Southeast Asia Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s just-announced summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the implications for U.S.-Russia and trans-Atlantic relations. For the Report, Ana Santos talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about efforts to hold Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for abuses committed in his bloody crackdown on drugs and petty crime. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your […]

CALOOCAN, Philippines—The battlefield of this war looks like any other bustling urban district in the Philippines. The sidewalks are crammed with street vendors selling everything from food to underwear. Pedestrians zigzag through the roads, avoiding motorized rickshaws known as tricycles and careening jeepneys, the colorful converted jeeps that are the country’s most common form of public transportation. The air is thick with smog and heavy with the sound of blaring horns and screeching tires. Set back from the streets are rows of makeshift homes stitched together by pieces of wood, corrugated steel and tarpaulin. This is Bagong Silang, an informal […]

In the run-up to Cambodia’s national elections next month, long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen, in power since 1985, has taken no chances of a political shocker similar to the opposition win in nearby Malaysia in early May. To ensure that he and his party triumph again, Hun Sen has in the past year overseen the dissolution of the major opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP; harassed many opposition politicians into exile or tossed them in jail; and torn apart a vibrant and independent Cambodian media. Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, will now […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a three-country tour of Southeast Asia in the late May and early June to tout his “Act East” policy. In Indonesia, he signed a deal to develop the country’s Sabang port at the mouth of the strategic Malacca Strait, while pledging to boost security and maritime cooperation. And in an address to the Shangri-La Dialogue, a forum on Asian security issues in Singapore, he pledged India’s commitment to free navigation and a rules-based order for maritime security in Asia. In an email interview, Anubhav Gupta, the assistant director of the Asia Society Policy Institute […]

On May 12, East Timor voted in early parliamentary elections, after last year’s indecisive elections produced a minority government and political paralysis. Following a campaign that was tarnished by some incidents of political violence, the Change for Progress, or AMP, coalition of opposition parties won 34 of 65 seats. A court challenge by the defeated Fretilin party over alleged irregularities was rejected by an appeals court last week, opening the way for the AMP to form a government. In an email interview, Guteriano Neves, a policy analyst based in East Timor’s capital, Dili, discusses the election results, the AMP’s policy […]