Books in the Trends in Southeast Asia series

The United States launched a new Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy in late 2017 after reluctantly concluding that its patient effort to engage and socialize China to the rules-based order since 1972 had failed.

The emergence of the Islamic State movement in Indonesia in 2014 re-energized violent extremism in Indonesia. As a result of effective counterterrorism policing, however, IS networks have been decimated and the structure of jihadism in Indonesia has shifted from organisations to autonomous networks and cells.

More attention needs to be paid to mothers as potential nurturers of extremist interpretations of Islam. Their actions in active support of non-violent extremism and intolerant exclusivity could have far-reaching effects given their unrivalled influence in the home.

Vietnam-US relations have kept strengthening since bilateral normalization in 1995, including in the defence and strategic domains. The shared perception of the China threat, especially in the South China Sea, has provided the strongest momentum towards bilateral strategic rapprochement in recent years.

The Malaysian National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) was set up in 1997. Since then, it has accumulated a massive debt amounting to RM40 billion in principal plus RM13 billion in interest. All these are guaranteed by the Malaysian government. It is now the biggest provider of student loans in the country and continues to play a very important role in catalysing socio-economic mobility, especially among the ethnic Malays which is the majority community in the country. However, the business model employed by PTPTN is irrational and unsustainable. It borrows from the financial market at, on average, 4 to 5 per cent, and lends to students at 1 per cent. No serious effort has been made to revamp this model, and all public discussions around it have been driven by political populism. The biggest challenge is the low repayment rate. This problem has been ignored because Malaysian politicians of all colours have wanted to maintain popularity. Collecting debt is certainly not popular. PTPTN, under a new leadership since mid-2018, gathered and developed ideas on how to reform their organization. These ideas have been presented to various levels of government, including to the Cabinet in early 2020. PTPTN must be reformed to avoid its debt from inflating further. Whether the Malaysian government has the much-needed political will to push through the reforms is a question yet to be answered.

Social media platforms and Southeast Asia's ""app industry"" need clearer and enforced regulation on their use of data and the extent to which they can sell data to advertisers. These advertisers include, but are not limited to, politicians and political parties.

There is greater recognition in Washington of the importance of Southeast Asia. Located in the middle of Indo-Pacific, it will be a contested zone between China and the US and its allies. The US will step up its public diplomacy to better promote its own narrative in Southeast Asia.

China's policy towards its diaspora is primarily governed by its national interests and foreign policy imperatives. In general, since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government has treated the diaspora as an asset, rather than a liability.

American Indo-Pacific policy will be driven by its China policy, regardless of whether there is a second-term Donald Trump administration or a first-term Joe Biden administration. This book reflects on this issue.

While facing international pressures relating to Rakhine State, and under tense civil-military relations, political parties are preparing for the 2020 Myanmar general elections. This volume provides an analysis of the current political state in the country in the run-up to these elections.

There are at least 80-100 business associations in Malaysia today, representing over 600,000 firms. In February to April 2020, a range of chamber leaders and officers were interviewed to record their experiences of the recent Pakatan Harapan administration, and any future lessons for business associations in post GE-14 Malaysia.

Several initiatives under myriad governments have been launched to reduce Malaysia's climate change impacts; among those has been the emphasis on renewable energy. This book explores this issue.

Case studies of Indonesia, Myanmar, Lao PDR and Malaysia show that the success of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in bringing about sustainable growth and opportunities depends on the Chinese government and financiers, as well as the agencies and governments involved when BRI investments take place.

Recent Chinese investments and migrants have reinforced Cambodia's established politico-economic order, which is characterized by ethnic Chinese economic dominance as well as a divide between the business-state elite and the general population.

Amidst successive episodes of interreligious violence in Myanmar between 2012 and 2014, interfaith dialogue emerged as a crucial conflict resolution and prevention mechanism. The 2011-16 Union Solidarity and Development Party administration often indirectly promoted the use of interfaith dialogue to defuse interreligious tensions.

Legal pluralism in Myanmar is a reality that is not sufficiently recognised. A lack of recognition of and clear mandates for the informal justice providers, along with the absence of coordination between these providers and the judiciary, present critical challenges to local dispute resolution and informal legal systems.

Malaysia established the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) to facilitate the development of e-commerce and the country's small and medium enterprises' (SMEs') exports. The data revealed thus far indicates an increasing number of SMEs coming on board the DFTZ e-commerce platforms.

China's rise exerts a powerful pull on ASEAN economies and constitutes an impetus for a resinicization of Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. With increasing trade and investment between China and ASEAN countries, the ethnic Chinese economic elites have managed to serve as ""connectors and bridges"" between the two sides, and benefited in the process from joint ventures and business investments.

Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) was officially launched on 14 January 2017. Upon establishment, the party immediately announced that they are aiming to win the southern state of Johor in the next general election. PPBM has moved quickly to establish themselves in all parliamentary and state constituencies in Johor, and has been successful in attracting support from those under 35.