Southeast Asia Archive

Indonesia has one of the world’s greatest stores of natural resources, but it can sometimes be tricky getting them out of the ground. Over 20 percent of the world’s tin comes from this archipelagic nation. In West Papua province, the Grasberg mine contains the world’s largest store of gold and the world’s third-largest store of copper. Majority-owned and operated by American mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, the mine is home to an estimated $100 billion in reserves. But at the moment, Freeport is exporting very little ore and has begun laying off its workforce at the mine amid a standoff with the […]

The U.S. war in Laos began in early 1961, when President Dwight Eisenhower, on one of his last days in office, approved a paramilitary CIA mission known as Operation Momentum to arm the ethnic Hmong population against communist forces. Under Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the proxy war grew to become the largest CIA paramilitary operation in U.S. history. In his new book, “A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA,” drawing on declassified CIA files and interviews with key players, Joshua Kurlantzick reframes the Laos war […]

For over three decades, Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, has ruled his country without any sign of ever wanting to give up power, despite growing indications that Cambodians want him to. As the country prepares for elections, he has begun his most ruthless campaign yet to consolidate his position as a strongman and undermine his opponents to ensure his own political survival. The resignation of the country’s longtime opposition leader is just the latest indication of the heavy price that Hun Sen is exacting on Cambodia’s domestic politics and foreign policy. Since coming to power in 1985 with Vietnamese support […]

Since late 2016, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has been consumed by a blasphemy case against the Christian and ethnically Chinese governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok. After mounting pressure from hard-line Islamists who staged mass demonstrations against him, Ahok—who is a candidate for the Feb. 15 gubernatorial election in Jakarta—is now on trial for a statement that he uttered in mid-October that was deemed insulting to the Quran. His case has sparked fears about the growing voice of radical Islam in Indonesia and the threat it could pose to the country’s reputation for […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. Indonesian President Joko Widodo recently pledged that his administration would focus on reducing economic disparities in 2017, and he called on his ministers to accelerate the implementation of the government’s poverty-eradication programs. In an email interview, Matthew Wai-Poi, a senior economist at the World Bank, discusses inequality in Indonesia. WPR: What is the rate of income inequality in Indonesia, what are the latest trends in terms of widening or lessening inequality, and what are the main factors […]

After a spate of kidnappings and renewed clashes with the Philippines’ armed forces over the past year, the Islamist militants of Abu Sayyaf have forged a reputation as one of Southeast Asia’s most radical and brutal jihadi groups. The high-profile beheadings in 2016 of two Canadian hostages has focused global attention on the remote, impoverished and underdeveloped region of the southern Philippines where Abu Sayyaf operates. The violence has heightened the sense of urgency to find a solution to the long-running insurgency and placed an intense spotlight on President Rodrigo Duterte’s strategy. So far, Duterte’s comments on Abu Sayyaf have, […]