the national bureau of asian research
17
1
asia policy
asia policy
volume 17
u
number 1
january 2022
roundtable
Small-State Responses to Covid-19
John D. Ciorciari, Gregory V. Raymond, Tasnia Alam, Paul Schuler,
Calvin Cheng, Azad Singh Bali and Björn Dressel,
Benjamin Day, Rochelle Bailey and Gemma Malungahu
january 2022
articles and essays
The Strategic Implications of India’s Illiberalism
Daniel Markey
Russia’s Food Exports to China
Stephen K. Wegren
The Future of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance
Luke Lischin
China’s Grand Strategy
Oriana Skylar Mastro
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http://asiapolicy.nbr.org
book review roundtable
T.J. Pempel’s A Region of Regimes
asia policy
•
http://asiapolicy.org
•
a peer-reviewed journal devoted to bridging the gap between academic
research and policymaking on issues related to the Asia-Pacific
editors
Kristi Govella, Mark W. Frazier, and Deepa Ollapally editors
German Marshall Fund of the United States (U.S.) The New School (U.S.) George Washington University (U.S.)
Jessica Keough NBR (U.S.) managing editor
Joshua Ziemkowski NBR (U.S.) copy and style editor
Robin Huang and Dylan Plung NBR (U.S.) editorial assistants
editorial advisory committee
Matt Tomlinson
College of Asia and the
Pacific, Australian National
University (Australia)
Li Mingjiang
S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies
(Singapore)
Jeffrey Reeves
Asia Pacific Foundation
of Canada (Canada)
Alison Szalwinski
The National Bureau of
Asian Research (U.S.)
editorial board
Michael Armacost
Stanford University (U.S.)
Alice Ba
University of Delaware
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Hal Brands
Johns Hopkins University
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Richard Bush
Sheena Chestnut Greitens
University of Texas at
Austin (U.S.)
Kikue Hamayotsu
Chae-Jin Lee
Claremont McKenna
College (emeritus) (U.S.)
Sung-Yoon Lee
Northern Illinois University
(U.S.)
Tufts University (U.S.)
Takako Hikotani
Indiana University (U.S.)
Columbia University (U.S.)
Adam Liff
Jennifer Lind
Brookings Institution (U.S.)
Tufts University (U.S.)
Amy Jaffe
Dartmouth College (U.S.)
Thomas Christensen
Columbia University (U.S.)
Ayesha Jalal
Tufts University (U.S.)
Indiana University (U.S.)
John Ciorciari
Wendy Leutert
Tanvi Madan
University of Michigan
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University of Southern
California (U.S.)
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Kathleen Collins
Nargis Kassenova
United States Institute
of Peace (U.S.)
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Stanford University (U.S.)
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Erica Downs
George Mason University
(U.S.)
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Nicholas Eberstadt
American Enterprise
Institute (U.S.)
Elizabeth Economy
Matthew Kroenig
Georgetown University
(U.S.)
Bhubhindar Singh
Daniel Markey
S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies
(Singapore)
Oriana Skylar Mastro
Council of Foreign
Relations (U.S.)
Ann Marie Murphy
Seton Hall University (U.S.)
Marcus Noland
Sheila Smith
Angela Stent
Georgetown University
(emerita) (U.S.)
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Minxin Pei
David Lampton
Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (U.S.)
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(emeritus) (U.S.)
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College (U.S.)
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Charles Labrecque
Richard Ellings
Princeton University (U.S.)
Aqil Shah
University of Oklahoma
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George Washington
University (U.S.)
Asia Pacific Foundation of
Canada (Canada)
Aaron Friedberg
Andrew Scobell
United States Institute
of Peace (U.S.)
Peterson Institute for
International Economics
(U.S.)
Hoover Institution,
Stanford University
(on leave) (U.S.)
U.S. Naval War College (U.S.)
Ulrike Schaede
University of California–
San Diego (U.S.)
Peterson Institute for
International Economics
(U.S.)
Marlene Laruelle
George Washington
University (U.S.)
T.J. Pempel
University of California,
Berkeley (U.S.)
Thomas Pepinksy
Cornell University (U.S.)
Kenneth Pyle
University of Washington
(emeritus) (U.S.)
Ashley Tellis
Jessica Chen Weiss
Cornell University
(on leave) (U.S.)
Wesley Widmaier
Australian National
University (Australia)
Elizabeth Wishnick
Montclair State University
(U.S.)
asia policy
volume 17, number 1 • january 2022
Contents
u
roundtable
u
Small-State Responses to Covid-19
introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
pandemic containment and authoritarian spread:
cambodia ’ s covid-19 responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
John D. Ciorciari
thailand ’ s covid-19 crisis: a tale in two parts. . . . . . . . . 10
Gregory V. Raymond
covid-19 challenges and responses in bangladesh. . . . . 19
Tasnia Alam
vietnam ’ s shifting response to the covid-19 challenge. . 28
Paul Schuler
the socioeconomic impacts of covid-19 in malaysia. . . . 35
Calvin Cheng
the covid-19 pandemic and health policy change in
the philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Azad Singh Bali and Björn Dressel
covid-19 and papua new guinea: the story so far. . . . . . 53
Benjamin Day
covid-19 responses in selected polynesian island
countries and territories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Rochelle Bailey and Gemma Malungahu
u
articles
u
the strategic implications of india ’ s illiberalism and
democratic erosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Daniel Markey
This article assesses the international implications of illiberalism and
democratic erosion in India’s domestic politics and considers whether
and how Washington should recalibrate its strategic partnership with
New Delhi.
opportunities and obstacles for
russia ’ s food exports to china . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Stephen K. Wegren
This article analyzes Russia-China agricultural trade, examining China’s
role in Russia’s quest to achieve $45 billion in food exports by 2030
and exploring opportunities for and obstacles to expanded food trade
between these two states.
the future of the u.s.-philippines alliance:
declining democracy and prospects for
u.s.-philippines relations after duterte. . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Luke Lischin
This article examines the Philippines’ democracy under the administration
of President Rodrigo Duterte and assesses the ramifications of democratic
decline for the future of the U.S.-Philippines alliance under the next
administration.
u
book review essay
u
china ’ s grand strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Oriana Skylar Mastro
A review of
• Rush Doshi’s The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order
u
book review roundtable
u
T.J. Pempel’s
A Region of Regimes:
Prosperity and Plunder in the Asia-Pacific
regime maturity and the future of asia ’ s regional
economic order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Saori N. Katada
a region at risk of unraveling? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
John Ravenhill
developmental, ersatz, rapacious, or mixed?
conceptualizing regime types in asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Thomas Pepinsky
a region of legitimacies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
David Leheny
city networks in east asia: a new dimension
to regional politics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Mary Alice Haddad
author ’ s response: the asia-pacific kaleidoscope
continues to shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
T.J. Pempel
asia policy
•
http://asiapolicy.org
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a peer-reviewed journal devoted to bridging the gap between academic
research and policymaking on issues related to the Asia-Pacific
guidelines for submission
Asia Policy is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal devoted to bridging the
gap between academic research and policymaking on political, economic,
security, and energy and environmental issues related to the Asia-Pacific. The
journal publishes peer-reviewed research articles and policy essays, special
essays, roundtables on policy-relevant topics and recent publications, and
book review essays, as well as other occasional formats.
I. General Requirements
Asia Policy welcomes the submission of policy-relevant research on important issues
in the Asia-Pacific. The journal will consider two main types of submissions for peer
review: research articles that present new information, theoretical frameworks, or
arguments and draw clear policy implications; and policy essays that provide original,
persuasive, and rigorous analysis. Authors or editors interested in having a book
considered for review should submit a copy of the book to the managing editor at
the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), 1414 NE 42nd Street, Suite 300,
Seattle, Washington 98105. Submissions may be sent to <submissions@nbr.org>.
Asia Policy requires that all submitted manuscripts have not been previously published
in any form, either in part or in whole, and are not currently under consideration by
any other organization. All prior use of arguments found in the manuscript—whether
for publication in English or any other language—must be properly footnoted at the
time of submission. The author should also describe the background of the manuscript
upon submission of the first draft, including whether the manuscript or any component
parts have been presented at conferences or have appeared online.
Asia Policy is published by NBR in Seattle and Washington, D.C., in partnership with
the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, the College of Asia and the Pacific at the
Australian National University, and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
at Nanyang Technological University. The journal is committed to upholding the best
practices in all stages of the publication process. Expectations for and responsibilities of
Asia Policy authors, editors, and reviewers are based on the standards established by the
Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE) and are available at Asia Policy’s website u
http://asiapolicy.org.
[v]
asia policy
II. Manuscript Format
• The manuscript should be in Times New Roman, 12-point font with 1.5-line spacing.
Research articles should range from 7,000 to 10,000 words, and policy essays should
range from 4,000 to 7,000 words. Word ranges are inclusive of footnotes and charts.
• To be easily accessible to policymakers, each manuscript must include (1) a Title Page,
(2) a one-page Executive Summary, and (3) a concise introduction according to the
requirements listed below.
1) The Title Page should include only the article title, author’s name, a list of five
keywords, and a short biographical statement (under 50 words) that lists the
author’s e-mail address.
2) To help bridge the policy and academic communities, each submission must
include a one-page Executive Summary of approximately 275 words that
contains:
a Topic Statement
the Main Argument
• the Policy Implications
•
•
A sample Executive Summary is provided in Section III below.
3) The introduction of all NBR publications should not exceed two pages in
length and should plainly describe:
the specific question that the paper seeks to answer
the policy importance of the question
• the main argument/findings of the paper
•
•
• Tables and figures should be placed at the end of the document, with “[Insert Table X
here]” inserted in the text at the appropriate locations. Do not include tables and figures
in the introduction. All figures and maps should be provided in electronic form.
• Authors are encouraged to consult recent issues of Asia Policy for guidance on style
and formatting. For matters of style (including footnotes), NBR largely follows the 16th
edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
III. Sample Executive Summary
Executive Summary [total length
not to exceed 275 words]
executive summary
This essay examines the linkages between China’s national economy and
foreign policy over the past 30 years, and assesses the claim that Chinese
foreign policy has undergone an important shift in which domestic demand
for energy and other raw materials heavily influence foreign policy decisions.
main argument
Article Topic [preferably
longer
than 2–3 lines]
Assessments of Chinese foreign policy intentions and goalsno
often
conclude
that the need to gain more reliable access to oil and other natural resources is
Main Argument [preferably
a central aim of Chinese foreign policy and overall strategic considerations.
no longer than 6–10 lines]
This essay argues that the coherence of China’s economic goals and the
coordination needed to achieve them are eroding as multiple competing
interests within the Chinese polity emerge to pursue and protect power and
resources. This fragmentation of economic policy into multiple competing
agendas has to be understood alongside assessments that resource needs
drive Chinese foreign policy. The essay first surveys how shifting economic
priorities have influenced Chinese foreign policy over the past 30 years. A
second section discusses China’s shift from an export-led, resource-dependent
growth model to one that is more balanced toward domestic consumption.
The essay concludes by noting that China’s search for a rebalanced economy
and for a new growth model creates opportunities and constraints on Chinese
foreign policy.
policy implications
Implications
[preferably
in the form of
• While China’s domestic economic Policy
goals have
always been
an important
bulletedinitiatives
“if … then
…” statements
that spell
factor in foreign policy, Chinese diplomatic
globally
and its policies
out
or problemsconvergence
associated with
toward oil-producing states are driven
bythe
a farbenefits
more complicated
specific
policy options
rather than stating that
of factors than a simple narrative of “oil
diplomacy”
would suggest.
themakes
government
“should” take
a certain
• China’s pluralized political economy
such rebalancing
much
more action]
difficult politically, given the potential winners and losers in this process.
Those who now urge China to make a shift away from an export-heavy
growth pattern are likely to grow increasingly frustrated unless they
understand that the central leaders do not possess the instruments to
quickly transform the Chinese economy.
• Given that China, like no other economy, has benefitted from the institutions
of the global economy, China has a strong interest in maintaining these
institutions and their liberal principles, even as the Chinese government
seeks to play a stronger role in their operation and governance.
[ vi ]
guidelines for submission
IV. Note Format and Examples
Citations and notes should be placed in footnotes; parenthetical notation is not
accepted. For other citation formats, refer to the Chicago Manual of Style.
Part 1: English-Language Sources
• Book (with ISBN): Author[s]’ first and last name[s], title (city of publication:
publisher, year), page number[s].
H.P. Wilmot, Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 (Annapolis: U.S.
Naval Institute Press, 1982), 146–48.
• Edited volume (with ISBN): Editor[s]’ first and last name[s], ed[s]., title (city of
publication: publisher, year), page number[s].
Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2004–05: Confronting Terrorism in the Pursuit of
Power (Seattle: The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2004), 22–42.
• Chapter in an edited volume (with ISBN): Author[s]’ first and last name[s], “title of
article,” in title of edited volume, ed. editor[s]’ first and last name[s] (city of publication:
publisher, year), page number[s].
Graeme Cheeseman, “Facing an Uncertain Future: Defence and Security under the Howard
Government,” in The National Interest in the Global Era: Australia in World Affairs 1996–2000, ed. James
Cotton and John Ravenhill (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), 207.
• Journal article (in a journal with ISSN): Author[s]’ first and last name[s], “title of
article,” title of journal [vol. #], no. [#] (year): page number[s].
Jingdong Yuan, “The Bush Doctrine: Chinese Perspectives and Responses,” Asian Perspective 27, no. 4
(2003): 134–37.
• Reports (no ISBN or ISSN): Author[s]’ first and last name[s], “title of report,”
publisher, report series, date of publication, page number[s].
Joshua Kurlantzick, “China’s Charm: Implications of Chinese Soft Power,” Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, Policy Brief, no. 47, June 2006.
• Newspaper or magazine article: Author[s]’ first and last name[s], “title of article,”
name of newspaper/magazine, date of publication, page number[s].
Keith Bradsher, “U.S. Seeks Cooperation with China,” New York Times, July 24, 2003, A14.
• Electronic documents and website content: Author[s]’ first and last name[s], “title,”
URL. Footnote citation should emulate the corresponding print-source category if
possible.
“Natural Resources,” Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation of USAID, http://www.usaid.gov/
our_work/cross-cutting_programs/conflict/focus_areas/natural_resources.html.
• Public documents: Government department or office, title of document, [other
identifying information], date of publication, page number[s].
House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment,
International Proliferation of Nuclear Technology, report prepared by Warren H. Donnelly and Barbara
Rather, 94th Cong., 2d sess., 1976, Committee Print 15, 5–6.
• Personal communication and interview: Author[s]’ [personal communication/
email/telephone conversation/interview] with [first and last name], place, date.
Author’s interview with Hamit Zakir, Los Angeles, July 17, 2003.
[ vii ]
asia policy
Part 2: Foreign-Language Sources
When writing the foreign-language title of a language that uses a non-Roman script,
please adhere to one of the standard Romanization formats. NBR prefers Pinyin for
Chinese, Hepburn for Japanese, and McCune-Reischauer for Korean.
• Book: Author name[s], foreign language title [English translation of title] (city of
publication: publisher, year), page number[s].
Sotōka Hidetoshi, Nichi-Bei dōmei hanseiki: Anpo to mitsuyaku [Half-Century of the Japan-U.S.
Alliance: Security Treaty and Secret Agreements] (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 2001), 409–35.
Note: When the work is written in a foreign language, a foreign publisher’s name
should not be translated, although the city should be given in its English form.
• Journal article: Author name[s], “foreign language article title” [English translation
of article title], foreign language journal title [vol. #], no. [#] (year of publication): page
number[s].
Liu Jianfei, “Gouzhu chengshu de Zhongmei guanxi” [Developing a Mature Sino-U.S. Relationship],
Zhongguo kexue xuebao 78, no. 2 (June 2003): 73–87.
• Sources translated into English from a foreign language: credit the translator by
inserting “trans. [translator’s first and last name]” after the title of the publication.
Harald Fritzsch, An Equation that Changed the World, trans. Karin Heusch (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 21.
Part 3: Subsequent Citation
Use author[s]’ last name and shortened titles (four words or less) for previously cited
sources. “Op. cit.” and “loc. cit.” should not be used.
First use: Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York:
Touchstone, 1996), 136–37.
Subsequent use: Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, 136–37.
[ viii ]
asia policy, volume 17, number 1 ( january 2022 ) , 1–76
•
http://asiapolicy.nbr.org
•
roundtable
Small-State Responses to Covid-19
John D. Ciorciari
Gregory V. Raymond
Tasnia Alam
Paul Schuler
Calvin Cheng
Azad Singh Bali and Björn Dressel
Benjamin Day
Rochelle Bailey and Gemma Malungahu
© The National Bureau of Asian Research
1414 NE 42nd St, Suite 300, Seattle, Washington 98105 USA
asia policy
Introduction
A
t the beginning of 2022, as the world entered the third year of the
Covid-19 pandemic, over 307 million confirmed cases and 5.5 million
confirmed deaths had been recorded globally—numbers smaller than the
actual figures due to limitations both on testing and on attributing causes of
deaths to the virus.1 Even as progress is seemingly made against Covid-19’s
silent threat through the rapid development and circulation of vaccines
and medical treatments, preventive measures, and an increasingly better
scientific understanding of the virus, each successive wave of the pandemic
has brought new challenges and uncertainty to the fore of the public policy
agenda in every part of the world.
The Indo-Pacific is no exception to Covid-19’s social and economic
destruction, and the region has rarely left the headlines. From the virus’s
initial outbreak in China, to its disruptive impacts on not only the
Olympics but also political leadership in Japan, to the tragedy of the Delta
variant collapsing India’s healthcare system, to supply chain disturbances
throughout the Pacific, each country in the region has experienced and
coped with the pandemic in its own way. As Covid-19 variants sweep
around the world, healthcare diplomacy has become a global policy focus,
one involving the distribution of masks, healthcare supplies, and vaccines
both among developed states and between them and developing ones. The
crisis has shined a light on resource inequities and competition, but at the
same time it has also led to unprecedented demonstrations of generosity,
scientific development, and cooperation.
The larger countries in the Indo-Pacific have received the lion’s
share of resources and media attention. Less visibly, the region’s smaller
and developing states have also seen their governance and public health
systems unduly tested by the Covid-19 pandemic. This Asia Policy
roundtable examines the government, public health, societal, economic,
and international responses in some of these smaller states that are often
outside the public spotlight. How have they responded to the pandemic?
What prognoses do they face for overcoming the pandemic’s challenges
and returning to a more normal social and economic life? Essays in this
roundtable address these questions and country-specific policy issues for
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea,
the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
1 Hannah Richie et al., Our World in Data, January 8, 2022 u https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.
[2]
roundtable
•
small-state responses to covid-19
As the essays collectively show, not all is as grim as it could be. Despite
lacking the resources of larger nations, several states have so far managed
relatively successfully to avoid the worst of Covid-19’s health impacts
through phases of movement restriction, closures, widespread societal
adherence to preventive measures, and effective vaccine campaigns. Other
states found that policies that initially worked well were subsequently less
effective against the spread of the more contagious Delta variant. Overall,
the virus and its variants have brought into relief the economic, public
health, and sociopolitical costs for these vulnerable countries. For example,
the pandemic has exposed healthcare system weaknesses in the Philippines
and the Pacific Islands; underscored the importance of public trust in
the contrasting cases of Vietnam and Papua New Guinea; left long-term
economic scars in Malaysia, Thailand, and Bangladesh; and reinforced the
growing weight of authoritarianism in Cambodia.
Although the challenge of responding to Covid-19 is a global one, the
experiences of the countries affected are often uniquely local. It is important
to observe not only how large countries manage the pandemic but also
how smaller countries do as well and to assist with their efforts through
vaccine and medical supply distribution. The World Health Organization
has stated that “with global vaccine production now at nearly 1.5 billion
doses per month, there is enough supply to achieve our targets, provided
they are distributed equitably. This is not a supply problem; it’s an allocation
problem.” 2 It is thus paramount that smaller states be observed, considered,
and treated equally alongside their larger neighbors in the campaign to end
the Covid-19 pandemic. 
2 World Health Organization, “Vaccine Equity” u https://www.who.int/campaigns/vaccine-equity.
[3]
asia policy
Pandemic Containment and Authoritarian Spread:
Cambodia’s Covid-19 Responses
John D. Ciorciari
I
n an April 2021 televised address to the nation, long-time Cambodian
prime minister Hun Sen defended his government’s draconian measures
to curb the spread of Covid-19. He said, “I accept being called a dictator,
but I will also be admired for protecting my people’s lives.”1 His statement
captured well the two faces of Cambodia’s pandemic response: containment
of the virus along with the expansion of authoritarian state power. Cambodia
has achieved one of the lowest rates of reported infection in Asia as well as
one of the world’s highest rates of vaccination, mitigating the worst of the
virus’s economic and social effects and putting the country in a relatively
favorable position for recovery. However, the passage of sweeping laws that
enable officials more easily to stifle political dissent exacerbate the country’s
slide into autocracy. Cambodia’s experience reflects broader tensions evident
in many countries between democratic norms and pandemic responses.
On January 27, 2020, Cambodia became one of the first countries to
report a coronavirus case outside of China. Given the compromised state
of Cambodia’s health infrastructure, its population appeared highly
vulnerable. Initial government responses also raised red flags. To ingratiate
himself in Beijing, Hun Sen downplayed the risks posed by the virus. He
kept flights open from China, met with Xi Jinping in Beijing, and offered
to visit Wuhan, telling Cambodians there to remain and “share [Chinese
residents’] happiness and pain.”2 Those maneuvers won plaudits from Xi
Jinping but raised eyebrows elsewhere. In February, Hun Sen took another
bold diplomatic step by personally welcoming hundreds of passengers on
the cruise ship MS Westerdam, which he allowed to port in Sihanoukville
after several other countries had turned it away for fear of viral spread.
The World Health Organization (WHO) praised the move as an example
john d. ciorciari is an Associate Professor and Director of the International Policy Center and
Weiser Diplomacy Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan
(United States). He is the author of Sovereignty Sharing in Fragile States (2021) and co-editor with
Kiyoteru Tsutsui of The Courteous Power: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Indo-Pacific Era (2021). He
can be reached at <johncior@umich.edu>.
1 See Luke Hunt, “Cambodia and Its ‘Dictator’ Struggle with the Pandemic,” Diplomat, April 14, 2021.
2 Shannon Tiezzi, “China and Cambodia: Love in the Time of Coronavirus,” Diplomat, February 6,
2020.
[4]
roundtable
•
small-state responses to covid-19
of “international solidarity,” but it caused consternation in Cambodia after
one of the ship’s passengers tested positive.3
Despite early warning signs and Hun Sen’s blasé initial response to
Covid-19, Cambodia defied the odds over the following year, reporting
just several hundred cases and no Covid-related deaths. Even critics who
believed that those figures substantially undercounted cases acknowledged
the virus’s relatively low apparent spread in Cambodia. One reason was a
swift and extensive lockdown. In March 2020, the government closed all
schools and universities, banned large social and religious gatherings,
canceled celebrations planned for the Khmer New Year in April, and
introduced strict travel restrictions and quarantine procedures (including
substantial fees and insurance requirements for foreign visitors). Cambodian
authorities closed the land borders with Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam and
suspended travel from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines when new
cases were detected in air travelers.
Cambodia also sought and received considerable outside assistance.
The WHO, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and others
helped Cambodia’s health ministry flesh out a “National Action Plan” in
March 2020 to coordinate efforts by national agencies and international aid
providers. In April, Mongolia and Cambodia became the first two Asian
countries to receive funds through the World Bank’s Covid-19 Strategic
Preparedness and Response Program. A $20 million World Bank project
helped Cambodia establish and equip laboratories as well as treatment
and isolation centers around the country.4 In May, the WHO applauded
Cambodia for a successful first hundred days facing the pandemic, praising
the country’s rapid investment in health infrastructure, including new
systems for surveillance, laboratory diagnostics, contact tracing, and cluster
management.5 In short, despite the frequent feuds of the ruling Cambodian
People’s Party (CPP) with international organizations over governance
issues, both sides showed their willingness and capacity to partner
effectively where their priorities aligned.
3 “A Small Country with a Big Heart—Welcoming the Westerdam,” World Health Organization,
Press Release, June 25, 2020.
4 See World Bank, “Cambodia Covid-19 Emergency Response Project,” available at https://projects.
worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P173815.
5 “The First 100 Days of the Covid-19 Response: Past Investments in Health Security System Pay Off,
and Learning Lessons for the Future,” World Health Organization, May 29, 2020 u https://www.
who.int/cambodia/news/feature-stories/detail/the-first-100-days-of-the-covid-19-response-pastinvestments-in-health-security-system-pay-off-and-learning-lessons-for-the-future.
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Cambodia’s young population likely also helped slow the spread
of the virus, as did its relatively recent experience with Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and two rounds of the avian flu.6 Long
before the government mandated face masks, their use was uncontroversial
in Cambodia, where people regularly wear masks when ill or simply to
avoid inhaling dust kicked up on the country’s myriad dirt roads.7 Tight
lockdowns and travel restrictions in neighboring countries such as Thailand
and Vietnam also provided insulation. Cambodia entered 2021 with just
four hundred reported cases in a population of roughly 16 million, and its
first death attributed to the virus did not occur until March 2021.
Still, Covid-19 battered Cambodia’s economy. Most affected were the
tourism sector and the export-dependent garment and textiles industries,
both of which are key sources of foreign exchange. The European Union’s
withdrawal of certain trade preferences due to “serious and systematic
violations” of human rights exacerbated the country’s economic challenges,
as did a heavy monsoon season. After two decades of GDP growth at
roughly 8% per year, one of the world’s highest figures, Cambodia’s economy
contracted by 3% in 2020. 8 A government stimulus plan has not been
enough to offset rising poverty, unemployment, and inequality—problems
closely linked to its repressive, neopatrimonial political system.9
Cambodia’s first-wave response was also highly problematic in other
respects. In April 2020, the Hun Sen government passed a new law enabling
officials to declare a state of emergency in times of war, invasion, pandemic,
natural disaster, or “national chaos that threatens security and public
order.”10 The law gives the government sweeping powers during a declared
emergency, including expansive authority to engage in surveillance, limit
gatherings, and ban transmission of information that can “scare the public,
cause unrest,” or “negatively affect national security.” The law also grants the
government ill-defined powers to take all other “appropriate and necessary
measures,” including strict penalties for those violating emergency
measures, and mandates five- to ten-year prison terms for people found to
6 Buntongyi Nit et al., “Understanding the Slow Covid-19 Trajectory of Cambodia,” Public Health in
Practice 2 (2021).
7 Men Kimseng, “Luck, Culture Helped Cambodia Contain Coronavirus,” Voice of America, July 3, 2020.
8 Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Outlook Update 2021 (Manila: Asian Development
Bank, September 2021).
9 See John D. Ciorciari, “Cambodia in 2020: Preventing a Color Revolution,” Asian Survey 61, no. 1
(2021): 123–29.
10 “Law on the Management of the Nation in a State of Emergency,” Royal Code No. 0420/018, April
2020, article 4.
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obstruct the government’s implementation of those measures in a way that
undermines public order or national security.11
The law’s passage came against the backdrop of increasingly unchallenged
single-party rule in Cambodia. Hun Sen has long used “lawfare” to disrupt,
intimidate, and break apart organized political resistance. Dubious charges
of treason and related offenses have been key to his dismemberment of the
once formidable opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Human rights
groups rightly flayed the 2020 emergency powers law as a cynical ploy by
the Hun Sen government to use Covid-19 as a means to expand its capacity
to repress political dissent.12 The law faced little opposition from compliant
legislative and judicial branches or from King Norodom Sihamoni, a largely
ceremonial constitutional monarch who lacks the political heft of his father,
the late King Norodom Sihanouk.
Although Cambodia was spared a major surge in the virus for over a
year, a wave of the alpha variant, first identified in the United Kingdom,
struck the country in spring 2021. The outbreak was traced to a group of
Chinese nationals who were caught on video bribing security guards to
escape their quarantine. The government responded with a new round of
rigid restrictions, including a March 2021 law mandating three-year prison
terms for quarantine violations and up to twenty years for any group
willfully spreading the virus. A group of UN experts denounced these harsh
penalties as “disproportionate and unwarranted.”13
Cambodian officials also introduced a controversial “three color
system,” setting distinct rules for areas with higher and lower infection
rates. Those living in “red zones” with high infection rates were barred from
leaving their homes and had markets and other food vendors shut down.
Roughly 300,000 people live in Phnom Penh and other areas listed as red
zones. Videos soon surfaced of police using canes to drive people back
into their homes, and civil society groups reported poor government food
distribution and mounting hunger in the red zones. Human rights groups
pressed the government to ease the lockdown, allow nonstate actors to
distribute food, and reopen markets with social distancing.14 In response,
11 “Law on the Management of the Nation in a State of Emergency,” articles 5 and 7.
12 See Randle DeFalco, “Opportunism, Covid-19, and Cambodia’s State of Emergency Law,” Just
Security, August 3, 2020.
13 “UN Experts Urge Cambodia to Review Approach to Covid-19,” UN Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, April 12, 2021.
14 See Phorn Bopha, “Mounting Desperation in Cambodia amid Covid Lockdown,” Al Jazeera, May 2,
2021.
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the government banned reporters from broadcasting live in red zones and
conveying what officials describe as “fabricated news.”15
Cambodia has also implemented a new QR code system to help with
contact tracing. Although the scheme is not mandatory, it has been adopted
by businesses, in part for fear of falling afoul of the country’s draconian
Covid-19 policies. Human rights groups have decried the lack of credible data
privacy protections in the scheme, concerned that it represents yet another
tool the Hun Sen government could abuse to surveil political opponents and
stifle dissent.16 According to leading human rights groups, the government
has arrested dozens of people for criticizing its Covid-19 response.17
Notwithstanding these serious problems, other Cambodian policies
have helped bring transmission rates back to low levels by regional standards.
In particular, the government has vigorously sought to obtain vaccines
and has developed an effective nationwide system for administering shots.
Cambodia thus has emerged as an outlier—a state with a low per capita
income but the second-highest vaccination rate in Southeast Asia behind
smaller and much wealthier Singapore.18 A simple geographic scheme for
distribution—rather than the complex age-based and categorized approach
taken by many other countries—has helped expedite administration. The
same is true of vaccine mandates for civil servants and the armed forces,
as well as the requirement for proof of vaccination to enter a wide range
of public and private spaces. Although these mandates have come under
some criticism, their overall effect has been popular at home and welcomed
abroad. As of late October, nearly 88% of Cambodians were fully vaccinated.
Cambodia is now moving to reopen to tourists, and its economy is projected
to have grown by roughly 4% in 2021 and to be on track to grow by more
than 5% in 2022.19
Most of Cambodia’s vaccines have been sourced from China, which
has supplied roughly 33 million doses (92% of Cambodia’s total), alongside
smaller purchases and donations through bilateral channels and the
COVAX mechanism. Although some countries have frowned upon the less
effective Chinese-made vaccines, Cambodia has welcomed them, especially
15 Adrien Chorn and Jonathan Stromseth, “Covid-19 Comes to Cambodia,” Brookings Institution,
Order from the Chaos, May 19, 2021.
16 “Cambodia: ‘Stop Covid-19’ System Raises Privacy Concerns,” Human Rights Watch, April 6, 2021.
17 “Cambodia: Stop Silencing Critical Commentary on Covid-19,” Access Now, May 25, 2021 u
https://www.accessnow.org/cambodia-silencing-covid-19-commentary.
18 Sebastian Strangio, “What Explains Cambodia’s Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution Success?” Diplomat,
September 8, 2021.
19 Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Bank Outlook Update 2021.
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small-state responses to covid-19
as major Western countries have clung to their own vaccine supplies.
Chinese-made vaccines have driven down transmission and serious cases
that would otherwise threaten to overwhelm Cambodia’s capacity-strapped
hospitals. The delivery of these vaccines has further cemented the CPP’s
relationship with its principal foreign benefactors in Beijing and has proven
a lost opportunity for the United States and its allies to re-engage with
Cambodia on favorable terms.
Western sanctions, while grounded in legitimate disdain for the
Hun Sen government’s authoritarian clampdown, have had the effect of
marginalizing the United States and Europe in Cambodia and rendering the
country increasingly reliant on China. That may suit the interests of the CPP
leadership, which appreciates China’s willingness to invest in Cambodia on
a large scale, through government-linked patronage channels, and without
meaningful governance conditions. However, deepening dependency
on China is not in the interest of most ordinary Cambodians. It further
insulates the government from influences that would moderate autocratic
politics and promote greater democratic rights. It also renders Cambodia
more susceptible to feuds with concerned Southeast Asian neighbors, more
exposed to Chinese exploitation, and less diversified economically and
politically—a major vulnerability if the relationship with Beijing sours.
Cambodia’s overall experience with the pandemic shows, encouragingly,
that a low-income country with a relatively weak health infrastructure can
take purposive steps with international assistance to manage the threat
of deadly viral transmission quite well. The fallacy in the Cambodian
government’s narrative, however, is that these successes require such
harsh legal and regulatory measures and the expansion of emergency
executive authority. Cambodia’s success in limiting the spread of Covid-19
lies largely in widespread social compliance with sensible recommended
measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing, as well as reasonable
government measures such as early school closures, travel restrictions,
and the recruitment of international aid to develop infrastructure and
secure and distribute vaccines. There is little reason to believe that the
added public health benefits of the strictest measures, such as the stiff
penalties for quarantine violators and full lockdown of “red zones,” justify
the considerable dangers of expanded authoritarian power in general.
For Cambodia, the prospects of economic and social recovery from the
pandemic are relatively good. The larger problem ahead is that the pandemic
response has tended to reinforce political practices that do not augur well
for the country in the years to come. 
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Thailand’s Covid-19 Crisis: A Tale in Two Parts
Gregory V. Raymond
B
y October 2021, Thailand had recorded over 17,000 deaths from
Covid-19, and its target to have 70% of the public double-vaccinated
was still months away.1 Like other countries, Thailand’s Covid-19 story
has had many chapters with twists, turns, and setbacks on the journey to
“return to normal,” and the myriad individual experiences of hardship and
suffering among its most economically vulnerable populations will probably
never be told. Partly because of its high reliance on tourism, Thailand—the
second-largest economy in Southeast Asia and one of the more prosperous
states there—will likely emerge from the pandemic as one of the worst-hit
regional states by Covid-19.
The Health Impact and Response to Covid-19 in Thailand
Covid-19’s health impact in Thailand was initially mild but changed
dramatically in 2021. In fact, 2020 and 2021 offer a tale in two halves: the
first showing the strength of Thailand’s healthcare and disease-prevention
infrastructure, and the second revealing weakness in planning for
worst-case scenarios.
Before the pandemic, the Johns Hopkins University rated Thailand
as sixth in the world on pandemic preparedness.2 Over several decades,
Thailand has created a decentralized health administration system that
is capable of acting locally with autonomy, flexibility, and—due to prior
experience of epidemics such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
and avian flu—effectiveness. When Covid-19 reached Thailand in January
2020, the system needed no direction from the national government. At the
village level, Thailand’s 1.04 million well-trained village health volunteers
gregory v. raymond is a Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian
National University (Australia). Dr. Raymond is the author of Thai Military Power: A Culture of Strategic
Accommodation (2018) and the lead author of The United States-Thai Alliance: History, Memory and
Current Developments (2021). His research interests include Southeast Asian politics, strategy, memory,
and national identity. He can be reached at <greg.raymond@anu.edu.au>.
1 Jonathan Head, “Covid Threat Looms over Thailand’s Plans to Open Up to Tourists,” BBC News,
October 2, 2021 u https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58758310.
2 Elizabeth E. Cameron et al., Global Health Security Index: Building Collective Action and
Accountability (Washington, D.C.: Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2019), 20 u https://www.ghsindex.org/
wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2019-Global-Health-Security-Index.pdf.
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small-state responses to covid-19
swung into action, each reaching out to their ten to fifteen assigned
households with relevant information on the virus.3 These volunteers
managed close-contact cases, monitored individuals in quarantine, and
manned checkpoints. At the municipal level, local governments also acted
ahead of the national government, inviting local civil society groups to bid
for funds in support of health projects, such as those that taught citizens to
make masks and alcohol-based sanitizer and trained high school students
in hygiene.4
These measures, together with restricting inbound international travel,
bringing patients into facilities rather than keeping them at home, and
closing all but essential businesses, were effective in containing the initial
strain of the virus. By the end of September 2020, Thailand could claim that
after 3,559 cases and 59 deaths, the only infected people were those who
remained in quarantine.5 Tedros Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World
Health Organization, was impressed, stating that, “Thailand’s response to
Covid-19 offers a powerful example of how investment in public health and
all-of-society engagement can control outbreaks of deadly diseases, protect
people’s health, and allow economies to continue functioning.” 6
Sadly, this success in 2020—built on effective contact tracing,
community compliance, and comprehensive social distancing
measures—was not sufficient to arrest the spread of new variants of
Covid-19 that emerged in 2021. Thailand experienced reasonable success
in containing its second wave of Covid-19, which started at the end of 2020
among migrant workers at a seafood market in the province of Samut
Sakhon on the outskirts of Bangkok. But with the third wave, which
started in April 2021, the country entered a more desperate and dangerous
struggle against Covid-19. This wave began its spread from the Krystal
Club, an upscale nightclub frequented by politicians and diplomats. It
thus initially spread among Thailand’s elite, and soon there was a marked
increase in daily cases and deaths.7 By May, Thailand was experiencing
3 Hatchakorn Vongsayan and Viengrat Nethipo, “The Role of Thailand’s Municipalities in the
Covid-19 Crisis,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 43, no. 1 (April 2021): 21.
4 Ibid., 18.
5 World Health Organization, “Thailand: How a Strong Health System Fights a Pandemic,” September
2020, 3.
6 Ibid.
7 “After Lavish Nights of Clubbing in Bangkok, a Covid-19 Outbreak,” New York Times, June 6, 2021,
available at https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/after-lavish-nights-of-clubbing-in-bangkoka-covid-19-outbreak.
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five thousand new cases a day, as many as it had experienced in the whole
of November 2020. 8
The more infectious Alpha strain initially fueled the April 2021 surge,
and its spread puzzled Thai virologists, who wondered how community
transmission had occurred despite Thailand’s border controls, quarantine
system, and testing protocols.9 But worse was to come, because the even
more infectious Delta strain was detected in Thailand by June.10 By July,
Delta was the dominant variant in the country, with new cases reaching
over ten thousand per day by mid-month.11
The Delta strain broke Thailand’s model of containment and healthcare.
With nationwide vaccination rates at a paltry 5%, the virus surged through
poorer households.12 The hospital system was overwhelmed, and the fears of
every country’s government—public scenes of distress and disorder—began
to materialize. With a severe shortage of hospital beds, disturbing stories
emerged. On social media, citizens posted photos of Covid-19 patients
lying in a hospital parking lot next to biohazard dumpsters.13 As ambulance
services were overstretched, people were found dead on Bangkok streets.14
By mid-August, deaths from Covid-19 in the country reached over three
hundred per day.15
Like Australia and Vietnam, Thailand’s government was lulled into
a false sense of security by its initial success in containing Covid-19,
and consequently it failed to adopt an adequate vaccine policy. After
2020’s success, Thailand planned to source too few vaccines at too slow
8 “After Lavish Nights of Clubbing in Bangkok.”
9 Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat, “Thailand Braced for Infections Spike after
Detecting UK Covid-19 Variant,” Reuters, April 7, 2021 u https://www.reuters.com/article/
us-health-coronavirus-thailand-idUSKBN2BU0MQ.
10 “Thai Virologist Warns Against Delta Variant as Covid-19 Deaths Hit Record High,” Asia
News Network, June 23, 2021, available at https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/
thai-virologist-warns-against-delta-variant-as-covid-19-deaths-hit-record-high.
11 “Delta Takes Over as Dominant Variant,” Bangkok Post, July 20, 2021 u https://www.
bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2151499/delta-takes-over-as-dominant-variant 1; and
Cod Satrusayang, “AstraZeneca Says Thailand Only Requested 3 Million Doses per Month
in Initial Agreement,” Thai Enquirer, July 17, 2021 u https://www.thaienquirer.com/30034/
astrazeneca-says-thailand-only-requested-3-million-doses-per-month-in-initial-agreement.
12 Mazoe Ford and Supattra Vimonsuknopparat, “As the Delta Variant of Coronavirus Rips through
Thailand, Entire Households Are Being Infected,” ABC News (Australia), July 23, 2021 u https://
www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-23/coronavirus-delta-fuelling-huge-wave-in-thailand/100310588.
13 “Covid Patients Overflow into Hospital Car Park as Cases Surge in Bangkok,” Nation, July 16, 2021
u
https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40003337.
14 “Health System in Crisis, Critics Tell Government,” Bangkok Post, July 21, 2021 u https://www.
bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2152531/health-system-in-crisis-critics-tell-government.
15 On August 18, 2021, 312 deaths were recorded. “2019 Novel Coronavirus Visual Dashboard,”
Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering u https://github.com/
CSSEGISandData/COVID-19.
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small-state responses to covid-19
a rate. In September 2021, leaked documents showed that the minister for
health had told AstraZeneca company officials, the government’s principal
source of vaccines along with Sinovac, that it planned to vaccinate the
population at a rate of about 3 million per month.16 To vaccinate all
55 million people aged twelve and over, Thailand would require 110 million
vaccine doses.17 At a rate of 3 million vaccines per month, Thailand would
require eighteen months to achieve full vaccination of its entire adult
and teenage population. This slow rate is consistent with statements from
officials at the National Vaccine Institute, who said in December 2020
that Thailand only aimed to vaccinate half its population in 2021.18 As the
severity of the situation became clear, Dr. Nakhon Premsri, director of the
National Vaccine Institute, publicly apologized for the insufficient vaccine
supply, citing the “unexpected situation” caused by the Delta variant.19
Thailand’s planning had other complications as well. Thai bureaucrats
have become increasingly risk-averse since Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra’s administration (2001–6), fearing accusations of corruption
if they deal directly with the private sector. Out of this concern, officials
did not want to sign a contract with U.S. vaccine manufacturer Pfizer.20
AstraZeneca’s partnership with Thai company Siam Bioscience to produce
vaccines in Thailand was also met with complications. The partnership
aimed to develop Thailand’s self-sufficiency in vaccine production; however,
Siam Bioscience, which is owned by King Vajiralongkorn (and hence above
criticism in Thailand’s royalist political culture), was inexperienced in
vaccine production.21 Even more problematic, the deal stipulated two-thirds
of production be reserved for export and only one-third for local needs.22
16 Satrusayang, “AstraZeneca Says Thailand Only Requested 3 Million Doses per Month in Initial
Agreement.”
17 This is based on demographic data from the Thailand Board of Investment stating that Thailand’s
0–14 years demographic is 16.2% of its 66.19 million population. “Thailand in Brief,” Thailand
Board of Investment u https://www.boi.go.th/index.php?page=demographic.
18 John Reed, “Thailand to Vaccinate Half of Its Population in 2021,” Financial Times, December 20,
2020 u https://www.ft.com/content/c21638e3-453b-4ef5-ae91-6c2ff49f784d.
19 “Health Ministry Apologises for Not Providing Enough Vaccine, Covax Talks in Pipeline,” Nation,
July 22, 2021 u https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40003569.
20 Pavida Rananond, Somchai Jitsuchon, and Pasuk Phongpaichit, “Thai Update 2021: Crisis
Management and Long-Term Implications” (presentation at the Australian National University
Thai Update 2021, online event, August 24, 2021) u https://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/news-events/
video/thai-update-2021-day-1-economy-and-covid-19-impact.
21 John Reed, “AstraZeneca Admits ‘Complicated’ Thai Vaccine Production Launch,” Financial Times,
July 24, 2021 u https://www.ft.com/content/1c54c222-98c6-4fc7-b43c-1b9115a27750.
22 Satrusayang, “AstraZeneca Says Thailand Only Requested 3 Million Doses per Month in Initial
Agreement.”
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Economic Impacts
The loss of tourism, which accounts for 11%–12% of Thailand’s GDP,
combined with public health measures to combat Covid-19, meant that
Thailand’s economy shrank by 6.1% in 2020. 23 According to the World
Bank, its GDP was unlikely to grow more than 1% in 2021, and in fact,
the economy is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023. 24
Comparing tourism volumes before and after the pandemic illuminates
the extent of Thailand’s economic crisis. In 2022, Thailand is predicted to
welcome a total of 1.7 million tourists. 25 Before the pandemic, Thailand
received more than this many tourists every two months from China
alone. The fourth quarter of 2020 reported only 50,000 tourists, 99.5% less
than the same period in 2019. 26
As a relatively wealthier country, Thailand has been able to offer more
fiscal stimulus to the public than many of its neighbors but still less than
the average levels in the West.27 In fact, although it is notoriously fiscally
conservative, Thailand recently lifted its debt ceiling from 60% to 70% of
GDP to protect jobs as growth slows for a sustained period.28
Still, the impact has been immense. Bangkok is a shell of its former
bustling self. Tourist precincts, like the go-go bars of Patpong, Soi Cowboy,
and Nana, were among the first to close and now stand boarded up.
Similarly, the resort provinces of Phuket and Hua Hin lie deserted. Across
the country, some 100,000 restaurants vanished between January 2020 and
June 2021.29 Even wet markets, a lifeblood for locals, have closed periodically
23 “Thailand Loses 1.45 Million Tourism Jobs from Pandemic: Tourism Group,” Reuters, March 29,
2021 u https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-economy-tourism-idUSKBN2BL1F7.
24 “World Bank Cuts Thai GDP Growth Outlook to 1% This Year,” Reuters, September 28, 2021 u https://
www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/world-bank-cuts-thai-gdp-growth-outlook-1-this-year-2021-09-28.
25 Ibid.
26 Nalitra Thaiprasert et al., Revisiting the Pandemic: Surveys on the Impact of Covid-19 on Small
Businesses and Workers (San Francisco: Asia Foundation, May 2021), 10.
27 Roland Rajah, “Southeast Asia’s Post-Pandemic Recovery Outlook,” Brookings Institution, Order
from Chaos, March 15, 2021 u https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/15/
southeast-asias-post-pandemic-recovery-outlook.
28 “Thailand Raises Public Debt Ceiling to Fight Covid-19 Outbreak,” Reuters, September 20, 2021 u
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailand-raises-public-debt-ceiling-fight-covid-19outbreak-2021-09-20.
29 Thai PBS, “Mikhomun chak chomrom phuprakopthunkit ranahan raingan wa tangtae koet khowit
19 naipi 2563 chonmathueng tonni ranahanhaipai praman 100,000 ran ruelueaayu 300,000 ran
tae tha langchakni maimimatkanarai machuai tulakhom nachahaipai” [Information from the
Restaurant Business Association Reveals That since the Start of Covid-19 in 2020 until the Present
Approximately 100,000 Restaurants Disappeared and of the Remaining 300,000, If There Are No
Assistance Measures by October], Twitter, June 5, 2021.
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small-state responses to covid-19
due to virus outbreaks.30 By September 2021, the number of people out of
work because of unemployment, reduced hours, and business interruptions
was around 5.3 million.31 The Thai National Statistics office put the 2020
unemployment rate at 2.0%, more than three times the long-term average
of 0.6%.32
The Thai government has launched a range of Covid-19 relief programs.
The “Rao Mai Ting Gun” (“We Don’t Desert Each Other”) offered 5,000 baht
cash support per month for three months from April to June 2020 to
low-income citizens and was extended into 2021. The “Kon La Krueng”
(“Half-Half”) program paid for half of household purchases up to 150 baht
per day. But some 90% of Thailand’s informal workers, who make up 55%
of the labor force, had few options other than to borrow money. 33 By 2021,
Thailand had more than 5 million people across the country living on less
than $5.50 a day.34 The economic distress is seen in long queues for food and
rows of shuttered shops. Many Thai people will not admit to suffering but
say to themselves haichai bao bao (breathe lightly).35
Political Impact
During the pandemic, Thailand has been wracked by widespread
and frequent public protests, many calling for the dismissal of the former
coup leader Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha for reasons that include
his government’s mismanagement of the pandemic response. Under his
government, the Thai police has been unflinching in response to protests.
In the last year alone, Thai authorities have laid some 486 charges against
1,171 protestors.36 Initially driving the protests were longstanding concerns,
especially among Thai youth, about the entrenchment of authoritarianism
since the military coup in May 2014. In 2020, protestors broke through a
30 Marwaan Macan-Markar, “Pandemic Takes Flavor Out of Bangkok’s Grocery Shopping,”
Nikkei Asia, September 1, 2021 u https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Tea-Leaves/
Pandemic-takes-flavor-out-of-Bangkok-s-grocery-shopping.
31 Pananond, Jitsuchon, and Phongpaichit, “Thai Update 2021.”
32 “Covid-19 Impact on Thai Labor Market,” Open Development Thailand, October 11, 2019 u
https://thailand.opendevelopmentmekong.net/topics/covid-19-impact-on-thai-labor-market.
33 Thaiprasert et al., Revisiting the Pandemic, 20.
34 Panithan Onthaworn, “1.5 Million More Thais Fell into Poverty in 2020, Over 5 Million Now
Living Under the Poverty Line,” Thai Enquirer, July 15, 2021 u https://www.thaienquirer.
com/29912/1-5-million-more-thais-fell-into-poverty-in-2020-over-5-million-now-living-underthe-poverty-line.
35 Author’s personal communication, Bangkok, September 2021.
36 “Latthi amnatniyom fueangfu” [Authoritarianism Is Flourishing], Thai Rath, October 9, 2021 u
https://www.thairath.co.th/news/politic/2214616.
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“glass ceiling” when they explicitly and publicly challenged for the first time
the official narrative of the monarchy’s separation from politics. In 2021,
the thrust of the protests shifted toward economic issues, given Covid-19’s
impact on vulnerable youth. Whether Covid-19 will shift enough votes to
dislodge Prayuth’s party, Phalang Pracharath, before the next election in
2023 remains uncertain. In the meantime, opposition parties are seeking
to capitalize on this moment, with the Thai Sang Thai party filing a lawsuit
against Prayuth in the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct
Cases that alleges breaches of the constitution, including for purchasing the
relatively ineffective Sinovac vaccine.37
International Assistance
China has been a major partner for Thailand during the Covid-19
pandemic. During the pandemic’s first six months, China provided surgical
masks, test kits, medical N95 masks, and protective garments. This aid
has been met with gratitude. Of the approximately 130 Thai respondents
to the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute’s “State of Southeast Asia 2021 Survey
Report,” 66% nominated China as the dialogue partner of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations that had provided the most help to Southeast Asia
for Covid-19. Only 4% identified the United States as the most helpful.38
Thailand also started to receive vaccines from China in February 2021.
Sinovac served as a buffer, while stocks of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna
gradually arrived through various avenues, including licensed domestic
production.39 By August 2021, according to the Chinese embassy in
Thailand, 60% of Thailand’s vaccine imports had been from China (Sinovac
and Sinopharm).40 China can portray this moment as another instance of
reaching out and assisting its Southeast Asian neighbors in crisis, as Foreign
37 Erich Parpart, “Thai Sang Thai Party’s Lawsuit against Prayut Collects 700,000 Names,” Thai
Enquirer, August 13, 2021 u https://www.thaienquirer.com/31214/thai-sang-thai-partys-lawsuitagainst-prayut-collects-700000-names.
38 An average of 44% of all survey respondents from the ASEAN region nominated China when
asked which ASEAN dialogue partner had provided the most help to the region for Covid-19.
Sharon Seah et al., “The State of Southeast Asia: 2021 Survey Report,” ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute,
February 2021, 13.
39 Gavin Butler, “How Sinovac Became the Poster Child of Anti-China, Anti-Vaxx Skepticism,” Vice
World News, August 3, 2021 u https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj8xgd/sinovac-anti-china-covidvaccine-skepticism.
40 Chinese Embassy Bangkok, “Khwamruammuedanwaksinrawangchinthaiphatnaayangtonueang”
[China-Thailand Vaccine Cooperation Continues to Develop], Facebook, August 22, 2021.
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Minister Wang Yi reminded his Southeast Asian counterparts.41 Unlike its
poorer neighbors Laos and Cambodia, Thailand bought its Sinovac supply
rather than receiving donations.42 Given salient memories of Western
indifference in times of need, especially during the 1997 Asian financial
crisis, China’s assistance may have long-term resonance.
At the same time, however, there is awareness that Sinovac’s efficacy is
less than that of the Western-made vaccines. In May 2021, an online poll
from Suan Dusit University of 2,644 respondents found Pfizer and Moderna
to be the most trusted vaccines, followed by Johnson & Johnson and
AstraZeneca—Sinovac was not nominated.43 Overall, with Sinovac’s efficacy
in doubt but the vaccine at least available, China’s Covid-19 assistance to
Southeast Asia has been neither a raging success nor a conspicuous failure.
While Sinovac is the vaccine Thais “love to hate,” it is credited by Thai health
professionals as having significantly reduced deaths.44
Long-term Effects
Most Thais expect recovery from Covid-19 to be slow across the board.
The Bank of Thailand does not expect that Thailand’s economy will return
to pre-pandemic levels of growth until 2023, leaving scars on the tourist and
business sectors.45 A debt hangover will remain. One of the worst impacts
may be on the country’s youth. Bangkok closed its schools for four months
in 2021, and it is thought that as many as 15% of students will not return,
having dropped out of school.46 Although education is free until year nine,
parents facing unemployment struggle to pay other school-related costs such
as food and travel. This phenomenon will be a problem for all of Southeast
41 “Wang Yi Attends Special ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Celebration of the 30th
Anniversary of Dialogue Relations,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC), Press Release, June 7, 2021 u https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1882097.
shtml.
42 Ivana Karásková and Veronika Blablová, “The Logic of China’s Vaccine Diplomacy,” Diplomat, June
24, 2021 u https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/the-logic-of-chinas-vaccine-diplomacy.
43 Neill Fronde, “Suan Dusit Poll: Most People Will Get Gov’t Covid-19 Vaccine,” Thaiger, May 23, 2021
u
https://thethaiger.com/news/national/suan-dusit-poll-most-people-will-get-govt-covid-19-vaccine.
44 “Opinion: Thailand Has to Gradually Stop Worrying about New Infection Numbers,” Thai Enquirer,
October 11, 2021 u https://www.thaienquirer.com/33781/__trashed-4.
45 Panithwan Onthaworn, “Full Economic Recovery Not Expected until 2023,” Thai Enquirer, June 28,
2021 u https://www.thaienquirer.com/29068/full-economic-recovery-not-expected-until-2023.
46 Dusita Saokaew, “Covid-19: Thailand’s School Dropout Rate Soars,” CGTN, July 8, 2021 u
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-07-08/COVID-19-Thailand-s-school-dropout-rate-soars11JmsBKXkv6/index.html.
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Asia, and Thailand will not be spared.47 Thailand’s income inequality is
likely to be exacerbated, which had already become so enormous by 2020
that it earned Prayuth the unflattering title of “father of inequality” (bida
haeng khwamlueamlam).48
Nonetheless, in the long term, Thailand still has critical assets for
recovery. The country’s favorable location, food surplus, potential for
renewable energy, and skilled workforce mean that it should be able
to return to economic growth of 3% per year. By the end of the next
decade, some economists believe that Thailand could edge toward being a
high-income country. 49
Conclusion
The advent of the highly infectious Delta variant saw Thailand’s public
health model go from a showcase in 2020 to a basket case in 2021. Thailand
is not the only country to err in taking an overly relaxed approach to
obtaining vaccine supply. Nevertheless, the impact has been particularly
severe because the slow vaccination rate has delayed the country’s broad
reopening, a serious consequence for a state as reliant on tourism as
Thailand. Though the plunge in the economy is not quite as steep as
after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, this crisis’s global nature has instead
compounded Thailand’s predicament. The scars from Covid-19 will be deep
and exacerbate Thailand’s already polarized politics. 
47 “Alarming Rise in School Drop-outs after Extended Classroom Closures,” Sydney Morning Herald,
October 2, 2021.
48 Polwut Songsakul, “Fai khan tangchaya Prayut ‘bida khwamlueamlam phunamhaengkankoni’ ”
[Opposition Parties Name Prayuth “the Father of Inequality and the Leader of Debt”], Standard
(Thailand), July 1, 2020 u https://thestandard.co/opposition-named-prayutr-to-be-father-of-inequality.
49 Pananond, Jitsuchon, and Phongpaichit, “Thai Update 2021.”
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Covid-19 Challenges and Responses in Bangladesh
Tasnia Alam
B
angladesh has experienced highly adverse impacts from Covid-19,
and its lower-middle-income economy and dense population have
exacerbated the public health and economic challenges from the global
pandemic. Bangladesh detected its first Covid-19 case in March 2020.1
As a preventive measure, the government closed international borders,
educational institutes, industries, and offices. As a result, many people lost
their jobs, and some city dwellers moved from urban to rural areas as they
could no longer afford living expenses. Life has changed dramatically, in
particular, for the ultra-poor who live from hand to mouth.2
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Covid-19
dashboard, Bangladesh had 1,595,931 confirmed cases of Covid-19
from January 1, 2020, through January 10, 2022, with 28,105 deaths and
129,371,926 vaccinations administered. A total of 1,553,293 patients
had recovered from the acute effects of the virus. 3 On December 11,
2021, Bangladesh identified the Omicron variant in two Bangladeshi
cricketers who had returned from Zimbabwe. 4 Although data indicated a
declining trend in reported cases and deaths in the fall of 2021, the new
variant made the situation alarming again. To tackle the severity of the
situation, the government imposed updated health guidelines for citizens
in January 2022. 5
tasnia alam is a Manager for Programs and Accreditation at BRAC University (Bangladesh),
where she is also convening a business ethics course. Previously, she worked in various capacities at
the Australian National University, diplomatic missions (the Sri Lanka High Commission in Australia,
Embassy of Japan in Bangladesh, and Embassy of China in Bangladesh), international organizations
(World Bank, UNICEF, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency), and the office of an Australian
member of parliament. She can be reached at <tasniabd2@gmail.com>.
1 Saeed Anwar, Mohammad Nasrullah, and Mohammad Jakir Hosen, “Covid-19 and Bangladesh:
Challenges and How to Address Them,” Frontiers in Public Health, no. 8 (2020): 154 u https://www.
frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00154/full.
2 Sushmita Dutta and Marzia Khatan Smita, “The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Tertiary
Education in Bangladesh: Students’ Perspectives,” Open Journal of Social Sciences 8, no. 9 (2020): 53.
3 World Health Organization (WHO), “WHO Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19 Dashboard):
Bangladesh” u https://covid19.who.int/region/searo/country/bd.
4 WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, “Covid-19 Weekly Situation Report,” week #49,
December 17, 2021.
5 “Covid Curbs Return from Thursday,” Daily Star (Bangladesh), January 11, 2022 u https://www.
thedailystar.net/health/disease/coronavirus/news/covid-curbs-return-january-13-2936501.
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This essay discusses the challenges and impacts of Covid-19 in
Bangladesh, a densely populated small state in South Asia that hosts the
largest refugee camps in the world. It also examines the initiatives taken
by policymakers to combat this unseen enemy. The final section describes
possible solutions to current and post-Covid challenges.
The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh
Before the onset of the pandemic, Bangladesh’s economy was growing
at one of the world’s quickest rates, with an average GDP growth rate of
7.4% over the last five years and 8.2% in 2019.6 The country experienced
this higher-than-expected growth because of government policy reforms
and a loosening of investment regulations. In 2019, domestic demand,
including consumption and investment, climbed by 11.0%, while exports
and remittances increased by 10.5% and 9.6%, respectively.7
Once the pandemic hit, the picture no longer looked so optimistic.
According to an assessment on national food security by BRAC (an
international NGO headquartered in Bangladesh), the country’s farmers
lost $6.66 billion during the 45-day lockdown between March and May
2020. In March 2020, the flow of inward remittances fell by 12% to $1.27
billion, and in April, it fell by 25% to $1.09 billion. 8 Almost 1.4 million
migrant workers abroad lost their jobs or returned to Bangladesh. Due to
the pandemic, inward remittances to South Asia dropped by roughly 22.1%
in 2020, and the World Bank forecasted that in 2020 regional growth would
fall to between 1.8% and 2.8%, down from a projected 6.3%.9
Beyond the public health toll, Covid-19 has had a socioeconomic
impact, crimping some thriving industries in Bangladesh such as the
garment industry. Pre-pandemic, Bangladesh was the second-largest
single exporter of ready-made garments (RMG).10 Due to factory closures
6 World Bank, “The World Bank in Bangladesh” u https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/
bangladesh/coronavirus.
7 Mashura Shammi et al., “Strategic Assessment of Covid-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh: Comparative
Lockdown Scenario Analysis, Public Perception, and Management for Sustainability,” Environment,
Development and Sustainability 23, no. 4 (2020): 6148–91.
8 Ibid.
9 World Bank, “Bangladesh Must Ramp Up Covid-19 Action to Protect Its People, Revive Economy,”
Press Release, April 12, 2020 u https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/04/12/
bangladesh-must-act-now-to-lessen-covid-19-health-impacts.
10 Humayun Kabir, Myfanwy Maple, and Kim Usher, “The Impact of Covid-19 on Bangladeshi
Readymade Garment (RMG) Workers,” Journal of Public Health 43, no. 1 (2021): 47–52 u https://
doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa126.
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and supply chain disruptions as a result of the pandemic, Bangladesh has
dropped to third place, trailing Vietnam. If the European Union is counted
as a single unit, Bangladesh has slipped to fourth place, following China, the
EU, and Vietnam, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).11 As
a result of the decline in RMG exports, in just the first few months of the
pandemic Bangladesh lost $3.17 billion in foreign orders and approximately
70,000 workers became unemployed, with many others unable to receive
their wages. Besides causing widespread unemployment, which exacerbates
poverty, the pandemic has negatively affected RMG workers’ physical and
emotional health.12
Education is another sector that has been severely affected by the
pandemic. Following some industrialized countries like the United States,
the United Kingdom, and Australia, Bangladesh shut down educational
institutions to lower transmission rates during the pandemic.13 All
educational institutions in Bangladesh remained closed from March 2020
until September 2021. Students became stressed because of the prolonged
shutdown and experienced mental health issues. Many parents feared
their teenagers would not return to school after they reopened, potentially
causing a long-term impact on socioeconomic development in the country.14
Although some English-medium schools moved to online learning, most
Bengali-medium schools were unable to do so due to a lack of electronic
resources and internet connectivity. The government’s main remote-learning
response was through television-based educational programs, but up to 55%
of grade-nine students in Bangladesh, for example, do not have access to a
television, and even many who do did not watch the programing.15 Closures
had a significant impact on indigenous children in particular, resulting
11 “Vietnam Crosses Bangladesh, Turns Second Largest RMG Exporter Globally,” Financial
Express (Bangladesh), July 31, 2021 u https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/economy/
vietnam-crosses-bangladesh-turns-second-largest-rmg-exporter-globally-1627716944.
12 Shuvro Sen et al., “The Apparel Workers Are in the Highest Vulnerability due to Covid-19: A Study
on the Bangladesh Apparel Industry,” Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research 8, no. 3
(2020) u https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3669298; and Zahidul Hassan,
“Covid-19: Impact on Ready-Made Garment Workers in Bangladesh,” UN Children’s Fund,
2020 u https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/media/3926/file/%20UNICEF_COVID%20and%20
Banladesh%20garment%20workers.pdf%20.pdf.
13 Dutta and Smita, “The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Tertiary Education in Bangladesh,” 53.
14 World Bank, “Keeping Bangladesh’s Students Learning During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” April
18, 2021 u https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2021/04/18/keeping-bangladesh-s-studentslearning-during-the-covid-19-pandemic.
15 Ibid.
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in greater educational inequality.16 From September 2021, all tertiary
institutions started their operations in-person in a very restricted way. After
the new variant was detected, in January 2022 the government emphasized
vaccinating children between twelve and sixteen years old.17
Covid-19 has also affected tourism, which is a flourishing economic
sector that accounts for almost 4.4% of the country’s GDP.18 Due to the
pandemic, airlines canceled flights and both domestic and international
tourists canceled bookings, causing heavy losses and severely curtailing the
sector as well as its supporting businesses. Extended lockdown and future
uncertainty from the pandemic continue to put the future of the travel and
tourism industries under threat.19
A situation particular to Bangladesh is the impact that Covid-19 has had
on the country’s large refugee population. Cox’s Bazar, a city in Bangladesh’s
southeast, is home to the world’s biggest refugee camp and shelters over
860,000 people from the Rohingya ethnic group that were forcibly displaced
from Myanmar (out of over one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh).
On June 6, 2020, Bangladesh identified the Cox’s Bazar areas surrounding
these Rohingya refugee camps as the first red zone for Covid-19. Because of
misinformation and social stigma, many Rohingya refugees are hesitant to
get tested or obtain treatment. As a result, there is no accurate representation
of the number of positive cases and related deaths among the Rohingya
refugees in Bangladesh. Although development agencies are collaborating
with the Bangladeshi government to tackle this problem, the frequency of
Covid-19 testing in these camps is still low,20 and the use of masks is still
uncommon.21 Lack of awareness of the importance of social distancing and
16 Stephen L. Harrison “Improving Online Tertiary Education in the Developing World Based on
Changes in Perceptions Post Covid-19,” International Business Review Journal (2020) u https://
www.ibrjournal.org/article-0012040.
17 “Children 12 and Above to Get Jabs,” Daily Star (Bangladesh), January 11, 2022 u https://www.
thedailystar.net/youth/education/news/children-12-and-over-get-jabs-2168511.
18 LightCastle Analytics Wing, “Tourism: A Possible New Driver for the Economy of Bangladesh,”
DATABD.CO, January 22, 2020 u https://databd.co/tourism-a-possible-new-driver-for-theeconomy-of-bangladesh.
19 Santus Kumar Deb and Shohel Md. Nafi, “Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Tourism:
Perceptions from Bangladesh,” SSRN, August 22, 2021 u https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.
cfm?abstract_id=3632798.
20 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Covid-19 Vaccinations Begin in Bangladesh’s
Rohingya Refugee Camps,” Press Release, August 11, 2021 u https://www.unhcr.org/asia/news/
press/2021/8/6113a79f4/covid-19-vaccinations-begin-in-bangladeshs-rohingya-refugee-camps.html.
21 Md. Taimur Islam et al., “Tackling the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Bangladesh Perspective,” Journal of
Public Health Research 9, no. 4 (2020) u https://doi.org/10.4081/jphr.2020.1794.
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poor water access, sanitation, and hygiene supplies have raised concerns
about keeping the Rohingya refugees safe from infection.22
An increase in domestic violence in Bangladesh has been witnessed
during the pandemic. One study found that 11,025 women endured
domestic violence during the extended nationwide shutdown and 4,947
women were exposed to psychological abuse. In addition, 3,589 women
were victims of financial abuse. The study noted that 30% of women who
reported domestic violence during the lockdown had never experienced
domestic violence in the past.23 According to other reports, 179 victims
reported sexual harassment, and there were at least 1,627 rape victims and
317 gang rape incidents reported in 2020 (compared to 1,080 and 294 in
2019, respectively).24
Government Response Measures and Their Effectiveness
In the first week of March 2020, Bangladesh began postponing any large
meetings to check the spread of Covid-19, outlawing all political, social,
cultural, and religious gatherings or meetings. Following that, Bangladesh
enacted a ten-day travel ban from March 26 that included restrictions on
road, sea, rail, and air travel. All nonessential organizations, businesses,
and educational institutions were shuttered, while necessary services
such as pharmacies and food markets remained open.25 All domestic and
international flights were canceled for an unannounced period, and airports
installed thermal scanners. The government made obligatory a fourteen-day
home quarantine for overseas returnees in a further step to stop the spread
of the virus.26 Due to the country’s dense population (in the capital city
Dhaka, for example, there are 46,000 people per square kilometer), lack of
22 UNHCR, “UNHCR Bangladesh Operational Update,” Situation Report, May 2021 u https://
reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/unhcr-bangladesh-operational-update-may-2021.
23 “Domestic Violence: 30% Became Victims during Pandemic,” Dhaka Tribune, March 31, 2021 u
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2021/03/31/30-of-domestic-violence-survivors-facedviolence-for-the-first-time-during-pandemic.
24 Mir Nabila Ashraf et al., “Mental Health Issues in the Covid-19 Pandemic and Responses in
Bangladesh: View Point of Media Reporting,” Frontiers in Public Health 9 (2021) u https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34552906; and Firoj al Mamun, Ismail Hosen, and Mohammed A.
Mamun, “Sexual Violence and Rapes’ Increment during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh,”
EClinicalMedicine 34 (2021) u https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/eclinm/PIIS25895370(21)00097-3.pdf.
25 Anwar, Nasrullah, and Hosen, “Covid-19 and Bangladesh: Challenges and How to Address Them,” 154.
26 Kazi Nafia Rahman, “Isolation, Quarantine Can Help Break Bangladesh’s Deadly Covid Cycle: Experts,”
bdnews24.com, July 17, 2021 u https://bdnews24.com/coronavirus-pandemic/2021/07/17/canbangladesh-break-the-cycle-of-covid-transmission-with-isolation-quarantine; and “Govt Tightens
Quarantine Requirement for Overseas Returnees,” bdnews24.com, March 17, 2020 u https://bdnews24.
com/bangladesh/2020/03/17/govt-tightens-quarantine-requirement-for-overseas-returnees.
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widespread access to hygiene supplies, and limited testing kits and facilities,
many preventive measures have been difficult, if not impossible, for much of
the country.27
Bangladesh started its vaccination program earlier than many other
developing countries. In November 2020, the government agreed to buy
30 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Covishield vaccine from the Serum
Institute of India for its front-line responders such as doctors, nurses, and
police officers.28 Unfortunately, owing to an unexpected increase in new
infections and rising mortality rates at home, India abruptly stopped exporting
vaccines to Bangladesh in April 2021. As a result, the government’s plans
for vaccinating a bulk of the population were delayed.29 After criticism and
pressure from citizens and political parties, the government began looking
for alternatives to ensure that the immunization program ran smoothly
and signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Sinopharm on
August 17, 2021. Eventually, the government started importing vaccines from
various sources to achieve its goal of vaccinating 90% of the population by
the end of December 2021. To this end, it has been distributing the Moderna,
AstraZeneca/Covishield, Pfizer, and Sinopharm vaccines. However, as of late
December, only 27% of the population have received two doses of a vaccine
and only 53% have received at least one dose.30
To address the economic toll from the pandemic, Bangladesh’s
government and central bank have begun a multifaceted and collaborative
effort to promote growth.31 By the end of March 2020, the government had
already announced a 50 billion taka ($595 million) incentive plan for the
export sector. This included salary support and the payment of two-year
loans to factory owners at a 2% interest rate.32 Since then, the government
has offered low-interest loans to small businesses and the tourism and
hospitality industries. Export-oriented companies, such as those in the
RMG industry, also received loans and assistance, and a working-capital
27 Anwar, Nasrullah, and Hosen, “Covid-19 and Bangladesh: Challenges and How to Address Them.”
28 “India’s Serum to Sell Covid-19 Vaccine to Bangladesh at $4/Dose: Report,” Daily Star
(Bangladesh), January 13, 2021 u https://www.thedailystar.net/online/news/indias-serum-sellcovid-19-vaccine-bangladesh-4dose-report-2027013.
29 “Bangladesh Running Out of Vaccines,” Daily Star (Bangladesh), April 23, 2021 u https://www.
thedailystar.net/editorial/news/bangladesh-running-out-vaccines-2082081.
30 Edouard Mathieu et al., “A Global Database of Covid-19 Vaccinations,” Our World in Data, 2021 u
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL.
31 Shammi et al., “Strategic Assessment of Covid-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh.”
32 KPMG, “Bangladesh: Government and Institution Measures in Response to Covid-19,” November
18, 2020 u https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2020/04/bangladesh-government-andinstitution-measures-in-response-to-covid.html.
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loan facility was established for large manufacturers and service firms. The
government distributed cash and other assistance to the most vulnerable
populations—approximately 40 million people, or a quarter of the
population—through 28 separate stimulus programs totaling $22.1 billion
(nearly 6.2% of GDP). According to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, these
measures have helped Bangladesh avoid the worst of the pandemic.33
Healthcare System Responses and Impacts
Despite its closures and other preventive measures, Bangladesh
struggled to prevent the spread of Covid-19 because of the lack of a
functioning healthcare system. There are not enough intensive care units
or dedicated hospitals to adequately handle Covid-19 patients. Although
the government urgently hired more doctors for hospitals, this number was
insufficient to manage hospital caseloads. The relative scarcity of doctors
and nurses compared to other countries is a major issue for the healthcare
system. In Bangladesh, there are only 5 doctors per 10,000 people, whereas
in Italy, for example, there are 41 doctors per 10,000 people.34 However,
even as many wealthy countries have struggled to control fatalities from
Covid-19, Bangladesh has largely managed to do so. Despite having a weaker
healthcare system, the population has so far kept the death and infection
rates to a manageable level. However, it is unclear whether underreporting,
particularly in rural regions due to a lack of awareness and social stigma,
has resulted in lower official case and fatality figures.
Bangladesh has the lowest percentage of Covid-19 testing in South Asia
as there is a significant scarcity of testing kits. It has a reserve of less than
100,000 kits, of which only about 20,000 were distributed to testing centers
across the country. To increase its resources, Bangladesh received testing
kits, personal protective equipment, masks, and infrared thermometers
from China. Nevertheless, these supplies only cover a small percentage
of the country’s actual needs. Meanwhile, a local health organization,
Gonoshasthaya Kendra, claimed to have created a diagnostic kit that can
detect the virus in minutes for just 350 taka (about $4) using a quick-dot-blot
technique. Although many specialists doubted the effectiveness of the
33 Sheikh Hasina, “Bangladesh Prime Minister: We Rise from Covid-19 by Helping the Neediest
First,” Fortune, December 20, 2021 u https://fortune.com/2021/12/20/bangladesh-prime-ministersheikh-hasina-we-rise-from-covid-19-by-helping-the-neediest-first-pandemic-response-worldeconomy-asia-development.
34 Islam et al., “Tackling the Covid-19 Pandemic.”
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method, the institution received government authorization to import raw
ingredients to mass-produce the kits.
International Aid Received from Major Donors
The United States contributed nearly $80 million to Bangladesh’s
Covid-19 response, making it one of its earliest and largest donors. The
U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), delivered critical medical supplies to Bangladesh as part of its
ongoing humanitarian aid to countries in South Asia.35 Approximately
2 million pieces of personal protective equipment from the United States
were transported to Bangladesh to assist tens of thousands of Bangladeshi
healthcare professionals. Bangladesh has also received an additional
$11.4 million in Covid-19 relief funding from USAID to aid with preventive
initiatives. As noted above, India and Bangladesh had agreed that India
would supply the latter with 30 million vaccine doses by mid-2021, but
just 9 million doses were delivered before India unexpectedly halted sales.
Later, China gifted Bangladesh 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine
so the country could resume its immunization campaign, which had been
interrupted by the lack of AstraZeneca vaccines made in India.36
The government of Bangladesh signed three finance agreements worth
$1.04 billion with the World Bank to act in response to the pandemic and
build resilience against future crises. The funding supports mobilizing
Covid-19 immunization efforts, extending electronic procurement, and
speeding up economic recovery. Bangladesh’s Covid-19 Emergency
Response and Pandemic Preparedness Project has also received a
$500 million loan from the World Bank to help the country vaccinate
54 million people against Covid-19. This help is intended to assist with
the procurement of vaccines, the expansion of storage facilities, and the
distribution and deployment of vaccines. 37 The International Monetary
Fund has assisted Bangladesh by approving $732 million in emergency
35 U.S. Agency for Development (USAID), “United States Provides Additional $11.4 Million for
Urgent Covid-19 Assistance in Bangladesh,” Press Release, August 8, 2021 u https://www.usaid.
gov/bangladesh/press-releases/aug-10-2021-usaid-provides-additional-11-million-covid-funds.
36 “Covid: China Delivers 500,000 Doses of Sinopharm Vaccine to Bangladesh,” Business Standard,
May 12, 2021 u https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/covid-china-delivers500-000-doses-of-sinopharm-vaccine-to-bangladesh-121051200545_1.html.
37 World Bank, “Bangladesh Receives Over $1 Billion World Bank Financing for Vaccination and
Responding to Covid-19 Pandemic,” Press Release, April 21, 2021 u https://www.worldbank.org/
en/news/press-release/2021/04/14/bangladesh-receives-over-1-billion-world-bank-financing-forvaccination-and-responding-to-covid-19-pandemic.
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loans during the crisis. 38 However, this international assistance and
support is insufficient to combat the pandemic in a highly populated
country like Bangladesh.
Forecasting Economic Loss and a Recovery Strategy
Bangladesh was in a strong economic position before the pandemic,
with a minimal danger of overall and external debt difficulties. Nonetheless,
the debt it has incurred should be manageable as a result of previous
robust economic and fiscal policies, such as reduced dependence on aid
and prudent borrowing. Yet, to pay for increased health, education, and
infrastructure spending in the medium term, the government will need to
create more social and economic infrastructure and programs to support
people and businesses.
Specifically, the government should implement several comprehensive
budgetary policies to help the economy recover and reduce Covid-19’s
long-term economic impact. The most difficult tasks ahead are creating
employment opportunities and shifting the aggregate demand curve.
A significant increase in budgetary allocations to the healthcare and
education sectors is essential to combat future disasters. Businesses that
want to borrow money from abroad should get a credit guarantee from the
government. When expecting an economic downturn, the central bank
should extend the grace period for loans and allow current credit lines more
time to be repaid. When forecasting an economic downturn, the central
bank should exclude existing credit lines from repayment.
At the same time as many large, developed states are fighting Covid-19,
a small state like Bangladesh, with a population of 161 million people and
a new lower-middle-income status, has managed to reduce the pandemic’s
harm with limited resources. The government hopes that its mass
vaccination program and campaign to raise public awareness will continue
to protect the population against the worst effects of the pandemic. At this
stage, long-term lockdowns and the closure of major industries are not
viable options for Bangladesh, given that a large portion of the population
remains impoverished. Good governance, a well-structured healthcare
system, and citizen awareness are vital to keeping the spread of the deadly
virus under control. 
38 International Monetary Fund, “Helping Bangladesh Recover from Covid-19,” IMF
Country Focus, June 12, 2020 u https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/06/11/
na-06122020-helping-bangladesh-recover-from-covid-19.
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Vietnam’s Shifting Response to the Covid-19 Challenge
Paul Schuler
S
ince April 2021, perspectives on the effectiveness of Vietnam’s Covid-19
response have changed. Before, Vietnam’s near-total suppression of
the virus had analysts glowing about the country’s successful response.1
As of early November 2020, Vietnam had recorded only 1,207 total cases
and had gone 64 consecutive days without a recorded case of community
transmission.2 Based on these metrics, the country’s Covid-19 response
outperformed neighboring states such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and
Myanmar as well as much of the developed world. Vietnam’s success in
managing the health crisis translated to relative economic gains, avoiding
the declines suffered by these same neighbors. As a result, in 2020, Vietnam
overtook the Philippines in per capita income for the first time since
World War II.3
Then came April 2021 and the arrival of the Delta variant. With the
more contagious strain, clusters mushroomed throughout the country,
particularly in the economically vital Ho Chi Minh City metro area. From
July to September 2021, Vietnam attempted to respond and eliminate
Covid-19 through the same restrictive measures used to quell outbreaks
in 2020. Unfortunately, this time the strict measures suppressed economic
performance but not the disease, with Vietnam seeing a sharp 6.17% decline
in GDP in the third quarter of 2021.4 Economic strain as well as pressure
from business groups and international investors led Vietnam to lift its most
restrictive measures in Ho Chi Minh City in September, signaling the end of
the “Zero Covid” strategy.
paul schuler is an Associate Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy at the
University of Arizona (United States). His research focuses on political behavior and institutions in
single-party regimes and on Vietnam. He can be reached at <pschuler@arizona.edu>.
1 Todd Pollack et al., “Emerging Covid-19 Success Story: Vietnam’s Commitment to Containment,”
Our World in Data, March 5, 2021 u https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-vietnam.
2 World Health Organization, “Viet Nam Covid-19 Situation Report,” no. 16, November 5, 2020 u
https://www.who.int/vietnam/internal-publications-detail/covid-19-in-viet-nam-situation-report-16.
3 Fermin D. Adriano, “Why Are We Losing the Development Race?” Manila Times, October 22, 2020
https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/10/22/business/agribusiness/why-are-we-losing-in-thedevelopment-race/783624.
u
4 “Vietnam Posts Record GDP Slump in Q3 Due to Covid-19 Curbs,” Reuters, September 29, 2021 u
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnam-posts-record-gdp-slump-q3-due-covid-19curbs-2021-09-29.
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This essay discusses Vietnam’s evolving response to Covid-19, detailing
its successful strategies in 2020 and the undermining factors in 2021. It also
examines prospects for 2022, focusing on the population’s continued trust
in government response and the overall low degree of skepticism regarding
vaccination. As of November 2021, Vietnam seems unlikely to return to the
severe lockdowns of 2020 and early 2021. At the same time, it is unclear
just how fully the government will open the country and its economy given
the caution that still pervades some quarters of the Communist Party of
Vietnam and the emergence of new variants, such as Omicron.
Explaining Success in 2020
In 2020, the international media and Vietnam’s own citizenry lauded
the country for its strong, effective response to Covid-19. Vietnam had
managed to keep community transmissions to nearly zero, save for a small
cluster of outbreaks in Hai Duong and Quang Ninh provinces. Until the late
spring of 2021, Covid-19-related deaths remained negligible. Unlike other
successful public health strategies in East Asia, Vietnam’s approach was
remarkably low tech. Instead of sophisticated tracking apps, Vietnam used
targeted lockdowns, manual contact tracing, and mandatory quarantines of
anyone arriving from overseas or who had been in contact with individuals
that tested positive. Between January and May, more than 200,000 people
had been quarantined in government-run facilities.5
Vietnam’s accomplishment in keeping rates low sparked a debate on
why it succeeded using tools that failed other developing and developed
countries. Some argued that Vietnam’s robust neighborhood surveillance
system allowed it to implement effective contact tracing.6 Others pointed
to strong local governance institutions,7 communal loyalty, 8 previous
experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS),9 and increased
5 Pollack et al., “Emerging Covid-19 Success Story.”
6 Bill Hayton and Tro Ly Ngheo, “Vietnam’s Coronavirus Success is Built on Repression,” Foreign
Policy, May 12, 2020 u https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/12/vietnam-coronavirus-pandemicsuccess-repression.
7 Trang Mae Nguyen and Edmund Malesky, “Reopening Vietnam: How the Country’s Improving
Governance Helped It Weather the Covid-19 Pandemic,” Brookings Institution, May 20, 2020 u
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/05/20/reopening-vietnam-how-thecountrys-improving-governance-helped-it-weather-the-covid-19-pandemic.
8 Anna Frazetto, “Even the Pandemic Cannot Rattle Vietnam’s Outsourcing Strengths,”
Forbes, August 17, 2020 u https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/08/17/
even-the-pandemic-cannot-rattle-vietnams-outsourcing-strengths.
9 Huong Le Thu, “Vietnam: A Successful Battle Against the Virus,” Council on Foreign Relations,
April 30, 2020 u https://www.cfr.org/blog/vietnam-successful-battle-against-virus.
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use of social media.10 Alternative anecdotal arguments suggested that
the lack of gridlock arising from Vietnam’s single-party system and
state-controlled media facilitated a streamlined, unified response.11
While not mutually exclusive with some of these theories, and as this
author has argued elsewhere, trust is a vital ingredient in the country’s
response.12 Indeed, trust in the government and its response may result from
communal loyalty, governance improvements, or previous experience with
other epidemics. At the same time, Vietnam and China have for decades
consistently ranked as “high trust” societies.13 In survey after survey,
Vietnamese citizens report high levels of trust in the government and in
each other. While skeptics may suggest that these survey results could be
the product of falsification, high levels of interpersonal trust are less likely
to be influenced by fear of repression.
Why is trust important? Although Vietnam is a single-party country,
it is relatively more decentralized than other single-party states, such
as China.14 For this reason, policy implementation in Vietnam is often
uncoordinated and redundant, even when the single-party system delivers
central edicts quickly.15 In the context of Covid-19, uneven implementation
of an unpopular policy could have undermined Vietnam’s rigorous contact
tracing and quarantine measures, which were centerpieces of its 2020
strategy. As part of this policy, an F1 case—anyone who came into contact
with someone who had Covid-19 (an F0 case)—was required to undergo a
Covid-19 test and quarantine in a government-run facility (often a military
base) for fourteen days, even if they tested negative.16 Though the policy
was developed centrally by the Ministry of Health, the effectiveness of the
policy required both an accurate assessment of who was in contact with
F0 cases and diligent implementation by officials at extremely local levels
such as neighborhoods. If the policies were unpopular or if village and
10 Adam Fforde, “Vietnam and Covid-19: More Mark (Zuckerberg) than Marx,” Melbourne Asia
Review, October 29, 2020 u https://melbourneasiareview.edu.au/vietnam-and-covid-19-moremark-zuckerberg-than-marx.
11 See, for example, Mike Carre, “How Vietnam’s Authoritarian Government Succeeded at
Containing Covid-19,” PBS News Hour, June 9, 2020 u https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/
how-vietnams-authoritarian-government-succeeded-at-containing-covid-19.
12 Paul Schuler, “Vietnam in 2020: Controlling Covid and Dissent,” Asian Survey 61, no. 1 (2021): 90–98.
13 Kai-Ping Huang and Paul Schuler, “A Status Quo Theory of Generalized Trust,” Comparative Politics
51, no. 1 (2018): 121–32.
14 Edmund Malesky and Jonathan London, “The Political Economy of Development in China and
Vietnam,” Annual Review of Political Science 17 (2014): 395–419.
15 Vu Thanh Tu Anh, “Vietnam: Decentralization Amidst Fragmentation,” Journal of Southeast Asian
Economies 33, no. 2 (2016): 188–208; and Nguyen and Malesky, “Reopening Vietnam.”
16 Pollack et al., “Emerging Covid-19 Success Story.”
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neighborhood leaders were reluctant to implement the measures, F1 cases
could have avoided quarantine or testing. Therefore, trust in the necessity of
the policy as well as trust in one another and the government were vital for
the policy to work.
While we do not have direct evidence of the buy-in from local level
officials tasked with implementing the lockdown measures and quarantines,
survey results point to the importance of trust both in the public health
response and in the government as a whole among the public. According
to a survey conducted by the UN Development Programme and Mekong
Development Research Institute in 2020, 87% of respondents said the April
2020 lockdown was appropriately timed. Additionally, 89% of respondents
thought that health concerns rather than economic concerns should be the
main driver of the government’s Covid-19 response. This trust worked to
the government’s credit, with 96% responding that they were satisfied or
very satisfied with the actions of the national steering committee in charge
of the Covid-19 response in 2020.17
In short, Vietnam’s effective early response likely resulted from a rare
combination of factors—quick decision-making that was facilitated by a
single-party system in a society with high levels of trust in the government
and fellow citizens. Simply passing policies in an autocratic manner without
this trust would likely have been less successful.
What Changed in 2021?
Vietnam’s exceptionalism began to fade in April 2021 when community
transmission cases emerged and began to spread throughout the country.
Initially, the clusters stemmed from Vietnamese nationals returning from
overseas. However, by the end of April, community transmission became
the dominant form of spread. At this point, government leadership had
only recently passed into the hands of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh,
who officially took over on April 5. Chinh succeeded Nguyen Xuan Phuc,
who was elected president and who, together with Deputy Prime Minister
Vu Duc Dam, managed the response in 2020 through the National Steering
Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control.
In one of Phuc’s last acts as prime minister, he issued Directives 15,
16, and 19, which allowed localities to deploy varying levels of restrictions
17 “Citizens’ Opinions of and Experiences with Government Responses to Covid-19 Pandemic in
Vietnam: Findings from a Phone-Based Survey,” Mekong Development Research Institute and UN
Development Programme, December 2020.
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depending on the level of outbreak. These directives formed the basis for
Chinh’s management of the national response from July until September,
when the government, in coordination with the provincial leadership in the
south, imposed ever-stricter restrictions on mobility in and around Ho Chi
Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City was locked down completely from August
23 until September 30, when it then slightly eased restrictions. During
this period, many factories were shuttered, residents were unable to shop
for food, and migrant workers were not allowed to return home to other
provinces, causing immense hardship. For many, the lack of access to food
presented as much of a threat to life as Covid-19.
In early fall, facing outcries from citizens desperate to return home
as well as from businesses growing concerned about supply chain
interruptions, the government signaled an end to its Zero Covid strategy.
On September 30, the strict lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City was eased, and,
on October 11, the government effectively ended the Zero Covid strategy
with Resolution 128, entitled “Safe, Flexible, and Effective Control of
Covid-19 Outbreak.”18 Resolution 128 replaced the more restrictive decrees
with a color-coded system of zones, and it allowed provinces, districts, and
communes to open businesses and allow inter-provincial travel even in areas
where there were moderate levels of Covid-19 transmission. Essentially, this
policy represented an admission that the Zero Covid policy was not only
impractical but also inflicting a devastating impact on the economy. Initial
results suggest that there has been an economic rebound, but that Covid-19
is also virtually certain to remain prevalent in the near term.
What changed in 2021? In 2020, Vietnam’s ability to stop community
transmission at the local level allowed domestic travel and business
operations to continue relatively unfettered, save for some isolated
lockdown measures. As a result, the policies were popular and the
economy continued to function relatively well outside of tourism and
certain service sectors. Perhaps owing to the government transition and
confidence in the ability to squash outbreaks using these methods in
early 2021, Vietnam did not change its policies to meet the greater threat
presented by the Delta variant. There was no policy to “live with” Covid-19.
Furthermore, the government was slow to sign contracts to acquire
vaccines. Unfortunately, Vietnam’s mobility restrictions could not contain
the heightened transmissibility of the Delta variant. The devastating
18 World Health Organization, “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19): Situation Report,” no. 64, March
24, 2020 u https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200324sitrep-64-covid-19.pdf.
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impact wrought on food access and the economy during the Ho Chi Minh
City lockdowns essentially rendered Vietnam’s 2020 strategy untenable,
forcing the government into changing direction.
What Is the Way Forward?
What changes does this augur for the immediate future? Like many
other countries, Vietnam is better placed to live with Covid-19 in 2022 than
it was at the beginning of 2021. Most importantly, a large proportion of the
population is now vaccinated. Unlike some other countries in the region,
Vietnam has remarkably low vaccine hesitancy, leading to a rapid uptake
as the vaccine has become available.19 By mid-November 2021, more than
94% of adults over 18 had received at least one dose and 51% had received
two doses. Among the different vaccines available, 36% of the population
received AstraZeneca, 33% received Sinopharm, and 20% received Pfizer,
with the remaining share receiving a mixture of Sputnik, Abdala, and
Moderna, among others. If the vaccine rollout is able to reduce the spread
and fatality of Covid-19, this could allow the government to continue its
slow reopening.
Nevertheless, several important challenges remain. As of late 2021, the
emergence of Omicron raises concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine.
Omicron and other potential variants, of course, are not just a problem for
Vietnam, but they could spell an abrupt end to the policy of living with
Covid-19. Moreover, despite Vietnam’s attempt to reopen some businesses,
the prospects for international travel and tourism remain murky Though
Vietnam has reopened some travel destinations such as Phu Quoc to foreign
visitors, it is unclear when the country will fully open to international
travel. Until this happens, Vietnam’s tourism industry, which contributed
about 9.2% to Vietnam’s GDP in 2019, is likely to suffer.20 Finally, it is
unclear what the lasting effects of the strict lockdown measures will be
on Vietnam’s export-oriented industrial sector. While the government is
encouraging workers to return to work, many are reluctant, citing fears of
the virus and the possibility of once again being unable to return to their
19 Kairulanwar Zaini and Hoang Thi Ha, “Understanding the Selective Hesitancy towards Chinese
Vaccines in Southeast Asia,” ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, September 1, 2021 u https://www.iseas.
edu.sg/articles-commentaries/iseas-perspective/2021-115-understanding-the-selective-hesitancytowards-chinese-vaccines-in-southeast-asia-by-khairulanwar-zaini-and-hoang-thi-ha.
20 “Share of Direct GDP Contribution from the Tourism Sector in Vietnam from 2015 to 2019,”
Statista u https://www.statista.com/statistics/1077200/vietnam-share-tourism-sector-direct-gdp.
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home provinces.21 The degree to which the government can coax these
workers back to the factories will have important implications not only for
Vietnam’s economy but also for global supply chains.
Conclusion
Vietnam’s Covid-19 response, largely lauded as a success in 2020,
shifted dramatically as the country’s measures proved unable to forestall
the onslaught of the Delta variant. As of November 2021, Vietnam, like
much of the world outside of China, appeared to be shifting to a strategy
of living with Covid-19 instead of continuing its Zero Covid approach.
Nonetheless, Vietnam’s ability to delay community spread of Covid-19
until vaccines became widely available likely reduced the deadliness of the
virus that occurred in other countries. The effectiveness of this approach
was enabled by Vietnam’s relatively unique combination of a single-party
state, which was able to quickly coordinate national policy, and high levels
of interpersonal and government trust that were necessary to effectively
implement the response strategy. 
21 Sui-Lee Wee and Vo Kieu Bao Uyen, “As Holidays Near, Bosses Try to Coax Vietnam’s Workers
Back to Factories,” New York Times, November 12, 2021 u https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/
business/vietnam-workers-covid.html.
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The Socioeconomic Impacts of Covid-19 in Malaysia
Calvin Cheng
S
imilar to the experiences of several countries in the region, Malaysia
has endured resurgent waves of Covid-19 infections and the sporadic
reimposition of containment measures. Since the first case of Covid-19
was detected in Malaysia in January 2020, the country has experienced
three main waves of the virus and three major lockdown periods to date.
The first and second waves, which emerged in January and late February
2020 respectively, resolved with a relatively low caseload, in part due to
the nationwide movement controls enacted that March.1 However, a spike
in new cases in early October 2020 from the Sabah region of east Malaysia
launched a third wave. This new wave, exacerbated by the subsequent
emergence of the Delta variant, led policymakers to impose a nationwide
“total lockdown” in June 2021.2 As of August 26, 2021, new daily cases
reached an all-time high of 750 cases per million people—by far the highest
in the region at the time. This surge exerted heavy pressure on the national
healthcare system, but it also created greater urgency for policymakers to
accelerate the country’s vaccination program. Consequently, the share of
fully vaccinated individuals rose from under 47% at the end of August 2021
to 64% by the end of September 2021, allowing the Malaysian government
to gradually loosen movement restriction measures by October 2021
(Figure 1).3
Overall, the imposition of these containment measures—coupled
with external trade and tourism shocks—have had severe, wide-ranging
economic impacts on Malaysia’s economy, workers, and households. Despite
the unprecedented scale of the government’s economic stimulus measures,
calvin cheng is a Senior Analyst in the Economics, Trade and Regional Integration division at
the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia (Malaysia). His primary research interests
include economic growth and development, international trade, and social assistance. Some of his
recent work has focused on the unequal labor market impacts of the Covid-19 crisis in Malaysia as
well as on the economic responses to the pandemic. He can be reached at <calvin.ckw@isis.org.my>.
1 Jamal Hisham Hashim et al., “Covid-19 Epidemic in Malaysia: Epidemic Progression, Challenges,
and Response,” Frontiers in Public Health (2021) u https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/
fpubh.2021.560592/full.
2 Ragananthini Vethasalam, “Govt Has Means to Provide Stimulus Package, Say Experts,” Malaysian
Insight, May 31, 2021 u https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/318668.
3 Hannah Ritchie et al., “Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic,” Our World in Data u
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.
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FIGURE 1
Covid-19 Waves and Containment Measures in Malaysia
Relaxation of restrictions
Total lockdown in major states
Wave 3
Relaxation of restrictions
Relaxation of restrictions
Wave 2
Movement restrictions in
major states
Nationwide movement
restrictions imposed
Wave 1
Source: Data from Hannah Ritchie et al., “Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic,” Our World in Data u https://
ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.
the impacts of the pandemic have created longer-term “scarring” effects that
will take many years to resolve. The remainder of this essay is structured as
follows: the first section considers the impacts of the pandemic on Malaysia’s
economy and labor markets, the following section discusses the country’s
economic policy responses and their potential shortfalls, and the final section
concludes with a brief outlook for Malaysia’s recovery moving forward.
Economic Growth Impacts
The onset of the Covid-19 crisis has stalled Malaysia’s economic
growth and development by several years. In 2020, GDP plunged by 5.6%
compared to the preceding year—the largest single-year decline on record
since the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the second-largest decline
since Malaysia’s independence in 1957. Primarily driven by a rapid fall in
investment (fixed capital formation) and the export of goods and services,
this contraction in economic output returned Malaysia’s GDP to 2018 levels.
Into 2021, economic growth continued to be weighed down by a third
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wave of infections at the end of 2020 and the following round of movement
restrictions that culminated in a nationwide total lockdown in June 2021.
The reimposition of these strict lockdown measures severely delayed the
nascent economic recovery observed in the second half of 2020, postponing
earlier forecasts for recovery to pre-pandemic levels of GDP to 2022.
Overall, these pandemic-induced shocks to Malaysia’s GDP have
delayed its development target to surpass the World Bank’s GNI per capita
threshold for high-income economies. Before the onset of the pandemic,
the World Bank projected in 2018 that Malaysia was on track to cross the
high-income threshold by 2022.4 However, the collapse in Malaysia’s GDP
growth in 2020 has delayed this timeline by three years, with new baseline
projections indicating that Malaysia will not achieve high-income nation
status until 2025.5
Labor Market Effects and Poverty
Beyond economic growth, the Covid-19 crisis in Malaysia has devastated
workers. In March 2020, the month the first movement restrictions were
imposed, the headline unemployment rate rose to 3.9%—a figure higher
than the annual average rate recorded during the peak of the Asian financial
crisis in 1997 and the global financial crisis in 2008–9 (Figure 2). By May
2020, after two months of these policies, the headline unemployment rate
surged to 5.3%, the highest level in four decades. 6 More than a year later,
amid subsequent waves of Covid-19 and the sporadic reimposition of
movement restrictions, indicators of labor market health have been slow
to recover. The latest labor force survey data, from August 2021, indicates
that the unemployment rate is still elevated at multi-decade highs. On the
whole, compared to pre-pandemic levels, there were still roughly 249,500
additional unemployed workers and about 330,550 more persons outside the
labor force in August 2021.
Nonetheless, beyond the aggregates, a defining characteristic of
the Covid-19 crisis in Malaysia has been the unequal impacts of the
4 World Bank, Malaysia Economic Monitor: Realizing Human Potential (Kuala Lumpur: World Bank,
2018).
5 “World Bank Country and Lending Groups,” World Bank u https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.
org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups; and World Bank,
Aiming High: Navigating the Next Stage of Malaysia’s Development (Washington, D.C.: World Bank,
2021) u https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/35095.
6 Calvin Cheng, “Policies for the Future of Malaysia’s Youth” (presentation at the Merdeka Center
Youth Empowerment for Malaysia 2021 Online Webinar Series on “Post COVID-19 Malaysia:
Policies for Youth Economic Development,” June 25, 2021).
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FIGURE 2
Unemployment in Malaysia
Asian financial crisis
Global financial crisis
Covid-19 crisis
Source: Department of Statistics (Malaysia); and author’s estimates.
pandemic on vulnerable worker groups—in particular, youth, women, and
lesser-educated workers in blue-collar occupations. In the second quarter
of 2020, research suggests that women experienced two out of three of all
employment declines in that quarter.7 Similarly, younger workers (aged
15–34 years) faced an average fall in employment more than 4.5 times
higher than the overall decline, with younger women notably suffering
employment drops 5.6 times larger.8 These unequal impacts persisted into
2021, with the latest quarterly labor force survey data showing that while the
employment-to-population ratio for older workers aged 35 and above nearly
recovered to 2019 levels, the employment-to-population ratio for younger
workers remained well below pre-pandemic levels.9
7 Calvin Cheng, “Pushed to the Margins: The Unequal Impacts of Covid-19 on Vulnerable Malaysian
Workers,” Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, ISIS Policy Brief 7, no. 20
https://www.isis.org.my/2020/11/30/pushed-to-the-margins-the-unequal-impacts-of-the-covid-19crisis-on-marginalised-malaysian-workers.
8 Ibid.
9 Calvin Cheng, “Pushed to the Margins: The Unequal Impacts of Covid-19 on Vulnerable Malaysian
Workers” (presentation at the ISIS forum on “Fighting the Inequality Pandemic: Covid-19 and Its
Economic Impacts on Marginalised Worker Groups,” April 1, 2021).
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Young workers who managed to keep their jobs still face rates of
underemployment roughly twice as high as older workers.10 Furthermore,
the Covid-19 crisis has driven many younger workers outside the labor
force. Youth labor force participation rates for those aged 15–34 years
were still considerably lower in 2021 than before the pandemic, even
as these rates rose over the same period for workers older than 35 years.
This inequality in labor force experiences during the pandemic extends to
educational attainment and occupation. Less-educated workers and workers
in “lower-skilled” jobs (such as machine operators and trade workers) have
contended with immense employment losses, even as tertiary-educated
workers in higher-skilled, white-collar occupations (such as managers and
professionals) enjoyed employment gains over the same period.11
These unequal labor market impacts have had knock-on impacts on
the welfare of households across the country. A survey conducted by the
Malaysian Department of Statistics in 2020 suggested that about 234,000
Malaysian households have fallen below the national poverty line (about
$532 in household income per month) since the start of the pandemic.12
Absolute poverty (measured as a percentage of all households) increased
from 5.6% in 2019 to 8.4% in 2020. Incidence of hard-core poverty, officially
defined as households living below the food poverty line (a household
income of about $282 per month at the time of writing) rose from 0.4% in
2019 to 1.0% in 2020.13
An Overview of Malaysia’s Economic Policy Responses to Covid-19
In response to the economic crisis caused by Covid-19, the Malaysian
government took unprecedented measures to stimulate the economy and
alleviate the economic impacts of the pandemic. Since early 2020, the
government has allocated an estimated 530 billion Malaysian ringgits
($130 billion) in fiscal and non- or quasi-fiscal measures across eight
economic stimulus packages.14 The aggregate size of the stimulus packages is
10 Cheng, “Policies for the Future of Malaysia’s Youth.”
11 Ibid.
12 “Household Income Estimates and Incidence of Poverty Report,” Department of Statistics
(Malaysia), Press Release, August 6, 2021 u https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/pd
fPrev&id=VTNHRkdiZkFzenBNd1Y1dmg2UUlrZz09.
13 Ibid.
14 “Aid Package, Economic Stimulus Packages Help People and Economy Survive during Covid-19
Pandemic,” Ministry of Finance (Malaysia), Press Release, July 29, 2021 u https://www.mof.gov.
my/en/news/press-citations/aid-package-economic-stimulus-packages-help-people-and-economysurvive-during-covid-19-pandemic.
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about 37.5% of GDP—four times larger than the stimulus packages launched
during the 2008–9 global financial crisis.15 However, it is important to note
that this headline 530 billion ringgit figure is artificially inflated by the
inclusion of non- and quasi-fiscal measures. An analysis from the Institute
of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia of stimulus package data
obtained from the numerous announcement speeches suggests that up to a
whopping 83% of the sum consists of non- or quasi-fiscal measures, such as
loan moratoriums and pension withdrawal measures. Only 93 billion ringgit
($22.3 billion), or 6.5% of GDP, are made up of fiscal spending measures like
wage subsidies and cash assistance.16
Across all eight of the main stimulus packages, Malaysia’s economic
response has mostly focused on five main policy areas: loan moratoriums,
business financing assistance, pension-related measures, wage and
employment subsidies, and cash assistance.
Loan moratoriums. First announced in 2020 and then extended on a
limited opt-in basis in 2021, loan moratoriums aim to provide temporary
cash-flow relief by allowing borrowers (both individuals and businesses)
to postpone the repayment of loans to licensed financial institutions. The
costs of this delay in repayment are borne by the financial sector. Loan
moratoriums make up about 25% of the aggregate estimated value of the
economic stimulus packages.17
Business financing assistance. This category includes numerous loans,
loan guarantees, and lending facilities for businesses that are administered
by government-linked development finance institutions. In one program,
for example, government-owned financial guarantee insurer Danajamin
Nasional Berhad will guarantee 80% of the loan amount for businesses.
Several financing assistance measures aimed at small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) have also been launched, such as the Special Relief
Facility, which was established by the central bank and administered
through licensed banks. More targeted financing has also emerged, such
as the SME Automation and Digitalisation Facility, which is designed to
incentivize technology adoption by SMEs. Collectively, rough estimates
15 Shankaran Nambiar, “Malaysia and the Global Crisis: Impact, Response, and Rebalancing
Strategies,” Asian Development Bank Institute, ADBI Working Paper Series 148, August 26, 2009.
16 Calvin Cheng and Yohen Arulthevan, “Malaysia’s Covid-19 Economic Stimulus Packages,” Institute
of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia (forthcoming).
17 Ibid.
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suggest that this category makes up about 20% of the aggregate value of the
stimulus packages.18
Pension-related measures. This category includes a few initiatives
(including i-Citra, i-Sinar, and i-Lestari) implemented across 2020 and 2021
that allow Malaysian workers to temporarily draw down their Employees
Provident Fund pension savings to fund their current expenditure needs.
This fund is a compulsory pension scheme for Malaysian private-sector
workers. Estimates suggest that pension-related measures consist of about
15% of the total stimulus package value.
Wage and employment subsidies. Measures in this category include the
Employment Retention Programme, Wage Subsidy Programme, and the
Penjana Kerjaya hiring incentives implemented by the country’s social security
organization, PERKESO. These measures are intended to make it easier for
businesses to retain workers and pay salaries, while hiring incentives are
designed to subsidize employers for hiring new workers. In total, this category is
estimated to account for more than 5% of the aggregate stimulus package value.
Cash assistance. The main cash-related measures included three rounds
of new income-targeted, unconditional cash transfers implemented in
2020–21 under the Bantuan Prihatin Nasional (BPN) program. BPN was
aimed broadly toward lower-income and lower-middle-income households.
The Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (recently renamed Bantuan Keluarga
Malaysia in the 2022 budget) provides supplementary top-ups to the
national unconditional cash transfer program as part of Malaysia’s social
safety net.19 Other measures in this category include one-off cash payments
to vulnerable groups, such as the Bantuan Khas Covid-19 program, and
smaller transfers to specific groups, such as tourism and hospitality-sector
workers and university students. Altogether, cash assistance makes up about
5% of the stimulus packages announced to date.
Shortfalls in Malaysia’s Economic Response
Despite the unprecedented size of the fiscal stimulus measures,
Malaysia’s economic response has been mostly insufficient in alleviating
the economic and societal impacts. The labor market impacts of the
pandemic have been severe and persistent even with the stimulus, with
labor market slack and employment indicators showing that recovery
18 Cheng and Arulthevan, “Malaysia’s Covid-19 Economic Stimulus Packages.”
19 “Budget 2022 Highlights,” Ministry of Finance (Malaysia), Press Citation, October 30, 2021 u
https://www.mof.gov.my/en/news/press-citations/budget-2022-highlights.
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from Covid-19 has been both slow and uneven. In general, an economic
recovery for workers ultimately requires two components: continuous
fiscal support and high vaccination rates. Before Malaysia achieved a
sufficiently high vaccination rate in the fourth quarter of 2021 (79%
as of December), 20 Malaysian policymakers repeatedly wrestled with a
perceived “lives versus livelihoods” trade-off—continually weighing the
economic costs of imposing movement restrictions with the need to curb
the spread of infection. This false dilemma and a reluctance to leverage
fiscal tools precluded a strategy of using steady, targeted fiscal support to
offset the economic costs of movement restrictions while buying time for
national vaccination efforts to make progress. This section reflects on a
few major issues with Malaysia’s Covid-19 economic response.
The first issue is the overall size of the fiscal response. As previously
mentioned, focusing solely on fiscal measures, Malaysia’s spending
is relatively small compared to other countries in Southeast Asia.
Back-of-the-envelope estimates based on publicly available information
suggest that Malaysia’s fiscal response measures are the second smallest in
percentage of GDP terms after Vietnam’s among the major economies of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), despite having far more
cumulative cases of Covid-19 per capita than any other country in the bloc.21
Evidence suggests that higher fiscal stimulus can improve the effectiveness
of movement restriction measures22 while alleviating labor market impacts.23
Indeed, International Labour Organization analyses indicate that, on
average, a 1% of GDP increase in fiscal stimulus raises working hours
by 0.3 percentage points.24 More forceful use of fiscal stimulus in the
pandemic’s early stages would have led to more effective containment
measures, diminished the long-term scarring impacts of Covid-19 labor
market disruptions, and overall engendered a quicker, more inclusive
economic recovery.
The second is the piecemeal and ad hoc nature of the economic
response, compounded by policy lags. Due to the inadequacy and
20 Ritchie et al., “Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic.”
21 Calvin Cheng, “Fiscal Size Matters Pt. 2: Pemerkasa Plus and Malaysia’s Economic Stimulus
Packages,” Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, July 1, 2021.
22 Al-mouksit Akim and Firmin Ayivodji, “Interaction Effect of Lockdown with Economic and Fiscal
Measures against Covid-19 on Social-Distancing Compliance: Evidence from Africa,” SSRN,
June 7, 2020, https://ssrn.com/abstract=3621693.
23 International Labour Organization, “ILO Monitor: Covid-19 and the World of Work,” 8th ed.,
October 27, 2021.
24 Ibid.
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limitations of existing automatic stabilizers, the economic response in
Malaysia was largely driven by discretionary fiscal policy. After the first
major stimulus package announced in March 2020—the largest package
by far—Malaysian policymakers took a “wait-and-see” approach, relying
on ad hoc announcements of new fiscal stimulus measures on an as-needed
basis. This approach means that there were often significant lags between
when economic activity deteriorated and when new fiscal measures were
announced. Further, even when the government announced new measures,
months often passed before the funds were available to recipients. For
instance, during the total lockdown announced at the end of May 2021, at
the peak of the virus’s third wave, it was not until the end of June that new
fiscal support measures were announced (the Pemulih stimulus package),
and not until August that low-income recipients received their first tranche
of cash transfers under the Bantuan Khas Covid-19 initiatives.25 For
workers, households, and businesses heavily affected by the crisis, this lag
created a pervasive uncertainty regarding the level of fiscal support the
government would continue to provide in the medium-term. Committing
to larger, automatic support programs that offer longer-term fiscal support
until economic conditions recover to pre-crisis levels would offer greater
certainty and better safeguard the welfare of vulnerable workers and
families throughout the pandemic.
The third issue pertains to gaps in employment-related measures in
alleviating the labor market disruptions of the pandemic. Both Malaysia’s
Employment Retention Programme and Wage Subsidy Programme met
with problems regarding benefit adequacy and coverage for self-employed
and informal workers. In contrast, the United States’ Coronavirus Aid,
Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) extended some level of
federally funded unemployment compensation (Pandemic Unemployment
Assistance) to independent contractors, and the United Kingdom’s
Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) offered a percentage of
monthly profits to self-employed workers.26 The Malaysian government, in
comparison, did not meaningfully extend protections under employment
retention programs nor through the national employment insurance
25 “Highlights of the Pemulih Package,” Edge Markets, June 28, 2021 u https://www.theedgemarkets.
com/article/highlights-economic-recovery-and-peoples-protection-package.
26 U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “Guide to Independent Contractors’ CARES Act Relief,” October 13,
2020 u https://www.uschamber.com/security/pandemic/guide-to-independent-contractors-caresact-relief; and “Coronavirus: Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS),” Low Incomes
Tax Reform Group, October 4, 2021 u https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/coronavirus-guidance/
coronavirus-self-employment-income-support-scheme-seiss.
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system to cover a wider group of affected workers. Fully extending
protections to self-employed or nonstandard workers through a temporary
federally funded expansion in unemployment insurance would have
benefited millions of workers while reducing the impact of Covid-19 on
labor markets.27
Outlook and Conclusion
As of the time of writing, Malaysia’s vaccination rates have climbed to
among the highest in Southeast Asia. Containment measures are gradually
being lifted across the country. Google Mobility report data for the end of
December 2021 showed that visits to retail outlets, grocery stores, and transit
stations have begun to recover to baseline levels.28 Additionally, in its latest
Economic Outlook report, the Malaysian finance ministry expected GDP
growth to recover to pre-pandemic levels by 2022. For many Malaysians,
even as the emergence of the Omicron variant creates greater uncertainty
regarding the recovery outlook, a return to a “new normal” economic and
social life may be within reach.29
Yet, for the millions of other Malaysians who have borne the brunt of the
pandemic’s impacts, full recovery could take many more years. Even when
GDP growth recovers to pre-pandemic levels, much of the socioeconomic
damage from Covid-19 will take far longer to restore. A significant degree
of slack in the labor market will likely remain well beyond 2022. For
many younger workers, a return to pre-pandemic levels of employment
and participation will take years, while the long-term scarring effects of
unemployment will persist for decades. Likewise, the rise in poverty and
vulnerability caused by Covid-19 will prove difficult to alleviate. As such,
even as Malaysia looks toward moving into a phase of recovery, much work
remains before a truly inclusive and sustainable recovery can be realized. 
27 Cheng, “Policies for the Future of Malaysia’s Youth.”
28 Google, “Covid-19 Community Mobility Report,” December 25, 2021.
29 Ministry of Finance (Malaysia), Economic Outlook 2022 (Kuala Lumpur, October 29, 2021) u
https://budget.mof.gov.my/pdf/2022/economy/economy-2022.pdf.
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The Covid-19 Pandemic and Health Policy Change
in the Philippines
Azad Singh Bali and Björn Dressel
O
ver the past decade, healthcare systems in the Asia-Pacific region
have made significant strides in their efforts to achieve universal
health coverage. There are, however, many ongoing challenges in these
systems that relate to access, financial protection, and strengthening public
health. These challenges were brought into sharp relief by the SARS-CoV-2,
or Covid-19, pandemic that caught most governments unaware and
inadequately prepared. Governments across the world have had to introduce
changes to their health systems to shore up weaknesses as they respond to
the pandemic. Measures have included, for example, increasing funding,
introducing a spectrum of regulatory measures to manage the demand for
services, and playing a central role in coordination, among others. This essay
describes the extent and nature of changes in the Philippines’ healthcare
system that have been introduced in response to the pandemic. It looks at
the extent to which these changes are relatively new or a continuation of
past trends and existing universal coverage reforms.
Change in Healthcare Systems: Moving Past the Status Quo
Healthcare systems, defined as key actors and institutions involved in
the production and delivery of healthcare services, are resistant to change.
Most actors and institutions in the healthcare system have incentives
to maintain the status quo, making significant departures rare and often
challenging, as the sector is characterized by entrenched interests, dominant
ideas, and powerful veto players. These factors create a system of incentives
that promote policy stasis and impede change. However, large events (such
as pandemics, among others), often described as focusing events, can
azad singh bali is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and holds a joint appointment at the Crawford
School of Public Policy and the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National
University (Australia). His research focuses on comparative public policy with an emphasis on health
policy in Asia. He can be reached at <azadsingh.bali@anu.edu.au>.
björn dressel is an Associate Professor and Director of Research and Impact at the Crawford
School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (Australia). His research is concerned
with issues of comparative constitutionalism, governance, and public-sector reform in Asia. He can be
reached at <bjoern.dressel@anu.edu.au>.
note u The authors acknowledge comments and feedback from Bernardo Cielo II on earlier versions
of this essay.
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galvanize the attention of societal actors and are known to temporarily
lower barriers that impede and constrain policy change. Further, the more
proximate a sector is to the epicenter of a crisis, the greater the propensity
for change. Given the inherent policy stability that characterizes healthcare
systems, to what extent has the pandemic resulted in significant policy
change?
It is important to clarify what is meant by policy change. Change can be
thought of in terms of Howlett and Cashore’s taxonomy that distinguishes
between policy goals and the means to achieve them. Further, the taxonomy
distinguishes between change at a macro level (e.g., new ideas or actors or
institutions), meso level (e.g., new programs), and micro level (e.g., calibrations
to existing settings of current programs), as illustrated in Table 1.1 Using this
approach, a significant change is defined as one that occurs at the macro
or meso level—that is, change in policy goals or ideas or new programs or
agencies established in response to the pandemic. By contrast, micro-level
changes in terms of regular policy calibrations are frequent and routine, and
as such, do not generally amount to significant differences.
As healthcare systems are complex, we focus on five key aspects
of them.2 First, governance is an overarching function that comprises
TABLE 1
Conceptualizing Policy Change in Healthcare Systems
Policy ends
Policy means
Macro:
Policy level
Meso:
Program level
Micro:
Specific settings
Policy goals
Program objectives
Policy settings
• Extending coverage
to the informal sector
• Introducing Covid-19
in benefit list
Specific policy tools
Policy calibration
• Universal health
coverage
Types of policy tools
• Market-based tools
• Non-contributory
insurance
• Change in the level of
subsidies or funds
Source: Adapted from Michael Howlett and Benjamin Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem in
the Study of Policy Change: Understanding Policy Change as a Methodological Problem,” Journal of
Comparative Policy Analysis 11, no. 1 (2009): 33–46.
1 Michael Howlett and Benjamin Cashore, “The Dependent Variable Problem in the Study of Policy
Change: Understanding Policy Change as a Methodological Problem,” Journal of Comparative
Policy Analysis 11, no. 1 (2009): 33–46.
2 Azad Singh Bali, Alex He, and M. Ramesh, “Covid-19 and Health Policy: Policy Change and
Trajectory,” Policy & Society (forthcoming 2022).
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providing direction and coordinating disparate public and private activities
in the sector. The vast stakeholders and resources that go into the sector
require a robust framework to provide stewardship to key actors and
coordinate their efforts. Second, provision refers to the delivery of a range
of healthcare services through public or private providers and organizing
them in a manner that leads them to serve the public rather than their
own interests. Third, financing involves establishing and managing risk
pools to ensure that healthcare remains affordable to households. Fourth,
healthcare systems require a viable system for paying providers that avoids
both undersupply and oversupply of services. Fifth, such systems require a
robust regulatory framework to ensure that patients are protected and that
healthcare markets function effectively.
The Philippines’ Healthcare System
The Philippines relies on a combination of public and private
providers to deliver healthcare services. About 60% of hospitals are
privately owned and operated, and a majority of the remaining public
hospitals are administered by local government units (LGUs) that operate
at the level of provinces, cities, and villages. Total health expenditure in
the Philippines is about 4% of GDP, relatively lower than the 5% average
in similar middle-income economies. Despite a formal social health
insurance program introduced in 1995 that covers most of the population,
about 50% of total health spending continues to be paid for privately,
largely through out-of-pocket payments. Government subsidies (by
central and local governments) and social insurance payments account
for about a third of all healthcare spending. Private insurance plays a
relatively small role in the Philippines’ system. While the Department
of Health is tasked with providing overarching policy direction and
stewardship to the sector, in practice the government has limited policy
instruments to actively intervene and coordinate the sector. 3 The problem
is aggravated by the absence of a regulatory or governance framework to
manage private providers, most of whom generate their revenue through
user fees collected directly from patients.
The Philippine healthcare system has experienced many reforms since
the country’s return to democracy in 1987. These include efforts to make
the system more responsive to patients, the expansion of social health
3 World Health Organization (WHO), Philippines Health System Review (Geneva: WHO, 2018) u
https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/207506.
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insurance, and the devolution of health service delivery to the LGUs. It is,
however, not uncommon for successive administrations to largely repackage
elements of previous reforms or introduce incremental changes. The most
recent changes were articulated in the Universal Health Care Act in 2019.
This law envisions the implementation of a series of reforms over at least six
years targeted at strengthening health service delivery, health financing, and
the performance accountability of health services to the general population
at the national and local levels. There has, however, been limited, if any,
increase in public funding to support these reforms.
In recent years, there have been efforts to hold hospitals and
healthcare providers accountable and ensure that they remain responsive
to patients. This includes measures such as mandating “no extra billing”
(i.e., the entire hospital bill is paid for by the insurance mechanisms),
but these are difficult to enforce and are resisted fiercely even by publicly
owned hospitals. A World Health Organization report in 2018 concluded
that, PhilHealth, the social health insurance agency, “does not negotiate
more reasonable prices with providers based on patient volumes and has
no policy initiative to control hospital and physician fees and balance
billing practices.”4 The challenge, however, is not unique to the Philippines
and is characteristic of the complexity of designing and implementing
effective provider payment mechanisms. 5
Philippine Healthcare System Changes during the Pandemic
The interventions used to manage the Covid-19 pandemic in the
Philippines have been similar to those in other low- and middle-income
countries in the Asia-Pacific region: a series of strict lockdowns layered
with measures to reduce the demand on the healthcare system, such as
border closures and delaying elective surgeries, among others. The overall
response, however, has been marked by initial delays in contact tracing and
mass testing, a slow vaccine rollout, and an overwhelmed medical system,
given that there have been several waves of infections (so far in August 2020,
April and September 2021, and January 2022).
Since Covid-19’s onset, the Philippines has reported about 3 million cases
and 50,000 related deaths as of January 2022. The Philippines’ cumulative
deaths per capita due to infections—467 per million people (as of early
4 WHO, Philippines Health System Review, 194.
5 M. Ramesh and Azad S. Bali, Health Policy in Asia: A Policy Design Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2021).
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January 2022)—is one of the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, although it is
significantly lower than in North America or Europe.6 A vaccination program
began in March 2021 but has been marred by delays in availability and has
been implemented at a relatively slower pace than in other countries in the
region. As of January 2022, about half the population is fully vaccinated.
Provision of services. Policy efforts focused on increasing testing
capacity nationwide at the beginning of 2020. Prior to the onset of
the pandemic, the only laboratory in the Philippines capable of safely
conducting Covid-19 Real-Time PCR testing (a biosafety level 3 laboratory)
was in the Department of Health’s Research Institute of Tropical Medicine.
The number of Real-Time PCR testing laboratories has gradually increased
over the past two years, and there are currently 191 PhilHealth-accredited
Covid-19 testing laboratories in the Philippines.7
The Department of Health also made changes to how hospitals
were managed. Private rooms in hospitals were converted into ward
accommodations to expand bed capacity. Non-health facilities, such as
Rizal Memorial Stadium, schools, motels, and hostels were converted into
temporary treatment and monitoring facilities. There were issues, however,
in securing accreditation from PhilHealth, with many of the facilities failing
to meet the minimum quality standards for community isolation units.
Financing of healthcare. A defining feature of the Philippines’
health system is that most healthcare expenditures are financed through
out-of-pocket payments, and this has been evident during the Covid-19
pandemic as well. Despite reform efforts to improve access to health services
over the past decade, risk-pooling mechanisms remain weak. While most of
the population is covered by PhilHealth, patients continue to face high direct
costs. No significant changes in how healthcare is financed have occurred
during the pandemic; that is, for example, there have been no changes to
contribution rates or the expansion of voluntary private insurance. The
increased funding allotted to the sector because of the pandemic flowed
through the healthcare system along established mechanisms. This
entrenched path dependency that characterizes the sector has prevailed in
how health services have been financed.
Payment of health services. PhilHealth changed the rules for payment
of Covid-19 cases several times over the past two years but made no
6 Hannah Ritchie, “Philippines: Coronavirus Pandemic Country Profile,” Our World in Data u
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/philippines.
7 PhilHealth, “List of Accredited Health Facilities,” September 30, 2021 u https://www.philhealth.
gov.ph/partners/providers/institutional/map.
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radical departures from the past. The first package created only covered
up to 15,000 Philippine pesos for an isolation period of two weeks. Once
more information about the virus and how to manage it became available,
PhilHealth developed case rates to cover costs for treating varying levels of
severity at different facility levels (from community isolation units to apex
hospitals). These policies have a “no copayment” provision for higher rates
(ranging from 22,500 to 786,000 Philippine pesos), however, preliminary
reports suggest that this policy is not being fully enforced. As a result, a
retroactive policy was created to provide full financial risk protection for
all healthcare workers and hospital admissions until April 15, 2020. This
scheme is paid as a fee-for-service based on the actual charges incurred at
hospitals. In a typical admission, hospital expenses are covered by a mix of
PhilHealth and out-of-pocket expenditure. Private insurers cover a portion
of the cost of hospitalization on a fee-for-service basis, but overall this has
played a relatively small role during the pandemic. In 2021, PhilHealth
coverage was further extended to include a vaccine injury package to reduce
vaccine hesitancy and a basic home isolation benefit package to cover mild
and asymptomatic patients eligible for home isolation.
At the start of the pandemic, PhilHealth implemented the Interim
Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) that allowed access to up to 100% of
historically paid claims to hospitals for the first quarter of 2020. The IRM
fund was set at 30 billion Philippine pesos with the intent of creating a more
flexible payment arrangement in anticipation of a Covid-19 surge. Fifteen
billion Philippine pesos were paid in advance to accredited healthcare
institutions. The IRM, however, became the subject of controversy, which
led to its eventual suspension in August 2020. 8 To replace the IRM, in April
2021, PhilHealth initiated a debit-credit payment method, which is a tranche
payment system that allows providers and facilities access to a portion of
their in-process claims pending validation.9
Governance and regulations. In 2020, the Department of Health
created the One Hospital Command Center, which coordinates the use of
critical care services in hospitals and relevant facilities and manages most
hospital admissions in the country. The Inter-Agency Task Force for the
Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the National
8 See Bonz Magsambol, “PhilHealth Suspends IRM amid Corruption Allegations,” Rappler, August
13, 2020 u https://www.rappler.com/nation/philhealth-suspends-irm-amid-corruption-allegations.
9 Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (Philippines),
“Resolution 111,” April 22, 2021 u https://doh.gov.ph/sites/default/files/health-update/20210422IATF-RESO-111-RRD.pdf.
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Task Force against Covid (NTF) have served as the main interagency
bodies to establish preparedness, monitor the situation, and ensure efficient
government responses at the national level. This is done, for instance, via
testing and quarantine protocols, alert levels, funeral protocols, and even
regulation of donations.10 LGUs, however, are afforded freedom to manage
their own cities at their discretion as long as they conform with IATF and
NTF resolutions. Significant efforts to strengthen service delivery networks
have also arisen, with many LGUs entering into agreements with other
nearby LGUs to facilitate referrals across municipalities and cities.
During the pandemic, the national government has introduced
regulatory practices to assist with the management and mitigation of the
virus. These policies have included introducing price freezes on personal
protective equipment and regulating costs for Covid-19 testing. In addition,
the Department of Health created a regulatory sandbox for telemedicine to
encourage the development of telemedicine among providers and encourage
its use among the populace, thus providing safe healthcare while alleviating
some burden on healthcare facilities.11 The IATF has established virus alert
levels with associated restrictions and quarantine protocols for the population.
The main regulatory hurdle in the Philippine health system continues to
be limited policy instruments to manage private hospitals, which are poorly
regulated. The funding received by these hospitals from the government
(intermediated via social health insurance programs such as PhilHealth) is
far too meager for the government to impose conditions or require that they
meet certain standards of care. This is layered with limited health policy
capacity—that is, expertise at different levels of government and across agencies
in managing health policies. These problems are not unique to the Philippines
but are also characteristic of most healthcare systems in the region.12
Conclusion
The Philippines has introduced several healthcare reform efforts over
the past decade but has experienced limited success in creating effective
10 For a full list of resolutions, see Department of Health (Philippines), “Covid-19 Inter-Agency Task
Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases Resolutions” u https://doh.gov.ph/
COVID-19/IATF-Resolutions.
11 Bernardo Cielo II and Pura Angela Co, “Bridging the Digital Divide: Early Reflections
in Scaling Up Telemedicine in the Philippines during the Covid-19 Pandemic,” Health
Systems Governance Collaborative, February 3, 2021 u https://hsgovcollab.org/en/blog/
bridging-digital-divide-early-reflections-scaling-telemedicine-philippines-during-covid-19.
12 Ramesh and Bali, Health Policy in Asia.
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risk-pooling arrangements and reducing out-of-pocket expenditure on
healthcare. The expectation that a significant public health crisis such as
that caused by Covid-19 would accelerate reform or drive change in the
Philippines’ healthcare system has not borne out in the changes introduced
over the past two years.
Returning to Howlett and Cashore’s distinction between macro, meso,
and micro policy changes, we conclude that changes took place principally
at the micro or meso levels involving changes to existing policy tools, such
as increased funding or coordination. Similar to other countries in the
region, in the Philippines the crisis has not contributed to a significant
change in the healthcare system.13 The expansion in the provision of services
and coordination are largely trends already underway in healthcare systems
across the Asia-Pacific. There has been limited, if any, notable change in
the underlying ideas behind how services should be organized or financed
or in the expansion of private insurance, given the prevalence of high
out-of-pocket payments and the actors and interests in the sector.
What explains these limited changes? The pandemic is not the first
public health crisis for the Philippines or the region. But while the intensity
and duration of the Covid-19 pandemic is significantly greater than past
crises, including the 2005 avian influenza (H5N1) and 2009 swine flu
(H1NI) outbreaks, the pandemic appears not to have passed the threshold
of a focusing event that would lower the constraints that impede reforms.
Differently put, the pandemic drew stark attention to the shortcomings of
the healthcare systems in the Philippines and in many countries, and it
created favorable political conditions for addressing them, but they were not
sufficient to overcome the forces that entrench the status quo. These forces
include established policy legacies and shared interests of key stakeholders
that benefit from existing arrangements. This is particularly true in the case
of the Philippines, which has struggled to fully implement its ambitious
provider payment reforms. Healthcare providers (particularly hospitals)
retain considerable influence and resist changes that undermine their
material interests. At the same time, PhilHealth and other government
agencies do not have the needed policy capacity nor the political support
to foster systemic changes. Given such structural issues, many of which
predate the Covid-19 crisis, we thus expect challenges to the Philippines’
healthcare sector to persist in the years to come. 
13 Bali, He, and Ramesh, “Covid-19 and Health Policy.”
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Covid-19 and Papua New Guinea: The Story So Far
Benjamin Day
T
he “perfect storm” that health officials had been dreading arrived
belatedly in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in September 2021. By the end
of October, mass burials of hundreds of bodies were being planned in Port
Moresby, PNG’s capital and largest city. Morgues across the country were
filled beyond capacity. Hospitals had run out of oxygen and other supplies.
And as more and more health workers tested positive for Covid-19, health
services were being scaled back to cope with the pandemic.
The storm was supposed to arrive eighteen months earlier. But after
PNG’s first confirmed Covid-19 case was recorded in March 2020, it took
over four months until the first official death was recorded. It took another
full year before PNG weathered its first serious wave of infections, from
March to May 2021. Yet this outbreak also petered out earlier than expected.
This dynamic, whereby the virus repeatedly failed to match
expectations of its impact, ensured that “Covid-19’s manifestation in Papua
New Guinea was fundamentally different from that in other countries.”1 It
has also fed into high levels of vaccine hesitancy. Given PNG’s stressed and
poorly funded health system, the limiting factor in the country’s Covid-19
response was widely expected to be the availability and distribution of
vaccines. Instead, the more pressing challenge has been the extraordinarily
high level of vaccine hesitancy.
By the end of October 2021, well into the country’s most serious wave of
infections, less than 2% of Papua New Guineans had been fully vaccinated.2
“It’s very concerning, we’ve had a lot of deaths,” acknowledged PNG health
minister Jelta Wong as the scale of the outbreak became clear. “We were
our own worst enemy, we became complacent, we started to listen to people
benjamin dayis a Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of
Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University (Australia). His research explores the role of
political leaders in foreign policy decision-making, especially in relation to international development
policy. Dr. Day worked on health sector reform at the Papua New Guinea Department of Health
between 2007 and 2010. He can be reached at <ben.day@anu.edu.au>.
1 David Troolin, “Heterotopia in Melanesia,” in Covid-19: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses,
Ideological Solutions, ed. J. Michael Ryan (London: Routledge, 2020), 71.
2 Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics cited in this article relating to vaccination rates, confirmed
cases, and confirmed deaths are taken from Edouard Mathieu et al., “Coronavirus (Covid-19)
Pandemic,” Global Data Change Lab, Our World in Data u https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.
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on Facebook.”3 In November 2021, a vaccination forecasting model for the
Pacific developed by the Lowy Institute projected that, by the middle of
2026, only 36% of the population over the age of twelve in PNG would be
fully vaccinated.4
What makes PNG such an outlier? Understanding the story of Covid-19
in PNG, both to this point and into the future, requires tracing three
separate yet interwoven threads: the delayed onset of the crisis in PNG, the
already vulnerable state of PNG’s health system, and the unique drivers of
vaccine hesitancy.
Year One: Crisis Delayed
PNG’s first confirmed Covid-19 case was announced on March 20,
2020. PNG authorities responded swiftly and decisively. Just two days later,
Prime Minister James Marape announced a two-week state of emergency.
Nonessential workers were ordered to stay home, schools and businesses
were shut down, and travel between provinces was prohibited except for
essential purposes. The National Operations Centre was rapidly established
as an emergency operations hub, headed by David Manning, the police
commissioner, who was appointed emergency controller.5 Donor partners,
whose contributions collectively comprise around 20% of total health system
expenditure in PNG, met to coordinate contributions to the emergency
response. Yet alongside mobilizing additional resources and personal
protective equipment, donors were also making plans to pause or limit their
programs and demobilize staff, even chartering planes to evacuate them. By
the end of March, most expatriate development workers had left PNG.
Parliament was recalled on April 2, in line with constitutional
requirements following the declaration of a state of emergency. The sitting
produced three key outcomes. First, parliament voted for a two-month
extension of the state of emergency. Second, various emergency measures
were passed to facilitate the pandemic response. Third, a stimulus
package of 5.6 billion kina (5% of GDP)—later adjusted to 5.7 billion kina
3 Natalie Whiting, “PNG Health Services Struggling to Cope with Delta Outbreak,” ABC News
(Australia), October 28, 2021 u https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/png-health-servicesstruggling-to-cope-with-delta-outbreak/100568298.
4 Alexandre Dayant, “Forecasting Vaccination in the Pacific,” Lowy Institute, Interpreter, November
22, 2021 u https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/forecasting-vaccination-pacific.
5 Later, following the passage of the National Pandemic Act 2020, this hub became the National
Control Centre, under the leadership of the controller (a post still held by Manning). The National
Control Centre maintains an informative website at https://covid19.info.gov.pg.
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(approximately $1.6 billion)—was announced. The package included
1.5 billion kina in deficit financing from international lenders (mostly the
International Monetary Fund) and 2.5 billion kina through the issuance of
domestic bonds. PNG’s precarious fiscal position meant only around 10%
of the package (originally 500 million kina, later adjusted to 600 million
kina) was additional spending, and just under half of this “direct support
package” was for health and security measures (280 million kina), including
60 million kina for preventive health.6
This series of early steps revealed a government and donor community
braced for a rapid onset of a devastating pandemic. In his update to
parliament on April 2, Health Minister Wong warned colleagues that the
pandemic could quickly overwhelm the health system and speculated
shortfalls of between one thousand and thirty thousand hospital beds over
the coming year.7 Meanwhile, Prime Minister Marape openly acknowledged
the fragility of the health system, pointing out that PNG could only call on
around five hundred doctors to serve its population of 9 million. 8
Outside of a frenzied circle of government and donor officials directly
engaged in standing up the crisis response, most of PNG simply waited.
Beyond Port Moresby, the sudden imposition of lockdown, the lack of
consistent and reliable information, and the looming prospect of an
unknown disease overwhelming already-stretched healthcare facilities
generated fear and confusion, especially among poorly resourced health
workers in rural areas. At one hospital in Chimbu Province, health workers
suddenly decided to remove all existing patients, in anticipation of a deluge
of Covid-19 infections.9 Five hundred miles east, at a hospital in East New
Britain Province, health workers responsible for treating PNG’s second
Covid-19 case, confirmed on April 6, only learned about it after watching
the prime minister announce the positive result on television. The disclosure
prompted a staff walkout.10
6 Ian Ling-Stuckey, “Ministerial Statement—Economic Update: Responding to Covid-19” (statement
to parliament, Port Moresby, June 4, 2020) u https://covid19.info.gov.pg/files/June2020/18062020/
Ministerial%20Statement%20on%20COVID-19%20update..040620.pdf.
7 Jelta Wong, “Statement by Hon. Jelta Wong MP, Minister for Health and HIV/AIDS” (statement to
parliament, Port Moresby, April 2, 2020) u https://covid19.info.gov.pg/files/03-04-2020/02042020_
Statement%20on%20Covid19_%20Minister%20of%20Health%20_at%20Parliament.pdf.
8 Georgie Bright, “Papua New Guinea’s Health System Unprepared for Covid-19,” Human Rights
Watch, weblog, April 8, 2020 u https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/09/papua-new-guineas-healthsystem-unprepared-covid-19.
9 Kalolaine Fainu, “ ‘We Have Nothing’: Papua New Guinea’s Broken Health System Braces for
Covid-19,” Guardian, April 11, 2020 u https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/
we-have-nothing-papua-new-guineas-broken-health-system-braces-for-covid-19.
10 Ibid.
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In this highly charged environment, misinformation took root. Yet
it took three months for official cases to reach double digits, and the first
official death was not recorded until July 29. The failure of the predicted
surge to eventuate reinforced the apparent validity of spurious explanations;
in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it was natural to conclude that
“something or someone was limiting the pandemic’s effect.”11 In a country
where over 95% of the population identifies as Christian, many believed God
was protecting them from the virus. As David Troolin explained, “As the
numbers of people infected and then dying continued to rise outside PNG’s
borders, it seemed that PNG was, for whatever reason, set apart, encased in
a protective bubble.”12
In a short space of time, the initial wave of fear that accompanied
Covid-19’s arrival was replaced with apathy. A study that analyzed the
activity of a Facebook group in Western Province across the first five months
of 2020 found that the intensity of interest in Covid-19 began to abate in
late April and that “crisis fatigue” set in during May. As time progressed,
the group’s discussions pivoted away from health fears and toward their
economic livelihoods. When the state of emergency was extended in early
June, frustration built. The study’s authors stated that, “By mid-June 2020,
in PNG, Covid-19 was the ‘invisible enemy,’ that for the vast majority of the
population, had failed to arrive.”13
When around four hundred new cases were recorded across August,
it appeared PNG was finally on the cusp of the expected outbreak. Port
Moresby re-entered lockdown. A spike in cases caused the Ok Tedi mine,
one of the country’s biggest employers and a major source of government
revenue, to close its operations. A shift in the government’s approach can
also be discerned around this time. When explaining his decision not to
extend Port Moresby’s lockdown beyond two weeks, Marape stated that,
“We have to adapt to living with Covid-19 for this year instead of taking
on drastic measures.”14 In this, Marape was channeling the government’s
Niupela Pasin (“new normal”) strategy, which charted a series of preventive
11 Troolin, “Heterotopia in Melanesia,” 69.
12 Ibid., 71.
13 Peter D. Dwyer and Monica Minnegal, “Covid-19 and Facebook in Papua New Guinea: Fly River
Forum,” Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 7, no. 3 (2020): 243.
14 Natalie Whiting, “PNG Is Walking a Tightrope on Covid-19, So It’s Abandoned Lockdowns,”
ABC News (Australia), August 12, 2020 u https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-12/
png-abandons-lockdown-resolves-to-live-with-coronavirus/12545602.
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health measures to “adapt to a new way of living.”15 But still the expected
surge did not materialize. Indeed, confirmed cases would not pass three
figures until February 2021, at which point confirmed deaths from Covid-19
were still in single digits.
As the anniversary of the first confirmed Covid-19 case approached,
therefore, a cruel paradox was embedded in the notion that PNG needed
to embrace a “new normal.” On the one hand, health officials and donor
partners knew that encouraging behavioral change around hygiene practices
was the best way to effectively mitigate a potential outbreak and protect
the health system. Yet for almost the entirety of the population, nothing
was “new,” aside from the imposition of lockdowns and their impact on
livelihoods. Why, then, did national health officials and aid donors continue
to believe a devastating outbreak was ultimately inevitable? The answer
relates not only to the demographic, cultural, and economic characteristics
of PNG but to the limited capacity of its health system.
PNG’s Health System in Context: Perpetual Crisis?
PNG is one of the most ethnically, culturally, and geographically
diverse countries in the world. Its estimated 9 million people speak over
eight hundred languages and are spread across 22 provinces. In addition
to comprising the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, with which
it shares a porous 285-mile land border with the Indonesian province of
Papua, PNG is made up of more than six hundred islands, some of which lie
within three miles of northernmost Australia. With 87% of the population
living in rural areas, reaching the remote majority across vast and rugged
terrain is challenging, impacting the delivery of medical supplies, outreach,
and immunization services.16
PNG’s resource-dependent economy has been ailing since 2014, with
consecutive budget deficits and falling GDP per capita.17 At the same
time, the proportion of government expenditure spent on health has been
decreasing. Partly as a result of the economic shock induced by Covid-19,
15 National Department of Health (PNG), Niupela Pasin: Transitioning to a “New Normal” in the
Covid-19 Pandemic (Port Moresby, May 28, 2020), 7 u https://covid19.info.gov.pg/files/July%20
2020/07072020/Niupela%20Pasin%20%20Transition%20to%20New%20Normal%20handbook.pdf.
16 John Grundy et al., Independent State of Papua New Guinea Health System Review (New Delhi:
World Health Organization, 2019), 4.
17 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia), “Papua New Guinea Covid-19 Development
Response Plan,” October 2020 u https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/development/
papua-new-guinea-covid-19-development-response-plan.
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total health spending per capita is forecast to decrease from almost 200 kina
(about $55) per person in 2020 to less than 150 kina (about $42) per person
in 2022.18
Beyond these geographic and economic constraints, two others loom
large. First, PNG’s high birth rate means its health system must fight
simply to maintain performance, let alone improve. Even accounting
for significant child mortality rates, the population growth rate is 2.7%,
meaning 1 million people are added to the population roughly every three
years. PNG’s population is projected to reach 12 million by 2030.19 Second,
the management and delivery of PNG’s health system is very decentralized,
making coordination difficult.20
These last two constraints, in particular, feed directly into what a recent
review called “a human resources for health crisis.”21 According to World
Bank data, PNG’s physician-to-population ratio ranks the country on par
with countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central
African Republic, and Ethiopia. Furthermore, few doctors work outside
Port Moresby. A service delivery survey conducted in 2012 found that only
10% of health clinics had received visits from a doctor in the past 12 months,
down from 19% a decade prior.22 The same survey found that only 40% of
facilities had electricity and 20% had beds with mattresses in 2012.
Yet perhaps the starkest manifestation of PNG’s health system fragility
is the string of disease outbreaks that have occurred in recent times. A
cholera outbreak from mid-2009 to 2011 claimed over five hundred lives
and was followed by another outbreak in 2015. An outbreak of chikungunya
infection occurred in 2012. Outbreaks of measles, typhoid, and whooping
cough (pertussis), all vaccine-preventable diseases, were reported in 2017
and 2018. A polio outbreak in 2018 provided the impetus for then health
minister Sir Puka Temu to declare 2019 the “year of vaccination.”23 Despite
this push, statistics show that in 2019, measles vaccine coverage for children
18 Government of Papua New Guinea, National Health Plan 2021–2030 (Port Moresby, June 2021), 45.
19 Ibid., 18.
20 Benjamin Day, “The Primacy of Politics: Charting the Governance of the Papua New Guinea Health
System since Independence,” Papua New Guinea Medical Journal 52, no. 3–4 (2009): 130–38.
21 Grundy et al., Independent State of Papua New Guinea Health System Review, 53.
22 Stephen Howes et al., “A Lost Decade? Service Delivery in Papua New Guinea 2002-2012,” National
Research Institute and Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, October 2014,
x u https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/139180/1/PEPE_A_lost_decade_
FULL_REPORT.pdf.
23 Kate Lyons, “Polio Outbreak in Papua New Guinea Reaches Capital Port Moresby,” Guardian,
September 11, 2018 u https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/11/polio-outbreak-inpapua-new-guinea-reaches-capital-port-moresby.
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under one year was only 34%, with 4 of 22 provinces recording rates under
20%.24 By numerous measures, PNG’s vaccination rates are among the lowest
in the world.25 In short, PNG’s health system was unprepared for Covid-19,
even once a vaccine was available. And, as we have seen, the absence of an
outbreak in 2020 only made it more vulnerable.
Year Two: A Belated Crisis
For a year since its first case, PNG unexpectedly kept Covid-19 at
bay. But after case numbers began steadily rising in February 2021, they
exploded in March. Up to the end of February 2021, PNG had recorded
just 1,275 cases and 12 deaths. Yet by the end of March, these figures were
5,991 and 60, respectively. By mid-March, the nation’s largest hospital, Port
Moresby General Hospital, was overwhelmed, and 120 staff, mostly from
the emergency department, had tested positive.26 Tents were erected in
the carpark to triage patients and plans were made to establish a new field
hospital, as well as reopen the Rita Flynn Sporting Complex, which had
been rapidly converted to an isolation facility with donor assistance at the
outset of the pandemic.
On March 17, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison,
announced an additional package of support for its former colony, including
the provision of eight thousand AstraZeneca vaccines.27 On March 22,
the anniversary of the original state of emergency, PNG commenced a
month-long isolation strategy, closing schools once more and restricting
provincial travel.28 On March 30, PNG launched its vaccine rollout when
Marape received the first jab in a public ceremony designed to generate
public confidence.29 Despite these efforts, however, there was a slow uptake
24 National Department of Health (PNG), “2019 Sector Performance Annual Review,” August 2020, 16
u
https://www.health.gov.pg/pdf/SPAR_2019.pdf.
25 Stephen Howes and Kingtau Mambon, “PNG’s Plummeting Vaccination Rates: Now the Lowest in
the World?” Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, Devpolicy Blog, August 30,
2021 u https://devpolicy.org/pngs-plummeting-vaccination-rates-now-lowest-in-world-20210830.
26 Rebecca Kuku, “Covid Cases in Papua New Guinea Triple in a Month as Doctors Warn of ‘Danger
Days’ Ahead,” Guardian, March 22, 2020 u https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/22/
covid-cases-in-papua-new-guinea-triple-in-a-month-as-doctors-warn-of-danger-days-ahead-png.
27 “Australia Supporting Papua New Guinea’s Covid-19 Response,” Prime Minister of Australia, Press
Release, March 17, 2021 u https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-supporting-papua-new-guineascovid-19-response.
28 Whiting, “Coronavirus Infections Are Reaching a Tipping Point in PNG.”
29 Rebecca Kuku, “PNG Prime Minister First to Be Vaccinated with Australian-Supplied Doses ‘to
Show It’s Safe,’ ” Guardian, March 30, 2021 u https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/
png-prime-minister-first-to-be-vaccinated-with-australian-supplied-doses-to-show-its-safe.
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of vaccines, outside of Port Moresby’s expatriate community. By May 11,
only three thousand of the eight thousand had been administered.30
By mid-May, however, Covid-19 cases started to decline. Ideally, this
reprieve would have provided the chance to ramp up the vaccine rollout,
but instead, complacency appeared to set in. According to one assessment,
“politicians returned to business as usual, and vaccine hesitancy…calcified
with a growing consensus that Covid-19 will just be another disease to be
‘lived with’ alongside tuberculosis, malaria, and other household name
diseases in PNG.”31 Yet, still, those who doubted the dangers of the virus
were able to rationalize their views by narrowly interpreting the available
data. From July 21 to September 9, PNG did not record a single official death
from Covid-19. Meanwhile, a batch of vaccines donated by New Zealand
was shipped to Vietnam to ensure they could be used before they expired.32
Other donated vaccines had to be destroyed.
By mid-October, well after the scale of PNG’s worst outbreak was
apparent, only half of PNG’s parliamentarians had been vaccinated.
Even more concerning, vaccine hesitancy had begun to metastasize into
violence. In Kundiawa, the capital of Chimbu Province in the Highlands,
the public forced a team of health workers rolling out the vaccine to leave,
despite the presence of armed police. 33 On October 29, the front page
of the National reported that the Morobe Provincial Health Authority
has decided to stop mobile Covid-19 vaccination and awareness clinics
because of ongoing attacks on staff. 34 Far from these being isolated events,
incidents like these were increasingly being reported across the country
toward the end of October.
Covid-19 as Critical Juncture?
These types of incidents make it easy to become despondent when
considering PNG’s post-Covid-19 future. But among those I have spoken
to, I have been surprised to detect a residual optimism. For them, Covid-19
30 Hugh McClure, “How Conspiracy Theories Led to Covid Vaccine Hesitancy in the
Pacific,” Guardian, May 13, 2021 u http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/
how-conspiracy-theories-led-to-covid-vaccine-hesitancy-in-the-pacific.
31 Jonathan Pryke and Brendan Crabb, “PNG Is Back on the Brink of a Delta Variant Disaster,”
Australian Financial Review, October 18, 2021 u https://www.afr.com/world/asia/png-is-back-onthe-brink-of-a-delta-variant-disaster-20211017-p590px.
32 Whiting, “PNG Health Services Struggling to Cope with Delta Outbreak.”
33 “Public Rages Against Vaccine Rollout in Kundiawa,” Post Courier, October 21, 2021 u https://
postcourier.com.pg/public-rages-against-vaccine-rollout-in-kundiawa.
34 Lulu Mark and Gloria Bauai, “Attacks Deplored,” National (PNG), October 29, 2021.
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still has the potential to function as a critical juncture, the ultimate
demonstration—to politicians, health workers and officials, donors, and
the public—that lasting health system improvement must emanate from
the grassroots level. Ensuring that health workers and good information
are present at the local level are examples of two long-standing challenges
whose importance has been reinforced during the pandemic.
Human resources. As they have around the world, healthcare workers
have borne a disproportionate share of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic
in PNG. Given PNG’s health human resources crisis, however, the passing
of each health worker, whether from the grassroots level or from provincial
or national level positions, is much more than just an immediate tragedy;
it tangibly limits the functioning of the health system in the future. The
recently produced National Health Plan 2021–2030 calls for a doubling of
healthcare workers in each cadre across the next decade. Yet even if this
highly ambitious target were achieved (and the sudden shock of Covid-19
makes it even more unlikely), it would only see the ratio of health workers to
population rise from 1.01 (measured in 2018) to 1.62, still well below World
Health Organization guidelines.35 PNG’s acute lack of health workers, in
itself, necessitates moving beyond a narrow, sectoral conception of health
delivery toward whole-of-government and whole-of-society engagement.
This is recognized in the plan, which “aims to empower people to take
ownership of their health and well-being and to decide, plan and implement
health priorities for their families and communities.”36
While prioritizing vaccinating healthcare workers appears to be an
obvious short-term mitigation strategy, rates of hesitancy are very high
even among this demographic, mirroring the broader population. A
survey conducted in April and May 2021 found that only 56% of the over
four hundred healthcare workers sampled were willing to be vaccinated.37
The survey documented widespread concern about conspiracy theories:
29.6% of healthcare workers were concerned the vaccine was part of a
new world order, 27.9% thought the vaccine was a biological weapon
designed to reduce the black population, 24.6% thought the vaccine had
a microchip, and 22.6% were concerned that the vaccine was being used
for sterilizations. The survey’s key recommendation was that healthcare
35 Government of Papua New Guinea, National Health Plan 2021–2030, 40.
36 Ibid.
37 Martha Pogo et al., “Final Report: Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Papua New Guinea, 2021,”
National Department of Health (PNG), 2021 u https://www.fieldepiinaction.com/s/Vaccine_
Survey_Report_Final.pdf.
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workers “must be equipped with timely and accurate information and
supported to debunk myths and conspiracies associated with the Covid-19
vaccine.”38 Complementing this finding, a World Bank study, drawing
on data collected from a phone survey (May to June 2021) and an online
randomized survey experiment via Facebook (June to July 2021), revealed
“the importance of trust in the Covid-19 vaccine and social norms in
driving behavior.”39 Together, these surveys offer a timely reminder that
the big-picture challenges faced by the PNG health system are not simply
technical in nature but concern community-oriented engagement.
Community-based approaches. Of course, “back-to-basics” approaches
have been heralded many times, including in the previous national health
plan. Indeed, Niupela Pasin sets out what such an approach looks like in
the context of combating Covid-19. But unfortunately, it also illustrates
just how difficult it is to translate good plans into action. The behavioral
changes advocated in Niupela Pasin cut against embedded social norms.
For example, social distancing is discordant with the cultural practices of a
highly social society that gathers regularly in large family groups, especially
around food. Some other practices are simply beyond the capabilities of
most of the population. For example, entreaties to wash hands with soap are
difficult to heed when soap is too expensive and access to running water is
limited;40 “only 12 per cent of schools have handwashing facilities with both
water and soap.”41 Indeed, the impositions of lockdowns have meant soap
has not been available in many locations, even for those with the means to
purchase it.
The governor of Port Moresby, Powes Parkop, spoke for many
when he observed that “What the [emergency] controller is trying to
[enforce] and what actually happens on the ground [are] totally different
worlds.”42 Win Nicholas has also articulated the limited way in which the
aspirations of Nuipela Pasim have permeated the country, especially outside
38 Pogo et al., “Final Report: Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Papua New Guinea, 2021,” 7.
39 Christopher Hoy, Terence Wood, and Ellen Moscoe, “Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy: Survey and
Experimental Evidence from Papua New Guinea,” World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper
9837, November 2021 u https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/293831636115205584/pdf/
Addressing-Vaccine-Hesitancy-Survey-and-Experimental-Evidence-from-Papua-New-Guinea.pdf.
40 Whiting, “PNG Is Walking a Tightrope on Covid-19, So It’s Abandoned Lockdowns”; and “Social
Distancing Not Catching on Easily in Bougainville,” Radio New Zealand, March 31, 2020 u
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/413083/social-distancing-not-catching-oneasily-in-bougainville.
41 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia), “Papua New Guinea Covid-19 Development
Response Plan,” 1.
42 Whiting, “PNG Is Walking a Tightrope on Covid-19, So It’s Abandoned Lockdowns.”
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of Port Moresby: “In remote parts of the country, it’s business as usual for
the populace. Basic government services are lacking and vaccination is not
a great concern.”43
Clearly, understanding how to effectively communicate to PNG’s
overwhelmingly young, remote, and rural population will become an
increasingly important dimension of effective long-term health system
reform. But emerging evidence shows that rapid investment in information
campaigns could also yield more immediate returns in terms of improving
vaccination rates. For example, in May 2021, 281 students from the
University of Papua New Guinea were surveyed about their feelings about
Covid-19 vaccination.44 When asked if they would “like to be vaccinated
with the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine,” just 6% of respondents responded in
the affirmative, while 48% said no. Crucially, 46% responded that they had
not yet decided, suggesting that there is considerable scope for opinions to
be changed. The World Bank study referenced earlier reinforced this finding
while also offering insight into what factors were most likely to change
Papua New Guineans’ opinions. Two factors emerged as pivotal: building
greater trust in Covid-19 vaccines and disseminating information about the
vaccines via healthcare workers, who respondents overwhelmingly felt were
most capable of changing their minds.
Overcoming popular resistance to vaccinations is clearly an immediate
priority in PNG.45 But overcoming a more general distrust of the health
sector will be even more important in the long term. Former Australian
ambassador to PNG Ian Kemish recently observed how “many Papua New
Guineans have developed a fatalistic belief that Covid is just another health
challenge to add to the litany of other serious problems facing the country,
among them maternal mortality, malaria and tuberculosis.”46 Sadly, there
is an understandable, if regrettable, logic to categorizing Covid-19 this way,
given the context.
43 Win Nicholas, “Covid-19 in PNG: The Silent Dead,” Development Policy Centre,
Australian National University, Devpolicy Blog, October 6, 2021 u https://devpolicy.org/
covid-19-in-png-the-silent-dead-20211006.
44 Rohan Fox, “Vaccine Hesitancy in PNG: Results from a Survey,” Development Policy Centre,
Australian National University, Devpolicy Blog, June 24, 2021 u https://devpolicy.org/
vaccine-hesitancy-in-png-results-from-a-survey-20210624.
45 Mihai Sora, “Overcoming Community Resistance to Vaccination in Papua New Guinea,”
Lowy Institute, Interpreter, October 26, 2021 u https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/
overcoming-community-resistance-vaccination-papua-new-guinea.
46 Ian Kemish, “PNG and Fiji Were Both Facing Covid Catastrophes. Why Has One Vaccine Rollout
Surged and the Other Stalled?” Conversation, October 11, 2021 u http://theconversation.com/
png-and-fiji-were-both-facing-covid-catastrophes-why-has-one-vaccine-rollout-surged-and-theother-stalled-169356.
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Year Three and Beyond
It is not unreasonable to suggest that PNG’s medium-duration prospects,
in terms of securing livelihoods and improving development outcomes for
the rural majority, are as dependent on the maintenance of political stability
as they are on effectively tackling Covid-19. Yet the two are inextricably
intertwined, with the immediate and longer-term impacts of the pandemic,
both domestically and abroad, adding to the difficulty of managing a series of
political challenges, three of which appear especially pressing.
Foremost in the minds of most PNG politicians are the forthcoming
2022 general elections. PNG elections generally feature a high rate
of turnover; 40% to 50% of sitting members are expected to lose
their seats in 2022. They are also increasingly marked by high levels
of violence. During the previous election in 2017, an observer team
documented election-related violence in 64 of the 67 electorates where it
conducted detailed observations. 47 It also documented over two hundred
election-related deaths, mostly in the Highlands. PNG elections are
already among the most challenging electoral exercises in the world to
run. Covid-19 will only add to an already volatile mix.
In late 2019, the people of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville
voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum that was a key step
of a negotiated peace agreement ending a decade-long civil war (1988–98)
that claimed an estimated twenty thousand lives. Unusually, the terms
of the Bougainville Peace Agreement set out that the referendum would
be nonbinding, with a final decision resting with the PNG parliament.
Since the referendum, consultations have been sporadic, partly because
of Covid-19.48 With Bougainville’s leaders setting out plans to achieve
independence in 2025, the political stakes will only increase in the coming
years, with implications for the region’s nascent autonomy.
Zooming out further, the Pacific Islands region now confronts “a
lost decade” given the “economic and social damage wrought by the
Covid-19 pandemic.”49 While PNG’s economy contracted by 3.8% in 2020,
this was relatively better than other Pacific Island economies, who generally
47 Nicole Haley and Kerry Zubrinich, “2017 Papua New Guinea General Elections: Election
Observation Report,” Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University, 2018.
48 Anthony Regan, “Bougainville Independence: Pressure for PNG Agreement Builds,” Lowy
Institute, Interpreter, June 18, 2021 u https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/
bougainville-independence-pressure-png-agreement-builds.
49 Roland Rajah and Alexandre Dayant, “Avoiding a Pacific Lost Decade: Financing the Pacific’s
Covid-19 Recovery,” Lowy Institute, Policy Brief, December 2020, 2 u https://www.lowyinstitute.
org/publications/lost-decade-pacific.
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rely much more heavily on tourism and remittances. (Fiji’s economy, for
example, the second largest in the region behind PNG, contracted by 19% in
2020.) The region, in which PNG is a leader, faces a long period of economic
and social rebuilding in a much more competitive strategic environment.
Recent rioting in Honiara, the capital and largest city of the
neighboring Solomon Islands, illustrates the extent and immediacy of the
challenge. Concerned that the unrest would lead to a full-blown return
of “the tensions” of the early 2000s, which triggered the establishment of
the fourteen-year long Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
(RAMSI), Australia, Fiji, PNG, and New Zealand quickly dispatched police
and military personnel. While these deployments were requested by the
Solomon Islands, they are taking place in a region that has been transformed
geopolitically even compared to when RAMSI ended in mid-2017.
Although Australia and, albeit to a lesser extent, New Zealand remain
by far the most important partners for most Pacific Island countries,
especially PNG, China’s influence has been steadily growing. In June 2018,
PNG became the first Pacific nation to sign up to China’s Belt and Road
Initiative. When PNG hosted the APEC Summit five months later, Chinese
president Xi Jinping used the opportunity to announce a raft of initiatives
in the region. In 2019, both the Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched
diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. While it is a mistake to
overplay the role of geopolitics in the unrest in the Solomon Islands, the
decision by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to recognize China did
provide the trigger for the recent riots.50
Over the coming years, PNG’s leaders will need to deftly manage
relationships with both Australia, by far the largest donor to PNG and the
former colonial power, and China, an important infrastructure partner and
export market. Increasingly, Australia’s aid program is driven by a desire to
curb China’s influence in the region, and since the onset of Covid-19, health
security and regional stability have become increasingly more important aid
priorities.51 While this trio of motives ensures PNG will remain Australia’s
largest aid recipient, the nature of this assistance is likely to become more
50 Jonathan Pryke, “Solomon Islands Unrest Not Helped by Foreign Powers Behaving Badly,”
Australian Financial Review, November 26, 2021 u https://www.afr.com/world/pacific/
solomon-islands-unrest-not-helped-by-foreign-powers-behaving-badly-20211126-p59ckv.
51 Benjamin Day and Tamas Wells, “What Parliamentarians Think about Australia’s Post-Covid-19
Aid Program: The Emerging ‘Cautious Consensus’ in Australian Aid,” Asia & the Pacific Policy
Studies (2021) u https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.338.
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overtly competitive. The competing vaccine drives in Port Moresby between
Australian and Chinese representatives seemed to encapsulate this future.52
The Covid-19 pandemic arrived belatedly in PNG. And while many
of the pandemic’s lasting implications will take time to become apparent,
there is little doubt that they will also prove more significant than originally
expected. At this point, what we can be sure of is that there are no quick
fixes for PNG’s Covid-19 crisis, its health system, or its economy. Progress, if
it comes, will be slow, incremental, and hard won. 
52 Natalie Whiting, “PNG Caught in China-Australia Power Play as Covid-19 Delta Variant
Infiltrates Pacific Nation,” ABC News (Australia), August 2, 2021 u https://www.abc.net.au/
news/2021-08-02/png-caught-between-australia-and-china-as-it-fights-delta/100329206.
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Covid-19 Responses in Selected
Polynesian Island Countries and Territories
Rochelle Bailey and Gemma Malungahu
T
his essay provides an overview of the responses to Covid-19 so far within
specific Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) namely within
Polynesia, specifically Tonga, Samoa, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu,
and French Polynesia. Although New Zealand, Hawaii, and Fiji are also
Polynesian PICTs, we have chosen to only include further analysis on Fiji, given
its role as a regional hub and because the former two are well-represented in
studies elsewhere.1 On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO)
declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic, which globally led to immediate
border closures, and the PICTs acted swiftly to eliminate risks of the virus
entering their countries. Border closures, lockdowns, and various restrictions
have been relatively successful, and contributions from international donors
have provided support in finances, supplies of medical equipment, and
technical expertise. However, navigating these closures, lockdowns, and
restricted movements impacted the delivery of imports, exports, and the flow
of information within the region. This essay provides an examination of the
PICTs’ responses to the pandemic, including their repatriation and quarantine
management processes. This is followed by an analysis of the region’s delivery,
management, and success of vaccine uptake.
Border Closures and Initial Restrictions
Most of the PICTs responded to Covid-19 quickly in declaring a state
of emergency. Doing so allowed governments to enforce border closures
and restrictive measures that required people to stay at home, cease
rochelle bailey is a Research Fellow in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at
the Australian National University (Australia), where she works on politics, intergovernmental
relationships, regionalism, economics, social change, and migration issues in the Pacific. She can be
reached at <rochelle.bailey@anu.edu.au>.
gemma malungahu is a Pacific Research Fellow in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at
the Australian National University (Australia), where she works on health sciences, public health, and
qualitative research. She can be reached at <gemma.malungahu@anu.edu.au>.
1 Fiji can arguably be viewed as a Polynesian PICT due to its proximity to Samoa and Tonga and
ancestral, historical, and lineal ties with these PICTs. For the purpose of this essay, it was important
to include an analysis of the Covid-19 responses in Fiji due to the high percentage of cases and high
mortality rates in the country.
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nonessential business, and close schools.2 For the PICTs, however, border
closures presented imminent threats in accessing important supplies. Under
the Biketawa Declaration, the Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers thus
agreed to establish the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway on Covid-19 in early
April 2020 to “enable efficient movement of medical supplies, humanitarian
assistance and technical experts to Pacific Island Forum states.”3 The
initiative represents a regional response for all Pacific Island nations,
ensuring the availability of essential supplies.
Interrupted international travel and cargo flows have adversely impacted
the Polynesian PICTs, and many are experiencing economic recessions due
to industry collapses and job losses. Financial assistance from international
donors and partners had enabled the PICTs to provide support through
stimulus packages that offered forms of welfare payments.4 Increased
numbers of people returning from urban areas to their rural villages and
working in the subsistence sector to support themselves has been observed.5
This is often referred to as a “safety net” in the Pacific, which has proven to
work well, though these safety systems and resources may be overwhelmed in
some cases, and inter-island travel depends on travel restrictions.
With restricted domestic movement, the enforced lockdowns were essential
to help reduce potential community transmission across provinces, villages, and
households. Directives such as reducing gathering numbers, closing schools and
churches, implementing curfews, and temporarily halting inter-island travel
have been in place in most of the PICTs in one form or another for varying
periods depending on the perceived safety levels within the state.
External Support, Funders, and Donors
The majority of Polynesian PICTs have been independent in their
decision-making processes. Nonetheless, they are often reliant on outside
2 World Health Organization (WHO), “Pacific Covid-19 Preparedness and Response Efforts,” Covid-19
Joint External Situation Report for Pacific Islands, no. 9, March 26, 2020 u https://www.who.int/
westernpacific/internal-publications-detail/covid-19-situation-report-for-pacific-islands; and Eberhard
Weber, Andreas Kopf, and Milla Vaha, “Covid-19 Pandemics in the Pacific Island Countries
and Territories,” in Coronavirus (Covid-19) Outbreaks, Environment and Human Behaviour:
International Case Studies, ed. Rais Akhtar (Cham: Springer, 2021), 25–47.
3 “Covid-19 Updates from the Secretariat,” Pacific Islands Forum u https://www.forumsec.org/
covid-19-updates-from-the-secretariat.
4 The PICTs have received support from various international governments and organizations and
are members of different Covid-19-related Pacific response groups.
5 Meg Keen, “Voices of Pacific Leaders: Covid-19 and the Path to Recovery,” Asia and the Pacific
Policy Society, Policy Forum, June 22, 2020 u https://www.policyforum.net/voices-of-pacificleaders-covid-19-and-the-path-to-recovery.
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resources and partners to achieve their pandemic responses. Various
external donors have assisted Polynesian PICTs with Covid-19 response
packages, which have enabled many countries to create specific Covid-19
budgets and support, such as supplementary funding for medical supplies,
quarantine facilities, welfare payments, and Covid-19 testing equipment.
In March 2021, the Pacific heads of health of each PICT met with the
WHO and other international health authorities to discuss, among other
things, the importance of ensuring efficient systems were established before
vaccination rollout. The WHO requested that all countries, including the
PICTs, design databases or adapt existing ones to record adverse reactions
following vaccination, with support provided to the PICTs upon request.6
Priority was given to vaccination procurement and planning efforts to
improve coverage in accordance with the jurisdictions of each PICT. New
Zealand provided vaccinations to the PICTs through both bilateral and
multilateral arrangements and worked alongside France and the United
States, among other countries, to ensure vaccination procurement. Australia
contributed $130 million to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment
mechanism to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for developing
countries7 and provided additional assistance to the Pacific Islands Forum
that included support for logistics in cold-chain supply, for example, the
provision of four laboratory fridges and medications such as antibiotics and
pain-relief to Tuvalu. 8 Discussions also took place among the Pacific heads
of health, PICT ministers of health, the Pacific Community, the WHO,
COVAX partners, and other international agencies around improving
awareness and information of vaccine safety and efficacy.9
Covid-19 Testing, Cases, Reporting, and Monitoring Issues
Within the Pacific region, Fiji was the fourth (after Hawaii, New
Zealand, and French Polynesia) to obtain capabilities to test for the virus.10
6 See WHO, “Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI)” u https://www.who.int/teams/
regulation-prequalification/regulation-and-safety/pharmacovigilance/health-professionals-info/aefi.
7 “Australian Support for Covid-19 Vaccination in Tuvalu,” Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the
Hon. Marise Payne (Australia), Press Release, June 19, 2021 u https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/
minister/marise-payne/media-release/australian-support-covid-19-vaccination-tuvalu.
8 Ibid.
9 These other agencies included the Asian Development Bank, Australian Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Otago University,
Pacific Community (SPC), Pacific Island Health Officers’ Association, UN Children’s Fund, the U.S.
Agency for International Development, and the World Bank.
10 Weber, Kopf, and Vaha, “Covid-19 Pandemics in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories.”
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Despite the lead in testing capabilities in Fiji, however, vaccination uptake
was relatively slow compared to French Polynesia and other PICTs. This,
coupled with misinformation on vaccine safety and efficacy, possibly
contributed toward Fiji’s high mortality rates. French Polynesia and
Fiji have been among the worst-affected PICTs within the subregion.
Table 1 provides an overview of case numbers and deaths due to Covid-19
from January 2020 to October 2021.
Quality reporting and monitoring capability help to determine
accurate case numbers, mortality, and vaccination rates at state and local
levels. With limited health infrastructure and poor resources, medical
reporting and monitoring is potentially inadequate within most of the
PICTs. The limited testing capabilities and the lack of clarity on the cause
of death also contribute toward reporting issues within the PICTs. In Fiji,
for example, medical experts speculated that deaths in July 2021 were
TABLE 1
Covid-19 Cases and Deaths in Selected PICTs
Country
Total cases
American Samoa
3
Cook Islands
–
Total deaths
–
–
Fiji
51,499
French Polynesia
45,359
626
Hawaii
81,614
845
New Zealand/Aotearoa
4,300
Niue
–
Samoa
653
28
–
1
–
Tokelau
–
–
Tonga
–
–
Tuvalu
–
–
182,776
2,152
Total
Source: Data compiled from WHO, “WHO Coronavirus (Covid-19) Dashboard” u https://covid19.who.int;
and, for Hawaii, “State of Hawaii Covid-19 Data Dashboards,” State of Hawaii Department of Health, Covid
Disease Outbreak Control Division u https://health.hawaii.gov/coronavirusdisease2019.
Note: Data is from January 3, 2020, to October 11, 2021.
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underreported due to changes in the classification system in June.11 The
new classification code determined that if a person died from Covid-19
but had another underlying illness or disease at the time of death, the
death would not be classified as due to Covid-19. The ambiguity of the
new classification code meant that only a proportion of mortalities due
to Covid was reported,12 and due to the high rates of noncommunicable
diseases in Fiji, it is possible that most deaths from Covid-19 have been
underreported. In addition, issues of stigma and embarrassment of a loved
one passing from Covid-19 may have potentially contributed to the skewed
reporting of deaths.
Vaccination Rollout and Uptake
The triple burden of communicable diseases, noncommunicable
diseases, and the impacts of climate change have put strenuous pressure
on state health systems to cope with and meet rising healthcare demands.
The medical preparedness of healthcare systems, limited resources and
infrastructure, misinformation, and vaccine hesitancy have contributed to
the challenges of a smooth vaccination rollout in the Pacific Islands. Despite
this, funding and resource support from donors and external funders have
aided successful implementation of vaccination programs in the subregion,
particularly within the PICTs where 90% of eligible population groups have
been fully vaccinated.
Multiple modes of vaccine delivery exist, including rollout via hospitals,
healthcare facilities, community organizations such as churches, and NGOs.
Previous experience from a 2019 measles outbreak and the subsequent state
push for the measles vaccination in Samoa, for example, helped make home
visits within villages also effective. Households were required to put a red
cloth or material outside their home, signaling to health authorities the
need to be vaccinated. A two-day national lockdown also helped to increase
vaccination rates within Samoa during this vaccination period.
Initial vaccination uptake was slow across most of the PICTs. Despite
Fiji being the first Pacific country to receive vaccinations from COVAX
and having a robust vaccination program in place,13 the initial rollout
11 Mackenzie Smith, “Medical Experts Say a Third of Fiji’s Covid-19 Deaths May Be Unreported,”
ABC Radio Australia, Pacific Beat, July 28, 2021 u https://www.abc.net.au/radio-australia/
programs/pacificbeat/fiji-covid-numbers/13473382.
12 Ibid.
13 Weber, Kopf, and Vaha, “Covid-19 Pandemics in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories.”
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was still relatively protracted. Widespread misinformation online and offline
contributed to negative perceptions of risks associated with the vaccines and
possibly influenced the slow uptake. However, as the severity of the disease
became apparent and mortality rates increased, so did vaccination rates.
Fijian government efforts to increase vaccination coverage were stepped
up with the introduction of the “no jab, no job” policy initiative.14 This
policy, coupled with the eligibility of state welfare benefits for employment
disruptions due to vaccination, have been effective in increasing
vaccine uptake.15
Similarly with French Polynesia, initial vaccination uptake was
relatively slow. From July 2021 until the end of September, as Covid-19
cases and mortality rates increased, so did vaccination uptake.16 In
an attempt to increase coverage, the government passed legislation
that mandated vaccination for healthcare officials and public service
providers, effective October 23, 2021.17 This instigated strong public
opposition from protesters against the compulsory vaccination protocol due
to fear of future mandates that might address children and non-employees.
There has been positive progress toward herd immunity among most
of the PICTs. As of August 2021, two of the PICTs (Niue and the Cook
Islands) had reached a vaccination rate of over 95% of their eligible adult
population.18 More recently, Fiji reached over 80% being fully vaccinated.19
Effective campaigns have helped increase vaccination rates to over 75%
14 Ian Kemish, “PNG and Fiji Were Both Facing Catastrophes. Why Has Only One Vaccine Rollout
Surged?” SBS News, October 12, 2021 u https://www.sbs.com.au/news/png-and-fiji-wereboth-facing-catastrophes-why-has-only-one-vaccine-rollout-surged/14e501e1-1019-46e0-bc8ed14f54fcf853.
15 Christine Rovoi, “Better Understanding of Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Fiji Needed for Successful
Youth Roll Out—Study,” Radio New Zealand, September 6, 2021 u https://www.rnz.co.nz/
international/pacific-news/450891/better-understanding-of-covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-in-fijineeded-for-succesful-youth-roll-out-study.
16 WHO, “Pacific Covid-19 Preparedness and Response Efforts.”
17 “Rallies in French Polynesia against Vaccine Mandates,” Radio New Zealand, October 12, 2021,
available at https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-international/rallies-french-polynesia-againstvaccine-mandates.
18 On July 9, 2021, Niue reached herd immunity with 97% of its eligible population fully vaccinated.
Since then, there has been movement toward vaccinating people from the age of twelve in
accordance with approval from Medsafe (the New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety
Authority, a medical regulatory body that provides approval of all medications in New Zealand).
Similarly, the Cook Islands reached herd immunity with over 96% of its population fully vaccinated
with Pfizer in mid-August 2021.
19 On October 10, 2021, Fiji reached over 80% of its eligible adult population fully vaccinated. “PM
Bainimarama’s Covid-19 Announcement—10.10.21,” Fijian Government, October 10, 2021 u https://
www.fiji.gov.fj/media-centre/speeches/english/pm-bainimarama-s-covid-19-announcement-10-10-21.
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within French Polynesia as well.20 As for Tonga, Tokelau, and Tuvalu, there
have been no recorded Covid-19 cases but all three have progressed well
toward their individual immunization targets.
Public Health Messaging, Vaccination Hesitancy, and Conspiracy
Theories
Providing accessible and culturally appropriate public health messaging
was essential. For some Polynesian countries, this built on messaging from
the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. According to the WHO, Samoa took a
multisectoral approach with community leaders and used education toolkits
from the WHO on Covid-19 that were translated into Samoan contexts and
language. According to the WHO, Samoa used “strength, local knowledge
and collective memory”—this would have been similar in Tonga and other
Pacific Island nations who observed the recent measles epidemic in Samoa
and realized the vulnerabilities if a Covid-19 outbreak were to occur.21
Social media was both a positive and negative tool for communicating
messages. According to the Lowy Institute, social media was used as “a
frontline tool for government and health agencies.”22 However, social media
also created confusion, misinformation, and distrust. Increased health
messaging, including mental health awareness, was, and still is, important,
not just in terms of knowledge and prevention of the virus but for people
remaining out of work, living with uncertainties, in isolation, and separated
families. Thus, information on additional support systems needed to be
disseminated appropriately.
The presence of damaging anti-vaccination campaigns and the
spread of misinformation on social media can create vaccine hesitancy as
confusion, mistrust, and fear is instilled. The relatively slow initial uptake of
vaccination within most of the PICTs may have been fueled by such
confusion and misunderstanding, including from social media, of
vaccination safety and efficacy. A survey undertaken in Fiji indicated that
20 As estimated by the French Polynesian Department of Health. “Covid Vaccination Rollout
Continues on French Polynesia’s Tuamotus,” Radio New Zealand, September 26, 2021 u https://
www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/452350/covid-vaccination-rollout-continues-on-frenchpolynesia-s-tuamotus.
21 On Samoa, see “Samoa Uses Community Strength, Local Knowledge and Collective Memory
to Prepare for Covid-19,” WHO, Press Release, October 28, 2020 u https://www.who.int/
westernpacific/about/how-we-work/pacific-support/news/detail/28-10-2020-samoa-usescommunity-strength-local-knowledge-and-collective-memory-to-prepare-for-covid-19.
22 Alexandre Dayant and Shane McLeod, “Pacific Links: Social Media as a Tool to Protect Health
and Economies,” Lowy Institute, Interpreter, April 1, 2020 u https://www.lowyinstitute.org/
the-interpreter/pacific-links-social-media-tool-protect-health-and-economies.
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about 68% of Fijian Facebook users and 58% of messaging application users
stated that they “frequently” view Covid-19 misinformation on these social
media platforms.23 Another study indicated that 74% of those surveyed
used the Fijian Ministry of Health website as an information source, while
73% used social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.24 Social
media platforms were reported by many who participated in the study as
a source of anti-vaccine messaging. Identifying and correcting misleading
information about vaccinations on social media is warranted alongside
improving access to information about vaccine safety and efficacy that is
meaningful and understandable by local communities in the PICTs.
Tracing Capabilities
Contact tracing may be difficult in the PICTs due to a lack of access
to smart phones, Wi-Fi, data networks, and reliable power sources in
rural and remote areas. However, some of the PICTs have had successful
progress toward establishing their own tracing apps, such as in Samoa. In
early September 2021, Samoa formally launched its own contact tracing
application in a ceremony at the Samoa Tourism Authority.25 Australia has
provided support to the Fijian government to strengthen health information
systems, helping Fijian health authorities improve both vaccine tracking
administered via the electronic medical record system Tamanu and the
data capture integration and display tool Tupaia.26 These systems will enable
Ministry of Health and Medical Services officials to capture and review
immunization coverage at the national, local, and village level to help
appraise the management of their vaccination campaigns. Such initiatives
have the potential to help inform other public health measures related to
the easing (or restricting) of lockdowns and travel restrictions within and
between the PICTs.
23 John Karr et al., “Covid-19 Awareness, Online Discourse, and Vaccine Distribution in Melanesia:
Evidence and Analysis from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu,” Asia Foundation, 2021 u
https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Pacific-Islands_Covid-19-awarenessonline-discourse-and-vaccine-distribution-in-Melanesia.pdf.
24 Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, “Rapid Assessment: Fijian Women’s Perceptions of the
Covid-19 Vaccine,” June 28, 2021 u http://www.fwrm.org.fj/images/covid19/rapidassessment_
womencovid19vaccines.pdf.
25 Madeleine Keck, “How Successful Is the Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout in the Pacific?” Global Citizen,
September 2, 2021 u https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/covid19-vaccine-rollout-pacific.
26 Department of Foreign Affairs (Australia), “Access to Information Accelerates Fiji’s Covid-19
Vaccine Roll-Out” u https://indopacifichealthsecurity.dfat.gov.au/access-information-acceleratesfijis-covid-19-vaccine-roll-out.
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Repatriation and Quarantine Facilities
Given high migration numbers from the PICTs to Pacific Rim countries,
the pandemic is both a domestic issue for the PICTs and an international
health emergency, with tens of thousands stranded overseas because of
border closures. This is worrying as reports have documented higher risks of
Covid-19 for Pacific Island people; in some cases, these have been described
to be ten times the rate of other ethnic groups.27 Overseas temporary labor
migrants, diaspora, and those visiting friends and family overseas were
left in a vulnerable situation with limited support in foreign countries.
The priority of ensuring the safety of those within borders took priority
over repatriating citizens. Prior to the pandemic, the PICTs also relied
on neighboring states for specialized medical care. Since the pandemic,
some neighboring countries have sent healthcare officials, but generally,
resources to repatriate, test, and quarantine have been limited and impacted
repatriation decisions.28
Repatriations have been undertaken cautiously, often with quarantine
and testing completed on both sides of travel for up to 21 days. In many
cases, flights have been changed or canceled, which alongside large numbers
of people trying to return home and limited available quarantine facilities,
has created significant pressures on both host countries, the PICTs, and
families. An example of this was requests from Pacific seasonal workers
and their employers in New Zealand for the PICT governments to do more
to support their citizens abroad, as the financial and emotional toll of being
stranded in New Zealand was high.29 In fact, when both Australia and New
Zealand restarted their Pacific seasonal worker programs, Tonga could not
participate in New Zealand’s scheme as there had to be a clear pathway home
for anyone that came over. Given the limitations of Tonga’s repatriation and
quarantine systems, Tonga could not meet New Zealand’s new requirements.30
27 Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, “Pacific Islanders in U.S. Hospitalised with Covid-19 at Up to 10 Times
the Rate of Other Groups,” Guardian, July 26, 2021 u https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/
jul/27/system-is-so-broken-covid-19-devastates-pacific-islander-communities-in-us.
28 New Zealand and Australia have sent healthcare workers to the PICTs. For French Polynesia,
healthcare workers have been sent from France. However, there have been challenges with France
providing timely support in terms of human resources.
29 “RSE Workers Stranded in NZ: ‘Tonga Needs to Look After Its Own Citizens’—Employer,”
Radio New Zealand, August 26, 2020 u https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/424500/
rse-workers-stranded-in-nz-tonga-needs-to-look-after-its-own-citizens-employer.
30 Tonga continued to participate in Australia’s seasonal worker programs as that restriction did
not apply. See “Tonga Declines New RSE Scheme Programme in NZ,” Radio New Zealand,
Checkpoint, February 2, 2020 u https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/
audio/2018781996/tonga-declines-new-rse-scheme-programme-in-nz.
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Repatriation and quarantine resources and management is an ongoing,
evolving situation. With large numbers in the region becoming vaccinated,
numbers returning home to the PICTs may increase, although continued
monitoring and evaluation of the threat posed by the virus will remain.
Conclusion
Covid-19 cases and mortality rates have differed across the selected
PICTs—the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau,
Tonga, and Tuvalu—with Fiji and French Polynesia being among the
worst-affected compared with Tonga, Tokelau, and Tuvalu, which have
reported no cases to date. There have been various response measures
across the selected states, with international border closures and national
lockdowns exercised at stages across all the PICTs. Vaccination rates
have increased over time, with some of the PICTs already reaching herd
immunity, although misinformation and vaccine hesitancy remains an
ongoing issue. Going forward, efforts to improve vaccination rollouts among
the PICTs may require a multifaceted approach, including the distribution of
culturally appropriate information about vaccine safety and efficacy across
multimedia platforms, coupled with government welfare and employee
initiatives to improve vaccination rates. Poor health infrastructure and
limited resources have influenced issues with reporting, monitoring, and
inadequate quarantine facilities, therefore impacting repatriation decisions
of the considerable populations of PICT citizens abroad. In the meantime,
ongoing financial and infrastructure support from neighboring donors and
international partners will continue to help the PICTs address these issues
in combating the virus. 
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asia policy, volume 17, number 1 ( january 2022 ) , 77–105
•
http://asiapolicy.nbr.org
•
The Strategic Implications of India’s
Illiberalism and Democratic Erosion
Daniel Markey
daniel markey is a Senior Advisor on South Asia at the United States
Institute of Peace. His most recent book is China’s Western Horizon (2020). He
can be reached at <dmarkey@usip.org>.
u The author wishes to thank Jacob Larsen and Zaara Wakeel for
their research assistance and two anonymous Asia Policy reviewers for their
insightful feedback.
note
keywords:india; u.s.-india relations; democracy; liberalism; strategic
partnership
© The National Bureau of Asian Research
1414 NE 42nd St, Suite 300, Seattle, Washington 98105 USA
asia policy
executive summary
This article assesses the international implications of illiberalism and
democratic erosion in India’s domestic politics and considers whether and
how Washington should recalibrate its strategic partnership with New Delhi.
main argument
The U.S.-India relationship is founded on common interests, including a
deepening strategic convergence with respect to China. U.S. policymakers
also cite a shared commitment to liberal democratic governance as a central
reason for closer alignment with India. Yet India’s prevailing political culture
is not best defined as “liberal,” and under the leadership of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, India’s commitment to democracy is increasingly in doubt.
Erosion is most obvious in the areas of tightened media controls, limits
on civil society organizations, and reduced protections for minorities. The
evolving character of India’s domestic politics is likely to influence India’s
foreign policy aims and decision-making processes, hard-power capabilities,
and the way India relates to other states, including the U.S.
policy implications
• The U.S.-India strategic partnership is strong and likely to remain durable
because of shared concerns about China’s power and influence. Yet because
India’s domestic political culture and international worldview reflect
unique historical, ideological, and cultural wellsprings, U.S. policymakers
should not assume U.S.-India convergence on liberal aims, including India’s
commitment to the defense of the liberal international order.
• Rhetorically, the Biden administration has attached great significance to liberal
democracy and thus risks politically costly criticism if it appears to ignore
undemocratic trends in India. To avoid hypocrisy and, most importantly,
to set realistic expectations for U.S.-India partnership, U.S. officials should
convey their concerns about India’s political trajectory forthrightly but
bearing in mind that the U.S. has little influence over India’s internal politics.
• Further erosion of democratic institutions and practices would, on balance,
make India a less powerful and predictable international actor, and would
reduce its capacity for reassurance and building partnerships with other
states, including the U.S.
• The U.S. government should monitor political developments in India.
If democratic erosion worsens, managing U.S. relations with India will
demand a tricky balancing act that preserves and even strengthens
partnership in areas deemed critical to geopolitical competition with China
without extending U.S.-India cooperation into areas that would mistake
India for an entirely like-minded U.S. treaty ally.
markey
•
india ’ s illiberalism and democratic erosion
T
he increasingly close strategic partnership between the United States and
India represents one of the most significant geopolitical developments
of the past two decades. Whereas the United States and India were “estranged
democracies” throughout most of the Cold War, in the 21st century U.S.
presidents and Indian prime ministers have taken turns echoing versions of
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s characterization of the two countries as
“natural allies.”1 A bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Congress favors ever-closer
U.S.-India ties, and a majority of Indians view the United States favorably.2
The bilateral partnership has multiple, often mutually reinforcing,
wellsprings, starting with shared strategic concerns about the rise of an assertive
China in Asia. The two states have signed a series of bilateral agreements to
enable deeper military cooperation, and total U.S. defense trade with India
has grown from near zero in 2008 to over $20 billion in 2020.3 Economic
and educational ties also bind. Successive generations of Indians have found
opportunities in the United States, and U.S. businesses have more and more
come to appreciate India’s potential as a huge, developing economy. Total
U.S.-India trade grew from $48.8 billion in 2010 to $78.3 billion in 2020.4
Throughout this remarkable renaissance in bilateral relations, both
sides have also routinely touted their shared principles as the world’s
oldest and largest democracies. The Biden administration, even more
than its predecessors, has taken pains to point out that common values
unite India and the United States just as they differentiate the two from
authoritarian China. Yet ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
swept into national power in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
policies have raised doubts about his government’s commitment to liberal
democratic practices. By 2021, India had slipped in three major global
1 Dennis Kux, India and the United States: Estranged Democracies (Washington, D.C.: National
Defense University Press, 1993); and Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, “India, USA and the World: Let Us
Work Together to Solve the Political-Economic Y2K Problem” (speech to the Asia Society, New
York, September 28, 1998) u https://asiasociety.org/india-usa-and-world-let-us-work-togethersolve-political-economic-y2k-problem.
2 According to the Pew Research Center, 60% of Indians viewed the United States favorably as of
2019. See Pew Research Center, Global Indicators Database u https://www.pewresearch.org/
global/database/indicator/1/country/in. For American attitudes about India, see Gallup, “Country
Ratings” u https://news.gallup.com/poll/1624/perceptions-foreign-countries.aspx. Reflecting wide
congressional support for India, there are 31 members of the India caucus (22 Democrat and 9
Republican) in the U.S. Senate and 67 members of the India caucus (53 Democrat and 14 Republican)
in the U.S. House of Representatives. See “Senate India Caucus,” Mark R. Warner u https://www.
warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/senate-india-caucus; and “U.S. India Caucus,” Capitol Impact u
https://www.ciclt.net/sn/leg_app/poc_detail.aspx?P_ID=&ClientCode=gsba&LegComID=19271.
3 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, “U.S. Security Cooperation with
India,” Fact Sheet, January 20, 2021 u https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-india.
4 U.S. Census Bureau, “Trade in Goods with India” u https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/
c5330.html.
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political rankings: the U.S.-based Freedom House dropped India from
“free” to “partly free,” the Swedish V-Dem Research Institute downgraded
India from an “electoral democracy” to an “electoral autocracy,” and
the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit characterized India as a
“flawed democracy.”5
All these characterizations of India’s political practices and institutions
warrant closer scrutiny as they are hardly uncontested. In combination,
however, they convincingly raise doubts about India’s inclusion as a member
of the liberal democratic community of nations, and whether the United
States should continue to hold such expectations as it structures its strategic
partnership with India.
Looking to the future, how differently would an illiberal, even autocratic
India act on the world stage? Answering this question is not as straightforward
as it might appear. It requires a systematic discussion of the various pathways
that have the potential to link India’s domestic politics with international
outcomes. In the end, a full analysis of these pathways provides a compelling
case that the character of India’s domestic politics will shape its international
affairs and, more than that, offers insight into how India is likely to interact with
the world differently if it slides further into illiberal, undemocratic patterns.
To be clear, India’s political trajectory is uncertain, and there are still good
reasons to imagine that its future could be more, rather than less, democratic.
However, if India continues along its current path, Washington should above
all avoid policies founded on false assumptions about India’s values and aims.
Although an illiberal or autocratic India might still prove itself a dedicated
and strategically valuable counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific, it
would not be a committed partner in the defense of a liberal world order in
the ways that the Biden administration has vowed to prioritize. In addition,
an illiberal and autocratic India would, on balance, also be less capable, less
trusted, less influential, more riven by domestic and regional conflict, and
less inclined to share common views with the United States on other global
economic, security, or diplomatic priorities.
This article is organized as follows:
u
pp. 81–84 examine the assumptions in the argument that common values
unite India and the United States and analyze their logical implications
for U.S. policy.
5 Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2021: India” u https://freedomhouse.org/country/india/
freedom-world/2021; Nafiza Alizada et al., “Autocratization Turns Viral: Democracy Report
2021,” V-Dem Institute, 2021 u https://www.v-dem.net/files/25/DR%202021.pdf; and Economist
Intelligence Unit, “Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and in Health?” 2021, 10.
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markey
u
u
u
•
india ’ s illiberalism and democratic erosion
pp. 84–91 scrutinize recent characterizations of India’s political practices
and institutions as backsliding on the country’s democratic principles.
pp. 91–100 examine four pathways that have the potential to link India’s
domestic politics with international outcomes, including how India’s
domestic politics could affect its overseas aims, policy processes, hard
power capabilities, and the perceptions and politics of other states.
pp. 100–105 offer implications and recommendations from this analysis
for U.S. policy.
the assumptions and logic of u.s. partnership
with india
Far more than its predecessor, the Biden administration has publicly
trumpeted its commitment to liberalism and democracy both at home and
abroad. For President Joe Biden, democracy is “the heart of who we are and
how we see the world—and how the world sees us.”6 According to Biden and
his top appointees, a shared commitment to liberal democratic principles
is the foundation for the United States’ most important alliances, such as
NATO, and serves as the ordering principle for the administration’s global
strategy.7 Contrary to pure power-politics reasoning, the president and senior
officials like National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argue, for instance, that
U.S. competition with China is part of a wider “competition of models with
autocracies, and we are trying to show the world that American democracy
and democracy writ large can work.”8
In addition to establishing a baseline for which countries the United
States counts as allies and which countries as competitors, Secretary of State
Antony Blinken has publicly explained the administration’s logic about how
regime type affects international relationships.9 According to Blinken, strong
democracies make better partners for the United States because they are also
more likely to be politically stable, less prone to conflict, and more dependable
economic partners. Weak democracies, by contrast, are more prone to
6 Joseph R. Biden Jr., “Why America Must Lead Again,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2020 u
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again.
7 See also Hal Brands, “The Emerging Biden Doctrine,” Foreign Affairs, June 2021 u https://www.
foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-06-29/emerging-biden-doctrine.
8 Jen Psaki and Jake Sullivan, “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security
Advisor Jake Sullivan, June 7, 2021,” White House, June 7, 2021 u https://www.whitehouse.gov/
briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/06/07/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-andnational-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-june-7-2021.
9 Antony J. Blinken, “A Foreign Policy for the American People” (speech, Washington, D.C., March 3,
2021) u https://www.state.gov/a-foreign-policy-for-the-american-people.
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destabilizing domestic and foreign influences and are thus less reliable U.S.
partners. Autocratic states are even more prone to conflict and less likely to
support the “rules-based international order that the United States and [its]
allies have built and invested in for decades and decades.”10
The Biden administration’s rhetoric and reasoning are open to criticism
on a variety of familiar grounds. Above all, these liberal democratic values
have only ever been imperfectly practiced at home, and in recent years
especially the threat of illiberal and undemocratic forces in U.S. domestic
politics has been the subject of intense and extensive public debate. In
addition, U.S. foreign policy has always reflected a multiplicity of interests
that includes but is not exclusively defined by principles of liberalism or
democracy. Accordingly, friends and adversaries of the United States could
all be forgiven for questioning whether the Biden administration’s rhetoric
will be matched by capabilities, resources, and commitments. And although
post–World War II U.S. foreign policy has consistently reflected aspects of
liberal internationalism, the dramatic whiplash of transitions from Obama to
Trump to Biden raises legitimate questions about what sort of foreign policy
the United States will follow next.
The Biden administration’s early track record is mixed with respect to the
application of liberal values in foreign policy.11 Yet the president has remained
steadfast in his public defense of liberalism and democracy. At his September
2021 speech to the UN General Assembly he stated, “As we pursue diplomacy
across the board, the United States will champion the democratic values
that go to the very heart of who we are as a nation and a people: freedom,
equality, opportunity, and a belief in the universal rights of all people.”12 By its
consistent use of such language and logic, the Biden administration raises the
political costs of pursuing policies that clearly contradict liberal, democratic
principles. As compared to an avowedly “realist” or illiberal regime, the Biden
administration exposes itself to charges of hypocrisy. Attentive audiences at
home (voters) and abroad (allies and adversaries) will reward or punish the
administration accordingly.
10 Antony J. Blinken, “Secretary Antony J. Blinken on Release of the 2020 Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices,” U.S. Department of State, March 30, 2021 u https://www.state.gov/
secretary-antony-j-blinken-on-release-of-the-2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices.
11 Nahal Toosi, “Biden Pulls Punches on Rights Abusers,” Politico, September 15, 2021 u https://
www.politico.com/news/2021/09/15/saudi-myanmar-egypt-biden-rights-abusers-511911.
12 Joseph R. Biden Jr. (remarks at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, New York,
September 21, 2021) u https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/21/
remarks-by-president-biden-before-the-76th-session-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly.
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The administration has also been unwavering in how it has characterized
the logic of tightening relations with India. The Biden administration has
considered India a member in good standing within the democratic community
of nations, and therefore more likely to be a dependable partner. As Blinken
explained during his July 2021 trip to New Delhi, “The relationship between
our two countries is so important and so strong because it is a relationship
between our democracies. One of the elements that Americans admire most
about India is the steadfast commitment of its people to democracy, pluralism,
to human rights and fundamental freedoms.”13
On taking office, Biden, as one of his first major diplomatic acts, convened
an unprecedented leader-level summit of the Quad (virtually) with the prime
ministers of Japan, Australia, and India on March 12, 2021. In doing so,
he sent the unmistakable message that India is critically important to the
United States’ geopolitical competition with China, not merely because of its
geographic location, enormous population, or growing economy, but because
India is a fundamentally like-minded state similar to the United States’ other
democratic treaty allies. Biden was not alone; the joint statement from the
summit signed by all four leaders declared their intention to “strive for a
region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values,
and unconstrained by coercion.”14
This perspective on India is widely, if not universally, shared in Washington,
including in the U.S. Congress. However, as Modi’s government has received
criticism for illiberal and increasingly undemocratic practices, some of
that consensus has started to fray, most notably on Capitol Hill.15 In March
2021, just before Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin took his first official
trip to India, Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, wrote to express his concerns. A self-described supporter of close
13 Suhasini Haidar, “Democratic Values Bind India, U.S., Says Blinken,” Hindu, July 28, 2021 u
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indian-democracy-is-powered-by-its-freethinkingcitizens-blinken/article35583397.ece.
14 “Quad Leaders’ Joint Statement: ‘The Spirit of the Quad,’ ” White House, March 12,
2021 u https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/12/
quad-leaders-joint-statement-the-spirit-of-the-quad.
15 Earlier examples include Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2019 concerns about Kashmiri
rights and Democratic representative Pramila Jayapal’s 2019 opinion piece reflecting her
concerns about “fundamental principles of democracy such as freedom of the press, religious
freedom and due process,” as well as her co-sponsored resolution on Kashmir with Republican
representative Steve Watkins. See “Democratic Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren
Urges India to Respect Rights of People of Kashmir,” Hindu, October 5, 2019 u https://www.
thehindu.com/news/international/democratic-presidential-candidate-elizabeth-warrenurges-india-to-respect-rights-of-people-of-kashmir/article29606299.ece; and Pramila Jayapal,
“India’s Foreign Minister Refused to Meet Me. I Won’t Stop Speaking Out on Human Rights,”
Washington Post, December 23, 2019 u https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/23/
indias-foreign-minister-refused-meet-me-i-wont-stop-speaking-out-human-rights.
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U.S.-India ties, he explained that “the partnership is strongest when based
on shared democratic values and the Indian government has been trending
away from those values.”16 Menendez specifically criticized the Indian
government’s treatment of protesting farmers, journalists, and political
opponents. He identified state policies like the Citizenship Amendment Act,
abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, and use of sedition laws as evidence of
the “deteriorating situation of democracy.”17
Menendez’s policy critique was significant because it accepted the Biden
administration’s core logic: that the U.S.-India partnership is strategically
valuable in part because it is founded on shared principles. Where the senator
parted ways with this logic was over whether India’s government actually
shares those principles. This raises at least two questions: First, is this dire
assessment of India’s democratic erosion correct? And second, if so, precisely
how should we anticipate the international consequences of that erosion?
assessing india ’ s political trajectory
The Modi government has not been shy about refuting criticism of
its democratic credentials. Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
castigated the “hypocrisy” of Western institutions V-Dem and Freedom
House, accusing them of inventing artificial rules and parameters for judging
the political characteristics of other nations.18 Other analysts have pointed
out that any such rankings are inherently subjective because they assign
quantitative weights to assessments of complex institutional structures,
policies, and practices that may be deeply dissimilar between one state
and the next.19 In addition, critiques of the Modi government may fail to
draw clear distinctions between concepts like “freedom,” “democracy,” and
“liberalism” in ways that lead to confusion about precisely what political
changes—if any—are underway. Similarly, just because Modi’s political
opponents depict his policies as “autocratic” or “undemocratic” does not
make them so. Indeed, the protected right of opposition parties to castigate
16 Robert Menendez to Lloyd J. Austin, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 17, 2021, u
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/03-17-21%20RM%20letter%20to%20Austin%20
re%20India%20trip.pdf.
17 Each of these charges will be explained in greater detail later in this article.
18 Shubhajit Roy, “Jaishankar on Global Democracy Downgrade: ‘Custodians Can’t Stomach We Don’t
Want Their Approval,’ ” Indian Express, March 15, 2021 u https://indianexpress.com/article/india/
global-democarcy-downgrade-custodians-cant-stomach-we-dont-want-their-approval-7228422.
19 Soutik Biswas, “ ‘Electoral Autocracy’: The Downgrading of India’s Democracy,” BBC, March 16,
2021 u https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944.
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india ’ s illiberalism and democratic erosion
India’s elected leaders demonstrates a persistent commitment to certain
core principles of democracy.20
With these caveats in mind, it is worth reviewing the evidence of India’s
political condition in greater detail. Two main findings stand out. First, the
Modi government has indeed undertaken a range of policies that normally
weaken important institutions associated with the practice of democracy,
but India also retains some essential democratic qualities and does not yet
appear to have passed a point of no return. The most compelling evidence of
such erosion under the Modi government is found in three areas: tightened
media controls, limits on civil society organizations, and reduced protections
for minorities. Second, during its time in power, Modi’s political party has
pursued policies that reflect a Hindu nationalist ideology that is at odds
with core liberal tenets, but these developments should be appreciated in
appropriate context without exaggerating India’s historical attachments to
liberalism in economic, political, or social spheres.
Both the Freedom House and V-Dem studies identify government
interference in India’s media as one of the most significant anti-democratic
trends. In its quantitative review of the decade from 2010 to 2020, V-Dem
finds deteriorating conditions with respect to government censorship, media
bias, critical media, media self-censorship, and harassment of journalists.21
Freedom House concludes that “attacks on press freedom have escalated
dramatically under the Modi government, and reporting has become
significantly less ambitious in recent years.”22 As the organization Reporters
Without Borders notes in its 2021 World Press Freedom Index, Indian
journalists face the threat of online and physical harassment from hardcore
Hindu nationalist supporters of the Modi government as well as severe legal
action by the state’s overly broad application of colonial-era sedition laws that
authorize the punishment of an individual who “brings or attempts to bring
into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards,
the Government.”23 In May 2021, a three-judge bench of India’s Supreme
20 Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, for instance, has drawn comparisons between Modi’s
authoritarianism and that of Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi. See Sadanand Dhume, “Is
India Still a Democracy? The Answer Isn’t So Clear,” Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2021 u https://
www.wsj.com/articles/is-india-still-a-democracy-the-answer-isnt-so-clear-11618525073.
21 Alizada et. al., “Autocratization Turns Viral,” 21.
22 “Freedom in the World 2021: India,” section D1.
23 Reporters Without Borders, “India” u https://rsf.org/en/india.
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Court itself observed that the use of such laws could “muzzle media freedom”
and declared, “It is time we define the limits of sedition.”24
India’s civil society organizations also face an increasingly repressive state.
Numerous activists involved in protests against Modi government policies
have been charged with sedition or targeted by the 1967 Unlawful Activities
(Prevention) Act, a law originally intended for use against anti-state terrorists.25
University professors and students have been arrested and prosecuted for
their criticism of government policies, especially the Citizenship Amendment
Act, the 2019 law passed by the BJP that pointedly excluded Muslims from
a list of persecuted minorities eligible for gaining Indian citizenship and
that is perceived by critics as part of a broader scheme to deny Muslims
equal status in India.26 As the U.S.-based network of academic institutions
Scholars at Risk reported in 2020, “over the past two years, an apparent surge
in incidents…alongside heightened nationalistic rhetoric by Prime Minister
Modi underscore fears that the space for ideas and dialogue in India is being
constricted, and dissent punished.”27
Indian government authorities had taken steps to circumscribe the
activities of NGOs before Modi’s rise to national power in 2014, but his
government quickly took full advantage of amendments to India’s Foreign
Contribution Regulatory Act to cancel the operating licenses—and thus
effectively silence—20,000 NGOs from 2014 to 2018.28 The Modi government
tightened restrictions on foreign funding for NGOs, which led, for instance,
to the September 2020 closure of Amnesty International’s operations in India
after the group released a series of critical reports.29 Amnesty International’s
24 “‘Time to Define Limits of Sedition,’ Particularly in Context of Media Freedom: SC,” Wire, May 31,
2021 u https://thewire.in/law/supreme-court-sedition-media-freedom-chandrachud-telugu-channel.
25 Sumit Ganguly, “India’s Democracy Is Under Threat,” Foreign Policy, September 18, 2020 u https://
foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/18/indias-democracy-is-under-threat.
26 Harrison Akins, “The Citizenship (Amendment) Act in India,” U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, Legislation Factsheet, February 2020 u https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/
files/2020%20Legislation%20Factsheet%20-%20India_0.pdf.
27 Scholars at Risk, “Free to Think,” November 2020, 55 u https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/11/Scholars-at-Risk-Free-to-Think-2020.pdf.
28 Daya Bhattacharya, “FCRA Licenses of 20,000 NGOs Cancelled: Act Being Used as Weapon to
Silence Organisations,” Firstpost, December 30, 2016 u https://www.firstpost.com/india/fcralicences-of-20000-ngos-cancelled-act-being-used-as-weapon-to-silence-organisations-3181560.html.
29 Niha Masih, “Amnesty International to Cease Work in India, Citing Government Harassment,”
Washington Post, September 29, 2020 u https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_
pacific/india-amnesty-international-harassment/2020/09/29/62ad452c-01bd-11eb-b92e029676f9ebec_story.html. Sumit Ganguly has likewise explained how the Ford Foundation froze
its spending in India due to government pressure. See Sumit Ganguly, “The Death of Human
Rights in India?” Foreign Policy, October 2, 2020 u https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/02/
the-death-of-human-rights-in-india.
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acting secretary general stated that the government’s aim was to “silence
critical voices and stoke a climate of fear.”30
The impact of the Modi government’s Hindu nationalist ideology—and
especially its implications for Indian minority groups—is most pronounced
in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. From 2014 to 2020,
India’s global ranking fell from 27th place to 53rd. The report explained that the
“increasing influence of religion under the Modi premiership, whose policies
have fomented anti-Muslim feeling and religious strife, has damaged the
political fabric of the country.”31 As evidence of anti-Muslim discrimination,
the report cites the Citizenship Amendment Act, along with the state’s efforts
to suppress national protests against that act. Raising similar concerns, in
2021 the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom concluded
that India’s government was “engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing,
and egregious religious freedom violations” and identified the Citizenship
Amendment Act, along with mob violence in New Delhi in February 2020
that mainly targeted Muslims and the “weaponization of citizenship laws”
such as the proposed national register of citizens, as supporting evidence.32
The national register of citizens was originally intended to be a list of all Indian
citizens, but the state implemented rules for proving citizenship that have
disproportionately disenfranchised Muslims in the northeast state of Assam
and have already rendered nearly two million people effectively stateless and
at risk of internment and deportation.33
In sum, there is overwhelming evidence that the Modi government
has taken steps to curtail civil liberties, stifle criticism, and target domestic
opponents in ways that fail to protect minorities, privilege majoritarian rule,
and suggest the potential for a more general deterioration in the quality of
India’s democracy. This pattern is fairly consistent with the findings of Steven
Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who have observed that, with the exception of
outright coups d’état, states do not transform from liberal democracies to
authoritarian autocracies overnight. Rather, “more often… democracies erode
30 Amnesty International, “Amnesty International India Halts Its Work on Upholding Human
Rights in India Due to Reprisal from Government of India,” Press Release, September 29, 2020 u
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/amnesty-international-india-halts-its-work-onupholding-human-rights-in-india-due-to-reprisal-from-government-of-india.
31 Economist Intelligence Unit, “Democracy Index 2020.”
32 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “Annual Report 2021,” April 2021, 22 u
https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/India%20Chapter%20AR2021.pdf.
33 Suhasini Raj and Jeffrey Gettleman, “A Mass Citizenship Check in India Leaves 2 Million People
in Limbo,” New York Times, August 31, 2019 u https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/world/asia/
india-muslim-citizen-list.html.
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slowly, in barely visible steps.”34 Moreover, “for many citizens, it may, at first, be
imperceptible. After all, elections continue to be held. Opposition politicians
still sit in congress. Independent newspapers continue to circulate.”35
Indeed, many important aspects of India’s democracy still function, and
perhaps they always will. Freedom House continues to rate India’s election
process as free and fair, and it is clear that the BJP cannot dictate outcomes,
especially at the state level where it often faces stiff competition.36 In the spring
of 2021, for instance, the BJP lost several state-level elections, including a
hotly contested race in West Bengal in which Modi had delivered dozens of
speeches before huge rallies and even appeared to have grown his beard in
the style of the state’s beloved poet Rabindranath Tagore to appeal to voters.37
Because India’s decentralized federal structure often leaves considerable
power in the hands of a wide variety of regionally rooted parties, the sprawling
and diverse nation has historically experienced more raucous ungovernability
than consolidated autocracy. One way to think about India’s national politics
is that the BJP wins the center owing to a lack of any strong alternative—a gap
left by the relative collapse of the long-dominant Indian National Congress
party and by the inability of regional parties to mount a collective challenge.
Given these realities, it is less than clear that the Modi government has
fully captured India’s electoral institutions or distorted its procedures. There
are, to be sure, important reasons for concern, not least the state’s apparent
use of Israeli-made spyware against opposition politicians and an election
commissioner.38 And there have been some worrisome signs of politicization
in India’s judiciary as well.39 Still, the Supreme Court continues to take
independent positions. For example, it plans to review the sedition laws
34 Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Crown Publishing Group,
2019), 3. Of course, Levitsky and Ziblatt draw from a far wider literature and cite Juan Linz’s 1978
The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes as seminal.
35 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 77.
36 Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2021: India.”
37 Pallavi Ghosh, “BJP Sees Reflection of Tagore in PM Modi’s New Look, Says Gurudev’s Values
to Guide Policies in Bengal,” News 18, January 19, 2021 u https://www.news18.com/news/
politics/beard-trap-more-than-modis-look-bjp-will-rely-on-tagores-essence-in-policies-to-woobengal-3310901.html.
38 Shoaib Daniyal, “Supreme Court, EC, Opposition: Spyware Attack Threatens Pillars of India’s
Electoral Democracy,” Scroll.in, July 2021 u https://scroll.in/article/1000604/supreme-court-ecopposition-spyware-attack-threatens-pillars-of-indias-electoral-democracy. Note also that although
the V-Dem rankings specifically raise concerns about the autonomy of the Election Commission of
India, Freedom House continued to give high marks to India’s electoral process. See Alizada et al.,
“Autocratization Turns Viral,” 20; and Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2021: India.”
39 Rana Ayyub, “The Destruction of India’s Judicial Independence Is Almost Complete,”
Washington Post, March 24, 2020 u https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/24/
destruction-indias-judicial-independence-is-almost-complete.
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noted above, and in July 2021 it declared a paid vaccination scheme advanced
by the Modi government to be “prima facie, arbitrary and irrational.”40
Freedom House has observed that “judges, particularly at the Supreme Court
level, have displayed autonomy and activism in response to public-interest
litigation.”41 To the extent that individual or lower-level judges and courts
have been susceptible to political influence, it is not obvious that conditions
are materially worse than under past governments. India’s judiciary is down
but not yet out.
In short, important “antibodies” to autocracy remain in India, even if
pillars of democracy are being tested. Although Modi and the BJP may
eventually establish a permanent hold on power, as Levitsky and Ziblatt put
it, they have not yet fully captured India’s referees, bought or enfeebled their
opponents, or rewritten the rules of the political game.42
Turning from a focus on political institutions to a look at political culture
and ideology, India’s BJP-led government brings a strikingly different outlook
from its Congress Party predecessor. Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, defines
the BJP’s identity, as both Modi and his party are direct products of the
hardcore Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organization.43 That said, at least as
important for understanding India’s national political identity are the limits to
which it could ever have been adequately described as “liberal” in the standard
Western sense.44 This is true for understanding India’s often tradition-bound
social norms, and it is helpful for understanding Indian economic policies,
where “powerful nationalist ideas of self-reliance and particular views of
sovereignty…have made economic reforms a particularly contentious arena.”45
40 On the court’s review of sedition laws, see Krishnadas Rajagopal, “Why Do You Need the ‘Colonial
Law’ of Sedition after 75 Years of Independence, CJI Asks Govt,” Hindu, July 15, 2021 u https://
www.thehindu.com/news/national/is-this-law-necessary-sc-seeks-centres-response-on-pleaschallening-sedition-law/article35336402.ece. On the court’s challenge to government vaccine
policies, see Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, “The Political Fix: Will Pressure from the Supreme
Court and States Prompt a Modi U-Turn on Vaccines?” Scroll.in, June 7, 2021 u https://scroll.in/
article/996712/the-political-fix-will-pressure-from-the-supreme-court-and-states-prompt-a-modiu-turn-on-vaccines.
41 Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2021: India.”
42 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 92.
43 On the BJP and RSS, see Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron
(Gurgaron: Random House, 2019); Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, RSS: A View to
the Inside (Gurgaron: Random House, 2019); and Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist
Movement in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
44 For brief but insightful observations on this point, see Akhilesh Pillalamarri, “Why India’s
Democracy Is Not Dying,” Diplomat, June 14, 2021 u https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/
why-indias-democracy-is-not-dying; and Akhilesh Pillalamarri, “A Changing India: Caught
Between Illiberalism and Social Revolution,” Diplomat, August 18, 2019 u https://thediplomat.
com/2019/08/a-changing-india-caught-between-illiberalism-and-social-revolution.
45 Alyssa Ayres, Our Time Has Come (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 109.
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Yet as Foreign Minister Jaishankar argues in his 2020 book The India Way,
characterizing India’s worldview by reference to Western terms like “liberal
democracy” delivers an incomplete, impoverished perspective.46
Jaishankar’s views are especially instructive because of his important
foreign policy role in the Modi government. For him, India’s liberalism,
pluralism, and democratic practices find fertile soil in India because they are
compatible with underlying cultural and civilizational attributes of far more
ancient provenance.47 When it comes to explaining what kind of great power
India is likely to become, he turns first to an exploration of India’s own history
and traditions, and writes that “if there are today hurdles to understanding
India’s viewpoint, much of that arises from an ignorance of its thought
processes. This is hardly surprising when much of the West was historically
so dismissive of our society.”48 Jaishankar argues that the Mahabharata, the
ancient Sanskrit epic poem, is an especially rich resource for understanding
and interpreting India.
One need not accept Jaishankar’s specific applications of poetic wisdom
to contemporary policy challenges in order to spot his skepticism about
Western ideologies like liberalism. Indeed, he tends to characterize liberalism
and other Western beliefs as mere “narratives” rather than universal ideals,
and he repeatedly points out how they have been applied hypocritically by the
United States and its other Western partners.49 In his critique of the United
States, Jaishankar is not alone; generations of Indian diplomats have frequently
(although not universally) taken a dim view of U.S. policies. Although most
have adopted a leftist idiom in their critiques, few could be considered “liberal”
in outlook. In the wide and diverse spectrum of Indian worldviews, liberalism
is present but by no means dominant or defining.50 Jaishankar is right when
he explains that the principles and logic that undergird the practice of politics
in India are not the same as those elsewhere, even if they may be compatible.
In sum, U.S. policymakers, including those in the Biden administration,
should see India not as a liberal democracy identical to the U.S. model but as
a democracy built on distinct cultural, historical, and intellectual foundations.
46 S. Jaishankar, The India Way: Strategies for An Uncertain World (Noida: HarperCollins, 2020).
47 Ibid., 128, 212.
48 Ibid., 47.
49 Ibid., 63–64, 119–20.
50 In one important effort to catalogue Indian worldviews, India’s “liberal globalists” are a relatively small
minority, distinct from India’s many nationalists and leftists for having a solidly pro-U.S./Western
perspective. See Deepa M. Ollapally and Rajesh Rajagopalan, “India,” in Worldviews of Aspiring
Powers: Domestic Foreign Policy Debates in China, India, Iran, Japan and Russia, ed. Henry R. Nau and
Deepa M. Ollapally (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), figure 3.2.
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To the extent that India’s democratic institutions and practices are being
eroded by the Modi government, the distance between Washington’s “ideal
of India” and India’s reality appears to be growing wider. The next question is
precisely how that is likely to matter for India’s international relations.
pathways from indian domestic politics
to international affairs
Not all international relations theorists—or policymakers—see a
clear-cut connection between a state’s domestic political institutions and its
international relationships. However, rather than taking sides in a theoretical
debate over the drivers of state action in the international system, this article
simply considers a range of different pathways by which changes in India’s
domestic politics could plausibly alter the character of its foreign affairs. Four
pathways are discussed in turn: how India’s domestic politics (1) influence
India’s international aims, (2) shape India’s policy processes, (3) contribute
to India’s hard-power capabilities, and (4) alter the perceptions and politics
of other states.
Pathway 1: Aims
For U.S. liberal internationalists, including the influential members
of the Biden administration cited earlier in this article, it is axiomatic that
a state’s domestic politics will influence its international aims. Put another
way, a state’s international preferences are largely (but not exclusively)
the aggregated product of its subnational identities, values, interests, and
institutional structures.51 By this logic, liberal democracies by their nature
will tend to pursue different international aims than illiberal autocracies.
Liberal democracies should have, for example, an interest in defending the
liberal international order and its institutions, practices, and norms. Precisely
how liberal states will advance that agenda could vary widely, but even when
they disagree among themselves, their common practices, expectations, and
agreements will keep them from resorting to war with each other.52 No such
obstacle bars liberal democracies from war with illiberal, autocratic states. To
the contrary, their divergent practices at home amplify their differences in
51 Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously,” International Organization 51, no. 4 (1997): 513–53.
52 Michael Doyle is seminal on liberalism, foreign policy, and the democratic peace concept, but the
literature has seen contributions from many other scholars over the subsequent decades. Michael Doyle,
“Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, no. 3 (1983): 205–35.
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the international context and increase the likelihood that they will end up in
armed conflict.53
If these basic assumptions are accurate, an illiberal India would
presumably be a less dependable partner for the United States, less invested
in the defense of the prevailing international order, and—if taken to the
extreme—more likely to resolve its differences with other liberal democracies
through war. As noted above in the discussion of Jaishankar’s work, India’s
current leaders perceive their worldview as only partly and inadequately
described by reference to liberal ideals. Ian Hall has argued persuasively that
Modi has sought to ground India’s dealings with other states in the language
and logic of Hindu nationalist ideology.54 Whether Modi has yet succeeded
in transforming India’s foreign policy to reflect his religiously rooted ideals is
debatable.55 Less debatable is the observation that India’s foreign policy under
Modi is unlikely to reflect strong liberal impulses or aspirations, and in this
respect he has much in common with his predecessors. As observed above,
liberalism has never been India’s dominant political ideology.
Accordingly, when India’s aims do align with those of liberal
democracies, or when they run counter to illiberal autocracies, the causes
of alignment or contradiction are unlikely to be found by looking to India’s
liberal identity, as that search will come up dry. This basic point helps to
illuminate, for instance, the Cold War pattern of strategic disagreements
between Washington and New Delhi that often distinguished India from the
liberal democracies of the West with respect to international alignments,
free-trade regimes, and other issues of global order. Today, it may help
explain why India’s economy still has not opened as much as some of its
Asian peers, why “suspicion of commerce and especially foreign capital has
remained a consistent feature of domestic conversation,” why India “does
not project itself as an activist for the liberal democratic order,” and why
India bridles at the prospect of formal alliance with the United States, as
Alyssa Ayres points out in Our Time Has Come.56 In sum, it should give
fair warning to those who assume the India of the present—or future—will
situate liberal aims at the core of the country’s global aspirations.
53 Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 12,
no. 4 (1983): 323–53.
54 Ian Hall, Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2019), 10.
55 For an earlier scholarly debate over the trajectory of Modi’s policy, see Rajesh Basrur, “Modi’s
Foreign Policy Fundamentals: A Trajectory Unchanged,” International Affairs 93, no. 1 (2017): 7–26
u https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/93/1/7/2731383.
56 Ayres, Our Time Has Come, 45, 153, 216, 228–29.
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Pathway 2: Policy Processes
The means of seeking and retaining political power are fundamentally
different in democracies and autocracies, and those variations also translate
into different foreign policy processes. Nailing down the ways in which regime
type systematically affects international relations outcomes has occupied
several generations of modern international relations scholars. Over time,
many have narrowed their focus to the specific issue of how democracies
tend to experience and respond to the pressures of public sentiment—or
“audience costs”—differently from their autocratic counterparts.57 Put simply,
democratic leaders who owe their political power to popular consent are
relatively more constrained by their publics, while autocrats enjoy a freer
hand. Each regime type thus holds distinct advantages and disadvantages.
Democratic leaders are expected to be more sensitive to the political costs
associated with risky or norm-breaking foreign policies, such as unpopular
wars, but would also be more likely to deliver credible threats to adversaries
and be more trusted by allies to keep promises they make publicly. Autocrats,
on the other hand, would be more insulated from public pressure, and thus
more willing to undertake foreign adventures and bluffing to achieve tactical
advantage, but also less able to deliver effective, credible signals of their
intentions to friends or foes.58
For citizens in a democracy to hold their leaders accountable, they must
have sufficient information to assess policy outcomes and sufficient power to
reward the good and punish the bad. Accordingly, a free press and opposition
parties are essential prerequisites for democratic accountability.59 Other things
being equal, a state with a freer media environment and more competitive
opposition politics is expected to be better at constraining the foreign policy
decisions of its leaders.60
As discussed earlier in this article, India is now experiencing democratic
erosion in areas that would appear to have a direct bearing on accountability
in its foreign policy. Tightened controls over the media reduce the quality of
57 For the best recent review of this literature on the link between regime type and international relations,
see Susan Hyde and Elizabeth Saunders, “Recapturing Regime Type in International Relations: Leaders,
Institutions, and Agency Space,” International Organization 74, no. 2 (2020): 363–95.
58 Kenneth Schultz set up the basic framework for this argument. See Kenneth Schultz, Democracy
and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
59 Matthew Baum and Philip Potter, War and Democratic Restraint (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2015).
60 Of course, other things may not be equal. For an effort to grapple with additional factors, like the
salience of foreign policy issues and the clarity of how decisions are actually made (and who is
making them), see Vipin Narang and Paul Staniland, “Democratic Accountability and Foreign
Security Policy: Theory and Evidence from India,” Security Studies 27, no. 3 (2018): 410–47.
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information and, consequently, the public’s ability to assess the government’s
foreign policy decisions. State repression of civil society organizations,
independent scholars, activists, and opposition politicians narrows the
opportunity for dissent and competitive politics, reducing the public’s power
to reward or punish the government.
Recent scholarship on regime type in international relations treats
“democracy” and “autocracy” as points along a spectrum, and it is important
to recognize that individual democracies may be more or less constrained
by audience costs.61 When compared to many other democratic states,
India’s prime ministers have enjoyed a relatively great deal of latitude on
foreign policy matters. Since independence, foreign policymaking has been
centralized in the office of the prime minister and the Ministry of External
Affairs, and it has rarely been a main focus of India’s national elections.62
That said, if the conduct of Indian foreign policy is further insulated from
democratic accountability as current trends—especially tightened constraints
on the media—suggest, India’s international relations become functionally
indistinguishable from those of an autocracy.
In concrete terms, because India’s foreign policy is not democratically
accountable, it is less transparent—both to Indians and the rest of the
world—and harder to anticipate. That opens the door to actions that are more
idiosyncratic and changeable based on the personality and aims of India’s
leadership, especially when power is centralized in the hands of a charismatic
leader like Modi. The opacity and personalized quality of India’s policy
process under such a leader introduces a greater likelihood of miscalculation
by adversaries such as China or Pakistan as well as by partners such as the
United States, even as it frees New Delhi to pursue a wider range of tactically
advantageous goals. India should enjoy greater capacity for surprise but less
for reassurance. To be clear, these developments need not necessarily result
in uniformly better or worse foreign policy outcomes (at least from an Indian
perspective), but they are likely to be consequentially different from what a
more democratic India would deliver.
61 As Susan Hyde and Elisabeth Saunders have explained, recent waves of research on regime
type added a great deal more nuance and complexity to the field, among other things by raising
questions about how democrats and autocrats can try to manipulate audience costs as a means
to achieve similar international advantages. Still, they conclude that such manipulation is not
cost-free, and that, on balance, “regime type provides important structural constraints and
bounds on state leaders and the degree to which political elites can strategically manipulate these
constraints.” Hyde and Saunders, “Recapturing Regime Type in International Relations,” 387.
62 Hall, Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy, 11–12; and Narang and Staniland,
“Democratic Accountability and Foreign Security Policy,” 427–29.
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Pathway 3: Hard Power
Above all, India’s prominence in contemporary geopolitics is a
consequence of its huge population and the potential economic, political,
and military weight that over one-sixth of humanity will have on the world
stage. For many international strategists, especially self-identifying “realists,”
the core issue is not whether India is more or less liberal or democratic
but whether it manages to translate that population advantage into hard
power. But these issues are interconnected to the extent that the character
of India’s domestic policies and governance determines a great deal about its
hard-power capabilities.
Precisely how to draw these connections is less certain. The dominant
post–Cold War consensus that assumed causal linkages between liberal
democratic governance, economic development, rising wealth, and greater
hard-power capabilities is increasingly contested.63 In India, where socialist
economic policies gave way to market reforms in 1991 because of a crippling
currency crisis rather than a broad-based intellectual conversion to liberal
principles, there has been “diminishing enthusiasm” for continued market
reforms over subsequent decades.64 In addition, the rise of China has
sharpened a global debate over the causal relationship between political
regime type and economic development. China’s version of authoritarian
capitalism is touted as a model by those (especially in Beijing, but in many
other illiberal regimes as well) who believe that high growth is achievable in
autocratic states.65 Some go further, suggesting that state repression delivers
the political stability necessary for growth in otherwise too fractious and
divided societies.66
For India, one way to frame the question is to ask whether a further
erosion of democracy is likely to serve any developmentally beneficial
purpose. It is as least conceivable that the Modi government’s constraints
63 Timothy Stanley and Alexander Lee, “It’s Still Not the End of History,” Atlantic, September 1, 2014
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/its-still-not-the-end-of-history-francisfukuyama/379394.
u
64 Ashley J. Tellis, “Introduction,” in Getting India Back on Track: An Action Agenda, ed. Bibek Debroy,
Ashley J. Tellis, and Reece Trevor (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
2014), 16.
65 One Western take on the benefits of the “China model” is found in Daniel A. Bell, The China Model:
Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).
For an example of how the China model is discussed in other societies, see Ofir Winter and Doron
Ella, “The Chinese Development Model: A Cure for Egyptian Woes?” Institute for National Security
Studies, INSS Insight, no. 1203, August 21, 2019 u http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep19499.
66 Elizabeth C. Economy, “Yes, Virginia, China Is Exporting Its Model,” Council on Foreign Relations,
December 11, 2019 u https://www.cfr.org/blog/yes-virginia-china-exporting-its-model.
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on the media, civil society, and opposition groups would create space for
policies that spur the economy and, in turn, more successfully harness
the latent power of India’s population to international purpose. In a
contentious democracy, local political activism can paralyze business
and stymie supporting investments, including for vital infrastructure.
As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi gained fame for winning
new investment by significantly easing the path for businesses, as when in
2008 he lured Tata Motors to relocate a high-profile factory that had been
delayed by land protests in the state of West Bengal.67 The desperate desire
for greater efficiency in India, sometimes at a cost to local interest groups,
is hardly unique to Modi. Indeed, the very sedition laws now used by the
current government to stifle criticism were also deployed by the previous
government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to put down protests
against a new nuclear power plant that the government considered essential
to meeting India’s energy needs.68
However, as Christophe Jaffrelot, Atul Kohli, and Kanta Murali have
argued, a careful review of Modi’s record shows that his policies are more
accurately characterized as “pro-business” than as “pro-development.”69
Although conceivably such an approach could eventually deliver high growth
and broad-based development, in India it has mainly delivered “growing
inequalities and a failure to spread the benefits of development widely.”70
Moreover, Jaffrelot, Kohli, and Murali perceive that pro-business policies in
India tend to beget a vicious cycle in which politicians cater to narrow interests,
struggle to win the support of other excluded groups, and increasingly depend
on tools of political repression to keep the game going. The net result is likely
to be less democracy, less economic development, and—over time—an India
with relatively less hard power.
Exclusionary or discriminatory policies, especially those that have the
potential to alienate important segments of the Indian population such as
its Muslim community, could also diminish India’s hard-power potential
in at least three ways. First, they will reduce the productive capacity of a
67 Christophe Jaffrelot, “How Narendra Modi Brought Industrialists to Gujarat (and Cut
Many Corners in the Process),” Scroll.in, January 4, 2019 u https://scroll.in/article/907850/
how-narendra-modi-brought-industrialists-to-gujarat-and-cut-many-corners-in-the-process.
68 Maneesh Chhibber, “Why BJP and Congress Love to Hate Sedition (Till They Come to Power),”
Print, January 21, 2019 u https://theprint.in/opinion/why-bjp-and-congress-love-to-hate-seditiontill-they-come-to-power/180648.
69 Christophe Jaffrelot, Atul Kohli, and Kanta Murali, Business and Politics in India (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2019).
70 Ibid., 294.
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significant part of India’s society by denying it equal opportunity, legal
protection, and a sense of shared national purpose. Though a minority in
India, the country’s Muslim community is the world’s third largest at over
200 million. Second, repression of increasingly violent dissent will impose
mounting security costs on the Indian state. Whatever costs the state
must pay to maintain domestic order—by paramilitary forces, the police,
or otherwise—are resources unavailable for other productive uses. These
costs appear to have been manageable to date but would rise if communal
tensions worsen. For instance, in 2019, publicly reported policing costs
in Jammu and Kashmir doubled after the Modi government preemptively
imposed a heavy security presence to detain activists and quell any violent
protest against its decision to revoke the state’s special semi-autonomous
constitutional status that had been defined by Article 370 of the Indian
constitution.71 Third, large-scale demonstrations destroy lives and property,
harming the economy and reducing state tax revenues. New Delhi’s 2020
communal riots were the worst in decades and reportedly destroyed over
$3 billion in property.72 Four months of state-imposed lockdown in Jammu
and Kashmir cost an estimated $2 billion in lost GDP.73
Ultimately, when it comes to international relations, the hard-power
resources of a state must be measured in net, rather than gross, terms.74 If
an increasing share of India’s GDP is devoted to repressing domestic dissent,
destroyed by the violence of Hindu nationalist politics, or diminished by
the disenfranchisement and exclusion of the Muslim minority, the state will
have a smaller slice of a slower-growing economic pie to devote to foreign
affairs and national security. For ambitious Indian strategists seeking ways
to tighten the yawning power differential in the competition between India
and China, these handicaps could prove especially damaging.
71 During FY 2019–20, India spent Rs 1,267 crore ($179.9 million) on security in Jammu
and Kashmir, compared to Rs 650 crore (approximately $92.9 million) in FY 2018–19. See
“Security Expenditure In J&K All Time High,” Kashmir Observer, February 2, 2021 u https://
kashmirobserver.net/2021/02/02/security-expenditure-in-jk-all-time-high.
72 “Rs 25,000 Crore Loss Estimated in Delhi Riots,” DNA India, March 1, 2020 u https://www.
dnaindia.com/business/report-rs-25000-crore-loss-estimated-in-delhi-riots-2815581.
73 “Kashmir Economy Suffered Loss of Rs 17,878 Cr in 4 Months after Article 370
Abrogation,” Indian Express, December 17, 2019 u https://indianexpress.com/article/india/
kashmir-economy-suffered-loss-four-months-after-article-370-abrogation-jk-6172096.
74 Michael Beckley, Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2018), 12.
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Pathway 4: Foreign Perceptions
India’s position in regional and global affairs is partly defined by hard
measures of economic and military capability but also by the perceptions
of other states. India enjoys great cultural and popular appeal worldwide,
and much about its soft power is derived from civilizational, religious, and
historical wellsprings, not to mention Bollywood and an exceptionally vibrant
arts and literature scene. Yet it has also been argued that an important part of
India’s global appeal is its democratic identity. That other states have viewed
India differently—and often with admiration on this count—influences their
expectations of India and even their policy responses to New Delhi.
The power of India’s example—a huge, diverse, developing country that
is also the world’s largest democracy—has held significant appeal beyond
its borders, including in India’s neighborhood. Sushant Singh found, for
instance, that Nepal emulated India in formulating its constitution and that
India has used the power of its democratic, pluralistic policies to encourage
greater protection of minority rights in Sri Lanka.75 When India’s policies
disadvantage Muslims or other minority groups, perceptions of India suffer in
Bangladesh and suspicions are confirmed in Pakistan. The consequences are
strategically significant: Singh warns that when India’s neighbors stop viewing
the country as a pluralistic democracy, New Delhi will have one less card
to play in a contest for regional influence. China may also lack soft-power
appeal, but it enjoys deeper pockets and is poised take advantage of the many
opportunities afforded by sheer financial heft in South Asia.
Whereas India’s huge Muslim population could conceivably serve as a
natural bridge-building opportunity for New Delhi to facilitate closer relations
with Muslim-majority states around the world, an increasingly majoritarian,
Hindutva India is more likely to find itself at odds—or at least struggling
to manage relations—with the rest of the Muslim world. At the very least,
India misses an opportunity to score diplomatic points against its regional
adversary Pakistan, a state nominally created as a homeland for South Asia’s
Muslims that would be denied that animating purpose if India proved itself
equally welcoming. India also loses considerable standing to criticize China’s
own brutal repression of its Muslim minority, a self-inflicted setback in the
contest for regional and international influence.
75 Sushant Singh, “Modi Government’s Approach towards India’s Smaller Neighbours Is Pushing
Them Closer to China,” Scroll.in, June 21, 2021 u https://scroll.in/article/998006/modigovernments-approach-towards-indias-smaller-neighbours-is-pushing-them-closer-to-china.
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As noted in earlier sections, for the United States and other liberal
democracies, perceptions of India’s democratic credentials have been central
to the priority placed on improving strategic ties over the past twenty years.
These perceptions are hardly new or unique to the Biden administration. Since
at least the George W. Bush administration, India has been characterized as
the “not-China” in Asia: a competing model for politics and development
that tips the scales, at least in terms of world population, between greater
autocracy and greater democracy.
Perhaps the best evidence of how India’s democratic credentials
have affected U.S. policy was on display when President Bush accelerated
efforts to deepen ties with India and pushed the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear
Agreement through Congress at the end of his term. Throughout the
process, top U.S. officials publicly justified a policy that broke with decades
of U.S. nonproliferation law and practice by stressing India’s exceptional
democratic identity. For instance, Ashley Tellis, who as senior adviser to the
undersecretary of state for political affairs played a central role in formulating
and advancing the policy, explained in congressional testimony in 2005 that
“strengthening New Delhi and transforming U.S-Indian ties…has everything
to do with American confidence in Indian democracy and the conviction
that its growing strength, tempered by its liberal values, brings only benefits
for Asian stability and American security.”76 The 2006 legislation endorsing
the principle of U.S.-India nuclear cooperation specifically listed India’s
“functioning and uninterrupted democratic system of government” as a top
justification for that cooperation (immediately after its “responsible behavior”
on nuclear nonproliferation).77 In 2008, Senator John Kerry explained that
he had voted for the 2006 legislation “because, as you have said here today
and others have said, I viewed this as a very important way to strengthen the
partnership between the world’s oldest and largest democracies.”78
76 Ashley J. Tellis, “The U.S.-India ‘Global Partnership’: How Significant for American Interests?”
testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Washington, D.C., November
17, 2005 u https://carnegieendowment.org/2005/11/17/u.s.-india-global-partnership-howsignificant-for-american-interests-pub-17693. Similar points were made by other top Bush
administration officials. See Condoleezza Rice (speech, Washington, D.C., April 14, 2005) u
https://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/44662.htm; and R. Nicholas Burns, “The U.S. and
India: The New Strategic Partnership” (speech to the Asia Society, New York, October 18, 2005) u
https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/us/rm/2005/55269.htm.
77 United States and India Nuclear Cooperation, Public Law No. 109–401, Stat. 2726, 109th Cong.,
December 18, 2006 u https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-109publ401/html/PLAW109publ401.htm.
78 U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation
with India, 110 Cong. 2nd Sess., September 18, 2008 u https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/
CHRG-110shrg46951/html/CHRG-110shrg46951.htm.
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To be clear, the argument here is not that Washington exclusively pursues
strategic partnerships with other liberal democracies. It does not. Nor can
it be said that U.S. strategists cultivated ties with India merely because of
its democratic credentials. However, the politics of cooperation with India
appear to have been eased in important ways by positive U.S. perceptions of
its democratic political identity. Time and again, the U.S. political debate on
India has referenced the power of India’s ideals and institutions to open the
way for a wider political coalition in favor of U.S. ties than would be the case
for strategic partnership founded on calculations of material interest alone.
When India’s democratic credentials are in doubt, the politics of granting it
exceptional status—for instance, on a waiver of sanctions for arms purchases
from Russia—will become more challenging.79
implications and recommendations for u.s. policy
India’s democratic institutions have been weakened in important ways
and face significant threat of further erosion. Moreover, India’s political
culture has only ever been partly and inadequately defined by liberalism.
The tangible implications of this reality are felt, first and foremost, by Indian
citizens. However, because of its vast population and growing capacity for
action beyond its borders, what happens inside India will have inevitable
consequence for the rest of the world as well. Indian domestic political ideals
and institutions inform its global aims and aspirations, influence its patterns
of foreign policymaking, increase or diminish its hard-power resources, and
make it more (or less) attractive to other members of the international system.
For the United States, the long-term value of partnership with an illiberal,
undemocratic India would be less than what the Biden administration—or
most of its recent predecessors—has hoped. If present trends persist—and
they might not—Washington will find India a relatively less committed, less
capable partner, especially when it comes to defending the institutions and
norms of the liberal world order.
U.S. policymakers should also recognize that if India’s leaders feel less
constrained by a free press and domestic audience costs, they may be more
willing to run risks for tactical and political advantage, including in India’s
violent border conflicts with Pakistan and, increasingly, with China. The Modi
79 On the congressional politics of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act
(CAATSA), see Todd Young, “Sanctioning India Would Spoil the Quad,” Foreign Policy, April 12,
2021 u https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/12/united-states-india-quad-china-russia-s-400-caastawaiver-biden-modi.
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government’s public mischaracterizations of the February 2019 Balakot airstrike
and subsequent air skirmishes, including subsequently debunked claims of a
destroyed terrorist camp inside Pakistan and India’s downing of a Pakistani
F-16 jet, have already raised questions in the United States about New Delhi’s
credibility and communications strategy in the midst of an exceptionally
dangerous regional context.80 A more democratically accountable India would
continue to enjoy the benefit of the doubt in Washington, in part because
its erroneous claims would more likely be investigated and debated by a free
Indian press.
This is not an argument against Washington’s strategic cooperation with
New Delhi, as there will undoubtedly be areas of common interest just as the
United States finds with a significant number of the world’s autocratic states.
Even an illiberal, undemocratic India could, for instance, be a helpful member
in a coalition devoted to strategic competition with China, but it would do
so for different reasons than if it were a liberal democracy. The United States
should not “punish” India for its domestic political practices any more than it
does other states with which Washington eagerly seeks closer ties as a means
to advance its strategic aims, like Vietnam.
Moreover, because India retains important democratic features, including
the world’s largest elections, there is no reason for U.S. officials to declare
otherwise. To the contrary, there would be clear and counterproductive
diplomatic costs to amplifying public criticism of the Modi government. That
said, the Biden administration’s early embrace of India bilaterally and in the
Quad—along with treaty allies Japan and Australia—runs the risk of hypocrisy
if it emphasizes India’s democratic credentials and uncritically accepts the
Modi government’s narrative.81 Blinken walked a fine line during his July
2021 visit to New Delhi, observing that all democracies are imperfect “works
in progress” and stressing the depth of shared democratic values between
the United States and India.82 Blinken’s emphasis on democratic aspirations
80 Sameer Lalwani and Emily Tallo, “Did India Shoot Down a Pakistani F-16 in February? This
Just Became a Big Deal,” Washington Post, April 17, 2019 u https://www.washingtonpost.com/
politics/2019/04/17/did-india-shoot-down-pakistani-f-back-february-this-just-became-big-deal.
81 That narrative was reflected in Modi’s speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2021,
when he described India as “the mother of all democracies,” citing its thousands of years of
non-Western democratic tradition and lauding its diverse and vibrant democratic practices. Some
critics took issue with this characterization of the history of India’s modern democratic system.
See, for instance, “PM Modi’s Incongruous Speech at the UN,” Deccan Herald, September 28, 2021
u https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/second-edit/pm-modis-incongruous-speech-at-theun-1035298.html.
82 “Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at
a Joint Press Availability,” U.S. State Department, July 28, 2021 u https://www.state.gov/secretaryantony-j-blinken-and-indian-external-affairs-minister-dr-subrahmanyam-jaishankar-at-a-jointpress-availability.
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rather than practices was effective, not least because it nodded to the United
States’ own experience with domestic threats to democratic practices.
Washington’s balancing act will only get more challenging if India’s
democratic erosion continues. Less adroit U.S. diplomats will risk appearing
to be apologists for India’s backsliding. One of Biden’s offhand comments
during his September 2021 bilateral meeting with Modi showed how even
small gaffes can lead to trouble. Sitting alongside Modi in the White House,
Biden observed that the Indian media are “better behaved” than their U.S.
counterparts. Later, one irate journalist raised the comment with Biden’s
press secretary Jen Psaki, observing that the “Indian press is ranked 142nd
in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders, for press freedoms.
How does he say that about the U.S. press compared to the Indian press?”
Psaki responded by clarifying the president’s specific intent but sidestepped
the broader issue of press freedoms in India.83
Even Blinken’s “imperfect democracy” rhetoric masks important,
persistent distinctions between the American liberal tradition and India’s
own domestic political culture. An illiberal if still democratic India may never
strive to achieve the same vision—at home or internationally—as that of the
United States. In short, the Biden administration is likely to face a series of
increasingly thorny decisions about precisely how to include India in a global
vision so clearly defined by the contrast between liberal democracies and
other sorts of regimes.
As this challenge unfolds, Washington should also not presume that
its courtship of India, or of the Modi government specifically, will have any
significant effect on India’s domestic political practices. Indian diplomats
appreciate the value of speaking about commonalities—including but not
limited to democratic values—that resonate with their American counterparts,
but such rhetorical maneuvers are unlikely to translate into real changes in the
practice of India’s domestic politics.84 India is too big, too complicated, and
too inwardly motivated to have its politics driven by an external influence,
even that of a superpower like the United States. Washington should accept
India’s limitations, but the U.S. intelligence community should also closely
83 “White House Defends Biden’s Remarks Indian Media Is ‘Better Behaved’ Than U.S. Press,” Times of
India, September 28, 2021 u https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/white-house-defendsbidens-remarks-indian-media-is-better-behaved-than-us-press/articleshow/86579580.cms.
84 As Jaishankar wrote, “When it comes to the U.S., it is noteworthy that India has solidified ties
continuously with successive administrations in the recent past. The way forward has been to find a
commonality that resonates: with Clinton, it was pluralism and business; with Bush, it was democracy
and global strategy; and with Obama, climate change and radicalization. Following Trump’s election,
it [was] bilateralism, trade and security convergences.” Jaishankar, The India Way, 124–25.
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monitor the domestic political situation, not with the aim of influencing India
but with the lesser ambition of anticipating its likely trajectory and informing
U.S. policymakers of new developments.
A similar logic applies to the reports on human rights and international
religious freedom that are funded and mandated by the U.S. Congress. Although
these reports are almost certain to cause irritation in New Delhi—where
they are invariably perceived as unfair “drain inspector reports”—and create
headaches for U.S. diplomats eager to avoid unpleasant conversations with
an important strategic partner, they simultaneously serve a vital purpose by
introducing greater transparency into the U.S. policy debate as long as they
accurately reflect U.S. values and political assessments.85 That these reports
introduce a degree of discomfort into the bilateral relationship—and perhaps
increasingly so if India’s democratic slide worsens—has the benefit of forcing
policymakers on both sides to appreciate where their interests are aligned but
their ideals are not. U.S. diplomats should use these reports not as a cudgel
or point of leverage to change India’s policies, as that is only likely to irritate
New Delhi further, but as evidence of the real political headwinds the bilateral
relationship will face if present trends hold.86
Indeed, if India becomes significantly less democratic at home, Congress
will be more likely to take steps to narrow the terms of U.S. cooperation. Senator
Menendez’ 2021 letter to Secretary Austin represents, in this context, a possible
sign of things to come. Rather than enjoying a broad, bipartisan consensus in
favor of building closer ties with India, as it has in the recent past, the White
House could need to work harder to insulate what it considers strategically
valuable cooperation from undue political pressures, including sanctions.
For a start, the Biden administration should work to head off any
congressional legislation structured like the Countering America’s Adversaries
Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) that sweeps India into broader sanctions
regimes mainly intended to advance other purposes (in this case, to punish
Russia, Iran, and North Korea). The U.S. relationship with India is already too
important to be held hostage to indirect purposes. Even though the CAATSA
has a waiver mechanism that could be used for India, it has introduced
85 On the history of India bridling from U.S. “drain inspector reports,” see Ayres, Our Time Has Come, 150.
86 As Roberta Cohen observed, “the human rights reports remain an important way of establishing
an information base and signaling to foreign governments that their practices are under scrutiny
and that the evaluation could cost them in political and economic terms.” See Roberta Cohen,
“Integrating Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: The History, the Challenges, and the Criteria for
an Effective Policy,” Brookings Institution and University of Bern, 2008 u https://www.brookings.
edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/04_human_rights_cohen.pdf.
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unnecessary drama that could affect relations between New Delhi and
Washington for years to come.87
As noted above, India’s domestic politics are unlikely to be altered by
U.S. or other external influences. The same point applies to U.S. sanctions, a
blunt policy tool that would almost certainly prove counterproductive in the
Indian context. Not only would sanctions fail to force any intended political
outcome, but the ensuing acrimony could easily kill cooperation in other
areas too. Instead of sanctions or other punitive or coercive measures, the
Biden administration would be wise to consider which areas of cooperation
and support should simply remain off-limits to an Indian strategic partner
whose liberal and democratic bona fides are increasingly called into question.
Some considerations will be relatively straightforward. For instance,
transfers of prized U.S. military technologies, such as nuclear propulsion for
submarines, are correctly reserved for formal allies, like the United Kingdom
and Australia, with whom Washington can expect a future of shared aims that
include the defense of liberal values. India is unlikely ever to qualify for such
transfers if it stays on its current political trajectory. A similar logic would
apply to establishing routines for sharing sensitive intelligence as Washington
does with its Five Eyes partners. Still, many other areas of defense cooperation
and assistance to advance shared strategic interests should remain open to
India, much as they have been for partners such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt, on
similarly transactional terms.
Less straightforward will be the U.S. effort to reconsider and adjust
cooperation with India on global governance and other nonsecurity issues.
For example, the logic of extending U.S. support to India’s bid for a permanent
seat in a reformed UN Security Council—a precedent-setting move by
President Barack Obama in 2010—must be rethought if it begins to gain
traction. Washington could still see value in diversifying the membership of
that multilateral body but should not assume that India’s future votes would
reflect aspirations for world order informed by liberalism or democratic
principles. Similarly, and more immediately relevant, U.S. diplomats should
consider modifying the way they characterize expectations for the newly
energized Quad, perhaps by stressing specific points of convergence among its
members—such as support for green, high-quality infrastructure investment
or open telecommunications standards—rather than continuing to reference
a grander set of liberal democratic values.
87 Paul McCleary, “Why India’s Arms Deals with Russia Are about to Become a Headache for Biden,”
Politico, October 1, 2021 u https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/30/india-arms-deal-russiabiden-514822.
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In sum, the Biden administration should take care not to assume an easy
future of strategic convergence with India, not to overstate India’s liberal or
democratic credentials, and not to anticipate that U.S. influence—through
inducements or coercion—is likely to alter India’s political practices at home.
That said, neither should the United States forgo all the potential benefits
of cooperation with India in the name of defending liberal democratic
values. The United States should instead seek a smarter but admittedly
more complicated middle ground: cooperating closely with India on areas
of common interest without mischaracterizing the nature or logic of either
Indian or U.S. aspirations. 
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asia policy, volume 17, number 1 ( january 2022 ) , 107–31
•
http://asiapolicy.nbr.org
•
Opportunities and Obstacles for
Russia’s Food Exports to China
Stephen K. Wegren
stephen k. wegren is a Distinguished University Professor and
Professor of Political Science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
Texas (United States). His most recent books are Russia’s Food Revolution:
The Transformation of the Food System (2021) and Russia’s Role in the
Contemporary International Agri-Food Trade System (2022). He can be
reached at <swegren@smu.edu>.
keywords: russia; china; agriculture; food trade; soybeans; fish;
grain; meat
© The National Bureau of Asian Research
1414 NE 42nd St, Suite 300, Seattle, Washington 98105 USA
asia policy
executive summary
Within the context of expanded economic ties, this article analyzes
Russia-China agricultural trade, examining China’s role in Russia’s quest to
achieve $45 billion in food exports by 2030 and exploring opportunities for
and obstacles to expanded food trade between these two states.
main argument
This article develops three principal arguments. First, there are impediments to
expanded bilateral agri-food trade that result from governmental restrictions,
bureaucratic regulations, and both supply- and demand-side factors. Russia’s
main food exports to China (fish and seafood) are limited by environmental
standards and international agreed-on limits on wild catch. Pork exports are
constrained by Chinese government restrictions that reflect the prioritization
of national interests over expanded trade. A second argument is that although
the level of bilateral food trade is currently low, there are opportunities for
expansion. In principle, Russia could increase export revenue through greater
sales of soybeans, poultry, and wheat. That said, the first two commodities are
restrained by supply on the Russian side and the third by Chinese restrictions.
Third, China inevitably will play a significant role in Russia’s quest to achieve
$45 billion in food exports. After Moscow’s 2014 countersanctions against
the European Union, China has replaced the EU as Russia’s primary food
export market, and the target for exports to China that Russia’s Ministry of
Agriculture has set seems too modest.
policy implications
• Continued non-tariff restrictions on trade and other forms of protectionism
by both Russia and China suppress food trade. Improved political relations
have not been able to overcome elements of trade protectionism.
• Russia will not challenge the U.S. market share for soybean sales to China
anytime soon. Although Chinese demand for soybeans is immense, Russia
will likely continue to account for a negligible size of market share, even if
its near-term production goals are met.
• Increased food trade can deepen and strengthen the Russia-China bilateral
relationship in general, although at present trade remains constrained by
political, bureaucratic, and economic factors.
wegren
•
russia ’ s food exports to china
I
n the course of the past two decades, Russia pivoted to Asia and
particularly China for economic development, investment, trade, and
eventually military cooperation, although no overt military alliance has
arisen.1 Russia’s pivot to the East accelerated following the 2014 political crisis
in Ukraine.2 Consequently, Russia’s relations with China have moved from an
“axis of convenience”3 to a “strategic partnership”4 that reflects a “consensual
appreciation of shared ideological values in the foreign policy sphere…and
condemnation of Western norms and values.”5 Today, multidimensional
cooperation between Russia and China defines contemporary global politics
and is marked by economic cooperation, trade, and investment as well as the
sale of advanced weapons systems and joint military exercises.
During this same twenty-year period, Russia has emerged as a global
wheat exporter, ranking first or second in the volume of wheat exports in
every agricultural year since 2014–15. Over the past decade, Russia’s role in the
global food system has become more important, rising from export obscurity
before 2010 to ranking seventeenth in global food exports in 2020 based on
dollar value.6 The country’s rise as a food exporter has global implications. In
2020, Russia exported $30.7 billion in agri-food products and sold agricultural
commodities to more than 130 nations, which means that it played a positive
role in combatting global food insecurity. By mid-November 2021, it was on
track to exceed $30 billion in food exports again, despite restrictions on grain
trade from the Russian government.
Bilateral trade and economic cooperation between Russia and China
have followed the improvement in political relations, and to a certain extent
the two economies have become complementary.7 Within the context of
1 Elizabeth Wishnick, “Russia and China: Brothers Again?” Asian Survey 41, no. 5 (2001): 797–821.
2 Alexander Gabuev, “Friends with Benefits: Russian-Chinese Relations after the Ukrainian Crisis,”
Carnegie Moscow Center, June 29, 2016.
3 See Bobo Lo, Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics (London: Chatham
House, 2008).
4 Vladimir Isachenko, “Russia, China Declare Friendship Treaty Extension, Hail
Ties,” ABC News, June 28, 2021 u https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/
russia-china-declare-friendship-treaty-extension-hail-ties-78532951.
5 Jeanne L. Wilson, “The Eurasian Economic Union and China’s Silk Road: Implications for the
Russian-Chinese Relationship,” European Politics and Society 17, no. 1 (2016): 114.
6 “Rossiia podnialas’ na 17-e mesto v mirovom reitinge krupneishikh agroeksporterov po itogam
2020 goda” [Russia Rises to 17th Place in the Global Ranking of Largest Agro-Exporters according
to 2020 Results], Dairy News, May 31, 2021 u https://www.dairynews.ru/news/rossiya-podnyalasna-17-e-mesto-v-mirovom-reytinge.html.
7 Eugene B. Rumer, “Russia’s China Policy: This Bear Hug Is Real,” in “Russia-China Relations:
Assessing Common Ground and Strategic Fault Lines,” National Bureau of Asian Research, NBR
Special Report, no. 66, July 2017 u https://www.nbr.org/publication/russia-china-relations-assessingcommon-ground-and-strategic-fault-lines.
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expanded economic trade, this article analyzes agri-food trade between
Russia and China. Although Russian-Chinese political relations and energy
trade have received widespread attention, bilateral agri-food trade is greatly
understudied in the academic literature. The article addresses two main
questions. First, what are the opportunities for expanded food trade between
Russia and China? Second, what are the obstacles to expanded food trade
between them? Food trade is important because it strengthens the bilateral
relationship in general and serves as another pillar on which cooperative
behavior is based. Russia’s food exports also help sustain the authoritarian
world, a trend that strengthens the anti-hegemonic stance of both countries. In
2020, for example, 74% of the value of Russia’s food exports was to countries
deemed “not free” or “partly free” by Freedom House.8 In particular, Russian
wheat exports help sustain authoritarian governments in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, and other states in the Middle East.
Several arguments are developed in the sections below. First, tariff and
non-tariff restrictions and other forms of protectionism continue to suppress
Russian-Chinese trade. Overall, bilateral food trade is not at the level that
one would expect given the two countries’ proximity, per capita GDP, and
improved political relations. The unfulfilled potential of bilateral agri-food
trade is reflected by the fact that Russia has a higher level of food trade with
the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) than it does with China, even though
the EAEU has a fraction of China’s population and GDP. In 2019, for example,
food trade between Russia and the EAEU reached $8.8 billion, compared
to around $5 billion in food trade with China. Second, despite obstacles,
there are also opportunities. The mere size of the Chinese market suggests
that China will continue to play a significant role in Russia’s quest to achieve
$45 billion in food exports. Third, such trade is likely to further develop the
bilateral relationship in general.
The article is structured as follows:
u
pp. 111–12 describe Russia’s food trade ambitions and China’s potential
role in them.
u
pp. 112–14 summarize the status of bilateral agricultural trade.
u
pp. 114–22 analyze opportunities for expanded food trade.
u
pp. 123–30 evaluate obstacles to expanded food trade.
u
pp. 130–31 assess implications.
8 Stephen K. Wegren and Frode Nilssen, “Russia’s Changing Role in the International Agri-Food
System and Why It Matters,” Post-Communist Economies (2021) u https://doi.10.1080/14631377.20
21.1943914.
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russia ’ s food exports to china
china ’ s role in reaching $45 billion
After pursuing food self-sufficiency since 2014, in May 2018, President
Vladimir Putin ordered an expansion of food exports from $17 billion
in 2017 to $45 billion by 2024.9 In late 2020 the Ministry of Agriculture
modified the goal to $30 billion to be achieved by the end of 2024, and the
$45 billion target was pushed back to 2030.10 The motivations to emphasize
exports were largely political. The $45 billion level would allow Russia to
move into the top ten of global food exporters, a status that carries prestige.
Further, a top ten ranking in food exports would reflect Russia’s agricultural
recovery from the 1990s when food insecurity was rampant, the country
depended on Western food aid, and meat imports fed Russia’s cities. The
country’s agricultural rebound has allowed most of the production targets
expressed in its 2020 Food Security Doctrine to be met.11 For many food
commodities, domestic production is not only sufficient to meet domestic
needs but also generates surpluses for export.
In 2020, Russia had global food exports valued at $30.7 billion, and a
higher level is expected for 2021.12 Of the $30.7 billion, $4 billion was sold
to China, which thus accounted for 13% of Russia’s total food exports, more
than any other country. If food exports to China remain at their current 13%
of total food exports, the target of $45 billion in 2030 implies that agricultural
trade with China will rise to $5.8 billion. Given the present trajectory, this
goal seems too modest.
It is unlikely, however, that Russia’s food exports to China will remain at
13% of total agri-food exports. There are two reasons. First, the growth rate of
Russia’s food exports to China is high. Using 2015 as the base year, the dollar
value in 2020 represented an increase of 150%; and food exports to China are
9 Vasily Yakimovich Uzun and Natalia Shagaida, “Razvitie sel’skogo khoziaistva: Ot krupnogo
importera do eksporta” [The Development of Agriculture: From Large Importer to Exporter], in
Ekonomicheskaia politika Rossii [Russian Economic Policy], ed. V.S. Gurevich et al. (Moscow: Delo,
2020), 407–32.
10 Ekaterina Shokurova, “Minsel’khoz skorrektiroval plany eksporta produktsii APK” [The
Ministry of Agriculture Corrected Its Plan for the Export of Products in the Agroindustrial
Complex], Agroinvestor, November 16, 2020 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/analytics/
news/34801-minselkhoz-skorrektiroval-plany-eksporta-produktsii-apk.
11 Victoria Soiko, “Dmitrii Patrushev: Rossiia mozhet zabyt’ o slove ‘defitsit’ v otnoshenii produktov
pitananiia” [Dmitrii Patrushev: Russia May Forget about the Word ‘Deficit’ in Relation to Food
Products], Sel’skaia zhizn’, July 10–16, 2020, 3, 8.
12 In an October interview, Minister of Agriculture Dmitrii Patrushev indicated that food exports
were expected to reach $34–$35 billion in 2021, which would represent a record level. “Dmitrii
Patrushev rasskazal o regulirovanii tsen na prodovol’stvie i eksporte zerna” [Dmitrii Patrushev
Talked about the Regulation of Prices for Food and the Export of Grain], Agrovestnik, October
6, 2021 u https://agrovesti.net/news/indst/dmitrij-patrushev-rasskazal-o-regulirovanii-tsen-naprodovolstvie-i-eksporte-zerna.html.
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up 60% using 2018 as the base year.13 None of Russia’s top five food export
markets come close to the growth rate with China. For this reason, recent
trends in bilateral agricultural trade give little reason to believe that Russia’s
food exports to China will remain at 13% of total food exports.
Second, Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture plans to increase food exports
to China to $7.7 billion, which would increase China’s share to 17% if the
$45 billion target is attained.14 One wonders, however, whether 17% is
an artificial barrier or the full potential of Russian food exports to China.
Arguably, food exports to China as a percentage of total food exports could
well exceed 17% if China relaxes current restrictions on Russian wheat and
pork exports and if Russia significantly increases its soybean production, and
with it, exports to China. China’s role in Russia’s quest to increase its food
exports is examined in the next section.
bilateral agricultural trade
Agri-food trade between Russia and China is much less developed than
bilateral trade in general. In 2014, Russia and China pledged to increase
their overall trade to $200 billion by 2020.15 That target was not reached. In
September 2019, the two countries agreed again to increase bilateral trade
to $200 billion, this time by 2024, although trade will need to increase at a
much higher rate to reach that target. Total trade declined slightly in 2020
due to Covid-19, although it still exceeded $107 billion, with Russian exports
to China falling to $49 billion.16 The centerpiece of bilateral trade is oil and
natural gas. Bilateral energy agreements worth hundreds of billions of dollars
were signed in 2003, 2009, and 2014, covering Russian export of oil and
natural gas. Because of its energy sales to China, Russia consistently runs a
trade surplus with China, a situation that is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Despite the primacy of bilateral energy trade, there has also been an
increase in agricultural trade. In 2020, China was Russia’s primary export
market for agri-food commodities. Although in the first nine months of 2021
agricultural trade was down slightly from 2020 due to China’s Covid-19-related
13 In comparison, the dollar value of Russian food exports increased by 5.5% from 2015 to 2016, 21%
from 2016 to 2017, 25% from 2017 to 2018, -1% from 2018 to 2019, and 20% from 2019 to 2020.
14 Natalia Karlova and Eugenia Serova, “Prospects of the Chinese Market for Russian Agri-Food
Exports,” Russian Journal of Economics 6 (2020): 71–90.
15 Jeffrey Mankoff, “Russia’s Asia Pivot: Confrontation or Cooperation?” Asia Policy, no. 19 (2015): 65–87.
16 “China, Russia Set New Record for Agricultural Trade in 2020,” TASS, January 28, 2021 u https://
tass.com/economy/1250071.
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restrictions, Russia has had an agricultural trade surplus with China since
2018. In August 2014, Russia introduced countersanctions against Western
nations that had applied sanctions against it, thereby changing the country’s
trade partners. Since then, these countersanctions have been extended
numerous times and are currently scheduled to run until at least the end of
2022, with no clear end in sight.
Following the 2014 countersanctions, China emerged as one of Russia’s
main agricultural trading partners. Russia’s agricultural exports to China
surpassed $1.5 billion for the first time only in 2010 and reached $2 billion
in 2011 before declining to $1 billion in 2014. They began to increase steadily
starting in 2015 when agricultural trade rebounded to $1.3 billion, equal to
8% of total Russian food exports. Russian food exports to China then grew to
$1.6 billion in 2016 and $1.7 billion in 2017. By 2020, they totaled $4 billion,
reaching a high of 13% of total Russian food exports, with a total agricultural
trade turnover of $5.5 billion.17 As of mid-November 2021, Russia’s food
exports to China were valued in excess of $3 billion.18 Bilateral agricultural
trade trends between Russia and China are shown in Table 1.
The table shows that since Russia’s introduction of countersanctions
against the West, the value of Russia’s agricultural exports to China has
quadrupled and the percentage of food exports has more than doubled. Even
so, the level of bilateral trade volume in this sector remains low compared to
Russia’s trade with other countries. One point of comparison is the European
Union, which in 2013 exported food valued at $15–$16 billion to Russia,
or around 10% of total EU food exports.19 The dramatic impact of Russia’s
2014 countersanctions is seen by the decline in EU food exports to Russia,
which totaled just $2.9 billion in 2019 and $3.2 billion in 2020.20 Agricultural
exports from the United States to Russia fell to less than $200 million by 2019,
a minuscule level compared to the billions in annual bilateral food trade with
the Soviet Union during the 1980s.
Traditionally, Russia’s main food exports to China have been frozen fish
products. In 2018, frozen fish and seafood exports to China were valued at
$1.2 billion, or around 26% of Russia’s total food exports to China. In 2020,
17 “China, Russia Set New Record for Agricultural Trade in 2020.”
18 “Operativnyi obzor eksporta produktsii APK” [Operational Overview for the Export of
Agricultural Products], Ministry of Agriculture (Russia), November 14, 2021 u https://mcx.gov.ru.
19 William Liefert et al., “The Effect of Russia’s Economic Crisis and Import Ban on Its
Agricultural and Food Sector,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 10, no. 2 (2019): 119–35 u https://
doi.10.1177/1879366519840185.
20 “Operativnyi obzor eksporta produktsii APK” [Operational Overview for the Export of
Agricultural Products], Ministry of Agriculture (Russia), December 27, 2020 u https://mcx.gov.ru.
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TABLE 1
Russia’s Agri-Food Exports to China, 2013–20
Russia’s food exports to China
($ billion)
Russia’s food exports to China
(% of Russia’s total food exports)
2013
1.1
6.5
2014
1.0
5.0
2015
1.3
8.0
2016
1.6
12.0
2017
1.7
10.0
2018
2.5
10.0
2019
3.2
12.5
2020
4.0
13.0
Source: Ministry of Agriculture (Russia), various years; and author’s calculations.
Note: Numbers have been rounded. To calculate percentage of food exports to China, Ministry of Agriculture
export data is used, which is usually slightly higher than data from the Federal Customs Agency.
Russian frozen fish and seafood exports to China rose to $1.6 billion, about
40% of food exports to China by value. The top fish export to China is pollock,
followed by salmon. Most of Russia’s fish exports are wild-caught from the
Pacific basin. Relatively little investment has been made in aquaculture in the
Russian Far East because the abundance of wild fish in the Pacific basin makes
farmed fish uneconomical. Other key Russian food exports to China in 2020
included oilseeds and fats at $1.07 billion and meat and milk at $318 million.21
Together, these three categories accounted for around 73% of Russia’s
agricultural exports to China in 2020. Russia plans to gradually reduce fish
and seafood to 36% of exports to China and increase other exports.22 For
example, grain exports, a commodity for which Russia has a comparative
advantage, were valued at only $51 million to China in 2020.
opportunities to expand food trade
China is likely to remain a top agri-food export market for Russia, and this
section examines the opportunities to expand bilateral food trade. To begin,
21 “Operativnyi obzor eksporta produktsii APK,” December 27, 2020.
22 Karlova and Serova, “Prospects of the Chinese Market for Russian Agri-Food Exports,” 73.
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the expansion of food exports to China unites the interests of the federal
government with its great-power aspirations, as well as with the desire of the
private sector to increase its profits. Russia’s fish companies, in particular,
have a special interest in trade with China, which buys hundreds of thousands
of tons of raw fish annually from Russia and then processes and sells the fish
to Europe. In addition to fish and seafood, Russia’s largest and most powerful
agrofirms support expanded exports to foreign markets because domestic
demand and consumer purchasing power cannot absorb all the increase in
food production. Agroholding companies want to make money, and their
profit is limited in the domestic market. It is not coincidental that Russia’s
leading poultry production company moved quickly into the Chinese market
once restrictions ended.
Some of Russia’s largest agroholding companies are active in the Russian
Far East where land is cheap due to low population density, and where food is
produced for export to China. For example, the Russian agroholding company
with the highest earnings, Rusagro, announced in 2018 that it would invest
18 billion rubles for poultry production in Primorskii Krai, which borders
China. In 2020, Rusagro revealed that it had opened the first pig-breeding
farm in Primorskii Krai with a capacity of 75,000 tons per year.23 In addition
to government and private-sector motivations, three factors define Russia’s
opportunities to expand food exports: (1) surplus supply, (2) foreign demand,
and (3) an absence of tariff and non-tariff restrictions on exports. These three
factors serve as the analytical framework for the discussion below.
Supply
Food production (supply) in Russia has increased significantly over the
past twenty years, especially in the last decade. The rise in food supply can be
measured in several ways: in value, volume, ratio of production to consumption,
and export levels. In aggregate, the nominal value of food production from all
producers rose from 742 billion rubles in 2000 to 2.4 trillion rubles in 2010,
and then to 6.1 trillion rubles in 2020.24 The annual volume of production
varies by commodity, but as an example, the slaughter weight of cattle and
poultry rose from 10.5 million tons in 2010 to 15.6 million tons in 2020. Total
meat supply (domestic production plus imports) increased after 2014 despite
23 Rusagro Group, “Rusagro Group Has Announced the Start of Sows Supply to the Breeding Farm in
the Primorye Territory,” Press Release, August 10, 2020 u https://www.rusagrogroup.ru/investors/
news-events/press-releases/single-view/article/973.
24 Rosstat, Rossiia v tsifrakh 2021 [Russia in Figures 2021] (Moscow: Rosstat, 2021), 137.
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the sanctions against Western food imports. Average annual grain harvests
increased from 87 million metric tons in 2008–13 to nearly 119 million metric
tons in 2014–20; and average annual wheat production rose from 52.1 million
metric tons during 2008–13 to 73.3 million metric tons during the same time
span. The size of the surplus varies by commodity, but grain can be cited as an
example. In 2019, raw grain production (after cleaning) totaled 121 million
metric tons. Various consumption needs—seeds, livestock feed, grain sent
to processing, and personal consumption—totaled 76.8 million metric tons.
The remaining grain could be exported or used for reserves. The existence
of surplus supply is reflected by a rise in volume of exports. As previously
noted, Russia has become a leading wheat exporter in recent years. It is also
a net exporter of poultry and has begun to export pork, although both are
currently at modest levels. The point is that the rise in gross food production
is a facilitator of food trade.
Demand
A second element of opportunity is foreign demand, specifically from
China’s middle class. Estimates about the exact size of the Chinese urban
middle class vary. In 2000, an estimated 3% of the population was considered
middle class, whereas in 2015 the Economist Intelligence Unit estimated that
10% of China’s population was middle class, or around 132 million people.25
A different study, using an expansive definition of middle class that includes
not only income but also education and occupation, estimates that 50% of
urban households may be considered middle class—more than 500 million
people.26 And the Pew Research Center has estimated that 50% of China’s total
population may be middle class, which is more than 700 million people.27 It
has also been forecast that 189 million Chinese households will join the ranks
of the middle class in the next decade.28
25 Economist Intelligence Unit, “The Chinese Consumer in 2030,” 2016.
26 Celine Bonnefond, Matthieu Clement, and Francois Combarnous, “In Search of the Elusive
Chinese Urban Middle Class: An Exploratory Analysis,” Post-Communist Economies 27, no. 1
(2015): 41–59.
27 “How Well Off Is China’s Middle Class?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, China
Power, October 20, 2020 u https://chinapower.csis.org/china-middle-class.
28 Hui Jiang, “China: Evolving Demand in World’s Largest Agricultural Import Market,” U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA), Foreign Agricultural Service, September 29, 2020 u https://
www.fas.usda.gov/data/china-evolving-demand-world-s-largest-agricultural-import-market.
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Driving the increase in China’s food imports has been the rise of personal
income. Per capita GDP increased from $1,000 in 2000 to $10,276 in 2019.29 A
similar metric, gross national income per capita, increased tenfold since 2000
and reached $10,419 in 2019, more than any other BRICS country except
Russia.30 In addition, as incomes rose, the average Chinese diet shifted toward
consumption of meat, dairy, and processed foods, while grain consumption
declined.31 Between 2000 and 2019, per capita consumption of poultry meat
increased 32%, soybean oil consumption more than quadrupled, and milk
intake more than tripled.32 When incomes increase, food preferences begin
to gravitate toward higher-cost animal husbandry products, a phenomenon
called Bennett’s law in the food policy literature.33 Chinese consumer behavior
has held with Bennett’s law as average annual meat consumption per capita
in China rose to 63 kilograms in 2020, six times the level of 1979.34 In sum,
middle-class consumption has contributed to China becoming the world’s
largest agricultural importer by value, with total annual agricultural imports
surpassing the EU and the United States. In 2019, China’s imported agri-food
products were valued at more than $133 billion.35
Thus, the demand factor yields a contradictory picture. On the one
hand, the mere size of China’s middle class provides opportunity for
Russian food exporters. On the other hand, there is a mismatch between
what Russia is exporting and the higher-value commodities that Chinese
consumers want. It is primarily an exporter of bulk crops, but those exports
to China are low, as will be discussed further below. Russia has just started
exporting small volumes of beef and poultry meat to China, but these are
still underserved markets for Russian exporters. Going forward, a shift
toward exporting more processed foods and increasing exports of fish and
29 “China’s GDP Per Capita Just Passed $10,000, but What Does This Mean?” CGNT, January 17,
2020 u https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-01-17/China-s-GDP-per-capita-just-passed-10-000-butwhat-does-this-mean--NkvMWAMYNO/index.html.
30 The BRICS grouping comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
31 Trudy Rubin, “400 Million Strong and Growing: China’s Massive Middle Class Is Its
Secret Weapon,” Seattle Times, November 16, 2018 u https://www.seattletimes.com/
opinion/400-million-strong-and-growing-chinas-massive-middle-class-is-its-secret-weapon.
32 Jiang, “China: Evolving Demand in World’s Largest Agricultural Import Market.”
33 C. Peter Timmer, Walter P. Falcon, and Scott R. Falcon, Food Policy Analysis (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1983), 56.
34 Fred Gale and Kuo Huang, “Chinese Consumers Demand Premium Foods,” USDA, Amber
Waves, June 1, 2007 u https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2007/june/chinese-consumersdemand-premium-foods; and Dimitri Frolowscki, “China-Russia Agricultural Ties Emerge
Stronger Than Ever,” Asia Times, September 28, 2020 u https://asiatimes.com/2020/09/
china-russia-agricultural-ties-will-emerge-stronger-than-ever.
35 Jiang, “China: Evolving Demand in World’s Largest Agricultural Import Market.” The 2019 level
actually decreased from 2017 and 2018 when food imports reached almost $140 billion.
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seafood to China is the best way to increase export value and take advantage
of Chinese middle-class demand.
Government Restrictions
The third element of opportunity flows from the easing or removal of
restrictions on food imports from Russia. Historically, bilateral agricultural
trade has been limited by tariff and non-tariff barriers erected by China’s
government. China’s agricultural trade policy has been more protectionist
on imported food than has Russia’s, although several restrictions have been
eased in recent years. In July 2019, for example, China’s customs agency gave
permission for Russia to export soybeans from all of its regions, and in that
same month seven oblasts (regions) in Russia were given permission to export
barley. In September 2019, a protocol was signed that covered Russian exports
of corn, rice, soybeans, and rapeseed to China. Opportunities for specific
commodities are discussed next.
Soybeans
China is the largest global importer and consumer of soybeans, where
they are important as a processed protein product for animal feed and also
used for human consumption such as soy oil and tofu.36 In the past couple of
years China’s soybean imports have exceeded 100 million metric tons, and
they are forecast at 102 million metric tons for the 2021–22 agricultural year,
compared to domestic production of 17.5 million metric tons.37
Russia’s soybean exports to China—just 865,000 metric tons in
2017–18—constitute a very small percentage of China’s total soybean
purchases, but there are three potential opportunities for future expansion.
First, Russia’s soybean production rose from an annual average of 2.0 million
metric tons during 2011–15 to 4.4 million metric tons in 2019.38 The Russian
Ministry of Agriculture predicts that by 2024 annual soybean production will
increase by more than 60% to 7.2 million tons, most of which will come from
36 Soybeans and other oilseeds have their oils extracted and the residual meal is used as a high-
protein animal feed ingredient. China also imports fats and oils that are refined and manufactured
into consumer oil products.
37 “Oilseeds and Products Update,” USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, GAIN Report CH2021-0069,
June 30, 2021 u https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileNam
e?fileName=Oilseeds%20and%20Products%20Update_Beijing_China%20-%20People%27s%20
Republic%20of_07-01-2021.
38 Rosstat, Rossiiskoi statisticheskii ezhegodnik 2020 [Russian Statistical Yearbook 2020] (Moscow:
Rosstat, 2020), 407.
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Amurskaia Oblast, Kurskskaia Oblast, and Primorskii Krai.39 The Ministry of
Agriculture has set an ambitious goal to double soybean production in the
Amur region of the Russian Far East to 2.2 million metric tons by 2024.40
Virtually all of Russia’s soybean production is sold to China.
Second, supporting the increase in Russia’s production is a concomitant
rise in the cultivated area devoted to soybeans from 1.2 million hectares in
2010 to 3.0 million hectares in 2019.41 This process is driven by agroholding
companies acquiring land in the Russian Far East and expanding their
cultivation of soybeans. For example, in 2016 the major firm Rusagro
purchased 15,000 hectares in Primorskii Krai to grow soybeans, bringing its
total land holdings to 45,000 hectares in that region.42 Although Rusagro’s
current soybean exports are quite modest, the company intends to quadruple
its soybean exports by 2024.43
Third, Russia’s soybean exports are growing, exceeding 1 million metric
tons for the first time in 2020. During President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow
in June 2019, the two sides signed a plan to deepen cooperation in soybeans,
according to which China stated its goal to import 3.7 million metric tons of
Russian soybeans by 2024.44 At the September 2019 Far Eastern Forum held in
Vladivostok, Russian representatives restated their intent to increase annual
soybean exports to China to 3.7 million metric tons.45
39 “Zernoi soiuz: RF mozhet bolee chem 5 raz uvelichit’s postavki zernovykh v KNR” [Grain Union:
Russia May Increase Deliveries of Grain to China by More than 5 Times], RIA Novosti, August 30,
2019 u https://agrovesti.net/news/indst/zernovoj-soyuz-rf-mozhet-bolee-chem-5-raz-uvelichitpostavki-zernovykh-v-knr.html.
40 “Poultry and Products Annual,” USDA, Foreign Agriculture Service, GAIN Report RS2020-
0042, September 21, 2020 u https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadRe
portByFileName?fileName=Poultry%20and%20Products%20Annual_Moscow_Russian%20
Federation_08-15-2020.
41 Rosstat, Rossiiskoi statisticheskii ezhegodnik 2020, 406. Even with these increases, Russia trails U.S.
soybean producers by significant margins. U.S. soybean producers devoted more than 83 million
acres to soybean production in 2020 and produced 112.5 million metric tons. American Soybean
Association, “2021 Soystats: A Reference Guide to Important Soybean Facts and Figures,” July
2021, 6, 10 u http://www.soystats.com.
42 Rusagro Group, “Rusagro Group Has Announced the Start of Sows Supply to the Breeding Farm in
the Primorye Territory.”
43 BKS Ekspress, “Gruppa Rusagro nachala postavki soi v Kitai” [The Company Rusagro Began to
Deliver Soy to China], July 17, 2019 u https://agrovesti.net/news/corp/gruppa-rusagro-nachalapostavki-soi-v-kitaj.html.
44 Jiayi Zhou, “Prospects for Agri-Food Trade Between Russia and China,” in Russia’s Role in the
Contemporary International Agri-Food Trade System, ed. Stephen K. Wegren and Frode Nilssen
(Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 209.
45 Ministry of Agriculture (Russia), “K 2024 godu eksport soi iz DFO dostignet poriadka 600 mln
dollarov” [By 2024 the Export of Soy from the Far Eastern District Will Reach 600 Million Dollars],
September 5, 2019 u http://mcx.ru/press-service/news/k-2024-godu-eksport-soi-iz-dfo-dostignetporyadka-600-mln-dollarov.
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Soybean exports to China from the Russian Far East have logistical
advantages from lower transportation costs. Due to potential cost savings
and prospects for higher profits, domestic agroholdings and Chinese firms
began several years ago to lease agricultural land in the Russian Far East and
set up farm operations to grow soybeans and other products.46 The federal
government supports agricultural investment in the Russian Far East as part
of its larger strategy for rural development and development of the region
in general.47 Representatives from small and medium-sized Chinese firms,
however, are more dubious about investing in soybean farming in the Russian
Far East. Such ventures are more a political statement than a profitable
economic activity for all but the very largest operations.48
Poultry Meat
In the meat category, poultry meat is China’s second-largest import by
volume and reached nearly 1 million metric tons in 2020, with a slight drop to
840,000 metric tons being expected in 2021.49 China’s domestic consumption
of poultry was 13.9 million tons in 2019, 15.2 million tons in 2020, and was
expected to rise to 15.4 million tons in 2021.50
On the supply side, Russian poultry production grew from 5.1 million
tons in 2013 to 6.7 million tons (live weight) in 2020. The top twenty companies
account for 70% of total poultry production, a trend that is expected to
intensify in the coming years.51 Speaking to reporters in Vladivostok in
March 2019, Russian minister of agriculture Dmitrii Patrushev predicted
that Russian poultry exports to China could reach 150,000 metric tons in
46 Jiayi Zhou, “Chinese Agrarian Capitalism in the Russian Far East,” Third World Thematics 1, no. 5
(2017): 612–32.
47 Richard T. Gudaj et al., “Chinese Farmers in the Russian Far East and Local Rural Development,”
American Journal of Economic Sociology 79, no. 5 (2020): 1511–51; and David Sedik, Fujin Yi, and
Richard T. Gudaj, “Implications of Chinese Farmers in the Russian Far East,” American Journal of
Economic Sociology 79, no. 5 (2020).
48 “Kitai schitaet eksport soi s Dal’nego Vostoka ne perspektivnym” [China Thinks the Export of Soy
from the Far East Does Not Have a Future], Amur Info, January 20, 2020 u https://agrovesti.net/
news/indst/kitaj-schitaet-eksport-soi-s-dalnego-vostoka-ne-perspektivnym.html.
49 “Poultry and Products Semi-Annual,” USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, GAIN Report CH2021-
0018, February 3, 2021 u https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportB
yFileName?fileName=Poultry%20and%20Products%20Semi-Annual_Beijing_China%20-%20
Peoples%20Republic%20of_02-15-2021.
50 Ibid.
51 “Poultry and Products Annual,” USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, GAIN Report RS2020-0042,
September 21, 2020.
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russia ’ s food exports to china
the near future.52 Exports of chicken feet and wings—parts that are highly
valued by Chinese consumers—provide a special advantage because there is
not much competition from Brazil or the EU.53
The opportunity for Russian exporters to increase their sales of poultry
meat in China comes from the 2016 decision to rescind the ban on Russia’s
chicken exports. The ban on Russian chicken dated from 2005 over concerns
about sanitation standards and the spread of animal disease. In November
2018, Russia’s food safety agency Rosselkhoznadzor and China’s federal
customs management signed a protocol for veterinary-sanitary requirements
for frozen poultry. In January 2019, 23 Russian poultry-processing plants
were given permission to begin sales to China, and, in February 2019, the
first shipment of 54 metric tons was exported from the Russian agroholding
company Miratorg. The company plans to increase poultry sales to China
by 146,000 metric tons (worth $232 million) by 2024.54 In 2021, Russia
was expected to export 220 metric tons of poultry products and earn over
$340 million, which suggests that although Russian export capacity does
not at present have a large share of the Chinese poultry market, there is
opportunity for growth.55
Wheat
Russia’s wheat exports generate more revenue than any other commodity,
ranging from 25% to 33% of food trade revenue depending on the year. In 2020,
for example, Russia’s wheat exports earned $9.7 billion, equal to 31.5% of total
revenue from agri-food sales.56 Wheat exports to China currently represent a
52 “Kitai razreshil 23 Rossiiskim kompaniiam postavliat’ v stranu miaso ptitsy” [China Allowed 23
Russian Companies to Deliver Poultry Meat to the Country], Kvedomosti, February 1, 2019 u
http://kvedomosti.ru/news/kitaj-razreshil-23-rossijskim-kompaniyam-postavlyat-v-stranu-myasopticy.html.
53 Anatoli Medetsky, “Russia’s Newest Ambition in China Is Selling More Chicken Wings,”
Bloomberg, May 22, 2019 u https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-22/russia-snewest-ambition-in-china-is-selling-more-chicken-wings; and “Sotrudnichestvo v oblasti APK—
Novaia tochka rosta v torgovo-ekonomicheskom vzaimodeistvii Rossii i Kitaia [Cooperation in
the Agricultural Arena—A New Point of Growth in Trade-Economic Cooperation between Russia
and China], Sin’khua, November 27, 2019 u https://agrovesti.net/news/indst/sotrudnichestvo-voblasti-apk-novaya-tochka-rosta-v-torgovo-ekonomicheskom-vzaimodejstvii-rossii-i-kitaya.html.
Russian poultry exporters face competition from the United States because in November 2019
China lifted its ban on U.S. poultry meat, a ban that had been in place for more than four years.
54 Ekaterina Diatlovskaia, “Minsel’khoz: V 2019 godu Rossiia postavit v KNR miasa ptitsy na
$100 mln” [Ministry of Agriculture: In 2019 Russia Delivered Poultry Meat Worth $100
Million to China], Agroinvestor, September 9, 2019 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/markets/
news/32385-rossiya-postavit-v-knr-myasa-ptitsy-na-100-mln.
55 “Poultry and Products Annual.”
56 “Operativnyi obzor eksporta produktsii APK,” December 27, 2020.
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partial opportunity because they remain restricted even though the original
total ban from 1976 was ended in 2015. A new agreement in 2015 did not
lead to an immediate resumption in wheat trade. Negotiations took place over
the next year on which regions of Russia would be allowed to export grain,
followed by certification of exporters. In early 2017, a contract was signed
for the delivery of wheat to China, but the agreement allowed exports from
only six regions located in the Urals, Siberia, and Far East Federal Districts:
Altaiskii Krai, Krasnoyarskii Krai, Cheliabinskaia Oblast, Amurskaia Oblast,
Novosibirskaia Oblast, and Omskaia Oblast.57 In August 2019, a seventh
region, Kurganskaia Oblast, was added to this list. In 2020, those seven
regions produced around 15 million metric tons of grain after cleaning. For
comparison, Russia’s top seven grain-producing regions supplied around 53
million metric tons that year, so clearly export potential is reduced by China’s
exclusion of Russia’s most productive regions. An expansion in grain trade
depends on increasing the number of regions that may export, which requires
government-to-government negotiations.
Through land reclamation, increased use of mineral fertilizers, and
the re-mechanization of farm labor, Russia plans to steadily increase grain
production to 150 million metric tons annually, which means that more could
be sold to China if the Chinese government would allow wheat exports from
Russia’s main wheat-growing regions. China continues to express concern
over fungus and other impurities in Russian grain, despite the fact that the
quality of Russian wheat has improved since 2017 and steps have been taken
to protect grain during storage and transportation. In 2020 the Russian
government introduced a tracing system to hold grain producers accountable
for the quality of their product. The following year, Russia reported the
highest-quality wheat harvest in twenty years, measured by the percentage of
wheat in the top four classes. According to the director of the Center for the
Assessment of Grain Quality, Yulia Koroleva, almost 88% of the wheat harvest
was food quality, whereas previous years had not exceeded 74%.58
57 Inna Ganenko, “Terra inkognita dlia Rossiiskogo agroeksporta. Kakovy perspektivy vyvoza
prodovol’stviia v Kitai” [Unknown Territory for Russia’s Agroexport. The Prospects for Exporting
Food to China], Agroinvestor, May 2019, 21.
58 Elizaveta Litvinova, “Kachestvo i dolia prodovol’stvennoi pshenitsy stali rekordnymi za 20 let” [The
Quality and Amount of Food Wheat Became a 20 Year Record], October 6, 2021 u https://www.
agroinvestor.ru/markets/news/36798-kachestvo-i-dolya-prodovolstvennoy-pshenitsy-stali-rekordnymiza-20-let.
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obstacles to expanding food exports
In addition to the opportunities for expanding bilateral food trade,
there are also impediments that keep levels lower than what they could be.
Obstacles to expanded trade include supply, demand, and the presence of
government restrictions.
Supply
Frozen fish and seafood. Turning first to the supply side, one obstacle to
higher food trade revenue concerns Russia’s frozen fish and seafood exports to
China. On the one hand, frozen fish and seafood exports generate more food
export revenue from China than any other commodity—over $1.6 billion in
2020, 60% more than the second-ranked commodity. More than one half of
Russia’s fish and seafood harvest comes from the Pacific basin in the Far East,
and historically, around 70% of Russia’s fish and seafood exports have gone
to China.
On the other hand, there are three impediments that curtail trade in this
sector. The first is that Russian fishing companies are limited by quotas—the
total allowable catch—on their wild catch, which are adhered to by Russia,
China, South Korea, and the United States. A joint commission sets the
quotas for each country, which means that countries cannot simply catch
and export as much as they want. In Russia’s case, the catch may be smaller
than what China’s demand warrants. Aquaculture—fish farming—is not
popular in the Russian Far East because of the abundance of wild-catch fish,
which means that supply is determined by whatever the wild catch is. Thus,
frozen fish and seafood exports face a supply impediment that restricts trade.
A second impediment is that the commercial fishing industry is subject to
environmental restrictions. For example, starting on June 20, 2021, and
continuing through the end of the year, Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture
banned the harvest of blue and Kamchatka crab due to their depletion in the
zone surrounding Primorskii Krai.59 A third impediment, affecting both the
seafood and meat industries, is that the Covid-19 pandemic has led to more
restrictions from the Chinese side. In June 2020, the Chinese government
indicated that it wanted letters of guarantee from Russia’s livestock breeders
59 “V Primor’e s 20 iiunia po 31 dekabria vvoditsia zapret na vylov kraba” [In Primorye from 20
June to 31 December a Ban on the Export of Crab Is Introduced], TASS, June 16, 2021 u https://
kvedomosti.ru/news/https-tass-ru-ekonomika-11648489.html.
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that their exports were free from Covid-19.60 The Russian side considered
this demand “too strong” and noted the fact that coronavirus has not
been found in livestock. Russian companies themselves were left to decide
whether to comply. In September 2020, Russia’s food inspection agency
received several notifications from China that traces of coronavirus were
found on packages of fish products from Russia. China thereafter restricted
imports and tightened their quarantine, and the only open Chinese port
stopped receiving imported cargo.61
Soybeans. Because of China’s large demand for soybeans and the crop’s
myriad uses, it stands to reason that Russia could greatly expand its food
exports by increasing soybean exports. Russian experts interviewed at the
2019 Far Eastern Forum in Vladivostok saw long-term export possibilities
of 10–20 million tons per year. That said, it is difficult to see how that height
could be attained given the level of Russian production and the fact that
China prefers to import unprocessed soybeans, while Russia is moving toward
increased processing. Moreover, a significant rise in bilateral soybean trade is
unlikely due to Russian export tariffs on soybeans and a general regulatory
environment that is restrictive.62 It is not therefore possible for Russia to
become the dominant supplier of soybeans to China anytime soon.
Russian soybeans also face foreign competition. As recently as 2016, the
United States held 42% of the soybean market in China, trailing only Brazil.
In early 2018, however, President Donald Trump initiated several rounds of
tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, eventually applying tariffs
to more than $360 billion worth of Chinese products. China retaliated to
Trump’s first round with its own tariffs of $50 billion on U.S. products,
including a 25% tariff on U.S. soybeans in July 2018. The impact was
significant, as the value of U.S. whole soybean exports to China fell from
$12.3 billion in 2017 to $3.1 billion in 2018.63 U.S. whole soybean exports
to China rebounded to $7.9 billion in 2018–19, but fell again to $5.8 billion
60 Elena Maksimova, “Kitai trebuet ot postavshchikov produktsii zhivotnovodstva garantii
bezopasnosti” [China Demands a Guarantee of Safety for Deliveries of Animal Husbandry
Products], Agroinvestor, June 24, 2020 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/markets/
news/33914-kitay-trebuet-ot-postavshchikov-produktsii-zhivotnovodstva-garantiy-bezopasnosti.
61 “Rosrybolovstvo: Ogranichenie eksporta ryby v KNR pozvolilo razvit’ novye marshruty postavok”
[Russian Fish Agency: Limits on the Export of Fish to China Help to Develop New Supply Routes],
TASS, April 16, 2021 u https://kvedomosti.ru/news/https-tass-ru-ekonomika-11152847.html.
62 Funin Yi et al. “Sino-Russian Cooperation on Soybean Development in the Russian Far East,”
American Journal of Economic Sociology 79, no. 5 (2020): 1553–86.
63 American Soybean Association, “2017 Soystats: A Reference Guide to Important Soybean Facts
and Figures,” 2017, 23 u http://www.soystats.com; and American Soybean Association, “2019
Soystats: A Reference Guide to Important Soybean Facts and Figures,” 2019, 22.
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in the 2019–20 marketing season.64 Nonetheless, despite fluctuations in
U.S. soybean exports to China, for the foreseeable future Russia will trail
Brazil and the United States, and it likely remain a negligible percentage of
China’s overall soybean imports for many years. Thus, while Russia wants to
increase sales to support the rise in revenue from agri-food exports, soybean
exports confront structural obstacles in output level, trade restrictions, and
foreign competition.
Demand
A second category of impediment occurs on the demand side. In
recent years, China has experienced slower growth in household income
and a decline in consumer spending. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic,
China’s GDP growth rate had declined by around 50%, and wages and
household income growth rates also slowed.65 Income growth for low-income
households has not recovered to levels before the pandemic and may lag for
the foreseeable future.66 Lower growth in household income translates to a
decline in spending, which in turn reduces demand for imported foods. It
remains to be seen whether this is a long-term shift or a temporary reaction to
the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. There are also questions about Chinese
purchasing power. Despite achieving middle-income status as a country,
China still has 600 million people whose income is around $155 a month.67
Another impediment on the demand side is foreign competition, which
limits demand for Russian food exports. Simply put, Russia is competing
with other countries for Chinese consumers and their demand. China
imported in excess of $133 billion in agri-food products in 2019, and Russia
exported $3.2 billion in food to China in that same year, which means around
$130 billion in agri-food products sold to China came from other countries.
According to the World Bank, in 2019, five countries ranked higher than
Russia in the dollar value of animal exports to China. In that same year,
twelve countries ranked higher than Russia in the dollar value of vegetable
64 American Soybean Association, “2021 Soystats: A Reference Guide to Important Soybean Facts
and Figures,” 2021, 22.
65 Daniel H. Rosen, “China’s Economic Reckoning: The Price of Failed Reforms,” Foreign Affairs,
July/August 2021, 27.
66 Keith Bradsher, “China’s Growth Slows as Pandemic Fears Persist,” New York Times, July 14, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/business/chinas-economy-cooling.html?action=click&
module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage.
u
67 Eustance Huang, “Sluggish Household Income Growth Is Holding Back Chinese Consumer
Spending, Says Barclays,” CNBC, June 21, 2021 u https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/21/slowincome-growth-is-holding-back-the-chinese-consumer-barclays.html.
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exports to China. Top food-exporting countries to China include the United
States, Brazil, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Argentina. Thus, Russia
has competition for the Chinese market, and while Russia plans to increase
its agri-food sales to the Chinese market, other countries do too. Chinese
consumers have choices and may have loyalties or other reasons not to choose
Russian products.
Government Restrictions
Pork. A third category of impediments concern government restrictions.
China restricted imports of Russian pork in 2008, and these restrictions have
not been rescinded given concerns about the highly contagious African swine
fever. Russia continues to experience regional outbreaks of this swine fever
for which there is neither a cure nor a vaccine.68 China itself has been greatly
affected by African swine fever since 2018. In 2019 alone, the number of pigs
in China declined by more than 50%, from nearly 5 million pigs in January
2019 to fewer than 2.5 million pigs by late 2019 as farmers had to cull infected
swine. As a consequence, China’s pork production plummeted to less than
30 million tons, and its imports doubled to 3.7 million metric tons in 2019.69
The mass slaughter of pigs during 2019 and 2020 led to a 65% decline in live
hog prices as the market became saturated with pork.70 The decline in China’s
pork production and increase in imports could provide an opportunity for
Russia if it were not for the ban on imports or pork from Russian farmers.
This ban is also important because China is the largest consumer of
pork—40 million metric tons in China in 2020 compared to the second-place
EU with 24 million metric tons.71 Estimates for per capita consumption in
China range as high as 39 kilograms in 2018.72 China is unlikely to lift its
68 Elizaveta Litvinova, “V Rossii uchastilis’ vspyshki AChS” [In Russia the Outbreak of African
Swine Fever Increases], Agroinvestor, July 22, 2021 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/analytics/
news/36220-v-rossii-uchastilis-vspyshki-achs.
69 Liubov’ Savkina, “Kogda svinina poedet v Kitai” [When Pigs Will Go to China], Agroinvestor,
2020, 39–40; and Mildred Haley and Fred Gale, “African Swine Fever Shrinks Pork
Production in China, Swells Demand for Imported Pork,” USDA, Economic Research
Service, February 3, 2020 u https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2020/february/
african-swine-fever-shrinks-pork-production-in-china-swells-demand-for-imported-pork.
70 Alexandra Baych, “Pork Price Decline Impacts Production,” USDA, Foreign Agricultural
Service, GAIN Report CH2021-0066, June 23, 2021 u https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/
api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Pork%20Price%20Deline%20Impacts%20
Production_Beijing_China%20-%20People%27s%20Republic%20of_06-12-2021.
71 Nelson Low, “China’s Appetite for Meat Is Still Growing,” Reuters, November 16, 2020 u https://
www.reuters.com/article/sponsored/china-appetite-still-growing.
72 Angela Zhang, “What Does 2019 Hold for China’s Pork Market?” Pig Site, March 15, 2019 u
https://www.thepigsite.com/articles/what-does-2019-hold-for-chinas-pork-market.
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ban on Russian pork anytime soon, and at present Russian pork exports are
modest at just 192,000 tons in 2020.73 That said, Russia is ramping up pork
production and exports worldwide. Experts in Russia predict that the country
could eventually export between 350,000 and 1 million tons of pork to China
annually if allowed market access.74
New regulations. Another non-tariff barrier from the Chinese side
came in April 2021 when Decrees 248 and 249 were adopted. These decrees
introduce significant new barriers to food trade for all of China’s trading
partners. Decree 248 requires all overseas manufacturers, processors, and
storage facilities to register with China’s General Administration of Customs.
Decree 249 covers a broad range of requirements for food exports to China,
including facilities registration, record filing by importers and exporters,
quarantine and inspection, and product labeling. Both decrees entered into
force in January 2022. The U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service notes that China’s
trading partners have expressed concern over potential disruptions to trade,
the lack of clarity about how these decrees will be implemented, and the short
timeline for exporters to comply with new requirements.75 The U.S. Foreign
Agricultural Service expects that Decree 249 will restrain food trade.
Grains. Russia’s wheat exports are constrained by several factors on the
Chinese side. First, China has its own food security policy that tries to protect
some of its own commodity sectors. One example is the tariff quota system for
wheat imports. A second factor is strict phytosanitary control over imports,
and in the past China (as well as other countries) has expressed concern over
the quality of Russian wheat exports (as discussed above). A third factor is a
system of regionalization for certain food imports, wheat being one of them.
This means that individual regions must be cleared to export rather than
China issuing a blanket approval for the entire country. A fourth factor is a
decline in wheat used for animal feed, driven by reductions in pig stocks and
a higher supply of corn.
China’s continuing restrictions have a dramatic effect on Russia’s wheat
exports. China’s global wheat imports nearly doubled from 3.1 million metric
73 “Draiverom svinovodstva stanet eksport” [Export Becomes the Driver of Pig Raising], Sel’skaia
zhizn’, April 23–29, 2021, 4.
74 Vladislav Vorotnikov, “Russia Breaks $1 Billion Threshold with Pork Exports,” Pig Progress,
September 3, 2020 u https://www.pigprogress.net/World-of-Pigs1/Articles/2020/9/
Russia-breaks-1-billion-threshold-with-pork-exports-635758E.
75 “Decrees 248 and 249 Status Update on Facilities Registration and Food Safety Measures,” USDA,
Foreign Agricultural Service, GAIN Report CH2021-0060, May 25, 2021 u https://apps.fas.usda.
gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Decrees%20248%20and%20
249%20Status%20Update%20on%20Facilities%20Registration%20and%20Food%20Safety%20
Measures_Beijing_China%20-%20People%27s%20Republic%20of_05-23-2021.
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tons in the 2018–19 agricultural year to 6.0 million metric tons in the 2020–21
season, but Russian exporters were unable to take advantage of that rise.76
Even as China ramps up its wheat imports, Russia’s grain exports to China
remain insignificant. In the 2017–18 agricultural year, for example, Russia
exported 33 million metric tons of wheat, more than any other country in
the world, yet only 87 thousand metric tons were sold to China.77 In the
2019–20 agricultural year, China imported 3.8 million metric tons of wheat
from France, Australia, and Canada but only 107,000 tons from Russia.78
For context, Russia’s top grain customer in 2020–21 was Egypt at 8.2 million
metric tons, followed by Turkey at 7.0 million metric tons.79 Both of those
countries trail China considerably in the size of their economy and number
of adult consumers. For the 2021–22 agricultural year, China was expected to
import 8 million metric tons of wheat, but by mid-November 2021, Russian
wheat sales to China totaled just $112 million.80
Russia joined China in adopting governmental restrictions on grain trade
in 2020 and into 2021, representing a shift in Russian policy from maximizing
exports to ensuring adequate domestic supplies. Government concern
over domestic food supply is long-standing and not merely in response to
the global increase in commodity prices. Although Russian policymakers’
concerns over food security can be dated to the mid-1990s, in the Putin era,
government policy has been directed at ensuring food security since 2008.81
Recently, Russia began to restrict grain trade through export quotas in early
2020 that extended to midyear. Beginning in early 2021, the government
applied an export quota plus export tariffs on different grains, including
wheat, and a temporary ban on the export of buckwheat.82 As of October
2021, the Ministry of Agriculture announced a plan to introduce a separate
76 Anatoli Medetsky, “Wheat King Russia Is Missing Out on China Buying Spree,”
Bloomberg, September 1, 2020 u https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-02/
wheat-king-russia-is-missing-out-on-china-s-buying-spree.
77 Ganenko, “Terra inkognita dlia Rossiiskogo agroeksporta,” 21.
78 Medetsky, “Wheat King Russia Is Missing Out on China Buying Spree.”
79 Elizaveta Litvinova, “Minsel’khoz utochnil otsenku eksporta zerna v proshlom sezone” [The
Ministry of Agriculture Specified the Value of Grain Exports in the Last Season], Agroinvestor,
July 21, 2021 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/analytics/news/36208-minselkhoz-utochnil-otsenkueksporta-zerna-v-proshlom-sezone.
80 “Operativnyi obzor eksporta produktsii APK,” November 14, 2021.
81 See Stephen K. Wegren, Alexander M. Nikulin, and Irina Trotsuk, Food Policy and Food Security:
Putting Food on the Russian Table (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018).
82 “Russia Introduces New Agricultural Export Restrictions,” USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service,
GAIN Report RS2021-0003, February 11, 2021 u https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/
DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Russia%20Introduces%20New%20Agricultural%20
Export%20Restrictions_Moscow_Russian%20Federation_02-10-2021.
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quota on wheat exports that would begin on February 15, 2022, and continue
to the end of the 2022 agricultural year.83
These steps were taken in reaction to high food price inflation in Russia.
Policymakers were clear that restrictions were intended to disincentivize
exports and keep commodities within the country due to concerns over
price increases and possible shortages. These trade restrictions were not
just temporary moves in the run up to the September 2021 Duma election.
Instead, the Ministry of Agriculture announced a permanent system of
export controls—quotas and tariffs—that would vary annually according to
Russia’s harvest and economic conditions. Government concern, therefore,
is over long-term food security, and that orientation is unlikely to disappear
anytime soon.
The shift in export policy brought complaints from Russia’s grain
producers and exporters about reduced revenue. In September 2021, for
example, the president of the Russian Grain Union, Arkady Zlochevskii,
argued that earnings on wheat exports would fall 20% as a direct consequence
of export tariffs and perhaps another 20% due to lower domestic prices from
higher supply.84
To summarize, there is shared responsibility for the underdevelopment of
bilateral food trade, as shown in Table 2. The table illustrates the combination
of factors that restrain bilateral agri-food trade.
First, there is a mismatch that contributes to modest export values by
Russia to China, a fact that the removal of restrictions (if it were to occur)
would not address. Soybeans, oilseeds, fats, and processed oils represent nearly
half of China’s agricultural import value, but Russia produces only a small
volume of soybeans, as noted above. China’s poultry consumption is high, but
Russia exports a small volume of poultry meat. Second, the table also shows
the importance of government restrictions. Russia exports a large volume of
wheat, but China continues restrictions through the use of tariff-rate quotas.
Although China consumes large quantities of pork, restrictions on imports of
Russian pork remain in place. Third, China’s demand for fish and seafood is
high, but that supply is constrained by international quotas.
83 Ekaterina Shokurova, “Minsel’khoz predlozhil vvesti otdel’nuiu kvotu na eksport pshenitsy”
[The Ministry of Agriculture Suggested to Introduce a Separate Quota for the Export
of Wheat], Agroinvestor, October 4, 2021 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/markets/
news/36764-minselkhoz-povysil-poshlinu-na-vyvoz-pshenitsy.
84 Ekaterina Shokurova, “RZS: Gosregulirovanie eksporta mozhet snizit’ vyruchku agrariev na 40%”
[Russian Grain Union: State Regulation of Export May Reduce Earnings by 40%], Agroinvestor,
September 17, 2021 u https://www.agroinvestor.ru/analytics/news/36664-rzs-gosregulirovanieeksporta-mozhet-snizit-vyruchku-agrariev-na-40.
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TABLE 2
Summary of Opportunities and Impediments to
Russia-China Food Trade
Opportunity
Impediment
Source of
impediment
Soybeans
Chinese demand
Russian supply
Russia
Poultry
Chinese demand
Russian supply
Russia
Pork
Chinese demand
Policy decision
China
Fish and seafood
Chinese demand
Restrictions on
catch
Russia
Oil and fats
Chinese demand
None
–
Russian supply
Policy decision
China and Russia
Wheat
conclusion
Since 2014, China has played a major role in Russia’s ascendancy as a
food power. One may expect it to be instrumental in Russia’s increasing food
trade as numerous opportunities exist. China remains the primary purchaser
of wild-catch Russian fish and seafood from the Pacific. The value of Russian
food exports to China is growing faster than to other markets, and there are
various vested interests in Russia that stand to gain from increased food trade
with China—in particular, private companies that produce soybeans, oilseeds,
and poultry meat and that catch and process fish. There is too much money to
be made for bilateral trade not to increase. Further, the Russian government
supports food exports because it understands that without growth in business
with China, Russia may not reach its $45 billion target.
Yet, although China is central to Russia meeting its export goal
of $45 billion, a combination of factors continue to restrict food trade. This
article has discussed continuing government restrictions on both sides,
bureaucratic (especially phytosanitary) concerns and complications from
Covid-19, and supply-side and demand-side factors. In short, merely ending
government restrictions (an unlikely outcome) or moving to some kind of
customs-free regime will not address the structural mismatch between what
Russia can supply versus what China wants to buy. Further, it is clear that
national interests and concerns about food security on both sides restrict
opportunities to expand food trade. All these factors speak to the limits of
improved political relations. The restrictions on food trade give credence to the
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arguments of skeptics about the depth of Russo-Sino relations.85 It is precisely
because improved political relations have not overcome long-standing national
security and food security concerns that the actual level of bilateral food trade
turnover remains modest, despite the size of China’s consumer market.
Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture aims to increase China’s share in food
exports to 17%, but this is a safe rather than ambitious target. And thus,
unlike energy, bilateral food trade is not fulfilling its potential, given the size
of China’s consumer base. To expand food trade, structural and policy changes
are needed. Structurally, Russia will have to improve its output of soybeans
and poultry meat, and it should look for a way to increase the volume of
frozen fish and seafood for export from the Pacific basin. There is also a large
demand for beef imports in China. In the first quarter of 2021, China was the
main purchaser of Russian beef exports, but Russia’s quantity of beef exports
is very small.86 In the policy realm, for food trade to really take off, non-tariff
restrictions by China will need to be removed (e.g., on pork). If China were
to remove its tariff-rate quotas on wheat, Russia is well-positioned to increase
wheat exports substantially. At the same time, Russia’s recent restrictions on
wheat exports during strong harvests represent an obstacle.
Going forward, it remains an open question whether the two sides will
embrace broader and deeper cooperation in food trade, or whether various
barriers will continue to suppress the potential level of trade despite the
improvement in the political relationship and economic benefits. Based on
past behavioral trends, there is a real likelihood that bilateral agricultural
trade will continue to underperform compared to its potential. 
85 See, for example, Stephen Kotkin, “The Unbalanced Triangle,” Foreign Affairs, September 1, 2009
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/unbalanced-triangle; and Jeffrey Schubert
and Dmitry Savkin, “Dubious Economic Partnership,” China Quarterly of International Strategic
Studies 2, no. 4 (2016): 529–47.
u
86 “Kitai vozglavil spisok importerov goviadiny iz RF” [China Heads the List of Importers of Beef
from the Russian Federation], RIA Novosti, July 16, 2021 u https://agrovesti.net/news/indst/kitajvozglavil-spisok-importerov-govyadiny-iz-rf.html.
[ 131 ]
asia policy, volume 17, number 1 ( january 2022 ) , 133–60
•
http://asiapolicy.nbr.org
•
The Future of the U.S.-Philippines
Alliance: Declining Democracy and
Prospects for U.S.-Philippines Relations
after Duterte
Luke Lischin
luke lischin is an Assistant Research Fellow at the National War College in
Washington, D.C. (United States), and an independent consultant on political
violence in Southeast Asia. He can be reached at <lukelischin@gmail.com>.
u The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do
not necessarily reflect the views of the National War College.
note
keywords:u.s.-philippines alliance; democracy, duterte; sanctions
© The National Bureau of Asian Research
1414 NE 42nd St, Suite 300, Seattle, Washington 98105 USA
asia policy
executive summary
This article examines the Philippines’ democracy under the administration of
President Rodrigo Duterte and assesses the ramifications of democratic decline
for the future of the U.S.-Philippines alliance under the next administration.
main argument
The anti-democratic policies of the Duterte administration have subverted
institutional and societal checks on executive power, threatening the
U.S.-Philippines alliance as an instrument of U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
Duterte successfully reshaped domestic politics to augment his regime’s
influence over the legislature, judiciary, local governments, military, and
economy, and openly sought to jettison the alliance for closer diplomatic and
economic ties with China that would help him subvert domestic checks and
balances on his administration. To repair and augment its alliance with the
Philippines, the U.S. must recognize that the country’s democratic decline is
highly unlikely to reverse once Duterte leaves office and should transparently
develop policies to incentivize the next administration and policymakers in
the Philippines to roll back Duterte’s anti-democratic policies.
policy implications
• If Duterte’s successor continues to consolidate power domestically
by weakening institutional checks on the administration’s authority
and coercing political opposition into silence or compliance, military
cooperation between the U.S. and the Philippines will falter and create new
vulnerabilities threatening U.S. interests in the Pacific region.
• The Biden administration should reconfigure U.S. security assistance
under the schema of positive conditionality to discourage further efforts to
undermine democratic governance and degrade human rights conditions
from the next presidential administration in the Philippines. U.S. assistance
should also be optimized to support the Philippines’ military modernization
while prioritizing economic and technical cooperation to mitigate the
challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, economic recession, and
pervasive low-intensity conflict.
• Whereas the application of sanctions on individuals responsible for
supporting human rights violations can be a coercive tool of diplomacy
in extremis, it is more important that the U.S. offer inducements for
curtailing these violations through bilateral efforts to expand investments
from U.S. companies to Philippine business, particularly through the U.S.
International Development Finance Corporation and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation.
lischin
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the future of the u.s.-philippines alliance
A
lthough he campaigned on strengthening democracy at home and
abroad while maintaining a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,
President Joe Biden has not indicated how he will resolve the inherent
conflicts between these goals. This dilemma is perhaps most acute in the
Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally in a region experiencing democratic crises of
varying degrees.1 Under President Rodrigo Duterte, the media and Philippine
civil society are suffocating, extrajudicial killings are commonplace, and the
economy is in a Covid-19-induced recession. The results of the Philippines’
general election in 2022 will have major implications for the future of the
U.S.-Philippines alliance. No matter who wins the presidential election,
both states will be forced to confront the autocratic legacy of the outgoing
Philippine administration. Ultimately, continued democratic decline under
the next administration in the Philippines would degrade the alliance and
threaten the national interests of both states.
Not since Ferdinand Marcos has any president of the Philippines so
effectively coerced or coopted his opposition in the government, the national
security sector, and society at large by dismantling and disregarding the
democratic principles and safeguards of the republic.2 By constraining the
ability of government institutions, the press, and civil society to challenge
executive policies, the democratic decline of the Philippines is impairing
the ability of both it and the United States to cooperate in support of mutual
security interests served by the alliance—namely, preserving the inviolability
of Philippine sovereignty, the integrity of the global commons, and, by
extension, the political stability of the Indo-Pacific. When Duterte’s term ends
on June 30, 2022, his successor will have the option of embracing, revising,
or rejecting his regime’s legacy. While there are limits to what U.S. diplomacy
can accomplish in the Philippines, a new approach to alliance maintenance
is needed to avoid continuing Duterte’s legacy, which would augur poorly for
U.S. interests.
Toward this end, the Biden administration should emphasize areas for
growth and development between the two allies and frame caps on assistance
and targeted sanctions as statutory constraints on U.S. policy rather than
as coercive diplomatic instruments. The United States must convey that
autocratic governance and human rights abuses are barriers to U.S. aid,
1 Joshua Kurlantzick, Addressing the Effect of Covid-19 on Democracy in South and Southeast Asia
(New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2020).
2 Sheila Coronel, “A Warning from the Philippines on How a Demagogue Can Haunt Politics
for Decades,” Washington Post, November 9, 2020 u https://www.washingtonpost.com/
opinions/2020/11/09/trump-ferdinand-marcos-philippines-lessons-democracy.
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which could potentially escalate to targeted sanctions against individuals
deemed responsible for violations of human rights standards. If diplomatic
engagement falls short in inducing democratic reforms in the Philippines, the
United States should be prepared to apply limitations on aid consistent with
legislation, including the Leahy Law and the Global Magnitsky Act, despite
prospective threats from the Philippine government to retaliate.
The remainder of the article is organized into five sections:
u
pp. 136–38 examine the current state of U.S.-Philippines relations.
u
pp. 139–44 analyze Philippine politics and democratic backsliding.
u
u
u
pp. 144–51 look at how the Duterte administration and governance in
the Philippines came to assume their current forms.
pp. 151–54 evaluate risks to the bilateral alliance and U.S. regional
interests from governance and human rights issues in the Philippines.
pp. 154–60 suggest policy options for Congress and the Biden
administration that would encourage a new Philippine administration to
take steps toward improved democratic governance.
the flawed strategic logic
of maintaining the status quo
Many foreign policy prescriptions have been suggested for the Biden
administration in the Indo-Pacific region, but recommendations for
balancing security and good governance in the U.S.-Philippines alliance have
been few. Notably, Michael Green and Gregory Poling have recommended
raising concerns over human rights through official channels with the aim
of incentivizing democratic improvements through extensive diplomatic
engagement.3 Recommendations of this sort tend to conceptualize the
alliance as primarily transactional, where the United States is permitted to
maintain and improve its military posture in the Philippines in exchange for
military and economic aid. Other objectives such as the Philippines’ military
modernization, economic growth, and democratic governance are secondary
or tertiary to maintaining U.S. military access, given the United States’ desire
to deter hostile Chinese actions in South China Sea, Taiwan, and elsewhere
in the Indo-Pacific.
3 Michael J. Green and Gregory B. Poling, “Biden Can Engage Southeast Asia and Still Promote Good
Governance,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Commentary, November 13, 2020 u
https://www.csis.org/analysis/biden-can-engage-southeast-asia-and-still-promote-good-governance.
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During the first year of the Biden administration, Washington embraced
this approach to save the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the
Philippines, which Duterte threatened to terminate in February 2020. As the
VFA is the legal mechanism enabling the rotational presence of U.S. military
forces in the Philippines, its termination would have crippled the alliance,
but a combination of foreign military sales, back-channel negotiations, and a
personal visit from U.S. secretary of defense Lloyd Austin resulted in Duterte
recalling the order in July 2021.4 The Biden administration succeeded in
maintaining the VFA, but Duterte can still threaten important components
of the alliance without consequence in his final months in office knowing that
the United States is willing to placate him.
This episode highlights the fact that preserving U.S. military access to the
Philippines has long been the sine qua non of the alliance, much to its detriment.
For example, the economic stagnation, mass killings, and authoritarianism under
President Ferdinand Marcos were only of selective concern to U.S. policymakers,
who approved substantial sums of aid to the Philippines despite—or in the
case of the Nixon and Reagan administrations, because of—these conditions.5
Only after Communist insurgency and democratic protests threatened the
Philippines’ stability did President Ronald Reagan urge President Marcos to
abdicate.6 As Richard Kessler observed in 1985, “The Philippines are a classic
example of how tying U.S. interests to the political ambitions of one man can
damage U.S. security.”7 This assessment was not novel; a former Lyndon Johnson
administration aide quipped regarding the Philippines that “the instrument of
our policy became of the object of our policy.”8
When an alliance becomes the object of policy for a country rather than
an instrument of that country’s grand strategy, it falls into what Hilton Root
termed “the commitment trap.” At the core of this trap is the assumption
4 Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “The Philippines—F-16 Block 70/72 Aircraft,” Transmittal
No. 21-14, June 24, 2021 u https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/philippinesf-16-block-7072-aircraft; Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “The Philippines—Aim-9x
Sidewinder Block II Tactical Missiles,” Transmittal No. 21-23, June 24, 2021 u https://www.dsca.
mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/philippines-aim-9x-sidewinder-block-ii-tactical-missiles; and
“Duterte Cancels Order to Terminate VFA with U.S.,” CNN Philippines, July 30, 2021 u https://
www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/7/30/Visiting-Forces-Agreement-Philippines-United-StatesDuterte-Austin.html.
5 Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1989), 375–81, 398–403; and Mattias Fibiger, “The Nixon Doctrine and the Making of
Authoritarianism in Island Southeast Asia,” Diplomatic History 45, no. 5 (2021): 13–16, 24–26.
6 Hilton L. Root, Alliance Curse: How America Lost the Third World (Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution Press, 2008), 92–100.
7 Richard J. Kessler, “The Philippines: A U.S. Policy Dilemma,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41, no. 1
(1985): 41–44.
8 Karnow, In Our Image, 377.
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that the known present is preferable to an unpredictable future. By sticking
to a narrow band of policies to preserve the status quo, Washington cedes
political leverage that enables its ally to impose unfavorable conditions on the
United States.9 Since 2016, the United States has been caught in this trap in
its relations with the Philippines by appeasing Duterte to preserve an unstable
and unfavorable status quo.
From 2016 to 2019, the United States disbursed approximately $1.3 billion
in economic and military aid to the Philippines, while annual disbursements
fluctuated from $451 million in 2016, to $236 million in 2017, to $275 million
in 2018, to $365 million in 2019.10 Whatever the benefit to security, the
economy, and public health, plying the Philippines with assistance did not
result in warmer relations with the Duterte administration. Rather than such
aid inducing cooperation on issues of mutual concern like the global Covid-19
pandemic, Duterte instead made access to U.S. vaccines a precondition to
maintain the VFA, essentially holding the agreement hostage.11 Whether
motivated by humanitarian concerns or caving into the president’s demands,
the United States ended up donating a total of 18.5 million vaccines to the
Philippines by December 2, 2021.12
The United States has again tied its security interests in the Philippines
to the political ambitions of a strongman in a similar way as Kessler observed
in 1985. Like Marcos before him, Duterte understands that Washington is
deeply invested in maintaining its military access, and he has exploited U.S.
reticence to challenge his government by consolidating unchecked executive
power over domestic politics and foreign policy. If the United States does
not change its passive approach to managing this bilateral relationship,
Duterte-style governance and its accompanying antipathy toward the alliance
will likely endure under the next Philippine administration.
9 Root, Alliance Curse, 173–79.
10 Calculated from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), “Foreign Aid Explorer” u
https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PHL?measure=Disbursements&fiscal_year=2019.
11 Cliff Venzon, “Duterte Threatens to End U.S. Military Pact If No Vaccines,” Nikkei Asia, December
27, 2020 u https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Duterte-threatens-to-end-USmilitary-pact-if-no-vaccines.
12 “U.S. International Covid-19 Vaccine Donations Tracker—Updated as of December 2,” Kaiser
Family Foundation u https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/u-s-internationalcovid-19-vaccine-donations-tracker; and “Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces Major Milestone
in Administration’s Global Vaccination Efforts: More than 100 Million U.S. Covid-19 Vaccine
Doses Donated and Shipped Abroad,” White House, August 3, 2021 u https://www.whitehouse.
gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/03/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-majormilestone-in-administrations-global-vaccination-efforts-more-than-100-million-u-s-covid-19vaccine-doses-donated-and-shipped-abroad.
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regime foundations, democratic decline,
and the u.s. alliance
Duterte’s term in office will end in June 2022, but there is a good
possibility that his successor may be cut from the same cloth. The president’s
daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, mayor of Davao City, could follow in her
father’s footsteps to Malacañang Palace to become vice president. After
a tumultuous candidate registration period, wherein several candidates
dropped out to have other candidates substituted in their place, Mayor
Duterte-Carpio emerged as the running mate of former senator Ferdinand
“Bongbong” Marcos, the son of former president Ferdinand Marcos, with
the backing of four political parties.13
The Marcos-Duterte tandem is presently shaping up to be the most
competitive bet in the race. According to polling conducted by PUBLiCUS
Asia Inc., conducted in November after the candidate substitution deadline,
56.7% of respondents supported Marcos for the presidency, while 15.4%
supported current vice president Leonor “Leni” Robredo. Duterte-Carpio led
the vice-presidential polls with the support of 54.4% of respondents, followed
by senate president Vicente Sotto III (10.1%), while 13.7% of respondents
remained undecided.14 These results are largely consistent with polling
conducted before the close of candidate registration by Social Weather Stations
during October 20–23, in which 47% of those surveyed supported Marcos,
followed by 18% for Robredo and 13% for Manila mayor Francisco “Isko
Moreno” Domagoso. In the survey on potential vice-presidential candidates,
however, Sotto led both Duterte-Carpio and Marcos by a substantial margin.15
Polling will likely fluctuate through the campaign season, and the election
is still anyone’s to win, but the strong performance of Duterte-aligned and
right-wing conservative populist candidates should be of great concern to
American observers.
13 Bea Cupin, “Marcos-Duterte ‘Uniteam’ Seals 2022 Alliance,” Rappler, November 25, 2021 u https://
www.rappler.com/nation/elections/bongbong-marcos-sara-duterte-uniteam-seal-alliance-2022.
14 “Executive Summary—Findings of 2021 Pahayag Final List: November 16–18, 2021,” PUBLiCUS
Asia Inc., November 19, 2021 u https://www.publicusasia.com/phyg-final-list. This survey was
completed before Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Tesoro Go, who was previously the
Duterte administration’s special assistant to the president and head of the presidential management
staff, dropped out of the race.
15 Ellalyn De Vera-Ruiz, “Marcos, Sotto Top Presidential, Vice Presidential SWS Survey,” Manila
Bulletin, November 15, 2021 u https://mb.com.ph/2021/11/15/marcos-sotto-top-presidential-vicepresidential-sws-survey; and Social Weather Stations, “SWS Confirms Survey Item for Stratbase
ADR Institute, Inc. on Voting Preferences for Vice-President in the 2022 Elections,” November 25,
2021 u https://www.sws.org.ph/swsmain/artcldisppage/?artcsyscode=ART-20211125123835.
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Well before the polling for the 2022 general election began, President
Duterte’s popularity, political clout, and extralegal influence were tilting the
electoral balance against his opponents, and the chances of a liberal reformer
winning the 2022 election are not encouraging. According to PUBLiCUS
Asia Inc., Duterte’s overall approval rating declined from approximately
65% in the first quarter of 2021 to approximately 58% in the second quarter,
before rebounding slightly to about 60% in quarter three.16 In polling
conducted by Social Weather Stations in September 2021, Duterte received a
net satisfaction rating of +52, ten points below his June 2021 net satisfaction
rate, although he has maintained historically high levels of public approval
compared to his predecessors in office.17 Regardless of this decline in
ratings, the available polling data supports the widely held perception that
Duterte remains highly popular throughout the country, having built a loyal
following of ordinary citizens who resonate with his bravado and support
his policies. Duterte’s popularity will have even deeper ramifications for the
upcoming election and its victors.18 Even if a progressive like Vice President
Robredo manages to win, her administration is likely to encounter major
institutional and political barriers to reform that will stem from the legacy
of the Duterte administration.
Adapting Stephen Skowronek’s theory to the Philippines, Mark
Thompson has proposed that the Philippine presidency is best understood in
relation to the democracy-founding regime of President Corazon Aquino.19
Thompson argues that the role of the presidency exists in a distinct tradition
that is accepted, rejected, or otherwise reinterpreted by the incumbent.
Even though the Philippines lacks a strong political party system, presidents
stake their success upon alliances with strategic political groups, formal
institutions, and the political appeal of their regimes. Presidents that fail to
perform strongly along all three of these parameters are put in precarious
positions, while those who command all three create political legacies as the
16 “Executive Summary—Findings of 2021 Pahayag Quarter 1 Survey: March 20–29, 2021,”
PUBLiCUS Asia Inc., April 7, 2021 u https://www.publicusasia.com/quarter-1-executivesummary; “Executive Summary—Findings of 2021 Pahayag Quarter 2 Survey: July 13–19,
2021,” PUBLiCUS Asia Inc., July 24, 2021 u https://www.publicusasia.com/quarter-2-executivesummary; and “Executive Summary—Findings of 2021 Pahayag Final List.”
17 Social Weather Stations, “Third Quarter 2021 Social Weather Survey: Pres. Duterte’s Net Rating
Drops 10 Points to +52, but Still ‘Very Good,’” October 29, 2021 u https://www.sws.org.ph/swsmain/
artcldisppage/?artcsyscode=ART-20211029114416&mc_cid=4482962bc4&mc_eid=66cc0c509b.
18 Sheila S. Coronel, “Rodrigo Duterte Will Not Go Gently,” Foreign Affairs, March 11, 2020 u https://
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/philippines/2020-03-11/rodrigo-duterte-will-not-go-gently.
19 Mark Thompson, “The Politics Philippine Presidents Make: Presidential-Style, Patronage-Based, or
Regime Relational?” Critical Asian Studies 46, no. 3 (2014).
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founders of new regimes that open or constrict certain political opportunities
for subsequent presidents.20
The Duterte administration represents the most successful case of a
foundational regime in Philippine politics since Aquino, having established
durable partnerships between his administration, state institutions, and
national elites through a unique brand of illiberal populism.21 From an
international perspective, this achievement is rare, and Duterte is among
a small cohort of world leaders who have found success in this model of
regime-building. Evidence from Europe and Latin America suggests that
attempts to dismantle democracy are liable to fail except where institutional
weaknesses and conjunctural opportunities, such as sudden crises or economic
windfalls, coincide. Where institutions are weak, checks on executive power
can be ignored and institutions can be reshaped via legal or extralegal
means. Meanwhile, the impact of conjunctural opportunities is inverse to
the strength of institutions. Where institutions are weak, the impact of an
exogenous shock is strong, providing aspiring autocrats with opportunities to
undermine democratic systems.22
These conditions are uncommon in most democracies, but institutional
weakness and conjunctural opportunities ranging from economic recession,
internal insecurity, and the Covid-19 pandemic are acutely present in the
Philippines. Duterte’s administration exploits these conditions to use mass
violence against segments of the public as a means of demonstrating his
regime’s strength and silencing dissent, but it just as often works through
subtler, legalistic means to subvert democratic governance.23 Democratic
decline of this kind is best articulated through Nancy Bermeo’s concept of
executive aggrandizement, wherein “elected executives weaken checks on
executive power one by one, undertaking a series of institutional changes that
hamper the power of opposition forces to challenge executive preferences.”24
Multiple indices that quantify the qualities of democratic governments
support the argument that Philippine democracy has declined, but the
20 Thompson, “The Politics Philippine Presidents Make,” 451.
21 See Salvador Santino F. Regilme, “Contested Spaces of Illiberal and Authoritarian Politics: Human
Rights and Democracy in Crisis,” Political Geography 89 (2021) u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
polgeo.2021.102427; and Adele Webb and Nicole Curato, “Populism in the Philippines,” in
Populism Around the World: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Daniel Stockemer (Cham: Springer
International Publishing, 2020), 49–65.
22 Kurt Weyland, “Populism’s Threat to Democracy: Comparative Lessons for the United States,”
Perspectives on Politics 18, no. 2 (2020): 389–406.
23 Nicole Curato and Diego Fossati. “Authoritarian Innovations: Crafting Support for a Less
Democratic Southeast Asia,” Democratization 27, no. 6 (2020): 1006–20.
24 Nancy Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding,” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 1 (2016): 10.
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subtleties of the Duterte administration’s anti-democratic practices have
ensured that the country has remained nominally democratic. From 2017 to
2019, Freedom House recorded declining scores in both the quality of civil
liberties and political rights in the Philippines, dropping its overall index
score from 64 to 59, which remains in the “partly free” range.25 Meanwhile, the
Varieties of Democracy Dataset recorded a steady decline in the Philippines’
deliberative, egalitarian, electoral, liberal, and participatory dimensions of
democracy from 2016–20.26 By slight contrast, the Economist Intelligence
Unit charted just a minor decline in Philippine democracy from the score of
6.94 to 6.56, both within the definition of a “flawed democracy.” It is worth
noting, however, that this is a reversal of the country’s trend of an increasing
score from 2008 to 2016.27 Last, the Polity5 dataset scored the Philippines
in 2018 (the most recent year coded) as an 8—i.e., a democracy—on their
scale from -10 (full autocracy) to 10 (full democracy). However, this score
will likely decline when Polity5 updates its data to reflect developments
since 2018.28
Against this backdrop of democratic decline, the highly institutionalized
quality of U.S.-Philippine security relations has served as a safety net for the
alliance, ensuring that it does not degrade below a critical threshold.29 Ties
between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the U.S. armed
forces are deeply ingrained, contributing to the alliance’s embeddedness as
a bilateral institution with a distinct identity. It is due to this embeddedness
that senior Philippine defense officials have been able to advance
pro-U.S. views that conflict with Duterte’s foreign policy ambitions.30
Nevertheless, Duterte’s governance as an “aggrandized” executive is fraying
25 Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2020: Philippines” u https://freedomhouse.org/country/
philippines/freedom-world/2020.
26 V-Dem Institute, “Country Graph: Philippines” u https://www.v-dem.net/en/analysis/CountryGraph.
27 Economist Intelligence Unit, “Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and in Health?” 2021, 23 u
https://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/images/democracy-index-2020.pdf.
28 “Polity5: Regime Authority Characteristics and Transitions Datasets,” Integrated Network for Societal
Conflict Research, Center for Systemic Peace u http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscrdata.html.
29 Andrea Wong and Alexander Tan, “The Philippines’ Institutionalised Alliance with the
U.S.: Surviving Duterte’s China Appeasement Policy,” National Security Journal 3, no. 2
(2021): 5–10; and “Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Holds a Joint Press Conference
with Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana,” U.S. Department of Defense, July
30, 2021 u https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2714190/
secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-holds-a-joint-press-conference-with-phi.
30 Gregory Winger, “Alliance Embeddedness: Rodrigo Duterte and the Resilience of the U.S.-Philippine
Alliance,” Foreign Policy Analysis 17, no. 3 (2021) u https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orab013.
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this safety net by reducing his regime’s domestic accountability for its
foreign policy.31
Research on democratic states in security alliances that incorporates data
from the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions project points toward
the qualified conclusion that democratic states are more compliant with their
treaty obligations than their nondemocratic counterparts.32 Explanations for
this trend assert that democracy compels states to uphold, or at least avoid
abrogating, the terms of alliance agreements because democratic systems
can hold policymakers and bureaucratic institutions accountable for major
foreign policy decisions.33 Democratic accountability is in turn constrained by
the institutional structure and domestic politics of the state, wherein factors
such as the number, quality, and influence of political opposition parties and
public access to independent media are of paramount significance.34 As Vipin
Narang and Paul Staniland have theorized in the case of India, the ability of a
public to hold a government accountable for a foreign policy depends on the
issue salience of the policy and clarity of responsibility for the policy decision.
Where domestic political conditions obscure responsibility for decisions with
high public salience, or where low-salience policies are made through opaque
institutions and ad hoc processes, accountability for foreign policy becomes
extremely difficult or nearly impossible to assign.35
In the Philippines, Duterte’s manipulation of government institutions,
weakening of political opposition, blurring of civil-military authority, and
31 Aries Arugay, “The Generals’ Gambit: The Military and Democratic Erosion in Duterte’s
Philippines,” Heinrich Böll Stiftung, February 18, 2021 u https://th.boell.org/en/2021/02/18/
generals-gambit-military-and-democratic-erosion-dutertes-philippines.
32 For the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions database, see Brett Ashley Leeds, “The Alliance
Treaty Obligations and Provisions Project (ATOP),” Rice University u http://www.atopdata.org.
For major works in this subfield of research on the relationship between regime type and alliance
performance using the dataset, see Brett Ashley Leeds, “Alliance Reliability in Times of War:
Explaining State Decisions to Violate Treaties,” International Organization 57, no. 4 (2003): 801–28;
Erik Gartzke and Kristian S. Gleditsch, “Why Democracies May Actually Be Less Reliable Allies,”
American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 4 (2004): 775–95; Brett Ashley Leeds, Michaela Mattes,
and Jeremy S. Vogel, “Interests, Institutions, and the Reliability of International Commitments,”
American Journal of Political Science 53, no. 2 (2009): 461–76; Justin Conrad. “How Democratic
Alliances Solve the Power Parity Problem,” British Journal of Political Science 47, no. 4 (2015):
893–913; and Matthew Digiuseppe and Paul Poast, “Arms versus Democratic Allies,” British Journal
of Political Science 48 (2016): 981–1003.
33 Leeds, Mattes, and Vogel, “Interests, Institutions, and the Reliability of International Commitments”;
and Michaela Mattes, “Democratic Reliability, Precommitment of Successor Governments, and the
Choice of Alliance Commitment,” International Organization 66 (2012): 153–72.
34 Matthew A. Baum, and Philip B.K. Potter, War and Democratic Constraint: How the Public
Influences Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), chap. 2.
35 Vipin Narang and Paul Staniland, “Democratic Accountability and Foreign Security Policy:
Theory and Evidence from India,” Security Studies 27, no. 3 (2018): 410–47. These conditions are
typologized as “the protected politicians environment” and the “sclerosis environment,” which are
marked by diminished and minimal government accountability to the public, respectively.
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stifling of the press and civil society have largely shielded the administration
from accountability. These conditions are reflected in the findings of the
macro-indices of democracy referenced earlier and have led to stagnation in
the U.S.-Philippines alliance.36 To fully understand how democratic decline in
the Philippines weakens the alliance, it is necessary to qualitatively examine
the policies of the Duterte administration and establish how the executive
branch became the unchecked arbiter of national policies.
duterte ’ s democracy and the making
of a founding regime
Duterte spent the early years of his administration cultivating influence
within the legislative branch, which saw administration-aligned candidates
sweep the 2019 midterm election. With minimal opposition in the House
of Representatives, the total defeat of the Liberal Party candidates from the
“Otso Diretso” slate in 2019 effectively eliminated opposition in the Senate. By
rewarding former officials with endorsements for office and making effective
use of conventional and social media to smear opponents and promote allies,
Duterte was able to cultivate a loyal legislature.37
Duterte also made use of extralegal mechanisms to punish incumbent
opponents in Congress: Senator Leila de Lima remains imprisoned over
trumped-up narcotics charges, while former senator Antonio Trillanes was
indicted for conspiracy to commit sedition against the administration.38
Attacks on opposition members are frequent, with members of the
Makabayan bloc in the House being accused by the administration and
the military of supporting the Communist insurgents.39 There is also a
possibility that Duterte will seek to amend the constitution to eliminate
the party-list system and prevent alleged Communist sympathizers from
36 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding,” 17–18.
37 Julio Cabral Teehankee and Yuko Kasuya, “The 2019 Midterm Elections in the Philippines: Party
System Pathologies and Duterte’s Populist Mobilization,” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 5,
no. 1 (2020): 69–81.
38 Nicole-Anne C. Lagrimas, “DOJ Clears Robredo, Indicts Trillanes and 10 Others for ‘Conspiracy to
Commit Sedition,’” GMA News Online, February 10, 2020 u https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/
news/nation/725455/doj-clears-robredo-indicts-trillanes-and-10-others-for-conspiracy-to-commitsedition/story.
39 Dempsey Reyes, “AFP Chief Eyes Legal Action vs. Makabayan,” Manila Times, December 8, 2020 u
https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/12/08/news/national/afp-chief-eyes-legal-action-vs-makabayan/
806557.
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winning representation in Congress.40 Eliminating the party-list system
would purge Congress of sectoral representation, which is one of the few
remaining sources of political opposition.
In addition to reducing opposition in the legislature, Duterte has
compromised the independence of the judiciary by packing the Supreme
Court with sympathetic appointees who regularly rule in his favor. He
also made history by pressuring the court into removing its chief justice,
Maria Lourdes Sereno, without adhering to the constitutionally mandated
impeachment process.41 A similar campaign to impeach a Supreme Court
associate justice, Marvic Leonen, is underway, while applicants for vacancies
on the bench include political loyalists and personal friends of the president,
such as Duterte’s election commissioner and fraternity brother Antonio
Kho Jr.42 Considering the interventions into the judiciary, the Supreme Court
has unsurprisingly affirmed the constitutionality of the administration’s
most controversial acts, including the arrest of Senator de Lima, the war on
drugs, and the allowance of the destruction of reefs in the West Philippine
Sea by Chinese vessels instead of environmental protection in the Philippines’
maritime exclusive economic zone.43
The extent of the president’s influence reaches beyond Manila into
the local government level. The Duterte administration established fifteen
central government task forces with broad mandates to resolve serious
threats to the nation, ranging from Covid-19, corruption, natural disasters,
Communist insurgency, and illegal drugs.44 These task forces allow the
administration to disburse public funds to local governments through
ad hoc mechanisms that bypass normal bureaucratic channels. Perceived
compliance with task force standards determines the amount of funding a
40 Melvin Gascon, “Duterte Wants Party-List System Scrapped,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, January 8,
2021 u https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1380994/duterte-wants-party-list-system-scrapped.
41 Edcel John A. Ibarra, “The Philippine Supreme Court under Duterte: Reshaped,
Unwilling to Annul, and Unable to Restrain,” Social Science Research Council,
November 10, 2020 u https://items.ssrc.org/democracy-papers/democratic-erosion/
the-philippine-supreme-court-under-duterte-reshaped-unwilling-to-annul-and-unable-to-restrain.
42 Lian Buan, “Duterte’s Frat Brother Applies for a Seat in Supreme Court,” Rappler, July 30, 2021 u
https://www.rappler.com/nation/duterte-fraternity-brother-kho-applies-seat-supreme-court.
43 Lian Buan, “How Potent Is the Impeachment Complaint against Justice Leonen?” Rappler, December
18, 2020 u https://www.rappler.com/nation/how-potent-impeachment-complaint-against-supremecourt-associate-justice-leonen; and Mike Navallo, “More Fisherfolk Withdraw Writ of Kalikasan
Petition to Protect West Philippine Sea,” ABS-CBN News, August 14, 2019 u https://news.abs-cbn.com/
news/08/14/19/more-fisherfolk-withdraw-writ-of-kalikasan-petition-to-protect-west-philippine-sea.
44 Pia Ranada, “What Duterte’s 15 (and Counting) Task Forces Say about Government,” Rappler,
November 17, 2020 u https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/what-duterte-task-forces-sayabout-philippine-government.
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locality may receive, and whether local officials will face administrative or
legal sanctions for alleged noncompliance. 45
According to the Philippines’ Commission on Audit annual report
in 2020, there were multiple deficiencies in the Department of the Interior
and Local Government’s utilization of 5 million Philippine pesos ($100,300)
in anti-Communist task force funds given to Region XII (Soccsksargen),
including unapproved expenses, unliquidated fund transfers to field
offices, and noncompliance with other regulations.46 Reports of improperly
disbursed or undocumented expenditures of funds fueled allegations that
the unnecessarily large budgets of these task forces are being exploited to
fund election campaigns.47 Similarly, emerging details regarding the award
of approximately 8 billion Philippine pesos ($160.88 million) worth of
Covid-19 relief contracts to Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation by
the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management
prompted Senate hearings probing evidence of graft that implicated several
administration allies, including former presidential aide Senator Christopher
Lawrence “Bong” Tesoro Go.48
Furthermore, the Office of the President’s budget allocation for
intelligence and confidential funds increased from 2.5 billion Philippine pesos
($50.2 million) in FY 2017 (five times the allocation made during the Aquino
administration’s last fiscal year) to 4.5 billion Philippine pesos ($90.4 million) in
FY 2021. The FY 2022 proposal seeks to sustain the allocation at the same level,
prompting criticism from lawmakers that this funding would be better served
supporting departments charged with managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since these funds cannot be publicly audited, the opposition alleges that they
could be used to support the administration’s preferred candidates and stifle
opposition during the general election. Between criticism of the public opacity
of allocations to the Office of the President and the aforementioned executive
45 Luke Lischin, “Duterte’s Drug War: The Local Government Dimension,” Diplomat, April 14, 2018
u
https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/dutertes-drug-war-the-local-government-dimension.
46 Commission on Audit (Philippines), “Part II: Observations and Recommendations-Observation
15,” in “Consolidated Annual Audit Report of Department of the Interior and Local Government
for Calendar Year Ended December 31, 2020,” 134–37; and Lian Buan, “P5M NTF-ELCAC Funds
to Central Mindanao Flagged for Deficiencies,” Rappler, August 4, 2021 u https://www.rappler.
com/nation/ntf-elcac-funds-central-mindanao-flagged-for-deficiencies-coa-report.
47 Hana Bordey, “Drilon: COA Findings on PNP Anti-Insurgency Funds Show NTF-ELCAC Budget
for 2021, 2022 Unnecessary,” GMA News, July 15, 2021 u https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/
news/nation/795471/drilon-coa-findings-on-pnp-anti-insurgency-funds-show-ntf-elcac-budgetfor-2021-2022-unnecessary/story.
48 Sofia Tomacruz, “Senators Grill Lao: Firm Awarded P8 Billion in Covid-19 Contracts without
Vetting?” Rappler, August 27, 2021 u https://www.rappler.com/nation/senate-slams-lack-vettingfirm-given-billions-covid-19-contracts.
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task forces, as well as the financial pressures of the pandemic, several legislators
have introduced proposals to reduce these allocations under the FY 2022
budget, despite strong resistance from Duterte and his political allies.49 Under
this system of well-funded and redundant executive institutions operating
with limited oversight, a new wave of political outsiders supporting the war
on drugs and affiliating themselves with Duterte’s PDP-Laban party swept
the 2019 midterm election to become the new class of insiders in Philippine
local politics. Duterte still maintains allies in localities that could influence
the outcome of the election to favor his preferred successor.50
Beyond national and local government, Duterte’s attacks on nongovernment
institutions have contributed to the decline of democratic governance, as
activists, journalists, and marginalized communities face the threat of state
violence. According to human rights organizations, killings during the war on
drugs have climbed to over 30,000 deaths, prompting ongoing investigation
by the International Criminal Court.51 Journalists face potential charges under
libel and anti-sedition laws,52 while broadcasters fear having their franchises
revoked or renewal applications declined, as in the case of the ABS-CBN
corporation.53 Likewise, activists and civil society organizations that criticize
the administration risk imprisonment under newly revised antiterrorism laws
or are murdered by unknown gunmen. As investigations into mass killings
49 Pia Ranada, “In Last Pandemic Budget, Duterte Wants P4.5B for His Office’s Intel, Confidential
Funds,” Rappler, August 23, 2021 u https://www.rappler.com/nation/duterte-office-intelligenceconfidential-funds-proposed-2022-national-budget; R.G. Cruz, “Duterte Gov’t Eyeing P8.6
Billion Budget on Intel, Surveillance Expenses,” ABS-CBN News, August 23, 2021 u https://
news.abs-cbn.com/news/08/23/21/duterte-govt-eyeing-p86-billion-budget-on-intel; and
Hana Bordey, “Senate Version of 2022 Budget Allocates P10.8B for NTF-ELCAC,” GMA
News, December 1, 2021 u https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/810240/
from-p28-billion-senate-panel-cuts-proposed-ntf-elcac-budget-to-p4-billion/story.
50 Nico Ravanilla, Renard Sexton, and Dotan Haim, “Deadly Populism: How Local Political Outsiders
Drive Duterte’s War on Drugs in the Philippines,” Journal of Politics (working paper version,
February 11, 2020) u http://dotanhaim.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Philippines_Drug_War.
pdf; and Dona Z. Pazzibugan and Leila B. Salaverria, “Duterte Runs for Senator, Avoiding Face-Off
with Sara,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 16, 2021 u https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1515410/
rody-runs-for-senator-no-face-off-with-sara#ixzz7E6zSA8z0.
51 Franco Luna, “EJKs and Abuse Just a Narrative by Critics, Palace Rights Panel Assures Cops,”
Philippine Star, December 7, 2020 u https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/12/07/2062087/
ejks-and-abuse-just-narrative-critics-palace-rights-panel-assures-cops; and International
Criminal Court, “Situation in the Philippines: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I Authorises the Opening
of an Investigation,” Press Release, September 15, 2021 u https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.
aspx?name=PR1610.
52 Lian Buan, “Court Orders Arrest of Maria Ressa, Rambo Talabong over Benilde Thesis Story,”
Rappler, January 14, 2020 u https://www.rappler.com/nation/court-orders-arrest-of-maria-ressareporter-rambo-talabong-over-benilde-thesis-story.
53 Maricel Cruz, “ ‘ABS’ Franchise Still Dead under Velasco—Solon,” Manila Standard, December
13, 2020 u https://manilastandard.net/news/top-stories/341912/-abs-franchise-still-dead-undervelasco-solon.html.
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continue, the military and national law enforcement have clearly directed
violence against civilians at the president’s behest.54
Although senior defense officials may object to key aspects of Duterte’s
foreign policy regarding the United States, a modus vivendi exists between
the national security establishment and the administration despite some
contention. As participating agencies in several of the aforementioned
national task forces, the Department of National Defense and AFP are entitled
to a share of task force funding to augment their organizations’ budgets, a
share that is described as “the general’s pork.”55 Both the military and law
enforcement have found an enthusiastic patron in the president. Duterte
lobbied for salary increases, promotions, and increased recruitment while
expanding the military’s mission scope to include pandemic management,
disaster recovery, anti-Communist operations, and the drug war.56 Many
former general officers were also appointed to important positions within the
administration upon retirement.57
Through declarations of states of emergency and martial law in
Mindanao and personal appeals, Duterte won support among the security
forces by enabling its members to act with impunity, despite accusations of
human rights violations.58 In waging the war on drugs, the AFP provides
law enforcement with intelligence on alleged drug dealers and has deployed
soldiers in anti-drug operations that have resulted in thousands of deaths.59
The AFP simultaneously engages in “red tagging” campaigns that entail
labeling of activists, journalists, indigenous peoples, and other political
malcontents as Communist rebels to justify the threat or use of detention,
54 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the High Commissioner and the
Secretary-General, “Situation of Human Rights in the Philippines,” Human Rights Council,
44th sess., June 29, 2020 u https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/PH/PhilippinesHRC44-AEV.pdf; and the Office of the Prosecutor, “Report on Preliminary Examination
Activities 2020,” International Criminal Court, December 14, 2020 u https://www.icc-cpi.int/
itemsDocuments/2020-PE/2020-pe-report-eng.pdf.
55 Charissa Luci-Atienza, “NTF-ELCAC’s P16.44 B Allocation Not Pork Barrel—Año,” Manila
Bulletin, September 10, 2020 u https://mb.com.ph/2020/09/10/ntf-elcacs-p16-44-b-allocation-notpork-barrel-ano.
56 “Duterte Approves Pay Hike for Soldiers, Policemen,” CNN Philippines, January 9, 2018 u https://
cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/01/09/joint-resolution.html
57 Jeline Malasig, “Duterte’s Expanding Club of Generals Who Head Government Agencies,”
interaksyon, April 20, 2018 u https://interaksyon.philstar.com/breaking-news/2018/04/20/125004/
generals-military-men-duterte-government-marina-appointment/amp.
58 “Duterte Tells Troops in Drug War: ‘I Will Protect You,’ ” ABS-CBN News, September 17, 2016 u
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/17/16/duterte-tells-troops-in-drug-war-i-will-protect-you.
59 Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, “PDEA, AFP Vow to Keep the Country Drug-Free and Safe,”
Press Release, February 27, 2017 u https://pdea.gov.ph/2-uncategorised/172-pdea-afp-vow-to-keepthe-country-drug-free-and-safe.
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torture, or deadly force against them.60 Unlike past presidents who attempted
to normalize civil-military relations, Duterte has remilitarized national
politics with open disdain for human rights to co-opt the national security
establishment.61
Nevertheless, it is difficult to fully assess the impact of Duterte’s attempts
to win over national security elites because their interventions appear to
have convinced the president to reconsider his move to cancel the VFA
in retaliation for the revocation of Senator Ronald Dela Rosa’s U.S. tourist
visa.62 These security elites also pushed back against Chinese investment in
critical infrastructure that might pose risks to national security. Policymakers
specifically sought to safeguard the Philippines’ power grid from foreign
manipulation. The grid is controlled by the National Grid Corporation of
the Philippines, and 40% of it is owned by the State Grid Corporation of
China.63 Dito Telecommunity, which is also 40% owned by the Chinese firm
China Telecommunications Corporation, is set to construct communication
towers at 22 sites across the Philippines, including military bases. Although
equipment for this project will be supplied by the U.S.-sanctioned Chinese
companies Huawei and ZTE, defense officials downplayed and rejected
concerns that using Chinese-supplied equipment in Philippine telecom firms
will become a cybersecurity threat. 64
This inability of the national security establishment to contend consistently
with Chinese economic policies that threaten the Philippines’ security enables
Duterte to pursue his vision of foreign policy mostly unhindered. After shelving
the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s 2016 ruling in favor of the Philippines,
Duterte sought greater Chinese economic assistance and investment with
the aim of strengthening his administration’s reputation.65 Chinese-funded
60 Phil Robertson, “Philippine General Should Answer for ‘Red-Tagging,’ ” Human Rights Watch,
February 10, 2021 u https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/10/philippine-general-should-answerred-tagging.
61 Renato Cruz De Castro, “The Cycle of Militarization, Demilitarization, and Remilitarization in the Early
21st Century Philippine Society,” Tamkang Journal of International Affairs 15, no. 4 (2012): 139–90.
62 Gregory H. Winger, “For Want of a Visa? Values and Institutions in U.S.-Philippine
Relations,” War on the Rocks, February 26, 2020 u https://warontherocks.com/2020/02/
for-want-of-a-visa-values-and-institutions-in-u-s-philippine-relations.
63 “Philippines Steps Up Security to Shield Power Grid from Foreign Control,” Reuters,
February 3, 2020 u https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-china-power/
philippines-steps-up-security-to-shield-power-grid-from-foreign-control-idusl4n2a333f.
64 Cliff Venzon, “Philippine Telco Hires U.S. Company to Ease China Spying Fears,” Nikkei
Asia, September 17, 2020 u https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Telecommunication/
Philippine-telco-hires-US-company-to-ease-China-spying-fears.
65 Richard Javad Heydarian, “Duterte’s China Gambit Fails to Deliver the Goods,” Asia Times,
September 30, 2020 u https://asiatimes.com/2020/09/dutertes-china-gambit-fails-to-deliver-thegoods.
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projects, including the Kaliwa Dam and the Chico River Pump Irrigation
Project, are centerpieces of the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build”
infrastructure campaign that won support from the national elites in charge
of implementing these projects. Compared to Japanese investment agencies,
which generally adhere to more stringent environmental and social standards,
Chinese investors were more willing to accommodate Philippine project
managers’ apathy toward such standards to expedite construction, despite
higher rates on relatively inflexible loans.66
Whereas Chinese investment schemes are often portrayed as predatory,
the terms of these projects were largely dictated by the Philippines’ national
and local governments. Thus, Chinese investment was manipulated by Duterte
to bolster his administration’s reputation and reward his supporters among
the elite, no matter the social, environmental, financial, or geopolitical cost.67
Delays in the disbursement of aid and confrontations between Chinese and
Philippine vessels in the South China Sea prompted Duterte to tone down his
praise for China at times, but the advancement of Chinese-funded projects
and the prospect of further economic cooperation prevented the Duterte
administration from turning away from Beijing.68
In response to Covid-19, the Philippines implemented a draconian
quarantine protocol, under which 538,577 people were penalized, sometimes
violently, for violations between March and November 2020. The Duterte
administration also then turned to China to distribute Covid-19 vaccines and
medical equipment in the Philippines. In February 2021, 600,000 doses of
Sinovac’s CoronaVac were airlifted into the country, and by November 2021
the Philippines had received over 50 million doses of CoronaVac.69 Despite
Chinese and U.S. relief assistance, Covid-19 cases spiked in September 2021 to
125,908 cases before declining to 15,188 cases by the beginning of December
2021. Moreover, only approximately 38 million Filipinos are fully vaccinated
(about 35% of the population) and just under 510,000 have received a booster
dose. As the Philippines braces for a possible new wave of Covid-19 infections
66 Alvin Camba, “How Duterte Strong-Armed Chinese Dam Builders but Weakened Philippine
Institutions,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2021, 12–16 u https://
carnegieendowment.org/files/202106Camba_Philippines_final1.pdf.
67 Ibid., 16–23.
68 Sebastian Strangio, “In UN Speech, Duterte Stiffens Philippines’ Stance on the South China Sea,”
Diplomat, September 23, 2020 u https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/in-un-speech-duterte-stiffensphilippines-stance-on-the-south-china-sea.
69 “Philippines Receives First Batch of Covid-19 Vaccine Donated by China,” Nikkei Asia, February
28, 2021; and Ferdinand Patinio and Raymond Carl Dela Cruz, “Sinovac Vaccines Delivered in PH
Now Over 50M Doses,” Philippine News Agency, November 11, 2021 u https://www.pna.gov.ph/
articles/1159331.
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after the discovery of the Omicron variant, the country’s dependence on
vaccines and medical supplies from both China and the United States will
ensure that humanitarian assistance remains an important facet of Philippine
domestic politics and diplomatic competition between the two rival powers.70
Whoever wins the 2022 presidential election will need to contend with
the legacy of these policies, by either adapting to them or dismantling them.
Enjoying high levels of public support and ready access to political patronage,
and fearing reprisal for not supporting the administration, policymakers and
other national elites have little incentive to defect from Duterte’s regime. As
long as the United States continues to enable these patterns of punishment
and patronage by supplying the Philippines with weapons, equipment,
humanitarian aid, and financing even at times when U.S. military access to the
country is threatened, restoring democratic accountability in the Philippines
will continue to be an uphill struggle.
evaluating the risk to the
u.s.-philippines alliance and u.s. interests
Taking an active diplomatic approach to support the Philippines’
democracy comes with real risks to U.S. interests that could severely reduce
the deterrence value of U.S. forces in the Pacific. Terminating the VFA, for
example, would practically nullify the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation
Agreement (EDCA) between the United States and the Philippines, which
has been in limbo since Duterte’s election. The VFA exempts U.S. military
personnel from normal passport and visa procedures and guarantees freedom
of movement for U.S. vessels and aircraft, allowing U.S. forces to maintain a
rotational presence in the Philippines and participate in joint exercises and
training with the AFP. These activities are a fulfillment of Article II of the
1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which requires each nation to separately and
jointly build and maintain the capacity to resist armed attack as defined in
Article V.71
70 “Updates on Novel Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19),” Department of Health (Philippines) u
https://doh.gov.ph/2019-ncov; “National Covid-19 Vaccination Dashboard,” Department of Health
(Philippines) u https://doh.gov.ph/covid19-vaccination-dashboard; Leila Salaverria and Tina G.
Santos, “DOH Checking If 3 Covid Cases Due to Omicron,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, December
4, 2021 u https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/?p=1523528#ixzz7E72IsPZG; and “Is China’s Covid-19
Diplomacy Succeeding?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, China Power, October 26,
2021 u https://chinapower.csis.org/china-covid-medical-vaccine-diplomacy.
71 Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines, August 30,
1951, available at the Avalon Project, Yale Law School u https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/
phil001.asp.
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After Chinese maritime militia and fishing vessels began massing at
Whitsun Reef in March 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary
of Defense Lloyd Austin engaged with their Philippine counterparts to
reaffirm U.S. support to the country. The United States subsequently reiterated
this support in November following the Chinese coast guard’s repulsion of
Philippine civilian ships ferrying supplies to Filipino troops stationed at the
BRP Sierra Madre in the Ayungin Shoal (also known as the Second Thomas
Shoal).72 Regardless, expectations for rapprochement should be tempered in
the context of China’s gray-zone maritime activities. Aggression from Chinese
maritime militias is not new in the West Philippine Sea, and provocations such
as the 2019 sinking of a Philippine fishing ship by a Chinese militia vessel did
not result in the Duterte administration moving closer to the United States.73
At most, the Philippines’ national security strategy has gradually shifted
from appeasing China to soft balancing through U.S. and Japanese security
arrangements and regional diplomacy in Southeast Asia.74
From this perspective, a major diplomatic breakthrough on EDCA or
other mutual defense initiatives is unlikely to be forthcoming. With defense
cooperation between the United States and the Philippines proceeding at a
glacial pace, Southeast Asia is the “soft underbelly” of the U.S. Indo-Pacific
Command’s strategic posture. Due to this potential vulnerability, the forward
defense and deterrence capabilities of the Philippines in the first island chain
are widely regarded as central to U.S. regional strategies.75
Under the Biden administration’s 2021 Interim National Security
Strategic Guidance, the promotion of “a favorable distribution of power to
deter and prevent adversaries from directly threatening the United States
and our allies, inhibiting access to the global commons, or dominating key
regions” through reinvigorating and modernizing partnerships and alliances
72 “Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Phone Call with Philippines Secretary of
National Defense Delfin Lorenzana,” U.S. Department of Defense, April 10, 2021; “Secretary
Blinken’s Call with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Locsin,” U.S. Department of State, April
8, 2021 u https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-call-with-philippine-secretary-of-foreignaffairs-locsin-2; and Bernadette E. Tamayo and Dempsey Reyes, “U.S. Eyes Reinforced Defense Ties
with PH,” Manila Times, November 22, 2021 u https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/11/22/news/
national/us-eyes-reinforced-defense-ties-with-ph/1823179.
73 Steven Stashwick, “Chinese Vessel Rams, Sinks Philippine Fishing Boat in Reed Bank,” Diplomat,
June 14, 2019 u https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/chinese-vessel-rams-sinks-philippine-fishingboat-in-reed-bank.
74 See Renato Cruz De Castro. “From Appeasement to Soft Balancing: The Duterte Administration’s
Shifting Policy on the South China Sea Imbroglio,” Asian Affairs: An American Review (2020): 1–27
75 Mira Rapp-Hooper, Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2021), 48–66, 180–84.
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is identified as essential to U.S. national security.76 Deterring Chinese
violations of international maritime law, including the use of force against
allies and partners in the Pacific theater, is therefore a top priority. However,
without the ability to deploy forces from the Philippines, the United States
will be forced to rely primarily on its bases in Okinawa and Guam, each over
a thousand nautical miles away. While the United States can seek to establish
smaller bases in the Pacific, such as in Palau, these bases would only partially
mitigate this logistical problem. Air force deployments from the second island
chain would require overflight permissions from the Philippines, which may
not be guaranteed under the next administration.77 In addition, land-based
integrated air and missile defense systems in the first and second island chains
conceived under the United States’ $27 billion Pacific Deterrence Initiative
will likely face significant political resistance in the Philippines, as these
systems have in other U.S.-aligned states in the region.78
U.S. rotational deployments and overflight permission in the Philippines
are also vital to contingency planning for Chinese military action against
Taiwan as well as in the South China Sea. Located between Taiwan and the
Philippines, the Luzon Strait is significant as a maritime gap within the island
chain. Its width, depth, undersea thermal layers, and turbulent weather
conditions make it conducive for submarine warfare. Recognizing the strategic
salience of the Luzon Strait as a vital access point to the northern Pacific, the
Chinese navy has invested substantially in submarine warfare capabilities,
constructing 12 nuclear submarines in the past fifteen years.79 It is projected to
maintain 65–70 submarines through the end of the current decade, including
76 Joseph R. Biden Jr., Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (Washington, D.C., March 2021)
u
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf.
77 Paul McLeary, “As U.S. Military Moves into Palau, China Watches Intently,” Breaking Defense,
October 23, 2020; and Graham Jenkins, “Sailors, Sailors Everywhere and Not a Berth to Sleep: The
Illusion of Forward Posture in the Western Pacific,” War on the Rocks, July 14, 2021 u https://
warontherocks.com/2021/07/sailors-sailors-everywhere-and-not-a-berth-to-sleep-the-illusion-offorward-posture-in-the-western-pacific.
78 U.S. House of Representatives, Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative, HR 6613, 116th Cong., 2nd sess.,
April 23, 2020 u https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6613/text. See also Ryo
Nakamura, “U.S. to Build Anti-China Missile Network along First Island Chain,” Nikkei Asia, March
5, 2021 u https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/US-to-build-antiChina-missile-network-along-first-island-chain; and Joseph Trevithick, “This Is the Pentagon’s $27
Billion Master Plan to Deter China in the Pacific,” Drive, March 5, 2021 u https://www.thedrive.com/
the-war-zone/39610/this-is-the-pentagons-27-billion-master-plan-to-deter-china-in-the-pacific.
79 Toshi Yoshihara, and James R. Holmes, “The Strategic Geography of Chinese Sea Power,” in Red
Star Over the Pacific, Revised Edition: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2018), chap. 3.
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nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and conventional submarines
armed with anti-ship cruise missiles.80
China has the ability to pursue several courses of action against Taiwan,
including air and maritime blockades, limited and disruptive kinetic actions,
air and missile campaigns against key targets, and an amphibious invasion to
force concessions or capitulation to unification, though likely at great cost.81
With Chinese weapons systems growing more sophisticated, numerous, and
therefore threatening to Taiwan and other regional actors, it is vital that the
United States and partner nations improve their capacities to monitor and
respond to Chinese assets moving through the Luzon Strait. Ultimately, both
the advancement of Chinese military capabilities and the unique geography
of the strait contribute to the importance of maintaining U.S. defense ties to
the Philippines.
The fact that there are currently few alternatives to military access in
the Philippines vis-à-vis U.S. force projection and deterrence in the first
island chain pressures Washington to refrain from criticizing the Philippine
government. Duterte is keenly aware of this reality, and as already discussed,
has taken advantage of these conditions in pursuing his domestic and foreign
policy agendas. Even so, there are still policies that the United States can
pursue to encourage necessary democratic reforms in the Philippines without
sacrificing the security dimensions of the alliance.
u.s. assistance and the road ahead
When considering policy options for the Biden administration, it is
important to bear in mind previous congressional efforts to curb human rights
violations in the Philippines. Whereas President Donald Trump’s response
to deteriorating conditions in the Philippines was sparse but approving, the
reaction of the U.S. Congress was more critical.82 In 2016, Senator Ben Cardin
successfully halted the sale of 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippine National
Police because of the human rights violations committed by officers while
80 U.S. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic
of China 2020 (Washington, D.C., September 2020), 44–49 u https://media.defense.gov/2020/
Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-dod-china-military-power-report-final.pdf.
81 Ibid., 112–20; and Tong Zhao, “Tides of Change: China’s Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines and
Strategic Stability,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2018, 25–28, 35–44 u https://
carnegieendowment.org/files/Zhao_SSBN_final.pdf.
82 David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Praises Duterte for Philippine Drug Crackdown
in Call Transcript,” New York Times, May 23, 2017 u https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/us/
politics/trump-duterte-phone-transcript-philippine-drug-crackdown.html.
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the future of the u.s.-philippines alliance
perpetrating the war on drugs.83 In 2019, Senators Dick Durbin and Patrick
Leahy authored a Senate resolution, sponsored by Senator Edward Markey,
that passed in 2020. The resolution called on Trump to impose sanctions
on the Philippines consistent with U.S. human rights standards for security
assistance, which resulted in the three senators being banned from the
Philippines.84 In September 2020 and June 2021, Representative Susan Wild
introduced versions of a bill known as the Philippine Human Rights Act in
the House of Representatives that would suspend security assistance and bar
Philippine security forces from accessing development bank loans until the
security sector is reformed and human rights violators are held accountable.85
Given the strong personal and familial ties that Philippine officials often
have to the United States, there is merit to Representative Wild’s legislation
and to measures such as travel sanctions on culpable officials that could
potentially deter others from supporting atrocities. Reforms to foreign
military financing should be first considered, however, to problematize the
military’s human rights violations before targeted sanctions are considered.
Generally, military aid is negatively associated with state actors’ use
of lethal violence against noncombatant civilians. Although policymakers
often justify the disbursement of military aid as an incentive for partner
nations to professionalize their security forces, such improvements rarely
occur in practice.86 Readjusting U.S. military aid to the Philippines will not
halt the decline of democracy, but revising the terms of disbursing aid could
curb human rights abuses being committed or abetted by the military by
making such atrocities barriers to assistance. The success of conditionalities
will be contingent on the ability of U.S. legislators, diplomats, and defense
officials to frame these terms as a compromise between the legal human
rights standards that govern the disbursement of all U.S. assistance,
including military aid, and the desire of the United States to honor the
Mutual Defense Treaty. This would allow Washington to appeal to common
83 Patricia Zengerle, “Exclusive: U.S. Stopped Philippines Rifle Sale that Senator Opposed—
Sources,” Reuters, October 31, 2016 u https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-usa-rifles/
exclusive-u-s-stopped-philippines-rifle-sale-that-senator-opposed-sources-iduskbn12v2am.
84 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, A Resolution Condemning the Government of the
Philippines for Its Continued Detention of Senator Leila De Lima, Calling for Her Immediate Release,
and for Other Purposes, SR 142, 116th Cong., 2nd sess., April 4, 2019 u https://www.congress.gov/
bill/116th-congress/senate-resolution/142.
85 U.S. House of Representatives, Philippine Human Rights Act, HR 8313, 116th Cong., 2nd sess.,
September 17, 2020 u https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8313/text; and U.S.
House of Representatives, Philippine Human Rights Act, HR3884, 117th Cong., 1st sess., June 14,
2021 u https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3884.
86 Mariya Omelicheva et. al, “Military Aid and Human Rights: Assessing the Impact of U.S. Security
Assistance Programs,” Political Science Quarterly 132, no. 1 (2017): 119–44.
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security and mitigate perceived asymmetries between conditionalities and
U.S. support for Philippine security.87
To re-evaluate military aid, a thorough audit of U.S. military assistance to
the Philippines is needed. Because the aim of revising foreign military financing
is to avert state-sponsored killings and the intimidation and detention of
activists and opposition politicians, military aid should be tailored to curtail
the procurement of arms used in those activities. Specifically, foreign military
financing should be reviewed in terms of the following categories specified in
the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls’ U.S. Munitions List:
1. firearms, close assault weapons, and combat shotguns
2. guns and armament
3. ammunition/ordnance
4. launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes,
bombs, and mines
5. explosives and energetic materials, propellants, incendiary agents, and
their constituents88
According to the Security Assistance Monitor, U.S. exports from categories
1, 2, and 3 were approved at the value of $56 million in 2019, the most recent
year on record, and represent priority areas for the Biden administration to
reassess its arms transfer policies.89 An audit of arms exports to the Philippines
would align with ongoing efforts to revise the United States’ Conventional
Arms Transfer Policy, which aims to promote human rights, principles of
restraint and responsible use, and good security-sector government among
U.S. allies and partners.90 Last, if the Duterte administration turns to Russia
to circumvent any potential arms sanctions, the United States should also
be prepared to uphold sanctions intended to deter the large-scale purchase
87 Stephen D. Biddle, “Building Security Forces and Stabilizing Nations: The Problem of Agency,”
Daedalus (2017) u https://www.amacad.org/publication/building-security-forces-stabilizing-nations.
88 U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “CBP Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirements:
Appendix L-DDTC USML Category Codes,” October 3, 2014 u https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/
files/assets/documents/2020-Feb/ACE%20Appendix%20L%20%E2%80%93%20DDTC%20
USML%20Category%20Codes.pdf.
89 Elias Yousif, “Arms Sales and Security Aid in the Time of Duterte,” Center for International Policy,
Security Assistance Monitor, May 2020 u https://securityassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/
Arms-Sales-and-Security-Aid-in-the-Time-of-Duterte-2.pdf.
90 Timothy Allen Betts (remarks to the Defense Trade Advisory Group, Washington, D.C., November
4, 2021) u https://www.state.gov/remarks-to-the-defense-trade-advisory-group.
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the future of the u.s.-philippines alliance
of Russian military equipment as required by the Countering America’s
Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.91
Limiting security assistance in this way preserves U.S. interests in the
Philippines’ external security, which is contingent on military modernization.
The Philippines has underfunded and overtasked its military, and the
purchase of updated weapons systems, surveillance equipment, and newer
vessels and aircraft for the air force and navy has been long delayed.92 The
logistical difficulty and expense of overhauling its U.S.-subsidized military
infrastructure in favor of incompatible Chinese or Russian systems are still too
large a hurdle for the Duterte administration to surmount, and therefore this
option is unlikely to be supported by the Department of National Defense.93
Despite Duterte’s overtures to China and Russia, security assistance from
these states did not progress beyond low-scale small arms transfers in 2017,
which were a response to modest U.S. efforts to restrict the supply of weapons
sent to agencies such as the national police.94 As the primary patron of the
Philippines’ military modernization, the United States has a unique capability
to prevent the illegal use of U.S.-supplied military equipment against civilian
targets without seriously endangering inter-military relations.
Philippine military modernization initiatives are also forestalled
by counterinsurgency efforts against insurgent groups, including Moro
separatists, Communist guerrillas, private armies, and transnational
jihadists. Regardless of the disputed efficacy of the more than $2 billion
in counterterrorism assistance provided by Washington to Manila since
September 11, additional support through an overseas contingency operation
has failed to make a substantial difference in the internal security environment
of the southern Philippines.95 With the termination of that contingency
operation, Washington can refocus on development assistance supporting the
91 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, Public Law 115–44, 115th Cong. (August
2, 2017) u https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ44/PLAW-115publ44.pdf.
92 Frances Mangosing, “PH Shelves P9.4B Defense Modernization Projects for Now Due to
Pandemic,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 22, 2020 u https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1310360/
ph-shelves-p9-4b-defense-modernization-projects-due-to-covid-19-pandemic#ixzz6jviYvHZO.
93 Wong and Tan, “The Philippines’ Institutionalised Alliance with the U.S.,” 10–13.
94 Prashanth Parameswaran, “What’s in the New China Military Aid to the Philippines?”
Diplomat, October 5, 2017 u https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/whats-in-the-newchina-military-aid-to-the-philippines; and Chandler Sachs and John Parachini, “Is
Political Balancing Good for Philippine Defence Acquisition, Asks RAND Corporation?”
Asian Military Review, May 7, 2020 u https://asianmilitaryreview.com/2020/05/
is-political-balancing-good-for-philippine-defence-acquisition-asks-rand-corporation.
95 U.S. Department of Defense, “Operation Pacific Eagle-Philippines: Quarterly Report to
the United States Congress,” Lead Inspector General Report, April 1, 2020–June 30, 2020
u https://www.dodig.mil/Reports/Lead-Inspector-General-Reports/Article/2308255/
lead-inspector-general-for-operation-pacific-eagle-philippines-i-quarterly-repo.
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recently created Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and
local governments in the southern Philippines in lieu of a myopic focus on
military aid.96 With the exception of a few initiatives, such as the U.S. Agency
for International Development’s 2018 Marawi Response Project, very little U.S.
development funding has been obligated to peace, stability, and governance
projects in conflict-affected areas in recent years.97 Since internal security will
remain a strategic priority for the Philippines for the foreseeable future, the
Biden administration should consider more robust peacebuilding approaches
instead of blanket counterterrorism operations to support the Philippines’
domestic security.98
That said, economic and development assistance is not inherently
conducive to democratizing autocratic regimes or liberalizing illiberal ones.
Without mutually acceptable conditionalities that take into account human
rights conditions in the receiving country, an influx of capital can exacerbate
rights violations by supporting the Duterte administration’s national patronage
networks.99 Historically, foreign capital from investments or aid was essential
to autocracies during the Cold War, including the Marcos regime, whose
failed attempts at tax reform and patronage arrangements with national
elites rendered the state dependent on foreign loans and assistance.100 During
the war on terrorism, U.S. economic aid also played a role in enabling the
deterioration of human rights conditions under President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo. Under the Benigno Aquino III administration, however, U.S. aid came
to play a more productive role in improving human rights protections and the
quality of Philippine democracy. Both governments worked together to seek
a peaceful resolution to internal conflict in Mindanao, grow the economy, and
refocus the AFP toward external defense against China.101 So long as human
rights and democracy are established as mutually shared interests between
the United States and the Philippines, economic assistance and trade fostered
through U.S. institutions such as the International Development Finance
96 See Zachary Abuza and Luke Lischin, “The Challenges Facing the Philippines’ Bangsamoro
Autonomous Region at One Year,” United States Institute of Peace, June 10, 2020.
97 USAID, “U.S. Foreign Aid by Country: Philippines” u https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/
PHL?fiscal_year=2014&implementing_agency_id=1&measure=Obligations.
98 Haroro J. Ingram, “Stigma, Shame, and Fear: Navigating Obstacles to Peace in Mindanao,”
RESOLVE Network, Policy Note, March 4, 2021 u https://doi.org/10.37805/pn2020.14.vedr.
99 Abel Escribà-Folch, “Foreign Direct Investment and the Risk of Regime Transition in Autocracies,”
Democratization 24, no. 1 (2017): 61–80.
100 Dan Slater, Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 163–68.
101 Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr., “A Theory of Interest Convergence: Explaining the Impact of
U.S. Strategic Support on Southeast Asia’s Human Rights Situation, 1992–2013” (PhD diss.,
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, 2014), 99–198.
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the future of the u.s.-philippines alliance
Corporation and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) can serve as
effective inducements for reform.
Compared to its predecessor, the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation, the International Development Finance Corporation has a
stronger human rights mandate due to its prohibition on providing support to
government or government-owned entities that have engaged in a consistent
pattern of committing gross violations of internationally recognized human
rights as determined by the secretary of state.102 Foreign investment is a
priority issue in the Philippines, especially given the pandemic. After several
years of contentious debate, Duterte signed into law the Corporate Recovery
and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Law on March 26, 2021.
The CREATE Law aims to stimulate the economy by lowering corporate
income tax rates and reforming tax incentives granted to companies to be
more performance-based and time-sensitive.103 The law will open new
opportunities for trade and investment in the Philippines that could be
mutually beneficial to both countries, and investment and economic aid can
also serve as inducements for improving human rights and civil liberties
there. Regardless of whether the instruments of economic cooperation are
bilateral or multilateral, Washington should use economic statecraft to push
governance reform in Manila as the Philippines economically decouples from
China to avoid dependence on any single trade partner.104
Development assistance delivered through a new MCC compact could
also serve as an inducement for the Philippines to improve its record of
anti-democratic policies and human rights violations, especially considering
the precedent set by the proposed second compact, which was “declined”
by the Duterte administration. In 2016 the MCC did not renew its first
$433.9 million compact with the Philippines from 2010 over concerns
regarding the decline of the rule of law under the Duterte administration and
102 The Build Act of 2018, 115th Cong., 2nd sess., January 3, 2018, Sec. 1453. See also Shayerah Ilias
Akhtar and Marian L. Lawson, “BUILD Act: Frequently Asked Questions about the New U.S.
International Development Finance Corporation,” Congressional Research Service, CRS Report
for Congress, R45461, January 15, 2019, 15–16.
103 Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, Republic Act 11534
(Philippines), 18th Cong., 2nd sess., July 27, 2020 u https://taxreform.dof.gov.ph/bills/
republic-act-no-11534-create-law.
104 Yuichi Shiga, “Philippines Explores Joining TPP to Expand Free Trade Network,” Nikkei Asia,
April 2, 2021 u https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/Philippines-explores-joining-TPP-toexpand-free-trade-network.
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instead opted to negotiate a second compact.105 These negotiations concluded
with the Philippines leaving the table and its officials claiming that the terms
of the compact did not coincide with their priorities. However, the Philippines
remains an MCC candidate as of 2021, and a new compact may prove enticing
to a new administration in Manila tasked with overcoming the economic
fallout of the pandemic.106 To make a fresh start with the next administration,
the United States should raise the prospect of a second MCC compact in a
manner that recalls the pitfalls of the previous renewal process while seeking
to avoid their repeat. These policy options are not a complete U.S. strategy
for the Philippines; they are rather a nonexhaustive selection of avenues for
engagement that should be considered and developed as the final days of
Duterte administration approach and a new government is on the horizon.
Contrary to conventional depictions of the Philippine presidency as
a highly personalized institution, recent scholarship argues that strong
presidencies initiate new government systems and structures that impose
constraints on subsequent administrations. Duterte is not exceptional in
this regard, but his administration has transformed domestic politics to an
extent not witnessed in Philippine politics in decades. It is therefore unwise
for the United States to place its faith in the pro-U.S. inclinations of the
Philippine military while awaiting a better status quo in government after the
presidential election. Many of the systemic issues that challenge the alliance
today are likely to remain after June 2022.
By demonstrating opposition to the breakdown of democracy in the
Philippines and seeking to support its recovery through reformed assistance
programs and other policies directed at the next government, the Biden
administration can make a long-term investment in the U.S.-Philippines
alliance. Although supporting democracy in this way is a complicated
endeavor, one laden with risks, advocating for democratic reform in
the Philippines is in both the strategic and the moral interests of the
United States. 
105 Sarah Rose, “The Future of the Philippines and MCC,” Center for Global Development,
November 20, 2017 u https://www.cgdev.org/blog/future-philippines-and-mcc; and Pia Ranada,
“PH Withdraws from Second Cycle of U.S. Aid Packages,” Rappler, December 19, 2017 u https://
www.rappler.com/nation/philippines-withdraw-second-cycle-millennium-challenge-grant.
106 Millennium Challenge Corporation, “Report on Countries that Are Candidates for Millennium
Challenge Compact Eligibility for Fiscal Year 2021 and Countries that Would Be Candidates
but for Legal Prohibitions,” September 8, 2020 u https://www.mcc.gov/resources/doc/
report-candidate-country-fy2021.
[ 160 ]
asia policy, volume 17, number 1 ( january 2022 ) , 161–72
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http://asiapolicy.org
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book review essay
China’s Grand Strategy
Oriana Skylar Mastro
A book review of
Rush Doshi’s
The Long Game:
China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order
New York: Oxford University Press, 2021
ISBN: 9780197527917
© The National Bureau of Asian Research
1414 NE 42nd St, Suite 300, Seattle, Washington 98105 USA
asia policy
China’s Grand Strategy
Oriana Skylar Mastro
D
espite the mild diplomatic adages like “win-win cooperation” and
“common sense guardrails”1 repeated at the first virtual summit
between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping in November 2021,
there is no denying that the current U.S.-China relationship can be described
as frosty at best. Before Biden’s election, his predecessor, President Donald
Trump, oversaw a move toward a competitive strategic approach to the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) that his administration claimed was based
on a “clear-eyed assessment” of the rising power’s actions and intentions.2
Long before Trump’s election, President Barack Obama promised allies that
the United States was “all in”3 on the Asia-Pacific, beginning a “pivot” to the
region that made Beijing worry this was a U.S. containment effort.4
How should we understand China’s grand strategy and intentions?
The ascendance of Xi Jinping and the beginning of a slew of economic
projects like the Belt and Road Initiative, interpreted by many as a tool in
the framework of strategic competition with the United States, caused many
to see Beijing as increasingly expansionist.5 Some more alarmist analysts,
such as Department of Defense policy adviser Michael Pillsbury, have
oriana skylar mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International
Studies at Stanford University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
(United States). Her expertise is focused on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security
issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She also serves in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, for
which she works as a strategic planner at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. She is the author of The Costs
of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime (2019), which won the American Political Science
International Security Section’s “best book” award. She can be reached at <omastro@stanford.edu>.
1 “Remarks by President Biden and President Xi of the People’s Republic of China before Virtual
Meeting,” White House, November 15, 2021 u https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
statements-releases/2021/11/15/remarks-by-president-biden-and-president-xi-of-the-peoplesrepublic-of-china-before-virtual-meeting.
2 White House, United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China (Washington, D.C.,
May 5, 2020), 1.
3 “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian Parliament,” White House, November
17, 2011 u https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/
remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament.
4 Kenneth G. Lieberthal, “The American Pivot to Asia,” Brookings Institution, December 21, 2011 u
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-pivot-to-asia.
5 On the Belt and Road Initiative, see Theresa Fallon, “The New Silk Road: Xi Jinping’s Grand
Strategy for Eurasia,” American Foreign Policy Interests 37, no. 3 (2015): 140–47 u https://doi.org/
10.1080/10803920.2015.1056682. On Chinese expansionism, see Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J.
Tellis, “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy toward China,” Council on Foreign Relations, Council Special
Report, no. 72, March 2015 u https://carnegieendowment.org/files/Tellis_Blackwill.pdf.
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china ’ s grand strategy
characterized China as having a grand scheme to supplant the United States
as the sole global superpower.6 Others see strategic folly in overestimating
the threat, focusing instead on the strong fundamentals of U.S. power7 or
emphasizing China’s weaknesses and domestic challenges.8 Indeed, the
range of academic inquiry and conflicting viewpoints is a testament to the
complexity of understanding China and its role on the global stage.
Enter The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order,
one of the most recent and significant attempts to understand what China
wants. Written by Rush Doshi, a former Brookings fellow turned National
Security Council staffer in the Biden administration, the book encapsulates
rigorous social-scientific research approaches, clear argumentation, and
policy relevance as well as is accessible to the average reader.
the long game ’ s argument and prc strategies
In The Long Game, Doshi makes the argument that, since the end of the
Cold War, China has sought to displace the U.S.-led order, first regionally,
and as it became successful in that effort, globally too. Intentions are
notoriously difficult to assess, so to illuminate those intentions, Doshi looks
for evidence of a grand strategy in authoritative texts, national security
institutions, and state behavior. Doshi offers a notable emphasis on primary
Chinese sources, and he supplements these with detailed case studies, each
involving hypothesis testing and consideration of alternative explanations
for PRC behavior. Doshi argues that two variables—the power gap between
a rising power and established hegemon and the threat that the rising power
perceives from the hegemon—intersect to determine the rising power’s
strategy. He argues that rising powers’ grand strategies generally, though
not exclusively, evolve “sequentially from accommodation to blunting to
building and then to dominance” (p. 24). According to the book, China
fits this bill: after the normalization of relations, China accommodated the
United States; after the fall of the Soviet Union, Beijing perceived a greater
threat from Washington and thus moved to a blunting strategy; and after the
6 Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the
Global Superpower (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2015).
7 Michael Beckley, Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2018); and Ryan Haas, Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of
Competitive Interdependence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).
8 See Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful
Rise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi, eds., Fateful
Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020).
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asia policy
2008 financial crisis demonstrated U.S. weakness, China moved to building
its own order and institutions. Now it is beginning to shift to dominance
and global expansion.
In depth, the book delves into blunting and building actions through
military, political, and economic lenses—essentially the past 30 years of
Chinese grand strategy. Blunting begins with the policy of taoguang yanghui
(hiding and biding) to weaken the U.S. hegemonic influence without exposing
its own hegemonic intentions as a rising power. Following the Tiananmen
Square protests, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and an increased perception
of the United States as a hegemonic threat as a result of the demonstration
of U.S. capability in the Gulf War, China transitioned to a blunting strategy.
The argument is rooted here in texts and in an analysis of puzzling Chinese
behavior. Militarily, Doshi finds authoritative Chinese texts concerned about
the striking similarity of China’s force structure to that of now defeated Iraq and
urging investment in shashoujian (assassin’s mace) capabilities. These include
a strong focus on anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities as opposed to
power-projection capabilities. Politically, in the wake of the Cold War and
Gulf War, China sought to join regional institutions, ensuring it maintained
veto power against U.S.-led coalitions, and invested in organizations like the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation that excluded the United States, while at
the same time continually emphasizing opposition to hegemonism (p. 100).
Economically, blunting involved joining the World Trade Organization
and seeking most-favored-nation status from other nations as a means of
incentivizing the United States, China’s largest trading partner, to re-establish
this status with China after the Tiananmen protests weakened support for the
PRC in the U.S. Congress.
With the 2008 financial crisis, Doshi notices a shift in the Chinese
literature that stresses a rapidly closing power gap between China and the
United States—texts began to characterize favorable trends in multipolarity
and the international balance of forces. This shift marks the beginning of a
policy of “actively accomplishing something,” in which China takes a more
active role in the creation of institutions and becomes more assertive in
power projection. Militarily, Chinese rhetoric more forcefully defended
China’s national interests, and to match its words, China invested in
military capabilities to protect interests farther afield and project power.
In short, Doshi points to increased investment in aircraft carriers; serial
production of surface vessels, which could undertake a range of missions;
and overseas installations during this period, rather than a narrower focus
on mines, missiles, and submarines. Politically, China began to launch or
[ 164 ]
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china ’ s grand strategy
elevate institutions to set rules and norms in the region to its own benefit
and that undercut U.S. alliances, with Xi declaring, “it is for the people of
Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia, and uphold the
security of Asia.”9 Economically, China began to build parallel institutions
to those of the United States. China attempted to globalize the renminbi as a
competitor to the U.S. dollar while also building institutions and programs
such as the Belt and Road Initiative to “cultivate economic leverage” over
member states (p. 236).
Doshi sees now the beginning of a strategy of global expansion by China,
a strategy whose impetus is summed up by Fu Ying: “The Western-centered
world order dominated by the U.S. has made great contributions to human
progress and economic growth. But those contributions lie in the past.”10
The West has suffered from increasing political polarization, increasing
wealth inequality, and the rise of populism—implicated by its handling of the
Covid-19 crisis—and Doshi believes the Chinese perception is that the time
for a more global grand strategy has arrived. Chinese interests are further
flung, and the means to protect them are stronger by the day. Therefore,
the book offers a set of recommendations for the United States to counter
China, largely founded on the understanding that the United States must
similarly develop asymmetric capabilities, whether that means A2/AD
military capabilities or joining Chinese institutions to blunt China from
building political power. Doshi does not believe the United States has passed
its dominance or best years, but he soberly recognizes that to win the political
conflict with China, the United States must leverage its strengths: growth,
freedom, and democracy.
As noted above, the book largely attempts to make this case for the
progression in Chinese grand strategy through analysis of Chinese
government internal documents and other authoritative Chinese texts. This
is an excellent first step in understanding Chinese thinking, and Doshi does
the field a service by laying out in an appendix the five types of sources
he uses and their levels of authoritativeness. This is part of a larger effort
by China experts to make their approaches and analyses more transparent,
9 Xi Jinping, “New Asian Security Concept for New Progress in Security Cooperation” (remarks at
the Fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia,
Shanghai, May 21, 2014) u https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/201405/
t20140527_678163.html, cited on p. 209.
10 Fu Ying, “The U.S. World Order Is a Suit That No Longer Fits,” Financial Times, January 6, 2016,
cited on p. 262.
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especially to those outside the community.11 The best scholars of China
show their work.
Doshi’s execution in terms of creating a narrative and holding the
reader’s attention is flawless. He has the courage to write an academic book
that is both scholarly and enjoyable to read. The book is also a great resource
for those interested in an overview of Chinese foreign policy over the past
25 to 30 years and an accessible discussion of debates prevalent in Chinese
language sources.
an analysis of the long game
Although I will be using parts of the book in my courses and in my own
research, I was not completely convinced of some aspects of its argument. In
general, while the analysis of China’s grand strategy in the blunting and building
periods (i.e., from 1989 to 2016) is well-argued, the broader argument that China
seeks to displace the United States globally nevertheless remains contestable.
First, a key part of Doshi’s argument is that China initially tried to blunt
U.S. power and then in the Hu era moved into building new institutions and
military capabilities to structure the foundations for China’s hegemony in
Asia. Like Avery Goldstein, Doshi argues that Xi continued many of these
policies in his first term until 2017, at which point he began to inaugurate
a more global grand strategy focused on expansion. Goldstein posits that
Xi has added reforming and resisting aspects of the international system
to the traditional Chinese repertoire of reassurance.12 But arguably there
have been aspects of attempting both to reform the international system
and to reassure countries of China’s peaceful intentions throughout the last
three decades, even if the emphasis has shifted. China, for example, is not
promoting autocracy, though its behavior does make the world safer for
autocracies. Instead, most of Beijing’s efforts are currently designed to blunt
U.S. democracy promotion and human rights diplomacy.13 And while limited,
there were aspects of institution-building before Xi, such as the founding of
11 Two other recent works that engage deeply with the methodology of using primary sources
are M. Taylor Fravel, Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2019); and Jude Blanchette, “The Devil Is in the Footnotes: On Reading Michael
Pillsbury’s The Hundred-Year Marathon,” University of California–San Diego, 21st Century China
u http://www.lewebcafe.com/cambodia/The-Hundred-Year-Marathon.pdf.
12 Avery Goldstein, “China’s Grand Strategy under Xi Jinping: Reassurance, Reform, and Resistance,”
International Security 54, no. 1 (2020) u https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/45/1/164/95252/
China-s-Grand-Strategy-under-Xi-Jinping.
13 Jessica Chen Weiss, “A World Safe for Autocracy?” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2019.
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the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (established in 2000), the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (established in 2001), and the China-Arab States
Cooperation Forum (established in 2004). Though China is not a member of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Beijing has proactively
worked to set the agenda and shape outcomes on the South China Sea,
pushing for a Code of Conduct with ASEAN with favorable terms that was
signed in 2002. Doshi argues that these examples do not generally constitute
“building” because Beijing did not institutionalize these bodies the way it did
later efforts such as the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank. But these
cases nonetheless demonstrate that in some aspects PRC efforts represent a
messier spectrum of order-building over time.
Additionally, China is not only blunting and building—there are
examples in which China is contributing to the international order. Doshi
notes that efforts to supply global or public goods are a part of order-building.
Even so, it is worth exploring the significance of the fact that China has not
been a revolutionary power seeking to undermine all aspects of the existing
system. This leads to additional questions about the conditions under which
China may try to blunt or build and how Beijing achieves these goals. For
example, why not build an institution separate from the United Nations,
choosing instead to establish greater control from within?
Second, the book’s focus is on establishing strategic adjustment and
the conditions under which it does not occur. But Doshi does not, however,
assess whether China’s strategies were effective or disadvantageous. The
aircraft carrier program is a good example. Doshi correctly notes that a PRC
aircraft carrier would have limited deterrent value against the United States;
instead, as Chinese scholars note, it would be more useful for coercing certain
“trouble-making countries.”14 As Doshi stresses, China’s desire to avoid a
countervailing coalition forming against it is predicated on not projecting a
threatening image. Accordingly, China tried internationally to pitch the carrier
program as necessary for Beijing to shoulder great-power responsibilities and
14 For the quoted text, see Xiangqing Meng, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at
the National Defense University, quoted in “Zhongguo hangmu: Cong jintian shi xiang weilai”
[China Aircraft Carrier: Sailing from Today to the Future], Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen
wang, September 26, 2012 u http://theory.people.com.cn/n/2012/0926/c245417-19111346-1.html.
On the role of an aircraft carrier for China, see Zhen Yang and Binwei Du, “Jiyu haiquan shijiao:
Hangkongmujian dui Zhongguo haijun zhuanxing de tuidong zuoyong” [On Aircraft Carrier’s
Promoting Role in the Transformation of China’s Naval Forces from the Perspective of Sea Power],
Taipingyang xuebao 21, no. 3 (2013): 68–78; and “Renmin ribao wu wen Zhongguo hangmu, chen
wu hangmu nan baowei linghai zhuquan” [People’s Daily Poses Five Questions about China’s Aircraft
Carriers, Stating that without Aircraft Carriers, It Is Difficult for China to Protect Territorial Sea],
Huashang, July 28, 2011 u http://news.hsw.cn/system/2011/07/28/051053939.shtml.
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contribute to peace and stability.15 Numerous official statements and statesponsored media rhetoric emphasize that China will use aircraft carriers
for defensive purposes only, like rescue missions, and its possession of this
potentially offensive system will not prompt a more aggressive national
defense or naval strategies.16 Despite this positive spin, no one is buying it.
Chinese aircraft carriers were mentioned nineteen times in the Department
of Defense’s 2020 annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security
developments, and they are clearly seen as a tool of dominance.17 Chinese
aircraft carriers are also expensive and not as effective as those of the United
States, and they are highly vulnerable.18 This raises the question—which
the book does not really explore—about which aspects of China’s power
accumulation have been effective, and which have been failures.
The book’s arguments are sometimes incomplete in ways that could have
been strengthened. For example, Doshi argues that the Chinese military
was mainly focused on denial platforms in the initial stages of its military
modernization. This observation is correct—China’s focus on A2/AD strategies
from the mid-1990s until arguably the Hu and Xi eras is well-researched
and documented. But Doshi chose three types of capabilities in particular to
make his case: missiles, submarines, and mines. China does have the world’s
most advanced ballistic and cruise missile program, which has been at the
heart of its A2/AD, and submarines were indeed seen as a way to counter
U.S. aircraft carriers. But there are other capabilities that China seemed even
more intent to develop that Doshi does not cover until later in the book when
they should have appeared earlier, such as building a surface fleet initially
focused on antisurface warfare—the number of destroyers increased between
2000 and 2010 while the number of submarines decreased.19 Additionally,
China prioritized creating an indigenous shipbuilding industry for its surface
fleet while it continued to shore up its own submarine advancements with
15 Guanghui Ni, “Guochan hangmu, kaituo Zhongguo xin lanhai” [Domestic-Made Aircraft Carrier,
Expanding China’s New Blue Ocean], Renmin wang, April 27, 2017 u http://opinion.people.com.
cn/n1/2017/0427/c1003-29238768.html; and Zhen Yang and Liang Cai, “Lun hangkongmujian yu
Zhongguo haiquan” [On Aircraft Carriers and China’s Seapower], Dangdai shijie 8 (2017): 42–45.
16 Sheng Zhong, “Dui wo fazhan hangmu shuosandaosi zhe mei zige” [No One Has the Rights to
Judge Our Development of Aircraft Carriers], Huanqiu wang, September 29, 2012 u https://mil.
huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnJxfDm; and “Zhongguo hangmu: Cong jintian shi xiang weilai.”
17 U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments
Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020 (Washington, D.C., 2020) u https://media.defense.
gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-dod-china-military-power-report-final.pdf; and
Robbie Gramer, “China Eyes Pacific Supremacy with New Carrier,” Foreign Policy, July 15, 2021 u
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/15/china-aircraft-carrier-pacific-security.
18 “How Does China’s First Aircraft Carrier Stack Up?” China Power, December 9, 2015, updated
August 26, 2020 u https://chinapower.csis.org/aircraft-carrier.
19 Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea, 2nd ed. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 92–93.
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china ’ s grand strategy
purchases from Russia.20 The PRC also notably improved its integrated air
defense systems and counterspace systems (brought to international attention
with its 2007 ASAT test). This is not to say Doshi’s analysis is incorrect, but
only that he presents three capabilities as the central components of Chinese
strategy when in fact there were other key ones as well. Moreover, some
discussion of why China did not build up its nuclear capabilities (in some
ways the ultimate A2/AD capability) would have been useful.
In its final chapters, the book argues that China has moved toward a grand
strategy to displace the United States as a global hegemon—what Doshi calls
expansion—after 2017. But this conclusion is debatable. First, Doshi does not
actually show that his characterization of China’s strategy—blunting followed
by building followed by expansion—is what the Chinese had planned all
along. Doshi notes that China’s adherence to “hiding capabilities and biding
time” was based on its then assessment of U.S. power, and that Deng, Jiang,
and Hu each indicated that as the assessment of U.S. power would change so
too would China’s strategy. Nonetheless, this does not necessarily mean the
strategy would change to “building.” My alternative reading of the situation is
that China wanted to build power to create strategic space for itself—the power
to decide how it wants to use its power—a concept captured in authoritative
Chinese writings like the 2013 edition of the Science of Military Strategy.21 In
this way, I would characterize Chinese grand strategy like the famous maxim
popularized by Deng regarding economic reform, “feeling for stones to cross
the river” (p. 78).22
Doshi argues the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is “going global”
under Xi, with a focus on global power projection, amphibious capabilities,
and overseas installations. Chinese discourse, capabilities, and behavior all
demonstrate that the PRC’s focus remains on regional contingencies, even
those involving the United States. If China’s military ambitions are global,
they are not defined by plans to fight wars against the United States in the
Middle East, Africa, or South America (the United States would easily win
those wars). Here, the emphasis on select Chinese sources is problematic.
20 Gabriel Collins and Michael C. Grubb, A Comprehensive Survey of China’s Dynamic Shipbuilding
Industry, CMSI Red Books, no. 1 (Newport: U.S. Naval War College, 2008) u https://digitalcommons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=
1000&context=cmsi-red-books; and Richard Bitzinger, “Modernising China’s Military, 1997–2012,”
China Perspectives, no. 4 (2011): 7–15 u https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/5701.
21 People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Science, Zhanlüe xue [The Science of Military
Strategy] (Beijing, 2013), available at https://nuke.fas.org/guide/china/sms-2013.pdf.
22 Zhengfeng Han, “ ‘Mozhe shitou guo he’ gaige fangfa de lailong qumai” [The Ins and Outs of the
Reform Method of “Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones”], Guangming Daily, April 9, 2014 u
https://epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2014-04/09/nw.D110000gmrb_20140409_3-14.htm.
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Some sources do argue for global basing and global military power projection,
but my own reading of Chinese behavior and military capabilities development
suggests Beijing prefers to rely on nonmilitary means beyond the region to
protect its interests.23 I also see the efforts the PRC is pursuing globally to be
manifestations of its regional ambitions. For example, Doshi writes in places
about China’s desire to outflank the West, build economic and political power
around the world, and create an order at the global level (e.g., pp. 278–79).
But these activities can still support limited regional goals, and while there
are some examples of the PRC “claiming global leadership” (p. 280), there
are many examples of China shirking these responsibilities. Doshi notes that
the PRC desires “a world-class force with bases around the world that could
defend China’s interests in most regions and even in new domains like space,
the poles and the deep sea” (p. 303). The call to break long-standing aversions
to alliances, foreign interventions, and overseas bases became louder after
the 2008 financial crisis, as Doshi attests (p. 205). But while the PRC has
renounced its opposition to military bases, China’s rejection of alliances and
overseas interventions has not changed in the intervening thirteen years.
I applaud Doshi’s efforts at leveraging Chinese sources, yet there is more
complexity in some Chinese debates that he could have included. For example,
part of the book’s argument relies on the assessment that China will build
a global basing network, and Doshi provides authoritative Chinese sources
discussing how China needs to protect its overseas interests. But he does not
dedicate much attention to the internal Chinese debate over how conducting
high-intensity combat operations globally is not the best way to do this. In
many internal discussions, the overseas bases of other countries, especially
the United States, are considered strategic problems for China rather than
a model from which to learn.24 Isaac Kardon of the Naval War College has
pointed out that while the Chinese will not “replicate the U.S. military’s basing
posture, the logistics elements supporting U.S. overseas military operations
are a subject of deep interest to Chinese analysts.”25 China’s avoidance of an
23 Oriana Skylar Mastro, “The Stealth Superpower: How China Hid Its Global Ambitions,”
Foreign Affairs, January/February 2019 u https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/
china-plan-rule-asia.
24 Jian Li, Wenwen Chen, and Jing Jin, “Yindu yang haiquan geju yu Zhongguo haiquan de Yinduyang
tazhan” [Indian Ocean Seapower Structure and the Expansion of China’s Sea Power into the Indian
Ocean], Pacific Journal 22, no. 5 (2014); and Andrew Scobell, David Lai, and Roy Kamphausen,
eds., Chinese Lessons from Other People’s Wars (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, 2011).
25 Isaac B. Kardon, “China’s Overseas Base, Places, and Far Seas Logistics,” in The PLA Beyond Borders:
Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context, ed. Joel Wuthnow et al. (Washington,
D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2021), 76. See also Guifang Xue and Jie Zheng, “Actual
Demands and Risk Responses for Building China’s 21st-Century Overseas Bases,” Global Review, no.
4 (2017): 104–21.
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china ’ s grand strategy
overseas basing network for the past 25 years suggests this is right (p. 206).
Doshi does acknowledge that “China is unlikely to adopt the same complex
network of far-flung bases and global capabilities that the United States has
retained” and that Beijing’s “evolving approach is dramatically lighter than the
U.S. alternative” (pp. 292–94). But in general, Doshi’s analysis would benefit
from considering whether what China wants, and how it wants to get it, is
different from the United States. The means, methods, and strategies China
employs to blunt or build are perhaps more interesting than the end goal itself.
Only by understanding how China is competing with the United States
can we devise effective strategies to maximize the United States’ competitive
advantage. For example, while I agree with the recommendation to build
more denial weapons and help partners develop A2/AD capabilities, the
former will only enhance deterrence in a Taiwan scenario, given that China
relies primarily on gray-zone activities to extend control in the East and South
China Seas. Moreover, because China is projecting power close to home
from its vast territory, mobile defenses in depth, long-range fires, electronic
warfare, and cyberattacks (p. 318) will not have the same impact on the PLA
that they do for the U.S. military in Asia. Doshi also argues that we should
disrupt China’s efforts to establish overseas bases. As I previously argued,
China is not doing this, but even if Beijing did take that direction, it may be
beneficial for the United States given how expensive maintaining overseas
bases can be politically and financially. Doshi also makes three “military
building” recommendations for the United States: (1) build resilience to
China’s A2/AD efforts, (2) build a diverse U.S. posture in the Indo-Pacific,
and (3) build a resilient information infrastructure (pp. 323–24).
I wholeheartedly agree with these recommendations, but they have also
been the focus of the U.S. Department of Defense for over a decade. These
complex issues are not easily resolved—more specific recommendations
from Doshi, who undoubtedly has given these challenges deep thought,
would have been valuable.
conclusion
Doshi begins the book by arguing that “understanding Chinese foreign
policy requires taking the Party seriously” (p. 44). The Long Game does a
superb job of laying out select aspects of Chinese thinking over the past
25 to 30 years and how they have manifested in Chinese behavior and
capabilities. But there are aspects of the internal PRC strategic debates that
The Long Game would have benefited from including.
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The book’s general argument—that China started competing with the
United States decades before we realized we were in a great-power competition
at all—is well taken. China is an ambitious power, and what Beijing wants is
not in line with U.S. and allied interests. Doshi provides an interesting and
readable tome in The Long Game that encapsulates this sobering view. 
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http://asiapolicy.org
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book review roundtable
T.J. Pempel’s
A Region of Regimes:
Prosperity and Plunder in the Asia-Pacific
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021
ISBN: 9781501758805
Saori N. Katada
John Ravenhill
Thomas Pepinsky
David Leheny
Mary Alice Haddad
T.J. Pempel
© The National Bureau of Asian Research
1414 NE 42nd St, Suite 300, Seattle, Washington 98105 USA
asia policy
Regime Maturity and the Future of Asia’s Regional Economic Order
Saori N. Katada
I
n 2020 the Asian economies became larger than those of the rest of
the world combined, and the region is now home to half the world’s
middle class. These economies’ growth over the last several decades has
been impressive but not uniform. As such, T.J. Pempel’s new book, A
Region of Regimes: Prosperity and Plunder in the Asia-Pacific, provides a
comprehensive and insightful analysis of the distinctive developmental
pathways in the region. These pathways are heavily influenced by “regimes”
that are constructed by interactions among political, socioeconomic, and
international properties.1 Covering the growth paths of ten countries
in East Asia, Pempel maps out three distinct types of regimes, with two
styles (developmental and ersatz) that have achieved prosperity and one
(rapacious) that has led to plunder.
A Region of Regimes is a tour de force—the culmination of the depth,
breadth, and expanse of Pempel’s research career as a prominent scholar
of the international and comparative political economy of East Asia. This
study provides an ambitious and comprehensive yet nuanced treatment of
the region’s political-economic trajectory. The complex interaction among
domestic regimes, policy paradigms, and the regional order, Pempel argues,
has evolved in an Asia-Pacific that has not only pursued and mostly achieved
rapid economic growth but also introduced diplomatic and security tension
threatening the regional order.
With this generative book, Pempel provides a multitude of insights
that will attract many other studies on the topic to follow. Of particular
interest to me are the regional implications of the “aged” or “mature”
developmental regimes of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In chapter four,
Pempel examines their slow transformation. Once having had very cohesive
unity pursuing embedded mercantilism, these developmental regimes have
undergone fragmentation due to globalization and private-sector maturity,
including the regional expansion of production networks. Nonetheless, these
regimes have been very resistant to fundamental changes. In other words,
saori n. katada is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California
(United States). She is the author of Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific
(2020). She can be reached at <skatada@usc.edu>.
1 Pempel uses the term “regime” to refer to clusters of countries that share key political, economic,
and international properties and the interactions between those shared variables (p. 2).
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a region of regimes
“regime shift” has not been a smooth process. With such regime stickiness
on the one hand, I see that these economies are faced with a challenge
of disembedded private businesses on the other. Despite the continued
influence that large corporations or peak associations, such as Keidanren
in Japan, wield over governments’ economic policies, these businesses no
longer need government protection, nor are they willing to be controlled
by state guidance. As discussed elsewhere by Henry Wai-chung Yeung, new
strategic couplings through Asian firms’ pursuit of competitive positions
in the global marketplace are leading these firms to free themselves from
national constraints.2
By extending Pempel’s argument regarding these three developmental
economies, an interesting angle to investigate would be to consider multiple
implications that these matured developmental regimes with disembedded
businesses could have on the regional order.
First, to support the national firms that have offshored and globalized,
developmental governments such as those in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
are faced with the task of supporting businesses that stretch outside of their
national jurisdiction. Particularly given their demographic challenges with
aging populations and low birth rates, these mature developmental states
continue to rely on regional production and global markets continue as the
lifeline for their future prosperity. Economic regionalization and regional
institutions built over the course of the last twenty years have created
a heavily connected region, as Pempel discusses in chapter six. These
conditions would inevitably draw these governments to act in support of a
rules-based economic order and continued globalization to undergird their
firms’ regional and global activities.
Furthermore, intraregional contagion through emulation and
diffusion of policy ideas are an important factor in predicting the region’s
future course. In the 20th century, Japan was the developmental model to
emulate. Since the 1980s, China has learned from Japan’s successes and
failures (p. 157), and Malaysia has also implemented a “Look East” policy
during this time. In the 21st century, China has its own version of a “going
out” and connectivity strategy that is particularly prominent in the Belt
and Road Initiative introduced in 2013. At the same time, the mature
developmental states from Japan to South Korea must eventually shed their
developmental shells and begin to promote liberal economic rules. A vital
2 Henry Wai-chung Yeung, Strategic Coupling: East Asian Industrial Transformation in the New
Global Economy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016).
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question here is how developmentalism could continue to thrive and allow
latecomers such as China to continue to promote economic growth in the
new environment.
Second, and notwithstanding, the degree to which the boundaries of
national economies have blurred through various kinds of regionalization
are still uncertain. Despite ever increasing FDI and an uptick in “strategic
coupling” under mergers and business alliances among firms from multiple
nationalities, national borders and nationally based officials can still impose
meaningful jurisdictional authority over countries’ economic activities. This
was clearly seen in the various national responses to the Covid-19 pandemic
in 2020–21. Intensified efforts to respond to supply-chain disruptions have
led not only governments but also businesses to think twice about economic
globalization and ponder its limits.
In addition, China’s dramatic rise utilizing its composite regime
(chapter five) has started to pose growing challenges to the regional order
that the matured developmental regimes have tried to maintain. As China
becomes “factory Asia” within a region of dramatically increased economic
interdependence, the country assumes the central position that would allow
it to occasionally weaponize such interdependence.3 Regional economic
integration and connectivity has recently made national economic security
a vital priority for states.
The regional order has fluctuated from bilateralism during
the Cold War to the rise of both regionalization and regionalism.
Contemporary East Asia faces a new geopolitics from the rise of U.S.-China
rivalry (chapter six). The two conflicting demands—a rules-based order in
support of an interdependent regional economic order on the one hand, and
stronger economic security and protection of national economies on the
other—usher in a difficult balancing act for these governments, especially
when they no longer have strong power to control business behavior. How
China fits into these dynamics will significantly determine the future of
regional order in the Asia-Pacific. We owe to Pempel’s enlightening book
many exciting avenues to continue research as well as scholarly and policy
dialogues on this topic. 
3 Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic
Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44, no. 1 (2019): 42–79.
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a region of regimes
A Region at Risk of Unraveling?
John Ravenhill
O
ne of the hallmarks of T.J. Pempel’s research over the last three decades
has been its sensitivity to the inextricable intertwining of domestic
and international political economy. A Region of Regimes: Prosperity and
Plunder in the Asia-Pacific is exemplary in this regard. In addition to its
unusually comprehensive comparative analysis of East Asia’s domestic
political economies, the book demonstrates very clearly how international
forces conditioned the opportunities available to governments in the region.
The emphasis on the international leads to another significant contribution
that Pempel has made over the years: his engagement with debates on the
appropriateness of U.S. foreign policy toward Asia.
The book makes clear that what might be termed the “long peace” in
East Asia, broadly defined, was an era in which economic interdependence
and security arrangements were for the most part mutually supportive.
Countries did not have to choose between economics and security. And for
many years the United States remained the ultimate market for much of the
region’s manufactured exports, even though the direction of intraregional
trade changed dramatically over time—first in the wake of the 1985 Plaza
Accord currency realignment and then with China’s emergence at the turn
of the century as the world’s assembly plant. Besides serving as the market of
not just last resort but frequently first resort, the United States underwrote
the security of the region through its system of bilateral alliances established
after World War II.
As Pempel points out, the economic and security structures that
were facilitators for some were constraining factors for others that
forcefully shaped domestic political economies, reinforcing, for example,
the predatory character of regimes in North Korea and Myanmar. It was
not, however, a simple unidirectional pattern of influence; the profound
changes in the relative economic fortunes of states in the region fed back
into the international economic and security structures. Pempel makes the
persuasive argument that the unprecedented economic growth enjoyed by
the region between the ebbing of the Cold War and the global financial
john ravenhill is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of
Waterloo (Canada). He can be reached at <john.ravenhill@uwaterloo.ca>.
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crisis of 2007–8 fostered a new era of regional stability based on economic
interdependence and the emergence of numerous regional institutions.
As many commentators have remarked, however, the regionalization of
production outpaced formal intergovernmental collaboration. Although the
Asia-Pacific is no longer an institutional desert, regional institutions for the
most part remain weak. Governments in particular have been unwilling to
limit their options by signing on to binding regional agreements. Pempel
is critical of the U.S. role, noting how it has been tangential to many of the
efforts within the region to forge formal intergovernmental collaboration.
This assertion is perhaps a little unfair. Washington was indeed hostile
toward attempts to promote regionalism that had an exclusively Asian rather
than Asia-Pacific basis. Yet if one examines the occasions on which major
breakthroughs in regional collaboration occurred, U.S. leadership played a
significant role—whether it be the decision of the Clinton administration
to initiate leaders’ meetings at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) grouping, or the Obama administration’s early championing of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The United States also led the way in
negotiating comprehensive bilateral trade agreements with countries in the
region, notably Singapore and South Korea.
Pempel is correct, however, in highlighting the variability in U.S.
engagement with efforts to promote regionalism. Initiatives have been
championed but then dropped precipitously. Sometimes this resulted from
U.S. frustration at the unwillingness of Asian partners to sign on to the
type of legally binding commitments that Washington preferred—notably,
for instance, the loss of interest in APEC after Japan’s insistence on the
“voluntary” character of its commitments. At other times, it has been a matter
of administrations placing domestic considerations above international
leadership—most obviously with the Trump administration’s withdrawal
from the TPP.
The concluding section of the book looks at how developments since the
global financial crisis have threatened the long peace in the region. It is still
early days and there are inconsistent trends (such as the continued growth in
institutionalized cooperation through the ASEAN- and China-led Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the now-Japan-led
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
(CPTPP). Nonetheless, the mutually supportive relationship between
economics and security in the region appears to be facing greater challenges
than it has for a half a century. China’s growing economic dominance may
fundamentally transform the choices open to other countries in the region.
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a region of regimes
Beijing has increasingly resorted to imposing economic sanctions,
either formally or informally, on countries whose actions have caused
it offense. China has deployed a variety of policies ranging from outright
bans, such as on trade and tourism, to informal measures, such as selective
implementation of domestic regulations (including stepped-up customs
inspections and sanitary checks) and encouragement of popular boycotts.
Multiple examples can be cited, with notable ones including the 2010 ban on
rare earth exports to Japan, the 2010 ban on imported salmon from Norway
in protest of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to a Chinese dissident (it
was perhaps no accident that at one point China suggested that the Covid-19
outbreak might have originated with imported Norwegian salmon), and the
imposition of additional sanitary controls on Philippine bananas in 2012
and 2016 over the South China Sea dispute. South Korean exports to China
slumped after Beijing’s criticism of South Korea’s installation of the Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system in 2017.
Hyundai’s current sales in China are less than half the volume of the year
prior to the THAAD installation, down more than half a million vehicles.1
Most recently, bans were imposed on the import of Australian agricultural
commodities, coal, and wine after the Morrison government in Canberra
demanded an independent investigation into the origins of the Covid-19
outbreak. Beijing’s sanctions have been imposed both against countries in
the region with which it has bilateral free trade agreements and those which
are its partners in regional arrangements such as RCEP.
The question is whether, as China’s relative economic strength grows
further, it will be able to further exploit economic asymmetries in the
manner described by Albert Hirschman to squeeze other countries into
compliance.2 Will Cambodia’s vassal status, for example, be replicated
elsewhere in the region? To date, China’s formal and informal sanctions
have mostly been short-lived. Some of these measures generated diplomatic
concessions by the targeted states but rarely a complete capitulation. The
actual exercise of power may be less significant, however, than the chilling
effect that the potential for its exercise may have on the behavior of other
states. The opposition leader in New Zealand, for instance, commented that
1 Bart Demandt, “Hyundai China Sales Figures,” Car Sales Base u https://carsalesbase.com/
china-hyundai.
2 Albert O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1945).
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the country was reluctant to criticize China because of fear of retaliation
against New Zealand’s exports.3
Pempel notes how U.S. policies in the last two decades have “generated
regionally destabilizing uncertainty” (p. 180). Most notably, the United
States has lacked a coherent economic strategy toward the region. Matters
have not improved since the book was completed. Domestic political
constraints appear to be preventing Washington from fashioning a coherent
regional economic strategy, in particular on trade issues, and Biden’s new
pivot to Asia appears to lack an economic dimension. A military-first or
military-only policy toward the region risks forcing countries into making
the very choice between economics and security that Pempel notes they so
assiduously have sought to avoid over the last half century.
A Region of Regimes is appropriately tentative in its conclusions on
the future evolution of a region that Pempel characterizes as facing a
resurgence of geopolitics, nationalism, and heightened state-to-state
tensions. It does, however, pose the right questions that analysts will have
to answer going forward. 
3 “NZ Opposition Leader Says U.S. and UK ‘Left Door Open’ for China in Indo-Pacific,”
Guardian, October 2, 2021 u https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/02/
nz-opposition-leader-says-us-and-uk-left-door-open-for-china-in-indo-pacific.
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a region of regimes
Developmental, Ersatz, Rapacious, or Mixed?
Conceptualizing Regime Types in Asia
Thomas Pepinsky
I
n A Region of Regimes: Prosperity and Plunder in the Asia-Pacific,
T.J. Pempel, one of the world’s foremost experts on the political economy
of East Asia, sets out to explain the divergent trajectories of the major
countries of East and Southeast Asia since the end of World War II. The
general story is well-known. Japan recovered from the war’s devastation
in short order and became a global economic powerhouse by the 1980s.
Although Japan’s growth has slowed since the roaring 1980s, as an economic
dynamo it has been joined by South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, which
together are some of the most prosperous economies in the world today.
Over this same postwar time span, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have
enjoyed decades of steady growth—albeit with some interruptions—and
are today solidly middle-income countries. These development “miracles”
(to use the terminology of the World Bank in the 1990s) have been
overshadowed in the past twenty years by China, which has grown at a
remarkable pace after decades of stagnation under Mao Zedong.1 And amid
all of this prosperity, there are also cases of more modest economic growth,
such as in the Philippines, as well as sheer economic catastrophe, such as in
Myanmar and North Korea.
Less well-understood are the politics behind these developmental
miracles and debacles. Through the 1990s, much was written about the
political foundations of economic performance, and several important
works adopted a comparative perspective on the region’s performance.
Pempel himself played an important role in this research. But “big”
arguments about economic performance and its political foundations
across Asia have been somewhat displaced in the political economy
literature by within-country research that probes mechanisms instead
of macrostructures. This is the emerging hole in the literature on Asian
political economy that A Region of Regimes fills.
thomas pepinsky is the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of Government and Public Policy and
Director of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University (United States). He can be reached at
<pepinsky@cornell.edu>.
1 World Bank, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy (Washington, D.C.: World
Bank, 1993).
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Pempel’s approach is synthetic and typological, exploring the
interrelationships among political institutions, economic policy, and each
country’s international position. There is a wealth of empirical detail to cover,
and the book’s major contribution is to organize this material to identify
three distinct development models that characterize the region’s economies.
Developmental regimes (such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) are those
with strong, meritocratic, and semi-autonomous bureaucracies that have
tight links to the business community and which benefit from a supportive
international environment. Ersatz regimes (such as Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Thailand) are those in which the bureaucracy is less autonomous from
sociopolitical forces and that possess a fragmented business community but
a fundamentally open (if dependent) economy. And rapacious regimes (such
as North Korea, Myanmar, and the Philippines) have weak bureaucracies
and weak business environments. China is its own regime type, mixing
various elements of the other three.
It can be helpful to look at the empirical record of economic
development across these regimes. Figure 1 plots real GDP per capita for
FIGURE 1
GDP per Capita, 1945–2020
Ersatz
50,000
5,000
Real GDP per capita
500
50,000
China
5,000
Real GDP per capita
50,000
5,000
500
Real GDP per capita
Rapacious
500
50,000
5,000
500
Real GDP per capita
Developmental
Source: Jutta Bolt and Jan Luiten van Zanden, Maddison Project Database, 2020 u https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/
historicaldevelopment/maddison/research.
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a region of regimes
the economies that Pempel covers from 1945 (or the year first available)
until now.
Just looking at material economic performance, we can see clear
differences between the developmental and ersatz regimes. The rapacious
regimes are more of a mixed bag though—the Philippines does not look
very different from Indonesia, and Myanmar and North Korea stand out
for their stagnant growth in the early independence period (Myanmar) and
today (North Korea). The heterogeneity among the rapacious regimes is
evident if we look at tertiary education completion rates (Figure 2) or total
trade as percentage of GDP (Figure 3).
These simple quantitative summaries of these regimes’ economic
trajectories do not do justice to the rich detail that Pempel amasses in
the book. But they do help to identify what will surely attract the most
commentary from specialists in the region. The rapacious regimes
especially are a very diverse bunch (a point that Pempel himself stresses),
FIGURE 2
Tertiary Education Completion Rates, 1945–2020
20
Percentage
0
20
0
Percentage
40
Ersatz
40
Developmental
China
20
Percentage
0
20
0
Percentage
40
40
Rapacious
Source: Robert J. Barro and Jong Wha Lee, “A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World,
1950–2010,” Journal of Development Economics 104 (2013): 184–98.
Note: Data for North Korea was not available.
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FIGURE 3
Trade as a Percentage of GDP, 1945–2020
0
25 50 75 100
Percentage
25 50 75 100
Ersatz
0
Percentage
Developmental
75 100
50
25
Percentage
0
Percentage
China
0
25 50 75 100
Rapacious
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2020.
Note: Data for Taiwan and North Korea was not available.
and the choice to mix the Philippines with Myanmar and North Korea is
particularly provocative. My own view is that what sets apart Myanmar
and North Korea from the Philippines is the extent to which the former two
countries closed themselves off from the global economy for much of their
history. Experts in Chinese political economy will have more to say about
Pempel’s treatment of the Chinese case than I do, but for a “typological
purist” such as myself, mixed cases always invite further scrutiny, and I
suspect that the logic of Chinese economic growth will be debated for years
to come.
Where A Region of Regimes makes its biggest empirical contribution,
however, is in conceptualizing the changing political economy of the
region. At long last, we have a refresh of the developmental regime literature
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a region of regimes
that flourished in the 1990s.2 But reading this latter section of the book
emphasizes for me just how much has been lost in the shift from macro-level
theories to micro-level empirical testing. Especially on Southeast Asia,
we lack the type of careful, qualitative, case-based comparative political
economy research of the form that produced classic texts such as Kunio
Yoshihara’s The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in South-East Asia.3 Perhaps it
is only a leading expert such as Pempel, who has a long-term view of the
development of both the region and of the field of comparative political
economy, who can reveal such problems for us. My hope—and my bet—is
that A Region of Regimes will lead comparative Asia researchers to discover
the importance of macro-level structures, institutions, and their interactions
with politics and policy once again. 
2 For seminal works from the 1990s, see Stephan Haggard, Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics
of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Chalmers
Johnson, Japan: Who Governs? The Rise of the Developmental State (New York: W.W. Norton and
Company, 1995); and Meredith Woo-Cumings, ed., The Developmental State (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1999).
3 Kunio Yoshihara, The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in South-East Asia (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988).
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A Region of Legitimacies
David Leheny
I
n his bestselling 2012 novel Kaizoku to yobareta otoko (A Man Called
Pirate), the right-wing pundit and writer Naoki Hyakuta envisioned
mid-twentieth century Japan as a better place in large part because his
hero, a fictionalized version of the oil magnate Sazo Idemitsu, was deeply
committed to his employees, whom he viewed as family.1 This portrayal of
Japan’s vaunted lifetime employment system—itself partial and uneven, and
driven as much by employers aiming to secure wage restraint without labor
strikes as by benevolence—is nostalgic, focused on a quasi-mythical past to
make sense of a complex and often-anxious present. And although Prime
Minister Fumio Kishida’s description of his envisioned “new capitalism”
for Japan was vague during his 2021 leadership campaign, it represented
a step away from the ostensibly neoliberal turn taken in the country,
with a smaller safety net and fewer corporate guarantees to workers, and
toward a version of the putative “fairness” represented in this earlier era
of Japanese capitalism.2
This nostalgia for a time when things seemed to work is hardly limited
to Japan. It was central to Donald Trump’s effort to win the White House,
which was premised in ways both subtle and obvious on not just an earlier
moment in the United States’ economic leadership but also (and perhaps
even more) on its racial hierarchies. If the long-term meaning of U.S.
economic development in contemporary politics cannot simply be reduced
to the liberal market economy represented in the “varieties of capitalism”
literature, neither can the complex mix of public, private, political, and
social forces of postwar Japan. Park Geun-hye’s road back to South Korea’s
Blue House and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos’s political resurgence
in recent years—both premised in wildly different ways on nostalgia for
the leadership of their famous, authoritarian fathers—remind us that
contemporary Asia also has a postwar past. This is not simply a set of events
david leheny is a Professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University
(Japan). He can be reached at <dleheny@waseda.jp>.
1 Hyakuta Naoki, Kaizoku to yobareta otoko [A Man Called Pirate] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2012).
2 See, for example, “Atarashii shihonshugi jitsugen kaigi: Kishida shusho—kinkyu teigenan
torimatome shiji” [Conference for Realizing a New Capitalism: PM Kishida Issues Instructions
to Gather Urgent Proposals], NHK, October 26, 2021 u https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/
html/20211026/k10013321841000.html.
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a region of regimes
and decisions that create policy legacies but also the logics of development
and power that allow for new possibilities in constructing political myths
and affective social ties.
T.J. Pempel’s A Region of Regimes: Prosperity and Plunder in the
Asia-Pacific will likely immediately become required reading for students
of Asia’s political economy, and it does not disappoint on that front. It
demonstrates all the hallmarks of Pempel’s superb scholarship over the past
half-century. By categorizing many countries in the region as developmental
regimes, ersatz developmental regimes, or rapacious regimes, Pempel
shrewdly provides an expansive overview while inserting the conceptual
language needed to tease out patterns of economic development, political
coalition-building, and social policy negotiation.
Japan hands will recall that Pempel’s Regime Shift powerfully argued
that post-bubble Japan underwent profound shifts in political pressures
and policy choices in large part because the agreements and institutions
that had remained relatively stable during Japan’s long period of high-speed
growth were far less effective in a fully advanced economy that was now
exposed to similar fiscal and trade pressures as other nations.3 Here, his
notion of regimes—as expansive networks of self-reinforcing practices
and institutions—went beyond a simple focus on the state and instead
viewed private and social actors themselves bound up in this set of seismic
transformations. Japan’s “developmental regime” harkened to Chalmers
Johnson’s much-debated concept of the “developmental state,” which
viewed administrative guidance of private investment and action as central
to Japan’s long-term growth, a model superior to the classical liberalism of
the United States in particular.4 But in the rush to dismiss judgments about
the wisdom of industrial policy, many observers, including Johnson himself,
seemed to miss how expertly his book—with its close attention to the policy
documents and logics of mid- and late-mid-century Japan—detailed what
the sociologist Bai Gao has identified as a prevailing economic ideology.5
The “developmental state,” with its analytical focus not just on the role of
the state but also on expectations about its effectiveness, drew attention
3 T.J. Pempel, Regime Shift: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1998).
4 Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982).
5 Bai Gao, Economic Ideology and Japanese Industrial Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997).
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away from how the ideas around it were disseminated, taught, reproduced,
and woven into the fabric of Japanese life.
Pempel’s attention to regimes—which in his words are “fused
interactions of three components pivotal to a country’s political
economy…state institutions, its socioeconomic forces, and such external
forces as are integral to domestic functioning” (p. 4)—allows him to sidestep
both the restrictiveness of the state focus and the implicit prescriptiveness of
much of the literature. It also permits a dynamic reading of political change
that overcomes some of the limitations in the varieties of capitalism literature
to the normative and ethical dimensions of political economy. Institutions
are, after all, about more than complementarities or mismatches and lead to
different sets of expectations and judgments about their appropriateness, as
well as about the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
Which is to say, a country’s economy is political not only in the formal
sense that actors compete over control of the rules and procedures that
govern it but also in the broader sense that participants might agree to those
rules and procedures because they have learned to view them as legitimate
rather than just because they suit their calculations of interests. For example,
that wealth, which evades me, mostly goes to those who have earned it. Or
that those social welfare benefits, which I do not need, are just and proper
because our society must take care of the poor or unlucky. As a concept,
nationalism allows for certain variants of these judgments. For example,
that I should change my practices to meet new national regulations rather
than move my company overseas because it is my responsibility to hire my
compatriots and keep our nation’s economy strong. Or that I should buy
an apple from my own country’s orchards because I both feel some kinship
with the farmer and trust the health and safety regulations governing the
harvest. Nationalism, however, is of little help in thinking about the specific
practices and approaches that citizens are accustomed to considering as
just, proper, and appropriate for themselves and their compatriots.
Pempel does not write directly about legitimacy in A Region of Regimes,
nor is there any reason for him to do so. The book, remarkably concise
despite its extraordinary ambition and wide-ranging coverage, speaks to
the concerns that animate myriad debates about political economy, and in
particular about the Asia-Pacific. But my hope is that scholars in a variety
of scholarly communities will read it because it offers analytical guidance
and crucial lessons for many fields, including culture, identity, history,
and comparative political thought. After all, Max Weber’s own definition
of the state implies just how central the concept of legitimacy is to our
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a region of regimes
understanding of politics, even as the researchers most likely to work on
issues of ideology and culture are suspicious of the reified boundaries of
the nation—for example, “Japanese history” or “Chinese culture.” 6 We are,
of course, aware of the importance of transnational flows that shape ideas,
identities, and practices.
These transnational flows are, unfortunately, sometimes reduced to the
(typically villainous) forces that render lives vulnerable to the vicissitudes
of the market or the whims of far-away powers, such as global capitalism,
neoliberalism, and imperialism. Pempel’s simultaneously elegant and
commodious categorization of regimes, as well as his recognition of their own
susceptibility to change, offers the opportunity to think in comparative and
systematic ways about what kinds of arrangements—industrial guidance,
long-term employment, and contingent redistributive policies—might
be common across several countries in the region, hinting at the distinct
blend of forces that shape how people come to think of certain rights and
responsibilities as just and proper.
A Region of Regimes has certainly earned the wide readership it will
enjoy among scholars of the region’s political economy, and they will not
be disappointed. What would be disappointing would be if its reach were
to extend only that far. T.J. Pempel’s admirably expansive but tightly
written analysis offers myriad insights to those less focused on the concrete,
distributional outcomes of political-economic arrangements than on the
space they occupy in the imaginations of their proponents and participants.
Here, too, he makes a remarkable contribution. 
6 To wit, “the human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of
physical force within a given territory.” See Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max
Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and ed. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1946), 77–128.
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City Networks in East Asia: A New Dimension to Regional Politics
Mary Alice Haddad
T
.J. Pempel’s new book, A Region of Regimes: Prosperity and Plunder
in the Asia-Pacific, offers an expansive overview of regional politics
in East Asia that credits the region’s extraordinary economic growth
and (relative) political stability over the past 70 years to the variations of
developmental regimes. In his telling, the political parties in charge matter
less than the country’s type of political “regime” when determining the
overall success of its political economy.1 Of particular interest are the ways
that the different domestic regimes interact with one another, creating a
kind of regional system that, while not nearly as formal or institutionalized
as the European Union, nonetheless has contributed to the region’s overall
economic prosperity even in the context of considerable security tension
and uncertainty.
The main players in the story Pempel tells about the region are
national ministries and big business, when discussing domestic politics,
and national governments and regional institutions, when discussing
regional politics. Civil society actors, whether they are grassroots
neighborhood groups, nonprofit organizations, or global NGOs, are bit
players. Labor unions receive occasional mention, generally in the context
of compromises made with businesses and political parties. Subnational
governments are not included.
In this brief review essay, I would like to highlight the increasingly large
role that these excluded actors are playing in East Asia’s regional politics.
In doing so, I am not suggesting that subnational governments and NGOs
play a more important role than national ministries and big business, nor
am I arguing that they constitute an alternative version of regional regimes.
Rather, city networks and civil society collaborators crosscut the regional
dynamics identified by Pempel. Especially important from my perspective,
these networks connect cities located in countries with different regime
types, thereby allowing patterns of good governance and successful
mary alice haddad is the John E. Andrus Professor of Government at Wesleyan University
(United States). She can be reached at <mahaddad@wesleyan.edu>.
1 Pempel defines regime as “the conceptual umbrella to capture the specific configurations of
political, socioeconomic, and external forces” (p. 3). In examining ten East Asian countries
since World War II, he divides them generally into “developmental,” “ersatz developmental,” and
“rapacious” regimes, with China being a standout mixture of all three (pp. 11–12).
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a region of regimes
policymaking to spread to cities located in ersatz regimes and China.
Furthermore, individual East Asian cities and the networks to which they
belong are increasingly exerting global influence. Thus, transnational city
networks both complicate and expand the view of regional politics provided
by A Region of Regimes.
I will offer three brief examples from the areas of environment, health,
and international peace to illustrate the diverse types of city networks
shaping East Asia and the world. The first example is the KitaQ Composting
Network. In 2001 the city of Surabaya, Indonesia (with a population of
3 million people), faced a solid waste crisis when local resistance forced the
closure of one of the city’s largest landfill sites.2 To address this problem,
Surabaya worked with its Japanese sister city, Kitakyushu, to investigate its
municipal solid waste challenges and develop a solution. The Japan-based
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) coordinated with
Japanese scientists, Surabaya city officials, and Pusdakota (a local women’s
organization in Surabaya) to develop a household composting system that
was fast, clean, and efficient. They also designed a collection-and-distribution
scheme using a system of neighborhood advocates that would engage
individual households while both reducing the demand for municipally
collected solid waste and contributing to neighborhood beautification.3
In 2007, they rolled out their first pilot demonstration project,
working with 10 and then 90 households in Surabaya to distribute special
composting baskets and train community members in how to use them.
In the first five years of the program, Surabaya reduced its municipal solid
waste by 30%, created 75 new jobs for low-income residents, and increased
green space in the city by 10%.4 IGES then worked to disseminate Surabaya’s
success to other municipalities abroad, hosting a series of workshops that
brought municipal leaders from Southeast Asia together to explain how
the system worked.5 By 2011, 15 cities in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia
had formed the KitaQ Composting Network.6 By 2018, more than 30 cities,
2 Simon Gilby et al., “Planning and Implementation of Integrated Solid Waste Management
Strategies at Local Level: The Case of Surabaya City,” Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
(IGES), 2017.
3 IGES, “Waste Reduction Model of Surabaya City,” 2009 u https://kitakyushu.iges.or.jp/publication/
Takakura/Surabaya_Experience_Full.pdf.
4 D.G.J. Premakumara, “Kitakyushu City’s International Cooperation for Organic Waste
Management in Surabaya City, Indonesia and Its Replication in Asian Cities,” IGES, 2012, 5.
5 Ibid., 10.
6 Toshizo Maeda, “Networking Cities for Better Environmental Management: How Networking
Functions Can Enhance Local Initiatives,” in Greening Governance in Asia-Pacific, ed. IGES
(Hayama: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, 2012), chap. 7.
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including 11 in Latin America and 6 in Africa, had established community
composting systems based on Surabaya’s.7
My second example highlights Seoul’s leadership around Covid-19,
which shows how East Asia’s cities are not just operating at the grassroots
level to solve community issues like municipal waste but are also working
through global networks to exert influence internationally. The first case of
Covid-19 was identified on January 20, 2020, in Wuhan, China, and two
weeks later the virus was identified in Seoul. By March 2, Seoul had nearly
one hundred cases, and the city initiated a “pause” campaign that promoted
masking and social distancing. On March 22, “intensive social distancing”
began: public events were canceled, bars and restaurants were closed,
nonessential employees were told to work from home, and those feeling sick
were encouraged to self-quarantine. 8
On April 1, Seoul hosted the five-day “Cities Against Covid-19 Global
Summit,” where mayors from 42 cities met to share experiences and learn
best practices from experts. At the summit’s completion, the mayors
signed the Seoul Declaration, establishing the Cities Alliance Against
Pandemic.9 Concurrently, Seoul and other Asian cities worked through the
Partnership for Healthy Cities and Alliance for Healthy Cities networks
to share information and gain new ideas.10 Similarly, United Cities and
Local Governments created guides for local governments, with case studies
that feature primarily Asian cities, such as Daegu, South Korea; Jakarta,
Indonesia; Hubei, China; and Taipei, Taiwan, to help cities around the world
effectively cope with the pandemic.11
My last example is the international organization Mayors for Peace,
which was formed in 1982 by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to
7 Fritz Akhmad Nuzir, “Development Model of Takakura Composting Method (TCM) as an
Appropriate Environmental Technology (AET) for Urban Waste Management,” IGES, 2018, 8. Note
that by 2018 support of the intercity networks and composting system had been taken over by the
Ministry of the Environment and the Asia Low Carbon Center. Author’s email correspondence
with IGES, November 7, 2021.
8 Changwoo Shon, “The Role of Cities as the First Responder to Pandemics: Focusing on the Case
of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Response to the Covid-19,” Journal for Peace and Nuclear
Disarmament 4, sup. 1 (2021): 62–63.
9 Ibid.
10 Keiko Nakamura, “A Network of Healthy Cities in Asia and the Pacific: The Alliance for Healthy
Cities,” in Asian Perspectives and Evidence on Health Promotion and Education, ed. Takashi Muto,
Toshitaka Nakahara, and Eun Woo Nam (Tokyo: Springer, 2011), 155–61; and Keiko Nakamura
and Ai Chaobang John Ashton, “The Diversity of Healthy Cities in Asia and the Pacific,” in Healthy
Cities: The Theory, Policy, and Practice of Value-Based Urban Planning, ed. Evelyne de Leeuw and
Jean Simos (New York: Springer, 2017), 293–313.
11 See United Cities and Local Governments, “What Local Governments Need to Know in Tackling
Covid-19 Challenge” u https://uclg-aspac.org/en/what-local-governments-need-to-know-intackling-covid-19-challenge.
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a region of regimes
promote nuclear disarmament and now includes more than 8,000 cities
located in 165 countries and regions. Working at the grassroots level,
Nagasaki’s mayor, Hitoshi Motoshima, fostered a vision of international
peace that was rooted primarily in collaboration between municipal
governments and civil society rather than between national foreign
ministries and their international organizations.12 The group hosts
annual conferences for member cities and for youth, and it collaborates
internationally with other city-level networks, such as the U.S. Conference
of Mayors, which has been making supportive resolutions every year since
2006.13 For East Asian regional politics in particular, Mayors for Peace offers
an important avenue for collaboration and mutual exchange around the
fraught issues of nuclear disarmament and peace-promotion in a region
where national security tensions run high. Although their precise mode of
engagement has shifted over time, Mayors for Peace has demonstrated that
city networks have an important and legitimate role to play internationally,
even in the fields of defense, security, and international peace.14
In sum, while Pempel’s A Region of Regimes offers an important
overview of the roles that national regimes have played in promoting
regional prosperity and stability, the book leaves out important actors in
the story. To be fair, nearly all scholars of international political economy
tend to ignore the role that cities, NGOs, and transnational networks have
on regional and global politics. However, since cities now contain most of
the world’s population, generate most of its wealth, and are increasingly
working together across national boundaries, scholars in the fields of
international relations and international political economy would do well to
begin to include these actors in their explanations. 
12 Hirokazu Miyazaki, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Models of City Diplomacy,” Sustainability Science
16 (2021): 1215–28.
13 Mayors for Peace, “Resolutions of Support,” 2021 u http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/
vision/resolutions.html.
14 Miyazaki, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Models of City Diplomacy.”
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Author’s Response:
The Asia-Pacific Kaleidoscope Continues to Shift
T.J. Pempel
I
want to express my sincere thanks to Asia Policy for providing the venue
for this collective assessment of A Region of Regimes: Prosperity and
Plunder in the Asia-Pacific. I am especially indebted to the five reviewers for
their thoughtful reflections on the book.
Nothing is more rewarding to an author who has finished a major
book project than to have respected colleagues engage in a thoughtful and
appreciative critique of its core arguments. Beyond the usual highlighting of
the book’s merits and flaws, each reviewer draws attention to different facets
of its key contentions. Most go on to suggest valuable extensions of its logic,
plus ways in which it points to new research targets and future real-world
problems. Although it is tempting to underscore the reviewers’ favorable
comments, I would prefer to use this limited space to respond to several of
the challenges they raise, the extensions they suggest, and the implications
for evolving regional uncertainties.
Let me begin by addressing two key criticisms. First, though gentle
in his wording and appreciative of the “big” picture the book attempts,
Thomas Pepinsky questions my provocative grouping of the Philippines
with Myanmar and North Korea as rapacious regimes. His data on GDP
per capita, tertiary education, and trade certainly suggest more economic
differences than similarities among the three regimes. I would raise
two counterpoints. First, I focused almost exclusively on the Marcos era
(1965–86), when a host of similarities such as official corruption, widespread
repression, and anti-industrialization radiated closer resonance. Second,
external forces in all three regimes provided powerful underpinnings for
rapacious repression while mitigating against industrial development.
In North Korea and Myanmar, foreign sanctions, self-chosen isolation,
and extensive reliance on foreign profiteering from raw materials and
agricultural riches were key elements keeping narrow and repressive elites
in power while simultaneously obstructing industrialization. Likewise,
the United States was a fulsome supporter of the Marcos dictatorship;
moreover, in an ironic twist, U.S. support for land reform and industrial
upgrades that had been so critical to industrial development within Japan,
t.j. pempel is the Jack M. Forcey Professor of Political Science at the University of California–
Berkeley (United States). He can be reached at <pempel@berkeley.edu>.
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book review roundtable
•
a region of regimes
South Korea, and Taiwan gained no traction in the Philippines. Rather, the
U.S. government defended entrenched U.S.-run sugar magnates and landed
elites in the country, both powerful veto players against land reform and
serious industrial improvement.
Pepinsky’s data also points to something not discussed in his review but
that the book treated as pivotal in its distinction between the developmental
and the ersatz developmental regimes—tertiary education. It is high and
rises continually in the developmental regimes, while it lags demonstrably
in the ersatz developmental regimes, creating a long-term obstacle against
those regimes capturing a substantial portion of GDP gains.
Mary Alice Haddad raises a second criticism worthy of discussion.
Although she acknowledges that different mixes of regimes play a powerful
role in the dynamics and shaping of the regional order, she rightly
notes that my treatment of the Asian region devotes little attention to
subnational linkages. As a corrective, she foregrounds the ways in which
micro-level multilateral projects often span different regime types and
serve as powerful spurs to cross-border cooperation and mutual learning.
As such, they add vibrant threads to the regional tapestry. While I accept
her point, the argument in the book’s concluding chapter analyzes how
shifting balances and interactions among the national regimes examined
in earlier chapters were critical drivers of the most visible alterations in
the regional order. Though one can, of course, debate the significance of
state-level vs. local-level webs of cooperation, as Gilbert Rozman found to
his disappointment in his 2004 study Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism,
nationalism, competition for power, and bilateral national government
distrust in many instances upended even the most diligent efforts at
cross-border cooperation by city mayors or NGOs.1
Several reviews suggest tantalizing ways to extend the logic of the book.
Pepinsky sees it as calling for more macro-structural studies of political
economy. I share his predisposition. Such macro-structural analyses hold
the greatest potential not only to expand our theoretical understanding
of East Asia but also to exert the greatest magnetic attraction on analysts
of developed democracies and developing economies to expand their
universe of comparison by addressing puzzling and challenging aspects of
East Asia. That said, I must also acknowledge that the structural synthesis
in A Region of Regimes would have been unthinkable without extensive
1 Gilbert Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism: Bilateral Distrust in the Shadow of
Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
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reliance on the rich cornucopia of micro-level country and intra-national
works already in existence.
David Leheny suggests another extension, addressing what is only an
implicit message in the book—namely, the ways in which long-enduring
regimes and their sustained policy paradigms sow, fertilize, and feed on
particular ideas about what constitutes logical, normal, and appropriate
behaviors and expectations. Such ideas, he rightly notes, are systematically
“disseminated, taught, reproduced, and woven into the fabric” of both elite
and public convictions while constructing legitimating political myths
and affective social ties. If the book stimulates future research on the links
between sustained power and embedded convictions, particularly outside
the realm of political economy, I would of course be pleased.
Finally, Saori Katada and John Ravenhill both explore the book’s
implications for evolving regional relations. Katada builds on a point made
in the book—that as firms headquartered in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan
relocate many of their operations to overseas locations, they become less
subject to strict rules and officialdom at home. Yet she goes on to suggest that
because such firms remain powerful contributors to national wealth, these
home governments retain powerful incentives to continue their alignment
with these now more globalized firms. As such, national officials in the three
former developmental regimes have formidable motivations to abandon the
embedded mercantilism once critical to their successes and to collaborate
in advancing a regional order that is rules-based and biased toward freer
trade and fluid investment. This was, of course, an underlying motivation
for Japan’s embrace of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, South Korea’s driving
of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, and bilateral free trade agreements
by each with the European Union. It is congruent too with efforts by Japan,
South Korea, and Taiwan to expand their networks of free trade agreements
and to deploy portions of their foreign reserves in the service of regional
infrastructure projects in Asia’s less-developed economies.
Such efforts run headlong into actions by the Chinese Communist
Party leadership to weaponize China’s growing wealth as a diplomatic
cudgel while employing military assertiveness to support the country’s
irredentist territorial claims. As a result, political leaders in numerous
East Asian countries now perceive their national security interests and
national economic interests to be at odds. Pulled toward China by its
economic vigor, they are at the same time wary of the military challenges
China presents. Ominously, as Ravenhill points out, “The actual exercise
of power may be less significant…than the chilling effect that the potential
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book review roundtable
•
a region of regimes
for its exercise may have on the behavior of other states.” The only viable
counterweight to the unchallenged success of those chilling effects is a
regionally well-anchored and economically muscular United States.
The United States played this critical role in the past, as Ravenhill
and I agree. Yet, Ravenhill is more optimistic about the potential
for full-bodied U.S. economic engagement than I am. The Trump
administration, as we both agree, shredded decades of well-established
U.S. foreign economic policies, including those toward the Asia-Pacific.
Many observers around the world had high expectations that the Biden
administration could reverse the Trump-era damage and return to
some version of the previous status quo; however, it is increasingly clear
that the Trump years were far more than a deviant parenthesis easily
corrected. They were the logical culmination of two decades of Republican
Party shifts away from expertise, science, and agreed-upon realities
and instead toward “alternative facts,” cultural wedge issues, populism,
protectionism, and xenophobia. 2 A formidable majority of top national
and local officials in the Republican Party now fully embrace Trump’s
“Make America Great Again” message and his baseless claims that the
2020 election was fraudulent, thus rejecting democratic procedures and
the GOP’s once-proud internationalist orientation that were so central
to earlier U.S. economic multilateral muscularity in the Asia-Pacific.
The deep chasm between Washington’s two political parties has made
bipartisanship virtually inconceivable. Any policy achieved by a particular
administration is now treated as an existential “loss” by the other party,
and current political engagements are all about winning and control,
rather than governing and policy.
One of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans are clasping
hands is in their joint scramble to outdo one another by being “tough
on China.” In that context, it should not be surprising that the Biden
administration, instead of scrapping the multiple tariffs imposed
during the Trump administration, opted to retain them. As well, the
Biden administration is devoting the bulk of its Asia-Pacific efforts to
single-mindedly expanding the military component of U.S. foreign
policy rather than developing a more balanced economic and security
diplomatic toolbox.
2 Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American
Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
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The United States and East Asia would both benefit greatly from
a robust U.S. economy anchored around a cleaner, more sophisticated
economic profile that is focused on cutting-edge technologies such as
robotics, artificial intelligence, satellites, 5G, and biotechnology. China’s
leaders are in full pursuit of dominance in such sectors. Sustained U.S.
efforts in that direction would permit Washington to advance a strong
foreign economic policy that offers countries in East Asia a powerful
option by which to resolve the current schizophrenic pulls of national
economic and national security interests. Such efforts would dovetail
U.S. policies with the rules-based, freer trade, and fluid investment order
advanced by many Asian middle powers. Yet partisan U.S. politics makes
such an outcome highly unlikely.
A Region of Regimes sought to provide insights into multiple facets of
the political economy of the Asia-Pacific. Over time, readers will determine
the extent to which it succeeded. In the interim, I am gratified that these
five reviewers have mobilized their deep knowledge of diverse aspects of the
region to share their reactions to its analysis. Going forward, I am hopeful
that others will find it equally worthy of engaging and that East Asia’s
broadly successful past will prove to be prelude to an even more peaceful
and prosperous future. 
[ 198 ]
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roundtables
Small-State Responses to Covid-19
John D. Ciorciari, Gregory V. Raymond, Tasnia Alam, Paul Schuler,
Calvin Cheng, Azad Singh Bali and Björn Dressel,
Benjamin Day, Rochelle Bailey and Gemma Malungahu
january 2022
articles and essays
The Strategic Implications of India’s Illiberalism
Daniel Markey
Russia’s Food Exports to China
Stephen K. Wegren
The Future of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance
Luke Lischin
China’s Grand Strategy
Oriana Skylar Mastro
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book review roundtable
T.J. Pempel’s A Region of Regimes