The Trouble With Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia

A worse shock for south-east Asia’s leaders than the Cambodian coup – which for them simply meant an embarrassing delay in admitting Cambodia to Asean – was the regional economic crisis which began in mid-1997. South-east Asian stock markets and currencies plunged after Thailand floated its currency, the baht, and its value fell sharply. There were unremarkable economic reasons for this chain of events. In Thailand itself, they included a stagnation of exports, too much short-term foreign borrowing by Thai companies, an overpriced property market with too many new buildings, too much debt and not enough buyers, and inadequate regulation of the plethora of finance companies which sprang up in Bangkok when the economy was booming. (The business aspects of this are discussed in chapter 4.) Instead of accepting that they had to address their economic problems, however, many south-east Asian leaders instinctively assumed that they were doing a fine job – it was well known, after all, that they were in charge of an economic ‘miracle’ – and that therefore the problems must be the work of outside conspirators. Asean foreign ministers even issued a communiqué blaming ‘well coordinated efforts to destabilize Asean currencies for self-serving purposes’.51 Such statements, especially the vigorous condemnations and threats coming from Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia, made matters worse, convincing international speculators, currency traders and stock market investors that their money would be safer elsewhere.

The financial crisis, the misunderstandings about events in Burma and Cambodia and the environmental crisis over Indonesia’s forest fires brought to light some of the dangers of ‘Asian values’ as applied in south-east Asia in the 1990s. Sometimes politicians cynically used ‘Asian values’ to justify their own shortcomings; sometimes – overwhelmed by the attentions of foreign investors as their economies grew at 8 per cent a year or more – they actually believed what they were saying. Triumphal assertions of Asia’s superiority blinded them to failings and difficulties which in reality affect industrializing Asian countries as much as European or American ones: a reluctance to offend Asian neighbours meant that even if a government recognized a problem it was reluctant to raise it in public; and even if it did so, government attempts to control the media in much of the region limited the free debate which might elsewhere produce a solution. It will probably not be long before south-east Asia’s social problems – widespread drug abuse, for example – begin to tarnish its shiny self-image as surely as the economic crises and environmental damage of recent years have already done.

This is not to say that south-east Asian leaders are inflexible or incapable of learning from their mistakes. In the midst of the financial crisis, Thai politicians and bureaucrats were forced to acknowledge their economic weaknesses and strike a deal with the International Monetary Fund. Having insisted that Malaysia’s big infrastructure projects would not be affected by the crisis, Mahathir did a U-turn and suspended some of his most prized projects – including the huge Bakun dam in Borneo and a new capital city – to rescue the Malaysian currency and the Kuala Lumpur stock market. After Indonesia’s apology for its forest fires, Malaysia sent 1,200 firefighters to Sumatra to help tackle the blazes. Circumstances – in this case, smoke so thick that Malaysians were ending up in hospital on respirators – obliged south-east Asian governments to accept that they had a regional problem and do something about it, even if it meant breaking the Asean taboo on interfering in the affairs of neighbouring countries. This doctrine of non-interference had always been shaky in any case; regional ‘consensus’ quickly dissolves when national or religious interests are at stake. Thailand has spent decades interfering in Burma and Cambodia by supporting rebels on its borders. Malaysia, which sees itself as a champion of Moslem causes, was happy to remain silent about the Burmese junta’s persecution of its predominantly Buddhist people but protested when thousands of Burmese Moslems fled into Bangladesh in 1992 with tales of forced labour, torture, rape and killings at the hands of Burmese troops.

The more prudent supporters of ‘Asian values’ say that while the past three decades of economic growth have revitalized Asia after centuries of stagnation – and given Asian countries some much-needed confidence and hope after the colonial era – there is still plenty of thinking to be done. ‘It would be very dangerous for Asian societies to adopt any sort of triumphant mood,’ says Mahbubani. ‘We have a long way to go. Asian societies … have lots of major questions to address themselves, what kind of society they want to have, what kind of political system will work for them, what kind of social environment they want, how do they arrive at the checks and balances every society has to evolve and so on.’ He continues: ‘I think in private there isn’t the sense of absolute confidence that “Hey, we’ve arrived”. I don’t get that sense at all. What you do get a sense of is “Hey, maybe we can make it”, whereas twenty years ago if you had come to this region, or ten years ago, there wasn’t the sense of confidence that societies in this part of the world could become as developed or as affluent as those you find in western Europe or north America. Today the realization is coming in, “Maybe we can do it”, and that’s the psychological change that has taken place.’52

A change of generations is also imminent. Suharto has already been ousted. And the remaining south-east Asian leaders brought up in the colonial era – including Ne Win in Burma, Mahathir in Malaysia, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and the elderly politburo members in Vietnam – will not last for ever. Their thinking was shaped by the region’s struggles for independence and by the urge to differentiate their new countries from the old world that used to dominate them. This has been the impetus behind many aspects of the ‘Asian values’ debate, including the rejection of ‘western’ human rights and environmental standards. As Mahathir put it in a speech to university students in Japan: ‘Having lost their globe-girdling colonies, the Europeans now want to continue their dominance through dictating the terms of trade, the systems of government and the whole value-system of the world including human rights and environmental protection.’53

But the up-and-coming generation of Asian politicians brought up after independence lack their elders’ obsession with colonialism. They believe they have more freedom to pursue policies on their merits – regardless of the provenance of those policies. Many of the views expressed by Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir’s former deputy, would be endorsed by those who pour scorn on ‘Asian values’ as defined by south-east Asian governments. In the preface to his book The Asian Renaissance – a collection of his speeches and articles – Anwar says he detects a resurgence of art and science as well as an economic revival. But he rejects ‘cultural jingoism’ whether from the West or the East. ‘Asians too, in their xenophobic obsession to denounce certain Western ideas as alien, may end up denouncing their own fundamental values and ideals. This is because in the realm of ideas founded upon the humanistic tradition, neither the East nor the West can lay exclusive claim to them.’ He goes on:

If the term Asian values is not to ring hollow, Asians must be prepared to champion ideals which are universal. It is altogether shameful, if ingenious, to cite Asian values as an excuse for autocratic practices and denial of basic rights and civil liberties. To say that freedom is Western or unAsian is to offend our own traditions as well as our forefathers who gave their lives in the struggle against tyranny and injustice. It is true that Asians lay great emphasis on order and societal stability. But it is certainly wrong to regard society as a kind of deity upon whose altar the individual must constantly be sacrificed. No Asian tradition can be cited to support the proposition that in Asia, the individual must melt into a faceless community.54

Anwar is a living example of how quickly south-east Asian societies are changing. In his youth, he was regarded as an Islamic firebrand and was detained without trial by the government after leading a demonstration. By the time of the financial crisis in 1997, Anwar – as deputy prime minister and finance minister – was the government figure who reassured foreign investors and sought to limit the damage done by Mahathir’s anti-foreign outbursts and threats of exchange controls. His supporters express disgust at the abuse of the term ‘Asian values’ to justify corrupt connections between politicians and businessmen, and draw explicit contrasts between Anwar’s contemporaries and the older generation of south-east Asian leaders. ‘We reached maturity after independence,’ says Abdul Rahman Adnan, director of the Institut Kajian Dasar (Institute for Policy Research), a think-tank in Kuala Lumpur which pushes forward Anwar’s agenda. ‘Everything was already Malaysian. You can’t really blame the nasty colonial power for all the ills of society.’ Adnan and others like him believe that Malaysians are now sufficiently educated to be allowed a more energetic and independent press and more say in how their country is run. ‘They expect the government to be more accountable,’ he says.55

Admiration for Anwar is not confined to Malaysia. ‘He represents what the generation of my age would like to see as the new set of values for the future … Anwar Ibrahim does not fit into the stereotypes of Asean today because of the generation gap,’ says Adi Sasono, secretary general of the Moslem Intellectuals Society of Indonesia. (Known by its Indonesian initials ICMI, the society is an Indonesian government sponsored think-tank which is attempting, like Anwar, to reconcile Islam with the needs of a modern, high-technology society.) Nowhere was the need for a generational leadership change more acutely felt than Indonesia, where the seventy-six-year-old Suharto had ruled for three decades and left his people guessing about who would succeed him. ‘The main political factor in this country is Suharto,’ said Sasono shortly before Suharto’s overthrow. ‘He represents the old value of power, authority. Well, the society is changing rapidly, so after Suharto the political situation will change quite radically.’56

The imminent handover of power from one generation to another at the top of south-east Asia’s governments, along with the continued growth of the middle class, will have profound implications in every country in the region. It is true that the young idealists waiting in the wings are bound to have their enthusiasm blunted by the realities of government. As one eminent proponent of Asian values said of Anwar: ‘His book is a collection of motherhood statements that no one can disagree with … You’ve got to judge a man by his deeds, so you wait and see. I would expect that when he takes over he will govern Malaysia as Dr Mahathir does.’57 But official attitudes to politics, social norms, business practices and environmental policies are likely to change, as popular attitudes already have. The results – albeit with many stops and starts – will be a gradual loosening of central government control over politics and the media, a slow unravelling of the webs of corrupt connections between politicians and businessmen, and the imposition of stricter environmental controls. To this one could add a more relaxed official approach to personal and social matters such as leisure, homosexuality and pre-marital sex, although in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei liberalization could be delayed or even temporarily reversed by the strong Islamic lobby. The probable effect – already visible in some cities such as Jakarta – would be an increase in the number of people living double lives. As in the Gulf states, many wealthier Moslems would publicly obey the strict religious tenets decreed by the authorities while privately drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes when abroad.

‘Asian values’, meanwhile, are likely to fade from view. Several years ago, a group of south-east Asian academics, bankers and former ministers produced a document called Towards a New Asia; it advocated democracy within the rule of law and, while paying tribute to the importance of economic growth, suggested that Asia should ‘move to higher ground’ and ‘become a greater contributor to the advancement of human civilization’.58 These sentiments reflect one of the great ironies of the debate: south-east Asia’s leaders are often attacked by their fiercest critics not for being too ‘Asian’ but for importing the worst aspects of western societies – consumerism, materialism, pollution – and labelling them ‘Asian values’. As one Malaysian artist said of Mahathir: ‘Everything he’s doing is western – the assembling of cars, privatization, the “multimedia corridor”, everything. This drive for market-driven development is a very western concept.’59 Sondhi Limthongkul, a Thai businessman who tried to build an Asian media empire, is equally scathing. ‘The problem of most emerging nations in Asia-Pacific is always the absolute worship of economic growth rather than the quality of life,’ he told a conference in Hawaii. ‘It’s very unfortunate that we have learned and inherited so well from the West.’60

If they are interested in formulating any ‘Asian values’ at all, southeast Asia’s next generation of leaders will want to do so by injecting ideas they see as genuinely Asian into a body of beliefs they accept as universal and which seem inevitably to permeate any society that has undergone an industrial revolution. ‘The Asian world and Asian civilization cited so often of late have their origins not deep in the past but in modernization this century in an Asia in contact with the West,’ wrote playwright and professor Masakazu Yamazaki. Modernization, he said, had affected the entire fabric of Asian societies, leading to the rise of industry, the formation of nation states under legitimate institutions and the secularization of ethics and mores. ‘Members of the Association of South East Asian Nations have nearly reached consensus on such fundamentals as the separation of politics from religion, one-man – one-vote representation, and public trial. When it comes to social welfare, women’s liberation, freedom of conscience, access to modern healthcare, and other social policies, almost all the countries of the region now speak the same language as the West.’61 Kim Dae-jung, the Korean politician who has fiercely opposed ‘Asian values’ and the suggestion that Asians are by nature undemocratic, once noted that ‘moral breakdown is attributable not to inherent shortcomings of Western cultures but those of industrial societies; a similar phenomenon is now spreading through Asia’s newly industrializing societies’.62 A dissident who spent his life opposing authoritarian rule in his own country, Kim was elected President of South Korea in December 1997, vowing to promote democracy and transparency and bring an end to the collusion between government and big business.

Even the supporters of ‘Asian values’ accept that their countries will be more democratic and less authoritarian in the future, although they differ on the form democracy should take and on how long it will be before their people are ‘ready’ for the rough and tumble of genuine democratic debate. To speak of unambiguous ‘Asian values’ appears increasingly eccentric as the new millennium approaches. There was something bizarre, for instance, about the sight of Edward Heath, the former British prime minister, arguing on television with Martin Lee, the Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner, about the political implications of the passing of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping on the day his death was announced. There was the westerner Heath espousing ‘Asian values’ and insisting that Chinese and Asians did not need democracy as understood in the West (‘The Asiatic countries have a very different view’); and Lee, the Asian, saying that Deng himself had accepted the inevitability of political reform and arguing that Asians wanted democracy as much as anybody else (‘I do not agree that there is such a thing as Asian values’).63

The heyday of ‘Asian values’ seems to have passed. In Singapore, opposition politicians say Lee Kuan Yew talks less about Asian values and Confucianism than he used to. Mahbubani has toned down his comments as well, declaring in 1997 that Asians want good governance, open societies and the rule of law.64 In Malaysia, Mahathir still denigrates the West from time to time. But he is as likely to mention the threats and opportunities of globalization – a more inclusive view of change – as to declare the superiority of the ‘Asian Way’. Societies and cultures are changing so fast in south-east Asia that it hardly makes sense to attribute fixed values to them and try to preserve them intact from an imaginary western enemy. The argument that modernization leads to inevitable changes that are both good and bad is accepted throughout the region. Western governments may have learned something too. They can no longer lecture Asia about human rights and morality without having their own embarrassing failings – crime being the most obvious example – thrown back in their faces by their well-educated and well-travelled Asian interlocutors. In south-east Asia, however, the battles over social change and political reform are only just beginning. The campaign for ‘Asian values’ will come to be seen in the years ahead as a pragmatic interlude, during which Asian leaders briefly sought to justify authoritarian rule before losing power to the middle class they themselves had helped to create by managing their economies for so long with such success.

TWO The new democrats

You’ll be left behind. Then in twenty, thirty years’ time, the whole of Singapore will be bustling away and your estate, through your own choice, will be left behind. They’ll become slums. That’s my message.

– Singapore prime minister Goh Chok Tong, warning voters before the January 1997 election that their housing estates would be denied government renovation funds if they elected opposition members of parliament. The ruling People’s Action Party won 81 of the 83 seats available.1

Golkar [the Indonesian ruling party] officials calculated as far back as last year that they would win precisely 70.02 per cent of the vote on polling day.

– Financial Times, 24 May 1997. Golkar went on to win 74 per cent of the vote.2

In Singapore you have a one-party system. You have several parties, but it’s all artificial.

– Somsanouk Mixay, editor of the Vientiane Times, a state-controlled newspaper in communist Laos, discussing south-east Asian politics.3

The fact that the political parties are not functioning does not mean that people are not politicking. People do not stop breathing just because you shut the windows.

– Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesian political analyst.4

Elections in Singapore and Indonesia are very different affairs, but for decades they had the same outcome: the government won.

The 1997 election across Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago was both colourful and violent. President Suharto’s children joined the election campaign, officially labelled a ‘festival of democracy’ complete with parades and musical entertainment, on the side of the ruling Golkar party. His son Bambang Trihatmodjo, a wealthy businessman, appeared on stage with a popular singer who belted out catchy numbers such as ‘Golkar, my sweetheart’. Throughout the country, the rival parties dressed up lampposts, vehicles and supporters in their party colours; in the remote eastern territory of Irian Jaya, tribesmen were persuaded to swap their traditional brown penis sheaths for new ones in bright, Golkar yellow.

Political competition, however, was a sham. There were three parties decreed by the government. Golkar was the one that was destined to win, as it had done for the previous quarter of a century. The United Development Party, known as the PPP from its Indonesian initials, was supposed to represent Islamic opposition and used the colour green. And the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) – red – brought together opponents of the left. These last two had the task of creating a semblance of democracy by disagreeing with the government without causing it serious embarrassment: they were in effect licensed opposition parties. In the 1997 election, though, it all went wrong. Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the charismatic late President Sukarno, became leader of the PDI and seemed likely to win too many votes from Golkar. Even worse, the government feared she would break an unwritten understanding about the sanctity of President Suharto and stand against him in the forthcoming presidential election. In a move which provoked riots in the Indonesian capital Jakarta and elsewhere, she was removed by the government – which blatantly interfered in the running of the PDI – and replaced with a more compliant leader. Many of her supporters deliberately spoiled their ballot papers or stayed away from the polls in the subsequent general election and the PDI vote collapsed to a humiliating 3 per cent of the total from the previous 15 per cent. The PPP’s Moslem supporters were not happy either, although their party increased its share of the vote to 23 per cent. They accused the government and Golkar of cheating. During political protests in Borneo rioters set fire to a shopping mall, killing 130 people who happened to be trapped inside, and destroyed dozens of other buildings. To add to the government’s chagrin, some PPP voters carried banners in support of Megawati; she had nothing to do with the Islamic party but had come to be seen as a generalized symbol of opposition to the government. The conclusion was obvious: Indonesia’s carefully structured but patronizing electoral system was no longer an adequate channel for the political aspirations of an increasingly sophisticated population. It was in fact falling apart, as subsequent events demonstrated. Instead of a picture of democracy that included a confident Golkar and tame minor parties, there was a beleaguered ruling party facing a strident Islamic opposition; and outside the official framework were a growing number of extra-parliamentary pressure groups which rejected the whole notion of state-sponsored pseudo-democracy. In 1998, as Indonesians felt the pain of the south-east Asian financial crisis and protested in the streets against the corruption of their leaders, Suharto himself was ignominiously forced to resign as president, leaving his hand-picked successor B. J. Habibie, his relatives and political allies to an uncertain future.

Elections are much more peaceful in the prosperous city state of Singapore. In the campaigning before the poll in January 1997, there were some noisy opposition rallies at which Singaporeans cheered every attack on the humourless and ruthlessly efficient People’s Action Party which has run the country since independence. But the overall winner of the election was never in doubt, because the opposition parties left enough seats uncontested to ensure a parliamentary majority for the PAP. In doing so, they hoped to encourage cautious Singaporeans to vote for the opposition as a protest against the PAP while remaining secure in the knowledge that the PAP would continue to run the country.

Worried by the prospect of a reduced majority, Goh Chok Tong, the prime minister, and other PAP leaders pulled out all the stops in an attempt to crush their opponents. Goh famously threatened to deprive areas which voted against the PAP of state-financed housing upgrades; most Singaporeans buy apartments in government-built housing estates and can therefore benefit financially from such renovation schemes as well as enjoying the improved amenities.5

Nor was that all. Goh, Lee Kuan Yew and others deluged their opponents with lawsuits before and after the election, a practice they had employed before but rarely with such ferocity. In the most prominent case, the popular lawyer Tang Liang Hong, who had joined forces with J. B. Jeyaretnam of the Workers Party in a hotly contested, five-seat constituency, was sued by a dozen leaders of the PAP – including Goh and Lee – for calling them liars. In the statement that prompted this flurry of legal activity, Tang was responding to their accusations that he was a ‘Chinese chauvinist’ who opposed English-speakers and Christians. He pointed out that he spoke Malay, had a Christian daughter and was standing for election with an Indian Christian. This declaration of the facts was not enough to save him: Tang fled the country shortly after the election, saying the PAP was trying to bankrupt him, and was eventually ordered by a Singapore court to pay the equivalent of S$8.08 million (the equivalent of more than US$5 million) in damages to PAP leaders, although the amount was reduced to S$4.53 million (US$3 million) on appeal. Jeyaretnam was ordered to pay much smaller damages in a related defamation case brought by ten PAP members. The Tang case was notable for causing a serious diplomatic row between Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia. (In an affidavit, Lee Kuan Yew had expressed astonishment that Tang should have fled for safety to the Malaysian city of Johor, ‘notorious for shootings, muggings and car-jackings’; Lee, lambasted by the Malaysian government and by government-sponsored demonstrators who gleefully insulted him as ‘stupid’ and ‘senile’, was forced to apologize.)6 Singaporean ministers also became the object of international ridicule for pursuing opposition politicians through the courts for expressing thoughts that elsewhere would be part of the normal cut and thrust of democratic debate. The justice system was criticized too. But PAP leaders expressed no regrets, insisting repeatedly that they had to protect their reputations. They also won the election, halving the number of their elected opponents from four to two and leaving the opposition weaker and considerably poorer than before.