Suspected pirate vessel in Malaysian waters. Image by US Navy / Wikimedia Commons.
Over the past two decades, piracy activities in Southeast Asia have been recognized as a serious threat to regional security. While states have played a leading role in fighting maritime piracy, anti-piracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—ranging from industry and seafarer associations to think tanks and Track II scholarly networks—have also been influential in addressing this problem. These NGOs, especially the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), were able to successfully portray piracy as a threat to navigational safety, maritime trade, energy security, and a potential source of terrorism. The pressure exerted by NGOs on littoral governments in Southeast Asia resulted in greater state-to-state and regional military cooperation, as exemplified by the 2004 landmark maritime initiative between Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia—MALSINDO—to patrol the Strait of Malacca. Operation MALSINDO has been successful in curbing the number of pirate attacks and industry watchers assume that the current approach is working.
Spontaneous protests against Myanmar’s power blackouts received news coverage in May because the government seldom permits anti-government activities. Even more significant were the protests that took place in front of the Chinese embassy in Yangon.
Protesters came together to raise their voice against the government’s decision to sell Myanmar’s limited energy reserves to China. Below is a comment from the Facebook page of Eleven Media Group [my], one of the largest private media organizations in Myanmar, which echoed the sentiment of many consumers in Myanmar:
“70% of electricity supplied to Yangon is from Law Pi Ta and Ye Ywar hydro-powered stations, that from the Shwe Li station goes to China, so there is a shortage of electricity in Yangon. Why? Go and cut China’s power!”
Protest against electricity shortages around City Hall, Yangon. Image from Facebook page of CJMyanmar.
Southeast Asia is more than just white sand beaches, temples and resorts: it is also one of the most war-ravaged regions of the planet. Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, for example, were among the most heavily bombed countries in the world over the past century. Nearly a third of the cluster bombs dropped by the United States in Laos between 1964 and 1973 failed to detonate and are still scattered across the country. Anna MacDonald, head of Oxfam International’s Control Arms Campaign, outlines the quiet but dangerous rural scenery of Laos:
“Stepping off the plane at Xieng Khuang province we were in a very rural area. Fields with water buffalos and rice paddies abound, and the hilly countryside is criss-crossed with farmer’s fields and small traditional wooden houses. It’s a gentle, peaceful setting that belies the deadly war-time legacy which is all around – 100% of villages here have UXO (unexploded ordenance) in their fields and surroundings.”
Foreign policy: Still behind walls or more open to the people? photo: tbSMITH/flickr
As the highly contested treasure trove of the State Department WikiLeak just keeps giving and giving, an interesting and under reported cable came to light earlier this week. It had to do, quite unexpectedly, with the social media strategy of the US State Department and specifically, the US Embassy’s social media efforts in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Jakarta? You ask. Yes, interestingly enough the US mission in the growing Southeast Asian archipelago nation is the most active of all in this ‘new’ and rapidly evolving field of public diplomacy. With more than 300,000 ‘Likers’ on Facebook at present and an impressive presence on Twitter and Youtube, the US mission in Jakarta was in a push to get a significantly bigger budget for its social media outreach in advance of President Obama’s November 2010 visit, the leaked cable reveals. Although the cable reveals nothing particularly controversial, it gives interesting insights into the growing importance of social media in America’s outreach efforts in highly connected developing countries, particularly in Asia. It also provides insights into the growing, albeit not openly publicized, funding involved in spreading the message about the US, its leadership and about its policies in the region by directly and interactively reaching out to a younger generation, active on Facebook and other social media channels. And the strategy seems to be working- in less than a year, the number of Likers on their Facebook page has grown six-fold, from 50,000 to 300,000 and the number of Twitter followers from 1,000 to more than 16,000, with regular interaction from fans of both services.
This development begs a lot of interesting questions about the future of public diplomacy:
Are other diplomatic missions, even just other US missions around the world, taking note of the Jakarta Embassy’s success?
Is there something unique and special about the Indonesian environment where social media-focused outreach efforts find particularly fertile ground beyond Obama’s personal connection to the country?
Is the ‘soft power’ message that they are getting out uniquely suited to the kind of informal, multisensory interactivity that services such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube represent and do these provide a highly fertile new ground for such ‘persuasive’ activities and the building of soft power across the world?
Is social media changing the landscape of public diplomacy drastically and for good and what might its long-term effects be?
Does this finally bring foreign relations closer to the people and their concerns or is it simply a veil behind which business-as-usual continues (the highly fortified US embassy in Jakarta, seen above, is a powerful reminder of this metaphorical paradox)?
For more information on this fascinating topic, check out our recent ISN Insights package on E-Diplomacy and look out for an article coming up in February on the specific impact that social media is having on foreign relations.
The ISN is proud to announce the launch of our Junior Associates Program. The program brings together young professionals from Swiss-based institutions, companies and international organizations , as well as promising young scholars from Swiss universities, in a cooperative project that builds bridges and networks across the Swiss IR community.
Each program cycle will focus on a theme; this year, the topic will be
Europe and Islamic Countries – New Frontiers, Fresh Perspectives
The broad range of issues that may be explored under this thematic umbrella include:
Swiss/European policy toward ‘marginal’ Muslim regions, such as North Africa, parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia
Economic cooperation between Europe and North Africa
Population growth in the Arab world and the migration of young Arabs to Europe
Muslim perspectives on identity and place in 21st century Europe
Through collaboration, Junior Associates are expected to draft two Junior Associates Special Reports, to be published by the ISN in late 2010 and early 2011.
Junior Associates will also have the opportunity to attend an exclusive ISN Junior Associates event in Zurich in early October of this year. The event will feature high caliber speakers on this year’s topic.
For more information and to request an application form, visit the program’s website. Questions can be addressed to the program manager, Kaisa Schreck, or the program assistant, Jonas Rey, by sending an email to ja[at]sipo.gess.ethz.ch.
