Putin’s new pals
Russia courts Southeast Asian leaders with authoritarian streaks who tend to be wary of both China and the West.
A quarter century after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is back in Southeast Asia, where creeping authoritarianism is giving Moscow room to manoeuvre.
A prime example is Cambodia, where the biggest opposition party has been forced to disband ahead of a general election in July. While Western governments have baulked at what is shaping up to be anything but a fair poll, Russia has positioned itself as the key election observer.
The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, threatened by the growing popularity of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), compelled the party to dismantle itself last November on the grounds that its president, Kem Sokha, was suspected of treason. The US, the European Union and others condemned the move, withdrew support for the upcoming election and called for sanctions.
Russia seems quite happy to fill the void. Just four days before Cambodia’s Supreme Court officially ordered the dissolution of the CNRP, Hun Sen was in Manila, smiling and shaking hands with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at an East Asian summit. Medvedev reportedly told Hun Sen that Russia would dispatch election monitors to Cambodia and extend its full support for the process.
It is easy to imagine how this will play out. Russian observers routinely endorse elections deemed undemocratic by monitors sent by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The main Russian nongovernmental organisation that observes elections — the Commonwealth of Independent States Election Monitoring Organization — is widely considered to be under the Kremlin’s thumb. In Cambodia, the Russian team is likely to stamp its approval on the ruling party’s seemingly inevitable victory in July.
With backing from the likes of Russia and China, Hun Sen sees little need to bow to Western pressure. “If the US intends to halt its financial assistance to us, let it do so,” the prime minister said in a speech to workers at a Phnom Penh garment plant in November.
Earlier, in September, the Phnom Penh Post quoted Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn as saying, “We have noticed that the West has become weak,” suggesting Cambodia would be better served aligning itself with China and Russia.
Russia’s trump card in Cambodia is debt left over from the Soviet days. Cambodia wants Russia to write off or reduce the US$1.5 billion it owed the Soviet Union, and for years Moscow was unwilling to bend. Now it has softened its stance.
In November, Medvedev expressed a willingness to hold talks on the matter. It is unclear what Russia might demand in return for a compromise, but analysts say it may seek the right for its Pacific Fleet to use Cambodian ports.
All of this is part of an increasingly familiar pattern for the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin: strengthening ties with authoritarian regimes to push back against the West.
NEWS AND GUNS
As a superpower, the Soviet Union maintained strong ties with communist countries such as Vietnam, wielding enormous influence in Southeast Asia. Those bonds weakened after the Soviet bloc broke up and Russia’s influence waned. But Putin has restored some of Russia’s international power and is focusing on Southeast Asia anew.
Putin seems to find kindred spirits in so-called illiberal democracies — countries that retain the ostensible framework of democracy, but where elections are no more than a tool for legitimising the existing government. The media and NGOs exist, but they are tightly controlled. This is essentially the system Putin has created in Russia, and it is a model Hun Sen appears to be following.
Other Southeast Asian countries present similar opportunities for Russia — and China — to gain clout. Malaysia and Thailand both have the right conditions: weakening Western influence, governments displaying strong-arm tendencies and elections slated for this year.
There are hints of Russian meddling in Malaysia, where a general election is scheduled to be held by August. Last month, the Russian deputy minister of telecoms and mass communications, Alexey Volin, visited Kuala Lumpur to discuss cooperation between Sputnik, a Russian government-backed media company, and the Malaysian news agency Bernama.
Sputnik is known for anti-Western reporting that the US and Europe often blast as “fake news.” Nevertheless, the editorin-chief of Bernama, Zakaria Abd Wahab, hailed the tie-up as a way to provide a wider variety of news to the Malaysian audience, while delivering Malaysian news to Russia and beyond.
There is no denying that Southeast Asia is a promising market — one that Russia is keen to tap as a way of avoiding economic overdependence on China. Hit with Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia has stepped up cooperation with its regional rival, but it wants to spread its chips around.
On the subject of an Asia Pacific free trade area, Putin wrote in a November op-ed article: “We believe this is in our practical interest and represents an opportunity to strengthen our positions in the region’s rapidly growing markets. Indeed, over the past five years, the share of Apec (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) economies in Russia’s foreign trade has increased from 23% to 31%, and from 17% to 24% in exports. We have no intention of stopping there.”
One urgent priority is to develop new markets for weapons, as exports to China have reached a plateau. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, six key Asean members — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore — spent a total of $37 billion on arms in 2016, up 30% from 2010.
At an aviation trade fair near Moscow last July, Russia clinched a deal to upgrade the Royal Malaysian Air Force’s Russian-made fighters. Malaysia bought the MiG-29 fighter jets in 1994 and was thinking about replacing them with French-made Rafale models. Former French president Francois Hollande had pitched the fighter directly to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, stressing its performance.
But Russia made the case that upgrading the MiGs would not only cost less, but would also transfer technology to Malaysia, say sources familiar with the talks. Indonesia, too, last year signed a $1.5-billion contract to buy another Russian fighter, the Sukhoi Su-35.
Deals with Western countries are often linked, at least on the surface, to human rights, but Russia attaches no such strings. And like Moscow itself, many Southeast Asian governments are wary of China’s growing influence and want to strike more of a balance between the big powers.
This brings us back to Cambodia, the main destination for Chinese direct investment. On Jan 11, Cambodia and China signed nearly 20 deals, worth several billion dollars, to further develop the country’s infrastructure and agriculture. The projects include an expressway linking Phnom Penh with Sihanoukville, and a new Phnom Penh international airport.
Cambodians have mixed feelings about China holding sway over their economy. Chan Sok, a 51-year-old Phnom Penh resident, said he had noticed an increase in Chinese businesspeople and tourists in the capital. While this creates jobs, he said he is worried about increased competition.
WORRIED IN WASHINGTON
The US, for its part, is worried about both Chinese and Russian advances in Southeast Asia. Foreign policy watchers say there is an urgency in Washington to improve relations with Thailand, a longtime ally, even if it means putting aside concerns about human rights and democracy.
In September, China agreed to build a weapons maintenance centre in Khon Kaen by 2021. Thailand would shoulder 51% of the investment, with the rest coming from Beijing. There is a plan to set up a warehouse for spare parts for Chinese-made defence equipment in Nakhon Ratchasima as well. Both facilities could give China an edge in negotiations for arms sales.
In December, the US reportedly proposed opening a similar facility. Theppong Tippayachan, Thailand’s permanent secretary for defence, and David Helvey, the US acting assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific security affairs, attended the meeting at the Pentagon — the first senior-level bilateral defence meeting since 2013, as the talks were suspended after the 2014 military coup.
There have been other signs that US President Donald Trump is warming to the Thai junta. In October, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha made his first visit to the White House. At the meeting with Trump, Gen Prayut pledged to hold a general election in November 2018, though that date is now in question. The two also discussed trade opportunities, including defence hardware.
The public statement on the election date pushed the EU to restore diplomatic contact as well. It is now “appropriate to pursue a gradual political re-engagement with Thailand”, the bloc said in a statement. Stalled free trade talks are expected to resume after the election.
Yet the West faces an uphill battle to regain lost ground in Southeast Asia. The fact remains that China and Russia do not impose demands for human rights and democracy on their partners, making them appealing benefactors for regional leaders intent on staying in power.
(Nikkei staff writer CK Tan in Kuala Lumpur and Nikkei Asian Review assistant editor Natsuki Kaneko in Tokyo contributed to this story)
Russia’s trump card in Cambodia is debt left over from the Soviet days. Cambodia wants Russia to write off or reduce the $1.5 billion it owed the Soviet Union, and for years Moscow was unwilling to bend. Now it has softened its stance