Asean
Sri Lanka’s continued militarisation
Author: Gibson Bateman, New York For the Tamil people of Sri Lanka’s north and east, the end to conflict has not engendered the positive changes one might have hoped for. When President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government achieved victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, most of the LTTE leadership was killed. It is now hard to envision another Tamil nationalist movement taking up arms against the state; but the military’s strong presence within the country continues unabated. And for those living in Sri Lanka, it would be easy to think that the decades-long conflict is still dragging on. In the predominantly Sinhalese south, military personnel are often viewed as heroes for defeating the LTTE. But in the mostly Tamil north and east, they are viewed as oppressors. The military’s presence in these latter two regions (both former LTTE strongholds where much of the fighting took place) is disturbing. State security personnel wield enormous influence over all aspects of people’s lives. Precise statistics about military employment in Sri Lanka are not publicly available, but the armed forces have a widespread presence throughout the country, including in civilian affairs — the effects of which are not easily captured through statistical analysis in any case. Local elections held in July demonstrate how discontent the Tamil people have become. The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance dominated most of the country, but received little support in the north and east. The government maintains that reconstruction and development are going well in these areas, but it is obviously not the case. Locals have rejected the government’s development model, which focuses almost entirely on the pursuit of rapid economic growth as the way to address the Tamil people’s concerns. And the Rajapaksa regime has given no indication it is open to a political settlement with the Tamil people, who want a genuine devolution of political power. Why does the government continue this militarisation? Making significant reductions in military employment requires planning. The last thing the Rajapaksa regime wants is large numbers of unemployed youth who have just finished fighting a long war. That is a recipe for increased crime and civil unrest. But neither has there been any thought on how decreasing military employment might eventually work in the future. For Western countries like the US and the UK, considering the effects of a militarised Sri Lanka is hardly a top priority. And the international community has shown little interest in exploring allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s conflict. The unnecessary militarisation of Sri Lanka is a message that human rights groups (both domestic and international) have not articulated well. This may be for several reasons . First, the government controls most of the media. Second, there is already limited space to conduct human rights work in Sri Lanka. While human rights defenders are brave, many would view talking about militarisation as an unnecessary risk. Third, broader geopolitical trends and the desire to sell arms mean that human rights groups face considerable external challenges as well. Despite the EU’s criticism of Sri Lanka’s human rights record, for example, many member states continue to sell weapons to the government. But even this is insubstantial when compared to China, which has been Sri Lanka’s biggest arms dealer for the past few decades. The US Department of Defense has not given up on Sri Lanka either. The Pentagon is pushing strongly for the US to open up a military relationship and the US government sold arms to the Sri Lankan government during the civil war. There are many in Washington who would like to see more weapons deals between the two countries in the future. A serious downsizing of the Sri Lankan military or a substantial decrease in military spending remains unlikely for the foreseeable future. This may help Sri Lanka’s ties with powerful countries, but for the Tamil people of the north and east, it also means a continued military presence for some time yet. Gibson Bateman is an International Consultant based in New York City. He is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Bateman has worked for leading NGOs in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. A version of this article was first published here in the Journal of Foreign Relations . The conflict in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka: rising to the challenges after the war Sri Lankan stability critical to New Delhi’s Indian Ocean ambitions
Author: Gibson Bateman, New York
For the Tamil people of Sri Lanka’s north and east, the end to conflict has not engendered the positive changes one might have hoped for.
When President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government achieved victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009, most of the LTTE leadership was killed. It is now hard to envision another Tamil nationalist movement taking up arms against the state; but the military’s strong presence within the country continues unabated. And for those living in Sri Lanka, it would be easy to think that the decades-long conflict is still dragging on.
In the predominantly Sinhalese south, military personnel are often viewed as heroes for defeating the LTTE. But in the mostly Tamil north and east, they are viewed as oppressors. The military’s presence in these latter two regions (both former LTTE strongholds where much of the fighting took place) is disturbing. State security personnel wield enormous influence over all aspects of people’s lives. Precise statistics about military employment in Sri Lanka are not publicly available, but the armed forces have a widespread presence throughout the country, including in civilian affairs — the effects of which are not easily captured through statistical analysis in any case.
Local elections held in July demonstrate how discontent the Tamil people have become. The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance dominated most of the country, but received little support in the north and east. The government maintains that reconstruction and development are going well in these areas, but it is obviously not the case. Locals have rejected the government’s development model, which focuses almost entirely on the pursuit of rapid economic growth as the way to address the Tamil people’s concerns. And the Rajapaksa regime has given no indication it is open to a political settlement with the Tamil people, who want a genuine devolution of political power.
Why does the government continue this militarisation?
Making significant reductions in military employment requires planning. The last thing the Rajapaksa regime wants is large numbers of unemployed youth who have just finished fighting a long war. That is a recipe for increased crime and civil unrest. But neither has there been any thought on how decreasing military employment might eventually work in the future. For Western countries like the US and the UK, considering the effects of a militarised Sri Lanka is hardly a top priority. And the international community has shown little interest in exploring allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s conflict.
The unnecessary militarisation of Sri Lanka is a message that human rights groups (both domestic and international) have not articulated well. This may be for several reasons. First, the government controls most of the media. Second, there is already limited space to conduct human rights work in Sri Lanka. While human rights defenders are brave, many would view talking about militarisation as an unnecessary risk. Third, broader geopolitical trends and the desire to sell arms mean that human rights groups face considerable external challenges as well. Despite the EU’s criticism of Sri Lanka’s human rights record, for example, many member states continue to sell weapons to the government. But even this is insubstantial when compared to China, which has been Sri Lanka’s biggest arms dealer for the past few decades. The US Department of Defense has not given up on Sri Lanka either. The Pentagon is pushing strongly for the US to open up a military relationship and the US government sold arms to the Sri Lankan government during the civil war. There are many in Washington who would like to see more weapons deals between the two countries in the future.
A serious downsizing of the Sri Lankan military or a substantial decrease in military spending remains unlikely for the foreseeable future. This may help Sri Lanka’s ties with powerful countries, but for the Tamil people of the north and east, it also means a continued military presence for some time yet.
Gibson Bateman is an International Consultant based in New York City. He is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Bateman has worked for leading NGOs in Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
A version of this article was first published here in the Journal of Foreign Relations.
- The conflict in Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka: rising to the challenges after the war
- Sri Lankan stability critical to New Delhi’s Indian Ocean ambitions
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Sri Lanka’s continued militarisation
Asean
ASEAN weathering the COVID-19 typhoon
Author: Sandra Seno-Alday, Sydney University
The roughly 20 typhoons that hit Southeast Asia each year pale in comparison to the impact on the region of COVID-19 — a storm of a very different sort striking not just Southeast Asia but the world.
Just how badly is the COVID-19 typhoon thrashing the region? And what might the post-crisis recovery and reconstruction look like? To answer these questions, it is necessary to investigate the strengths and vulnerabilities of Southeast Asia’s pre-COVID-19 economic infrastructure.
Understanding the structure of the region’s economic house requires going back to 1967, when Southeast Asian countries decided to pledge friendship to one another under the ASEAN framework. While other integrated regions such as NAFTA and the European Union have aggressively broken down trade barriers and significantly boosted intra-regional trade, ASEAN regional economic integration has chugged along slower.
Southeast Asian countries have not viewed trade between each other as a top priority. The trade agreements in the region have been forged around suggestions for ASEAN countries to lower tariffs on intra-regional trade to within a certain range and across limited industries. This has lowered but not eliminated barriers to intra-regional trade. Consequently, a relatively significant share of Southeast Asian trade is with countries outside the region. This active extra-regional engagement has resulted in ASEAN countries’ successful integration into global value chain networks.
A historically outward-facing region, in 2010 around 75 per cent of Southeast Asian commodity imports and exports came from countries outside of ASEAN. This share of extra-regional trade nudged closer to 80 per cent in 2018. This indicates that ASEAN’s global value chain network embeddedness has deepened over time.
Around 40 per cent of ASEAN’s extra-regional trade is with the rest of Asia. From 2010 to 2018 Southeast Asian countries forged major trade relationships with four Asian countries: China, Japan, South Korea and India. Outside Asia, the United States is the region’s major trading partner. ASEAN’s trade focus on Asia’s largest markets is not surprising. Countries tend to establish trade relationships with large, geographically close, and culturally similar markets.
Fostering deep relationships with a few large markets, however, is a double-edged sword. While it has allowed ASEAN to benefit from integration in global value chains, it has also resulted in increased vulnerability to the shocks affecting its network connections.
ASEAN’s participation in global value chains has allowed it to transition from a net regional importer in 1990 to a net regional exporter in 2018. But the region’s deep embeddedness in a small and tightly-coupled network cluster of extra-regional global value chain partners has exposed it to disruption to any and all of its external partners. By contrast, ASEAN’s intra-regional trade network structure is much more loosely-coupled: a consequence of persistent intra-regional trade barriers and thus lower intra-regional trade intensity.
In the pre-COVID-19 period, ASEAN built for itself an economic house held up by just five extra-regional markets, while doing less to expand and diversify its intra-regional trade network. The data shows that ASEAN trade became increasingly concentrated in these few external markets between 2010 and 2018.
This dependence on a handful of markets does not bode well for risk and crisis management. All of the region’s major trading partners have been significantly affected by COVID-19 and this in turn is blowing the ASEAN economic house down.
What are the ways forward? The immediate task at hand is to get a better picture of the region’s position in global value chain networks and to get on top of managing its network risk exposure. Already there are red flags around the region’s food security arising from its position in food value chains. It is critical to look for ways to introduce flexibility into existing supply chains for greater agility in responding to crises.
It is also an opportune time for ASEAN to harness the technology transfer gains of global value chain participation and invest in innovation-driven diversification of products and markets. The region’s embeddedness in global value chain networks certainly places it in a strong position to readily access large export markets not just in Asia but also Europe and the Americas.
Over the longer term, ASEAN is faced with the question of whether it should seriously look…
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Tiger Trade Launches SGX Trading, Meeting Demand from Asian Investors
Access to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) adds to Tiger Brokers’ current menu of stock exchanges, such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq Stock Market (NASDAQ), the world’s two largest stock exchanges, as well as the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX).
SINGAPORE (ACN Newswire) – Tiger Trade, a one-stop mobile and online trading application by Tiger Brokers, has launched access to the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
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Asia has been the world champion of economic growth for decades, and this year will be no exception. According to the latest International Monetary Fund Regional Economic Outlook(REO), the Asia-Pacific region’s GDP is projected to increase by 5.5% in 2017 and 5.4% in 2018. (more…)
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