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In-Depth Information
vious investment in infrastructure such as roads, dams and plantations, this has two signi-
ficant effects. Firstly, Chinese aid comes with few strings attached, meaning that roads,
plantations and dams are built by Chinese companies with little or no concern for local
people or environments. Secondly, having China as a major source of funding and as a
political role model is unlikely to encourage the Lao and Cambodian governments to ad-
opt democratic reforms.
Chinese investment in the region rankles environmentalists and democracy watchdogs
- not to mention Vietnam. Relations between Vietnam and China have traditionally been
frosty. On the plus side trade is booming, albeit it's more one-way than the Vietnamese
would like. However, the Spratly Islands, rich in oil deposits, remain a potential flash-
point, with both nations claiming sovereignty. There have been regular protests in Hanoi
against the Chinese occupation of the islands. Meanwhile both Cambodia and Vietnam are
at loggerheads with Laos and China over the construction of upstream dams on the
Mekong River, which could severely impact fish stocks downstream.
Season of Protest
Over in Thailand, politics has been getting very shirty, as hordes of opposition protesters
come and go from the capital with alarming regularity. Red Shirts support exiled former
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and are mostly drawn from provincial northern and
eastern Thailand. Yellow Shirts support the royal family and the established elite and are
generally from Bangkok and central Thailand. As we went to print, the Red Shirts were
tenuously holding on to power under the leadership of Thaksin's younger sister, Yingluck.
But another round of Yellow Shirt protests was wreaking havoc in Bangkok and threaten-
ing the Shinawatra dynasty.
In Cambodia, protesters have hit the streets of Phnom Penh over alleged improprieties
in the 2013 national elections. Although ostensibly democratic, Cambodia has effectively
been under the rule of one party - Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodia People's Party
(CPP) - since 1979. However, against all expectations the united opposition made signi-
ficant gains in the National Assembly in 2013. Indeed the opposition claimed that it had
narrowly won the election and was cheated out of victory by the CPP. Six months after the
contested election, the opposition still had refused to take up its seats in the National
Assembly and street protests continued.
Such public expressions of discontent are not seen in Vietnam and Laos, which are still
old-school, one-party states.
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