In looking at any region, you have to ask what is best for the people, in general. Once you come up with some answers, you then have to look at what interferes with the people getting what is best for them.
In the past, SE Asian people suffered through tyrants of all variety and then colonial oppression and lack of self-determination. Once they rose up and threw off the bonds of colonialism, they failed to see the enemy within in the form of communist and other authoritarian leaders that committed atrocities, quashed freedom, and instituted policies that benefited themselves, but kept their people in abject poverty.
I think SE Asia needs two things:
First, SE Asia needs for other countries such as the United States, Europe, and China to mind their own business and to stop meddling. The specter of colonial control remains. The United States puts pressure on the region to combat terrorism and drugs at the exclusion of policies that would benefit the people. It is not that combating terrorism is a bad thing, its just that the extreme overreaction and heavy handed policies are not healthy for the region.
Secondly, SE Asia needs leaders that will institute economic policies that will allow the region to emerge from the plague of extreme poverty. They need capitalism free of suffocating bureaucratic regulations. They need leaders who do not treat their country as their own private kingdom. They need to institute policies and create a power structure that prevent brutal dictators from emerging and they need to reign in military control.
Almost all of the nations need to move from an agrarian society to services and manufacturing. They need an educated labor force and for that they need a reliable education system. The governments need to get out of the way of the free market and allow people to start businesses and take advantage of the myriad of economic opportunities around the world.
The region holds much promise. They have they have a large population that could be turned into an asset. They have natural resources and the geographic advantage of sitting between two emerging economic power in India and China. Perhaps this time, SE Asia will get the full benefit of trade with India and China rather than having an unwanted colonial "middleman" take control.
Unfortunately, if SE Asia continues the pattern of bad leadership and fails to change its economic ways, we will be talking about the unfulfilled promise of SE Asia 50 years from now.
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I agree with your comments here. Bad leadership has not helped the region. As you say, the region needs to transform from agriculure to manufacturing. Leaders need the support of the people. The region is a conundrum in which some countries are improving flourishing while others are floundering. Singapore is flourishing under Lee Kuan Yee. Foreign investors have flocked to the country. Malaysia has erected the largest mad made structures in the form of the Petronas Towers. Laos and Cambodia are the poorest coutnries in the region. I agree that outsiders need to stop interfering in the region. However, how will countries like Cambodia and Laos prosper without outside help. They cannot do it on their own. Also external forces like globalization have helped states in the region.
ReplyDeleteI think that some within ther region will prosper and others will not.