Beyond the Mekong

Marcus Tantau is a senior associate at Templeton Research with a focus on Indonesia, which is beset by El Nino-fueled wildfires, political ructions amid a cabinet reshuffle, and confusing signals over the economy.This month's reshuffle was the biggest since President Prabowo Subianto took power two years ago and Tantau says the Indonesian leader is clearly focused on shoring-up support ahead the next election, which is not due until 2029.The reshuffle also sidelined supporters of former president Joko Widodo, who helped Prabowo win the vote in 2024. It came amid intense speculation regarding the state of the country’s finances and its efforts to combat the wildfires, which politicians are attempting to justify.But arguments that food security and rice production justify the burning-off and clearing of land remain out of step with the region, where climate change and this year’s El Nino weather phenomena are taking a heavy toll.“The mood towards Prabowo isn’t that great,” Tantau said. “It's all these issues, around job security. The rupiah has declined significantly since Prabowo came to power. It’s all of these issues that are linked to one another.“But I think Prabowo is mostly focused on improving or consolidating his political hold on Indonesia. And we saw that recently with the cabinet shuffle where he was, for all intents and purposes, sidelining Joko appointees.”

Kim Aris has conducted a concerted campaign for the release of his mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, ever since she was detained in early 2021, when Myanmar’s military ousted her elected government and tipped the country into a bloody civil war.Her meeting last month with an official from the International Committee for the Red Cross, following Kim’s Proof of Life campaign, did little to calm fears for the Nobel laureate’s health and safety amid claims that the meeting was staged, and at this point her whereabouts remain a closely guarded secret.Kim Aris spoke to The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about his mother’s fate, the National Unity Government (NUG) in exile, and the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) battling it out with the military in a conflict that has now killed more than 100,000 people.He also talks about the recent diplomatic tour by the regime’s president Min Aung Hlaing to neighboring countries and his administration, which he described as a “parody of democracy," since one-sided elections were held in January."Sometimes I think that a parody of democracy could be more dangerous than a blatant dictatorship, because that gives people an opportunity to avoid doing anything about it,” he said.“Min Aung Hlaing claimed that Myanmar remains on the path to democracy. That’s just a calculated attempt to pacify domestic resistance and offer foreign governments an easy diplomatic off-ramp to normalize relations or justify inaction.”He also discussed the recently formed Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union, which combines the NUG, key EAOs, and parliamentary bodies, describing it as an important step toward a genuine federal democracy in Myanmar.

Eunice Barbara Novio is a Thailand-based journalist and an English lecturer at Vongchavalitkul University who has has written extensively on human trafficking in Southeast Asia, particularly focusing on Filipino victims trafficked to Myanmar.A veteran writer for Inquirer.net, she has reported about how trafficking networks lure Filipinos with false job offers, only to exploit them in scam hubs or forced labor situations.Novio has also helped victims of organized crime escape from their ordeal, particularly from compounds operating inside Myanmar and close to the Thai border.She told The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt that the current scam compound phenomenon had its roots in the Philippines dating back to 2016, when Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, commonly known as POGOs, took hold and flourished in places like Bamban – a small agricultural town north of Manila.

Singapore-based Bertha Chan heads Trust and Safety Global Engagements across the Asia-Pacific for Google, focusing on the safeguards and considerations needed to prevent AI misuse while keeping pace with the technology.Her remit covers jurisdictions and partnerships with governments and civil society, as well as combating the ever-evolving online scam industry, which is already adopting the latest advances in AI, especially the production of deep fakes.Chan says that the foundation of all innovation and technology adoption has to be trust and that Google aims to protect its users at every part of their “entire digital journey,” adding that its email product, Gmail, stops 90 percent of spam phishing and malware from ever reaching an inbox.“So that’s what we call all safety by design,” Chan told The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt, adding that Google has deployed research teams seek to establish policies and frameworks aimed at safeguarding children and families from dangerous and sexual content, and preventing fraud.“These experts are advisors that specialize in a very wide range of expertise, for example, developmental psychology, cultural anthropology, human development, youth culture [and] youth behavior – when it comes to technology more,” Chan said.“So with their expertise we collaborate and understand and seek to really fine tune our products.”Prior to Google, Chan drove digital transformation and international relations initiatives within the Singapore government. She holds a Master’s degree in sociology from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from University College London.

Pablo Berrutti is founder and managing director of Altiorem, a sustainable finance library, and a strategic advisor with a background in the integration of artificial intelligence measuring the impact of climate change and its impact on business.This includes banks and insurance companies and their awkward relationships with factoring in the challenges of climate change and confronting their responsibilities, which have recently been sorely tested by the arrival of a super-charged El Niño weather phenomena.In recent weeks the glacial collapse in Nepal, wildfires in Indonesia, the haze, droughts and typhoons across East Asia have taken horrible toll on human life and racked-up damage bills that will be measured in the tens of billions of dollars.Governments and financial institutions were warned. The potential for this year’s El Niño was first raised in May, formally announced on June 16 and the World Meteorological Organization says the current conditions are expected to last until February.But Berrutti told The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt that wealthy countries like Australia had spent very little on preparation and building in resilience into assets. Instead, about 95 percent of disaster funds went to recovery.“Whereas other countries, sadly, who aren’t as wealthy as Australia, a lot of Southeast Asian countries, clearly aren’t in a position to be able to build that resilience to these types of events," he said.He added that it’s not only the big events that made headlines, caused destruction, and loss of life that matter, but also the chronic effects of extreme heat, noting that more than 30,000 people had died this year from back-to-back European heatwaves.“It’s also an economic productivity perspective or a human health perspective, the knock on effects from fires and what that means from a lung disease and heart disease perspective,” Berrutti said.

Mohan Malik is a veteran China-Asia analyst and military strategist who has advised senior brass on geopolitics at the U.S. Defense Department’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, and he is a former director of Defence Studies at Deakin University in Australia.Malik spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt, his former student, about how China, Asia, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are shaping-up as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares for the mid-term elections and as the world marks 25 years since the 9/11 attacks that spawned the Global War on Terror.Also known as the 9/11 Wars, the Global War on Terror ended with the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan five years ago. Left behind was a vastly different geopolitical landscape and the ramifications have continued to influence diplomacy in China, Asia, and ASEAN to this day.ASEAN is divided between maritime and mainland countries but also by religion, mainly Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, and Malik says they are still confronted by major problems. But some nations emerged from the 9/11 Wars stronger than others.“Thailand, Indonesia, and India in South Asia, to some extent Sri Lanka to Bangladesh have done relatively better, they have been able to manage, contain the threat of domestic terrorism,” he said.China also emerged in a stronger position and is now facing headwinds from the Trump administration and perhaps ASEAN, which wants to finalize its Code of Conduct in the South China Sea with Beijing by the end of this year.“Even if Code of Conduct is concluded it’s not going to stop China’s creation of artificial islands and militarization of those artificial islands,” Malik said.“It’s going to provide greater legitimacy to China's efforts to subdue Southeast Asian countries and other rival claimants to the South China Sea.”

Governments across Southeast Asia are struggling with the arrival of artificial intelligence, its endless possibilities that can improve everyday life and the threats posed by organized crime and the scam industries which have taken hold in the region.Singapore-based, David Tan, co-director of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law, says the predominant issues evolve around what he calls the three Ps: permanence, proliferation and perniciousness. “We only need to regulate what’s truly important – what’s really pernicious, that proliferates and has that permanent digital memory,” he said, adding: “Intimate sexual images, child abuse images, whether digital or not, that should be a priority.”Tan, who also heads Intellectual Property of the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at the National University of Singapore, spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about how to combat the negative impact and AI’s reach into financial markets, public health and pop culture.Common law and legislation are key as is online safety commissions, which have been deployed by a core group of eight countries, Singapore and South Korea among them, where national authorities coordinate across borders through the Global Online Safety Regulators Network.But he says the industrialized scam industry is here to stay with crime syndicates expected to grow and continue in taking advantage of AI and in particular, deep fakes.“I think that one just has to be more vigilant as to the kind of fakes we get,” he said.

As the people of Myanmar recently commemorated the 8888 uprising that demanded political freedom but was brutally put down in August 1988, Thailand was playing host to Min Aung Hlaing, the former general who seized power through a coup in early 2021.This was Min Aung Hlaing's second official visit to an ASEAN member state since military-staged elections in December and January ensured his transition to the presidency and one that widened the schisms within ASEAN, which has barred Myanmar from official summits and events amid a bloody civil war.Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul broke with that line despite ASEAN protocols and potential legal issues given the International Court of Justice will soon deliver its verdict on whether Min Aung Hlaing and Myanmar’s senior generals committed a genocide against the Rohingya.Min Aung Hlaing’s first official visit as president was to Laos in early July and his trip to Thailand came less than a week after he allowed a representative from the International Committee of the Red Cross to meet with the jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been unsighted for many years amid concerns for health.Mark Cogan is an associate professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka and a regular contributor to The Diplomat. He joined Luke Hunt on Beyond the Mekong to discuss the recent developments in regional politics.That includes the moral and political questions that have divided maritime and mainland Southeast Asia, including the civil war in Myanmar, which has claimed 100,000 lives, the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, and Thailand’s simmering border conflict with Cambodia.

The military-backed government in Myanmar this week released four photos of the country's jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who met with Arnaud de Baecque, the resident representative for the International Committee of the Red Cross to Myanmar, on August 3.“This may be a first step, but it must not be the last,” her son, Kim Aris, said in a statement.Sean Turnell, an Australian economist who worked with Suu Kyi and then shared a prison with her after the military coup in 2021, agrees, adding that "proof of life" is also required for some 20,000 people who are believed to be held as political prisoners inside Myanmar’s jails.Turnell returned to Beyond the Mekong and spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about the first confirmation of Suu Kyi’s existence in many years and the issues facing the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) and the various armed groups battling the military.The NUG, its People’s Defense Force (PDF), and the country's numerous ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) have faced a resurgent military this year and a counter-offensive aimed at retaking territory won by the rebels during 2023 and 2024.Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader and now military-backed civilian leader, has also gone on a diplomatic offensive in search of international legitimacy for his administration within ASEAN, which wants the junta to return to its Five-Point Consensus as a roadmap for peace.Turnell, who spent 650 days behind bars prior to his release in November 2022, says the civil war which has claimed some 100,000 lives cannot be won by the military, as the NUG and EAOs continue to formulate a federal framework for a country mired by ethnic differences. But eventually, he says, peace will prevail.

Last week the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its latest report on transnational scam networks, which found that victims from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand had been defrauded of up to $114.1 billion in 2025.The report draws on official data, case records, financial intelligence, and field research in describing an increasingly sophisticated criminal ecosystem dominated by Chinese-origin transnational organized crime groups.It also covers the trafficking of physical goods and services, including wildlife, along with cyber-enabled fraud, criminal infrastructure, and platform-based financial settlements.Ian Timberlake, a retired journalist who acts as a part-time adviser on anti-money laundering and financial crime, attended the launch of the 256-page UNODC report in Bangkok and the expert discussions that followed.In the latest edition of the Beyond the Mekong podcast, he speaks with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about the spread of industrialized scamming and fraud across the region, from Sri Lanka to Timor-Leste.AI is also playing a role in the scam economy, with deep fakes being deployed to defraud banks, financial institutions, and ordinary people, at a level that is challenging international law enforcement agencies and their governments.Timberlake worked as a journalist for 39 years, initially in his native Canada, focusing mostly on crime and police reporting. He also spent 26 years as a correspondent and editor with the Agence France-Presse news agency in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Washington, D.C.He is a member of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists and the author of “The Bay Man from Bulawayo,” available on Rakuten Kobo.