The study of secrecy and spies remain subjects dominated by Anglo-American experiences. In recent years there has been some effort to refocus the lens of research upon ‘intelligence elsewhere’, including the global South. This is partly because of intense interest in the Arab Spring and ‘managed democracy’, placing a wider range of secret services under the spotlight. However, the approach to research is still dominated by concepts and methods derived from studying the English-speaking states of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance and their European outriders. This article calls for a re-examination of research strategies for Intelligence Studies and for those theorizing surveillance, suggesting that both fields have much to learn from area studies and development studies, especially in the realm of research practice and ethics. If the growing number of academics specializing in intelligence genuinely wish to move forward and examine the global South they will need to rethink their tool-kit and learn from other disciplines. We suggest there is a rich tradition to draw upon.

Video: Marianne Schneider-Petsinger and Dr Yu Jie discuss key themes from the research paper

Summary

• The underlying driver of the ongoing US–China trade war is a race for global technological dominance. President Trump has raised a number of issues regarding trade with China – including the US’s trade deficit with China and the naming of China as a currency manipulator. But at the heart of the ongoing tariff escalation are China’s policies and practices regarding forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft and non-market distortions.
• As China’s international influence has expanded it has always been unlikely that Beijing would continue to accept existing global standards and institutions established and widely practised by developed countries based on ‘the Washington Consensus’.
• China’s desire to be an alternative champion of technology standard-setting remains unfulfilled. Its ample innovation talent is a solid foundation in its quest for global technology supremacy but tightening controls over personal freedoms could undermine it and deter potential global partners.
• It is unclear if Chinese government interventions will achieve the technological self-sufficiency Beijing has long desired. China’s approach to macroeconomic management diverges significantly from that of the US and other real market economies, particularly in its policy towards nurturing innovation.
• Chinese actors are engaged in the globalization of technological innovation through exports and imports of high-tech goods and services; cross-border investments in technology companies and research and development (R&D) activities; cross-border R&D collaboration; and international techno-scientific research collaboration.
• While the Chinese state pushes domestic companies and research institutes to engage in the globalization of technological innovation, its interventions in the high-tech sector have caused uneasiness in the West.
• The current US response to its competition with China for technological supremacy, which leans towards decoupling, is unlikely to prove successful. The US has better chances of success if it focuses on America’s own competitiveness, works on common approaches to technology policy with like-minded partners around the globe and strengthens the international trading system.
• A technically sound screening mechanism of foreign investment can prevent normal cross-border collaboration in technological innovation from being misused by geopolitical rival superpowers.

Afghanistan has suffered decades of armed conflict resulting in a heavily armed and militarized society involving multiple armed actors and with children being disproportionately affected by the conflict. In March 2019, the Afghanistan government criminalized the harmful practice of bacha bazi, or ‘boy play’, which triggers a range of human rights violations against boys and young men. However, recent research conducted by the All Survivors Project and Youth Health and Development Organisation demonstrates that the practice is widely prevalent due to poverty, prevailing gender norms and widespread impunity. This event will look at research that was conducted in the four provinces of Balkh, Herat, Kandahar and Kabul following interviews with over 100 key informants, 24 survivors and with 13 focus group discussions. 

The event will be preceded by the screening of a documentary on the practice of bacha bazi in Afghanistan which includes interviews with survivors, key government officials and NGOs. The speakers will discuss how an increase in the intensity of conflict in recent years has removed protection mechanisms and increased the vulnerability of all children to conflict-related sexual violence.

In response to the changing geopolitical landscape in Asia, both China and the United States attempt to alter the regional order in their own favour, both in the economic and security realms. This article shows how diverging views on future arrangements are leading to strategic shifts and increasing tension between these two Great Powers. As part of its quest for Great-Power status, China has been actively pushing its regional initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as adopting assertive security policies towards its neighbours. In contrast, in order to counter China's growing influence America's regional strategy is undergoing a subtle shift from ‘rebalancing to Asia’ to focusing on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region. However, amid an intensifying trade war and other challenges facing the region, China has chosen to moderate its proactive foreign policy-orientation in the past few years. In particular, China has made attempts to downplay its domestic rhetoric, rebuild strategic relationship with India and Japan, and to reassure ASEAN states in the South China Sea. In response to the Indo-Pacific strategy, it would be more effective for China to articulate a more inclusive regional vision and promote an institutional framework that also accommodates a US presence in the region.

Japan's primary objective of the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives—shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence from the FOIP concept, which reflects a change in the degree of its commitment to the two objectives. On the one hand, as its overall security strategy, Japan has determined to steadily enhance its national defence by increasing its own defence capabilities and strengthening the US–Japan alliance, while transforming its partnerships with like-minded states, such as Australia and India, into a diplomatic, and potentially military, alignment. This has been brought about by shifts in the regional balance of power, particularly the rise of China and the relative decline of the United States. On the other hand, as part of its FOIP strategy, Japan's attempts to build a new regional order in the Indo-Pacific region aim to defend the existing rules-based order established by the United States from challengers, particularly China. Yet, given the strategic uncertainty over Japan's international coalition-building efforts to create a new regional order, Japan has made its approach flexible; Tokyo is using its ambiguous FOIP concept to gauge other states' responses, understand their perspectives, and change its strategic emphases accordingly—so-called ‘tactical hedging’. Japan has pursued similar means to achieve the two key objectives. Nevertheless, the country's core interest, the defence of Japan, is more imperative than building a regional order in the Indo-Pacific region, and Japan faces different types of challenges in the future.

Indonesia has taken a leadership role within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in drafting a common outlook on the Indo-Pacific concept. The widening of Indonesia's geostrategic canvas from the Asia–Pacific to the Indo-Pacific is in line with President Joko Widodo's intent to make Indonesia a Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF). In view of the rivalry between the US and China and the emergence of various Indo-Pacific initiatives from other countries, Indonesia believes that ASEAN must try to maintain its centrality. The draft of Indonesia's perspective for an ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific: towards a peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive region was submitted for considerations by ASEAN, and after 18 months of intensive lobbying by Indonesia the concept was finally adopted at the ASEAN Summit in June 2019. The ASEAN outlook promotes the principles of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect for international law and ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific region. It proposes a building-block approach, seeking commonalities between existing regional initiatives in which ASEAN-led mechanisms will act as a fulcrum for both norm-setting and concrete cooperation. Rather than creating a new regional architecture, the East Asia Summit (EAS) is proposed as the platform for advancing the Indo-Pacific discourse and cooperation. Indonesia's ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific marks its renewed foreign policy activism as a middle power and underlines the continuing importance that Indonesia places on ASEAN as the cornerstone of its foreign policy, emphasising ASEAN's centrality as the primary vehicle for managing relations with the major powers in the Indo-Pacific region.

Asia’s political class learnt many lessons on digital governance in 2019, not all of them positive.

The prolonged protests in Hong Kong and India, led by disaffected young citizenry and enabled by social media tools, powerfully demonstrated how things could spiral out of control when the virtual and the real streets come together.

Not surprisingly, governments across the region are taking a step back. Instead of placing the citizen at the heart of digital public policy – with privacy, trust, security and inclusion as drivers of digital governance – Asian governments are focusing instead on surveillance and command and control, which contradicts the spirit of a decentralized Internet and undermines citizen’s rights.

Asia’s digital governance is fragmenting from the global norm and morphing into two platforms with remarkably similar characteristics.

One is a China-driven model aptly called the Great Firewall where surveillance of citizens is an explicit objective and any external material deemed to be subversive is kept out. A complementary model has also emerged more recently, which can best be described as China-light, which seeks to emulate the control aspects of the Great Firewall.

There are of course overlaps between emulators of the China model (this list includes Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos) and those pursuing China-light (Singapore, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia). A common thread running through these two approaches, which differ only in intensity and scope, is the belief that the state is best positioned to police social media and protect the rights of citizens.

This was not how it was supposed to be. A decade ago, Asian political leaders spoke about the virtues of an open internet. Such talk has faded, and a narrowing of Asia’s digital space is taking place against a backdrop of an intensifying trade war between America and China, where regional supply chains run the risk of a decoupling into distinct Sino and American spheres, upending Asia’s durable economic model of the past few decades.

Digital fragmentation in the world’s fastest growing region, with five G20 members, will complicate efforts to build global governance and standards.

Asia’s digital landscape

Asian governments, including democratic ones, have developed an unhealthy obsession with what their citizens are up to on a daily basis. Their solution is round-the-clock monitoring in cities and towns, powered by new surveillance technologies.

Name tagging and facial recognition to track movement of citizens has become pervasive across the region, with China emerging as the preferred source of technology, knowledge, and techniques. While India’s Supreme Court has ruled that privacy is a fundamental right, translating this into concrete citizen’s protections will be difficult with the Modi government eager to emulate China’s approach.

Asian governments are also following China in requiring that their citizen’s data be housed within national borders and are rebelling against the established practice of data offshoring.

In the post-Snowden era and amidst increasing cyber risks, there are rational national security reasons for why governments may want to ring-fence customer data within national boundaries. However, Asian governments are paying little or no attention to how companies are using customer data within national boundaries, with widespread abuses going unchecked.

Global standards are still evolving and there is a strong case here for a uniform regional approach, perhaps via ASEAN or APEC, on standards governing customer privacy, payments, data collection and handling. Big tech companies and platforms operate across much of Asia and a regional approach will curb their current instinct of conducting regulatory arbitrage.

There is a genuine problem in Asia, as elsewhere in the world, with the proliferation of fake news and extremism. But instead of addressing the source of this problem, governments are clamping down by generously expanding the definition of fake news (Singapore) or by shutting down the internet altogether (India, Sri Lanka, and China being serial offenders).

As disseminators of news of all stripes, including the fake variant, the big tech firms have a primary responsibility in policing their platforms. However, the regulatory capacity of many Asian governments to monitor this is weak and in crisis situations, governments prefer to shut the pipes altogether.

Digitalization of course is not all about surveillance and holds the promise of driving inclusion. There is considerable hype within Asia on the promise of fintech as an enabler of this inclusion.

Hong Kong and Singapore are licensing new digital banks, India’s UPI (unified payments interface) is reducing friction in domestic payments and China’s BAT companies (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) are disrupting traditional commerce and payments, and seeking to expand in the region.

However, there is an elite focus in many of these initiatives, with the target market being the region’s rising middle class rather than those at the bottom of the income ladder. Making fintech work for all will require micro-initiatives with the support of NGOs, local governments and small enterprises, with the objective of digitalizing microfinance.

Here developing Asia will again benefit from learning from each other and in building regional approaches. India’s Aadhar for example, with appropriate security safeguards, is a model for Asia in terms of building digital identity.

Given differing regional and national objectives, it is difficult to imagine a global accord for digital governance any time soon. However, by signing on to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP, the successor to the TPP), Asia has consistently demonstrated its leadership in trade and regional governance.

This is why the region needs to come together to ensure that the promise and potential of digitalization flows evenly and equitably to the region, with the region’s 3.8 billion citizens at the heart, rather than at the margins of sensible public policy.

The Asia-Pacific region continues to increase in geopolitical and geoeconomic importance. The rise of China and tensions with the US are affecting bilateral relationships and traditional alliances in the region. Whether seen from the perspective of the Quad – Australia, India, Japan and the US – or the Indo-Pacific concept embraced by a wide range of countries but with no shared consensus on scope and objectives or with ASEAN who insists on the importance of its own centrality, the region is redefining and reconceptualising itself.

With a diverse range of initiatives – including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – there are a plethora of regional agreements and institutional groupings that add further complexity.

As the Bretton Woods architecture continues to be dominated by Western powers, China is also spearheading parallel governance initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a means of enhancing its geopolitical and geoeconomic influence.

This one-day conference will focus on how such networks and alliances have been built, and sustained, in the Asia-Pacific region. In order to understand how new regional initiatives might open up opportunities for new forms of international cooperation, the conference will focus on the themes of cyber-technology and innovation, sustainable development and mitigating the impacts of climate change and new infrastructure initiatives. It will assess whether there is a zero-sum conflict between competing networks and agendas or whether a common approach can be developed.

This conference will be the fifth in an annual conference series exploring global geopolitical and geoeconomic trends and their respective influences on Japan and the UK.

This conference will be held in partnership with the Daiwa Institute of Research.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

The coronavirus outbreak in China poses a tremendous test for Beijing. Beyond the immediate public health crisis, the Chinese Communist Party faces a stuttering economy, growing public anger and distrust, and a potentially heavy blow to its global reputation.

The hesitant early response to the outbreak sheds light on the way the Chinese bureaucracy approaches crises at a time when the party leadership is tightening control at almost all levels of society. At first, officials in Wuhan attempted to censor online discussions of the virus. This changed only after President Xi Jinping’s call for a much more robust approach was followed by a sudden increase in the state media coverage of the outbreak. There is no doubt that Xi’s intervention will greatly speed up the response to the crisis, which should be welcomed.

Despite China’s experience with the SARS epidemic between 2002 and 2004, the sluggish reaction by officials in Wuhan should not have come as a surprise. The tendency among bureaucrats to play down crises is deeply entrenched. And, ironically, the party leadership’s recent push for greater bureaucratic accountability and its promise of stiffer punishment for those who take a 'do little' approach have also contributed to the habit of covering up disasters.

Xi has launched an ambitious programme to reform the governance of the Communist Party and re-centralize political control. This has reinforced the tendency of officials to avoid making important decisions and instead to wait for instructions from the party leadership.

For decades, local governments have made things happen in China. But with tighter regulation of lower-level bureaucrats, civil servants across the system now seem less ready, and able, to provide their input, making ineffective and even mistaken policy more likely.

Moreover, the coronavirus outbreak could not have happened at a worse time. Last year was tumultuous and saw China fighting an economic slowdown while also dealing with an increasingly hostile international environment. Now, as the authorities take steps to contain the disease, economic activity has come to a near standstill, with public transport curbed and restaurants and entertainment venues shuttered.

This contrasts with SARS, when double-digit growth in gross domestic product enabled Beijing to raise government expenditure to tackle the outbreak. Today, the Chinese economy is running into some of the most difficult challenges it has faced since the global financial crisis.

In response to the slowdown in growth, Beijing has adopted loose fiscal policy, with an emphasis on public investment. It also continues to push big banks to cut interest rates for individual borrowers and small businesses which were already suffering from the effects of the trade war with the US before the coronavirus struck.

The outbreak should give new impetus to governments, not least those that have close economic ties with China. Being a great power with ambitions for global leadership, as well as domestic reform, is not easy. Even without multi-party elections, it involves increasing, and often uncomfortable, scrutiny. As President Xi himself has put it: the road is long and the task is weighty.

This article was originally published in the Financial Times.

Internet shutdowns in Asia have become frequent and persistent, an ominous sign of shrinking public space for debate and discourse. The shutdowns have become an irresistible option for governments of all stripes and ideological affiliations. Democratic India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines are prodigious offenders. So are Asia’s more repressive regimes, notably China.

In their defence, governments have offered real and imagined threats to national security as reasons for shutting down the pipes. It is useful to examine these claims as well as to objectively frame the issue. Are internet shutdowns in Asia legitimate and can be defended and explained as threats to national security? Or should we take a broader approach where international law, norms, values, rights and indeed economic stability could be invoked to curb this invidious practice?

Let’s start with the shutdown in Kashmir, where Indian authorities clamped down on internet access for a straight 165 days, described by rights group Access Now as the ‘longest shutdown ever in a democracy’. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that the shutdown had huge economic costs, estimated at over £1.9 billion.

The economic cost of the continuing surveillance and shutdown in China’s Xinjiang province is likely to be higher. But India is a democracy and could be a role model, which is why the recent assertion of Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravishankar Prasad is worrying. He asserted in Parliament that the Indian citizen’s right to the internet was not a fundamental right. ‘While right of internet is important, security of the country is equally important…Can we deny (that) the internet is abused by terrorists…?’.

The minister’s primary defence of the shutdown – that the internet was being abused by terrorists and others to foment unrest – has some merit. Our starting point therefore is that big tech platforms should be doing a significantly better job in monitoring content and in removing material designed to provoke violence and hatred. This is the original sin and Asian governments are right to worry about messaging platforms, for example, becoming preferred channels for venom and hate speech.

To date, the big tech firms have made the right noises about monitoring and moderating content, but they have not gone far enough, providing governments with the excuse to routinely shut down access. To be blunt, self-regulation of the platforms is not working and tougher global regulation, enforcement and sanctions, possibly via the G20, would help.

At the same time, better policing of the platforms will not resolve the issue entirely because governments regard internet shutdowns as a useful way to restrict human rights and to consolidate political control and surveillance over citizens. The international community – including nation-states, NGOs and the private sector – needs to come together and embrace two overarching principles:

First, digital access is a fundamental human right and integrated into global declarations and norms.

Second, to protect fragmentation and Balkanization of the internet, the digital pipes which carry data across national boundaries should be embedded into international law as being part of the global commons (just like oceans are under maritime law). This would raise the bar on countries which frequently restrict digital access to their citizens.

Sensible though these recommendations might seem, it is obvious that many Asian governments would be loath to sign up to global declarations which would limit their policy options at home. There is an economic dimension to internet shutdowns, as the Kashmir case makes clear, which could be addressed by naming and shaming, just as the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force does for countries falling foul of money laundering regulations. Recommendations include:

• Digital access should be included in the UN’s Human Development Index.
• The World Bank’s closely followed Doing Business Index (DBI) should score countries favourably based on their commitment to offering unimpeded access to the internet. China and India watch the DBI rankings very closely and will be forced to pursue a more liberal approach if their rankings fall precipitously.
• Since internet shutdowns have a clear economic cost, particularly in payments and financial services, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should make an annual determination of member countries (as part of its surveillance mandate) of the impact of shutdowns on economic activity and financial stability.

Finally, all Asian governments have declared a public commitment to drive financial inclusion by providing digital access and identity to the poor and vulnerable. This mandate is at odds with frequent internet disruptions. A small vendor in Kashmir, Xinjiang or elsewhere in the region has limited or no recourse when the pipes are shut down. Central banks in the region need to step in by offering some level of protection, just like deposit insurance coverage.

It is clear that many of these recommendations would be rejected outright by many Asian governments. They regard internet shutdowns as part of their policy toolkit to deal with external and internal threats to national security. In pursuing such a rigid approach, governments are wilfully curbing their citizens’ space for debate and ignoring a much broader issue of rights to digital access.

Armed with a hammer, it is tempting for governments to regard the internet as a nail. The international community and citizens’ groups have an obligation to make such hammering very expensive.

Bangladesh's recent gains in economic and social indices, set against its record of corruption and poor civil rights, has at times been termed the ‘Bangladesh Paradox’. Yet this label is overly simplistic; the current situation proves that these trends can coexist.

The Awami League government, in power since 2009, has increased political stability, delivered unprecedented economic and social advances, and adopted a counter-terrorism strategy to stamp out extremist groups. At the same time, it is criticized for curbing civil rights and failing to hold credible elections. However, as the two previous regimes have demonstrated, the rights situation is unlikely to improve even if the Awami League were replaced.

How did worsening rights become a feature of the state irrespective of its political dispensation? An unresolved contest between political and non-political state actors may hold the key to that puzzle. The perils of the current dispensation have recently manifested in weakening economic indicators, which jeopardize the very stability and social progress for which the country has garnered much praise.

Summary

• China’s expansive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has led to greater Chinese outbound investment in Asia, including in Sri Lanka. This investment has recently come under scrutiny, due to intensifying geopolitical rivalries in the Indian Ocean as well as Sri Lanka’s prime location and ports in the region.
• There are claims that by accepting Chinese outbound investment, Sri Lanka risks being stuck in a ‘debt trap’ and the displacement of its local workers by both legal and illegal Chinese labour. There are also concerns that Chinese investment has led to environmental damage and increased security risks for Sri Lanka and the neighbourhood. Furthermore, there is criticism that institutional weaknesses in Sri Lanka, including a lack of policy planning and transparency, are resulting in nonperforming infrastructure projects funded by Chinese investment.
• The pattern of Chinese investment in Sri Lanka reveals a nuanced picture of benefits and costs. Similarly, it shows that a matrix of Sri Lankan, Chinese and multilateral policies are required to maximize the benefits and minimize any risks of Chinese investment. Sri Lanka is not in a Chinese debt trap. Its debt to China amounts to about 6 per cent of its GDP. However, Sri Lanka’s generally high debt levels show the country needs to improve its debt management systems. This step would also reduce any risk of a Chinese debt trap in the future.
• Specific projects have contributed positively to Sri Lanka’s economy. Some have brought greater benefits than others, such as the Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), which has allowed the Colombo port to grow at a rapid pace. However, imports from China for projects in Sri Lanka have widened the trade deficit between the two countries. In addition, there have been only limited economic spillovers for Sri Lanka, including knowledge transfer in the local labour force.
• The number of Chinese workers in Sri Lanka is rising but remains a very small percentage of the total labour force. While illegal migration is a concern, there are significantly fewer illegal residents from China than from neighbouring countries. Sri Lanka has relatively strong rules on outward migration but can better regulate inward migration based on labour market demands and economic priorities.
• The environmental implications of Chinese investment projects in Sri Lanka are mixed. While earlier projects were more harmful, recent projects such as the CICT and Port City in Colombo have adapted to stricter environmental standards. To ensure consistently high environmental standards, Sri Lanka should strengthen its domestic regulations and seek more investments from green-friendly partners.
• Concerns that China will use ports and other projects for military purposes are, in part, driven by geopolitical anxieties. In response, Sri Lanka has strengthened its naval presence at the Hambantota port. Continual oversight by technical experts is required to guard against security-related concerns and ensure public trust in the projects. Such trust will also grow by improving transparency and by pursuing a long-term, national infrastructure development plan.

International criminal justice provides a stark reminder that state sovereignty is not an absolute, and that the world’s most heinous crimes should be prosecuted at an international level, particularly where domestic systems lack the capacity or will to hold perpetrators to account. 

The post-Cold War period witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of international tribunals with jurisdiction over war crimes and serious human rights abuses in countries including Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia. With these processes approaching, or having reached the end of their dockets, many have called for the creation of new tribunals to address more recent conflicts, including the army crackdown in Myanmar in 2017 that resulted in evidence of crimes against humanity against the Rohingya. 

In January this year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) imposed emergency provisional measures on Myanmar, instructing it to prevent genocidal violence against its Rohingya minority. But a final judgement is expected to take years and the ICJ has no way of enforcing these interim measures. Myanmar has already responded defiantly to international criticism. 

Model for justice

Myanmar is not the first country to face scrutiny for such crimes in Southeast Asia. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), more commonly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal was established in 1997 to prosecute Khmer Rouge leaders for alleged violations of international law and serious crimes perpetrated during the Cambodian genocide. This provides an opportunity to consider whether the Tribunal can act as a ‘hybrid’ model for justice in the region. 

The first lesson that can be taken from the Cambodian context is that the state must have the political will and commitment to pursue accountability. It was indeed the Cambodian government itself, who requested international assistance from the United Nations (UN), to organize a process for holding trials. The initial recommendation of the UN-commissioned Group of Experts was for the trial to be held under UN control, in light of misgivings about Cambodia’s judicial system. Prime Minister Hun Sen rejected this assessment and in prolonged negotiations, continued to spearhead the need for domestic involvement (arguably, in order to circumscribe the search for justice). This eventually resulted in the creation of a hybrid body consisting of parallel international and Cambodian judges and prosecutors with supermajority decision-making rules.   

It is worth noting that the Hun Sen government initially chose to do business with former Khmer Rouge leaders, until it became more advantageous to embrace a policy of putting them on trial. It is possible to infer from this that there will be no impetus for action in Myanmar until it is domestically advantageous to do so. At present, this appetite is clearly lacking, demonstrated by de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi shying away from accountability and instead defending the government’s actions before the ICJ.

One unique aspect of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has been the vast participation by the Cambodian people in witnessing the trials as well as widespread support for the tribunal. This speaks to the pent-up demand in Cambodia for accountability and the importance of local participation. While international moral pressure is clear, external actors cannot simply impose justice for the Rohingya when there is no domestic incentive or support to pursue this. The reality is that the anti-Rohingya campaign has galvanized popular support from the country’s Buddhist majority. What is more, the Rohingya are not even seen as part of Myanmar so there is an additional level of disenfranchisement.

Secondly, the Cambodian Tribunal illustrates the need for safeguards against local political interference. The ECCC was designed as national court with international participation. There was an agreement to act in accordance with international standards of independence and impartiality, but no safeguards in place against serious deficiencies in the Cambodian judicial system. Close alliances between judges and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, as well as high levels of corruption meant the tribunal effectively gave Hun Sen’s government veto power over the court at key junctures. Despite the guise of a hybrid structure, the Cambodian government ultimately retained the ability to block further prosecutions and prevent witnesses from being called. 

In Myanmar, political interference could be a concern, but given there is no popular support for justice and accountability for crimes committed against the Rohingya, the prospects of a domestic or hybrid process remain unlikely. However, there are still international options. The investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into crimes that may have taken place on the Myanmar–Bangladesh border represents a potential route for justice and accountability. The UN Human Rights Council has also recently established the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), mandated to collect and preserve evidence, as well as to prepare files for future cases before criminal courts.

Finally, the Cambodian case illustrates the culture of impunity in the region. The ECCC was conceived partly as a showcase for international standards of justice, which would have a ‘contagion effect’ upon the wider Cambodian and regional justice systems. 

Cambodia was notorious for incidents in which well-connected and powerful people flouted the law. This culture of impunity was rooted in the failure of the government to arrest, try and punish the Khmer Rouge leadership. The Tribunal, in holding perpetrators of the worst crimes to account, sought to send a clear signal that lesser violations would not be tolerated in the same way. Arguably, it did not achieve this in practice as Cambodia still has a highly politicized judicial system with high levels of corruption and clear limits to judicial independence. 

What this illustrates is that the first step towards accountability is strengthening domestic institutions. The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has urged domestic authorities to embrace democracy and human rights, highlighting the need to reform the judicial system in order to ensure judicial independence, remove systemic barriers to accountability and build judicial and investigatory capacity in accordance with international standards. Based on this assessment, it is clear that domestic institutions are currently insufficiently independent to pursue accountability.

The ECCC, despite its shortcomings, does stand as proof that crimes against humanity will not go completely unpunished. However, a process does not necessarily equal justice. The region is littered with justice processes that never went anywhere: Indonesia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. International recourse is also challenging in a region with low ratification of the ICC, and the absence of regional mechanisms like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (although their remit is not mass atrocity prosecutions). 

The Cambodian case study illustrates the challenges of ensuring justice and accountability within the region. The end of impunity is critical to ensure peaceful societies, but a purely legalistic approach will fail unless it is supported by wider measures and safeguards. It is these challenges, that undermine the prospects for ensuring justice for the Rohingya within Myanmar.

Both Russia and China have mounted combined charm offensives and disinformation campaigns on the back of the pandemic. Shipments of ‘aid’ – reportedly of questionable utility and quality - have gone hand in hand with a concerted effort to deflect any blame from China for the early spread, and an ongoing drive by Russia to undermine states’ confidence and have sanctions lifted.

These concurrent operations have very different objectives, as Russia seeks to subvert international order while China is continuing its bid to demonstrate global leadership - but in both cases, they are seeking long-term gains by exploiting the inattention and distraction of their targets.

Both seek to present themselves as globally responsible stakeholders, but for divergent reasons – especially China which needs the rest of the world to recover and return to stability to ensure its own economic recovery. But despite this, the two campaigns appear superficially similar.

Fertile ground for disinformation

One reason lies in the unique nature of the current crisis. Unlike political issues that are local or regional in nature, COVID-19 affects everybody worldwide. The perceived lack of reliable information about the virus provides fertile ground for information and disinformation campaigns, especially feeding on fear, uncertainty and doubt. But Russia in particular would not be succeeding in its objectives without mis-steps and inattention by Western governments.

Confused reporting on Russia sending medical supplies to the United States showed Moscow taking advantage of a US administration in apparent disarray. Claims Russia was sending ’humanitarian aid’ were only belatedly countered by the US State Department pointing out it had been paid for. Meanwhile the earlier arrival of Russian military equipment in Italy also scored a propaganda victory for Russia, facilitated by curious passivity by the Italian government.

In both cases Russia also achieved secondary objectives. With the United States, Russia scored bonus points by shipping equipment produced by a subsidiary of a company under US sanctions. In the case of Italy, Russian state media made good use of misleading or heavily edited video clips to give the impression of widespread Italian acclaim for Russian aid, combined with disdain for the efforts of the EU.

Beijing’s external information campaigns have sought to deflect or defuse criticism of its early mishandling and misinformation on coronavirus and counter accusations of secrecy and falsifying data while also pursuing an opportunity to exercise soft power. For Moscow, current efforts boost a long-standing and intensive campaign to induce the lifting of sanctions, demonstrating if nothing else that sanctions are indeed an effective measure. Official and unofficial lobbying has intensified in numerous capital cities, and will inevitably find supporters.

But both the aid and the information campaigns are seriously flawed. While appropriate and useful aid for countries that are struggling should of course be welcomed, both Russian and Chinese equipment delivered to Europe has repeatedly been found to be inappropriate or defective. 

Russian photographs of cardboard boxes stacked loose and unsecured in a transport aircraft bound for the United States sparked alarm and disbelief among military and aviation experts - and there has still been no US statement on what exactly was purchased, and whether it was found to be fit for purpose when it arrived.

Reporting from Italy that the Russian equipment delivered there was ‘80% useless’ has not been contradicted by the Italian authorities. In fact, although the Italian sources criticizing Russia remain anonymous it is striking that - President Trump aside - no government has publicly endorsed materials and assistance received from Russia as actually being useful and helpful.

Even in Serbia, with its traditionally close ties with Russia, the only information forthcoming on the activities of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops and their equipment that arrived on April 3 was from Russian press releases.

Both countries’ strategic communications efforts are similarly fallible. China’s notoriously heavy-handed approach to its critics is of only limited use in the face of such a severe and immediate threat. One suggestion that the virus originated in the US – an early response to US criticism – has already been walked back by the Chinese diplomat who made it.

And Russia continues to be capable of spectacularly misjudging its targets. When investigative journalists looked more closely at the nature of the assistance to Italy, Russia’s official response was rage and personal threats, laying bare the real nature of the campaign and immediately alienating many of those whom Moscow had sought to win over.

Errors and deficiencies such as these provide opportunities to mitigate the worst side-effects of the campaigns. And actions by individuals can also mitigate much of the impact. The most effective disinformation plays on deeply emotional issues and triggers visceral rather than rational reactions.

Advocates of ’informational distancing’ as well as social distancing suggest a tactical pause to assess information calmly, instead of reacting or spreading it further unthinkingly. This approach would bolster not only calm dispassionate assessment of the real impact of Russian and Chinese actions, but also counter spreading of misinformation on the pandemic as a whole - especially when key sources of disinformation are national leaders seeking to politicize or profit from the crisis.

Limitations of Russian and Chinese altruism must be stated clearly and frankly to fill gaps in public understanding. Where help is genuine, it should of course be welcomed: but if it is the case that assistance received from Moscow or Beijing is not appropriate, not useful, or not fit for purpose, this should be acknowledged publicly.

Even without central direction or coordination with other Russian strategic communications efforts, the self-perpetuating Russian disinformation ecosystem continues to push narratives designed to undermine confidence in institutions and their ability to deal with the crisis. This too must continue to be monitored closely and countered where it matters.

In all cases, miscalculations by Russia or China that expose the true intent of their campaigns – no matter how different their objectives might be - should be watched for closely and highlighted where they occur.

Despite the enormity of the present emergency it is not a time for any government to relax its vigilance over longer-term threats. States must not lose sight of manoeuvres seeking to exploit weakness and distraction. If Russia and China emerge from the current crisis with enhanced authority and unjustifiably restored reputations, this will make it still harder to resist their respective challenges to the current rules-based international order in the future.

This virtual roundtable has been co-convened by Chatham House and the Aga Khan Foundation.  

While conducting research in fragile and conflict-affected contexts has always presented challenges, the outbreak of COVID-19 creates additional challenges including travel restrictions, ethical challenges, and disruptions to usual modes of working. This virtual roundtable will explore how organizations can adapt their research and monitoring and evaluation models in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This event aims to discuss the research methods being used to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis; the important role of technology; and ways to engage policy and decision-makers during this time.