In Asian media this week: Party quits Thailand’s governing coalition. Plus: Cambodia named a global cyberscam hub; Japanese PM empty-handed after Trump meeting; US tariff regime a critical test for ASEAN; New efforts to ease two-Koreas tensions; Indonesia revises history of anti-Chinese riots.

The Thai Government is in disarray following the withdrawal from the governing party’s main coalition partner, leaving it with an unstable parliamentary majority.

At the centre of their dispute is the leaking of the audio clip of an embarrassing conversation between Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

The conversation was ostensibly aimed at easing tensions caused by a border dispute with Cambodia, in the region where Laos, Cambodia and Thailand converge.

Media reports say Paetongtarn called Hun Sen “Uncle,” told him whatever he wanted could be arranged and criticised General Boonsin Padklang, army commander in the border region.

Bangkok Post reported the government’s second-biggest party, Bhumjaithai, defected from the coalition on Wednesday night and called on Paetongtarn to take responsibility for her comments.

“Bhumjaithai will work with all Thai people to support the army and officials who safeguard the sovereignty, territorial integrity and interests of Thailand,” the party said.

The split also comes after months of strained relations between Bhumjaithai and Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party, over attempts to dump minor party leader Anutin Charnvirakul from the coveted, and powerful, interior ministry.

The government now has 261 MPs to the Opposition’s 234, but its position would be precarious if other parties left the coalition. The government’s position was bolstered on Thursday evening, The Nation news site said, when the Democrat Party, with 25 seats, decided to remain in the coalition.

The Thai PBS World news site said Paetongtarn was digging her heels in, criticising Hun Sen for his unacceptable conduct in leaking the audio clip.

She apologised for what she called the misunderstanding arising from her conversation with Hun Sen and said she stood by the armed forces in the border dispute with Cambodia.

_Bangkok Pos_t quoted Kevin Hewison, emeritus professor of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as saying the government was in serious trouble.

“The ultra-royalists have been handed this gift by Hun Sen, which makes the prime minister’s position really difficult.”

People’s Party, the main opposition party, said Paetongtarn should dissolve the House of Representatives and call an election, Bangkok Post said. Party leader Natthaphong Ruenpanyawat said Paetongtarn had destroyed public trust in the government.

Thailand’s army chief, General Pana Klaewblaudtuk, said the army remained steadfast in upholding the democratic system, The Nation reported. It said the statement was aimed at dismissing rumours of an imminent military coup.

Cybercrime linked to political elite

A UN agency has published evidence that Cambodia is a global centre for cybercrime.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has reported detailed findings on transnational organised crime, cybercrime and online scams. Their report includes a map of global scam centres, according to Thailand’s The Nation website.

The map pinpoints scam operations in Sihanoukville and Poipet, near the Thai-Cambodian border, plus Phnom Penh, Bavet and Preah Sihanouk.

“Contrary to widespread assumptions that Myanmar is the regional epicentre, Cambodia now appears as the leading hotspot for cyber fraud operations,” The Nation said. “The scam industry is no longer confined to border zones. Instead, it has expanded into major cities, including the national capital, underscoring the scale and institutional entrenchment of cybercriminal activity within Cambodia.”

A key concern, the story said, was growing evidence pointing to clear financial links between the country’s political elite and the scam industry, particularly scam centres operating under the guise of legitimate businesses.

One example was the LYP Group, which had been blacklisted by the US Government for alleged involvement in corruption, human trafficking, forced labour and online fraud.

A politically sensitive case involved a nephew of former prime minister Hun Sen, the story said. He had been implicated in large-scale online scam operations, including the embezzlement of US$49 billion over the past four years.

The nephew had been linked to the Huione Group, a conglomerate accused of illicit financial transactions, including money laundering and cyber theft. The group had been banned from the US financial system, with American firms barred from conducting any business with it.

The story quoted Police General Trirong Phiewphan, commander of Thailand’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, as saying police had uncovered links between domestic online gambling and call centre scam networks and an international company believed to be involved in money-laundering.

Funds scammed from Thai victims were transferred through a chain of mule accounts, converted into digital assets and laundered into cash and physical assets.

Trirong said Thai police had not yet determined that Huione Group had played a role in criminal activities. The possible involvement of Hun To, nephew of Hun Sen, in the company was still being investigated.

But the story said Hun To was a board member of Huione Pay, one of the group’s subsidiaries.

US-Japan summit fails despite months of groundwork

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met US President Donald Trump before he left the G7 summit in Canada – and achieved precisely nothing.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper said this was despite intense efforts in laying the groundwork for a breakthrough on the tariff impasse with the US.

It was Ishiba’s second in-person meeting with Trump.

The paper said the Ishiba administration hoped to strike an interim agreement at the G7 meeting and finish negotiations next month, during campaigning for an Upper House election on 20 July.

“The outcome of the Japan-US summit has clouded prospects of that scenario,” it said.

The meeting was months in the making, The Japan Times reported, with frequent phone calls between the two leaders. Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, had visited Washington six times since April.

The tariffs Trump has imposed on Japan were: 25% on vehicles and parts; 50% on steel and aluminium; and a 10% across-the-board tariff, rising to 24% next month if there is no agreement.

But the Trump-Ishiba summit had not produced a breakthrough of any kind, the paper said.

Singapore’s The Straits Times carried a Bloomberg report that said the meeting left Japan inching closer to a possible recession as the tariffs hit its economy.

Trump, however, gave Japan good news earlier this month when he approved Nippon Steel’s US$14.9 billion takeover of US Steel. Former president Joe Biden had blocked the deal and Trump had said he would follow suit, but subsequently changed his mind.

The deal came with conditions, The Japan Times reported, including a golden share for the US Government.

But in a separate story the paper said the restrictions aligned with Nippon Steel's plans for the American company.

“The conditions might not restrain the future parent at all,” the paper said.

Trade competition ‘may spell end’ of regional grouping

Donald Trump’s tariff regime will pose a critical test for ASEAN and may mean the end of the grouping in its present form, says a leading political commentator.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a senior fellow of Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Security and International Studies in Bangkok, says that when Trump’s tariff chaos settles down the long-lasting effects will impact Southeast Asia and ASEAN.

“Trump’s focus on protectionism is likely to replace uniform tariffs with varying import taxes for different countries,” Thitinan says. “This shift could create divisive and harmful effects for Southeast Asia and ASEAN… fostering competition rather than enhancing co-operation among their economies.”

Writing in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Thitinan says ASEAN has survived many geopolitical and geoeconomic storms in its 58-year existence. But few have been as serious as Trump’s tariffs.

ASEAN risks further division and irrelevance if it cannot reorganise and unite, he says.

The grouping has to focus inwards, reboot the ASEAN economic community and give priority to intraregional trade and investment.

“We may be witnessing the end of ASEAN as we once knew it, as the region transitions back into being more of a geographical area rather than a cohesive organisation,” Thitinan says.

Two leading regional economists also write that the ASEAN+3 countries (ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea) are at a crossroads. Hoe Ee Khor and Jae Young Lee have written an article distributed by the expert writers’ group Project Syndicate and published by The Manila Times.

They say the region has relied on open markets, integrated supply chains and export-driven growth and has much to lose from the fragmentation of the multilateral trading system. But they also argue it has much to gain if it can navigate the challenge to the global system.

“United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war is undermining the foundations of the rules-based international order that enabled the rise of the ASEAN+3 economies,” they say. “Member states must do more than adapt; they must help shape a global trading system that reflects their interests.”

Seoul’s news strategy: engage with Pyongyang

Signs are emerging early in the life of South Korea’s new government of a thaw in relations between the two Koreas.

New President Lee Jae-myung was elected earlier this month and The Korea Times reported last week the military had suspended loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts into North Korea, fulfilling a pledge to restore trust in inter-Korean relations.

The government also stopped anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaigns.

The paper said Lee’s strategy was to re-engage with North Korea, a sharp break from the hardline stance of his predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol.

Commentator Lee Kyong-hee, writing in The Korea Herald, noted that North Korea had halted its broadcasts to the South of eerie noises, giving residents their first quiet time in about a year.

Lee, a former editor-in-chief of the Herald, said it would be premature to declare the respite a prelude to lasting calm along the border.

“But it would be remiss to ignore the conspicuous signs of efforts to find a breakthrough in the stalled relations with nuclear-armed North Korea,” she said.

“President Lee appears intent on fulfilling his campaign promise to restore communications with Pyongyang and ease tensions around the peninsula.”

US President Donald Trump was reportedly aiming to revive talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Lee said.

“Managing North Korea has mostly been contingent on the political will of leaders in Seoul and Washington,” she said.

“The Biden administration marked the only US presidential term since the end of the Cold War during which there was not a single meeting between US and North Korean officials.

“It largely overlapped with Yoon’s tenure in Seoul, when the South Korea leader’s hawkish approach… effectively supported Biden’s ‘strategic patience’, which amounted to doing nothing.”

Note: Lee Jae-myung was one of the world leaders whose planned meeting with Trump was cancelled following the president’s early departure from the G7 meeting in Canada

Minister dismisses mass rapes history as ‘rumours’

The Indonesian Government is reworking the country’s history through a project to publish history books that adopt what is said to be a more positive tone towards past presidents.

The project, due to be launched during the country’s 80th independence day celebrations in August, has already provoked dismay and outrage as a draft shows the anti-Chinese riots of May 1998 have been removed from the official history. Mass violence and rapes, especially of Chinese-Indonesia women, caused more than 1000 deaths.

The Jakarta Post reported that Culture Minister Fadli Zon dismissed the mass sexual violence as mere rumours.

Diyah Wara Restiyati, from the Indonesian Chinese Youth Association, said Fadli’s comment were deeply hurtful as evidence of the violence towards the Chinese-Indonesia community was well-documented.

“When government officials say the rapes didn’t happen, it deeply wounds us, especially Chinese-Indonesia women, who lived through that horror,” she said.

Ucanews.com, the Catholic Asian news site, said Fadli’s statement was seen as another move by the Prabowo Government to revise Indonesian history. Fadli is a member of Prabowo’s Gerindra Party.

It quoted Fadli as saying in an interview: “Were there mass rapes? Is it true? Who said that? There was never any evidence of that.”

According to ucanews.com, Fadli said the new history books were expected to unite the nation by not bringing up the past.

But the current National History of Indonesia (Volume VI) mentioned the 1998 mass rape of ethnic Chinese women in Jakarta, Medan, Palembang, Surabaya and Solo.

Dahlia Madanih, from the National Commission on Violence against Women, said Fadli’s statement contradicted the findings of a state-run inquiry into the riots.

“Survivors have been carrying the burden of silence for too long,” she said. “This denial is not only painful, it also perpetuates impunity.”

Footnote: Fadli later issued a statement saying he did not mean to deny sexual violence against women had occurred and was occurring. Rather, he wanted to stress that history must be based on facts and evidence.

 

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.