Note to Cambodia: big lessons from small places

Khmer Circle: "Green" is not a concept graspable to these former guerrillas and Neanderthals now running the country who once relied on the forests as sanctuaries and shelters. We had tried to warn them of the dire environmental impact and consequences of commercial deforestation since the early 1990s when there was still substantial green space left despite rampant logging activities sponsored by the ruling elite at the time...

Asian countries, including Cambodia, could do worse than to look to their smaller neighbours, for example by adopting the environmental policies of Bhutan (left), the political transparency of East Timor (centre) and the corruption-free trade dealings of Singapore. AFP

Mon, 9 October 2017

Curtis S. Chin

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Green, democratic and corruption-free are not words one might typically associate with Cambodia, nor with China – the nation’s leading partner and some might say, patron. Yet, at a recent Milken Institute Asia Summit that looked back 20 years to 1997 and ahead 20 more to 2037, I found hope that amid the diversity of Asia, there remain numerous other examples for a way forward for all of Asia, including Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The story of Asia today remains very much one driven by its largest nations and economies. An increasingly assertive China, a slow-growing Japan, a rising India and a still emerging Indonesia dominate the headlines – along with mounting tensions from the Korean Peninsula. All of “Asia rising”, however, can take a lesson from some of the region’s smallest countries and places.

My hope for Asia 2037 is that three small nations – Bhutan, East Timor and Singapore – can inspire and show the way to a greener, more representative, and more transparent Asia.

“Going Green” is a phrase that has been thrown around for years by both countries and companies. But despite the rhetoric, Asia is increasingly polluted, with man-made forest fires and smog-enveloped cities an annual occurrence. At least one Asia-Pacific nation, however, both “talks the talk” and “walks the walk”.

The small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan – 750,000 people in a nation of only 17,500 square kilometres – offers an example that its much larger neighbours (China to the north and India to the south) can learn from.

Bhutan’s leaders have put conservation at the heart of their environmental agenda, pledging to keep the country carbon neutral and writing into their constitution the requirement that 60 percent of the nation must remain forested. Other initiatives include bans on plastic bags, restrictions on private vehicles in the capital Thimpu, and a commitment to become the world’s first 100 percent organic-farming nation.

All this is in line with the philosophy of “Gross National Happiness” advocated by the fourth king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. Known simply as GNH, this approach to development goes beyond traditional economic measures such as gross national product, which only captures the economic value of goods and services produced. In addition to environmental conservation, central GNH tenets advanced by a Gross National Happiness Commission include sustainable and equitable socio-economic development, preservation and promotion of culture; and good governance.

Another of Asia’s smallest countries, East Timor (1.2 million people and 14,875 square kilometres), offers an example of how people can move forward postconflict and take control of their own destinies when given the chance.

I returned recently to this former Portuguese colony located on the eastern half of an island shared with Indonesia, just north of Australia. This trip, my third to East Timor, was a part of an international election observation mission from the Washington-based International Republican Institute.

The East Timor government had invited observers to monitor the first parliamentary elections administered without UN oversight since the country regained independence in 2002 from Indonesia.

The results were a peaceful and powerful example to many nations, big and small, still struggling to put the power of the vote in the hands of their citizens.

While significant economic challenges continue, the people of this nascent Asian nation deserve praise as they progress from decades of conflict and centuries of colonialism. East Timor was ranked first in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2016 for Southeast Asia and fifth in Asia overall, behind the well-established democracies of Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan.

The densely populated city-state of Singapore, 5.6 million people in an area of only 719 square kilometres, is perhaps the leading example in Asia of a small nation that thinks big – and succeeds big. With one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, Singapore showcases the economic benefits of transparency and the rule of law. Its neighbours would do well to adopt this nation’s embrace of free markets and free trade in their own search for drivers of growth and foreign direct investment.

Understandably, the push-back was significant when Kishore Mahububani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, recently argued, “Small states must always behave like small states,” in remarks perceived to be a criticism of Singapore’s recent foreign policy.

Singapore did not succeed by thinking small, nor has it reached global prosperity by conforming to “small-country guidelines”. Having developed from a fishing village, Singapore is now the leading finance and trade hub in Southeast Asia, and a role model for rule of law.

This prosperous “Lion City” is now ranked the second-easiest place in the world after New Zealand to do business in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2017 report, and the seventh-least corrupt economy in the world according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2016.

Being ambitious is not a bad thing. Small in geography need not mean “small-country mentality and policies”.

Over the past 20 years, I have seen first-hand the accomplishments and continuing challenges of Bhutan, Singapore and East Timor. Still, as small fish in the big pond that is Asia, these three nations have futures that are by no means certain.

In the two decades ahead, Asia will continue to transform. According to the United Nations’ estimates, India will have traded places with China by 2024 to become the world’s most populous nation, en route to 1.66 billion people by 2050.

Wealth and inequality will likely grow, as will the risk of military conflict amidst competing demands for energy, water and other resources. Paradoxically, a more populous Asia dominated by large nations might also prove “smaller” as trade and technology further link the region.

All share a vision for an Asia-Pacific that is both prosperous and at peace in 2037. Much, however, will depend on the world’s biggest powers and the region’s largest nations.

Here’s a prediction: Large countries will seek in the years ahead to apply economic or military pressure to shape their smaller neighbours’ behaviours and policies – no different than today.

Asia and the Pacific, however, will be better off if all nations adopt some modern-day, “small state ideas” offered up by Bhutan, East Timor and Singapore – namely the embrace of a greener, more representative, and more transparent future for all their citizens. That ideally will ring true in all of Indochina, including Cambodia, one day too.

Curtis S Chin, a former US ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC. Follow him on Twitter at @CurtisSChin.