine collapsing due to a lack of timber supports, prisoners labored in temperatures of up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit and were often exposed to dripping acid water. The only source of lighting in the mines came from a few carbide lamps, and they often went out due to a lack of oxygen in the mining shaft.

In an interview with the BBC in 2004, another former Kinkaseki POW, Maurice Rooney, described conditions in the mine as a “continuous nightmare” in which prisoners lived with the “constant fear of collapsing rock to maim, bury or even kill.”

If copper ore quotas for the day were not

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reached, prisoners were beaten with mining hammers and sticks. On the local Taiwanese guards in the camp, Sergeant Edwards observed that they were “just as cruel.”

He further noted: “They emulated their masters very well. The guards would strike you for the most trivial things. You had to stand to attention while they hit your head with their fist. If you tried to dodge it, then you’d end up with a rifle butt on your head.”

Due to a lack of adequate food rations, prisoners were fed mostly on rice balls and sweet potato leaves, which starved the men to the brink of death. Most men in the camp at some point suffered from ailments including dysentery, pellagra, beriberi, ulcers, pneumonia, and diphtheria; their emaciated figures resembling little more than skeletons in rags.

In March 1945, with the war in the Pacific coming to an end, the mine was closed and Kinkaseki was abandoned. Allied ships were sinking Japanese convoys, meaning the mined copper ore had no way of getting to Japan to be processed for the war effort.

Soon after, the men were picked up by the advancing US Navy in Keelung and escorted back home. According to data provided by the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society, by the time the war in the Pacific had come to an end in August 1945, 430 Allied servicemen had died in Taiwan’s notorious POW camps, most of whom suffered their fate within the confines of Kinkaseki. After the war, the bodies of those who did not make it out of the camps alive were subsequently removed to Sai Wan War Cemetery in Hong Kong, where they rest to this day.

Erected in 1997, Taiwan’s official POW memorial now stands on the site of the former camp at Kinkaseki. With assistance from the British Trade & Cultural Office, a memorial service is organized annually in November in Jinguashi to remember the men who gave their lives in the war and never made it back from the camps in Taiwan.

The wall and sculptures which make up the fittingly poignant memorial nestle restfully into the surrounding landscape of Jinguashi. It is in this peaceful spot that the sacrifices of these men, and the hardships they endured will never be forgotten.

The locations of POW camps in Taiwan during the Second World War. Image courtesy of www.powtaiwan.org

For more information on POW camps in Taiwan please see: http://www.powtaiwan.org David Prentice is an IMAS student at National Chengchi University in Taipei. His research interests include Taiwanese culture and Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.

He can be reached at dawei.prentice@gmail.com.

The old Taipei Prison Wall, picture taken in June 2009.

Photogaph courtesy of www.powtaiwan.org

VOLUME 7 | NUMBER 1 | FALL 2015 • 16

Shared Domestic Struggles and How They Can Shape East Asian Regional Strategy Dan Josephson The smacking sounds of billy clubs on university students’ heads have been heard. The bullets have been seen piercing through countless bodies of unarmed protesters. The innocent blood has been smelled as it spilled from millions in the name of political class warfare. The accounts of such massacres in several countries in Asia are nearly interchangeable. These tragedies have happened on a domestic scale, and the people have had to endure them. Nonetheless, when we look inside the realm of East Asian geopolitics, a problem we often see is how little so many countries in the region have in common. Major challenges within the attempts of institutions such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or Association of Southeast East Asian Nations revolve around economic, social, and cultural gaps. The geopolitical conflicts make it very difficult to achieve collective improvements as a region (McDougall, 2006). This was, in fact, one of the very first dilemmas that I learned about after enrolling in the International Master’s of Asia-Pacific Studies at NCCU. It occurs far too frequently that in the midst of diplomatic processes, historical and contemporary disputes within the East hemisphere’s inhabitants suffocate any mutual benefits they may have to offer each other. Time and time again, like sugar cubes in hot water, these regional similarities dissolve in the convection of larger geopolitical feuds. Whether East Asian countries realize it or not, many of them are very much alike in that they had to rise up from some internal struggle that involved genocide, and which were inflicted upon them not by their feared neighbors, but by their own people. It is the intention of this research article to discuss the irony of and hope for a more positive future in East Asia establishing itself as a region through the recognition of her strength through some of the most frustratingly tragic of times. The purpose of the article is not by any means to understate the evils of foreign invasions and mass killings, but rather to highlight those on a domestic scale that so many countries in this hemisphere have faced. With a larger sense of this particular regional commonality, a reduction of nationalistic pride can bring about a future that will positively affect East Asian people as a whole, and the world at large.

The subject of East Asian relations is discussed in academic circles with an emphasis on geopolitical rivalries and how 17 • ASIA-PACIFIC NEWSLETTER

divisive they generally are. It is sometimes “joked” that these countries’ hatred of each other is truly the only belief that they have

in common. In terms of Northeast Asia, such abhorrence amongst neighbors is easily detected. Both North and South Korea, despite a nuclear threat and occasional border shootouts, share a disdain for their former occupier Japan (Kelly, 2014).

The People’s Republic of China (PRC), for very similar reasons, also cannot stand her gigantic island of a neighbor to the East.

An additional reason is the PRC’s loss of Taiwan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which of course plays a huge role in Taiwan’s own views on Japan (Hu, 2006). As the cross-strait relations of Taiwan and China dominate much of what we hear about in the classrooms of NCCU, it brings into question the Republic of China (ROC) and her seemingly favorable feelings toward her former colonial master. It is argued by many Asian scholars that due to the Taiwanese fear of annexation by the Mainland, the ROC’s populace tend to cohere to Japan. This is one of those examples of two East Asian countries getting along by the coincidence of loathing the same neighbor (Shirk, 2007).

The unfortunate, yet fortunate situation of sharing an enemy does not cancel out the default circumstances of further neighborly bitterness. For example, while China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have more recently engaged in possible plans of cooperation against Japan (Ng, 2014), the past couple of decades have seen numerous geopolitical hiccups. Whether it was due to the ROK’s ten-fold tariff increase on the PRC’s garlic exports, or the Chinese renaming of Korea’s beloved Mt. Baekdu to Mt. Changbei, economic and nationalism-infused bouts have erupted. Such incidents even spilled onto the streets during the Olympic torch relay of 2008 amongst thousands of Chinese and a group of Koreans (Chang, Kim, and Ali-Olimat, 2010). As different as Taiwanese may be from their PRC neighbors to the west, they too have recently shared a general wave of dismay toward the ROK, also in the line of global sporting competitions. Five years ago, a taekwondo competition gone awry inflicted negative sentiment among Taiwanese toward Koreans, with increasing numbers of people beginning to think that Koreans are arrogant. It probably does not help that while the ROK and ROC have no past of foreign policy squabbles, they are constantly neck-and-neck economically, and became democratic around the same time (CAN, 2010). Such adversarial situations may be to blame for the greater East Asian regional mess.

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Communist propaganda hangs near the beaches of Da Nang in Eastern Vietnam.

Photo by Dan Josephson

Vietnamese soldiers march through the park in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

Photo by Dan Josephson

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Examples of Northeast Asian nations having deep-rooted historical as well as newer cultural reasons to irritate and scare each other beg the question of how different Southeast Asia is in this respect. It brings just as much if not greater pain to members of East Asian institutions and think tanks to admit that the answer, in terms of geopolitical rivalries, is not very different. Cambodia and Vietnam, for starters, do not exactly see eye to eye these days, or for the last 40 years. Their bloody battles from 1979-1991 seem to be at the core of a scarred current relationship that does not seem to have ever fully recovered (Doyle, 2014). While Cambodia geographically separates Eastern foe Vietnam from Thailand, that in no way provides a psychological buffer between Bangkok and Hanoi. While matters between Thailand and Vietnam have certainly improved in the last 20 years, the bloody battle of Nom Mak Mun made these little tigers anything but respectful of each other for the better part of the late 20th century (Chongkittavorn, 2015). While Vietnamese comrade Laos also shares a relationship with Thailand that is now better than ever, the two had their own border wars as recently as the late 1980s. Anyone who has been to the Laos People’s Army Museum in Vientiane knows that the government still does not refrain from recounting the “royalist rightist Thais” and their unwarranted aggression over land which dated back to the French colonist cartography of the early 1900s (Hunt, 2012). Authoritarian Myanmar and Thailand date their problems all the way back to the 18th century, and it was just two years ago that Thailand and Cambodia, despite sharing generally similar political ideologies, had their own territorial disputes (Fuller, 2013).

We could not speak about the Southeast rivalries without mentioning that of Malaysia and Singapore – two nations who were once united for a brief moment before the former cut ties with the now economically superior city-state. In the fall of 2013, I was informed by a Singaporean friend that male citizens of Malaysian descent rarely choose the military for their required social service, due to the possibility of a cultural conflict should these Malaysian-Singaporeans ever have to go to war with their neighbor to the north. Indeed, there is much more than just differing styles of Laksa soup that these two countries disagree over (Yap, 2013).

Anecdotal or not, there are security, social,

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Vietnam celebrates the 70th anniversary of the declaration of its independence.

Photo by Dan Josephson

religious, and economic concerns that tie to all of these tugs-of-war. These uneasy East Asian relationships are not limited within each subregion, either. To make matters worse, Northeast Asian soft power player the PRC tends to spill into Southeast Asia.

This occurred in the 1970s during the SinoVietnamese War, and still does with territorial disputes in the South China Sea with not only Vietnam, but also the Philippines. It was also just three years ago that Taiwan had the waters tested over a fisherman being shot and killed by the Filipino navy (Gayathri, 2013). Such series of mishaps and disagreements paint the awful pictures of geopolitical chaos that diplomats pull their

hair out trying to rectify.

During my time in Indochina this past summer and winter, though, I could not help but ponder the not-so ancient similarities that so many of these Southeast Asian nations suffered together under European colonization, and temporary Japanese control during World War II. What is more, members of the Pathet Laos, Khmer Regime, Vietcong, and North Vietnam Army all essentially fought together during the revolt of the 1950s, and war against the Anti-Communist forces in the 1960s and 1970s. It is for this reason that it makes perfect sense that Laos and Vietnam are on quite pleasant terms, but

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being city dwellers or from educated families (S21, 2015).

Similarly, Taiwan has the 2/28 Memorial in Peace Park to pay tribute to the near 30,000 people who were killed during the White Terror period under Chiang Kai Shek (Forsythe, 2015). As ironic as it may seem that his party still rules and he still has his own statue and hall erected, the killings are certainly not minimized. China, on the contrary, is notorious for whitewashing much of her domestic history. As a result, there is no site there that commemorates the victims of Mao Zedong and his Cultural Revolution, nor is any public dialogue about the Tiananmen Square massacre of less than three decades ago permitted (Ma, 2014).

While pointing out such political and coping differences may once against highlight the contrasts within East Asia, the fact remains that many of these countries share the experience of having to overcome their own internal battles.

South Korea is another neighbor who has had to overcome her own internal struggles; the assassination of leader Park Chung-hee and the Kwangju Massacre merely scratch the surface of violence and oppression that Koreans went through prior to their democratization (Gonzalez, 2005). The Eastern region of Asia can hardly be looked at without remembering the atrocious policies of Indonesia’s General Suharto, who murdered anywhere from 500,000 to 2 million of his own people in an anti-communist driven typhoon of ethnic cleansing (Bland, 2013). Sadly, current Indonesian government and military policies in the province of West Papua are still questionable, to say the least (Gemima, 2014). surprising that Cambodia and Vietnam are not (McCarten, 2008). Even more ironic is that while one can expect a now democratic country such as Cambodia to disrespect and fear a communist neighbor to the east, this beloved royal regime and democracy may very well not be standing had it not been for the Vietcong’s dismantling of the former Pol Pot government (Doyle, 2014), formed by a group of rural revolutionary Cambodians who imprisoned and slaughtered up to 3 million of their own people (S21, 2015).

There is another very key similarity, one that exists in many Northeast and Southeast Asian countries: domestic genocide and how

they have overcome it. In the wake of the aforementioned international East Asian quarrels, though, what could be viewed as common regional ground and strength tends to take a backseat in any geopolitical dialogue.

This is not to say that these neighboring nations do not ever recognize and honor the people who died at the hands of their own governments. As I was able to see in August 2015, the infamous killing fields of Cambodia are in no way kept secret like they used to be. In light of this horrific tragedy, Cambodia does an impressive job of making sure that people never forget the millions of men, women, and children who were tortured and killed for reasons as absurd as

Unfortunately, whether communist or royalist, the list of such domestic genocide episodes in both North and Southeast Asia can be discussed for an inestimable amount of time. What it shows is that as contrasting as many of these countries are, they do share a level of resilience, and have taken many steps to get to where they are today. Countries such as Taiwan and South Korea have become democratic, as well as key components of the Asian technological wave; they were also two of the original four Tiger economies. While China would not admire the political steps of the ROK and ROC, it is now, despite its own genocidal history, about to become

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The skulls of several millions of Cambodian victims are on display at the killing fields of Phnom Penh.

Photo by Dan Josephson

the world’s strongest economy (Chiang, 2015). Cambodia certainly has much recovering to do, as she remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The young Cambodians left behind after one third of the population was killed (S21, 2015) are looking to level the playing field with new mandatory education laws (Thust, 2013).

As different as Cambodia may be from, for example, Taiwan, both have had a revival after domestic violence and a containment of ancient beauty. One can travel to the National Palace Museum in Taipei to see Chinese artifacts that fleeing ROC nationalists brought with them to the island during the height of civil war. Despite all of the unnecessary political bloodshed, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temples still glow in the forests for millions of people every year. Taiwanese and Cambodians both have problems of the past that they should be able to share with nearly all of their continental neighbors. They have all been through homeland tragedies in their own way.

Countries such as Myanmar or Indonesia’s

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West Papua are still going through episodes of political and religious genocide that will take some time to end (Gemima, 2014).

This is all the more reason why East Asians should come together and recognize the atrocities that they have been able to get through in order to prevent such tragedies from occurring again. Instead, East Asian institutions continue to struggle with matters like the Taiwanese fearing a Chinese Communist Party annexation. The CCP likewise fears the ROC’s complete independence and the future use of a real Japanese military, as does South Korea while she continues to boast the second-highest suicide rate. As China and archrival Japan consistently share a similar ranking in citizens taking their own lives, perhaps they could work together on that issue (Kiersz, 2014).

The ROK also lost hundreds of children last year in the very avoidable sinking of the Sewol boat; this tragedy was the result of government neglect and business tycoon corruption (Sang-hun, 2014). Such domestic problems in many of these countries have certainly instilled an increased level of selfgovernment resentment and inquiry, but

even the most electrifying acts of protest are still often overshadowed by these East Asian geopolitical battles of security, economy, religion, territory, or nationalism.

The differences among all East Asian nations can and should be acknowledged.

No one is expected to bat an eye at the number of Chinese and Koreans slain by the Japanese occupation, nor should any territorial standoff near the Spratly Islands go unnoticed. However, certain regional similarities, especially ones that involve hardship, can bridge gaps that otherwise handicap any East Asian regional progress.

When members of groups such as ASEAN and APEC dig into the real and concerning conflicts at hand, they should at the very least consider the roots of many homegrown historical and contemporary problems. They should then look at how they have had the strength to overcome them previously, how they share these unnecessary evils with each other, and move forward to build regional strength to ensure that they do not happen again. Cooperation to avoid domestic tragedy within East Asia will consequently bring a

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massive reduction in the ever-looming threat of inter-Asian warfare, and help trump such divisiveness.

References Bland, Bed (August 8, 2013). “Indonesia genocide: ‘It was wrong but we had to do it’.”

Gulf News (Dubai, United Arab Emirates).

Chiang, Alex (Spring 2015). “International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.” Lectures at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Doyle, Kevin (September 14, 2014).

“Vietnam’s forgotten Cambodian War.” on BBC.com. http://www.bbc.com/news/ world-asia-29106034 Forsythe, Michael (Juli 14, 2015). “Taiwan Turns Light on 1947 Slaughter by Chiang Kai-shek’s Troops.” The New York Times (New York, NY).

Fuller, Thomas (November 11, 2013).

“U.N. Court Rules For Cambodia in Temple Dispute With Thailand.” The New York Times (New York, NY).

Gayathri, Amrutha (May 10, 2013). “South China Sea: Taiwan Protests To Philippines Over Fatal Shooting Of Fisherman; Philippines Denies Allegation.” International Business Times. http://www.ibtimes.com/ south-china-sea-taiwan-protests-philippinesover-fatal-shooting-fisherman-philippinesdenies-1250329

A statue of Ho Chi Minh stands near the People’s Committee Hall in the city formerly known as Saigon.

Photo by Dan Josephson

com/world-suicide-rate-map-2014-4 Kim, Jih-Un (2010). “When Soft Power Meets Nationalism: An analysis of China’s Charm Offensive in South Korea.” Dancing With the Dragon: China’s Emergence in the Developing World, Muhamad Al-Olimat and Joseph Y.U. Chang (eds). pp. 77 – 84. New York, NY: Lexington Books.

Gemima, Harvey (January 15, 2014). “The Human Tragedy of West Papua.” The Diplomat.

Laos People’s Army Museum (February, 2015). “Laos – Thai Border Wars 1987-88.”

Vientiane, Laos.

Gonzalez, Juan (May 17, 2005). “25 Years Ago: The Kwangju Massacre in South Korea.” Democracy Now (New York, NY).

Ma, Jian (June 1, 2014). “Tiananmen Square 25 Years On: ‘Every person in the crowd was a victim of the massacre’.” The Guardian (London, England, UK).

Hu, Shaohua (January 2006). “Why the Chinese are so Anti-Japanese.” Japan Policy Research Institute, Vol. 13, No. 1.

Hunt, Luke (August 15, 2012). “Laos Cozies Up With Thailand.” The Diplomat.

Kelly, Robert E (March 13, 2014). “Three Hypotheses on Korea’s Intense Resentment of Japan.” The Diplomat.

Kiersz, Andy (April 21, 2014). “Here Are the Countries With the Worst Suicide Rates.”

Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.

Oppose Korea Nuclear Weapons.” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).

Roell, Craig H. (1994). “The Piano in the American Home.” The Arts and the American Home, 1890 - 1930. Jessica H. Foy and Karal Ann Marling (eds). pp. 193-204. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.

“S21.” Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia. August, 2015.

Sang-hun, Choe (April 11, 2014). “Legacy of a South Korean Ferry Sinking.” The New York Times (New York, NY).

Shirk, Susan L. (2007). China: Fragile Superpower.

New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

McCarten, Brian (August 30, 2008). “China and Vietnam Square Off Over Laos.” Asia Times (Bangkok, Thailand).

Thut, Sarah (February 15, 2013). “Private schools on the rise in Cambodia.” The Phnom Penh Post (Phnom Penh, Cambodia).

McDougall, Derek. (2006) Asia Pacific in World Politics. Boulder, CO: Lynn Rienner Publishers.

Yap, Joel (Singaporean Bank Employee) in discussion with the author, December 2013

National News Section (November 21, 2010).

“Anti-Korea sentiment over taekwondo row spreads.” The China Post (Taipei, Taiwan).

Ng, Teddy (Juli 4, 2014). “Beijing, Seoul

Dan Josephson is a student in the IMAS program at National Chengchi University in Taipei. His research interests include the geopolitical relationships and sociocultural differences within East Asia.

He can be reached at dan.josephson5@gmail.com.

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NGO Involvement in Ecotourism Case Study from Myanmar Roi Ariel In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the number of international tourists worldwide, from 528 million in 1995, to 1.085 billion in 2013, and that number is expected to rise to 1.6 billion in 2020. Tourism is important for many developing countries, as it is a source of foreign investment, foreign currency, entrepreneurial initiatives, service-based job creation, and local social enhancement (UNWTO, 2015). The importance of tourism for sustainable development was recognized at the “Rio+20: The Future We Want” summit: “We emphasize that well-designed and managed tourism can make a significant contribution to the three dimensions of sustainable development […] We call for enhanced support for sustainable tourism activities and relevant capacity-building in developing countries in order to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development” (UNCSD, 2012). In September 2015, the UN member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In January 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals are set to come into effect, replacing the Millennium Development Goals, which were established in 2000.

The importance of sustainable tourism is stated using three indicators, under three different goals. An important part of sustainable tourism is ecotourism, globally one of the fastest-growing tourism markets. It is seen by many as a way to bring economic development hand-in-hand with nature conservation. Therefore, many non-governmental and notfor-profit organizations (referred to in this piece as NGOs) concerning international development seek to engage in ecotourism initiatives.

Myanmar provides a fascinating case study on the involvement of international NGOs in a country’s burgeoning ecotourism industry. It is a transnational country that recently opened up to the outside world after decades of seclusion and faces the dilemma common to emerging economies seeking to fast-track their development: Namely, balancing economic growth with sustainable development.

The term ecotourism emerged in the late 1980s as a result of a global acknowledgment of sustainable and global ecological practices. As ecotourism has grown in popularity, its definitions have been expanded to incorporate ideas about ecotourism responsibilities, environmentally friendly destination management, and sustainable development of local human resources (Coria & Calfucura, 2012).

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Until quite recently, ecotourism was defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people” (TIES, 2000). In January 2015, The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) updated the definition and principles to reflect its experiences during the previous 25 years. Ecotourism is now defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that

conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education” (TIES, 2015), with education “meant to be inclusive of both staff and guests.”

Ecotourism represents a set of principles that have so far been successfully implemented in various global communities, and are supported by extensive industry and academic research. When properly executed, ecotourism exemplifies the benefits of socially and environmentally sound tourism development. The principles of ecotourism were also updated in 2015 by the TIES: “Ecotourism is about uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. This means that those who implement, participate in, and market ecotourism activities should adopt the following ecotourism principles: (1) Minimize physical, social, behavioral, and psychological impacts; (2) Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect; (3) Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts; (4) Provide direct financial benefits for conservation; (5) Generate financial benefits for both local people and private industry; (6) Deliver memorable interpretative experiences to visitors that help raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climates; (7) Design, construct and operate low-impact facilities; (8) Recognize the rights and spiritual beliefs of the Indigenous People in your community and work in partnership with them to create empowerment” (TIES, 2015).

In Myanmar, the term ecotourism refers to tourism-related activities in and around its protected areas, and focuses on management tools, systems, and processes that guarantee three elements: (1) biodiversity and ecosystem conservation; (2) education and learning to enable hosts and visitors to understand and engage with management approaches to protect and conserve the natural and cultural assets of these areas; and, (3) economic and social benefits to communities in and around protected areas that (a) reduce their demand for the natural assets of these areas, and (b) engage them in collaborative approaches to protected area management (MoHT, 2015).

NGOs and ecotourism NGOs have emerged in the last decade as one of the principal advocates and implementers of ecotourism practices.

Tourism and conservation NGOs can be organizations that have diverse memberships composed of community adherents,

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Sunrise over stupas in Bagan, Myanmar, on May 12, 2015.

Photo by Roi Ariel

the tourism industry, conservationists, social activists, and so on; or they may be specialized groups of stakeholders, for example environmentalists or consumer advocates. NGOs can also be nonmembership associations, such as the Pacific Asia Tourism Association (PATA). Many NGOs are moving forward with the general concept of sustainability, but also developing projects of their own, experimenting with different approaches to achieving their sustainability and conservation goals.

Conservation is the primary mandate of several international environmental NGOs such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), as well as a multitude of national and local NGOs. Many of these organizations have embraced ecotourism as a form of development that is complementary to the goals of their conservation efforts. This is due in part to ecotourism’s relatively modest negative impact on natural and, to a lesser extent, cultural environments, compared with many other economic activities. It is also partly due to ecotourism’s ability to provide opportunities for economic benefits to communities residing in the landscapes which these NGOs seek to conserve.

International NGOs such as the Nature

Conservancy and Conservation International demonstrate their belief in ecotourism as a development and conservation tool through the operation of ecotourism departments within their institutional frameworks (Weaver, 2001; Garrod & Wilson, 2013).

NGOs have mainly focused on four essential components of ecotourism: (1) ecotourism-related financing mechanisms for conservation; (2) the establishment of tourism industry and resource management standards and especially voluntary guidelines; (3) research on the challenges facing the management of natural resources and ecotourism’s ability to address these issues; and (4) the education of stakeholders regarding solutions for coastal resource usage problems, including the implementation of genuine ecotourism.

NGOs can play a leading role in making visitor fees a successful option for funding national parks. The external NGOs help by building a coalition of support for fee establishment or a fee increase, while local NGOs serve as a voice for particular interest groups, for example managers of a particular coastal destination or a coastal user group.

These NGOs can work in tandem with government agencies, and sometimes the tourism industry, to establish an

equitable and feasible fee system for parks.

Regulations, codes of conducts for tourists, and codes of practice for the industry are all part of larger efforts to set standards for conducting marine tourism and ecotourism in a given setting. The term “standard” is being used here as a general, catch-all phrase to encompass the efforts of the tourism industry, as well as natural area managers, to achieve a balance between the use of natural resources and their preservation.

NGOs can also help with researching the issues related to the feasibility of ecotourism practices along with nature conservation and sustainable development. The research is only useful if it is distributed to policy-makers, scientists, managers, and the general public.

As part of this dissemination process, NGOs’ potential role of educator is an essential part of achieving conservation of natural and cultural heritage. Many NGOs are involved in a wide range of educational activities in general, and in ecotourism education-related issues in particular (Garrod & Wilson, 2013).

To sum up, NGOs serve unique coordination functions across institutional sectors and can help facilitate negotiations between local communities and tourism developers. NGOs help define and direct

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Young buddhist novices in Bagan, Myanmar, on May 12, 2015.

Photo by Roi Ariel

the growth of ecotourism. They are vital sources of financial and technical assistance, for conservation and development. As part of their development agenda, they also help with community empowerment, knowledge sharing, guidance skills, and so on.

Ecotourism in Myanmar Myanmar has been going through a transformation from military to civilian rule since 2011, coupled with a series of social and economic reforms. This is a triple transition: Transitioning from an authoritarian military system to democratic governance; from a centrally directed economy to a market-oriented economy; and from 60 years of conflict to peace in its border areas. These transitions have the potential to create new opportunities and shared prosperity for the people of Myanmar, and for the country to resume its place as one of the most dynamic economies in Asia.

As the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia, Myanmar has one of the lowest population densities in the region, with fertile lands, significant untapped agricultural potential, and a rich endowment of natural resources. Its geographic location at the

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intersection of China and India, two of the world’s most dynamic economies, means it is well-positioned to resume its role as a regional trading hub and a key supplier of minerals, natural gas, and agricultural produce.

In 2011, the government embarked on an ambitious economic, political, and governance reform program. It has begun a series of reforms to remove economic distortions, such as floating the currency; implementing new fiscal regulations to rationalize personal income tax; and reduce consumption tax, liberalizing the telecommunications sector; implementing reforms aimed at developing the private sector and stimulating direct foreign investments; a review of the financial sector; promotion of access to finance; and creating an environment conducive to job creation.

The results of the reforms can already be seen: Myanmar’s economy is estimated to have grown by 8.3 percent from 2013 to 2014, driven mainly by construction, manufacturing, and services. Recovery in agriculture is estimated to also have contributed to the growth. The outlook for Myanmar remains positive, although this remains dependent on sustained reforms in several policy areas. In 2014, the country’s

GDP was estimated at US$56.8 billion. Based on the preliminary population figure of 51.4 million from the national census conducted in April 2014, the country’s per capita GDP is around US$1,105, one of the lowest in East Asia and the Pacific. Most social indicators, such as child malnutrition, are very low.

Limited access to infrastructure is a major impediment to providing basic health and education services, as well as for economic development. Almost half the nation’s roads are not passable during the monsoon season.

Access to drinking water is also limited in many areas (The World Bank, 2014).

In May 2015, the “Myanmar Ecotourism Policy and Management Strategy” was officially launched at the International Conference on Ecotourism in Protected Areas that took place in Nay Pyi Taw. In the opening speech of the conference, Burmese Vice President U Nyan Tun said that Myanmar recognizes the potential for growth in the tourism sector and is developing its tourism policies accordingly.

The vice president explained that ecotourism development is part of the government’s goal to develop a green economy.

With its opening up, Myanmar’s tourism industry is growing at an impressive pace.

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Tourist arrivals have increased dramatically in the last three years, reaching 3.081 million visitors in 2014, a 51 percent increase from the previous year, with an estimated visitor number of up to 7 million in 2020 (ADB, 2014).

Tourism plays a big role in Myanmar’s economic transformation. The nation has already taken significant steps to responsibly develop this potential, and declared tourism as one of the seven sectors prioritized in its economic policy. The total contribution of the travel and tourism industries (direct, indirect and induced) in 2014 was estimated at about US$3.216 billion (MoHT, 2014).

The “Myanmar Ecotourism Policy and Management Strategy” was developed with technical collaboration from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), and is supported by the European Union and the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) GMS-Environment Operation Centre. It comes after Myanmar started following the “Responsible Tourism Policy,” and adopted the “Myanmar Tourism Master Plan 2013-2020,” which emphasizes community involvement and the sustainable development of ecotourism. The “Master Plan” outlines 38 development projects valued at nearly US$500 million that are aimed at helping develop the sector in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. However, there are still gaps and weaknesses in the sector and its supporting infrastructure (MoHT, 2013; MoHT, 2015), which we will touch upon later in this article.

The policy includes expanding the country’s network of protected areas and opening its ecosystems to the growing numbers of domestic and international travelers. In addition, it aims to establish a diverse range of quality ecotourism products and services by 2020. Laws have been revised to allow for ecotourism business activity in protected areas.

The policy is also aligned with the “National Forest Master Plan (2001-2030),” the “National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan,” and the “2013 Biodiversity Conservation Investment Vision.” It has six strategic programs: (1) Strengthening Institutional Arrangements; (2) Developing Ecotourism Management Plans; (3) Engaging Local Communities; (4) Investing in Infrastructure and Responsible Business Models; (5) Strengthening Research and Monitoring Framework; (6) Strengthening Marketing and Interpretation. A variety of experienced NGOs have partnered with government to support the preparation and

implementation of the policy (MoHT, 2015).

NGOs in the ecotourism scene A number of local NGOs have been supporting the preparation of the Ecotourism Policy and Management Strategy, including the Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association (BANCA), Myanmar Environment RehabilitationConservation Network (MERN), and Friends of Wildlife. Several international NGOs with experience in the ecotourism and protected areas interface are also supporting the process and working in partnership with the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry to strengthen ecotourism models and approaches (MoHT, 2015).

The Myanmar Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry’s Forest Department and NGO Istituto Oikos have prepared a management plan for Lampi Marine National Park, which aims to to preserve the terrestrial and marine environment, and support sustainable human development. The management plan is supposed to assist the Forest Department in bringing together conservation and development activities, including ecotourism.

In this case, we can see that Istituto Oikos fulfills the following essential components: It helps to create a mechanism for conservation and standards for the management plan by conducting thorough research (MoHT, 2015).

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has been working in Myanmar for many years. The goal of the WCS’ Myanmar program is to protect wildlife and wildlands in collaboration with the Ministry of Forestry and other relevant ministries and organizations through adaptive conservation strategies based on rigorous scientific research. At the moment, the WCS is working with the Myanmar Department of Fisheries in the Irrawaddy Dolphin Protected Area to protect the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. The main goal is to reduce current threats to dolphins, while at the same time assisting cooperative fishing communities in developing an ecotourism model, which may act as an incentive for dolphin conservation.

In this case as well, the WCS helps facilitate and educate different stakeholders, while conducting research on the natural resources management (MoHT, 2015; WCS, 2015).

Fauna and Flora International (FFI) is supporting Inn Chit Thu, a community group at Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary.

Its support has brought increased visitor numbers, higher local incomes and

environmental awareness, as well as promoted a range of new skills. FFI has also helped establish new accommodation at Kadon Kalay Island, allowing visitors to observe migratory birds, and Irrawaddy dolphins.

Here, the NGO puts much emphasis on the awareness and educational aspects, as well as technical training and skill development.

As the largest country in Southeast Asia, Myanmar has one of the lowest population densities in the region, with fertile lands, significant untapped agricultural potential, and a rich endowment of natural resources.

According to its Web site, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is a “regional intergovernmental learning and knowledge sharing centre serving the eight regional member countries of the Hindu Kush Himalayas – Afghanistan, Bangladesh,

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Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan – and is based in Kathmandu, Nepal. ICIMOD aims to assist [people living in mountainous areas] to understand these changes, adapt to them, and make the most of new opportunities, while addressing upstream-downstream issues.”

ICIMOD supports regional transboundary programs to develop an economically and environmentally sound mountain ecosystem to improve the living standards of mountain populations and sustain vital ecosystem services for the billions of people living downstream (ICIMOD, 2015).

Myanmar is a founding member of ICIMOD. The Myanmar Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry is the nodal ministry and the Department of Forest represents Myanmar in ICIMOD’s Board of Governors. ICIMOD and the Myanmar Institute for Integrated Development have recently supported the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism with the development of a “Destination Management Plan for the Inlay Lakes Region”, which includes a series of activities to be carried forward by the Inlay Lake Wildlife Sanctuary. ICIMOD is continuing to support the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism’s Taunggyi office with the implementation and monitoring of the Destination Management Plan. ICIMOD is supporting conservation in protected areas through the staging of development interventions in Kachin State, which are set to include ecotourism (MoHT, 2015).

In the case of ICIMOD, much emphasis is being put on the sharing of research and knowledge. However, there are also tangible resources: ICIMOD initiated and organized the International Conference on Ecotourism in Protected Areas that took place in May 2015.

Of course, there are many other NGOs working in Myanmar, such as Tourism Transparency or the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business, as well as locally initiated NGOs such as the Union of Myanmar travel Association, PO Region Community Based Tourism and Inle Speaks – Community Skill Development Center.

All in all, there is a variety of NGOs in Myanmar actively seeking to influence, define, and direct the nation’s ecotourism industry. They do so in an attempt to merge development with nature conservation. All the NGOs mentioned incorporate the essential components of ecotourism, including mechanisms for financing conservation, resource management standards, research, and the education of stakeholders.

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Conclusion Conservation and development groups can play a decisive role in defining and directing the growth of ecotourism. They can also serve as vital sources of financial and technical assistance for ecotourism projects on the ground. Moreover, they can facilitate negotiations between local communities and tourism developers, ensuring that the adequate links and mutual benefits are obtained. In addition, these groups often have members or constituencies that seek information and guidance on ecotourism issues. Their support for particular ecotourism projects can contribute significantly to their success.

The essential mandate of an ecotourism organization is to minimize the negative impacts of ecotourism and maximize the positive impacts. The number of organizations striving to accomplish this in Myanmar is growing rapidly, along with the popularity of ecotourism itself, against the backdrop of the transition the country is experiencing.

One of the problems with the involvement of development NGOs in ecotourism is that some forms of ecotourism require that development be based around non-consumption and rules out transformative development. Ecotourism’s popularity as a development option devalues human advancement by linking it to external, Western concepts of conservation priorities.

Sometimes, conservation is emphasized more than development. Moreover, in some cases when the Western-orientated NGO approach to ecotourism is based on a “strong” view of sustainability, the voice of the receiving communities is missing (Butcher, 2007).

NGOs will continue to be engaged in ecotourism activities, in Myanmar and elsewhere. By comparing different kinds of NGOs (for example international – local), the NGOs themselves can more easily adapt to the current trends and achieve their goals in the best way. But most importantly, international and local NGOs should work together with and for the local communities.

References ADB (2014). “Myanmar: Unlocking the Potential.” www.adb.org/publications/ myanmar-unlocking-potential Butcher, J. (2007). Ecotourism, NGOs and development: A critical analysis. Routledge.

Coria, J. and Calfucura, E. (2012). “Ecotourism and the development of indigenous communities: The good, the bad, and the

ugly.” Ecological Economics, 73, pp. 47-55.

Fennell, D.A. (1999).

Ecotourism: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Garrod, B. and Wilson, J. C. (eds).

(2003). Marine ecotourism: issues and experiences. Channel View Publications.

ICIMOD site:

(2015).

ICIMOD Web http://www.icimod.org

MoHT (2015).

Myanmar Ecotourism Policy and Management Strategy. Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, Myanmar.

MoHT (2014). Myanmar Tourism Statistics.

Ministry of Hotels and Tourism Myanmar.

MoHT (2013). Myanmar Tourism Master Plan 2013–2020. Nay Pyi Taw. Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, Myanmar The World Bank (2014).

Myanmar Overview. WB Web site: h t t p : / / w w w. w o r l d b a n k . o r g / e n / country/myanmar/overview TIES (The International Ecotourism Society) (2000). What is Ecotourism? http://www.ecotourism.org/what-isecotourism [accessed: June 10, 2012].

TIES (The International Ecotourism Society) (2015). What is Ecotourism? http://www.ecotourism.org/what-isecotourism [accessed: January 18, 2015].

UNCSD (2012). The Future We Want. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: UNCSD (United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development).

UNWTO (2012).

UNWTO World Tourism Barometer http://mkt.unwto.org/en/barometer WCS (World Conservation Society) (2015).

WCS Web site: Myanmar: http://www.wcs. org/where-we-work/asia/myanmar.aspx Weaver, D. B. encyclopedia of

(ed.) (2001). The ecotourism.

CABI.

Roi Ariel is an ecotourism advisor and student in the International Master of Applied Economic and Social Development (IMES) program, where he researches sustainable tourism practices by indigenous people in Taiwan and elsewhere. After completing his BA thesis on the effects of Ecotourism on the Millennium Development Goals, Roi has been working to promote the practice of ecotourism around the world. He can be reached at roi.ariel@gmail.com.

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A monkey waiting to grab food from tourists, Mt. Popa, Myanmar, on May 12, 2015.

Photo by Roi Ariel

Shwedagon Pagoda at night, the holiest site in Myanmar, on May 18, 2015.

Photo by Roi Ariel

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Obama’s Economic Legacy The TPP & the American Domestic Political Battle Mark Henderson Asian regional trade and the rules that will inevitably govern it have become hot issues in the academic community since the re-emergence of China and US President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia.” The number of proposed agreements – such as the TPP, RCEP, ASEAN, APEC, FTAAP, CJK and so forth – has diluted our ability to comprehend the process of their negotiation. This paper proposes to make a modest, yet meaningful contribution to the paradigm of Asian regional trade liberalization by re-emphasizing the role of domestic political considerations. Our research will deconstruct the political battle currently underway in the United States over the passage of the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). Our study is broken into five sections. First, a brief mention of how domestic political issues have been discussed in the literature. Second, an introduction of the TPP for the purpose of context. Third, an examination of the current debate taking place over the TPP in the United States. Fourth, we discuss the likelihood of the TPP succeeding within the timeframe proposed by Obama. In this section, we project what the TPP battle will look like if not concluded as a legacy item for the Obama administration. In the final section we conclude that the TPP will most likely not be successful during Obama’s term by constructing a timeline for his final year in office.

Photo by (CC) , Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International

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Domestic politics matter This research was inspired by authors of International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) who have placed similar importance on the issue of domestic politics when examining economic initiatives between nations.

Beginning with IR theories, domestic politics are seen as splitting the literature into two camps, one with theorists who consider the state as a singular entity, and the other which makes considerations based on the unique properties of the state. The former is less likely to consider trade agreements through any other method than pure GDP growth (except in cases of protected national industries), authors like Conybeare (1987), Grossman & Helpman (1994), Milner & Rosendorff (1997), Rosendorff (1995), and Schattschneider (1935). The latter camp is more capable of looking deeply into the domestic factors that may have influence, basing their decisions on the impact of the agreement at home (outside of a national statistic); this includes authors like Jervis (1976), Larson (1985), and Mercer (1996).

This research will adopt a method which is more aligned with the secondary view which considers states not as singular actors, purely in pursuit of expanding national income, but rather as a plurality of actors, each with an individual political voice represented by national legislative actors.

In terms of IPE, authors like Martin (2000) have highlighted institutionalized legislative participation in the free trade agreement (FTA) negotiation process. Her arguments about stability and credibility show the importance of legislative input as well as the political weight that legislators can throw at an executive, even ones equipped with special negotiation powers.

There have even been works by authors like McGillivray (2008) discussing the geographic connection to favored industries and corresponding legislative action. These sorts of studies aim to make a deeper theoretical statement about the domestic politics of international trade, while our aim is to provide a descriptive study and project the potential for the passage of the TPP under the Obama administration.

The most contemporary and relevant literature on the topic is Naoi & Urata’s (2013) discussion of the Japanese domestic political dynamics as they relate to the TPP. In a way, this is a complementary piece to their research, focusing instead on the United States and the political process, rather than elite influences on public opinion.

Shenzhen container port, October 2006.

Photo by (CC) Bert van Dijk

The TPP in brief The TPP is a comprehensive regional trade agreement that focuses on high-quality goods liberalization and rule setting between the twelve participants. It aims to raise the regulatory bar in order to maximize the trade standards of the group, while taking into consideration the capacity of less developed members. The TPP is negotiated in groups that are meant to cover all of the aspects of commercial relations among the participating countries, including but not limited to: competition, cooperation and capacity building, e-commerce, environmental protection, intellectual property, investment, labor, legal issues, rules of origin, technical barriers to trade (TBT), and telecommunications. The TPP is known in the US as “NAFTA on steroids,” since it is essentially the biggest trade deal negotiated by the US since the NAFTA agreement in the 1990s. The TPP would affect a large range of products flowing between the member nations, collectively representing 40 percent of the world’s GDP.

Countries included United States Japan

Australia Peru Malaysia Vietnam New Zealand Chile Singapore Canada Mexico Brunei Darussalam

Obama’s fight, the TPA not the TPP The TPP negotiations in the US domestic sphere are quite different from those taking place abroad. Interestingly, the majority of political discussions that have so far taken place in the US were not actually focused on the TPP, but rather on a bill that reinstated executive authority to negotiate and finalize the terms of the trade agreement.

The bill is known as the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), originally passed in 1974 and expired in 2007. The TPP, along with the TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), are meant to be Obama’s economic legacy but by extension, give future presidents an enormous power boost in terms of trade negotiation. The TPA is practically important as it gives the US president the ability to negotiate

independently (allowing for congressional input during the negotiation process) of the national legislative body and bring the fully negotiated agreement back to Congress for an up-down vote without alteration. This caveat is possibly the most important for the success of trade agreements with the US, and is significantly downplayed in the literature and abroad, where the focus is on negotiation or the impact of potential agreements.

Support The TPP is led by Obama, as well as widely supported by republicans for its effect on American export power, especially in the agriculture, entertainment, pharmaceutical and IT industries. Supporters also claim that the TPP will help advance labor rights and environmental protection policy abroad. The Republicans are leading the debate along the lines of American leadership in “rulemaking” for global trade (fearing that China will set the agenda if the US does not). They have also emphasized the TPA as “congressional empowerment” and not as an expansion of executive authority, citing a 60-day review process before voting can take place on any agreement. Republicans, coming off a win in 2014, will be looking to maintain

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Paul Ryan speaking at CPAC 2014 in Washington, DC. Photo by (CC) ,SA. 3.0

control over both houses of Congress, as well as suppressing their image as “legislative grid-lockers” among those who recall the battle over sequestration and government shutdown. Additionally, the Republicans have something to gain in pointing the finger at Democrats who refuse to work together, while they, as the opposition, are supporting a Democratic president. The Republicans will most likely benefit even if the agreement does not pass, especially if a conservative president in 2016 with a majority-controlled Congress/Senate is able to pass what the Democrats could not in 2015.

Opposition The TPP is opposed, in large part, by congressional Democrats, as well as liberalleaning organizations and unions who are concerned about the effect of the deal on the environment and outsourcing of jobs. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who will likely become Senate Minority Leader when Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada retires next year, expressed disillusionment with such trade deals. Some of the most substantial opposition comes from the lack of a section in the TPP concerning currency manipulation (trade deficit issues and investment abroad), as well as sections on intellectual property rights that would affect domestic rulemaking and some aspects of freedom of speech (IP rules affecting Internet users). Additionally, some opponents have highlighted labor rights and corporate power (rulemaking panels) in

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the TPP that could negatively affect labor in all the countries involved, as well as give power to big business. All of these issues – in addition to the negotiation method, which is highly secretive – have attracted opponents to the TPP. In the background of the negotiations are political determinations.

The Democrats most likely are weary of the bill for the stated reasons, including trade for trade’s sake, jobs, and of course ensuring that international trade is governed by strict rules. Their introduction of amendments and additional bills to pass in a package were seen as a strategy to kill the TPA before it began, and maintain legitimacy with their constituents in the upcoming congressional and presidential elections.

Progress so far The legislation on the TPA suffered early failures in May 2015. A vote to pass failed when 45 senators voted against it, to 52 in favor. Obama needed 60 of the 100 votes for it to pass. The TPA was largely rejected due to the manner in which it was presented to the Senate. Along with the TPA, the Democrats in the Financial Committee of the Senate advocated for a package proposal that would include things like the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) policy to protect workers in the US who might lose their jobs.

On May 22, the TPA was once again voted on in the Senate and passed 62-37.

Its success in a second round of voting was largely attributed to a renegotiation with the opposing Democrats in the Senate to allow

for parallel voting on additional measures.

Of the amendments offered, the potentially most significant was the TAA. Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Ways and Means Committee Head Paul Ryan were both active supporters of the TPA, which in mid-June passed through the House Committee for a vote in its previous form. This strong backing from the Republican leadership coupled with the party’s strongly held majority augured well for the TPA, but another setback caused by voting method has blocked the TPA once again. The vote to pass the TPA stalled early on as the House Democrats rejected the TAA on political grounds. By holding back the TAA (despite initial Democratic support) the TPA packages that passed in the Senate and House were not equivalent, leaving the bill in need of further revision and revoting before it can be made law. Finally, in June 2015, the lastest version of the bill was passed in the Senate by a narrow margin and promptly signed into law by President Obama.

A brief word on NAFTA Although the two trade agreements are quite different in scope and geographic partnership, the NAFTA gives us a case study of political dynamics during the 1990s to compare against the TPP and today’s political environment. The political battle for NAFTA in the US was no less heated than the TPP discussion is now. If we compare the (1) status of Congress and (2) timing in

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Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush.

Photos by Jamelle Bouie, Wikimedia Commons, (CC)

both cases, the TPP’s current struggle is not surprising.

Consider first the status of Congress.

When NAFTA was passed into law in 1994, the Clinton administration had only enjoyed one year in power and was supported by a Democratic-controlled Congress, both in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Although, again, it was the Republicans who largely favored the deal, Bill Clinton was able to call on his own party as a new president with a high approval rating and push through the hard fought democratic votes that Obama is currently facing. The movement to pass also came 1 year before the Democrats lost both the House and Senate majorities in the 1994 midterm elections, perhaps in part as a response to their support for NAFTA. This poses cause for concern to current office holders, who are reluctant to give the same support to an outgoing president who can no longer lend executive power to their campaigns.

Second, the timing of NAFTA has significant implications for the potential of the TPP, especially when projecting its future during the Obama administration. We know, for example, that the TPP was an initiative that did not originate from the United States, but did garner US involvement under the leadership of Obama. NAFTA, however, began in 1990 under the Bush Sr. administration. Bush did not have the opportunity to complete the negotiations with Canada and Mexico, nor was he able to pass the agreement through Congress. Bush’s inability to pass the trade agreement into law foreshadows a similar failure by Obama regardless of the TPA (the TPA was still in

effect during the 1990s and did not expire until 2007). Clinton had to carry the torch of NAFTA in a Democratic Congress despite the extended executive power afforded to Bush by the TPA. The NAFTA example does not paint an optimistic picture for Obama’s economic aspirations under the TPP. It may be that a new president, with a combination of the higher approval ratings commanded by a newly elected president, partisan support and the TPA at their disposal, will be more likely to finish the TPP negotiations both domestically and abroad.

Passing the torch Despite the passage of the TPA through Congress, the president will still have to face further negotiations for the TPP, and eventually sell it to Congress. With such an ambiguous road ahead for Obama, we must examine the potential for its passage by a different Congress and new president in 2016.

Overall support by the Republicans indicates that if the TPP is made to wait until the new presidential term has begun, a Republican candidate could potentially take the reins and force the TPP through the two houses without democratic support.

With a Democrat taking office the future of the TPP is less clear. A Democratic president will be forced to prove themselves to both the American people and the members of Congress quickly before a midterm election and eventual second bid. With the most likely candidate, Hillary Clinton, already not fully backing Obama’s initiative, it can be

safely predicted that she would achieve this by siding with her party and embracing the constraints currently put on the TPP by the liberal wing. A common thread of optimism surrounds her, however, as the first lady to former President Bill Clinton, who worked to pass the NAFTA from 19931994. This perception is misguided at best.

As discussed in the previous section, the NAFTA was passed under different political circumstances, with a different economy and most importantly, by a different president.

Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton, and despite the nostalgic votes she will probably receive during her campaign, we can expect her policies to be independently formed and appropriate to the current environment.

Presidential candidate list This list shows the most likely candidates for the Republican and Democratic nominations in 2016 and their positions on the TPP trade deal.

Republicans: Ted Cruz: Support Rand Paul: Support Marco Rubio: Support Jeb Bush: Support Democrats: Hillary Clinton: Undecided Bernie Sanders: Opposed Martin O’Malley: Opposed Jim Webb: Undecided Congress is currently controlled by the Republicans, with 247 (57 percent) of

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb.

Photos by Public Domain, Third Way Think Tank, (CC), Public Domain

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435 seats. The Democrats hold 188 seats and 43 percent of the vote. There are not currently any independents in Congress, so the divisions are clear. The projection in many cases is for the Republicans to retain control of the Congress however, the cycle of American politics is somewhat unpredictable on presidential election years.

Typically, the party that wins the presidential ticket will also win a substantial amount of congressional seats. Although we cannot be sure, it is still unlikely – even with a Clinton victory – for the Democrats to pick up the 30 seats that they need to control the House.

Even the most favorable projections only put the Democratic wins at 20 seats.

The current state of the Senate puts the Republicans slightly in control with 54 of 100 seats and an additional two seats controlled by independents who caucus with the Democrats. This leaves the Democrats with 46 effective (44 democrat) seats total.

In 2016, the Senate will elect 1/3 of its members where the seats in questions are 10 Democratic and 24 Republican occupied (2 Republican senators in competitive districts announced their retirement for this cycle). This presents an opportunity for the Democrats to take back the Senate, however, the outcome will likely depend heavily on the presidential race. With a Clinton win, the Senate is more likely to be contested, while a Republican win, with control over both houses would be an opportunity for the Republicans to take overwhelming legislative control.

Conclusion, not yet The best scenario for the TPP is for it to be passed before 2016. In June 2015, the “Fast Track” TPA was signed into law. However, even with an expansion of executive negotiation powers through the TPA, the TPP still may not be achieved. The TPA is just the first battle, one of many to be fought before the TPP can come to fruition. If we lay out the conditions logically, we can see the following things still need to be met before the TPP can even begin to look successful.

Our research concludes with the table and timeline below. We conclude that the Obama

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administration’s economic legacy will be deferred to 2016 and a different president, just as NAFTA was during the Bush-Clinton era.

Obama’s TPP Legacy Timeline The TPA: The Trade Promotion Authority “Fast Track” bill was a hard-fought battle, which admittedly gives Obama a leg up in completion of his trade deal, however, it may also have a polarizing effect in the national legislature for the passage of an actual trade agreement.

We conclude that the Obama administration’s economic legacy will be deferred to 2016 and a different president, just as NAFTA was during the Bush-Clinton era.

Negotiation The negotiations, which are still not complete and have several working issues, will still need to be successfully concluded. Some problems still being discussed include: labor issues, environmental protection, agricultural industry protection, and intellectual property rights. Additionally, the next TPP negotiation round will not take place until December, when Obama is nearly out of office.

Ratification Once the final negotiations have finished (which is still a monumental undertaking

for such a comprehensive agreement), the Congress and Senate will still have to vote yes or no on a static version of the agreement within 60 days of the proposal in order to ratify its passage. This may yet be more difficult if it faces a Congress full of disgruntled Democratic voters.

Implementation Even with the agreement completed and ratified, its implementation will most likely be delayed and the real benefits or detriments will initially be hard to see, just as they were after the passage of NAFTA. That, along with the governing structure (currently to be controlled by panels of public and private entities), will remain unclear until more details are made available.

References Abdullah, Halimah (April 21, 2015). “TransPacific Partnership, Five Things You Need to Know.” NBC News. http://www.nbcnews. com/news/us-news/five-things-knowabout-trans-pacific-partnership-n343671.

(Accessed, May 2015).

Andrews, Parlapiano and Yourish (May 14, 2015). “Who is Running for President (and Who is Not?).” New York Times. http:// www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/ elections/2016-presidential-candidates. html?_r=0. (Accessed May, 2015) Asian Development Bank. Tracking Asian Integration. Asia Regional Integration Center. http://aric.adb.org/fta. (Accessed, May 2015).

Cruz, Ted. Facebook Page. https:// w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / S t o p T h e T P P / posts/290387601112718. (Accessed, May 2015) Fearon, James D. (1998). “Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Theories of International Relations.” Annual Review of Political Science.

1, pp. 289–313.

Floudas & Rojas (2000). “Some Thoughts

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on NAFTA and Trade Integration in the American Continent.” Institute of International Politics and Economics. International Problems: Selected Articles. No. 4.

Gill, Kathy (January 5, 2009). “A Visual Guide: The Balance Of Power Between Congress and The Presidency: 1945-2010” About.com: US Politics. http://uspolitics. about.com/od/usgovernment/l/bl_party_ division_2.htm. (Accessed, May 2015).

Graham, David A (April 23, 2015). “Hilary Clinton, Hard Choice on Free Trade.”

The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2015/04/democratsproduce-trade-discord/391224/. (Accessed, May 2015).

Grim, Ryan & Terkel, Amanda (November 6, 2014). “Here’s The Democratic Route Back To Senate Control In 2016.”

Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2014/11/06/senate-2016_n_6109472. html (Accessed May 2015).

History, Art & Archives, US House of Representatives. “Party Divisions of the House of Representatives.” http://history. house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/ Party-Divisions/ (Accessed May 2015).

Jacobson, Louis (April 23, 2015). “Martin O’Malley says Congress won’t see Pacific trade deal before they vote on it.” Politifact. com. http://www.politifact.com/truth-ometer/statements/2015/apr/23/martinomalley/martin-omalley-says-congresswont-see-pacific-trad/. (Accessed, May 2015).

Approval for the TPP? Make them Take it or Leave it” North Carolina Journal of International Law and Regulation. http://blogs.law.unc.edu/ ncilj/2014/02/05/how-can-obama-getcongressional-approval-for-the-tpp-makethem-take-it-or-leave-it/. (Accessed, May 2015).

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Martin, Lisa (2000). Democratic Commitments: Legislatures and International Cooperation.

Princeton University Press. (New Jersey).

Roberts, Siddiqui & Rushe (May 12, 2015).

“Obama’s plans for trade deals with Asia and Europe in tatters after Senate vote.” The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2015/may/12/obama-trans-pacificpartnership-senate-vote. (Accessed, May 2015).

McGillivray, Fiona (2008). Privileging Industry: The Comparative Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy. Princeton University Press. (New Jersey).

Miller Center (December, 1993). American President: A Reference Resource: Clinton Signs NAFTA. University of Virginia. h t t p : / / m i l l e r c e n t e r. o r g / a c a d e m i c / americanpresident/events/12_08.

(Accessed, May 2015).

Holbein, James R. and Musch, Donald J. (eds) (1994) NAFTA: Final Text, Summary, Legislative History & Implementation Directory.

New York: Oceana Publications. pp. 1–3.

Naoi, Megumi & Urata, Shujiro (2013). “Free Trade Agreements and Domestic Politics: The Case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.” Asian Economic Policy Review, Vol. 8, Issue 2, pp. 326-349.

Needham, Vicki (April 23, 2015). “Panel approves Obama trade powers” The Hill http://thehill.com/policy/finance/239940house-panel-approves-obama-trade-powersbill. (Accessed, May 2015)

Knoller, Mark (May 23, 2015). “Senate passes bill granting Obama ‘fast-track’ TPP authority.” RT, Question More. http://rt.com/ usa/261321-senate-trade-deal-authoritypasses/. (Accessed, May 2015).

Needham, Vicki (May 12, 2015). “Rand Paul to Oppose Fast Track.” The Hill. http:// thehill.com/policy/finance/241748-randpaul-to-oppose-fast-track (Accessed, May 2015).

Lovelace, Ryan (May 13, 2015). “Marco Rubio unveils ‘The Rubio Doctrine’” The Washington Examiner. http://www. washingtonexaminer.com/marco-rubiounveils-the-rubio-doctrine/article/2564461 (Accessed, May 2015).

Needham, Vicki (May 5, 2015). “Whip List, Dems Bucking Obama on Trade.” The Hill. http://thehill.com/policy/finance/ trade/241114-whip-list-dems-buckingobama-on-trade. (Accessed, May 2015)

Manyin, Mark E (March 28, 2012). “Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s ‘Rebalancing’ Toward Asia.” Congressional Research Service. https://www.fas.org/sgp/ crs/natsec/R42448.pdf. (Accessed, May 2015).

Martin, Cameron H (February 5, 2014).

“How Can Obama Get Congressional

Office of the United States Trade Representative. Trans-Pacific Partnership. https://ustr.gov/tpp. (Accessed, May 2015).

O’Keefe, Ed (April 22, 2015). “Jeb Bush knocks Hillary Clinton’s wavering on trade deal.” The Washington Post. http://www. washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/ wp/2015/04/22/jeb-bush-knocks-hillaryclintons-wavering-on-trade-deal/ (Accessed,

Panda, Ankit (June 2015). “TPP Update: What Happened in the House.” The Diplomat. http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/tppupdate-what-happened-in-the-house/.

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Samolis, Frank R (January 2015). “Why Congress Should Pass the Trade Promotion Authority.” Republic 3.0. http://republic3-0. com/cong ress-pass-trade-promotionauthority/. (Accessed, May 2015).

Sanders, Bernie. “Defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” United States Senator for Vermont. http://www.sanders.senate.gov/ newsroom/video-audio/defeat-the-transpacific-partnership. (Accessed May, 2015).

US House of Representatives. “H.R.3450 - North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.” Congress.gov. 103rd Congress (1993-1994). https://www. congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/housebill/3450?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5 B%22nafta%22%5D%7D. (Accessed, May 2015).

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Mark Henderson is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Asia-Pacific Studies at the National Cheng Chi University in Taipei. His professional background is primarily in local government administration, specifically in international economic development and trade policy. Mark Henderson’s research focuses on the area of local administration, with an agenda to develop best policy practices and shed light on nonfederal initiatives in developing international trade and investment for the purpose of enriching local economic vitality.

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International Academic Conference on Social Sciences International Institute for Academic Development, Istanbul, Turkey on July 25-26, 2015

By Olga Daksueva

Photo by Olga Daksueva

I have always been interested in Turkey, a cradle of world civilizations, and last summer I finally had the opportunity to visit this country by attending an academic conference in Istanbul on July 25-26 that was organized by the International Institute for Academic Development.

This international conference covered the main fields of social science – from anthropology and psychology, to economics and finance – and brought together more than sixty scholars from around the world in a city famous for having witnessed a great number of historically significant events. This third annual conference served as a platform for

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academics to present their research, network within the international academic community, and seek the insights and advice of successful senior researchers.

The conference gave me an excellent opportunity to present my research, entitled “Sino-Indian relations in the eyes of Hobbes and Rousseau,” and to discuss it with a number of scholars.

In this presentation, I attempted to match the ideas of two of the greatest classical political philosophers – Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau – with presentday international relations. The paper also examined whether their thoughts are valid

in a region radically different from Europe – namely the Asia-Pacific – by applying them to Sino-Indian relations.

Due to the wide range of research papers presented at the conference, it was interesting and useful to share our views and comments about each other’s academic pieces, and in this regard the conference served its purpose as an academic platform quite well.

However, the most amazing part of my trip was travelling around Istanbul and the rest of the country. The ancient palaces and monasteries went far beyond my expectations.

My colleagues and I not only saw Muslim mosques with beautiful architecture, but also

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Photo by Olga Daksueva

the birthplace of the Orthodox Church, as well as traces of more ancient civilizations, such as the Assyrians, Persians, ancient Romans, and Greeks. One of the highlights was Cappadocia, which is located in the center of Turkey, a region where we saw relics of all the previously mentioned civilizations.

Generally speaking, academic conferences

provide a unique opportunity for scholars and students to travel around the world, enrich their knowledge about the history, contemporary state of social and economic development, and cultural peculiarities of a particular country. Without this knowledge, I believe it is very difficult to conduct research and make valid scientific assumptions

regarding the world or regional development.

Olga Daksueva is a student in the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies at NCCU in Taipei. Her research interests include the South China Sea, India’s Look East policy, and the international relations of the Asia-Pacific. She can be reached at daksueva.olga@gmail.com.

Photo by Olga Daksueva

The Asia-Pacific Newsletter is a student publication of the International Doctoral/Master’s Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS/IMAS) at National Chengchi University.

To learn more about IDAS, IMAS, admissions, and the scholarships available, visit:

asiapacific.nccu.edu.tw Send submissions to nccu.apn@gmail.com See inside front cover for submission guidelines.