Luang Prabang Film Festival (LPFF) – an annual celebration of Southeast Asian cinema – has announced that its 10th annual event will take place online from 4 to 10 December 2020.

As always, the festival will include a carefully curated selection of the best in contemporary ASEAN cinema, but this year’s program will also bring back feature selections from the event’s first ten years and highlight MEKONG 2030, the award-winning anthology film released by LPFF itself earlier this year.

Founded in 2009, LPFF has begun its second decade of supporting regional and local cinema through its annual festival and year-long funding and educational opportunities for filmmakers.

Once again, Director of Programming Bree Fitzgerald and LPFF’s Motion Picture Ambassadors (MPAs) have procured a line-up representative of nine Southeast Asian countries that will be available throughout the duration of the festival.

Consistent with past editions, all the films will be completely free, with streaming access expanded to viewers across the ten ASEAN countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

In-line with this dynamic year, LPFF will present its inaugural shorts program alongside its usual programming. “Many filmmakers start off in this (shorts) category,” says Fitzgerald. “As an organization that prioritizes supporting emerging talent, it makes sense that we would create a space for filmmakers producing at this length.”

LPFF will also include a special “From the Archives” program, which will highlight selected films from past festivals, revealing these special offerings over the course of the week.

After a year on the festival circuit, LPFF’s film anthology MEKONG 2030 will return home to Luang Prabang to partake in the six-day event. The anthology, which consists of five short films from the Mekong region countries, has already been selected to screen in over 20 film festivals across the world, and was most recently awarded Best Narrative Feature at the Dili International Film Festival.

LPFF has also released the visual identity for this year’s festival, which brings the iconic Luang Prabang outdoor theatre inside the viewer’s home. Executed by Lao artist Manilla Chounlamountri, the bright colored illustration exhibits a community coming together through film.

“We’re well-known for bringing audiences to a film festival in a town without a movie theater,” said Executive Director Sean Chadwell. “This year, we can’t bring the audiences, so we’re taking the festival to them.”

Source: Inside Out

‘China holds all the cards. It has the dams upriver and it hosts the meeting,’ says scholar Sophal Ear.

China’s extensive damming of the upper Mekong River has reduced water flows, threatening downstream countries Cambodia and Vietnam with environmental harm and food shortages, said experts in advance of a summit meeting of the multilateral  Mekong-Lancang Cooperation group.

The summit, to be held on Aug. 24 as a virtual meeting, will be co-chaired by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The group is widely seen as a rival to the separate four-nation Mekong River Commission (MRC) and as a forum controlled by China to promote its own interests.

Ham Oudom, a Cambodian consultant on natural resources and water governance, told RFA in an interview this week that downstream countries on the Mekong should confront China forcefully over the harm caused by China’s control over water flows on their countries’ economies and environment.

“It appears to me that China seemingly wants to avoid its responsibilities for the fact that it has contributed to devastation and impacts on downstream countries, as in the case of the Tonle Sap Lake,” he said.

“In the past, there were no mechanisms through which we could raise our concerns, and we could not identify anyone who was responsible,” he said, adding, “Now there are many mechanisms in place, but countries seem to talk only about sustainable development, and don’t dare address the root causes of our problems.”

“We should carefully reflect on the negative impacts we have already seen in the past resulting from the construction of hydropower dams,” he said.

Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, a large inland lake whose waters ebb and flow with the annual cycle of the river connecting it to the Mekong, has been drying at a rapid rate in recent years, threatening the fish stocks providing millions of Cambodians with their main source of protein.

The inland lake is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and is Southeast Asia’s most bountiful source of freshwater fish. The greater Mekong river system provides fish, water, and fertilizer for 60 million Southeast Asians.

Meanwhile, reduced water flows on the Mekong have even further reduced the volumes of water flowing back to the Tonle Sap, local fisherman and head of the Tonle Sap Fishing Community Alliance Long Sochet told RFA.

“There seems to be no pulse pushing the natural flow from the Mekong River, and all we see now is a rise due to floods from the various streams surrounding the Tonle Sap,” he said.

“The Mekong River has not yet reversed its flow to the lake, and if not for the rain we’ve had in surrounding areas, the water level would not have risen at all.”

The Mekong-Lancang group also competes with a 2009 U.S. program called the Lower Mekong Initiative, involving Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. China, which has ruled Tibet, the source of the Mekong, since 1951, refers to the waterway as the Lancang River and has built 11 dams on it.

‘China holds all the cards’

Talks at the coming Mekong-Lancang summit are unlikely to effectively address questions about water security in the region, though, said Sophal Ear, an associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College in California.

“China holds all the cards. It has the dams upriver and it hosts the meeting,” Ear said. “It has the gold and so it makes the rules.”

“China needs to stop building dams and needs to blow up some dams to release water back to the Mekong. This really is a zero-sum game. What is happening now to lower Mekong countries is attributable to China.”

China has built 11 large dams on the river since the 1990s and has more planned or under construction on the 3,100 mile river that originates on the Tibetan Plateau and empties into the South China Sea in Vietnam.

Laos, aiming to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia,” is also building a series of dams on the Mekong to boost the generation of hydroelectric power which it plans to sell to other countries.

Vietnam also under threat

Vietnam’s access to water is also increasingly under threat, with almost 70 percent of its resources now coming in from rivers outside the country and water flows regulated more and more by upriver foreign dams, one government expert told the National Assembly in Hanoi on Aug. 17.

Around half of Vietnam’s 200 rivers enter the country from outside its borders, but these bring in 63 percent of the surface water used in Vietnam for domestic, agricultural, and industrial use, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said, according to state media reports.

The quantity and quality of water available to Vietnam is thus directly controlled by the growing number of hydropower projects managed by China and other countries upstream on the Red and Mekong Rivers, Nguyen said.

Vietnam is the last stop for water flowing into the country from China, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, Le Anh Tuan—a climate change and water resource expert at Vietnam’s Can Tho University—told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“The amount of rain falling into the Mekong River in Vietnam is very small compared to the total amount of river water flowing down from countries upstream,” Le said, adding, “This means that Vietnam depends almost completely on water resources from other countries.”

The Mekong River Commission — a regional group made up of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam — has meanwhile issued several warnings about the impact on downstream countries of China’s dams upstream, said Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment.

“But China seems not to pay any attention,” Dang said.

“The countries along the lower Mekong have come together to require that China share information about its hydropower projects, but China has not responded so far to these requests,” he said.

‘Prepare for the worst’

Ho Phi Long, Director of the Water Management and Climate Change Center at the National University in Ho Chi Minh City, told RFA on Aug. 17 that countries on the lower Mekong must “prepare for the worst,” so that they are not made hostage later to political pressures from outside.

There is no lack of water coming into Vietnam, but the yearly distribution is not consistent, said Le Anh Tuan.

“For example, when we don’t need more water, the volume of water flowing into the country is too great,” he said.

“But when we need more water for our daily needs or for use in cultivation, the amount of water flowing into Vietnam is much less than expected, and this causes an increase of salt-water intrusion in the Mekong Delta region.”

Because Vietnam is still a developing country, Ho Phi Long added, the country has not experienced the full impact of water shortages yet. “But as we develop, and as we start to face real shortages, the country’s economy will have more trouble.”

Reported and translated by RFA’s Khmer and Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

No government is likely to fall as a result of its COVID-19 response, the impact on politics is still significant.

COVID-19 hit Southeast Asia earlier than most regions of the world, and today the region has over 90,000 cases, with more than 2,700 confirmed deaths. The low levels of testing in all states, bar Singapore, however, should give rise to skepticism. The virus is likely far more prevalent than what governments are admitting, and anecdotal evidence suggests that there are far more deaths than what has been officially reported.

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on the economies of Southeast Asia, which are dependent on tourism and exports. The IMF is predicting a global economic contraction of 3 percent, and all evidence suggests that the globalized economies of Southeast Asia will be deeply impacted, with recessions in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

How will COVID-19 impact politics in the region?

On the surface, we see little change. There are only three countries that have scheduled elections or routine political transitions coming months. With a new COVID-19 election bill passed earlier this month, Singapore is moving ahead with elections as soon as infections drop; Myanmar announced that elections will proceed as planned by year’s end, but is introducing a series of administrative changes due to limitations posed by the virus. Vietnam will hold its quinquennial Party Congress in January 2021 and will be sure to capitalize on its COVID-19 management success.

The pandemic response in Indonesia has exposed Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s weakness, but with elections just held in 2019 it’s not going to change the government. In Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines, the response to COVID-19 has simply accelerated the authoritarian trends of the leadership. In fact, COVID-19 has strengthened incumbents, giving them space to capitalize on fear and displace challengers.

This does not mean that all leaders are safe or the trend will last. Weak leaders are more exposed. COVID-19 has constrained patronage to appease challengers, resources have contracted as economies have shrunk ,and the costs of responding to the virus have increased.

Ultra-royalist elites in Thailand have questioned Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s competence for a while, and there has been a growing push to replace him and key cabinet members, though leaving the military-backed coalition in place. Despite reopening the economy, the Emergency Decree remains in place.

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s attempt to dodge a vote of no confidence has done him no favors. Leaders who lack broad public mandates and face elite challengers are vulnerable and beholden to their allies. They have to spend time politicking rather than focusing on crisis response.

All that said, we’re not predicting any immediate political COVID casualties. The intensity of the economic crisis tied to COVID-19 will be more determinant than the public health challenges.

We see five distinct political trends that will impact politics in the medium term.

The first is an abject failure in governance in many countries. States have basic obligations to provide security, education, public health, and a legal system to their electorates. In country after country, public health systems were exposed to be underfunded and poorly staffed. Governments were caught flat-footed despite seeing the crisis unfold in China and experiencing other public health scares since the 2003 SARS outbreak.

With the exceptions of Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia, governments in the region were slow to respond to COVID-19, sent mixed and confusing messages, peddled quackery, were largely in denial, and proved unwilling to defer to medical and public health advice.

In a region that is based on notions of paternalistic leadership, including the region’s few democracies, where people are not supposed to question the state, there is now a growing realization that government does not know best. Revered politicians have fallen off their pedestals.

Demands for greater competence and embrace of science-based approaches, especially among the younger generations, is sowing the seeds of new political forces. Civic-mindedness has already sustained mobilization at local levels and it is only a matter of time until such sentiments translate into greater demands for accountability and political movements. In Indonesia, the hashtag “Whatever Indonesia” is trending; an expression of frustration with the government’s chaotic response.

It is telling that in Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines the governments immediately adopted emergency decrees. Indonesia’s president considered adopting one. Governments were unable to cope with the pandemic with existing institutions and authorities and aimed for extended power, but these emergency powers, in all cases, were used to go after dissent first.

Second, the weakness exposed by COVID-19 has caused militaries to gain more prominence.

In Indonesia and the Philippines, the weakness of the government response has forced the presidents to rely on militaries and security forces to backstop their flailing responses.

In Indonesia, this has been welcome news for the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), which has sought to claw back many of the civil-administrative powers that it lost following the collapse of the New Order regime in 1998. Jokowi’s entire COVID-19 response team is staffed by acting and retired generals who are responding with an insurgency-based approach, an abject failure as the pandemic continues to spiral out of control.

We have seen the same thing in the Philippines, where Duterte’s COVID-response team is comprised of retired and acting generals, not medical professionals. The result has been a militarized response not informed by public health. Meanwhile, Duterte has called security forces to shoot people who violate quarantine orders on sight.

In Myanmar, the military has assumed a role in crisis-management, pitting itself against Aung San Sui Kyi’s National League for Democracy during an election year and at the same time using the distraction of the crisis to ratchet up fighting in ethnic conflict areas.

While regional militaries are providing order and using the crisis to accumulate power (and money), they are also exposing their poor capacity to manage public health problems.

Third, the greater role that security forces are playing accentuates authoritarianism. Many governments are adopting securitization to address the crisis and simultaneously cracking down on critics of the crisis response. This is worryingly happening in the region’s more open regimes.

In Malaysia, we’ve seen a shocking attack on the free press, which for the past two years had seen the most notable improvements in the region. A journalist was summoned to police headquarters for her reporting on the roundup of migrant workers. While there is no evidence of an overall shift in government policy to reverse the positive trajectory on press freedoms, such incidents point to increased intolerance of alternative views.

In Indonesia, circumstances surrounding the charges against researcher Ravio Patra, who raised questions about Jokowi’s COVID-19 response, raise even further questions.

COVID-19 is being used to curb discussion and necessary criticism – often dismissed and framed as “disinformation.” Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia have all wielded their “fake news” laws to that effect, while Duterte has increased his use of the cyber crime law to target dissenters. This comes at a time where governments are breaking down the boundaries of privacy via the centrally controlled use of applications to track and trace citizens.

Fourth, the pandemic has exposed the glaring inequities around the region. Singapore, which received accolades as being the “gold standard” of pandemic responses, has seen the largest number of cases in the region. An overwhelming majority of the more than 35,000 cases (as of June 1), have been in the crowded dormitories for the 324,000 migrant workers who make the country’s first world living standards possible.

Thailand, whose excellent public health and medical systems have responded well to the crisis, has been unable and unwilling to address the large numbers of poor that can ill-afford a prolonged shutdown. COVID-19 has seen a rise in other health problems, as well as hunger and helplessness. In Thailand the number of suicides has soared.

Thailand, according to a the 2018 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, is the most inequitable society in the world, a trend that has been exacerbated since the 2006 coup d’etat. The military and ultra-royalist elites simply do not care about the underclass, and as such the government has done little to support them. Thai government official are now predicting that some 14 million workers could be unemployed in the second and third quarters of 2020.

But inequality is rife around the region, and all countries have rising Gini coefficients. A prolonged economic recession will further exacerbate existing inequalities. The region’s social safety nets have serious holes and do not provide broad cover for those who need them.

In the Philippines, Duterte has tried to direct COVID-19 relief funding to the poorest segments of society, but simply doesn’t have the resources to do so in a meaningful way. The Indonesian and Malaysian governments are in a similar predicament – although in Malaysia’s case the former Najib government decimated the country’s finances in the 1MDB scandal.

COVID-19 spread through globalization, but it is a stark reminder that what made the rapid economic growth in Southeast Asia possible has been distributed inequitably. Unless the poorest and most marginalized of a society have adequate protections, then no one does.

The final trend is the growth of polarizing, identity politics, exacerbated by a vociferous religious fringe and rising xenophobic nationalism. This is not new. We’ve seen extremists Buddhist monks in Myanmar fan the flames of a genocide, the sudden reassertion of chauvinist identity politics in Malaysia, and the wielding of Islamist politics in Indonesia.

Both governments and the people have already proven quick to scapegoat certain communities for the spread of the pandemic. Thai leaders blamed Western tourists, ignoring community transmission. In Singapore and Malaysia, the blame quickly fell on migrant workers. In Indonesia, Islamists immediately resorted to their default position: blaming the Chinese community.

In any crisis, there is an innate response to scapegoating, but what is so telling in COVID-19 is that governments are not stepping in to counter those destructive narratives, instead often using them to distract from their own responsibility and their lackluster responses.

Extremist religious groups are poised to take advantage of both the emotions of COVID-19 – fear and insecurity – and well as government weaknesses; they will capitalize on the inequities of society and to try to mobilize their constituents through scapegoating out-groups.

Despite these trends that should cause alarm for governments and the elites who back them, they have several things in their favor. First, the weakness of the political oppositions. While we have seen the Thai and Philippine presidents further consolidate their authoritarian grips and go to lengths to crush the free press, the reality is that they have sustained a long-term assault on the political opposition.

Duterte has jailed political opponents on trumped-up charges, marginalized his vice president (who hails from the opposition party), and trounced opposition figures in the midterm elections. With a stacked parliament and supreme court, Duterte has wielded the police as a hit squad in his war on drugs, without any due process, oversight, or accountability. COVID-19 has seen even greater attacks on the opposition and the shuttering of the largest media conglomerate.

In Thailand, the military-backed government has used the courts to dissolve political parties and bring legal cases against opposition figures, already having stolen an election in March 2019. The government wields enormous coercive legal powers through its arbitrarily applied Computer Crimes Act and lese majeste provisions of its criminal code.

In Indonesia, the opposition was largely co-opted by Jokowi when he brought his long-time political rival Prabowo Subianto into government as the minister of defense. The remainder of the opposition is a very loose coalition of parties that have little ideological or policy affinity for one another.

In Malaysia, the recently ousted Pakatan Harapan faces divisions over leadership and grapples with winning a new national base, especially among Malays, and among its own base who are dissatisfied with their slow record of implementing reforms while in office from 2018 until February of this year.

In Singapore, an expanded opposition has yet to resolve internal differences. While people may cast votes for the opposition, it is usually only a way to signal displeasure with the ruling People’s Action Party rather than voting for an alternative.

In short, political oppositions across the region are weak, divided, and largely unable to work together. In several cases, they are simply not up to the task of governing at all.

The second thing in favor of governments is the ability to distract. Governments can manufacture security incidents and political crises. As no country in Southeast Asia has a truly free press, governments can use mainstream media to push certain narratives. They have more resources at their disposal to rent a mob or an army of cyber trolls to shape opinions on social media. While there may be opposition and dissent, the government has greater coercive power as well as the ability to mobilize. COVID-19 at least in the short term limits the ability for mass protests, forcing criticism to be localized or online.

The third tool at their disposal is patronage. While traditional patronage has shrunk in COVID-19, we will likely see the fire sale of government assets to cronies or potential political rivals as governments face soaring budget deficits amidst recession. Increasingly, as has happened in earlier crises, regimes will shore up oligarchs as policies move toward protecting elites over ordinary citizens.

While no government is likely to fall in the short term as a result of its COVID-19 response, the impact on politics is significant. The pandemic has exposed weaknesses in governance capacity, weak leadership, and rising inequalities, to which governments have responded with an overreliance on security forces and onslaughts on critics. At the same time, they have tried to buy off challengers through patronage, keeping the political opposition weak and allowed distracting scapegoating narratives to take root — exposing their own fragility. In the short term COVID-19 has been a political opportunity for many governments, but as the crisis deepens with contracting economies the pathogens within these regimes may also spread.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College, Washington, DC and an adjunct at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. The views are his personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of the National War College or the U.S. Department of Defense.

Bridget Welsh is Honorary Research Associate, UNoARI, University of Nottingham Malaysia and a lead author of the Asia Barometer Surveys.

This article originally posted on The Diplomat

Most Southeast Asian stock markets slipped on Wednesday, tracking overnight losses on Wall Street, as investors refrained from making big bets after doubts were cast over a recent early-stage trial of a coronavirus vaccine.

Data from a small, early-stage safety trial testing Moderna Inc’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine does not provide the critical data needed to assess its effectiveness, health-focused Stat News reported on Tuesday, citing experts.

“Asian markets may retreat on Wednesday after a setback in vaccine optimism with investors refocusing on the downbeat economic outlook induced by COVID-19,” economists at ING said in a note.

Leading losses in Southeast Asia, Singapore’s Straits Times Index snapped three sessions of gains and fell 1%, with industrial stocks weighing the most, even as the city-state looks to restart its economy with a phased easing of restrictions.

Singapore Airlines and conglomerate Jardine Matheson Holdings shed as much as 3.2% and 2.7%, respectively.

ING economists, however, said Singapore’s economy would take a long time to recover as a gradual three-phase reboot will not be completed for several months more at least.

In Indonesia, the benchmark edged lower as capital Jakarta extended coronavirus-related curbs until June 4.

The index is set to snap two straight sessions of gains. Pollux Properti Indonesia slid 6.9%, while PT Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional Syariah lost 4.6%.

Malaysian shares ticked lower after gaining for five sessions, ahead of April inflation data.

Thai stocks inched 0.5% higher, ahead of the country’s central bank’s meeting. The Bank of Thailand is widely expected to cut interest rates by another 25 basis points, bringing the policy rate down to 0.5%.

“However, with growth already in negative territory… don’t be surprised if we see a bigger, 50bp rate cut today,” ING economists said.

Vietnam shares found solace in a potential free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), and edged higher.

The World Bank said the trade pact with EU set to soon be ratified by Vietnam should boost the Asian nation’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Reporting by A K Pranav in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M. @ Reuters

Budget carrier Jetstar Asia will resume partial operations to three key cities in Southeast Asia this week, with minimal onboard services and crew members decked out in masks and personal protective equipment.

From Tuesday (April 21), Jetstar Asia will operate five return services a week between Singapore and Manila, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

Related: Philippine Airlines will resume some flights in May

Services on the “temporary network” are available only to citizens and permanent residents who are returning home or those with prior written approval for travel, said Jetstar in a media release on Monday.

The flights will operate until at least September, a Jetstar spokesperson told CNA separately, adding that the carrier is “helping to repatriate citizens and assist with freight in the region during this time”.

Passenger flights to Manila will operate on Tuesdays, while those for Kuala Lumpur will be on Thursdays and Sundays.

Cargo flights to Bangkok will operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

While the risk of contracting Covid-19 on an aircraft is regarded as low, several Covid-19 precautionary measures will be taken onflight, including reducing passenger numbers to allow for safe distancing, said Jetstar.

A maximum of 112 seats will be available on each flight, approximately 60 per cent of capacity, the airline added.

Onboard services will also be scaled back and passengers will be served only water during the flight.

“In line with new circuit breaker measures introduced by the Singapore Government, all passengers will be required to wear a mask, at all times. Crew members will also utilise masks and PPE in accordance with guidelines,” said Jetstar.

Travel vouchers may not be redeemed for these flights.

International flights have ground to a halt amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as countries put in place lockdowns and travel restrictions to curb the spread of the disease.

Several airlines have grounded most, if not all of their flights, and placed their cabin crew and pilots on leave.

At Changi Airport, passenger traffic plunged nearly 71 per cent in March, while aircraft landings and takeoffs fell by about 50 per cent.

Jetstar announced last month it would suspend all services for three weeks until April 15. It subsequently extended the suspension until May 18, following strict circuit breaker measures announced by the Singapore Government.

Some of Jetstar’s crew members have taken up positions as SG Clean Ambassadors to educate the public on safe distancing requirements.

In all, close to half of Jetstar’s crew and corporate team members have taken up temporary roles with the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), National Environment Agency and Raffles Medical Group, CNA reported earlier this week.

Manila, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur were chosen because of expected demand from those cities, the Jetstar spokesperson told CNA.

“They are where we expect demand for repatriation,” said the spokesperson.

There are about 200,000 Singaporeans overseas. An estimated 200,000 Filipinos also live and work in Singapore, according to the Philippines Embassy. CNA

For more stories like this, visit cna.asia

A review of Vietnam’s response to COVID-19 and its implications.

Vietnam planned to have a year packed with activities as the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for 2020 and a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the 2020-2021 term. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the cancellation or postponement of numerous events and summit meetings. While it is said that the outbreak has derailed Vietnam’s diplomatic ambitions, the door remains open for Hanoi to transfer its domestic success in fighting the disease into diplomatic achievements.

As the world enters the fourth month of the pandemic, Vietnam boasts a remarkably low infection rate in a country of 95 million people, with only 268 confirmed cases (67 active and 201 recovered) with no deaths as of April 18. This statistic is even more impressive given the long shared border with China, where the virus originated.

Let us review the timeline of Vietnam’s response to COVID-19 and discuss its political implications. 

Timeline

Vietnam prepared for the outbreak before it recorded its first case. The Ministry of Health issued urgent dispatches on outbreak prevention to relevant government agencies on January 16 and to hospitals and clinics nationwide on January 21.

Vietnam recorded its first cases on January 23 in Ho Chi Minh City, just two days before the Lunar New Year holidays. Two Chinese nationals from Wuhan arrived in Vietnam on January 13 and traveled throughout the country before being hospitalized on January 23. Shortly after, the Vietnamese government ramped up its response by organizing the National Steering Committee on Epidemic Prevention on January 30, the same day the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

On February 1, when the country only recorded six confirmed cases, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed a decision declaring a national epidemic of what was then known only as the novel coronavirus (nCoV). On February 9, the Ministry of Health held a teleconference with the WHO and 700 hospitals at all levels nationwide to disseminate information on nCoV prevention and launched a website to disseminate information to the wider public. On February 11, the WHO officially named the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19. Aggressive preventive action enabled Vietnam to contain the outbreak, with only 16 cases, all recovered, by the end of February. For further context, the 16th patient was confirmed on February 13 and fully recovered on February 25, meaning that Vietnam went 22 days without any new cases. As a testament to this early success, the U.S. Center for Diseases Control (CDC) decided to take Vietnam off the list of countries with the risk of community spread of the virus.

That early success, however, was impeded by the discovery of patient 17. The patient traveled from Hanoi on February 15 to visit England, Italy, and France before returning to Hanoi on March 2 and failed to follow quarantine protocols. Patient 17 was hospitalized on March 6, and two days later, on March 8, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health Vu Duc Dam declared that Vietnam had officially entered the second phase of the fight against COVID-19.

Similar to the first phase, marked by the epidemic declaration, the Vietnamese government escalated its public health response to flatten the curve. On March 10, the Ministry of Health launched the health declaration mobile application NCOVI to help the public report their medical conditions and follow the contact tracing operation, just before the WHO declared a global pandemic on March 11. This second phase marked the transition from phase one, in which patients mostly originated from China, to a period when many countries were potential sources of the virus.

The transition into the third phase was even faster. Following the detection of two new clusters with unclear origins in Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi (patients zero there were patients 86 and 87) and Buddha Bar in HCM City (patient zero was patient 91 overall), the Vietnamese government suspended foreign entry on March 22, and all exceptions, including national returnees, are subjected to medical checks and mandatory 14-day quarantine.

On March 23 the prime minister declared the third phase of the pandemic fight as the risk of community spread is high. When Bach Mai Hospital, one of the country’s top referral hospitals, became the largest and most complex hotbed of COVID-19 in Vietnam following a record of 10 cases linked to the hospital on March 28, on March 30, Prime Minister Phuc announced a nationwide pandemic during a meeting with the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control. The following day on March 31, the prime minister issued a new directive that would place the nation under limited lockdown effective April 1. The directive enforced national isolation, banned gatherings, and encouraged staying home, closing borders, and implementing quarantine policy, among others. 

Explaining the Success

Vietnam’s model for containing the outbreak has been touted as a successful low-cost model. Whereas its neighbors, Taiwan and South Korea, could afford mass testing, Vietnam lacked the resources and instead opted for selective but proactive prevention. Aside from some common policy actions such as contact tracing, ramping up production of medical supplies, and installing checkpoints at airports, Vietnam found its success in proactiveness. Over the course of three months since the first case, Vietnam has not hesitated to restrict movements where needed, balancing overt caution with precision.

For example, the provincial authority was allowed to lock down villages and communes following advisory notices from the Ministry of Health. Since the first cases emerged, there were only five instances of large-scale lockdowns.

• The first was on February 13 when Vinh Phuc Province confirmed the 16th patient in Son Loi Commune, Binh Xuyen District. On the same day, local authorities locked down the commune of 10,000 people, which confirmed eight patients and established two field hospitals in Vinh Yen Town. The quarantine was lifted on March 4, after 20 days of no new cases.
• Second, following patient 17’s confirmation on March 6, on March 7 Hanoi locked down Bach Truc Street, where the patient resided along with 66 households and 189 people. The quarantine was lifted on March 20 after no new cases were reported after testing. The last three instances were all after the national limited lockdown directive. On April 2, Hung Yen locked down Chi Trung commune following the confirmation of patient 219. On April 7, Me Linh district of Hanoi locked down Ha Loi village following the confirmation of patient 243. On April 8, Ha Nam province also quarantined Ngo Khe 3 village and medical personnel related to patient 251. These instances of lockdowns contained the risks of community transmission by strictly enforcing checkpoints in and out of the localities and setting up local medical facilities for testing and treatment. 

Another example of aggressive prevention is the closure of schools. Vietnam recorded its first cases just two days before the Lunar New Year holidays, which fortunately had schools closed through February 1. Nonetheless, schools and government authorities extended the holiday season until February 10 on a case-by-case basis. On February 14, the Ministry of Health proposed schools to remain closed until the end of February, at which point schools had already closed nationwide . The decision to close schools nationwide, as a formality, came with the national isolation order on March 31, effective April 1. Consequently, Vietnamese students have not gone to school this spring semester, but schools are gradually adopting online teaching. 

Despite the aggressive nature of these responses, the underlying factor that enables the Vietnamese government’s success is the mobilization of nationalism. The government has framed the virus as a common foreign enemy and called on the unity of the population to defeat it, echoing the enduring history of a nation always threatened by foreign invaders. Since “day one,” the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the state have led the fight with the motto “fighting the epidemic is like fighting against the enemy.” Nonetheless, calls for nationalism are not without setbacks, as public sentiment was at one point villainizing Vietnamese students returning from abroad for carrying potential risks of transmission. Patient 17 was a notorious example that garnered public criticism, reflecting the effectiveness of the government in rallying the public but also the risk of overzealous nationalism. 

In addition, the government has positioned itself as an effective source of leadership during the pandemic by providing information with transparency. The Ministry of Health took the initiative to launch a website and a mobile application not only to ease the medical process but also to disseminate accurate information quickly. The digital apparatus helped stem the spread of rumors and fake news, in addition to legal enforcement against people who spread inaccurate information or engage in profiteering. State media have also constantly covered the hotspots of the pandemic like China, Italy, Spain, and the United States to raise public awareness about the seriousness of COVID-19 and to demonstrate the essential of robust government intervention. 

By being transparent and proactive in communicating with the public, the government was able to gain and maintain public confidence. In a Dalia Research survey of 45 countries asking about public opinion of government responses to the pandemic, 62 percent of Vietnamese participants said that the government is doing the “right amount,” topping the survey’s average with a higher rate than other “model” countries such as Singapore and South Korea. 

Reporting by By Minh Vu and Bich T. Tran @ The Diplomat

Installment consumer lending is one of the most promising segments of alternative finance in Southeast Asia in the near years. These are the findings of analysts of the financial holding Robocash Group after studying different prerequisites across the region.

With digital lending projected to reach $100 billion by 2025, Southeast Asia has seen massive growth in alternative consumer lending in the past years. Still, apart from the main directions such as microfinance and P2P lending, there are some more segments worthy of attention. Despite their current low adoption across countries with different economic and technological landscapes, they promise to develop gradually in the near years.

Supported by short forms of alternative financing common in the region, installment consumer lending goes first. An increase in welfare that will intensify the interest in larger and longer loans among the population is the main factor. It indicates a promising nature of this loan type in developing countries as soon as they start to recover their economies after the COVID-19 outbreak. Thus, the baseline scenario of the World Bank report suggests that the GDP growth in 2020 in the developing countries in East Asia Pacific will slow to 1.3% but then stabilize around its trend level by late 2021.

Lines of credit take second place according to the analysts. Initially designed for the most reliable regular customers, a personal line of credit implies a long-standing low-risk service. At the moment, it is more common in neighbouring India but is already expanding across Southeast Asia. For instance, it has become rather popular in Vietnam and the Philippines. 

Special loans facilities targeting specific social groups, e.g. Sharia-compliant financing or loans for expats, are very promising and often have almost no alternative among available offers. At the same time, they are highly facilitative in respect to financial inclusion. Moreover, despite overall specificity limiting their expansion, they can have significant market volumes. For instance, according to the Islamic Finance Development Report, in 2023, the global Islamic finance industry is projected to grow to US$ 3.8 trillion in assets.  Meanwhile, in 2018, it amounted to US$ 2.5 trillion.

To sum up, short-term microfinancing and P2P lending are expected to stay at the forefront of alternative consumer finance in Southeast Asia. The main driver is the robust development of mobile and digital technologies intensified lately by the global health crisis and social distancing. However, in those countries that will recover faster, customers will return their appetite to cumulate properties, respectively. Long-term loans of a greater size will fit in well. As a result, installment loans and lines of credit similar to bank products will develop their significance. The defining role in non-bank lending will primarily belong to the improvement of electronic know your customer procedures, scoring and infrastructure in general.

Additional than 9 out of 10 individuals in Southeast Asia want to conclusion wildlife trafficking and shut down damp marketplaces, according to a poll from the Earth Wildlife Fund (WWF), demonstrating unparalleled consensus following the Wuhan coronavirus spread from animals to individuals late final 12 months, Voice of The us documented on Wednesday.

About 93 percent of individuals polled claimed they would like “action by their governments to reduce illegal and unregulated wildlife marketplaces.” The WWF surveyed about 5,000 persons in March across three Southeast Asian nations, as well as Hong Kong and Japan.

Related: China bans trade of wild animals due to coronavirus

Most authorities feel the coronavirus originated in a damp market place in Wuhan, China, where by animals recognised to transmit coronaviruses – together with bats and pangolins, two of the key suspects for spreading the Wuhan virus into individuals – are crammed with each other in fetid problems and sold for community use.

China works by using Southeast Asian nations as transit hubs to get trafficked wildlife into the nation. Governments in Southeast Asia have started out to acquire action to protect on their own from China’s unlawful trade, with some nations introducing new laws not long ago to crack down on Chinese wildlife trafficking.

The Philippine federal government is presently drafting a law that features a 20-calendar year prison sentence for folks located responsible of wildlife trafficking, in accordance to Theresa Tenazas, a lawyer for the Philippine’s Biodiversity Management Bureau.

“The problems of these markets are perfect for incubating new diseases and bolster their transmission,” Tenazas wrote in a new evaluation. “They kind one particular of the most detrimental bridges created by person around the all-natural limitations that previously divided human beings and wild animals.”

Vietnam’s key minister recently purchased the country’s agriculture ministry to draft a directive banning wildlife trade and usage. A 3rd of the WWF poll respondents in Vietnam explained they stopped consuming wildlife products and solutions right after discovering that the Wuhan coronavirus emerged in a Chinese meat market.

According to the poll, assist for a ban on damp markets was strongest in Myanmar, the place wildlife has been traded openly in the autonomous locations bordering China for decades. Poll respondents pressured Thailand and Cambodia to toughen restrictions on China’s illegal wildlife trade as perfectly.

Because of to its shut proximity to China, Southeast Asia continues to be notably at risk of viral contagion. The first dying outside of China documented happened in the Philippines. Thailand was the initial region to report a Wuhan coronavirus infection.

As Southeast Asia clamors to shut down China’s illegal wildlife field, Chinese point out media announced on Tuesday that some “sanitized” wet marketplaces would reopen in certain areas across China – like Wuhan, where the coronavirus initial originated – reportedly with the guidance of the Environment Overall health Corporation (WHO).

Reporting by Brandon G. Jones. This article originally appeared on ABC 14 News

Domestic travel within North America, Australia and Southeast Asia could be on course to return to normal by June if current efforts aimed at curbing the coronavirus outbreak are successful, according to the CEO of Australia’s largest travel agency.

International travel, meanwhile, could be on hold for another six months, Flight Centre’s Graham Turner told CNBC’s “Street Signs.”

“My feeling is, and this is in places like Southeast Asia, Australia, North America, the domestic side of things will start picking up, start returning to normal, mainly on government dictates, in June,” he said Tuesday.

Graham said he was unsure whether that would be “early, mid or late June.”

“But the more international side of it we think it’s probably going to be more September, October, which is, you know, six months away,” he added.

The travel CEO noted, however, that any rollback of travel restrictions — which have halted the majority of international travel for the best part of a month — would depend on governments’ ongoing response to the pandemic.

Graham said he expects to see “a lot of change in the way governments work in the next few weeks.”

Flight Centre is among the countless international travel companies to have been hit hard by the virus.

The Brisbane-headquartered company announced this week it would be closing 800 stores on top of the 6,000 jobs culled in March as part of a 1.9 billion Australian dollar ($1.16 billion) cost-cutting strategy. The business is also hoping to raise 700 million Australian dollars to help it ride out the downturn.

Graham said he hopes, where possible, to take advantage of government subsidies to retain the remainder of its some 20,000 staff until the travel industry gets back on its feet.

“There will certainly be lots of opportunities when things return to relative normal,” said Graham, citing offline, online and corporate business lines.

@ CNBC

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday announced stricter social distancing measures in the city state, and said the government is rethinking its advice that only those who are ill need to wear masks.

Lee said the situation in Singapore is under control, but noted that the number of reported cases have increased from fewer than 10 a day to more than 50 new infections daily. The Southeast Asian country reported 65 new cases on Friday, taking its tally to 1,114 with five deaths. CNBC‘s Yen Nee Lee reports.

“Looking at the trend, I am worried that unless we take further steps, things will gradually get worse or another big cluster may push things over the edge,” the prime minister said.

“We have decided that instead of tightening incrementally over the next few weeks, we should make a decisive move now, to pre-empt escalating infections,” he added.

Lee announced the following measures, which he called “a circuit breaker” that will help to reduce the risk of a larger outbreak:

• Shutting most workplaces except those offering “essential services” such as food establishments, hospitals and transport starting Tuesday, April 7.
• Closing all schools temporarily and move lessons online starting Wednesday, April 8.
• Advising people to stay at home and avoid socializing with others beyond their own household.

“This circuit breaker will apply for one month, in the first instance,” said Lee.

Singapore joins a chorus of countries globally that have tightened people’s mobility to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Globally, the disease — which has been named COVID-19 — has infected over 1 million people across more than 180 countries and territories. More than 53,000 people worldwide have died from the coronavirus so far.

Rethinking advice on masks

The Singapore leader said his government is rethinking its advice that only those who are ill need to wear masks. He added that the government will no longer discourage people from wearing masks as there has been evidence of asymptomatic COVID-19 infections. Asymptomatic cases are people who test positive for the virus but may not show any flu-like symptoms — these people may still be infectious.

Lee’s comments came as the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said they would review their respective guidelines on the use of masks. 

“Wearing a mask may help to protect others, in case you have the virus but don’t know it. This is so that you keep your droplets to yourself,” said Lee.

“It can also protect yourself a little better, especially if you are elderly, or vulnerable because of pre-existing conditions,” he added. “But remember, mask or no mask, you still need to wash your hands, and keep a safe distance away from other people.”