Southeast Asia transformed : a geography of change 9789812301178, 9812301178

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Southeast Asia Transformed

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). The Institute is governed by a twenty-two-member Board of Trustees comprising nominees from the Singapore Government, the National University of Singapore, the various Chambers of Commerce, and professional and civic organizations. An Executive Committee oversees day-to-day operations; it is chaired by the Director, the Institute’s chief academic and administrative officer.

Southeast Asia Transformed A Geography of Change Edited by

Chia Lin Sien

INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES Singapore

First published in Singapore in 2003 by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 Internet e-mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2003 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the editor and contributors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Southeast Asia transformed : a geography of change / edited by Chia Lin Sien. (Environment and development issues) 1. Sustainable development—Asia, Southeastern. 2. Geopolitics—Asia, Southeastern. 3. Agriculture—Economic aspects—Asia, Southeastern. 4. Transportation—Asia, Southeastern. 5. Urbanization—Asia, Southeastern. 6. Information technology—Economic aspects—Asia, Southeastern. 7. Tourism—Asia, Southeastern. 8. Asia, Southeastern—Commerce. 9. Business I. Chia, Lin Sien. II. Series HC441 Z9E5S721 2003 sls2003004703 ISBN 981-230-117-8 (soft cover) ISBN 981-230-119-4 (hard cover) Typeset by Stallion Press (India) Pvt Ltd Printed in Singapore by Seng Lee Press Pte Ltd

For Jamie, Joshua, and Gabriel

CONTENTS List of Tables List of Figures Abbreviations Contributors Preface

ix xiii xv xvii xxi

1 . Introduction Chia Lin Sien and Martin Perry

1

2 . Geopolitical Change: Direction and Continuing Issues Vivian Louis Forbes

47

3 . Demographic Change and Implications Graeme Hugo

95

4 . Environment and Natural Resources: Towards Sustainable Development Tony Greer and Martin Perry

143

5 . Southeast Asian Agriculture Post-1960: Economic and Territorial Expansion Rodolphe De Koninck

191

6 . Evolving Rural–Urban Relations and Livelihoods Jonathan Rigg

231

7 . Changing Spaces: Southeast Asian Urbanization in an Era of Volatile Globalization Philip F. Kelly and T. G. McGee

257

8 . The Spatial Impact of Innovations in International Sea and Air Transport since 1960 Peter J. Rimmer

287

vii

viii

Contents

9 . Information Highways and Digital Divides: The Evolving ICT Landscapes of Southeast Asia Neil M. Coe

317

10. Business Networking and the Changing Industrial Landscape Martin Perry

355

11. Trade Networks in Southeast Asia and Emerging Patterns Jessie P. H. Poon

385

12. Tourism Development in Southeast Asia: Patterns, Issues, and Prospects Wong Poh Poh

409

Index

443

LIST OF TABLES 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

3.5

3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10

Members of ASEAN Southeast Asia and Adjacent States: Population Size, Density, and Surface Area Political Change: Southeast Asian States and Near Neighbours Sharing International Terrestrial Political Boundaries Sharing International Maritime Political Boundaries Summary of Maritime Boundary Agreements: Southeast Asian States Summary of Negotiated Maritime Boundaries: Indonesia and Its Neighbours ASEAN and Status of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention ASEAN Region: Major Demographic Changes, 1965–2002 Southeast Asia: Some Basic Demographic Indicators, 2002 ASEAN Region: Major Mortality Trends, 1965–2002 Selected Southeast Asian Countries: Estimated HIV Prevalence and Prevalence Rates Among Adults Aged 15–49 Years, End of 2001 ESCAP Countries: Total Fertility Rate, 1960–2000 and Percent of Married Women of Reproductive Age (or Whose Husbands) Are Using a Contraceptive Method, 2002 Southeast Asia: Recent and Impending Change in Workforce and Total Population Southeast Asian Countries: Projected Growth of Population Aged 65 Years and Over, 2000–50 Traditional Migration Countries: Southeast Asian Populations Around 2001 Southeast Asian Countries: Estimates of Stocks of Migrant Workers in Other Countries Estimated Stocks of Foreign Labour in Southeast Asian Countries Around 2001 ix

50 52 56 62 65 67 68 86 96 97 102

103

105 110 114 118 120 121

x

3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10

List of Tables

Australia: Immigration from, and Emigration to, Southeast Asian Countries, 1984–85 to 1999–2000 Indonesia: Foreign Visitor Arrivals, 1979–2000 Southeast Asia: Number of Passenger Cars per 1,000 Population, 1980, 1990 and 2000 Indonesia: Changes in Long-Distance Migration, 1971–2000 Southeast Asia: Proportion of Population Living in Urban Areas, 1950–2002 and Projected 2025 Components of Urban Growth by Country or Area (Percentage of Urban Growth) Indonesia, Indonesia Urban and Jakarta: Percentage of Population Ever Lived in Another Province Southeast Asia: Family Planning Programmes, 1996 Forest Cover and Change and Forest Industry Structure, 1980–95 Wood Production and Trade, 1983–95 Marine and Freshwater Catches, Aquaculture, Balance of Trade, and Fish Consumption: Southeast Asia Biodiversity Distribution and Threatened Species, Southeast Asia Southeast Asia: Rice Cultivation, 1959–96 Malaysia: Evolution of Rubber and Palm Oil Production, 1960–2000 Philippines: Evolution of Population by Island or Group of Islands, 1903–90 Indonesia: Transmigration, 1951–93 Indonesia: Evolution of Population by Island or Group of Islands, 1905–90 Malaysia: Budget for Agriculture and Land Development, 1966–90 Thailand: Expansion of Agriculture and Population Growth, 1915–91 Vietnam: Evolution of Population by Major Region, 1926–91 Southeast Asia: The Evolving Share of Agriculture Southeast Asia: Per Capita Daily Calorie Availability, 1961–94

123 124 125 128 129 131 132 136 154 155 159 165 199 201 208 209 210 211 213 214 215 223

List of Tables

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 11.1 11.2 12.1

xi

Residence and Occupation, Southeast Asian Countries Ban Lek, Northern Thailand, 1974–91 In-Situ Non-Farm Work Sources of Income for Core, Off-spring and Migrant Households, San Jose, Philippines

234 236 238

Southeast Asian Levels of Urbanization, 1950–2010 Employment Generated by Investment in the Philippines, 1986–96

258

Number of Registered Passenger Vehicles, 1950–98 Throughput of ASEAN Container Ports and World Ranking in Traffic League at Five Yearly Intervals, 1970–2000 International and Domestic Air Passengers at Principal Southeast Asian Airports, 1960–2000 Extra-Regional Air Connections of Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore The Telecommunications Landscape of Southeast Asia Urban-Rural Divides? The Information Technology Landscape of Southeast Asia ICT Policies and Institutions for Selected Countries in Southeast Asia Five Phases of National IT Policy in Singapore Southeast Asian Economies, Changing Sectoral Shares in GDP, 1970–94 Manufacturing in Southeast Asian Economies, 1980 and 1990 Japanese Investment in Southeast Asia, 1982–93 Japanese Exports of Technology to Selected Southeast Asian Countries, 1990 Ethnic Chinese in Selected Southeast Asian Countries GDP Growth Rates in Selected Southeast Asian Countries 1990–2000

239

269 288 292 300 306 321 322 323 326 328 357 359 367 369 371 379

Total Amount and Share of Intra-Southeast Asian Trade, 1975, 1985 and 1995 Shares of United States and EEC’s Imports from ASEAN, China, and NICs

401

Southeast Asia: Tourist Arrivals and Expenditures, 1958 and 1996

413

393

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12.2 12.3 12.4

List of Tables

Concentration Ratios for Selected Southeast Asian Countries, 1996 Summary of Tourism Impacts, Southeast Asia International Tourism Receipts in Southeast Asia, 1997

418 423 424

LIST OF FIGURES 2.1 Southeast Asia: Nation-States 2.2 Southeast Asia: Maritime Jurisdiction 2.3 Southeast Asia: Epicentres of Separatist, Religions, and Ethnic Unrest 2.4 Southeast Asia: Shipping Lanes and Indonesia's Archipelagic Sea Lanes 3.1 The Demographic Transition Model and Approximate Position of Southeast Asian Countries in that Transition 3.2 Southeast Asia: Population Size of Countries, 2002 3.3 Southeast Asian Countries: Annual Population Growth Rates, 1952–2002 3.4 Southeast Asia: Age-Sex Structure of Current and Projected Population, 2000, 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050 3.5 Southeast Asia: Age-Sex Structure of Selected Countries, 2000 3.6 Southeast Asia: Population Density, 1991 3.7 Overseas Students in Australian Universities, 1983–2001 3.8 Indonesia: General and Spontaneous Transmigrant Families, Repelita I-Repelita VI 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

Lowland Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia Primary Production in Marine Areas Relationship between Biodiversity and Latitude Sediment Loads of Rivers in Southeast Asia Erosional Rates

5.1 Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand: Rubber Production, 1965–96 5.2 Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand: Palm Oil Production, 1965–96 5.3 Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand: Sugar Cane Production, 1965–96 xiii

51 69 72 78 98 100 101

109 112 115 124 134 148 157 158 162 163 202 203 204

xiv

List of Figures

5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7

Philippines and Indonesia: Coconut Production, 1965–96 Vietnam: Rubber and Coffee Production, 1965–96 Lam Dong: Evolution of Land Use in 1958 and 1992 Southeast Asia: Evolution of Population Distribution in 1950 and 1995 5.8 Southeast Asia: Forests in 1970 and 1990

205 206 217 218 220

8.1 Regional and Extra-Regional Shipping Patterns Involving Southeast Asia, 1960 8.2 Regional and Extra-Regional Shipping Patterns Involving Southeast Asia, 1990 8.3 Regional and Extra-Regional Air Transport Patterns Involving Southeast Asia, August 1965 8.4 Air Transport Connections between Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore at Five Yearly Intervals, August 1970–90 8.5 Regional and Extra-Regional Air Passenger Transport Patterns Involving Southeast Asia, August 1995

308

9.1 The E-Business Ecosystem in Singapore 9.2 The Multimedia Super Corridor, Malaysia

335 337

10.1 Foreign Direct Investments

376

11.1 Trade Clusters in Southeast Asia, 1975 11.2 Trade Clusters in Southeast Asia. 1995 11.3 Propensity Trends of ASEAN, Europe-12, MERCOSUR, and NAFTA to Trade Intra-Regionally 11.4 Propensity Trends of ASEAN, Europe-12, MERCOSUR, and NAFTA to Trade Extra-Regionally

390 391

12.1 Tourist Arrivals in Southeast Asia by Country: 1960s to 1996 12.2 Tourist Arrivals to Southeast Asia from Major Regions, 1995 12.3 Major Intra-Regional Tourist Flows, 1995 12.4 Major Touristscapes of Southeast Asia

291 295 301

304

397 398 414 417 419 420

ABBREVIATIONS ADB AFTA AII AMM APEC ARF ASEAN ASEM CPM EAEC EAGA EAI ECTWT EDB EEC EEZ EMR EPZ EU FDI FPDA G7 GATT GDP GNP ICD ICJ ICT IDA ILO IMF

Asian Development Bank ASEAN Free Trade Agreement ASEAN Information Infrastructure ASEAN Ministerial Meeting Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation ASEAN Regional Forum Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asia-Europe Meeting Communist Party of Malaysia East Asian Economic Caucus East ASEAN Growth Area Enterprise for the Americas Initiative Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism Economic Development Board European Economic Community exclusive economic zone extended metropolitan region export processing zone European Union foreign direct investment Five Power Defence Arrangements Group of Seven General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs gross domestic product gross national product Inland Container Depot International Court of Justice information and communications technology Infocomm Development Authority International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund

xv

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IMS IMT IT KBE LDCs MDCs MFN MNCs MSC NAFTA NATO NEASD NGOs NIEs nmi NTUC OECD OEM PATA PRC SIJORI SMEs TAC TEU TNCs U.N. UNDP UNHCR WTO ZOPFAN

Abbreviations

Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand information technology knowledge-based economy less developed countries more developed countries most-favoured-nation multinational corporations Multimedia Super Corridor North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization Northeast Asia Security Dialogue non-governmental organizations newly industrializing economies nautical miles National Trade Union Congress Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development original equipment manufacturer Pacific Area Travel Association People’s Republic of China Singapore-Johor-Riau small and medium enterprises Treaty of Amity and Co-operation twenty-foot container equivalent units transnational corporations United Nations United Nations Development Programme United Nations High Commission for Refugees World Trade Organization also World Tourism Organization Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality

CONTRIBUTORS CHIA Lin Sien retired from the Department of Geography and later Integrated Marine and Environmental Management (IMEM) Programme of the National University of Singapore and is currently Project Advisor, Public Transport Council, Singapore. Prior to his present position, he was Associate Senior Fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore and Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies (GSAPS), Waseda University and Soka University, Tokyo. He also held an adjunct position in the Division of Geography of the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has authored and edited individually and jointly two dozen books and monographs and published about one hundred research papers. His research interests include marine geography which covers maritime transport, marine pollution, coastal management, and maritime labour with special reference to Asia and especially Southeast Asia. Neil M. COE is a Lecturer in the School of Geography, University of Manchester. His main research interests are in the sub-discipline of economic geography, and include the IT sector, cultural industries, processes of internationalization and globalization, and transnational corporate activity. He has published several papers on the software and computer service industries of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Singapore, and the Canadian film industry. His current research focuses on transnational IT-sector linkages between Southeast Asia and the United States, and the globalization of retailing. Rodolphe DE KONINCK, formerly with Laval University, in Québec City (1970–2002), is Professor of Geography and Canada Chair of Asian Research at the University of Montreal. He has been Visiting Professor at the International University in Shanghai, the University of Geneva, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the National University of Singapore; as well as Visiting Researcher at the University Sains in Penang, Malaysia, the Universitas Sjiah Kuala in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, the Centre d’Études de Géographie Tropicale in xvii

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Contributors

Bordeaux, and the University of Hanoi. He has authored or co-authored fifteen books and edited or co-edited fourteen others. His own books include: Malay Peasants Coping with the World (Singapore: ISEAS, 1992); L’Asie du Sud-Est (Paris: Masson, 1994); and Deforestation in Vietnam (Ottawa: IDRC, 1999). Vivian Louis FORBES is Adjunct Associate Professor of Curtin University of Technology, a Map Curator at the University of Western Australia, and former Merchant Navy officer. He is a professional cartographer and lecturer in spatial sciences and maritime studies. His research interests are in the sub-discipline of political geography, in particular, maritime boundary delimitation and maritime affairs. He has published several papers on these topics and his books include The Maritime Boundaries of the Indian Ocean Region (1995), Indonesia’s Maritime Boundaries (1995), and an Atlas of Malaysia’s Maritime Space (1998). His doctoral thesis, which focussed on conflict and co-operation in managing marine resources in semi-enclosed seas, was published under that title in 2001. Anthony GREER has since 1999 worked as a Technical Advisor to the Environment Protection Department, Sabah, Malaysia. Prior to this, he was a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. In the 1980s he was stationed at the Danum Valley Field Centre, Sabah, first for the Natural Environment Research Council and the University of Manchester, later as Senior Scientist for the Royal Society of London. Graeme HUGO is Professor of the Department of Geographical and Environmental Studies and Director of the National Centre for Social Applications of Geographical Information Systems at the University of Adelaide. He was previously employed at Flinders University in South Australia and has held visiting positions at the University of Iowa, University of Hawaii, Hasanuddin University (Indonesia), and the Australian National University and has worked with a number of international organizations, as well as many Australian government departments and instrumentalities. He is the author of over two hundred books, articles in scholarly journals, and chapters in books, as well as a large number of conference papers and reports. His books include Australia’s Changing Population (Oxford University Press), The Demographic Dimension in Indonesian Development (with T. H. Hull, V. J. Hull, and G. W. Jones; Oxford University Press), International Migration Statistics: Guidelines for Improving Data Collection Systems (with A. S. Oberai, H. Zlotnik, and R. Bilsborrow; International Labour Office), Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at Century’s End (with D. S. Massey, J. Arango, A. Kouaouci, A. Pellegrino, and J. E. Taylor; Oxford University Press), several of the 1986 and 1991 census-based Atlas of the Australian People Series (AGPS)

Contributors

xix

and Australian Immigration: A Survey of the Issues (with Mark Wooden, Robert Holton, and Judith Sloan; AGPS) Philip F. KELLY is Associate Professor of Geography at York University in Toronto, and was previously Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is co-editor of Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories (Routledge, 1999) and author of Landscapes of Globalization: Human Geographies of Economic Change in the Philippines (Routledge, 2000). His current research focuses on Filipino transnationalism as it relates to local labour markets in Canada and the Philippines. T. G. McGEE is the former Director, Institute of Asian Research and presently Professor of Geography, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia. He has taught at the Universities of Malaya and Hong Kong as well as the Australian National University. He is the author of The Southeast Asian City (1967), Third World Urbanization (1971), Planning for the Bazaar Economy (with Yue-man Yeung; 1976), Theatres of Accumulation (with Warwick Armstrong; 1985), and Mega-Urban Regions of Southeast Asia (with Ira Robinson; 1991). Martin PERRY was Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Fellow of the Public Policy Programme, National University of Singapore. He is now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Enterprise Development at the Wellington Campus of Massey University, New Zealand. His recent publications include Small Firms and Network Economies (Routledge, 1999) which assesses the role of small firm co-operation in industrial development, including examination of East Asian models of business integration. His latest book Shared Trust in New Zealand: Strategies for Small Industrial Countries (Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, 2001) examines the role of business co-operation in small industrial economies. Jessie P. H. POON is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, University at Buffalo-SUNY. She is currently the North American editor of Papers in Regional Science. She has published over thirty articles on trade, development, and multinational activities in the Asia-Pacific. She is also coeditor of Asia Pacific Transitions (Macmillan, 2001). Jonathan RIGG is Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Durham and formerly worked at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. His research interests embrace issues of development and the environment in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on rural areas. He is

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Contributors

the author of Southeast Asia: A Region in Transition (Routledge, 1991), More than the Soil: Rural Change in Southeast Asia (Pearson Education, 2001), and the second edition of his book Southeast Asia: The Human Landscape of Modernisation and Development (Routledge) was published at the end of 2002. He is also the editor of Counting the Costs: Economic Growth and Environmental Change in Thailand (ISEAS, 1995) and is currently working on a project examining rural change in the Lao PDR. Peter J. RIMMER is Emeritus Professor in the Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Since 1968 he has been undertaking research on the economic geography of the Asia-Pacific region. Initially, his fieldwork was focussed on Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines). Since the late 1970s his fieldwork has been extended to Northeast Asia (Japan, Korea, the People’s Republic of China, and Taiwan). He has over 230 publications including Rikisha to Rapid Transit: Urban Public Transport Systems and Policy in Southeast Asia, the Underside of Malaysian History; Pullers, Prostitutes and Plantation Workers (co-editor) and Pacific Rim Development: Integration and Globalisation of the East Asian Economy (editor). He has been a consultant to state, federal, and international agencies and past editor of Australian Geographical Studies. His latest book Cities, Transport and Communications: The Integration of Southeast Asia since 1850 (Palgrave Macmillan) is co-authored with Howard Dick of the University of Melbourne. WONG Poh Poh is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. He is editor of Tourism vs Environment: The Case for Coastal Areas (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993), author of Coastal Tourism in Southeast Asia (Manila: ICLARM, 1991) and has published more than sixty journal articles and book chapters on coasts and tourism. Due to his expertise and ample field experience on Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean islands, he has been a frequent invited speaker and consultant to a number of international organizations on coasts, marine tourism and ecotourism, coastal management and EIA.

PREFACE Southeast Asia has a total of about 520 million inhabitants spread over eleven countries across a region fragmented by ocean space and, on the mainland portion, by formidable mountain ranges. The early forms of nation-states before the arrival of the Europeans were already strongly influenced by Indian, Arabic, and Chinese cultures. Clear imprints of these remain both in physical form as well as in cultural practices.The process of colonization by European powers, starting from the early sixteenth century Portuguese influence on the Malay Archipelago, wiped clean the indigenous states with the exception of Thailand. The occupation of Dutch, British, French, and Spanish colonial rule, the last supplanted by the Americans in the Philippines, further divided the then clearly recognizable modern states defined by the Europeans. Colonial administration for many decades conspired to orientate the links of individual states towards their metropolitan states. This outward orientation continued to hold true today in terms of language, culture, politics, trade and investments, and tourism that made regional integration more difficult in many ways. It therefore superimposed over each country a distinctive flavour and landscapes that serve as a constant reminder of their respective colonial past. The aspirations of self-determination by the indigenous population by the middle of the twentieth century were suppressed by subterfuge, clever administration, and in many cases by brutal force on the part of the colonial administrators. It took the tidal wave of an Eastern power, the Japanese, to sweep aside the colonial stranglehold on the region. With the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the return tide of colonial rule receded, giving way finally to self-rule. The process was generally peaceful in the case of British-held Malaya, Brunei, Burma, and American-administered Philippines. In the case of Dutch Indonesia and French Indochina, the handover was violent and bloody. The departure of the British from the region also gave birth to the small island state of Singapore. The final vestige of colonial era ended with the declaration of independence of East Timor in 2002.

xxi

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Contemporary Southeast Asia Southeast Asia has been characterized by fragmentation, diversity, and continuing intra-regional as well as internal domestic conflict in the era of self-determination. The most significant development for the region has been the formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) some thirty-five years ago. For several decades leading to the financial crisis of 1997–98, the region as a whole enjoyed unprecedented and sustained economic expansion, led by Singapore as one of the four Asian tigers and then the other core ASEAN members of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and oil-rich Brunei. In the last decade, Vietnam after Doi Moi was shaping up to follow the footsteps of the growth economies. Economic success due to liberalization and democratization brought about a sea change in the way resources are utilized, demographic transformation, rapid urbanization and social adjustments, restructuring of the economies, introduction of new ways of dealing with foreign investments, technological innovations including information and communications technology (ICT), and heightened infrastructure and enhanced domestic and international movements of people, tourists, and cargo. This volume is an attempt to capture these facets of socioeconomic and political changes and to leave behind for readers an accurate and well-defined record of the processes and trends that transformed the human and physical landscapes of the region, adding yet another layer of images on the pre-existing patterns. The advantage of a multi-authored volume is that they represent a selection of the best in their respective fields of study. Each of the authors have spent extended periods of their professional lives in the region, and each is able to put together comparative experiences across a number of countries within the region in their respective fields of study. This volume is hence a distillation of their combined expertise on the region, and together they comprise a synthesis of the essential elements of the region. In addition to being tasked to provide a review of the subject under study focusing on the last five decades of fast changes, the authors were asked to identify significant trends and events and turning-points, provide explanations for the changes, and venture a look into the future. Each author was left free to develop a particular viewpoint as they saw fit. It was not the intention to be comprehensive as would have been the case of a textbook on the region. In this manner, the book was designed to fulfil the mandate of producing a commemorative volume for the thirty years since the establishment of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)

Preface

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in 1968. As it turned out, the book took several more years before it was finally completed. The financial crisis that started in mid-1997 left throughout the region a trail of debris of broken financial institutions and business failures, collapsed stock exchanges and drastically weakened currencies, unsold housing and commercial buildings many unfinished and unpaid for, abandoned or curtailed infrastructure projects and development plans, cutbacks or withdrawn support for existing educational, health, and other social and essential services, massive unemployment, increased levels of already high levels of poverty, malnutrition, and unchecked diseases and environmental pollution. Huge government and private debts still hang over the worst-hit economies and the damage will take decades to restore. Some of the consequences are increased exploitation of already diminished and degraded natural resources in order to earn foreign exchange, fleeing private capital, closing down of foreign business and industrial plants, all frightened by the widespread growing unrest and inability of governments to deal with serious unemployment, impoverished communities, large-scale spontaneous movements of people within the country and across national boundaries, and unfulfilled promises by governments to offer protection and safeguards for both domestic and foreign enterprises. In spite of our awareness of the monumental change that is taking place across the region, these events are bringing about unprecedented and large-scale changes to the very fabric of the social, cultural, and economic structures of countries especially those that embraced liberalization and opened its borders to the forces of globalization. In the new millennium, the distinction of being one of the world’s faster growing group of economies faded with the onset of the financial crisis. It has rendered the economies far less able to adjust to the forces unleashed by globalization. Countries in the region have now to cope with the painful adjustments to problems that stem from the inadequacies of good governance and need for structural adjustments. Simultaneously, the region has also to contend with a newly reformed China that strongly competes for foreign investments and markets. The challenge to governments in the region to find new sources to growth has become more daunting. New development paradigms will have to be identified, tested, and implemented against a backdrop of weakened administrative, legal, and other institutions. Evidence of the consequences of these transformations will take time to unfold, be gathered and analysed. The construction of this book came at a time when these dynamic changes are taking place but it would require a considerably redesigned framework.

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Word of Appreciation In the initial task of searching for authors for the book, I was greatly encouraged by the support and enthusiasm by erstwhile colleagues in the Department of Geography of NUS. I sought out those I considered to be Southeast Asian experts in several fields of study who have either lived in the region for good portions of their professional life or have become regular visitors on their field trips to and considered to be “friends” of the region. My search for indigenous authors was less successful managing to find Wong Poh Poh and also Jessie Poon who remains a “native” of the region although she has spent the larger part of her professional life in North America. I am deeply grateful to Martin Perry for his personal sacrifices in helping me through the difficult period of nurturing the book through to the point of submission of the manuscript to the Publications Unit of ISEAS. I wish to thank all the other authors who stayed with me with great patience and understanding till the light at the end of the tunnel. Several experienced change in employment, status, and location in the course of the production of the book and, in the case of Peter Rimmer, he endured the threat of a terrifying forest fire that raged very near his home in Canberra. The delay also meant that there had to be some updating and re-evaluation of the material in some of the chapters. For this, I wish to express my deep appreciation to those who went the second mile for me. Finally, I wish to thank Mrs Lee Li Kheng who very ably produced and redrafted a large number of the figures in the book. I enjoyed very much working with Rahilah Yusuf, Production Editor, who did the unenviable job of copyediting and producing the book. Chia Lin Sien Singapore

1. Introduction

1

1 INTRODUCTION Chia Lin Sien and Martin Perry

Over the last three decades ambiguity over the territorial expanse of Southeast Asia has been resolved. Benedict Anderson (1998a, p. 3) suggests that the designation “Southeast Asia” was first applied in 1943 to a region that included parts of modern-day South Asia (Sri Lanka and northeast India) and which excluded the former Netherlands Indies and the Philippines. That appellation made sense to the British military commander making the designation, Louis Mountbatten, who was concerned to distinguish territory formerly under British influence that had come under Japanese control. The late appearance of a Southeast Asian identity can partly be explained by the historical absence of any unifying hegemonic power. Religious diversity and “mottled” colonialism kept territories apart from each other (Anderson 1998a). Among the former colonial powers, only the Belgians and Italians were not represented in the region. The British ruled in the former territories of Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and northern Borneo; the Dutch in the Indies; the Portuguese in eastern Timor; the Spaniards and Americans in the Philippines; and the French in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Present-day Thailand remained the exception in avoiding colonial occupation although its independence was conditional and partly attained because of the rivalry between Britain and France. Colonial occupation orientated individual countries to the economy, language, and culture of their European rulers and frustrated the development of any unity from their shared ethnic affliations. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, every country in Southeast Asia, apart from Thailand, returned to being formally part of a Western empire. The 1

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Philippines alone had been given a guarantee that independence would be granted; yet within twenty years, all except the small states of East Timor and Brunei had become independent sovereign states. In the case of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, independence was the prelude to long-lasting struggles for unification. Burma (now Myanmar), Malaysia, and the Philippines were similarly bequeathed unresolved sovereignties that resulted in internal conflicts of varying intensity. Post 1940, the unification of Southeast Asia on the ten countries of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam was accelerated by Cold War politics (see Chapter 2 by Forbes in this volume). Independence came to the countries of the region through armed resistance in which communist parties were prominent. Indeed, in the early 1960s, Indonesia had the largest legal communist party in the world outside the communist bloc. Haunted by the spectre of the countries of the region falling to communist control like dominoes, the United States was primarily responsible for promoting the region’s collective identity. To shore up the line of what it perceived as “teetering dominoes”, the United States made every effort to create capitalist, prosperous, and authoritarian anti-communist regimes in the newly independent countries. Indeed such was its fervour to stem the “red tide” that no world region received more attention from the United States than did Southeast Asia for four decades from the 1950s (Anderson 1998b). Thailand, for example, received military assistance that amounted to nearly 60 per cent of the national defence budget from 1950 to 1975. It also benefited from US$1 billion in subsidies for U.S. bases and Thai troops in Vietnam and a further US$650 million in economic aid (Owen 1992). The economy of the Philippines was buoyed by direct U.S. aid and the military installations at Clarke Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia received Cold War funding as well as benefiting from contracts associated with the war in Vietnam. Equally as important for the region’s development, because the United States was focussed on the confrontation with communism, it tended to overlook behaviour that might have been resisted in less ideologically charged conditions (Beeson 2001, p. 233). In particular, it helped maintain unfettered access to the massive domestic market of the United States that was crucial to the region’s economic take-off. U.S. engagement with Southeast Asia during the Cold War took the form of a series of bilateral relationships. This arrangement was favoured by America as it effectively locked nations into a vertically ordered security regime that encouraged relationships with each other to be conducted via the United States (Cumings 1997, pp. 154–55). The forging of a regional

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identity was a response to this Cold War environment. The creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reflected the desire of some of the nations in the region to institutionalize relations among the region’s anti-communist states and to provide a forum to address anxieties about the actions of outside powers. The political progress made by ASEAN started with the withdrawal of British troops from the region at the end of the 1960s. The collapse of the American position in Indochina in 1975 prompted member countries to redouble efforts to build a stronger regional body. The new agenda codified in the Declaration of ASEAN Concord and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia was laid out at the Bali Summit in February 1976 (see Luhulima 1992). Its initial energies were focussed on preventing the ASEAN countries being forced to accept the bulk of refugees fleeing victorious communist regimes in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and on containing the international standing of the Vietnamese Government (Anderson 1998a, p. 17). Subsequently, co-operation progressed on mutual acceptance of the principle that each member’s domestic issues were of no concern to other members. On this basis, ASEAN succeeded in gaining growing influence in international diplomacy. Even so it is still possible to question the extent to which Southeast Asia has attained a regional identity. For example, the introduction to one recent undergraduate textbook suggests that the region’s unity lies in “the appreciation and diversity of specific landscapes, cultures, peoples, and cuisines” (Ulack and Leinbach 1999). More substantial than this image of the region as a human and physical mosaic, it is possible to suggest three influences that have provided geographers with a justification for promoting study of the region as a whole.

Southeast Asia as a Region Charles A. Fisher has argued that the term Southeast Asia gained acceptance since the Second World War as the region that comprises “the series of peninsulas and islands which lie to the east of India and to the south of China”. He added that “the inherent unity of the region has always seemed somewhat negative in character” (Fisher 1964, p. 3). As Kelly and McGee (Chapter 7 in this volume) noted that “a leading motif in early Western research on Southeast Asia was the vulnerability of the region to outside influences ... ‘diversity’ became the most important source of regional identity — ‘unity in diversity’ was the phrase used in Broeck’s (1944) pioneering exploration of this theme ... implicit in the concept of diversity was a sense of geopolitical exposure, fragility, and vulnerability.” Kelly and McGee

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(see Chapter 7) recalled Fisher’s thesis that Southeast Asia represents a “shatter belt” between the two great cultural worlds of South Asia and China; an empty frontier to which outside forces flowed and subordinated the supposedly weaker cultures of Southeast Asia (Fisher 1964). Twenty years after Fisher’s assessment, Southeast Asia comprised two quite different experiences. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar remained largely isolated from the world economy. They were controlled by Stalinist-type governments and impoverished by decades of internal unrest and warfare. In contrast, other countries of the region were about to commence an accelerating period of growth and social change that seemed to presage a dramatic and sustained transformation. From being a “shatter belt”, the region became seen as a role model in development. By 1988, for example, exports of manufactured goods replaced raw materials as Malaysia’s largest source of foreign exchange. By 1990, Malaysia was the third largest producer of semiconductors in the world after Japan and the United States (Wong 1990). As late as 1985, there was general pessimism about the prospects for Thailand’s economy, but the following year, for the first time, manufacturing outstripped agriculture’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP). By 1992, manufactured goods made up almost 78 per cent of exports (Falkus 1995). In the case of Indonesia, manufactured goods rose from less than 3 per cent of exports in 1980 to over 47 per cent in 1992 (Hill 2000). This experience of growth was limited to some countries only and, in larger countries, tended to be geographically concentrated. The Philippines’s economy continued to perform poorly. With respect to the unevenness of development, the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, for example, accounted for around 50 per cent of GDP but only 10 per cent of Thailand’s population (Parnwell and Arghiros 1996, p. 13). This concentration reflects the continuance of a dual economy split between the industrial and modern services sector, on the one hand, and an agricultural sector that includes varying scales and forms of farming. The first and primary unifying feature of Southeast Asia is its maritime character as all of the countries within the region, except for Laos, are either an archipelagic or coastal state. During the pre-colonial days, the Chinese referred to Southeast Asia as the Nan Yang or South Seas. Under the third Ming Emperor, Chu Ti, the Chinese decided to trade directly instead of through tributaries. In 1403, the first of a series of official trade missions to the Nan Yang and the Indian Ocean was made and the Chinese admiral, Cheng He, led a large expedition comprising fifty ships and up to 37,000 men. He repeated it six more times from 1405 to 1431, using

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Melaka as his supply base. This did not indicate any larger Chinese intention of territorial expansion in the region, with the exception of Vietnam, once viewed as its vassal state. On the other hand, China has consistently claimed the South China Sea as its territory, making its presence felt in the heart of Southeast Asia. The degree of marine influence over the region’s climate, environment, settlement, transport and communications, and resource development has been considered unmatched by any other part of the world (Barrow 1990). Indeed the maritime character of Southeast Asia including two of the world’s largest archipelagic states — Indonesia and the Philippines — lends a distinctive feature to the region (Chia and MacAndrews 1981). Lim (1981) focussed on the strategic importance of the South China Sea around which eight of the ten ASEAN nations as well as China (and Taiwan) share its rim. The semi-enclosed sea presents both a unifying factor to the region as well as a potential and real source of tension. Historically, the seas of Southeast Asia have allowed the flow of migrants, trade, and cultures that have imparted an indelible imprint on the region. Starting from the sixteenth century, the colonial states of Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, and France all came by sea initially for trade and later for territorial expansion. In 1941, the Japanese invaded the region using both sea and land routes. Their forces had first to destroy what appeared to be an invincible naval power of the British and Americans before they could secure their conquered territories. The region’s seaspace works both ways in that while it bestows a commonality among most of the countries within the region, it divides mainland states from archipelagic Southeast Asia. A second and related unifying attribute arises from the colonial use of the region as a source of primary resources — rice, lumber, spices, minerals, and plantation products including rubber, palm oil, copra, and later an increasing variety of other crops. This commodity production relied upon the integration of European capital, organizational experience, and technological expertise; Chinese, Indian, and indigenous Southeast Asian labour and entrepreneurial activities; and the enterprise of the local population working as individuals, families, or larger communities (Reid 2000, p. 70). For about a century up till the time of independence, commercial padi cultivation expanded into the deltaic lowlands of mainland Southeast Asia, in Java and in Central Luzon. Although associated with a shift from subsistence to production for external markets, it was not a source of prosperity for the cultivators. The food surplus was used to support the expanding colonial workforce in plantation, mining, and urban activity

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or exported to the cities of South and East Asia. Infrastructure to support the types of commodity production sought by the colonial powers together with their need for administrative control brought characteristic impacts on the distribution of settlement. All of the capitals and some of the major secondary cities important to colonial rule shared tidewater or deltaic sites where international transportation networks were easily linked to domestic communications that served agricultural hinterlands (Reid 2000). Colonial capitals became “primate cities” through their multiple functions of centres of administration, trade, commodity processing, and urban industry. The colonial administrations in the region over a period of three centuries left behind some very visible legacies. William Kirk traces the development of “cores” created by the colonial administration. The “core” of a political system and territory is “a power center where major decisions are taken, policy formulated and the institutions and symbols of political primary are concentrated, usually in a capital city” (Kirk 1990, p. 15). The cores were created on this basis and persisted because of their capacity to control the resources and productive capacity of the surrounding areas. Pre-colonial cores identified include Thaton and Pegu and that centred on Pagan in the Dry Zone in Burma. Kirk went on to explore the development of the Manila core under the Spanish administration on Luzon Island, the Philippines, the core along the Malayan west coast, including Singapore, and also Rangoon (now Yangon) in Burma under the British. The Dutch created the core in Java Island operating under their Culture System. In Indochina, the French developed the region surrounding Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) before establishing the northern centre focussed on Hanoi and Haiphong. Third, a unity to the region has been imparted by its location proximate to India and China, two areas with huge populations and distinctive cultural characteristics. While geographically not quite constituting crossroads between these two greater civilizations, it has been affected by the trade and movement of people, ideas, and innovation that they have generated. Perhaps the single most important legacy this has brought is the importance of “overseas Chinese” in the contemporary population of Southeast Asia. The description “overseas Chinese” originates from a Chinese phrase “hua ciau”, for “sojourner”. This suggests a temporary residence outside China, perhaps consistent with the intention of many original emigrants but now misleading in the permanency of their foreign residence and shift of their sovereign and political loyalties. “Overseas Chinese” does, on the other hand, remain consistent with the ongoing exploitation of home connections within their business practice (Redding

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1995). The overseas Chinese comprise emigrants who left China at various points over the last century predominately to settle around the margins of the South China Sea. This population numbers around 50 million across Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong (EAAU 1995, p. 13). They account for little more than 5 per cent of Southeast Asia’s present population, but with some concentration in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. The economic and political significance continues to be much greater than the numeric. Their importance to the region’s trade and commerce has been long understood (Mackie 1992; Harianto 1997). As Anderson (1998a, p. 15) observes, as the boom of the 1970s and 1980s progressed, the belief that the Chinese would do for the region economically what the diplomats of ASEAN were trying to do for it politically and strategically became more widespread. The political significance of the Chinese dominance of the region’s commerce has accentuated this source of regional unity. A tradition of patrimonialism has been an enduring feature of the region that has been seen to reflect its cultural diversity. Patrimonialism organizes society into a network of ruler–subordinate (patron–client) relationships that discourage social mobility in favour of a stable order of élites and non-élites (Hatch and Yamamura 1996, p. 80). It survives to hold together otherwise unstable communities that lack “effective institutional links between centre and periphery” and a broader “cultural consensus”. The economic prominence of the ethnic Chinese, a racial minority, has been one source of this instability. This racial tension originated partly in the preference of the ruling élite to patronize people who were not in a position to become political rivals, as well as because of their earned reputation for business reliability (Mackie 1992). Excluded from political power and often subject to discrimination in education and business, many of the overseas Chinese sought protection from allies in government.1 The paradox of being economically powerful but politically impotent seemed unimportant while economies were growing and the benefits of growth diffused beyond the business élite. The financial crisis of 1997 exposed the fragility of the arrangement as the wealthy Chinese were left unprotected from the politically and economically disaffected. For example, in May 1998, Indonesia’s Chinese community was targeted by organized groups of vigilante who systematically murdered, raped, and pillaged their way across the Chinese districts of Glodok in West Jakarta and Solo in East Java, triggering the flight of Chinese capital (Jones and Schulze 2001, p. 175). The giant Indonesian conglomerates that had captured much of

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the domestic business economy through their links to Soeharto and his family, such as Liem Sioe Liong’s Salim Group and Mohammed “Bob” Hassan’s Apkindo Group, saw their assets devalued and lost access to business on the basis they had previously enjoyed. Their survival depends on how far they had diversified beyond Indonesia and Southeast Asia which, at least for Salim, has enabled a partial recovery. The Chinese population is but one component of the larger ethnic mixture of indigenous and migrant minority populations in all countries in the region. This bequeathed a challenge to nation-building in the newly independent states. Despite the potential for ethnic and religious conflict, until recently, the region seemed to have escaped the worst effects of the post-colonial turmoil that held back former colonies in other parts of the world. This success may be attributed partly to the larger uncertainty of the regional environment in the Cold War era. For the non-communist states, it facilitated the promotion of a “siege legitimacy” that used the threat of falling to communist insurgency to contain separatism and rally acceptance of shared national values. Authoritarian political arrangements that had power to contain any incipient division equated communal disloyalty with national loyalty (Brown 1985, p. 989; Jones and Schulze 2001, pp. 170–71). In practice, and as it became more transparent post the 1997 financial crisis, the multi-ethnic heritage of the region has resisted assimilation and integration within unified nations. The most disturbing manifestations of this failure of nation-building have been witnessed in Indonesia with violent confrontations in Aceh, West Papua, and the Moluccas as well as the systematic destruction of East Timor. Unresolved tensions in the Philippines and southern Thailand among some of the Muslim minorities, while in predominantly Muslim Malaysia militant Islamic groups have emerged to become a threat to national security. Indonesia’s attempt at decentralizing authority has merely aggravated the separatist sentiments rather than helped to obviate fragmentation tendencies. A fourth unifying feature of the region can be seen in its economic transformation since the 1970s, albeit progressing at a variable pace of development and achieving a wide difference in the level of economic development. The view of the region as a generator of miracle economies (World Bank 1993) requires adjustment post 1997, but it remains the case that the countries of Southeast Asia have been among the principal beneficiaries of the changing structure of the world economy. In 1965, all the countries of Southeast Asia, with the exception of Singapore, were following industrialization strategies based on import substitution (Rigg and Stott 1992). Imports were restricted through the use of tariffs and

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quotas, thus protecting domestic infant industries and encouraging domestic companies to substitute for previously imported goods. This approach followed the economic orthodoxy of the time and brought some initial success immediately post independence. It operated with the close involvement of government in industrial matters and, in some countries, rapidly degenerated into the first outbreak of crony capitalism (Yoshihara 1998; Clad 1989). A change in industrialization strategy came from the model provided by the East Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs), which had achieved spectacularly high rates of growth by shifting the focus of development from reducing imports to expanding exports. The Southeast Asian exemplar of this was Singapore, although it differed from the East Asian NIEs in its dependence on foreign direct investment (FDI) to spur its export growth (Perry, Kong, and Yeoh 1997). Innovation in trade policy emerged as much through political circumstances as through judicious judgement. It was Singapore’s good fortune that its first moves to lure multinational corporations coincided with the new interest and capacity among Western multinationals to shift parts of their production processes to overseas assembly sites (Rodan 1989; Huff 1994). The subsequent climb up the economic ladder has transformed the city-state into the hub of an expanding population of foreign multinationals operating across Southeast Asia, a role for which it still has no competitor in the region (Perry, Yeung, and Poon 1998). Singapore’s economic progress is remarkable but perhaps not quite the miracle that the World Bank (1993) would suggest (Huff 1994, p. 31). After gaining independence, Singapore was already a comparatively modern metropolis. Its inherited role as the region’s trading and communications hub, plus its absence of a rural hinterland, ideally suited the new opportunities although it undoubtedly required judicious management to exploit them. On the other hand, that the region as a whole should come to be seen as an economic dynamo was entirely unexpected. Fisher (1964), who provided one of the first post-colonial geographies of Southeast Asia, reflected this pessimism in discussing the prospects facing the newly independent states: It must be hoped that the newly independent states will succeed in stamping out the widespread lawlessness and corruption which still remain in some of them as legacies of the momentous upheavals of the 1940s. For only if this is done will it be possible effectively to raise the living standards of their peoples, to check the drift to further Balkanization, and to prevent the region from becoming, as at times has seemed only too possible, the powder keg of Asia. (Fisher 1964, p. 10).

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In fact, with the exception of Indochina, order was quickly asserted. This transformation was not built on the remnants of Western institutions, as Fisher (1966) suggested it would need to be. Rather it came from the assertion of “Asian values” and the claim that these were built on Confucian principles of thrift, hard work, filial piety, and respect for those in authority. The existence of these values and Southeast Asia’s affinity to Confucianism have been much disputed by academics but they proved particularly helpful in sustaining rigorous political regimes that reinforced the positive image that Asian values attained among Western investors (Rigg 1997). During the 1980s, Southeast Asia attracted around a quarter of all FDI going to developing countries with its popularity only reducing in the mid-1990s when China emerged as a major competitor for inward investment. The growth resulting from the region’s conversion to exportorientated industrialization led to the claims about the emergence of a second tier of NIEs, most frequently with respect to Malaysia and Thailand but also including Indonesia and the Philippines. Such a scenario was always optimistic (Rigg and Stott 1992). Despite more than doubling its share of world trade from 1965 to 1994 (International Monetary Fund trade statistics cited in Savage, Kong, and Neville 1998), Southeast Asia remains a region of strongly contrasting income levels. This is evident in the national income comparisons and associated development indicators. The region contains what were some of the world’s most dynamic economies in the closing decades of the twentieth century (Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand) as well as others that never broke into the high growth category (the Philippines) and others whose lack of development remains their primary economic characteristic. The great variation among the economic base of countries in the region has tended to be overlooked in the reporting of annual growth rates. The middle-income economies (using the World Bank definition, which involved a minimum per capita income of US$765 in 1995) of Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand still all have large and poor rural populations. Disparities in incomes between the rural and urban areas widened within the context of industrial growth, which can be viewed as one direct challenge to their status as NIEs. The fragility of the economic transformation was exposed in the wake of the financial market crisis in 1997, which saw the value of national currencies spiral downwards and massive economic dislocation. A World Bank estimate was that the number of people living in poverty doubled from 26 to 52 million from 1997 to 1998 and that some 30 million people were experiencing food insecurity.

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While economic change has brought variable benefits for the people of Southeast Asia, the environment has been a consistent loser (see Chapter 4 by Greer and Perry in this volume). Attitudes to the environment have been driven by a “resource frontier mentality” (Bankoff 2001). If the pressure of population grew too great in one area, then some of the population moved on or was moved on to another less exploited location. Thus, when the forest was logged out in one locality, another area was selected for logging. Deforestation of tropical forests has been occurring worldwide but in the last decades of the twentieth century Southeast Asia experienced the fastest rates of forest destruction (Global Environment Outlook 2000 cited in Bankoff 2001, p. 180). Nor have Southeast Asia’s coastal and marine environments been treated in a sustainable fashion. The diversity and quantity of fish stocks are now threatened by overfishing and the destruction and pollution of vital coastal and marine habitats (Menasveta 1995).

Southeast Asia Transformed The region’s experience of economic change has been associated with a larger reorganization of the world economy in which new industries and new types of business organizations have come to dominance. These changes are generally subsumed under the banner of “globalization”, but any single catchphrase does not do justice to the diversity of impacts and experiences that have been wrought by the region’s engagement with the global economy. This introduction highlights larger trends that provide the context for the detailed chapters that follow. Urbanization The shift to urbanized living accelerated post 1970 although the region’s urban population rate, 30 per cent in 1997, remains low in comparison with the global average (43 per cent) and marginally below that of Asia as a whole (Population Reference Bureau 1997). Apart from the exceptional cases of Singapore and Brunei, where 100 per cent and 67 per cent, respectively, of their numerically small populations live in urban areas, Malaysia and the Philippines are the sole countries with more than half their population defined as urban (51 per cent). Even so, it has been a long-standing claim that Southeast Asian cities are overurbanized (McGee 1967). The region’s cities have not typically provided adequate employment, shelter or basic infrastructure services such as sanitation, water, or electricity for the majority of their expanding population (see Chia 2001 for a review

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of the status of sanitation in selected Asian cities). Somewhat in competition with that claim is the perspective that the urbanization is “pseudourbanization” (Dwyer 1968). Many urban residents, it is pointed out, are not committed to permanent residence in the city and so return regularly or periodically to their rural origins. This dual existence, straddling the worlds of agricultural subsistence and the margins of the internal economy, has both positive and negative implications for urban development. It provides a safety valve during periods of unemployment, although as shown post 1997, this may work for individuals but not with the capacity to cushion largescale urban recession. It can also be seen as one of the sources of overurbanization. Temporary urban migrants tend to obtain their income in poorly paid work with little opportunity for advancement or promotion, perpetuating informal sector activities and attendant challenges to the upgrading of urban infrastructure (Rigg 1997). Attempts have been made to depict a distinct Southeast Asian experience of urbanization based partly on the merger of the urban and rural sectors. This unique form of urbanization has been termed the “extended metropolitan region” (Ginsburg, Koppel, and McGee 1991; McGee and Robinson 1995). At the core of this urbanization are the region’s megacities (population over ten million) and other million-plus cities that have continued to consolidate their position at the top of each country’s urban hierarchy, partly through their monopoly of modern communications technology. The extended metropolitan regions centred on Bangkok, Jakarta (the so-called Jabotabek including Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi), and Manila (Central Luzon) are the most striking examples. Other candidates include Yangon, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi, based on their possession of the seven defining attributes of an extended metropolitan region:       

large and dense population engaged in wet rice cultivation; good transport networks; highly mobile population; an increase in non-agricultural activities; juxtaposition of many different and competing land uses; increased female participation in the paid workforce; and unregulated land use (McGee 1991).

There have also been attempts to include Singapore, Johor, and Riau as a further example (MacLeod and McGee 1996) although this is more doubtful than the other cases given this region’s lack of agricultural self sufficiency, dependence on inward migration, and the dislocation of international borders (Perry 1998).

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Distinguished by the unusual blending of town and village economies, “desakota” (derived from Bahasa Indonesia desa for “village” and kota for “town”) sees the expansion of non-rural activities on urban peripheries and in the corridors between cities. Desakota contrasts with the Western experience of suburban development because of the diversity of economic activity that survives to perpetuate high mobility and fluidity between the rural and urban sectors. Extended metropolitan regions may stretch up to a hundred kilometres from their urban core bringing about the “deep penetration of global market forces into the countryside” (Macleod and McGee 1996, p. 418). Desakota development is largely unplanned, created through the impetus of free-market capitalist development. The aspect most frequently commented upon is the lack of integration between infrastructure provision and population. A less commented upon aspect than the infrastructure inadequacies has been the response of private developers to the congestion, pollution, and mixture of land use activities that typically exists within Southeast Asia’s cities. Perhaps the single most frequent response has been the “superblock”, which is creating a distinct fragmentation to the urban landscape (Leaf 1996). Superblocks are large, self-contained mixed-use developments which typically comprise at least one high-rise office building, retailing targeted at affluent consumers and accommodation for high-income residents, often including serviced apartments for expatriate employees of foreign multinationals. Such forms of development are both a response to unregulated desakota development and a further impetus to its creation. Superblocks are promoted as offering a “city within a city” with the appeal of providing an urban experience free of the need for daily commuting or exposure to the less salubrious parts of the city. Even in well-managed Singapore, the superblock has emerged as the preferred form of private development on the margins of the existing Central Business District (Perry, Kong, and Yeoh 1997). In other Southeast Asian cities the assembly of inner city land for superblock development accelerates the displacement of inner city residents to the urban fringes. Megaprojects centred on high-profile prestigious buildings designed to symbolize national status take the design principles a stage further in physical scale (Olds 1995). The Petronas Towers in Malaysia are the prime Southeast Asian example of a megaproject. “Topped out” in 1996, and for a time the tallest buildings in the world, they were envisaged as merely phase one of a new Kuala Lumpur city centre (Bunnell 1999). Suburban development provides the location for the bulk of the new housing for the emerging middle classes, producing a landscape of “single use, low density, automobile-dependent enclaves of single family housing” (Leaf 1996, p. 1629). This housing typically comprises exclusive, walled-off

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zones, accessed through guarded gates with the largest such enclaves including their own shopping facilities. Nearby are likely to be “thriving informal kampung (village) settlements, which provide housing for the service workers upon whom the dwellers in the executive enclaves depend” (Leaf 1996, p. 1629). Beyond that, the increased time and expenditure available for leisure has become a further component of the extended metropolitan region, most evident in the profusion of golf courses but also seen in the spread of country clubs, resorts, and leisure parks. Like other elements in the privatized landscape, the key design component of such facilities is the emphasis on self-containment, both to capture user expenditure and to reduce dependence on the uncertain infrastructure of the surrounding territory. One of the most dramatic examples of this can be seen on the Indonesian Riau island of Bintan, the northern part of which was effectively partitioned from the larger island to provide leisure space for visitors mainly from nearby Singapore (Grundy-Warr, Peachey, and Perry 1999). While the close-up view of the region’s rapidly growing cities tends to be a picture of disorder, geographers have tended to emphasize how relations among cities are governed by an ordered hierarchy. This perspective has been encouraged by Friedmann’s “world city hypothesis” in which he suggests that a hierarchy of urban centres emerged to service the growing integration of the world economy (Friedmann 1986). That hierarchy identified Singapore as a second-tier city functioning as the regional metropolis for Southeast Asia. Subsequent comment on the world city hypothesis has raised two questions about its validity. First, the lack of good comparative data to demonstrate the reality of hierarchical relations and how they have been changing. Second, the focus on economic power overlooks other functions of cities and the possibility that other classifications, such as those predicated on cultural leadership or the location of transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) might reveal alternative patterns of metropolitan dominance. An interesting attempt to provide a quantitative analysis of the Pacific Rim urban hierarchy has used the case of Japanese service firms to chart their location as an indicator of city status (Edgington and Haga 1998). This study did not correct the perceived wisdom of Singapore’s dominance in Southeast Asia but it suggested that the region’s other big cities are catching up. Industrialization Several influences have shaped the geography of industrial growth in Southeast Asia. First is the diversity of production sites existing in the region

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in terms of income, consumption patterns, educational attainment, industrial workforce and infrastructure quality and other attributes affecting production costs. Second, has been the reliance on foreign investment, which means a preponderance of business organizations with definite location priorities. Generally, studies show that foreign investors compared with domestic investors are conservative in their investment decisions. They favour places that are already utilized by other foreign investors, and they are strongly attached to localities offering proximity to international transport infrastructure, mainly air and sea ports. Third, one industry, electronics, has been of particular significance within the flow of inward FDI. As an industry, electronics is distinctive because of the variety of intermediate and finished products made for both consumer and industrial use. This characteristic has given electronics a special geography because of its tendency to be vertically disintegrated and geographically dispersed according to the particular location requirements of individual production stages. Nonetheless, industrial park development has been disproportionately concentrated in and around major metropolitan cities. In addition, Southeast Asia has made much use of the export processing zones (EPZs) as a device for attracting foreign investment, especially Malaysia and the Philippines (Lo and Marcotullio 2000). Deepening industrialization has had little impact on the overall level of intra-regional trade. For example, in 1992, intra-ASEAN exports amounted to less than 20 per cent of total exports (Tan 1996). That figure actually exaggerated the true extent of intra-regional trade because much of it represented, as it still does, transhipment via the entrepôt of Singapore rather than goods destined for local consumption. Foreign companies have tended to use the region as an export platform to serve international markets and have moved slowly to integrate their dispersed investment. The region has still to establish itself as a natural trading region in which spatial bias, encouraged by geographical proximity, lower transaction costs, and cultural affinities in favour of cross-border trading. Among foreign investors, the shift to regionally integrated manufacturing has progressed furthest with Japanese organizations (Hatch and Yamamura 1996). The investment strategies of Japanese organizations have spawned an influential “flying geese” model that attempts to generalize the region’s industrialization experience. The flying geese analogy was originally put forward to capture the nature of Japan’s own industrialization (Kaname 1998). At its most basic level, the theory postulates that production and trade will follow a series of stages as a country moves from a developing to an industrial nation. Initially, developing countries import consumer goods from more advanced

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countries. Over time, the import of technology and capital goods enables domestic production to start up which is carried out by so-called homogeneous industries because of their role in enabling localities to keep pace with the lead goose. Local capital goods industries are established next as a prelude to the subsequent commencement of exports. As industries age, the first lead economy will become less competitive compared with the more recently industrialized nations. In response, initial leaders are required to upgrade their capital stock to underpin their next growth phase. With the experience of East Asia in mind, the flying geese model has been extended to apply to the dynamic shift of industries from one country to another under the motor of Japanese FDI (Fry 1992; Takeuchi 1999). When looked at from the investment geographies of major Japanese companies, some support has been found for the model in terms of their evolving investment profile in Southeast Asia. A brief review of one such investment profile is indicative of the region’s larger industrialization experience. Edgington and Hayter (2000) chart the case of Matsushita Electric Works, one of Japan’s longest and largest corporate investors in the region that, they suggest, has been a role model for other Japanese companies. Its early investment in the 1960s deviated somewhat from that expected, involving plants in Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines but in the 1970s the expected flight path emerged. The main host within Southeast Asia became Singapore, followed by Malaysia, which became the leading recipient of Matsushita’s investment in the 1980s. In 1991, a further five factories were opened in Malaysia but none subsequently. During the 1990s, Indonesia was selected for five new factories in addition to China, which emerged as a significant competitor to Southeast Asia for foreign investment in the 1990s (Perry, Yeung, and Poon 1998). Of course, new investment locations alone do not tell the whole story of Matsushita’s engagement with Southeast Asia. The strategy underlying Matsushita’s choice of investment locations has undergone several shifts. In the 1960s and 1970s, the focus was on establishing facilities in each of the major markets with the role of serving that market. In the 1970s and 1980s, Matsushita encouraged specialization among its Southeast Asia production sites to facilitate exports, especially to Europe and the United States. In the 1990s, Malaysia became the base from which other Southeast Asian markets were served as well as being an exporter to high-income markets. In addition, in the 1990s, the status of factories was affected by the rapid expansion of investment in China although it appears that some of that investment was experimental.

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Two further inconsistencies with the flying geese model are evident from the case of Matsushita. First, there has been no strategic intent to develop “reversed” exporting back to Japan. Second, although the corporate network has expanded, initial investment locations have sometimes retained a preferential status for new investment. Within Southeast Asia, Singapore and Malaysia have been most advantaged by this inertia. They have built up supportive business environments, in terms of workforce skills, supporting industry capacity and government inducements. Even so, Edgington and Hayter (2000, p. 297) find that upgrading is not automatic and that there is no certainty over which, if any, Southeast Asia plants will be allocated higher value-added functions than presently performed. One constraint is said to be the high labour turnover of newly trained workers and engineers which, for the present at least, makes it unlikely that any Southeast Asia site will be allocated manufacturing responsibilities for wholly new products. Thus, while Singapore has become a “high end” electronics manufacturing centre, its further technological progress is unlikely within Matsushita’s corporate strategy. In 1989, Singapore became a regional headquarters for Matsushita. This establishment might have been a prelude to raising the autonomy of investment under the regional headquarters’ control except that the opening was primarily encouraged by the city-state’s taxation incentive for establishing “operational headquarters”. Conflicts with taxation legislation in Japan led to the closure of the regional office. With the more recent focus on China as a new investment location, the challenges to upgrading in Singapore and throughout Southeast Asia have increased. There are other issues to be considered in the evaluation of the flying geese model, particularly the status afforded Japanese strategies over those by other investors. Japan is the largest individual source of FDI in the main Southeast Asian economies but nowhere does it account for over half of all foreign investment. Moreover, in the newest investment location of Vietnam, FDI is overwhelmingly dominated by ethnic Chinese organizations based in the former colonies of Hong Kong and Macau or Taiwan (Hayer and Han 1998). Thailand and the Philippines do have a high dependency upon Japanese investments to generate exports but this does not account for all their industrialization experience. To a large degree, Thailand continues to be supported by a strong rice economy and by its strength in textiles and apparel. Prior to the financial market collapse, a competent civil service and well-organized, large-scale finance capital in the form of Chinese-Thai financial companies supported indigenous industrialization (McFarlane 1998a). In the case of the Philippines, the dynamics of industrialization

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are intertwined with the larger shift to a more transparent and less corrupt political system (McFarlane 1998b). The tendency to overlook the actual experience of those working inside the factories and other industrial workplaces is another gap in the flying geese model as well as with most other accounts of the region’s industrialization experience. The data on foreign investment flows and GDP growth are invariably presented as indicators of modernization and improved quality of life. The reality for the individuals involved can be complex. As Rigg (1997, p. 236) points out, the conditions in many of the region’s factories are poor, with avenues for resistance and protest circumscribed and the remuneration at times so low as to be reprehensible. There seem to be two main reasons why such realities have failed to stem the flow of individuals seeking to join the industrial workforce. First, the choices are often limited, less rewarding and factory work at least provides an escape from what is perceived, among the young at least, to be the greater drudgery and backwardness of rural or informal sector work. Second, Singapore’s and Malaysia’s transition from low-wage locations to comparatively highwage and high-skill production centres marks out the route that other governments believe their own industrialization experience can follow (Rigg 1997, p. 236). The Indonesian island of Batam, within a 45-minute ferry ride from Singapore, is one place among many in Southeast Asia where the realities of industrialization clash with the aspiration for a new way of life. Located close to the metropolis of Singapore, Indonesia has long held ambition to replicate this modernization in its nearby Riau islands, especially Batam, which was designated a special development zone with its own development authority in 1971 (Peachey 1998). That ambition looked set to be realized in the early 1990s after Singapore and Indonesia co-operated in the establishment of Batamindo Industrial Park, the first project to attract substantial overseas investment to the island outside the marine service sector. A “Batam boom” took off as leading transnational corporations (TNCs) moved in to set up labour-intensive factories, attracted by Indonesia’s low wage costs within an industrial estate offering Singapore guarantees of administrative certainty and infrastructure reliability. News of the boom set off a wave of migration to the island that swamped the island’s infrastructure and capacity to provide employment, housing, or basic social facilities. The population of slightly over 50,000 in 1985 had increased to an official population of over 350,000 in 1999, which was probably a large underestimate due to the mushrooming of illegal squatter housing. The migrants have come from all over the Indonesian archipelago, including as far away as Flores in East Indonesia. Initially the ninety odd

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factories in Batamindo Industrial Park, managed by Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries relied on their own specially recruited workforce, principally of young women housed in dormitories on the estate. Increasingly they have been able to recruit locally from among independent migrants but their preferences remain single women with school qualifications and under the age of twenty-four. For women who are married and with children or outside the preferred age range opportunities for employment shrink. Factory jobs for men are few in number. The engineering and shipyards, and construction provide work in addition to low-paid service work such as security or taxi driving but otherwise the informal sector has to be turned to. From the promise of becoming the next Singapore, Batam has rapidly acquired the traditional problems of low-income cities with all the social and infrastructure problems associated with poor squatter communities. Batam has also experienced communal violence. In July 1999 North Sumatra’s Bataks and east Indonesia’s Flores migrants clashed, leaving seventeen dead and many injured (Straits Times, 3 August 1999). An industrial future can be glimpsed on the Singapore horizon but its actual attainment is still a distant prospect. Rural Transitions The rapid emergence of urban industrialization can overlook how Southeast Asia is still primarily a rural world (Rigg 1997). That rural world has seen the replacement of formerly isolated, inward-looking, self-sufficient, and agricultural-based communities by ones that are enmeshed within commercial production for the market of a wider range of agricultural and non-agricultural produce. Of course, to generalize about such a major activity is not easy because of the variations between individual economies. For example, the present-day proportions of the labour force engaged directly in farming, fishing, and forestry range from as high as 80 per cent in Cambodia and Laos, around 65 per cent in Vietnam and Myanmar, and 54 per cent in Thailand to lower proportions in Indonesia (45 per cent), the Philippines (40 per cent), and Malaysia (16 per cent) (figures quoted in CIA 2000). Nevertheless, a common experience can be identified in the advance of thoroughly capitalist market relationships in place of community and subsistence forms of agriculture (Minas 2001). The increasing involvement in commercial production for local and global markets has entailed the transformation of social relations at the local level. The shift to a wholly capitalistic rural economy has been associated with a growth in output higher than in any other less developed region

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(Minas 2001). This achievement originated in a change in government evaluation of the importance of supporting agricultural production. In the immediate post-colonial period, agriculture was rarely the major concern of most of the new states of Southeast Asia. Industrialization was the development priority. Reflecting the theoretical orthodoxy of the then fashionable economists such as Albert Hirschmann, the case of encouraging a shift from agriculture to manufacturing was accepted. Manufacturing, Hirschman argued, generated more economic linkages than agriculture and was therefore the more effective development multiplier (Hirschman 1958). During the 1960s, Southeast Asian governments shared increased interest in transforming the agricultural sector for a number of reasons. Despite the planning for industrial development, agriculture remained the major export earner. It became evident that industrial expansion was unlikely to accelerate sufficiently to absorb the growth in rural population. Political and security considerations also provoked renewed attention to agriculture. Guerilla wars supported by peasants in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines and elsewhere saw efforts to undermine mass support for these disturbances. Government resources and international aid funds were directed at reducing the sources of peasant discontent. Related to this, agricultural development was linked to government-encouraged population movements designed to help consolidate the authority of newly independent states. Governments moved peasants into areas where minority ethnic groups were perceived to pose problems for national integration to quell actual or potential sources of resistance. A further attraction of state-sponsored internal migration was to provide land for the landless, without addressing the challenge of land reform. The renewed attention to agricultural development in the 1960s coincided with the beginning of the “green revolution”. New agricultural technologies were given official encouragement as most countries were reaching the limits of expansion in areas that had previously been uncultivated. Moreover, the new high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat seemed to promise two additional advantages. Increased output promised a drop in food prices and improved diets for the poor, optimistically ending the problem of malnutrition. At the same time, because the new varieties required increased labour inputs compared with previous crops, it was hoped that they would put the rural unemployed and underemployed to work. The green revolution had its greatest effects during the period 1967 to 1984 (Minas 2001). The long-term evaluation of how far the revolution

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delivered its promise emphasizes its differentiated impact. It expanded agriculture production — mainly due to higher yields per unit of land area — but was slower to diffuse to small-scale farmers than larger and richer farmers (Rigg 1989). The initial take-up by richer farmers tended to reduce the employment benefits as these farmers also had the greatest propensity to invest in labour-saving technology. As these high-yielding seeds and production methods became widespread so did a tendency to reduce labour demands (Rigg 1997, p. 251). This outcome was especially seen in rural areas where the availability of alternative occupations had reduced farm labour supply. Technologies and cultivation practices from Rotavators to herbicides were attractive to farmers to save labour in the face of non-farm induced labour shortages. The potential to increase yields was a bonus (Rigg 1997, p. 251). Overall, Rigg (1997) identifies seven types of change that are widely found, although with varying intensities, across the region’s agricultural economy: (1) Subsistence crops: the increased use of wage labour and equipment and a higher proportion of production for sale. (2) Cash crops: the increased relative importance of cash crops and corresponding decline of subsistence and rice production, measured both in their contribution to the farm economy and in the relative area under cultivation. As well, the intensity of cash crop production is growing. The most important cash crops in the region are rubber, palm oil, sugar, coconuts, coffee, copra, tea, tobacco, pepper, and other spices. (3) Raising and sale of livestock: livestock production, including fish, has become a specialization for an increasing proportion of farmers as well as a general source of growth. Livestock industries are the fastest growing type of agriculture in Southeast Asia and now make up around 10 per cent of agricultural output (Minas 2001, p. 203). (4) Wage labouring, on-farm and local: wage labour has replaced reciprocal labour exchange and self-sufficiency for an increasing share of production. (5) Non-farming activities, on-farm: small-scale farmers are increasingly combining agriculture with unrelated income-generating activity such as cloth or furniture production. (6) Non-farming activities, off-farm but local: combining farm work and village residence with off-farm employment in factories, government services, or informal sector activities has become more prevalent than

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previously. The off-farm employment may be seasonal or a permanent full- or part-time. (7) Migration for employment: migration for employment in distant locations has grown, removing agriculture as an ongoing activity for these migrants but without entirely breaking with their rural base. To this list of changes may also be added the increase in cross-border trade of basic staples. Vietnam, for example, has become a major rice supplier as other countries shift away from rice in their attempts to move to highervalue crops (Taylor 1994). It has become one of the main sources of rice for Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei and also an important supplier to Indonesia and the Philippines. Reflecting this kind of changes, the share of rice in agricultural production has fallen from about 75 per cent in the 1950s and 1960s to somewhere between 40–50 per cent in the 1990s (Minas 2001, p. 202). Borders The political map of Southeast Asia has been comparatively stable in the recent history of the region. The main exception to this has been Indochina and the reunification of North and South Vietnam and the recent emergence of East Timor as an independent nation on 20 May 2002. Otherwise there have been only minor territorial changes although some unresolved boundaries, particularly in the division of marine resources, continue to be a source of tension (Lee, Y. L. 1982; Forbes 1998; and Chapter 2 in this volume). Given the continuity between colonial and post-colonial political borders, reference to the borderlands may seem inappropriate except that in a world where borders are thought to be fast losing their significance, the experience of Southeast Asia is a notable exception. The era of Western colonial dominance and expansionism in the region was first responsible for the imposition of precise territorial boundaries. The political map thus created bore a superficial resemblance to the outlines of earlier indigenous states. Directly, the modern political map was the outcome of colonial rivalries and the desire to control valued resources. The influence exerted by riverine and sea routes largely accounted for the continuity in political borders. Consequently it has been argued that the greater significance of the political boundaries was to hasten a territorial definition of society in place of the previously more fluid power domains and identities of people. Post-colonial Southeast Asia has continued to encourage this transition. Southeast Asian governments have viewed

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territorial loyalty as a necessary condition for consolidating their sovereignty (Grundy-Warr 1998). The priority afforded the integrity of borders has had two consequences. First, it has resulted in a distinctive Southeast Asian approach to crossborder integration in the form of “growth triangles”. Second, it has shaped attitudes to the indigenous populations that inhabit the remote border regions. Where the border population includes subsistence communities, it has hastened attempts to “modernize” and discredit their ways of life. Where the border population is ethnically distinct and holds separatist aspirations, complex processes of assimilation and adaptation to reduce organized resistance to the central state’s territorial control have resulted. Looking at the first of the two border phenomena, in Southeast Asia two types of cross-border co-operation have been classified as growth triangles: (1) Resource management growth triangles of which the major example is the Mekong Valley (strictly not a triangle since it involves co-operation between Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China) and where co-operation is primarily motivated by the need to co-ordinate the use of a shared resource, in this case the Mekong River that flows through multiple territories. (2) Economic development growth triangles of which the major examples are the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore (IMS) growth triangle, the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand (IMT) growth triangle, and the “East ASEAN Growth Area” (EAGA) incorporating parts of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as Brunei.2 These triangles are recent government-led initiatives that share a common development strategy based on the promotion of complementary specialization in national border territories. Thus in the case of the IMS growth triangle the complementarity envisaged designates Singapore as a centre for high-value manufacturing, trade and business services, Malaysia as a base for intermediate-level industry, and the Riau as an area of lowvalue and labour-intensive manufacturing. Specialization in this way is designed to attract investment by enabling investors to retain activities in close proximity while making use of contrasting environments. Most academic comment on growth triangles has interpreted them as further examples of the development of a borderless world economy (Ohmae 1990, 1995; Parsonage 1992; Lo and Marcotullio 2000). That interpretation overlooks the particular regional environment and government

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motives for cross-border co-operation. The creation of an “integrated borderland” implies considerable merger of the economies of the adjoining nation states facilitating the unimpeded movement of people, goods, capital, and resources (Martinez 1994). In this “trans-state” development each national participant relinquishes its sovereignty to a significant degree for the sake of achieving mutual progress. An “interdependent borderland”, on the other hand, may exhibit increased cross-border economic interaction but there is little or no weakening of the two political sovereignties. Interdependence rather than integration is seen with growth triangles as reflected in three of their attributes (Grundy-Warr and Perry 1998): (a) Co-operation without Institutional Innovation. Growth triangles seek to promote greater transboundary economic activity without resolving potentially awkward institutional and legislative changes. This approach has been described as a particularly “Asian” style of government which stresses a minimum of formal, legalistic decision-making processes. It fits the “ASEAN way” and preference for dealing through networking and consensus behind closed doors (Abonyi 1994; Thant, Tang, and Kakazu 1994). Rather than transparent and accountable agencies and planning documents with clearly spelled out objectives and timeframes, the favoured mechanisms of inter-state co-operation are “familiarization tours, formal and informal contacts amongst counterparts, the constitution of ad hoc problem-solving committees, and visits by ministerial delegations that emphasize the establishment of interpersonal relationships” (Kumar and Siddique 1994, p. 55). In this way, growth triangle co-operation is initiated by senior politicians without the need for new institutional structures and without too many changes to “national” regulatory frameworks (Abonyi 1994). (b) National Security-Enhancing Features. There are certain “securityenhancing consequences of transnational production” for the states involved in growth triangle projects (Acharya 1995, p. 178). Subregional co-operation, to the extent that they strengthen bilateral ties between neighbours, can help to lower political tensions without any great loss of political sovereignty. The fact that economic cooperation can progress with existing institutions, whilst regulatory changes can be restricted to particular enclave developments, helps to preserve national boundaries as protectors of state sovereignty but allows for greater economic transaction across political divides. (c) Incremental Intra-Regional Co-operation. Some observers have suggested that participation in growth triangles may be viewed as a way of

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advancing the cause of broader intra-regional economic co-operation (for example, see Kumar and Siddique 1994). This interpretation has yet to be reflected in actual progress. The IMS growth triangle has resulted in the transformation of the Riau islands of Batam and Bintan but has had little impact on Singapore–Malaysia and Singapore– Indonesia relations. It did encourage new initiatives between Indonesia and Malaysia, including the triangle’s geographical extension to include West Sumatra and the Malaysian states of Negri Sembilan and south Pahang, but the practical significance of this died with the financial market collapse in 1997 (Peachey, Perry, and Grundy-Warr 1997). In the case of the Mekong Basin, the four downstream countries signed the “Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin” in April 1995. Subsequent implementation has been frustrated by ideological differences, regional geopolitics and the absence of China in formal institutional arrangements. More recently, however, there has been greater willingness on the part of China to cooperate with states in the subregion. The second aspect of Southeast Asia border zones is their association with ethnic minorities whose aspirations for an independent homeland have been perceived as a challenge to state security (see Sukhumbhand and Chai-Anan 1992). The association between geographical peripherality and counter-identities and a sense of “marginality” has seen little change despite several decades of attempts to weaken or assimilate borderland communities. The ethnic separatist movements have presented the greatest challenge to state authority in the case of Myanmar. The Philippines and Thailand have faced separatist movements on their frontiers in the form of Muslim groups located in areas that have previously existed as sultanates and which seek to preserve their independence from a centralizing state. In Indonesia, territorial conflicts with localized peoples range over the vast archipelago but with border regions being the sites of the most intense confrontation. Although East Timor has now gained independence, secessionist struggles remain in the northern Sumatran province of Aceh and in West Papua. With the overriding concern to maintain territorial integrity, outside of the growth triangle projects, integration across borders has not been encouraged. In reality the local populations on the border zones have often continued to operate across borders, but such integration is typically conducted in the “grey” economy. The manner in which East Timor succeeded in obtaining its independence from Indonesia is not encouraging for the settlement of

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disputed sovereignties in other border territories. Following the resignation of President Soeharto in May 1998, his successor B. J. Habibie acted quickly to resolve the resistance to its rule of East Timor, occupied by Indonesia since 1975. In January 1999, after negotiations with the former colonial power of Portugal, Habibie announced that a referendum would be held to resolve whether the majority of East Timorese wanted independence. The ballot was to be held within seven months. East Timor’s political parties and the United Nations favoured a longer preparation period for the ballot. It was refused by Habibie who was cognizant of his tenuous hold on power and constrained by the demands of his military to shorten the time for consultation. Elements in the Indonesian military, including the commander-in-chief, General Wiranto, opposed the surrender of sovereignty and saw that the chances of destabilizing the territory were greater over the short term (Kingsburg 2001, p. 113). This destablization commenced soon after the referendum was announced through help to anti-independence militias. It turned into a savage fury after the announcement in September that 78.5 per cent of those voting favoured independence. In the ensuing carnage, virtually the whole population of East Timor was displaced, either fleeing or being forcibly shipped out of the territory. Peace was restored after Indonesia agreed to allow the U.N.-authorized International Force for East Timor to enter the territory, but three years on the future of its independence is far from settled. The maintenance of border security relies on the continued presence of international peacekeepers. It remains unclear how far Indonesia has fully accepted the island’s independence with, for example, many of the generals who supported the militia fighters retaining their positions within the Indonesian army.

Regional Integration through ASEAN The strongest endorsement of Southeast Asia as a distinct region is the creation in 1967 and sustenance of the political grouping of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). It has provided a means for political and economic integration of the regional grouping and, in so doing, given further credence to Southeast Asia as a region. Takano (1999) traces the process of enlargement of the regional association from its inception. ASEAN has helped to facilitate trade (Sekiguchi 1999). However, there were no great expectations in the early years of its formation that it would succeed or even survive given the diversity among the five original members — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand — and the

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fact that there were more competitive elements than areas for co-operation. Similar resource endowment tends to lend itself to competition rather than co-operation. Japan, for example, initially paid little attention to ASEAN and did not even acknowledge its existence. In the event, ASEAN more than survived and has now expanded to encompass all of Southeast Asia. From the start, ASEAN had the vision of a regional association that would encompass all of the countries in the region. This was reinforced in the 1995 Bangkok Declaration that “ASEAN shall work towards the speedy realization of an ASEAN comprising all Southeast Asian countries as it enters the twentyfirst century.” Brunei Darussalam joined the grouping in 1984 after the country’s independence from Britain in 1982. Vietnam became the seventh member of ASEAN during the Twenty-Eighth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) held in Brunei on 29–30 July 1995. Earlier, Cambodia signed the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation (TAC) in January 1995, when it was granted ASEAN observer status when the Cambodian National Assembly ratified the TAC on 30 June. Myanmar signed the TAC while Laos acceded to the TAC during the Twenty-Fifth ASEAN AMM, which was held in Singapore in July 1992 (Buszynski 1996). ASEAN decided to admit all three countries, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, to the Association by July 1997. Hun Sen’s coup that ousted Prince Ranariddh by force delayed Cambodia’s entry. Following the relatively peaceful elections held on 26 July 1998 Cambodia joined ASEAN in 1999. The long-held vision of a perfect ten nations under ASEAN to include all the states in Southeast Asia has been achieved. In the words of the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, ASEAN was brought closer to creating “one Southeast Asia”.3 For the present, ASEAN remains: a mechanism for regional co-operation, not regional integration. It is not a supra-national organization. Most of the members of ASEAN are new states which became independent only after the Second World War and still jealously guard their sovereignty. (Singh 1998)

Indeed the immediate impact of ASEAN’s enlargement is to introduce new challenges to deepen integration, such as Vietnam’s territorial dispute with China. The inclusion of Myanmar and Cambodia incorporates into the organization internal political instability that has threatened to engulf Myanmar’s neighbour — Thailand. Myanmar’s military leadership continued resistance to the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the elections in 1988, alarms Thailand because they are in the frontline of any popular unrest. Fears of displaced persons imposing demands on

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Thailand’s border controls and refugee management have prompted outspoken criticism of Myanmar’s military government. Although Myanmar is interested in promoting Thai trade and investment, there has been a series of incidents including large numbers of Karen refugees fleeing the country into Thai territory.4 A further dimension of Thailand’s concern is Myanmar’s receipt of military assistance from China in return for “listening posts” on the Myanmar coastline to monitor the movements of the Indian Navy in the Cocos Islands, Ramree Island, and Victoria Point. ASEAN’s admission of Myanmar as a member in 1999 sparked protests from the West. Although Thailand declared that ASEAN’s policy of “constructive engagement” with Myanmar had achieved results, negating Western demands for direct political pressure, Thailand went beyond normal ASEAN protocols in calling for “flexible engagement” to allow open internal debate among ASEAN member states (Buszynski, 1996, p. 7). In a news report, it was quoted that the former Thai Foreign Minister, Surin Pitsuwan, believes the diversity of ASEAN’s members has become “baggage” and warned that the grouping must change if it is to remain relevant. He had earlier called for members of ASEAN to abandon the long-held unwritten rule on mutual non-interference among member countries. He was of the opinion that diversity among ASEAN members may once have justified a lack of open conflict, but after thirty years it had become a stumbling block arising from problems in “some member countries” and had “become a potential weakness for the organization as a whole”. His call for a policy of “flexible engagement” was opposed by other ASEAN members except for the Philippines (Straits Times, 13 August 1998). The emergence of new independent East Timor is a further test for ASEAN if it decided to extend its influence to the territory. The task will be difficult in view of the horrific experience of East Timorese at the hands of the pro-Indonesian militia (see earlier discussion). Moreover, ASEAN both as a group as well as it individual members did little to ease East Timor’s passage towards nationhood. East Timor’s decision to adopt Portuguese as its national language is clearly an attempt to put distance between itself and the rest of the region. Challenges from the enlargement of ASEAN remain but there are offsetting advantages that hold the prospect of deepening regional cooperation. Gates and Mya Than (2001, p. 2) argue that an expanded ASEAN can increase its diplomatic and economic weight in the international community, augment ASEAN’s strategic credibility and enable it to address regional issues more effectively. Economically, its market size will increase by 38 per cent (in terms of population). An extended regional division of

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labour may stimulate greater productive specialization and efficiency, potentially reduce inflation pressures, and affect Southeast Asian migration patterns. Of course, these advantages are not realized easily. A dual-track system that could breed greater divisions and ignite latent animosities between the haves and have nots. Whether ASEAN-10 can continue to function with a high degree of cohesion and trust built up among its original members will be tested in the early part of the new century in the context of an uncertain economic future. For the present, ASEAN’s expansion has reinforced the region’s “unity in diversity” and characterization as a “shatter belt” between China, on the one hand, and India, on the other. Two of the newly admitted members (Vietnam and Laos) are run by communist party politburos while Myanmar is ruled by a military junta, and there remain great economic differences between the new members and the old (Singh 1998).

Miracle Economies Tested The late 1990s saw environmental and economic tests of ASEAN’s capacity to promote regional co-operation. The former came in the form of Indonesian forest fires that spread smoke haze5 over neighbouring territory and brought external criticism of the region’s perceived environmental irresponsibility. A greater and not unrelated challenge came with the economic crisis that followed the fall of the Thai baht in mid-1997. The crisis rapidly spread to the rest of Southeast Asia and neighbouring countries including South Korea and Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan (see Poon and Perry 1998; Godement 1998; Jomo 1998; Montes 1998; World Bank 1998; Jackson 1999; Frankel 2000; and Woo 2001). The “contagion” beyond the original centre made the crisis more than a set of individual financial problems. It alerted lenders and borrowers alike to the need for greater regional co-operation. Immediately, crisis-induced recessions exposed the extent of so-called “crony capitalism”, threatening the stability of political institutions in Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia. Within a year, Asian stock markets and currencies lost as much as 70 per cent of their value since June 1997 and appeared to draw to an end the Asian miracle. There are many studies on the impact of the financial crisis affecting individual countries such as Indonesia (Garran 1998; McLeod 1999), the Philippines (Montes 1999), and Thailand (Garran 1998; Doner and Ramsay 1999). Chia and Bhanu (1999) examine the human security dimension of the economic crisis affecting Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reviews the social

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impact of the Asian crisis (ILO 1998) as does the World Bank (1998). The Asian Development Bank’s 1998 Annual Report (ADB 1998) adopted as special theme “Governance in Asia: From Crisis to Opportunity”. The economic crisis severely affected the living standards of the poor. It caused a fall in real wages, rising unemployment and reduced labour earnings, decline in non-labour incomes, shrinking private transfers, exposure of meagre assets of the poor, and slowing of the accumulation of human, financial, and physical capital (World Bank 2001, p. 162). In the case of Indonesia, the incidence of poverty rose almost 50 per cent as a result of the financial crisis. A World Bank study in the Philippines found that households with higher education are more vulnerable to wage and employment risks.6 The economic crisis will surely have an effect on further reshaping the social, economic, and environmental landscapes of the region. At the Thirty-First ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in July 1998 in Manila, the Singapore Foreign Minister, S. Jayakumar, expressed deep concern that each member country would go its own separate way in dealing with the economic crisis. The effect would be to weaken ASEAN as a regional body in the eyes of outsiders. He urged members to demonstrate their resolve in acting collectively as one to maintain ASEAN’s unity and strength (Business Times, 23 July 1998). Singapore acted on its own advice through giving help to Indonesia, including a US$10 billion guarantee for letters of credit issued by Indonesian banks to assist Indonesian trade. As well, Singapore’s Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, revealed that the country held back the sale of RM5 billion in order to shore up the value of the Malaysian currency.7 Daljit Singh (1998) observed that “the credibility and confidence of ASEAN as an organization has depended in part on the remarkable growth rates in the region”. In contrast, the economic challenges encountered post 1997 has adversely affected the commitment of the ASEAN-6 to its new members. At the Second ASEAN Finance Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta in February 1998, the group called for the promotion of trade within Southeast and East Asian countries using local currencies where possible. An ASEAN Select Committee comprising senior officials of ministries of finance and the central banks was set up to devise a economic monitoring mechanism. The ability to realize these objectives is partly influenced by the willingness of international agencies to support ASEAN and this is less certain than it was. The possibility of insulating or retaining control over national political and economic space, the preferred “ASEAN way”, is potentially threatened by the U.S. and IMF influence. Malaysia was notable in resisting an IMF rescue package, introducing its own recovery programme of measures that

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contrasted with those preferred by the IMF. Other developments may also constrain support from Western institutions. Exposure to external pressures from the United States and the IMF and the increasingly powerful international financial markets is encouraging ASEAN to contemplate formalizing linkages to the larger East Asian economies of Japan, China, and South Korea (Beeson 2001). This may presage a way of reducing Western influence and promoting economic revival on the basis of “Asian values”. At the same time, ASEAN’s search for a counterweight to American influence is also leading to closer dialogue with Europe. This is to the mutual interest of both parties. The possibility that the potential advantages of the historical links between certain European countries and their former colonies might be lost has provided a powerful incentive for revitalizing interest in the region (Beeson 2001, p. 235). This dialogue is not straightforward as European countries, at least some, place issues of human rights and values, especially with regard to labour standards, higher on the agenda than the United States has tended to. Partly reflecting this, European preference has been engagement with ASEAN minus Myanmar but including Japan, China, and South Korea. The first ASEANEurope Meeting (ASEM) took place on this basis in 1996 at a time when the economies of East Asia were still performing strongly and European countries were willing to set aside fundamental clashes of values. By contrast, at the ASEM in 1998, when East Asia was gripped by crisis, European countries voiced their perceived need for reform of business governance and the relationships between business and political élites in East Asia. Nonetheless, such institutionalization of an ASEAN plus three grouping has the potential to significantly deepen East Asia’s sense of itself as a region. As Beeson (2001, p. 236) points out, the ASEAN process has effectively given expression to the long-standing proposal by Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, for an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) comprising an “Asians only” forum for regional development. In this way, rather than simply being the victims of external forces over which they have no control, the nations of Southeast Asia are seeking to take control of their environment. The increased political and strategic power when part of a wider grouping encompassing the larger economies of Northeast Asia may provide Southeast Asia with a way of increasing their influence and independence that they could not achieve alone. The scenario of a greater East Asian grouping deepening regional integration is dependent on Southeast Asia and East Asian finding a basis for expanding co-operation. This is far from straightforward (Hoadley 2001). The larger East Asian economies have potential to advance economically

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much faster than Southeast Asia. Any widening development gap between the two regions could challenge the deepening of mutual interests. However, Southeast Asian economies do not have the luxury of choice and run the risk of being isolated and peripheralized. Strategic issues may arise from the winding back of America’s military forces in the region alongside the continued modernization of China’s military capabilities. The states of Southeast Asia may feel a need to strengthen their own defence capabilities and to search for new allies as a counterweight to China. The latter has shown considerable restraint and is willing to come to terms as in the case of the South China Sea territorial issue (see Chapter 2 by Forbes). The economic crisis has brought about new balances vis-à-vis extraregional powers. In terms of external influence, by holding on to the value of RMB (renminbi), China, which has a booming economy and US$270 billion in foreign reserves (as in October 2002),8 has been able to claim a degree of leadership, comparing it favourably against Japan, not allowing its currency to devaluate while the latter having allowed the yen to fall against the U.S. dollar (see da Cunha 1998). In this regard, Chinese gain has been at the expense of the Japanese. The acceptance of IMF financial assistance to overcome the economic crisis on the part of Indonesia and Thailand has considerably strengthened the influence of the United States in the region since the IMF is the main source of funds available to help tide over the economic crisis. Malaysia, however, has resolutely refused help from the IMF, preferring to hold on to self-sufficiency and independence with considerable success. At the national level, several of the larger Southeast Asian states are facing internal conflict that threatened to bring about breakaway states. The creation of East Timor in 2002 has reinforced Indonesia’s resolve to hold the country together at all cost, even at the expense of granting a certain degree of autonomy to the resource-rich regions including Aceh and Papua. Jakarta has been agreeable to share revenue from the proceeds of extracting these resources with them in a much more generous fashion (see Chapter 2 by Forbes). In spite of attempts by the Philippines to relieve themselves of the historical burden of being too closely tied to the United States, the government has opted to call in American “advisers” to deal with the Muslim-inspired separatists in the southern provinces. Myanmar continues to wage within its own boundaries internal military action against minority groups bent on seeking autonomous statehood. These internal divisive forces bring with them forces that carry potential disruptions to the cohesiveness of ASEAN, especially when major Western

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powers are unwilling to give in to human rights violations. ASEAN will need to find ways to help solve these internal problems, and to do so would mean shedding old modes of handling relationship among member countries.

Entering the New Millennium One comment on the region is that “Asia approaches the new century in an introspective and apprehensive mood. The almost unbridled optimism about Asia’s ascendant place in the world that prevailed before the recent crisis has now given way to much soul-searching about the foundations of the so-called Asian miracle.” (Noda 1998, p. 7). The Asian crisis has raised other issues to the fore. In the opening remarks by Japan’s former Prime Minister, Obuchi Keizo, he called for “new strategies for economic development that attach importance to human security with a view to enhancing the long-term development of the [Asian] region”. (Noda 1998, p. 10). The problems include poverty, environmental degradation, organized crime, uncontrolled migration, terrorism, and health that emanate directly or indirectly from the financial crisis. These problems do not respect national borders and require the co-ordinated action of the international community. While the present volume does not specifically address these human security issues, nevertheless the chapters provide insights into the fundamentals that determine the course of development processes that give rise to them. The sudden shift in the region’s economic standing has provoked much discussion about the previous status of the miracle economies. It exposed the vulnerability to shocks in the financial sector but how far this nullifies the previous success has yet to be fully resolved. Liquidity problems, inadequate banking supervision, irrationally exuberant overseas portfolio investors, and less than stellar performances by the international financial community were the proximate causes of the contagion (Pack 2001, p. 96). Few of the Southeast Asian economies are sufficiently prepared to deal with the problems associated with globalization. Opening up of the domestic markets and exposing local inefficient businesses to powerful foreign competition would mean serious job losses and social turmoil in affected sectors of the economy. Whether the vulnerability to the institutional weaknesses was ultimately a consequence of a failure to sustain productivity growth is the subject of conflicting economic analysis (see Stiglitz 2001). A consensus perhaps does exist that the decades of the new millennium will be a more challenging environment for regional growth than those at

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the end of the 1900s. Stiglitz (2001) gives four reasons to expect a slowdown in economic growth: (a) Diminishing returns eventually set in and this makes the task of sustaining growth progressively harder. In other words, it is easier to achieve high rates of growth when investments in physical and human capital have large productivity benefits than when the marginal impacts bring modest returns. (b) The export-oriented strategies that provided the source of miracle economies are becoming less effective. This approach has been imitated beyond Southeast Asia and at the same time the world is becoming saturated with the goods most frequently exported, especially those produced from the key electronics sector. New services of comparative advantage will need to be discovered. (c) The larger countries will need to devote resources to reduce regional inequalities. This will pose resource demands to make the places where economic growth is concentrated more widely than at present. It implies, for example, better public transportation systems, improved environment and public amenities such as parks. There must also be investment to diversify the locations attractive to industrial investment. (d) Even assuming some improvements in market regulation and institutional governance, by national and international agencies, debtdriven growth will be difficult to manage in a world of increasing openness to volatile foreign capital flows. An implication is that business investment may have to rely on retained earnings to a greater extent than previously. This will inevitably slow down growth compared with where firms have had access to external financial markets. These challenges will be addressed in the context of new relationships between Southeast Asia and the industrial world. When the crisis started in Thailand, policy-makers in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the European Union were reluctant to commit either their own resources or those of the IMF to rescuing Thailand (Sato 2001, p. 211). They took the view that the crisis was primarily a problem for Japan. The U.S. perspective was that the problem had started in East Asia and should be solved in East Asia. An attitude that partly reflected how the exposure of U.S. banks to defaults by local borrowers was much less than that of Japanese and European banks. U.S. banks had tended to concentrate on short-term transactions and were comparatively uninvolved in lending to local borrowers. This situation changed as the crisis spread across Southeast Asia

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and then to South Korea, Russia, and Brazil, where U.S. and European banks had significantly greater exposure to bad debts. Thus the Japanese government proposal for a separate Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) gave way to IMF rescue packages for Thailand and Indonesia. Without doubt, both the internal and external forces unleashed through ethnic, religious, and cultural motivations on the one hand, and globalization on the other hand, are pushing major broad-scale changes to the geography of the region. It is unlikely that the countries of Southeast Asia can remain a regional entity in the form of ASEAN if recent moves to form larger economic groupings by incorporating the large North East Asian economies prove to be the forerunner of things to come. The stronger economies of the Southeast Asian region may feel that the region simply does not have the option of giving itself time to forge a sufficiently strong regional group. This is in spite of the likelihood of being brought under a larger economic (and political) grouping where the direction of change will be dictated by more powerful non-Southeast Asian states. The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) grouping will likely remain a loose association because of the inclusion of countries in the eastern Pacific Rim. Therefore, within the next few decades, the geography of Pacific Asia rather than Southeast Asia may be a more correctly interpreted and analysed.

Some Highlights This first chapter brings together several key aspects of the human and environmental landscapes of the region to serve as an introduction to the rest of the book. The main theme of the chapter is change and transformation and reflects that emphasis in the volume as a whole. The book is organized by putting together the basic aspects of the region, i.e. political development (Chapter 2), people (Chapter 3), and the environment and natural resources (Chapter 4) followed by a chapter on agriculture (Chapter 5). The next two chapters, one on rural–urban relations (Chapter 6) and the other on urbanization (Chapter 7), bring in the key element of the region’s urban development, recognizing that change in the region emerges largely from the urban centres. The element of international transportation (Chapter 8) is then taken up, followed by Chapter 9 that discusses the rapidly developing information and communications technology (ICT) phenomenon. The final chapters that follow are on the industrial landscape (Chapter 10), trade (Chapter 11), and tourism (Chapter 12). The authors provide a review of his/her respective topic but each taking up the discussion from a particular viewpoint.

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Chapter 2 by Forbes discusses the geopolitical change from the colonial era to the present. He traces the evolution of the present international boundaries that thereby defines the existence of each nation state. It relates to the strains and stresses that still seriously afflict relationships between neighbouring countries both over land as well as over ocean space issues. The dispute over territorial seaspace in the South China Sea involving Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam together with China and Taiwan illustrates the tensions among some member states of ASEAN as well as with those outside of it. The situation of border dispute stands in contrast to the concept of the borderless region arising from the economic integration sought by ASEAN as a regional grouping. Technologically, ICT provides one way to break down borders while subregional co-operation — growth triangles — is working towards greater regional integration in trade and investments as well as in other important ways. The inability to resolve some of the disputed border issues also highlights the weakness of ASEAN itself. A thoroughgoing treatment is given by Hugo in Chapter 3 to a fundamental aspect of the region, namely, demographic change from 1960 to the end of the millennium. His analysis brings out the nature, causes, and consequences of the changes in population. He points out the great heterogeneity of and the contrasts exhibited by the population within the region as a whole as well as within the individual states. He discusses the scale of international population movement and also its economic and social significance. A major feature discussed is the movement of population — some of it is illegal and forced. It has added to the complexity of the spatial pattern affecting almost every country in the region, becoming involved as a significant origin and/or destination of international movements. He echoes the issue on refugees and illegal workers also highlighted by Forbes in the previous chapter. The solution to some of these issues will require policy formulation at the national and international levels. In Chapter 4, Greer and Perry open their discussion of the natural environment and resources by announcing that the biological resources in the Southeast Asian region are currently being exploited at an alarming rate, and many resources stocks are in exponential decline. Their analysis goes back to nineteenth century colonial legacy of exploitation of these resources. The authors focus on the region’s tropical forests pointing out that Southeast Asia is blessed with the greatest biological resource endowment in the world. Rates of biological production are globally high, and harvesting their natural productivity can meet the resource needs of a

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large section of society. Human impacts are threatening the integrity of ecological processes and reducing future opportunities for exploitation. They conclude that a solution from within the region alone is unrealistic. In Chapter 5, De Koninck examines the region’s agriculture development from the 1960s and focuses on the massive territorial expansion of land devoted to the industry. He brings in the many contrasting agricultural landscapes within the region and the associated political conflicts that are generated by such factors as ethnicity. He recalls the pessimism expressed by early scholars who studied various parts of the region and then discusses the efforts of several governments to find solutions to the strangulation of rural poverty and backwardness. One consequence of territorial expansion of agriculture has been the problem of massive deforestation, and he gives examples of this occurring in Vietnam and elsewhere. This reinforces the problem of forest depletion discussed in Chapter 3 by Greer and Perry. Rigg in Chapter 6 injects a special insight into the region by elucidating the aspect of rural–urban relations and livelihoods giving evidence of fundamental transformation in the lives and livelihoods of rural people. He also points out the region has made the transition from land abundance to land scarcity and that agricultural output comes at the expense of intensification rather than through extensification. The process has been made possible through the availability of non-farm working opportunities. Citing examples from the region, he finds that factory work and non-farm activities have also come to rural areas resulting in a blurring of the “rural” and “urban” worlds as interaction and interpenetration proceeded. The impact of globalization through urban systems in the region is taken up in Chapter 7 by Kelly and McGee. They state that the urbanization process is integral to the articulation between national economies and a global “space of flows” giving a historical account of the urbanization process from the colonial era. To the authors, urbanization in the 1990s has been the result of volatile globalization through integration of Southeast Asia and its cities into the global system. An essential aspect of the largely insular Southeast Asia is the aspect of international sea and air transport. This is examined by Rimmer in Chapter 8 by analysing the pattern of linkages of both modes of transport from the 1960s. He finds that inland transport is an “appendage” of international sea and air transport systems. The twin pacemakers of the “transport revolution” in Southeast Asia over the last half a century have been containerization and the advent of jet transport. He also discusses the phenomena of global strategic alliances in both sea and air transport. The

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development of superhubs is a common feature to both transport modes adding that the region is beneficially influenced by the development of ICT. The digital counterpart of transportation is information and electronic communications, which is taken up in the next chapter by Neil Coe (Chapter 9). One distinctive feature is the high degree of inequality with regard to ICT infrastructure and provision, as well as relatively high regulatory barriers to integration. He discusses the problems of a widening “digital divides” and the obstacles towards developing a truly integrated and extensive network. The lead in the development of ICT in the region has been provided by Singapore and Malaysia. Chapter 10 by Perry deals with related aspects of business networking and the changing industrial landscape. The economies of the region has greatly benefited from massive foreign investments from the West and then Japan. He commented that this has tended to perpetuate an external rather than regional dependence among Southeast Asia nations. He also attempts to unravel the source of indigenous industrial capital, much of which concentrated within Chinese-owned business groups described as the “bamboo network” of overseas Chinese business. He also discusses the phenomenon of the Japan-led flying geese model of industrial development in the region. The Asian financial crisis is then alluded to with an admonition that states must now ensure that the resources and assets accrued during the miracle years are used to prepare new economic directions. Jessie Poon deals with the East Asian region’s pattern of trade based on a trade network cluster model in Chapter 11. This provides a means to shed light on the region’s emerging trade patterns and hence the region’s development dynamics. She observes that over the twenty years (1975– 95), trade network clusters in Southeast Asia became bigger and more geographically coherent. There has been increased regionalization, suggesting that groups of countries may be becoming more and more linked up through trade. Albeit, she finds evidence to show that extra-, as opposed to intra-, regional orientation will remain important. The final chapter in the volume by Wong gives a review of tourism development in the region but provides insights into the patterns of tourism development. He argues that, over the second half of the twentieth century, the movement of people between and within nations for leisure purposes has been a major social force affecting nations bringing in completely new landscapes or “touristscapes” to the region. The impacts of tourism viewed through the social, economic, and environmental angles are discussed.

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Notes 01. Anon, “No need for Burma visit: Surakiart”, The Nation (Bangkok), 19 February 2001. 02. There are working groups on a range of activities including tourism, air and sea links, telecommunications, fisheries, agro-industry, forestry, energy, human resource development, people mobility, environmental protection, and financial services . 03. Straits Times, 28 July 1995 (quoted in Buszynski 1996). 04. An account of the conflict between Myanmar and Thailand is given by Buszynski (1996) as well as by Forbes (see Chapter 2 in this volume). 05. The haze caused severe health problems to those directly affected and interrupted aviation and shipping as well as drastically reduced tourism in affected areas. Singapore was able to provide evidence using satellite pictures to pinpoint the location of “hot spots” and to identify in some cases that the fires were started in large plantations taking advantage of the unusual dry weather conditions to clear forest for plantation crops. Malaysia sent teams of fire fighters to help put out fires in Sumatra but without apparent success. There is now a satellite and telecommunications system put in place by the Japanese Government to monitor and to provide early warning for the occurrence of fires 06. See quoted in ADB (2001). 07. This was revealed in Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh’s speech at the National Day rally on 9 August 1998. 08. The Economist, 11–17 January 2003, p. 90.

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Montes, M. F. “The Philippines as an Unwitting Participant in the Asian Financial Crisis”. In Asian Contagion: The Causes and Consequences of a Financial Crisis, edited by K. D. Jackson, pp. 241–68. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999. Mya Than, ed. ASEAN Beyond the Regional Crisis: Challenges and Initiatives. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001. Noda, P. J. The Asian Crisis and Human Security: An Intellectual Dialogue on Building Asia’s Tomorrow. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), 1999. Ohmae, K. The Borderless World. Power and Strategy in the Global Marketplace. London: Harper Collins, 1990. ———. The End of the Nation State. The Rise of Regional Economies. New York: The Free Press, 1995. Olds, K. “Globalisation and the Production of New Urban Spaces: Pacific Rim Megaprojects in the Late 20th century”. Environment and Planning A 27 (1995): 1713–43. Owen, N. G. “Economic and Social Change”. In The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, vol. 2, edited by N. Tarling, pp. 467–527. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pack, H. “Technological Change and Growth in East Asia: Macro versus Micro Perspectives”. In Rethinking the East Asian Miracle, edited by J. E. Stiglitz and Shahid Yusuf, pp. 95–142. New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2001. Parnwell, M. and D. Arghiros. “Introduction: Uneven Development in Thailand”. In Uneven Development in Thailand, edited by M. Parnwell, pp. 1–27. Avebury: Aldershot, 1996. Parsonage, J. Southeast Asia’s ‘Growth Triangle’: A Subregional Response to a Global Transformation. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 16, no. 2 (1992): 307–17. Peachey, K. “Where There is Sugar, There are Ants: Planning for People in the Development of Batam, Indonesia”. M.A. thesis, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, 1998. Peachey, K., M. Perry, and C. Grundy-Warr. “The Riau Islands and Economic Cooperation in the Singapore-Indonesian Border Zone”. Boundary and Territory Briefing. 1997. Perry, M. “The Singapore Growth Triangle in the Global and Local Economy”. In The Naga Awakens: Growth and Change in Southeast Asia, edited by V. Savage, L. Kong, and W. Neville, pp. 87–112. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. Perry, M., L. Kong, and C. Yeoh. Singapore: A Developmental City-State. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Perry, M., H. Yeung, and J. Poon. “Regional Office Mobility: The Case of Corporate Control in Singapore and Hong Kong”. Geoforum 29, no. 3 (1998): 237–55. Petri, C. A., ed. Regional Co-operation and Asian Recovery. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000. Poon, J. and M. Perry. “The Asian Economic ‘Flu’: A Geography of Crisis”. The Professional Geographer 51, no. 2 (1999): 184–96. Population Reference Bureau. Annual Report. Washington, D.C., 1997.

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Redding, G. “Overseas Chinese Networks: Understanding the Enigma”. Long Range Planning 28, no. 1 (1995): 61–69. Reid, A. Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000. Rigg, J. “The Green Revolution and Equity: Who Adopts the New Rice Varieties and Why?”. Geography 74, no. 323 (1989): 144–50. ——. Southeast Asia: The Human Landscape of Modernisation and Development. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Rigg, J. and P. Stott. “The Rise of the Naga: The Changing Geography of South-East Asia 1965-90”. In The Changing Geography of Asia, edited by G. P. Chapman and K. M. Baker, pp 74–121. London: Routledge, 1992. Rodan, G. The Political Economy of Singapore’s Industrialisation. London: Macmillan, 1989. Sato, Y. “Financial Services and the Asian Crisis”. In The Southeast Asia Handbook, edited by P. Heenan and M. Lamontagne, pp. 207–16. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001. Savage, V., L. Kong, and W. Neville. “The Naga Awakens: Political Imperatives and Economic Opportunities in Southeast Asia”. In The Naga Awakens: Growth and Change in Southeast Asia, edited by V. Savage, L. Kong, and W. Neville, pp. 1–29. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. Saxonhouse, G. R. “Trading Blocs and East Asia”. In New Dimensions in Regional Integration, edited by J. de Melo and A. Panagariya, pp. 388–416. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Sekiguchi, Sueo. “Introduction”. In Road to ASEAN-10: Japanese Perspectives on Economic Integration, edited by Sekiguchi Sueo and Makito Noda, pp. 3–15. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; and Tokyo/New York: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1999. Singh, Daljit. “Challenges Facing ASEAN”. Paper presented at the Forum on Regional Political and Strategic Developments, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 7–8 July 1998. Stiglitz, J. E. “From Miracle to Crisis to Recovery: Lessons from Four Decades of East Asian Experience”. In Rethinking the East Asian Miracle, edited by J. E. Stiglitz and Shahid Yusuf, pp. 509–26. New York: World Bank and Oxford University Press. 2001. Sukhumbhand Paribatra and Chai-Anan Samudavanija. “The Problem of Legitimacy”. In The ASEAN Reader, compiled by K. S. Sandhu et al., pp.106–17. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992. Takano, T. “The ASEAN-10 and Regional Political Relations”. In Road to ASEAN-10: Japanese Perspectives on Economic Integration, edited by Sekiguchi Sueo and Makito Noda, pp. 16–36. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Tokyo and New York: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1999. Takeuchi, Junko. “Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Cooperation”. In Road to ASEAN-10: Japanese Perspectives on Economic Integration, edited by Sekiguchi Sueo and Makito Noda, pp. 98–132. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Tokyo and New York: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1999.

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2 GEOPOLITICAL CHANGE Direction and Continuing Issues Vivian Louis Forbes

Introduction International terrestrial and maritime political boundaries continue to evolve in terms of their definition, functionality, and location (Prescott 1965, 1978). With over 200 independent states and about 35 dependencies in the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the study of political geography in general, and boundary delimitation in particular, has become increasingly complex. Modern terrestrial and maritime boundaries reflect the geography, history, politics, and economic stability of each state and its international relations with its neighbours. Practitioners and researchers from various disciplines — geography, international law, and political science — have all made important contributions in the determination, demarcation, and delineation of boundaries. The world political map has seen many changes in terrestrial boundaries of Africa, Asia, and Europe during the latter half of the twentieth century. Former colonial powers in countries of these continents endeavoured to define boundaries so as to ensure the extent of their sovereignty, often with disregard to the local indigenous population that may have been adversely affected by such impositions (Lintner 1984). The wave of nationalism that swept through Africa and, to a less extent, Asia since the 1950s has seen new boundaries imposed, negotiated, and established; and ceasefire lines delineated — some with effect. The depiction of symbolized lines on maps have also resulted in prolonged, bitter boundary disputes that have soured 47

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diplomatic relations in recent years on the African continent, the Middle East countries, in Asia (Prescott 1975), and elsewhere. The territorial boundaries of states in Southeast Asia are being tested through campaigns for self-determination and independence, with obvious implications for citizenship and national affiliation (Polomka 1978; Funston 1999; GrundyWarr 1993). During the 1990s, what had been viewed as “internal migration” under central state sponsorship has generated ethnic conflict in the process and produced serious ramifications in various parts of Indonesia, namely, Aceh, East Timor, the Moluccas (Maluku), and Irian Jaya. The Papuan Congress held in Jayapura, which ended on Sunday, 4 June 2000, defied warnings from the government in Jakarata, with a declaration that West Papua (read Irian Jaya) is no longer a part of the Republic of Indonesia (Jakarta Post, 5 June 2000, p. 1). Former adversaries, for example Indonesia and Malaysia, have now established co-operative ventures on a national scale and formed economic growth triangles in the region with Singapore and the Philippines in separate ventures (Perry 1991; Grundy-Warr and Perry 1996; Tiglao 1994) in an effort to bring prosperity in the regional context (Lintner 1991; Lim 1994; Peachey, Perry, and Grundy-Warr 1997). Along border frontiers of Southeast Asian nations, illicit trade has generally been beneficial to both sides and often tolerated by both governments on a de facto basis, as evident in the trade between China and Vietnam despite the fact that the governments held major political differences. Some of this trade has been regularized, but this is part of nonenforcement of customs and other regulations (Thayer 1999). The objectives of this chapter are to identify and examine the political, maritime, and terrestrial boundaries, highlight the disputed zones, and discuss the issues and future direction in the context of harmonization of peace and stability. Diplomacy naturally has played a significant role to bring about changes at the inter-regional and international levels. However, there are also continuing issues relating to indigenous factors that require resolution in order to ensure stability and peace in the region where geopolitical change is dynamic.

Geopolitical Change An observation by a renowned political geographer and specialist of the region noted that: “The post-war political map of Southeast Asia is its outward resemblance of colonial times” (Fisher 1971, p. 265). The geopolitical change in Southeast Asia since 1945 — the end of Second World War (WWII) — has been complex and dynamic. One aspect of the geopolitical

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realities and change of the late 1990s has been the promotion of trans-boundary co-operation and trade (Grundy-Warr, King, and Risser 1996). However, in some instances, the progress has also moved at a rather slow pace (Rumley et al. 1996; Savage, Kong, and Neville 1998). The delineation of boundaries and re-grouping of territories, primarily in the guise of self-determination, had two consequences. First, international political boundaries in Southeast Asia, although imposed by the former colonialists, tend to align themselves to linguistic divides. Second, there is a pronounced imbalance in the size of the component states in the region (Fisher 1971). The colonial powers ignored local factors and introduced extraneous political considerations and alien concepts in the determination of the political boundaries in the region. The artificiality of many colonialimposed boundaries that were agreed on was undermined by the fact that there was little systematic administrative penetration especially in the remote upland interior of clearly defined colonial possessions (Spencer and Thomas 1971). For the “upland peoples”, colonial-defined territorial boundaries never constituted a major obstacle to migrating or wandering peoples and did not significantly interfere with the normal pattern of human traffic in the international frontier zone (Lintner 1984). Geopolitical differences and issues between states are often motivated by a complex amalgam of emotions, assumptions, and expectations. Many of the pressures on the terrestrial and maritime political boundaries in the region stem from questions of ethnic identification and relations of central governments to minority groups. In attempting to analyse any conflict between neighbouring states, a range of issues need addressing. These include policy development at the international level, border security and control problems that encompass, but not limited to, commerce, tribal movements, and general mobility across international boundaries. The countries of the Southeast Asia have undergone enormous political and economic change since the 1950s. A major source of these changes can be attributed to the creation of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Acharya 1992; Paul 1996). The countries that comprise this regional group and the date of their admission are listed in Table 2.1. There are five foundation members. Four more states joined ASEAN between 1984 and 1997. With Cambodia’s entry in 1999, the ASEAN region in 2000 had an estimated population of 524 million, a total area of 4.5 million square kilometres, a combined gross national product of US$690 billion, and a total trade of US$750 billion. ASEAN’s foundation was a reaction to the perceived or real threat of communism within the region. ASEAN’s political and security co-operation

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TABLE 2.1 Members of ASEAN Name of Country

Date of Membership

Republic of Singapore Republic of Indonesia Federation of Malaysia Republic of the Philippines Kingdom of Thailand Negara Brunei Darussalam Socialist Republic of Vietnam People’s Democratic Republic of Laos Myanmar Naingngan Kingdom of Cambodia

8 August 1967 8 August 1967 8 August 1967 8 August 1967 8 August 1967 8 January 1984 28 July 1995 23 July 1997 23 July 1997 30 April 1999

is aimed at preserving the prevailing regional peace and stability (Amer 1998). However, the Association’s reluctance, at times, not to interfere in a member state’s internal affairs, for example, during the East Timor crisis in mid-1999, does question the sincerity of ASEAN’s intentions to ensure peace in the region. There is obviously no simple solution to the numerous boundary issues that come to the fore in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia The region of Southeast Asia with its near neighbours and adjacent seas is illustrated in Figure 2.1. The surface area of these states and their adjacent neighbours, their population and population density are listed in Table 2.2. A collective figure (generally, official estimates for 1999–2000) for the population of the eleven states (including East Timor) equates to a population density in the region of nearly 116 persons per square kilometre. Notwithstanding, there are wide differences in population densities across the region. The eleven states of Southeast Asia are regarded as a geographic region for several reasons. They share many similarities of climate, vegetation, agricultural practice, and crops. They have diversity of ethnicity, social organization, language, law enforcement, and religion within their respective national boundaries (Fisher 1966, 1968; East, Spate, and Fisher 1971). To this end, they all face similar problems of economic and social development whilst establishing a democratic platform (Villacorta 1999; Weiss 1999). The six adjacent states are listed in Table 2.2 so as to illustrate the variation of land surface area, population, and population density in a broader regional

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FIGURE 2.1 Southeast Asia: Nation-States

Note: The international political terrestrial boundaries shown on this map are for illustrative purposes. The scale of the map does not permit an accurate depiction of these boundaries. Irian Jaya is now called Papua and East Timor is an independent state. Sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagoes is disputed.

context. Another commonality among the states of the region, with the exception of Thailand, has been the fact that they have been colonized by one or other of the European powers in the past. Southeast Asia: End of the Second World War Prior to WWII, it was possible to conceive that colonial rule in most of the countries of Southeast Asia had a limited future. The Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia in 1941 was perceived by nationalist in the regional states as a means of defeating the colonial powers though the intentions were quite a different matter. Even for the most optimistic and dedicated of the Southeast Asian nationalists, at the end of the 1930s, there was little expectation of a sudden disappearance of the colonial powers. However,

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TABLE 2.2 Southeast Asia and Adjacent States: Population Size and Density, and Surface Area Country Brunei Darussalam Cambodia East Timor Indonesia Laos Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam Sub-total Australia Bangladesh China India PNG Taiwan Sub-total Total

Population 260,480 9,836,000 859,700 200,000,000 4,605,300 21,169,000 45,000,000 71,538,590 3,044,300 60,816,230 75,355,200 492,484,800 18,289,000 120,433,000 1,223,890,000 936,000,000 4,074,000 21,471,448 3,408,057,448 4,900,542,248

Density (per sq. km)

Area (sq. km)

52.9 54.3 57.8 105.0 19.4 64.2 67.2 238.5 4,701.6 118.5 227.6 109.6 2.4 816.1 127.9 284.7 8.8 596.4 160.8 190.8

5,765 181,035 14,874 1,904,443 236,800 329,758 676,552 300,000 648 513,115 331,114 4,494,104 7,682,300 147,570 9,571,300 3,287,263 462,840 36,000 21,187,273 25,681,377

Source: The Europa World Book 1998, 39th ed., Vols. I & II (London: Europa Publication Ltd., 1998).

the Japanese invasion into Southeast Asia transformed the region and its politics. This time span, 1941 to 1945, historians will record (Hall 1981; Osborne 1990) was a point of no return for the nations of Southeast Asia. The Japanese advance exposed the weakness of, and deeply humiliated, the colonial powers in the region. In Indochina — Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam — the French were permitted to retain control of the administration of government in return for permitting the Japanese to use the territory as a staging, training, and supply area for the invasion of the rest of Southeast Asia. British rule over Myanmar began at the conclusion of the Anglo-Burmese War in 1885. The Burmese had never reconciled to foreign domination, notwithstanding the fair measure of success obtained by the pacification policy that the British administrators pursued in the earlier years. The superior attitudes adopted by the colonial rulers created resentment among the people.

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Japan’s plan for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere promised independence to Burma, the Philippines, and Thailand but a less definite pledge was made to Indonesia. A meeting was held in 1943 under the special ministry for formulating policies for the organization, however, only cultural matters were discussed at that meeting (Cotterell 1995). The independent status that the nations achieved nevertheless created pockets of potential and real zones of conflict, primarily as a consequence of the delineation of political terrestrial boundaries by former colonial administrators. Boundary disputes were not of great importance as long as the validity of colonial rule was ensured with a degree of authority.

Territory A territory in the context of this study is an extent of land and/or water under jurisdiction, actual or perceived, of a sovereign state (Prescott 1978). Territorial conflict results from a combination of two factors. First, there is a finite supply of territory, nearly all of which is now accounted for in sovereignty terms. However, a few individual islands and island groups as well as pockets of land are being contested in many parts of Southeast Asia as discussed elsewhere in this chapter. Second, the boundaries defined by the colonialists were delineated somewhat haphazardly, creating problems for the successor states that later had to deal with them on a sovereign basis. The consequence is frequently conflict resulting from inter-nation stress with varying degrees of severity. A myriad of other factors: climatic, physical, logistic, economic, military, and political, may influence current or latent international disputes. Some physical considerations may assist in identifying possible causes for conflict for neighbouring nations. Any study of territories is closely linked with boundaries. Boundaries vary in importance, permanence, and visibility; and with the precision with which they can be defined. Wars or threats of force have altered boundaries in various parts of the region (Grundy-Warr 1998, p. 44). Some boundaries are precise and definitive, for example, the meridian of Longitude 141°00' East which divides Indonesia’s Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea (May 1991). Boundaries may have considerable width, such as a demilitarized zone. Generally, the boundary line on the map or chart will follow the watershed in the case of the mountain range and generally the deep-water channel or median line in the case of a stream, river, channel, bay, gulf, and the sea. Mountain ranges and river courses are considered “natural” borders, which have in many instances been used as international political boundaries.

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Portions of the international boundary between China and Myanmar are aligned along the watershed of the Angland Shan. India’s boundary with Myanmar sits atop the Arakan Yoma, while part of the boundary between Indonesia and Malaysia follows the ridges of the Kapuas Hulu Range on Borneo. There can be many difficulties in pinpointing the precise location of the border. These are illustrated in the area now known as the “Golden Triangle” that straddles the boundaries of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand; the India/China disputed zone in the Karakoram Range, and the Myanmar/ Thai borders in the southern portion of the Malay Peninsula. The peaks of mountains are often named as turning points in the determination of the boundary to link segments of the delineated line. Rivers are frequently utilized as international boundaries but their meanders and shift in the course of the riverbeds over time can lead to conflict over the precise demarcation of the boundary. In addition, if water is removed from a river upstream of a country, it can have serious implications for a country that is located downstream of the river, especially if that country is dependent on irrigation. This is typified in the conflict between India, Nepal, and Bangladesh over the waters of the Ganges and Brahmaputra river systems and, within the Southeast Asian region — Cambodia, China, Laos, and Vietnam — for the water resources of the Mekong River. The Mekong River is used as the boundary between Laos and Thailand. A boundary, when determined, may divide a town or village and may even separate families and households. In frontier towns, one member of the family may work on one side of the frontier as his or her family gets on with their daily chores on the other side (Gallusser 1991, p. 33). This situation is aggravated by the arbitrary placement of national boundaries in the rural areas of northwestern Myanmar, Laos, and northern Vietnam. Minor, small-scale, or localized friction exists when nomadic or tribal pastoralists cross national borders in search of better pastures. For example, there were allegations that the Vietnamese violations in Svay Rieng Province began on 27 December 1995 with tractors ploughing land that Cambodians had worked on for generations. The land ploughed was alleged to be around 100 hectares with another 1,000 hectares planned (Vietnamese News Agency, 17 January 1996). Further allegations — that Vietnam had occupied six Cambodian villages — were also made in the course of a Vietnamese foreign ministry news conference on 1 February 2000 when it was stated that Vietnam had proposed an urgent meeting of the Vietnam–Cambodia border working group to resolve any difficulties. Such is the concern over border incursions that it prompted China’s National People’s Congress to draft a law that would make provision for

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the placement of patrols along that country’s 22,000-kilometre international boundary. Specific issues that are cause for concern range from illegal immigration to straying cattle across China’s international political boundary in the areas adjacent to Myanmar, Nepal, and Vietnam (China Daily, 26 January 2000, p. 1). International Terrestrial Political Boundaries Any research on the political geography of Southeast Asia and its changes will reveal important correlations between geography and the independent states of the 1990s (Grundy-Warr 1998, p. 31) that succeeded the colonial empires of the early twentieth century. International political boundary determination is a process requiring the interaction of the disciplines of geography, law, and politics. International boundaries affect the lives of communities that reside and/or work in the vicinity of the border (Rumley and Minghi 1991). As will be discussed in a later section, the function of civil society in the definition of the boundaries of political communities is an important issue in a number of research papers (Heraclides 1991; Freeman 1996; He 1997, 1999). The international terrestrial boundaries for each of the states were formalized during the colonial period. Unfortunately, many of these treaties have proven to be not only imprecise but also full of inconsistencies and without precise or reliable information. They underlie many of the disputes that have surfaced since the 1950s and provide fuel for intractable disputes between the states (Lee R.L.M. 1986, p. 129). Scholars of political geography and international law (Prescott 1975, 1985, and 1996a; Jagota 1985; Blake 1987; Charney and Alexander 1993; Biger 1995; Forbes 1995a, 1995b, and 2001; Grundy-Warr 1998) have undertaken detailed analyses of maritime and terrestrial boundary delimitation at national, regional, and global levels. The political map of Southeast Asia evolved in three phases (Fisher 1966, 1971). In the period to 1914, the Western colonial powers and Japan divided mainland Asia to form their respective empires. For example, Britain’s sphere of influence spread from the Indian sub-continent to the Malay Peninsula and further south to include Australia and New Zealand. The Dutch had a foothold in the Indonesian archipelago, while the French were administering the Indo-China peninsula and at the same time occupying vast tracts of territory from Thailand. Spain and the United States competed for the Philippines. Thailand remained independent. However, all the countries had political boundaries imposed on them by

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the colonial administrators. Internal administrative boundaries were established on Borneo and the Indo-China peninsula by the then British, Dutch, and French colonial administrators. The second phase may be considered as the period 1914–45. Japan, like Germany, was determined to establish itself as a great world power. Like Hitler’s “New Order”, Japan’s brand of conquest was camouflaged with a grandiose-sounding name: “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. Although the territorial ambitions of the Co-Prosperity Sphere were never clearly proclaimed, the Tanaka Memorial, published in 1927, did provide a blueprint for world conquest. The third phase, since 1945, witnessed the disappearance of the last vestiges of the colonial era in the region with the emergence of new independent states (see Table 2.3). Previous boundaries were defined, thereby conferring international status to new states, for example, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia (Kalimantan), Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), and Singapore. Hong Kong was handed back by agreement to China on 30 June 1997. Macau — (as with Hong Kong) though not part of Southeast Asia — the last colonial outpost in the region, was relinquished when Portugal handed over its administration to the Chinese Government on 20 December 1999. In East Timor, a former Portuguese territory, which was annexed by Indonesia in 1975, a U.N.-sponsored referendum was held on 30 August 1999. The result of the polling endorsed the future sovereignty status of TABLE 2.3 Political Change: Southeast Asian States and Near Neighbours Country Australia Bangladesh Brunei Darussalam Cambodia East Timor India Indonesia Laos Malaysia Myanmar Papua New Guinea Philippines Thailand Vietnam China Taiwan

Date Nationhood Gained 1 January 1901 26 March 1971 31 December 1983 9 November 1953 19 October 1999 15 August 1947 17 August 1945 23 October 1953 31 August 1957 4 January 1948 16 September 1975 4 July 1947 18th Century 2 September 1945 1 October 1949 1949

Political Status Federated States – Constitution Republic – 16 December 1972 Sovereign State –1 January 1984 Monarchy – Constitution Interim UN Administration Republic – Constitution Republic – reformation sought People’s Democratic Rep. – 1975 Constitutional Monarchy Socialist Republic–One Party Republic Republic Constitutional Monarchy Socialist Republic People’s Republic–One Party Democratic Republic

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that state which was administered, in the interim, by the United Nations under U.N. Security Council Resolution of 25 October 1999. East Timor (Timor Leste) became a sovereign state — Democratic Republic — on 20 May 2002.

Evolution of the Contemporary States of Southeast Asia An overview of the evolution of each of the contemporary states of Southeast Asia highlights the significant influence that the colonial powers exerted on the boundary alignments. The present political map of Southeast Asia evolved at the end of WWII. However, skirmishes over the alignment of some of the borders have taken place since 1945 and as recently as January 2001 when Cambodia and Thailand agreed to negotiate the disputed section of their boundary. He Baogang (1999) provides a conceptual framework for a better understanding of the actual and potential role of civil society in defining its boundary. The author comments that nation-states have a tendency to push aside civil society from discussion of national boundary issues. He aptly states that: In the eyes of the state, civil society may become a “trouble-maker” and make the boundary issue more complex. When the people are “sleeping”, it is easy for the state to decide on a boundary issue, to strike a deal, and to close off the issue. But if people are “awake”, and civil society expresses the diversity of peoples’ opinion on national identity, the state faces difficulties in dealing with boundary issues. The participation of civil society, however, could produce different solutions and proposals and help create a diversity of political forces (He 1999, pp. 29–30).

The present author raised a similar sentiment, in March 1997, when a treaty to delimit the seabed between Australia and Indonesia in the Timor Sea was signed in Perth (West Australian, 13 March 1997, p. 1). The author argued that the people were not consulted about the terms of the treaty. Notwithstanding, civil society alone cannot resolve or manage boundary issues. The government of the day must be perceived to have made the correct decision with its neighbour(s) in its negotiations on a boundary, after being appropriately advised by administrators, legal and the academic professionals. In discussing current international political boundaries and empirical cases, it is important to keep in focus the links between presentday de facto and de jure reality and historic political formations notes (Grundy-Warr 1998, p. 74).

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Historic Political Formations Prior to 1840, the year when James Brooke arrived in Sarawak, the Sultan of Brunei was nominally sovereign over the whole territory that now comprises Brunei, Sabah, and Sarawak. Brunei’s territorial extent eroded as Sarawak and the British North Borneo Company competed with each other and advanced towards a common boundary (Porritt 1997). Sarawak’s purchase of the Terusan Valley in 1884 and the Limbang Valley in 1890 ensured that Brunei would become a divided coastal enclave in Sarawak (British and Foreign State Office 1891–92). In 1888, Brunei, Sabah, and Sarawak were made protectorates of Britain. The territorial boundary separating the British protectorates from the Dutch-held portion of Borneo Island was delimited (with subsequent amendments) in three sets of agreements. The first was signed on 20 June 1891, the second on 28 September 1915, and the third on 26 March 1928. The first agreement defined a boundary, which commenced at the eastern coast of Sebatik Island in the vicinity of Latitude 4°10' North. The description of the boundary is ambiguous. For example, it noted in part, that: In the event of the Simengaris River and any other river flowing into the sea below 4°10', being found on survey to cross the proposed boundary within a radius of 5 geographical miles [8 kilometres], the line (boundary) shall be diverted so as to include such small portions of the bends of rivers within Dutch territory; a small concession being made by the Netherland Government (United Kingdom British and Foreign State Papers, Vol. 83, HMSO 1891–92).

The boundary follows the watershed in a westerly direction for a distance of about 230 kilometres, thence a southwesterly direction to a point at about Latitude 1°30' North and Longitude 115° East, then westward to Tanjong Datu in the vicinity of Latitude 2°05' North, and Longitude 109°45' East. In 1905, there was a disagreement between the Dutch and North Borneo administrators about the alignment of the boundary at the eastern end, inland from Sebatik Island. The British Government agreed with the argument put forward by the Dutch. During 1912–13, a boundary was demarcated from Sebatik Island to Mount Moeloek, a distance of 240 kilometres. A 1928 agreement concerned a section of the boundary measuring about 30 kilometres between two peaks, Api and Raya, at the western end of the boundary, which involved about 100 square kilometres of territory being ceded by the Dutch. The Dutch-held portion of Borneo, that now

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forms part of Indonesia, is called Kalimantan (Prescott, Collier, and Prescott 1977 ). The Dutch authorities of the East Indies (current Indonesia) imprinted a particular vision of their country on generations of Indonesian school children, especially the cartographical portrayal on wall maps. These maps served as important motivation for driving post-independence nationalists to acquire East Timor and Irian Jaya. European colonization of Timor Island began in 1520, when the Portuguese arrived in search of natural resources, particularly sandalwood, to engage in trade, and to expand its sphere of influence in the Eastern Hemisphere. By the end of the sixteenth century, Portugal had claimed Timor Island. Christianity gained converts on the island and the sandalwood industry was established (Dunn 1983, p. 16). During 1613, the Dutch attempted to gain control of Timor and adjacent islands. In 1849, the Dutch achieved part of their aim by taking control of West Timor. A century later, West Timor was granted freedom by the Dutch Government, with the exception of a small enclave known as Ocussi Ambeno, which remained under Portuguese rule. Despite continual rebel unrest, East Timor and the enclave remained under Portuguese control until 1974, by which time the government in Portugal adopted an attitude that maintaining the colony was no longer in its best interest, especially in the light of its own domestic and economic problems. On 28 November 1975, the Revolutionary Front of East Timor (FRETILIN) declared the colony to be independent and renamed it the Democratic Republic of East Timor. Portugal never formally recognized this early action of independence. Negotiations between the Governments of East Timor and Portugal were directed towards granting for complete independence in 1978. However, Indonesian forces invaded East Timor shortly after the declaration on the premise that such an action will discourage other ethnic groups, for example, in Aceh and Irian Jaya, from seeking independence. The Indonesian authorities were of the firm belief that it would face difficulty in invading East Timor later, after the international community accepted the province as an independent nation. The world community did not take any action to stop the invasion, except to note that the U.N. General Assembly does not recognize Indonesian rule of East Timor. Efforts to pass U.N. Resolutions, which criticized Indonesia for its blatant violation of human rights, had been blocked by Australia, Japan, and the United States, all of whom had established economic interests in Indonesia (Dunn 1983, pp. 342–70). Against the background of the Dili massacre in November 1993, Portugal and Indonesia agreed to hold discussion to seek a

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solution acceptable to both countries. Portugal advocated self-determination for East Timor while Indonesia claimed that the East Timorese had opted for integration. The proof was revealed when East Timorese made their choice at the U.N.-sponsored referendum which was held on 30 August 1999 against a backdrop of allegations of military interference, intimidation, and brutality on the people of East Timor (ABC Radio, 12 October 1999). The international boundary between East Timor and Indonesia created two parcels of land and the status remains intact. The smaller parcel, called Oecussi-Ambeno, is on the north coast of Timor Island. Its boundary with Indonesia’s West Timor measures about 100 kilometres in length. The larger parcel occupies the eastern half of Timor Island. The boundary measures about 130 kilometres in length. Between 1859 and 1909, the Dutch and Portuguese administrators (Joint Commissions) met on no less than six occasions to negotiate a settlement over territorial disputes on the island. A judgement was handed down by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on 25 June 1914. The precise delineation of the boundary was a subject of confrontation during the weekend of 10 October 1999 when U.N. forces of InterFET (International Force East Timor) comprising soldiers from some Southeast Asian states, Australia, and New Zealand entered the town of Motaain in East Timor. The peacekeeping forces from Australia were required to prove to Indonesian military authorities as to the exactness of the terrestrial boundary between East and West Timor. The Australian soldiers were equipped with an Indonesian compiled map, which clearly portrayed the town as being to the east of the border. The Indonesian soldiers on the other hand argued that the U.N. force had violated Indonesian territory. The Indonesians were using a map produced by the Dutch in 1943, which depicted the town as being to the west of the border (The Australian, 12 October 1999, p. 1). Minor incidences over cartographic discrepancies depicted on maps and charts have the potential to become major international issues and may result in conflict. The boundary delimiting the Indonesian territory of Irian Jaya on the island of New Guinea has an interesting background, which again was the making of the colonial administrators. The Dutch Government in 1865, well before Britain and Germany acquired their respective colonies on the island, defined the alignment of the present boundary in a secret action. A line along Longitude 141° East stretching from Tanjong Djar on the north coast to a point in the vicinity of the mouth of Bensbach River on the south coast was chosen as the boundary (Van der Veur 1966; Cook, Macartney, and Stott 1968).

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Noting that a portion of the Fly River crossed the meridian of longitude 141° (at two points), an Anglo-Dutch agreement was signed on 20 July 1895, which recognized a slight amendment permitting the boundary to follow the course of the river between these intersections. Two further agreements, in 1936 and 1960, between the Australian and Dutch governments, resolved that the boundary would be the great circle line passing through an obelisk on the north coast and the point where the meridian made its most northerly intersection with the Fly River (May 1991). Finalization of the boundary and its demarcation was achieved in 1964. The Australian and Indonesian negotiators, on behalf of their respective governments, agreed that the boundary north of Fly River would be longitude 141° and that south of that river it would be the meridian through the mouth of the Bensbach River, which is Longitude 141°01'10" East. China’s boundary with Vietnam (1,300 kilometres) and Laos (420 kilometres) were established as a single line in the negotiations between China and France during 1885 and 1895. However, China sought to redefine its boundary with Myanmar in 1961 using the alignments established by Britain and China in various treaties concluded in 1894, 1897, and 1941. With the realignment, both parties stood to gain by trading-off parcels of land and ensured that no village would be divided by the boundary. The boundary was demarcated within twelve months (Prescott, Collier, and Prescott 1977, p. 52). China and Vietnam signed their Land Boundary Treaty on 30 December 1999. The Treaty, which specifies sixty-two boundary points in Article II, entered into force on 6 July 2000. Myanmar’s boundary with Thailand stretches for over 1,800 kilometres from the Andaman Sea to the Mekong River. Clashes between the Burmese and Thai armies across the boundary since the mid-1700s created small pockets of indigenous nations without a state. However, when Britain acquired the territory of Tenasserim from the Burmese Government in 1826, the action initiated a series of agreements that brought about a finalization of the boundary, albeit in segments between its present boundary with Thailand. The boundary of the Philippines is the result of the resolutions of three international agreements. The first two between Spain and the United States on 10 December 1898 and 7 November 1900, and the third between the United States and Britain on 2 January 1930 (Lee Y.L. 1987a, 1989). The boundary was defined by a series of straight lines linking known geographical co-ordinates. The 1898 boundary is identical with the presentday treaty limits for most of their length, with the exception of a segment in the southwest corner near Borneo. The sovereignty of three islands,

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namely, Cagayan, Sibutu, and Sula and several smaller islets were transferred from Spain to the United States in a treaty signed in 1900. In an agreement signed in July 1907, between the United States and Britain, the latter was permitted to continue their administration of “all the islands within three marine leagues off the coast”, in particular, three small islands off the Sandakan coast that included Ligitan and Sipadan in the Sulawesi Sea (Celebes Sea). A delimitation of the boundary between Balabac Strait and the waters east of Darvel Bay was made possible in the form of An Exchange of Notes between Britain and the United States on 2 January 1930. Although the delimitation served to distinguish British and U.S. sovereignty over the islands, the delimitation has apparently been accepted by Malaysia and the Philippines as a maritime boundary separating territorial waters and continental shelf (Prescott 1985). Sharing International Terrestrial Political Boundaries Table 2.4 offers a list of the states that share common terrestrial boundaries. Myanmar shares its boundary with five neighbours. Those states that share at least four frontiers with their neighbours include Laos and Thailand. The group in which a state shares common boundaries with three other states includes Cambodia and Vietnam. States that share common borders with two neighbours include Indonesia and Malaysia. Brunei’s two parcels of land, which are located on the northern coast of Borneo Island, share a terrestrial boundary with Malaysia’s state of Sarawak. The country has a TABLE 2.4 Sharing International Terrestrial Political Boundaries State

Sharing boundaries with

Myanmar Laos Thailand Cambodia Vietnam Indonesia Malaysia Brunei East Timor Singapore Philippines

Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand China, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, and Myanmar Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam Cambodia, China, and Laos Malaysia and Papua New Guinea Brunei and Thailand Malaysia Indonesia Nil Nil

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380-kilometre long land boundary with Malaysia and about 160 kilometres of coastline. Likewise, East Timor that has two parcels of land on Timor Island shares its terrestrial boundaries with Indonesia. Cambodia is located on the Indo-China peninsula, abutting the Gulf of Thailand with 340 kilometres of coastline to the west. The country has a 2,570-kilometre long land boundary that it shares with Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Laos is landlocked by a 5,080-kilometre long terrestrial boundary. The country is surrounded by Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam and is the only landlocked state in the region. Malaysia is a federation composed of Peninsular Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, and the island Territory of Labuan. The country has 2,670 kilometres of land boundaries. It has common boundaries with Indonesia and Brunei on Borneo Island and with Thailand on the Malay Peninsula. Malaysia’s coastline measures nearly 4,675 kilometres. Myanmar has a 5,880-kilometre long land border and 1,950-kilometres of coastline along the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. Singapore, which is located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula and between Malaysia and Indonesia, comprises a group of islands with a collective coastline length of 193 kilometres. This city-state’s major port is a hub for ships plying the sea routes of Southeast Asia. The Philippines and Singapore do not have the problem or good fortune of sharing terrestrial borders with neighbours. However, archipelagic and island states have to contend with determining and delimiting maritime boundaries. Inevitably, coastal and landlocked states will seek to co-operate across their frontiers, especially when they perceive that it will be in their best interest. Sharing International Marine Political Boundaries Delimitation of maritime boundaries is a more difficult exercise (Johnston 1987, p. 39) than demarcating land boundaries. The first step towards defining the maritime limits of a coastal state is the establishment and proclamation of the territorial sea baseline as per provisions in Articles 4 and 5 of the 1982 U.N. Law of the Sea Convention (1982 Convention). It is from this baseline system or datum that a suite of maritime jurisdictional zone claims may be made by coastal and island states (Prescott 1981, 1985). The normal baseline of a coastal state is the low-water mark along the coast as marked on the authorized chart of the state. However, determining that mark can be difficult, particularly in areas with a gently shelving shoreline, a high tidal range, or when the coastline tends to change abruptly in direction.

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A territorial sea or territorial waters zone of a maximum width of 12 nautical miles (nmi) seaward of the baseline may be claimed by a coastal state (Article 3). An additional 12 nmi adjacent to and seaward of this belt, referred to as a contiguous zone may also be claimed by the coastal state (Article 33). A coastal state may also claim an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to a distance of 200 nmi measured from the baseline (Article 57). Within this zone the coastal state may permit aliens to operate a particular fishery venture or carry out scientific or exploratory research and, in certain instances, assist in the exploitation of marine mineral resources. Only the resources within this zone are for the exclusive use of the coastal state. A fifth maritime regime is that of the continental shelf (Article 76). A precise delimitation of the outer edge of the continental shelf of a coastal state is a complex issue. The problem is compounded when other states in close proximity share the shelf and in instances when the distance between opposite neighbours is less than 400 nmi. A continental shelf boundary may therefore have to be negotiated. The delimitation of such a line is generally based on the principle of a median line or equidistant line. The precise boundary-marking process becomes difficult when there are offshore islands, deeply indented bays, bathymetric troughs and trenches, and other physical features other than a smooth straight coastline. In the determination of the maritime boundary between Australia and Indonesia in the Arafura and Timor Seas (Australian Treaty Series, Nos 31, 32), some of these factors were taken into consideration. Thus, the continental shelf boundary between two coastal states will in most instances be a line or a series of lines on the chart(s) connecting all points, which are equidistant from the nearest land feature or baseline from which the territorial sea for each country is measured (Forbes 1997a). The regime of archipelagic waters is a new concept in international law. The archipelagic waters are encompassed by a series of straight baselines connecting the outermost islands and reefs of an archipelagic state (Kwaitkowska 1991). There are strict guidelines in Article 47 of the 1982 Convention for defining the base points in an archipelagic baseline system (Forbes 1995b). The Philippines and Indonesia are archipelagic states in the Southeast Asian region as defined in the 1982 Convention. Table 2.5 illustrates the states that share maritime boundaries. Indonesia has yet to resolve two segments of its maritime boundary with Malaysia and Singapore in the Malacca and Singapore Straits; at least one segment each with Malaysia and the Philippines in the Sulawesi Sea (Haller-Trost 1995, p. 4); with Palau in the Pacific Ocean; with Vietnam in the South China Sea; and with East Timor in the Savu (Sawu) and Timor seas. The

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TABLE 2.5 Sharing International Maritime Political Boundaries State

Sharing boundaries with

Indonesia

Thailand, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and Palau Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Vietnam Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and Taiwan Bangladesh, India, and Thailand Indonesia and Malaysia Australia and Indonesia Thailand and Vietnam Malaysia Nil

Malaysia Thailand Vietnam Philippines Myanmar Singapore East Timor Cambodia Brunei Laos

establishment of tri-junction points at the western and eastern approaches to the Straits of Singapore will enable Indonesia and the other littoral states (Malaysia and Singapore) to link existing boundary terminal points in the region. It is difficult to gauge the priority that each state places on the undelimited waters (Chia and MacAndrews 1981). In the light of frequent acts of piracy in these regional waters (Beckman, Grundy-Warr, and Forbes 1994), there is an urgency to delimit the remaining segments of maritime boundaries in order to establish jurisdictional control in the busy sea lanes of Southeast Asia (Forbes 1995b, 1997b). Negotiations between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines would also be necessary to finalize the extent of jurisdictional zones in the Sulawesi Sea (Lee R.L.M. 1986; Lee Y.L. 1987a, 1989). Speculation on what course of action the Philippines may wish to take with respect to its territorial limits as defined in the Treaty of Paris is cautioned. It would require the persuasive powers of the respective negotiators to bring about a maritime boundary resolution in this regional sea. But protocol and the opportune moment are also factors that Indonesia must consider in its endeavour to bring Vietnam to the negotiating tables so as to determine the maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. To the north of the Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, both Indonesia and Vietnam claim a continental shelf area in excess of 11,270 sq. nmi (Prescott 1985, p. 226). While the former claims shelf-space to the median line between the two states, thus recognizing full effect to all islands, the latter maintains that its jurisdiction extends to the limits as claimed by the then South

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Vietnam on 6 June 1971. This claim naturally discounts the Natuna group of islands and thereby shifts the line of equidistance southwards. To what effect the terminal points defined in the Indonesia/Malaysia Agreement of 1969 will serve as anchors to a future negotiated boundary with Vietnam will be of interest to political geographers and international lawyers (Prescott 1985; Pachusanond 1991, pp. 114–15; Johnston and Valencia 1991). In the above situation, the overlapping area that Vietnam claims encroaches into Indonesia’s archipelagic waters in the South China Sea. There is also evidence that Indonesia’s proclaimed baseline system overlaps sea space that lies within the confines of the limits of a treaty that delimits the territorial jurisdiction of the Philippines. In the Gulf of Thailand, some progress on maritime boundary determination has been made ever since the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia’s internal affairs and Cambodia’s internal political problems. There are now positive signs that the littoral states of the Gulf of Thailand are now desirous of co-operating with each other on a number of marinerelated issues. Prescott (1998, p. 63) is of the opinion that the political difficulties should not prove to be a hindrance to the completion of boundary negotiations within the gulf. Thailand and Malaysia established a large Joint Development Area in the gulf in 1979 (Auburn, Ong, and Forbes 1994); Malaysia and Vietnam defined an Agreed Common Area in 1992; and a portion of a maritime boundary determined between Thailand and Vietnam in 1997. Table 2.6 summarises the agreements between states to delimit their maritime boundary. Indonesia is to be commended for demonstrating its political will to negotiate maritime boundaries with its neighbouring states. While some agreements were negotiated in a relatively short time, others were prolonged due to the complexity of the demands by both parties to the agreements, as depicted in Table 2.6. Bilateral and trilateral agreements in the region cover the determination of three territorial sea boundaries, delimitations of at least ten sets of continental shelf or seabed jurisdictional limits, the establishment of a provisional fisheries surveillance and enforcement line. In Indonesia’s case, there have been some instances when negotiations have broken down on technicalities and methods of delimitation (Table 2.7). Ideological differences and historical viewpoints were also considered, but to have achieved so much in just over a few decades is remarkable and demonstrates Indonesia’s political will and ability to negotiate, co-operate, and use gentle bargaining processes to bring about the desired effects. The delimitation of maritime boundaries in the waters of the semienclosed seas of Southeast Asia is currently incomplete. There are a number

Territorial sea and Continental shelf Maritime boundaries Continental shelf Territorial sea Maritime boundaries Territorial sea Territorial sea and Continental shelf Seabed boundaries Seabed boundaries Fisheries jurisdiction Zone of co-operation Maritime boundaries Maritime boundaries Maritime boundaries Maritime boundaries Tri-junction point Seabed boundaries Continental shelf Continental shelf Seabed boundaries Common area Territorial sea Tri-junction point Seabed boundaries

U.K. (Sarawak, Sabah, and North Borneo) Australia–Papua New Guinea Indonesia–Malaysia

Indonesia–Malaysia Indonesia–PNG Indonesia–Singapore Malaysia–Thailand

Australia–Indonesia Australia–Indonesia Australia–Indonesia Australia–Indonesia Myanmar–India Myanmar–Thailand Indonesia–India Indonesia–India Indonesia–India–Thailand Thailand–India Indonesia–Malaysia–Thailand Indonesia–Thailand Indonesia–Thailand Malaysia–Vietnam Malaysia–Singapore Myanmar–India–Thailand Thailand–Vietnam

Type of Boundary

Signatories

18 May 1971 12 February 1973 29 October 1981 11 December 1989 23 December 1986 25 July 1980 8 August 1974 14 January 1977 22 June 1978 22 June 1978 21 December 1971 17 December 1971 11 December 1975 5 June1992 7 August 1995 27 October 1993 9 August 1997

8 November 1973 26 November 1974 1 February 1982 9 February 1991 14 September 1987 12 April 1982 17 December 1974 15 August 1977 2 March 1979 15 December 1978 16 July 1973 16 July 1973 18 February 1978 5 June 1992 7 August 1995 24 May 1995 —

8 October 1971 10 July 1982 29 August 1974 15 July 1982

15 February 1985 7 November 1969

18 December 1978 27 October 1969 17 March 1970 13 December 1980 25 May 1973 24 October 1979

11 September 1958

Entry into Force

—

Date Signed

TABLE 2.6 Summary of Maritime Boundary Agreements: Southeast Asian States

Arafura Sea Torres Strait Arafura and Timor seas Timor Sea Andaman Sea Andaman Sea Andaman Sea Bay of Bengal Andaman Sea Andaman Sea Malacca Strait Malacca Strait Andaman Sea South China Sea Johor Straits Andaman Sea Gulf of Thailand

Torres Strait Malacca Strait and South China Sea Malacca Strait South Pacific Ocean Singapore Straits Gulf of Thailand

South China Sea

Regional Sea

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Malaysia Malaysia Australia Thailand Malaysia/Thailand Australia Singapore Australia (Papua New Guinea) India Thailand India India/Thailand Papua New Guinea Australia Australia Australia

27 October 1969 17 March 1970 18 May 1971 17 December 1971 21 December 1971 9 October 1972 25 May 1973 12 February 1973 8 August 1974 11 December 1975 14 January 1977 22 June 1978 13 December 1980 29 October 1981 11 December 1989 13 March 1997

Note: Date of Signature nominated first, that of Entry into Force next.

Country

Signature Continental shelf Territorial sea Seabed boundary Continental shelf Tri-junction point Seabed boundary Territorial Seabed boundary and Territorial sea Continental shelf Continental shelf Continental shelf and EEZ Continental shelf Territorial sea and Continental shelf Provisional Fishing Enforcement Line Zone of Co-operation Seabed boundary and EEZ

Boundary Type

TABLE 2.7 Summary of Negotiated Maritime Boundaries: Indonesia and its Neighbours

7 November 1969 8 October 1971 8 November 1973 16 July 1973 16 July 1973 8 November 1973 29 August 1974 26 November 1974 17 December 1974 18 February 1978 15 August 1977 2 March 1979 10 July 1982 1 February 1982 9 February 1991 Pending

Entry Date

68 Vivian Louis Forbes

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of reasons for this statement. The premise here is the issue of disputed sovereignty to certain distant offshore islands, for example, the Spratly Group in the South China Sea (Lim 1979; Valencia 1988; Lee Y.L. 1989; Chang 1986, 1990; Haller-Trost 1990; Forbes 1997a). Maritime boundaries that have been delimited since 1970 include those between Indonesia and Malaysia in the Malacca Strait and the southern portion of the South China Sea; between Indonesia and Singapore in the Straits of Singapore; that of Brunei and Malaysia in the Bay of Brunei; and Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand in the southern sector of the Andaman Sea (Valencia 1981). Figure 2.2 illustrates the maritime boundaries in Southeast Asia. Maritime boundaries based on historical agreements between former colonial powers include that for Malaysia and the Philippines in the Sulu Sea and between Malaysia and Singapore for the Straits of Johor (Morgan FIGURE 2.2 Southeast Asia: Maritime Jurisdiction

Note: A number of maritime boundaries have been determined in the region. The map portrays the approximate alignment of the negotiated maritime boundaries, three joint-development zones (two in the Gulf of Thailand and one in the Timor Sea), and the extent of the 200-nautical mile arcs that purports to be the outer limit of the EEZ.

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and Valencia 1983; Yusof 1988; Lee Y.L. 1989; Haller-Trost 1993). In November 1994, the governments of Malaysia and Singapore signed an agreement to delimit a boundary in the Straits of Johor. That treaty was ratified on 7 August 1995. The boundary follows closely the alignment of an earlier delimitation — the modification being based on the median line principle (Charney and Alexander 1993, pp. 2350–56; Forbes and Basiron 1998). Perhaps as a direct result of the decisions of the colonial administrators there exists sovereignty disputes over the Ligitan and Sipadan islands and reefs in the Celebes Sea, and Pulau Puteh Batu (Pedra Branca) at the eastern approaches to the Straits of Johor (Haller-Trost 1993, 1995). During September 1996 the Indonesian and Malaysian leaders were in accord to have an arbitrator decide on the status of Ligitan and Sipadan islands off the southeast coast of Sabah. In October 2001, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down its judgement which suggested that the Philippines had no case in its arguments regarding the status of the Ligitan and Sipidan Islands (ICJ Report, 14 October 2001). On 17 December 2002, the ICJ adjudged, on the basis of the submissions and arguments, that sovereignty over the islands of Ligitan and Sipidan belongs to Malaysia (ICJ, Press Release 2002/39). The Southeast Asian coastal nations according to Johnston (1987, p. 50), are “qualified and disposed to provide a good example, and a measure of world leadership, in developing policies of implementation” of the provisions of the 1982 Convention. Indonesia, as previously stated, has effectively demonstrated that it has led by positive action: notably in (a) ratifying the Convention, and (b) in seeking agreements with its neighbours on the delimitation of common maritime boundaries (Forbes 1995b). Where resolution was required over disputed sovereignty, co-operative zones have been established and special arrangements have been implemented whereby the resources of the marginal seas and adjacent oceans will be explored and harvested in a sustainable manner (Forbes 1998). Having defined the types of maritime jurisdictional zones and differentiated between a terrestrial border and a maritime boundary, it is necessary now to discuss the issues that result from the boundary delimitations and define the areas of conflict.

International Political Boundary Conflicts Conflict of interest occurs when one party believes that in order to satisfy its needs that of the other party must be sacrificed. Conflict in the context

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of this study does not necessarily imply aggression or warfare. The term refers to a situation of discord between two or more parties, which can sometimes be resolved peacefully or which may, in some circumstances, lead to aggression (Minghi 1991). The sovereignty issues over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagoes in the South China Sea fits into this category (Samuels 1982; Chang 1990). Several sources of conflict are derived from territorial claims on land and at sea and in particular in areas of utilization of maritime space and the marine resources contained therein. Actual conflicts invariably mix realistic and unrealistic elements. A modicum of discord can gradually generate a vicious circle of enmity. This was the case in Southeast Asia during the “confrontation era” of the 1950s between Indonesia and Malaysia and since the 1980s between China and Vietnam and to a lesser extent between Myanmar and Thailand. The conflict on the territorial dispute between Indonesia and Malaysia, on the other hand, could be viewed as an unnecessary perceptual problem. While Indonesia recognizes that the islands of Ligitan and Sipadan were both charted as part of the British Protectorate (Sabah); the Indonesian allegation that Malaysia only included these islands on its national map in 1969 does not hold ground in developing a claim of ownership over the islands and their adjacent sea (Haller-Trost 1995). In any conflict it is possible to determine the primary causes of the dispute and to assess whether the cause is a genuine incompatibility or a relationship problem between the parties that should be amenable to a solution. For example, China’s apparent dogmatic stand on the South China Sea issue may be considered as genuine incompatibility with the other disputants in the conflict. The dispute relating to sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes has simmered during the 1980s and 1990s. Some nation-states in this regional context have renegotiated new boundary treaties with each other, for example, China and Myanmar and China with Vietnam (Amer 1995, 1997) following prolonged disputes over the alignment of their common terrestrial boundary. While China, Laos, and Myanmar have ratified a border junction agreement in June 1993, delimitation and demarcation of the disputed boundary between Cambodia and Thailand await resolution of political issues in Cambodia (St John 1998, p. 44). Disputed Boundaries and Areas of Conflict: Regional Examples In May 1963, the Governments of Myanmar and Thailand agreed to promote peace and security along their border. They appointed four joint

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FIGURE 2.3 Southeast Asia: Epicentres of Separatist, Religions, and Ethnic Unrest

Note: This map provides an approximate alignment of the terrestrial international boundaries and an indication of the location of the regions in focus.

committees to suppress crime, to ensure national security for both sides, and to deal with other boundary problems. This borderland, as in the case of many others in Southeast Asia, has attracted migrants from a variety of sources and complex ethnic patterns have developed as small communities settled and survived (Rumley 1991). Figure 2.3 illustrates the spread of the ethnic patterns along the border regions of the northern rim of Southeast Asia. Several broad developments have determined the composition, spread, and dynamics of ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. The earliest pattern of ethnicity resulted from the historical migrations of Sino-Himalayan and Sino-Tibetan peoples following the river systems that originate in the Himalayan ranges. Superimposed upon this pattern were the large-scale immigrant communities from the Indian subcontinent and China. The third determinant of the ethnic map of Southeast Asia was the impact of Western colonialism. Almost everywhere in the region the decisions and

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the relationships of the European colonial powers delineated the boundaries of the present-day states. Some specific examples of boundary disputes and areas of conflict during the 1990s warrant elaboration in this regional context. They best illustrate the problems over the delineation and demarcation of international terrestrial political boundaries. Difficulties often arise long after the boundary was considered as settled. Other border disputes arise because one state imposes restrictions or regulations at border crossings, which seriously disadvantage the populace of neighbouring countries. Several border disputes on land are associated with competition to use a resource, such as a river or lake that straddles the boundary, or where there is an actual or perceived knowledge that hydrocarbon resources straddle an international boundary. The disputed border areas of the Myanmar–Thailand, the Cambodia–Vietnam, and the Laos–Thailand terrestrial boundaries, in part due to poor delimitation and demarcation, are highlighted below. The Laos/Thailand boundary After a prolonged dispute over the alignment of the boundary between Laos and Thailand (Rigg 1997), an inspection of troop withdrawals along the disputed border areas in Sayaboury (Saya Buri) province was completed on 2–4 April 1991. Both sides signed a document verifying troop withdrawal. On 4 April 1991, the joint Thai-Lao committee inspected the Thai side of the border after making a two-day inspection of the Lao side. Three helicopters of the Thai army were used in the inspection to verify that Thai soldiers had withdrawn from the areas. The document of verification reported that both sides had withdrawn their main forces to maintain a 12 kilometre-wide “weapons-free zone” along the boundary. The Thai-Lao committee continues to remain in contact for co-operation along the border region. Meanwhile, Thailand put its border patrol police and ranger forces in charge of its border area, while Laos placed its local militia in charge of its areas (Army Television Channel 5, 4 April 1991). The Cambodia/Vietnam boundary During the period 1992–93, when the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) was in Cambodia, several border monitoring teams were set in place to investigate incidents along the Cambodian/Vietnamese boundary. There were also violations of territorial sovereignty along the Cambodian/Thai border. The Vietnamese authorities had been accused of

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moving border markers “deeper” into Cambodian territory (Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 May 1994, p. 19). During a visit to Phnom Penh in early April 1996, the Vietnamese Prime Minister met his Cambodian counterpart and discussed the issue of their common boundary. The two sides reiterated their commitment to promote relations on the basis of respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. The two governments also reiterated their desire to “build the Vietnam–Cambodia border area into one of peace, friendship and lasting stability” and unanimously agreed to convene a meeting of the border expert working group as soon as possible. Cambodia’s then First Prime Minister, Norodom Ranariddh, stated on 11 April 1996 that the boundary problem was complex and that “the Vietnamese have entered Cambodian territory in Kompong Cham, Takeo and in Svay Rieng Province.” The purpose of the bilateral working group was to visit the disputed areas and determine the status quo prior to 17 January 1995 so that the boundary line can return to its former position (Voice of Vietnam, 10 April 1996). The Myanmar/Thailand boundary On 6 May 1997, a report noted that the Thai Government had, for the second time, rejected Myanmar’s protest concerning the construction of a concrete embankment on the Thai side of the Moei River that forms the border between the two countries at Mae Sot. The Myanmar authorities had claimed that the embankment would destroy a “new” island in the river, which had formed after a new channel was dredged in the waterway. The Thai authorities rejected the claims, stating that construction was taking place entirely on Thai territory in order to prevent riverbank erosion. It was subsequently revealed that both sides claim a river island that had apparently shifted to the Thai side of the line, as defined by a colonial-era treaty between Siam (Thailand) and Britain, which then controlled Myanmar. The course of the river had changed as a result of dredging by the Myanmar authority and severe floods occurred in 1995. On 11 May 1997, Thai authorities reported that Myanmar workers had commenced dredging to clear the old river channel, in retaliation against the construction of the embankment by Thai authorities, which apparently erected wooden posts in the river. The stakes in the river were alleged to be capable of changing the course of the river, causing erosion on the Thai side of the delimited boundary. An aide-mémoire protesting the Myanmar action was reported to be under preparation. On 27 May, however, a Thai

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media report noted that a “confrontation” had taken place between Thai forces and Myanmar troops deployed to the newly created island in the river. The two sides’ troops were reported to be only a few metres apart at some points along the disputed boundary. The two sides agreed on 28 May 1997 to pull their forces back and allow technical officers of their Joint Border Committee to solve the problem. On 4 June 1997, the Thai Prime Minister proposed that the two sides agree on a “permanent border” in the “middle” of the Moei River to prevent disputes of this kind recurring. Despite such positive-sounding statements, a meeting of officials on 6 June 1997 ended in deadlock with the Myanmar Government insisting that their dredging plan, based on aerial photographs taken in 1989, should go ahead while the Thais proposed a survey prior to any such work. After the meeting it was reported that Thai officials who went to inspect the disputed area found that stakes and flags used to mark the original water channel had been removed (Bangkok Post, 6, 11, and 27 May, 1, 4, and 6 June 1997; Thailand Times, 31 May 1997; The Nation, 4 and 16 June 1997). On 1 October 1997, Thai authorities reported that the Myanmar Government had reinforced its claim to a 200-rai (32-hectare) disputed area in the vicinity of Mae Sot on the Thai/Myanmar river boundary by sending military personnel there to build concrete watchtowers and dig bunkers. According to the Thai authorities, this action represented a violation of a resolution of the two sides’ joint Technical Border Committee that called for mutual troop withdrawals from the disputed area and suspension of construction activities pending negotiations. On 24 January 1998, it was reported that the Myanmar Government had apologized to Thailand for the incident and agreed that neither side would allow armed troops to land on the disputed islet until the demarcation of the border was determined. It was also agreed that Thai farmers would be allowed to work on the islet until the dispute was resolved, and that Thai inspectors could visit the island to confirm that the Myanmar troops had withdrawn (Bangkok Post, 20 and 24 January 1998). However, on 20 January 1998, troops from Myanmar were reported to have occupied a disputed islet in the Moei River, which forms the boundary between Myanmar and Thailand. Following the occupation of the islet, representatives from nearby Thai villages went to negotiate with the local Myanmar authorities, while the local Thai army commander contacted his counterpart to discuss the situation. On 9 February 1998, Thailand claimed that Myanmar had renewed work on a dam under the Thai/Burmese Friendship Bridge, in the process

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dredging sand from the disputed section of the Moei River. The objective for the dredging work, which commenced on 2 February 1998, was to fill the riverbed between the north of the bridge and the riverbank and connecting the land to the Myanmar territory. Thailand’s representative on the local Thai-Myanmar Border Committee allegedly delivered a letter of protest to the Myanmar authorities in the area but to no avail (Bangkok Post, 9 February 1928). Customary international law dictates that where the middle of a river intersects an island the accepted case would be to give the entire island to the state to which the greater part would fall. Maritime Boundary Disputes Maritime boundary delimitation and associated disputes, however, are a recent phenomenon. Disputes occur before the boundary is drawn and generally disappear when a line (or series of lines) is eventually determined and agreed upon. Examples where a dispute was resolved with the delineation of lines on a map or chart include the Fisheries Jurisdiction Line between Australia and Papua New Guinea within the Torres Strait and the maritime boundary in the South China Sea between Indonesia and Malaysia. However, there are instances where one party has sought to try and renegotiate a maritime boundary (Tangsubukul 1991). For example, Indonesia has indicated on several occasions for a renegotiation with Malaysia of the seabed boundary in the Malacca Straits and with Australia in the Timor and Arafura Seas. It is not expected that there will be a change in the alignment of the former boundary but a change in status of the latter has been effected by the signing of a treaty in Perth on 14 March 1997 (Forbes 1997a). This treaty and another between Australia and East Timor, which was signed in May 2002, have yet to be ratified (as at 30 December 2002) by the respective signatories. There are several issues that may be involved in disputing maritime space. These include disputed sovereignty over offshore islands, the allocation of natural resources that straddle undefined boundaries, the sustainable development of biotic and mineral resources, and the recognition of rights — traditional and historical — to access those resources between places that transcend perceived national boundaries or frontiers (Chao 1988). Thus far, there have been only minor skirmishes arising from boundary disputes. The claims and counter-claims, by at least six littoral states of the South China Sea, over sovereignty of the Spratly Islands; and the dispute between China and Vietnam over the Paracel Islands; are examples of boundary tensions that hinder the settlement of a defined line between the respective states (Chang 1986, 1990; Sheng 1995). Whereas

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minor skirmishes have not been a common feature of the evolution of maritime boundaries to the present, the same cannot be said of terrestrial borders. Malaysia and Singapore The boundary to the north of Singapore with Malaysia was governed by an agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Sultan of the State of Johor, which was signed on 19 October 1927. The agreement did not specify a precise boundary line. It was generally accepted that the line would coincide with the deep-water channel in the Strait of Johor. Since 1980, however, measures have been taken by the littoral states — Malaysia and Singapore — to undertake a hydrographic survey of the strait so that negotiations to determine a common boundary would ensue. In mid-November 1994, a settlement was reached, an agreement signed and the boundary delimited. They also noted that irrespective of any subsequent shift in the deep-water channel the agreed boundary would take effect. The agreement that established the boundary was ratified in August 1995 (Forbes and Basiron 1998, pp. 13–14). Malaysia and Singapore will at some stage have to negotiate with Indonesia the determination of two segments of maritime boundaries — territorial or seabed — at the eastern and western approaches to the Straits of Singapore. Indonesia Indonesia’s former President Soeharto established a national board to formulate policies on maritime issues in January 1997. Indonesia has expressed concern over the publication of Chinese maps showing unclear maritime boundaries between the Natuna and Spratly islands (Radio Australia, 16 January 1997). Indonesia has still to settle an outstanding boundary with Malaysia and Singapore in the eastern and western approaches to the Straits of Singapore; delimit a boundary with East Timor; and negotiate a boundary with the Philippines. To compound the issues at the international level, the Indonesian Government in 1999 enacted legislation to provide autonomy to the provinces of Indonesia. This is causing greater concern with regard to delimiting maritime jurisdictional limits between the central and provincial governments of Indonesia (Forbes and Bachri 1999). Indonesia has defined archipelagic sea lanes in accordance with Article 49 and 53 of the 1982 Convention as it was concerned over the network of shipping routes that criss-cross the archipelagic waters (see Figure 2.4).

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FIGURE 2.4 Southeast Asia: Shipping Lanes and Indonesia’s Archipelagic Sea Lanes

South China Sea: The Paracel and Spratly Islands In 1946, Taiwan claimed sovereignty over the Spratly archipelago basing its claim on first discovery and continuous patronage. Since that time, four more littoral states of the South China Sea have claims over all or a few of the islands, islets, sand cays, and reefs of the archipelago. Mainland China began the scramble in 1949 when it claimed all the islands — Spratly, Paracel, and Pratas — and the adjacent sea space (Ba 1993; Hamzah 1993; Coomber 1995; Zeng 1995; Hancox and Prescott 1995; Prescott 1996b; Catley and Keliat 1997; Furtado 1999). Vietnam entered the scene in 1975, when China occupied by force the Paracel Islands (Chang 1990, p. 23). The Philippines, concerned with the actions of China and Vietnam, claimed a number of the Spratly islands and islets in 1971 to confirm historic rights to the islands. Malaysia claims those features in the archipelago that are part of its continental shelf and encompassed within the limits of

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its EEZ defined in 1979. Brunei’s claim extends to the limits of its EEZ. The EEZ limits of these two states have not been determined through negotiation. Between 1974 and 1999 all claimants with the exception of Brunei had ensured their presence on the occupied islands by establishing lighthouses, navigational marks, meteorological and oceanographic observation centres, resort hotel, and fortifications with troops on land and ships stationed in the adjacent waters (Storey 1999). At the same time, efforts to resolve the issue of sovereignty over the archipelago has been discussed at numerous international fora and opinions relating to sovereignty over the islands expressed in academic literature and in print and electronic news media. The former Philippine President, Joseph Estrada, reaffirmed the Philippine’s commitment to seek a peaceful solution to the Spratly Islands dispute on 21 May 1999. He said that the government would “exhaust all diplomatic means to resolve this dispute”. However, on 20 May 1999, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that China had “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands and their territorial waters. He claimed that the Philippines had illegally invaded and occupied some islands and reefs, violating China’s territorial sovereignty. The report also noted that “President Joseph Estrada and Chinese Ambassador Fu Ying had agreed that the Spratlys dispute can be resolved through peaceful dialogues. According to the President, the Philippines and China should form a panel to study and discuss the resolution of the problem.” China condemned the sinking of a Chinese fishing boat in the disputed waters on 25 May 1999, calling it an “attack on its sovereignty” and demanding an investigation and compensation. The sinking took place near Scarborough Shoal, when a Philippine naval vessel collided with the Chinese fishing boat. President Estrada insisted that the responsibility for the incident lay with the Chinese, as they were “fishing inside Philippine territory” (Manila Bulletin, Internet Version, 21 May 1999; Xinhua, 20 May 1999; GMA-7 Radio Television Art Network, Quezon City, 21 May 1999; BBC Online, 25 May 1999). The Philippines called for talks with Malaysia on 23 June 1999 following controversial new structures built by Malaysia on the disputed Spratly Islands. The Philippine Government said that Malaysia had built the structures in the Pawikan Shoal at the southern end of the Kalayaan Island group (Shephard 1994). They consisted of a concrete platform with a helipad and a two-storey building with radar, as well as several barges

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with cranes, construction materials, and naval vessels without flags. The Philippine Government also stated that Malaysia had occupied two other areas of the island group — Antonia Luna Bank and the Mariveles Reef (Mantanani in Malay). The Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad dismissed the Philippines’ claims on 27 June 1999, stating that the Peninjau and Siput reefs were within Malaysia’s EEZ. He said that Pawikan Shoal was being used for civilian research into climate and marine studies, and that the sandbar was “part of our territory”. Mahathir also stated that Malaysia should “long ago” have claimed another reef, Terumbu Laksamana’ but did not do so. The Philippines has not relinquished their claim to Sabah (on Borneo island) (Financial Times, 23 June 1999; AFP, Hong Kong, 27 June 1999). ASEAN and China have taken a positive step towards a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea. A Working Group was set up by the ASEANChina Senior Officials Consultations at the seventh annual meeting in Kuching, Malaysia, in April 1999. An ASEAN-China Working Group on the Code of Conduct met in Kuala Lumpur on 26 May 2000 and agreed on a consolidated working draft. The draft, which was built on the outcome of the first consultation of the ASEAN-China officials in Hua Hin, Thailand on 15 March 2000, served as a common basis for further consultation of the Working Group (Rosenberg 1999). A Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea was signed at Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 4 November 2002. It reaffirmed the members’ commitments to the purposes and principles on international law and ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia. On the same day, members also signed a Joint Declaration of ASEAN and China on Co-operation in the Field of Non-traditional Security Issues.

Issues and Future Direction Southeast Asia has been a region of repression, terror, and war since WWII. There have been three overlapping phases of armed conflict in Southeast Asia since 1945. First, came decolonization and its immediate aftermath. In Vietnam alone, over 600,000 people were killed between 1945 and 1954 during its war of independence from France. When Portuguese administrators walked out of East Timor in about August 1975, the eastern half of Timor Island and the enclave at Oeccusi were claimed and occupied by Indonesia, whose armed forces killed over 15 per cent of the Timorese population (Dunn 1983, p. 310).

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In 1942, the Japanese, apparently convinced that the Allies planned to seize East Timor, committed more than 20,000 troops to what became a virtual occupation of the colony and a launching pad for an attack on northern Australia (Dunn 1983, p. 23). The second phase of armed conflict was a direct link to the Cold War era and the emergence of nationalism. Nearly two and one half million people died in Vietnam between 1960 and 1975. Just as many, or even more, have died in Cambodia since 1970. During the period of confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia skirmishes took place between regular and irregular forces along many sections of the entire border. The third phase of armed conflict is over the control of natural resources located on the land and in the sea. Parties divide on ethnic or religious lines and fight for access to mineral deposits and forestry reserves. In the Philippines, Islamic insurgents claim to control nearly half the natural resources of Mindanao Island. In Irian Jaya, the Indonesian-administered half of New Guinea Island, nearly four decades of armed struggle for independence prevents the Indonesian Government and multinational corporations from fully exploiting the island’s major natural resource — the world’s largest active gold mine. There has been conflict over resource utilization and financial benefits from exploitation being directed to a central reserve and not to provincial governments in Aceh, Sulawesi, and other provinces of Indonesia. To rectify this imbalance, the Government of Indonesia enacted UU No. 25/1999 (Law No. 25/1999 Undang Undang Perimbangan Keuangan Antara Pemerintah Pusat dan Derah), which provides for revenue-sharing between central and provincial/local governments in this archipelagic state. In theory, the model is to be commended. However, in practice, difficulties are envisaged. Revenue-sharing from the exploitation and harvesting of resources between the central government with each local administration will differ between one region and another. For example, there is a marked difference in the treatment by the central government with the province of Aceh, on the one hand, and with the provinces of West Java and Irian Jaya, on the other. Irian Jaya, the western half of New Guinea Island, is incorporated into the Republic of Indonesia. The incorporation was effected when the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) in West Papua conducted an “Act of Free Choice” in August 1969. In this U.N.-sponsored election, only 1,025 electors, one for every eighty West Papuans was chosen to participate in the vote. These representatives were allegedly intimidated and coerced into unanimously voting to integrate with Indonesia. Since

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the handover of Irian Jaya to Indonesia, the indigenous populations have suffered under Indonesian Government oppression (SBS, Dateline, 5 July 2000). The results of that referendum of 1999 in East Timor and the subsequent events on that island during the first two weeks of September 1999 demonstrated to the international community the dynamic geopolitical change in Southeast Asia. Indeed, during the first half of 1999 to mid-2002, reports suggest that the tactics used on Irian Jaya were being repeated in other provinces of Indonesia — Aceh, Ambon, Sulawesi, and western Kalimantan. In the case of Aceh, on 9 December 2002, the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM) and the Indonesian Government signed a peace deal — cessation of hostilities — which raises the hope of peace and end the decades-long secessionist conflict in that province. The major issues that relate to preserving the national integrity of the states are defence, transboundary co-operation and migration, refugee status as a result of war, and nationalism. Nationalism The concept of citizenship in the modern states of Southeast Asia is not without ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions (Broek 1994). In Southeast Asia, as indeed in eastern and southern Europe of the late 1990s, the notion of citizenship is even more problematic. Aguilar (1999) discusses the changing status of three categories of people in Southeast Asia who are classified, in some way, as “migrants”. Whether they are the long-settled “migrant communities” within the region whose members are mostly descendants of labour migrants from an earlier period of global-colonial capitalism; contemporary intra-regional labour migrants; or permanent emigrants to places outside the region. Vietnam, as a nation-state, attained its present territorial form in about 1780. Less than a century later, the French colonized the country in 1862 and partitioned it into three sectors: the protectorates of Tonkin and Cochin in the north and central regions, respectively, and the colony of Annam in the south. Following the Japanese occupation of the country (1940–44) a short-lived Communist regime was established in Tonkin in the north but this was absolved by returning French colonial forces. In 1945, France promised to grant independence under emperor Bao Dai, but this was rejected by the Communist, the Viet Minh. In the First Indochina War, French troops were severely defeated at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, and led to the partition of the country into North and South Vietnam.

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The reunification of Vietnam was an important objective of the Viet Minh. The two countries maintained a hostile relationship, and in 1964 the two were at war: North Vietnam being supported by China, and South Vietnam by the United States and its allies. Until 1972 neither side had the advantage. By 1975, the North Vietnamese and their Communist allies in the South, the Viet Cong, succeeded in breaking through South Vietnamese barriers, while the United States withdrew its forces. Official reunification of Vietnam was proclaimed in 1976. Where there is a vocal minority within a country, conflict may result if that minority group desires a separate identity. Shan, Karen, and other ethnic groups have made such moves in northern Myanmar and tribal groups whose homeland, which straddles political boundaries, was arbitrarily split (Lintner 1984; Grundy-Warr and Rajah 1997). Problems relating to nationalism are evident in southern Philippines, along the China/Vietnam boundary and in at least three parts of Indonesia. Ill-defined boundaries can cause a language or religious minority group to be split along an international frontier. Conflict may result, as people may desire to belong to the nation where they will be in the majority as occurred in the India/ Bangladesh and India/Pakistan borders. Finally, it is possible that a distinct ethnic group identifies with a homeland that is located across a national boundary. This can lead to pressure for new boundaries to create a unified and separate homeland. The problem of “sanctuary” may become acute, particularly if the government and its allies conduct large-scale military operations near the border. Transborder Migration Irregular and undocumented transborder migration are characterized by ever increasing number of international migrants seeking either to escape war, abject poverty, persecution, and human rights violations and, in some cases, simply to find better opportunities (United Nations 1987; Dupont 1999). The growing participation of women and children as migrants is another striking characteristic of migratory flows today. Without doubt, the major circumstance leading to massive migration is war. The graphic, but sad plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia into Thailand in July 1997 (Gilley 1998); the arrival of “boat people” from Vietnam landing on beaches of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia from unseaworthy boats after being at sea for months during the mid-1970s; and of “illegal” persons smuggled away in the most unusual manner and circumstances illustrate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of international frontiers. Nearly four million

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persons are smuggled across national borders worldwide according to statistics maintained by the United Nations, in an activity worth an estimated US$9 billion per annum. Refugees form part of this human-trafficking industry (Heibert and Jayasankaran 1998). Of the world’s more than 20 million refugees nearly 1.2 million (or about 5 per cent) are in the countries of Southeast Asia and Australia. According to statistics maintained by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, there are at least thirteen camps housing a refugee population in excess of 103,000 persons along the Myanmar/Thai border; along the Cambodia/Thai border there are three camps holding over 37,500 refugees; and in East and West Timor nearly 166,000 have returned to their country by late-1999. Refugee camps also exist along the frontiers of Bangladesh/Thai, Cambodia/Vietnam, and Laos with its neighbours. It is ironic, that in late July 2000, Indonesians fleeing their homes from the Moluccas were refused permission to settle on Irian Jaya (Jakarta Post, 20 July 2000, p. 3). Concerned by the increasing number of illegal immigrants, delegates from twenty nations, met in Bangkok on 21–23 April 1999 at a symposium jointly organized by the Royal Thai Government and the International Organisation for Migration. This symposium allowed ministers from countries in the Asia-Pacific region to share their experience and expertise and promote further regional understanding and co-operation in the field of irregular and undocumented migration in Southeast Asia. Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality ASEAN was established in 1967 to promote inter-governmental co-operation in economic, scientific, social, and cultural fields as well as other transnational issues of common concern (ASEAN website; Solingen 1994). ASEAN reaffirmed its commitment to the aims and purposes of the Association set forth in the Bangkok Declaration of 8 August 1967. The vision was expounded in Kuala Lumpur on 15 December 1997 (ASEAN website). This vision is for ASEAN as a group of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace (Hanggi 1991, p. 15), stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies. The region, by 2020, will in reality be a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN), as envisaged in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration of 1971. In addition, ASEAN envisions a Southeast Asia: ●

where territorial and other disputes are resolved by peaceful means. The Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia functions

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●

●

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fully as a binding code of conduct for the governments and citizens, to which other states with interests in the region adhere; free from nuclear and all other weapons of mass destruction with all the Nuclear Weapon States committed to the purposes of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty through their adherence to its Protocol; possessing an ASEAN Regional Forum as an established means for confidence-building and preventive diplomacy and for promoting conflict-resolution; where the physical features — mountains, rivers, and seas — no longer divide the nations but link them together in friendship, co-operation, and commerce.

ASEAN as an entity may be credited for the remarkable economic progress that has evolved from the 1970s to the start of the financial crisis in mid-1997. Economic and resource development policies have taken priority over military security in the national agendas of some states in the region. The political change is in part a consequence of the end of colonialism since 1945 and the “thawing out” phase of the Cold War, coupled with the reduction of the former Soviet and U.S. military presence in the region (Acharya 1992). ASEAN’s viability and progress will be measured by the outcomes of the interactions between the forces of regional integration and disintegration (Paul 1996, p. 247) and perhaps as a result of the outcomes of development external to the region. Whereas ASEAN has been reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of its members, for example, in Indonesia over the East Timor and Irian Jaya issues; with Myanmar over its border clashes with Thailand; and indeed when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and Laos, an ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea of 22 July 1992 resolved, without prejudicing the sovereignty and jurisdiction of countries having direct interests in the area, to explore the possibility of co-operation in the South China Sea (Rau 1986; Lee Y.L. 1987b). Rather disconcerting is the fact that two members of ASEAN (as of 10 December 2002) have not ratified the 1982 Convention and the Agreement relating to Part XI of the said Convention (see Table 2.8), despite being signatories to the legal-political document. Ratification of the 1982 Convention and its Agreement dealing with Part XI of the Convention indicates that a signatory is in accord with the principles contained in the document and will be obligated to the rules and regulations (Prescott 1981, 1998).

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TABLE 2.8 ASEAN and Status of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention Country

Date of Signature

Date of Ratification

Agreement – Part XI

Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Laos Malaysia Myanmar Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam

5 December 1984 1 July 1983 10 December 1982 — 10 December 1982 10 December 1982 10 December 1982 10 December 1982 10 December 1982 10 December 1982

5 November 1996 — 3 February 1986 5 June 1998 14 October 1996 21 May 1996 8 May 1994 17 November 1994 — 25 July 1994

5 November 1996 — 2 June 2000 5 June 1998 14 October 1996 21 May 1996 23 July 1997 17 November 1994 — —

Conclusion International political boundaries pose difficult management issues, particularly for developing countries with limited administrative resources and common terrestrial and/or maritime boundaries with several countries. Indonesia provides a classical case in that it shares land boundaries with Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, but its international maritime boundaries are many and varied. Its archipelagic status and that of the Philippines provides interesting case studies for the marine political geographer. The determination and delimitation of maritime boundaries between adjacent or opposite states can be particularly complex. This is due, firstly, to the need to survey and define agreed baselines from which to measure national maritime zones, and secondly, the lack of clarity of some of the relevant international law, particularly that relating to continental shelves where different criteria can apply. There are outstanding issues that remain to be resolved with respect to maritime boundary delimitation. An ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea resolved to explore the possibility of co-operation at a multi-layered level in the South China Sea. Attempts to solve the Spratly dispute and the wider maritime tensions could be made at three levels — bilateral, regional, and through the United Nations. Consultations at each of these levels would address separate, but equally important, aspects of these maritime issues. The ASEAN-China Code of Conduct for the South China Sea is a positive step towards harmony in the region and is undoubtedly a significant step to ensuring the security issues in the region will dovetail the good intentions of the Five Power Defence Agreement (FPDA).

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In many ways the problems of transboundary co-operation are becoming more complex with illegal population movement, growing concerns over the degradation of particular ecosystems, such as mangroves, coral reefs, and fish stock which transcend national boundaries, the interdependence of economic activity, shared water resources, and transnational pollution. There is scope for regional co-operation to resolve and manage border disputes. In areas where terrestrial and maritime boundaries are ill-defined, assistance could be offered by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the form of expertise in technical (for example, surveying and map compilation and production), legal, and administrative procedures to settle border disputes. While Southeast Asia is bound by ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia, many examples of boundary tensions are to be found in the geographical region within the context of this study. The present chapter identified the problem areas, analyses the issues, and proposes models as frameworks for co-operative approaches to the allocation of resources. Such proposals are aimed at providing long-term solutions towards easing tension and increasing harmonious relations at the regional level. ASEAN must be prepared, in a change of direction, to offer bold constructive intervention in cases where a domestic concern poses a threat to regional security, for example, in Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. Co-operation along the boundary at the local level is naturally the first step towards the internationalization of local authority economic policy. This will naturally depend on the amount of autonomy a local authority possesses. In a free-market society and a democratic voting process, local authorities along the frontier may be given free rein to develop business and trade between their counterparts across the border. The SingaporeIndonesian-Malaysia co-operation — the Sijori (Singapore-Johor-Riau) Growth Triangle — relating to economic growth in the Riau Archipelago, in particular on Batam and Bintan islands (see Chapter 10 by Perry in this volume), offers a model for development in other parts of Southeast Asia. It is a model, which demonstrates that a borderless economy has the potential to develop resources in a sustainable manner and manage the environment if the political will for co-operation exists on either side of the boundary. At the regional level, ASEAN and non-government organizations (NGOs) and other fora are useful avenues that can be employed to develop regional co-operation. However, it is at the borderlands that transactions of a peaceful nature should take place. If managers of regional authorities and, for that matter, central governments are far removed from the

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borderlands, which is often the case, then the chances of recognition of the plight of those that live and work along the boundary will generally be ignored. Financial assistance for specific projects that will enhance cross-frontier trade of a legal nature should be encouraged. A fine example was the construction and completion of the Friendship Bridge, across the Mekong River, which was funded by the Australian Government. Projects that would bring long-term benefits to those people along the frontiers of disputed territories especially in the border landscapes of Southeast Asia would include infrastructure for water and sewage works, irrigation schemes, and mini-dam construction, agricultural advice and technical services so that small-scale farms could be profitably established. ASEAN has reiterated its resolve to enhance economic co-operation through economic development strategies, which are in line with the aspiration of its respective peoples, by emphasizing on the concepts of sustainable and equitable growth, and enhancing national as well as regional resilience. Indeed, the economic crisis experienced by some member states during 1997–99 did not destabilize ASEAN’s ability to co-operate in important matters such as membership expansion and regional security, in particular, in the management of conflict resolution on matters relating to national boundaries. References Acharya, Amitav. “Regional Military Security Cooperation in the Third World: A Conceptual Analysis of the Relevance and Limitations of ASEAN”. Journal of Peace Research 29, no. 1 (1992): 7–21. Aguilar, F. V. “The Triumph of Instrumental Citizenship? Migrations, Identities, and the Nation-State in Southeast Asia”. Asian Studies Review 23, no. 3 (1999): 307–36. Amer, Ramses. “Vietnam and its Neighbours: The Border Dispute Dimension”. Contemporary Southeast Asia 17, no. 3 (1995): 298–318. ———. “The Territorial Dispute between China and Vietnam and Regional Stability”. Contemporary Southeast Asia 19, no. 1 (1997): 86–113. ———. “Expanding ASEAN’s Conflict Management Framework in Southeast Asia”. Asian Journal of Political Science 6, no. 2 (1998): 33–56. Auburn, F., David Ong, and V. L. Forbes. “Dispute Resolution and the Timor Gap Treaty”. Occasional Paper No. 35, Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies, 1994. Australian Government. Australian Treaty Series, Nos 31, 32. Canberra: AGPS. Ba, A. D. “China and the Spratly Islands Prospects for Joint Development”. M.A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1993. Beckman, R., Carl Grundy-Warr, and V. L. Forbes. “Acts of Piracy in the Malacca and Singapore Straits”. Maritime Briefing 1, no. 4 (1994).

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Biger, Gideon. The Encyclopedia of International Boundaries, in collaboration with the International Boundaries Research Unit, University of Durham, England. New York: Facts on File, 1995. Blake, G. H.,ed. Maritime Boundaries and Ocean Resources. London: Croom Helm, 1987. Broek, Jan O. M. “Diversity and Unity in Southeast Asia”. Geographical Review 34 (1944): 175–95. Catley, Bob and Makmur Keliat. Spratlys: The Dispute in the South China Sea. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 1997. Chao Hick Tin. “Paper on Singapore: Law of the Sea”. SEAPOL Studies, No. 2 (1988), pp. 1–12. Chang Pao-Min. The Sino-Vietnamese Territorial Dispute. New York: Praeger, 1986. _____ “A New Scramble for the South China Seas Islands”. Contemporary Southeast Asia 12, no. 1 (1990): 20–39. Charney, J. I. and L. M. Alexander. International Maritime Boundaries. 3 vols. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1993. Chia L. S. and C. MacAndrews, eds. Southeast Asian Seas: Frontiers for Development. Singapore: McGraw Hill, 1981. Cook, D., J. C. Macartney, and P. M. Stott. “Where is the Border?”. Australian External Territories 8, no. 5 (1968): 7–18. Coomber, Andrea. “The Spratly Islands Dispute: Dangerous Ground for Asia, Difficult Ground for International Law”. Bachelor of Law thesis (Hons.), University of Western Australia, 1995. Cotterell, Arthur. East Asia: From Chinese Predominance to the Rise of the Pacific Rim, pp. 237–40. London: John Murray, 1995. Dunn, James. Timor A People Betrayed. Milton, Queensland: Jacaranda Press, 1983. Dupont, A. “Transnational Crime, Drugs and Security in East Asia”. Asian Survey 39, no 3 (1999): 433–55. East, W. G., O. H. K. Spate, and C. A. Fisher, eds. The Changing Map of Asia: A Political Geography. London: Methuen, 1971. Fisher, C. A. South-East Asia: A Social, Economic and Political Geography. London: Methuen, 1966. Fisher, C. A., ed. Essays in Political Geography. London: Methuen, 1968. Fisher, C. A. “South-east Asia”. In The Changing Map of Asia: A Political Geography, edited by W. G. East, O. H. K. Spate, and C. A. Fisher, pp. 221–339. London: Methuen, 1971. Forbes, V. L. The Maritime Boundaries of the Indian Ocean Region. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1995a. ———. Indonesia’s Maritime Boundaries. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Institute of Maritime Affairs, 1995b. ———. “Line of Allocation — the 1997 Treaty”. Indian Ocean Review 10, no. 2 (1997a): 11–14. ———. “Ensuring Safety to Navigation in the Straits of Singapore”. Indian Ocean Review 10, no. 3 (1997b): 7–10.

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