The Diplomat | Author
David Hutt
David Hutt has been Southeast Asia columnist at The Diplomat since 2016, writing weekly about Southeast Asian politics.
David Hutt has been Southeast Asia columnist at The Diplomat since 2016, writing weekly about Southeast Asian politics. He was formerly based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He also writes for Foreign Policy, Asia Times, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, and other international publications. He was previously a reporter at Southeast Asia Globe magazine and the editor of Focus Asean magazine. He was president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia between 2018 and 2019, and is a visiting fellow at Future Forum, a Phnom Penh-based think tank. He can be followed on Twitter @davidhuttjourno
July 12, 2021
The Regional Absence in Mainland Southeast Asia’s COVID-19 Strategy
By David Hutt
Despite their local vaccination efforts, the nations of the region won't be safe until the entire region achieves herd immunity.
July 06, 2021
Do Cambodia’s Human Rights Groups Ignore Ethnic Vietnamese?
By David Hutt
After decades of depredations, both real and imagined, Vietnam remains the main bogeyman of Cambodian nationalism.
June 28, 2021
Will Vaccination Be Hun Sen’s Legacy?
By David Hutt
Cambodia's successful COVID-19 vaccine rollout has given the country's leader a golden chance to bow out of politics. Will he take it?
June 11, 2021
In Cambodia, the End of COVID-19 Will Heighten the Economic Contradictions
By David Hutt
Corruption and inequality are set to rise as the country emerges from the pandemic.
April 22, 2021
Cambodia COVID-19 Drive Rests on Elite Charity Networks
By David Hutt
The Cambodian government is presenting COVID-19 relief packages as a gift from the wealthy and well-connected.
April 16, 2021
Cambodia Risks Being Left Behind by Workplace Automation
By David Hutt
The Cambodian government has done little to prepare its population for an epochal economic shift.
April 02, 2021
Should UN Intervention in Myanmar Be Off the Table?
By David Hutt
The situation in Myanmar is worsening and the international community, although with good intentions, is standing, slack-jawed, watching events pass it by.
March 26, 2021
Laos’ Austerity Fantasies Reveal the Communist Party’s Weaknesses
By David Hutt
Ballooning external debt and growing fiscal deficits augur political storm clouds for the ruling LPRP.
March 19, 2021
Domestic Violence Scandal Highlights Cambodian Government’s Hypocrisy
By David Hutt
A treatment of the self-claimed businessman Duong Chhay reveals once again that in Hun Sen's Cambodia, there is one set of rules for the powerful and another for everyone else.
March 01, 2021
The World Faces a Choice Between Bad and Worse in Myanmar
By David Hutt
Jakarta's call for dialogue would legitimize the Myanmar junta, but is the most realistic option for resolving the country's crisis.
February 23, 2021
Why Communist Anti-Corruption Campaigns Never Work
By David Hutt
Ongoing anti-graft campaigns in Vietnam and Laos focus on officials' moral conduct without addressing the political structures that incentivize corruption.
February 18, 2021
Cambodia’s Ball-and-Chain of Corruption and Inequality
By David Hutt
COVID-19 offered the Cambodian government an opportunity to curb the worst excesses of corruption. Instead, things went in the other direction.
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