Southeast Asia Archive

U.S. President Barack Obama’s trip to Cambodia in mid-November was portrayed as a success by the media, marking the first time since the Vietnam War-era bombings in the 1970s that an American president landed in Phnom Penh. However, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s smiles for the camera hid the reality of a tense private meeting in which Obama pressed Hun Sen on human rights concerns. It didn’t help that during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit meeting preceding Obama’s visit, Cambodia undermined ASEAN’s often-claimed political unity for the second time this year by blocking a joint position on […]

MANILA — Earlier this year, the Philippines and China teetered on the brink of direct military confrontation over the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, precipitating a series of high-stakes diplomatic exchanges that prevented open conflict but left the underlying dispute unresolved. Although the episode jolted the Filipino leadership into recognizing the perils of armed brinkmanship with China, Manila’s subsequent diplomatic approach to the conflict has achieved little. After almost seven months of intensive diplomatic engagement with China and the states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), regional maritime tensions are still on the rise. Now, facing […]

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit concluded in Cambodia two weeks ago with tensions among members over maritime disputes with China in the East and South China Seas taking center stage. ASEAN is entering a critical stage in its development as an influential player in charting the future geopolitical trajectory of Asia. In 2015, the bloc aspires to establish the ASEAN Economic Community, which would integrate all member economies into a single market. Despite this, ASEAN continues to struggle when it comes to matching its potential with concrete achievements, as demonstrated by the Cambodia summit. A large […]