Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Indonesia suffers through rolling blackouts, Bangkok’s popular mayor wins reelection, and residents in Hanoi protest ambitious plans to rebuild the capital.
Blackouts Hit Rocky Indonesia
Why can’t one of the world’s biggest coal producers keep the lights on?
Through June, Indonesia has faced rolling blackouts across the archipelago. The government says the problem has now been resolved. But an industry insider countered that this is a “complete lie” and warned that worse may be to come.
To blame is not, as you might suspect, the global energy shock. Instead, the government has admitted after some early denials that the problem is a shortage of coal. And this can be traced back to the government’s own mismanagement.
In recent weeks, blackouts have been reported in Java, Sumatra, Bali, and Indonesian Borneo. Java, which contains more than half of Indonesia’s population and is the country’s economic hub, seems to have been worst affected. Areas of Bekasi, Bogor, and Depok—cities on Jakarta’s periphery—went without power for several days.
The economic effects are harsh. Initial estimates of the losses already caused by blackouts vary from $173 million to $562 million.
These blackouts will only add to the growing perception that Indonesia’s government and economy are increasingly dysfunctional. Business leaders have expressed concern that fear of blackouts will become yet another factor deterring businesses from investing in the country.
It is also another blow for President Prabowo Subianto, who came into office promising faster growth and self-sufficiency. His nationalist economic proscriptions have caused turmoil across Indonesia’s economy.
Power cuts that hit people’s daily livelihoods could be a potent political issue. August of last year saw Indonesia’s worst riots since 1998 and took place against the backdrop of rising food prices.
Heading into summer, the situation looks potentially volatile again. On top of the power cuts, prices of food and fuel are once again rising. And students are already taking to the streets to protest economic mismanagement.
For years, Indonesia actually had more electricity generation capacity than it needed in key areas such as Java due to overbuilding in the 2010s.
Most of its capacity comes from coal-fired power plants, which shouldn’t be a problem for the world’s third-largest coal producer. And a “domestic market obligation” forces miners to sell a chunk of their product in the country at a cut price.
Earlier in the year, though, the government cut coal production quotas for companies. Its aim was to push up global prices and thereby increase earnings. Prices did increase, but domestic production was also disrupted.
Faced with the gap between low domestic prices and high international prices, miners seem to have sold as much as possible abroad, even if this meant not meeting obligations to sell domestically. Others sold the good coal abroad and dumped the low-quality, less energy-dense coal onto the domestic market.
This latest wave of blackouts in June comes on the back of a three-day blackout in May that plunged much of Sumatra into darkness. However, that was caused not by a coal shortage but a disruption of transmission lines by bad weather.
Bangkok’s “Hulk” smashes rivals. Chadchart Sittipunt, the independent governor of Bangkok who has been nicknamed “Hulk” for his bulky frame, secured a resounding reelection on Sunday.
The governor showed his political might by winning 67.8 percent of votes, with 95 percent of votes counted at time of writing.
Formerly a member of Pheu Thai, the powerful populist party dominated by the Shinawatra family, Chadchart left to run for governor independently in 2022. In that election, he crushed a divided field, winning 52.7 percent of votes while no other candidate cracked 10 percent.
Since then, Pheu Thai’s star has waned while Chadchart’s has waxed. The former is now a junior coalition partner in government, while Chadchart has only strengthened his grip on the capital.
His massive victory is leading some to speculate that he could next aim to become prime minister. (Chadchart has denied that he’s interested in the top job.)
The governor’s brand mixes a technocratic approach with a broad streak of liberalism. Under his watch, a new app was launched to let residents report traffic problems, cheerily named Traffy Fondue. (Traffy from traffic; fondue from fongdu, “to report” in Thai.) And on the social front, he has pushed policies friendly to women and sexual minorities.
Top entrepreneur convicted. Indonesian tech company founder and former Education Minister Nadiem Makarim was sentenced to prison on June 30. Nadiem was accused of corruption in relation to procurement of Chromebook laptops while in government. But critics say that the evidence is thin and argue that the case is politically motivated.
Nadiem was the poster child of Indonesia’s tech sector boom. In 2010, he founded Gojek, Indonesia’s answer to Uber, which became the country’s first start-up to be valued at more than $10 billion and later merged with Indonesia’s version of Amazon, Tokopedia.
As education minister from 2019-2024, he lacked the same magic touch and now stands accused of malfeasance during that period.
While critics say that the evidence is thin, Indonesia’s definition of corruption is loose—allowing considerable scope for politically motivated prosecutions.
Some argue that this case and others will negatively impact Indonesia’s economy.
The mystery hovering over this case is who put pressure on prosecutors to pursue it. With previous politically tinged corruption cases, there was a clear focus on government critics. But Nadiem has not been outspoken.
Hanoi development furor. Residents of Hanoi are taking part in rare protests against housing demolitions. Tentative private grumbling is solidifying into more public displays of anger, with prayer vigils as well as banners and T-shirts bearing tentatively critical slogans.
Vietnam’s government has hugely ambitious plans to rebuild its capital. Its multitrillion-dollar plan would utterly reshape the city. The government has declared that by 2065, residents of the city will have an average income of $95,000 and live in one of the world’s happiest capitals.
Residents along the banks of the Red River, some 250,000 of whom are slated to be moved, are skeptical. They are dubious about the government’s promises that they will eventually be provided with better accommodation and ask where they will live while new residences are built on the land that they currently occupy.
Land disputes are politically potent in Vietnam. In 2020, three police officers and one villager died in protest over land expropriation for an airport near Hanoi. Two protesters were later sentenced to death.
A jockey balances on a wooden plough adapted for a race, sometimes holding and biting the tails of two bulls to steer them through a flooded paddy field, during Pacu Jawi, a traditional bull racing event, in Simabur village, West Sumatra, Indonesia, on June 27.Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
FP’s Most Read This Week
Indonesian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Arif Havas Oegroseno compares the country’s waterways to the Strait of Hormuz and argues that smaller powers can now effectively deny great-power access, in a publication from the RS. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Don’t overestimate Russia’s influence, say Yuhang Ding and Sailin Li in the Diplomat. Its invasion of Ukraine has eroded a traditional pillar of its regional presence: arms sales.
Can the United States’ Pax Silica initiative help the Philippines develop a chip industry? Evan See reports in the Business Times.
In Focus: Film Sparks Language Debate in Singapore
Dear You—a story of family, love, loss, and migration, set in China and the tangled world of China’s Southeast Asian diaspora—pulls hard at the heartstrings. In Singapore, it’s been a smash hit and sparked a debate about language that touches on sensitive elements of the city-state’s identity.
The film’s language is primarily Teochew, a dialect of Chinese that is common along a strip of southern China that was the source of many migrants to Southeast Asia. In Singapore, southern varieties of Chinese—Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, and Cantonese—traditionally predominated.
But for decades, Singapore’s government—controlled by the People’s Action Party since independence—has promoted Mandarin Chinese to facilitate communication between groups. Laws even restrict broadcasts of media in non-Mandarin versions of Chinese.
This has always attracted some quiet controversy. In the 1991 election, the opposition made inroads in working-class Chinese areas by capitalizing on fears over loss of family languages, and this remains part of its brand. Sad reflections on grandkids raised or taught mainly with Mandarin struggling to talk to their grandparents are also common in Singapore.
The success of Dear You has pushed these anxieties about language and identity back up to forefront.
While Teochew is increasingly rare as a first language in Singapore, many audiences wanted to see the film in its original and not the Mandarin dub—perhaps due to the resonant themes of connection with ancestral roots. Limited Teochew showings sold out, and some people even crossed the border to Malaysia to see the film in its original form.
The government gave a little ground, allowing another 50 Teochew screenings in addition to the 22 that were already authorized. Some are now calling for the government take a more relaxed approach to Chinese language varieties more generally.
Singapore’s government will likely continue to take a careful line on this matter. It is wary of narratives promoting loyalty to Chinese identity and ancestry, fearing that it is a route for China to try to exercise influence over its majority-ethnic Chinese population. A recent spate of videos from China fanning racial fears about the Indianization of Singapore put the issue in focus.
Some now worry that this film could slot into such influence campaigns.
