Asian Studies Commons^™

Nationalism And Anglo-American Neo-Colonialism In Southeast Asia, 1945-1965, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

It is tempting to treat the United States’ ill-fated military intervention in Vietnam in the 1960s as the desperate final gasp of a moribund Western imperial system. Certainly, scholars have described Washington’s military debacle in Vietnam as the end of America’s “short-lived empire” in Southeast Asia, emblematic of the broader, decisive triumph of Southeast Asian nationalism over western colonialism. This reading of Southeast Asian countries attaining formal independence after 1945, with tacit assumptions that colonialism and nationalism exist in binary opposition, tends to ossify when the region’s history is viewed through the lens of U.S. defeat in Vietnam.

In contrast, …

Southeast Asia Higher Education Changes And Emerging Futures, Muhammad Hali Aprimadya, Lily Kong, Angel Calderon, Hamish Coates

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper unpacks recent developments and future directions in Southeast Asian higher education. It takes stock of higher education systems in three selected countries, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore. It sketches these systems, distils several changes around 2024, and discusses emerging directions for education, research and universities. The paper concludes by looking at what is required to catalyse transformations likely to impel future progress.

Death Penalty For Drug Offenders In Southeast Asia: Weakening Of Resistance To Change?, Wing Cheong Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Although the global movement towards abolition of the death penalty has been supported by an increasing number of countries in the world, the number of persons executed for drug offences actually increased in the last few years. Known executions for drug offences now account for more than 40 per cent of all global executions. Most such executions take place in Asia. Of the 34 countries in the world that still retain the death penalty for drug offenders, all nine of those identified as “high application states” (China, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Vietnam) are found …

Criminal Organizations And Nuclear Threats In Southeast Asia, Gary Ackerman, Thomas Guarrieri, Justin V. Hastings, Steven Hoodjer

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Increasing global interest in nuclear energy and peaceful uses of nuclear technology has led to facilities in emerging countries with nuclear materials and radioactive sources that could be stolen, sabotaged, or otherwise accessed by criminals. In this paper, we created a framework to assess the motivations and capabilities of criminal networks and measure the threats they may pose to different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle in emerging nuclear states. We applied the framework to a unique dataset, capturing characteristics of criminal organizations active in Southeast Asia, which allowed us to assess which criminal organizations are most likely to pose …

Building Skills Now For Asean’S Future, Shoeb Kagda

Asian Management Insights

Upskilling of workers is critical for building a more resilient workforce and future-proofing economic growth. Upskilling has become a buzzword for governments across the region as they gear up to boost economic growth and improve productivity. A confluence of factors such as digitalisation, automation, and artificial intelligence is heralding a new age where these elements have become powerful drivers of economic success. There is enormous potential for Southeast Asia, which is home to the third largest labour force in the world and has a relatively young population, to upskill its workers. Historically a region that has depended on low-skilled manufacturing …

On/ In The Ground With Vietnamese Communists: The Cu Chi Tunnels In The Classroom, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Undergraduates often arrive in my classes convinced that great men, and a few exceptional women, are the ones who make history. Here, they think of power wielded by presidents, generals, and self-styled geniuses of strategy and diplomacy. (Henry Kissinger’s name invariably bubbles up in class discussions, like it or not.) Perhaps this happens elsewhere? In Singapore, this mindset likely takes root because the country’s record of benevolent authoritarianism underpins the legitimacy and influence of political elites. Equally, male citizens of Singapore perform compulsory military service before entering university and internalize, readily or grudgingly, that rank confers power—it is power—and that …

Security Governance, Non-Governmental Actors, And The Limited Statehood Legitimacy In The Southeast Asia Landscape: A Conceptual Analysis, Maksimus Regus, Leonard Chrysostomos Epafras, Otto Gusti Madung

Jurnal Politik

This paper discusses security governance in Southeast Asia by looking at the role of non-state actors and the limits of the state in forming security governance. In addition, our study discusses the increasing trend of security threats in the region. We argue that non-state actors play a crucial role in addressing security concerns by patching the gap caused by the limited capability of Southeast Asian states. Our study utilises a qualitative-narrative approach based on data from previous studies, especially studies in the last decade or so. This paper also aims to link the current security governance study with the broader …

From Congestion To Connectivity, Shoeb Kagda

Asian Management Insights

Southeast Asia is betting on new urban transit systems to solve its urban gridlock problems.

The Sacred Dimensions Of The Bri's Infrastructural Commons, Orlando Woods, David A. Palmer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Whilst the idea of infrastructure has animated scholarship for the past twenty years at least, there remains a need for more expansive understandings of what infrastructure is, and what it can be. The speed, scale and material disruptiveness with which many of the infrastructural megaprojects that constitute China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been developed both underpin and validate this need. Whilst the effects of the BRI are both manifold and diffuse, all of them expose situations of infrastructural complexity. Rather than considering the BRI simply as the imposition of new material infrastructures on a landscape, we posit the …

Commentary: No One Wants An Asian Nato, Except Japan’S New Pm Ishiba, Benjamin Ho, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a joint commentary, SMU Professor of Political Science William A Callahan discussed the reluctance of Southeast Asian nations, excluding Japan under its new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, to embrace a collective defense system aimed at countering China. They explained why Mr Ishiba's proposal for an Asian North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would benefit Japan, how it works in Europe, and why it is unlikely to gain strong support in Southeast Asia.

The Growth Of Southeast Asia’S Msmes, Shoeb Kagda

Asian Management Insights

Funding winter presents opportunities to reboot for the future.

The Contested Domain Of Political Space In Southeast Asia, Meredith Weiss, Eva Hansson

Political Science Faculty Scholarship

Understanding political norms in Southeast Asia requires conceptualising the domain in which politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens exercise and challenge them: political space. We focus here on domestic political space, particularly that in which individuals and organisations champion alternatives to prevailing norms of state and market. This terrain is highly, perennially mutable. In it, we find an array of non-state organisations, from trade unions to non-governmental organisations, as well as media (including online and social media), and a range of structures and associations not inherently political, but potentially so, such as religious bodies. In this chapter, we consider, first, the …

Chinese Digital Platform Companies’ Expansion In The Belt And Road Countries, Yujia He

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

The emergence of digital platforms is shifting the digital economy toward a platform economy, and Chinese platform-based businesses like Alibaba, Tencent, and JD are increasingly expanding in the Global South. Alongside this, the Chinese government has been promoting digital economy collaboration with emerging markets through high-level engagement under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its digital economy component the Digital Silk Road (DSR). Despite significant market interest and policy attention, grounded empirical analysis of Chinese digital platforms’ expansion within Belt and Road Initiative countries is scarce. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, drawing on both quantitative …

Netflix As A Transverse Transnational Media In Southeast Asia: Exploring The Philippine Context, Lady Aileen Ambion Orsal

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines how Netflix as a transnational Internet TV disrupted the media flow in Southeast Asia. As subscription to streaming platforms grew exponentially, the limited linear flow of contents in traditional TV was transformed into a more personalized viewing experience. Consumers binge-watching on a subscription video on demand service were given the agency to view diverse contents at a time and on a gadget they prefer while also being offered recommendations from the platform’s curated list. As Netflix expanded to over 190 countries around the world, it has employed localization strategies to provide culturally authentic contents through co-production with …

The Influence Of Media Usage On The Outcome Of Social Movement Campaigns In Southeast Asia, Rothsethamony Seng

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Does the use of media strategies help social movements or mass protest movements in Southeast Asia achieve their goals? The prominent study in this area argues that social media, in particular, has done more harm than good for grassroots movements. Tufekci (2017) argues that social media provides little help compared to the regime. I argue that social media helps the movement through three important areas, including (1) amplifying the messages of the movements to shape public opinions and counter propaganda and misleading information from the government, (2) facilitating and mobilizing protestors to coordinate virtual or physical protests, sustaining the momentum, …

Hawker Culture And Its Infrastructure: Experiences And Contestations In Everyday Life, Lily Kong, Aidan Wong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Hawker foods characterize urban Asia, with similarities and differences across cities that forge both cultural commonalities and distinctions. From the itinerant to the fixed location, from the temporary sites to the purpose-built, hawker foods are served in informal settings, with varying degrees of tradition and innovation, hygiene and squalidness, local authenticity and globalized influence. In the side-streets of Beijing where local delicacies such as scorpion are served, to the abundant food cart vendors on Bangkok streets, to the warung (small, typically family-owned eateries) in Surabaya, and the carefully planned and designed hawker centres in Singapore, hawker culture is a distinctive …

America's 'Chinese Problem' In Southeast Asia And The Emergence Of The Domino Theory [Come Tessere Del Domino: Il Pericolo Comunista E La “Questione Cinese” Nel Sud-Est Asiatico Negli Anni Cinquanta], Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei, Raimondo (Translator) Neironi

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This essay traces how race thinking in US foreign policy, combined with war memories of Japanese imperialism in Southeast Asia, shaped American strategy toward the region and the rise of the domino theory in US Cold War ideas.

British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay places the Vietnam War upon the larger canvas of Southeast and East Asian history by studying the long shadow that Britain’s Empire cast over U.S. entanglements across the region. It shows how British officials in Malaya and Singapore directly contributed to the expansion of US involvement in post-1945 Southeast Asia, as well as the overall pro-US trajectory of the region well before the Americanization of the Vietnam conflict.

Exhibiting Transnationalism After Vietnam: The Alpha Gallery In Pursuit Of An Authentic Southeast Asian Art Form, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines how the Alpha Gallery, an independent artists cooperative established by Malaysians and Singaporeans, curated and staged art shows in the 1970s that advanced its project to unearth and promote an intrinsically Southeast Asian aesthetic. The cooperative pursuit a transnational vision of inter-regional connections between the Bengali Art Renaissance of the early twentieth century and Balinese folk art. It also harbored ambitions of sparking a cultural renaissance in Southeast Asia, though these were ultimately unfulfilled. Importantly, as this essay shows, the cooperative’s transnational vision mirrored the racist thinking and paternalism of Euro-American colonial discourses about civilizing the region’s …

Conclusion: Comparing Women's Representation In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter explains important findings from this study while identifying common trends across Asia and the sub-regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. It examines to what degree Asian parliamentarians have prioritized substantive representation of women (SRW). It assesses whether SRW was a primary reason or motivation behind why members of parliament (MPs) entered politics in the first place and whether they viewed SRW as a pressing issue for their governments to address. MPs interviewed in this study expressed what they felt were the most important issues today that need government’s attention. MPs were asked whether they make …

Between The Commons And The Cosmos: The Sacred Politics Of The Bri In Southeast Asia And Beyond, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores how political ecology can advance existing understandings of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its effects, and how the BRI can contribute to recent shifts in the study of political ecology. It argues that the idea of infrastructural overlap can sensitize discourse to the ways in which the materializations of the BRI, as a series of infrastructural megaprojects, intersect with other infrastructural formations, such as the environment and religion. By focusing on the effects of the BRI on resource- dependent communities located between the ‘commons’ and the ‘cosmos’ we can appreciate the sense of existential crisis …

Downscaling Of Physical Risks For Climate Scenario Design, Enrico Biffis, Shuai Wang

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

Southeast Asia is arguably one of the areas most vulnerable to natural disasters due to its dense population, coastal urbanization, and rainfall variability driven by the local monsoon systems. In this report, we focus on the impact of global warming in the region along four climate dimensions: temperature, precipitation, wind speed and coastal surge. The latter represents the surge of water from the ocean in excess of astronomical tides. Our objective is to downscale the outputs of global climate models to temporal and spatial resolutions of interest to market participants wishing to quantify climate risk vulnerability via climate stress testing …

Commentary: Coastal Cities Like Singapore Face Outsized Risks – And Opportunities – In A Warming World, Winston T. L. Chow

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Many Southeast Asian cities are at the frontline for rapid, concerted and effective climate action, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report's lead author Winston Chow.

Scaling Smartness, (De)Provincialising The City? The Asean Smart Cities Network And The Translational Politics Of Technocratic Regionalism, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the case study of the ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) to uncover the motivations and potential challenges associated with technocratic regionalism, by which we mean technology-driven forms of regional integration and consolidation. In the case of the ASCN, technocratic regionalism is used to spur urban development through the rollout of smart city plans, policies and projects across Southeast Asia. As such, it is a regional strategy designed to scale smartness, and thus deprovincialise the city by embedding it within transnational flows of capital, ideas and expertise. At the same time, however, already existing urban issues have the …

Doubling Down On Asia, Olivier Lim, Arif P. Rachmat, David Su

Perspectives@SMU

COVID-19 has inflicted major pain on Asian economies but the effects on countries and sectors are not uniform. The tech sector in China could yet present investment opportunities

Chinese-Invested Smart City Development In Southeast Asia - How Resilient Are Urban Megaprojects In The Age Of Covid-19?, Yujia He, Angela Tritto

Diplomacy and International Commerce Reports

Smart cities are emerging as major engines for deploying intelligent systems to enhance urban development and contribute to the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG). In developing economies facing rapid urbanization and technological change, new cities are being built with smart technologies and ideals, complete with business districts and residential, retail, entertainment, medical, education facilities to entice businesses and talents to relocate. Governments tout the potential of such “greenfield” smart cities for innovation and sustainability. Yet such urban megaprojects are often extremely expensive, prompting governments to partner with private players such as property developers, investors, and tech firms to …

Circuits Broken, Remade, And Newly Forged: Tracing Southeast Asia's Foreign Relations After The Vietnam War, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article (2021) in Diplomatic History's pandemic feature examines how the principles and consequences of Singapore's "circuit breaker" policy offers a conceptual framework for studying the history of Southeast Asia's foreign relations in the 1970s to 1990s. With this approach, the essay considers how a study of Southeast Asia's culture-makers (artists, writers, dramatists), their works and transnational circuits, may open a productive inquiry into a diverse array of regionalisms that compete and complement ASEAN.

The United States And The "Chinese Problem" Of Southeast Asia, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines how US Cold War policy toward all of Southeast Asia arose from American suspicions that the region's Chinese diaspora would align itself with the Chinese communists against the west. In so doing, it explores how US distrust of the Chinese diaspora fell in step with a longer imperialist tradition practised not only by the European powers for centuries, but also the Japanese Empire during its brief ascendancy during World War Two. Additionally, the essay proposes that to move beyond the bilateral studies that dominate the histories of US-Southeast Asian relations to view the region as whole, it …

Lokotopia: Expansion To China Doesn’T Have To Be A Gamble, Yiqing Pin Cai

MSc in Innovation Capstone Projects

Addressed the problem of Southeast Asian brands to enter the China market, reviewed existing market solutions, presented their solution which was tested through global Chinese consumers. Introduced LOKOTOPIA services, with some cases for market validation.

Bubox: Smart Textile Platform, Jiameng (Sissy) Yan, Kuanfu (River) Lee

MSc in Innovation Capstone Projects

Analyzed the global textile market, apparel market and trends. Found that textile sourcing was a pain point. They proposed a solution called BUBOX which would provide a customized monthly swatch box to offer smarter strategies that would be in line with buyer requirements and leveraging data technology.