SECURITY

What Happened: In mid-May, Indian media reported that the Assam Rifles had killed “10 armed extremists” in a clash in Manipur’s Chandel district, near the India-Myanmar border. Curiously, no further details were forthcoming from the Assam Rifles. A press release would be the norm for an operation with so many casualties. Local militant groups in Manipur denied speculation of any affiliation with the deceased. Then came the bombshell: three different resistance groups in Myanmar told The Diplomat’s Rajeev Bhattacharyya, who has reported extensively from Myanmar, that those killed were members of the Public Protection Team (PPT), a Pa Ka Pha or Local Defense Force (LDF) in Myanmar’s Tamu. According to reports from Myanmar, “The Assam Rifles squad visited the camp of the Pa Ka Pha inside Myanmar on May 12. Then, two days later, 10 members were apprehended, taken to Manipur’s Chandel and detained for the whole day.” There, the men were reportedly tortured and executed.

Our Focus: The reported murders of militants fighting against Myanmar’s junta by Indian security forces have sparked both outcry and alarm among Myanmar’s resistance forces, headed by the National Unity Government. “India wants to be seen to be neutral in the ongoing war in Myanmar,” Bhattacharyya notes, and the higher-ups in India’s security forces are reportedly “unhappy” over the incident, which jeopardizes India’s standing with the NUG. “Sources in the Indian government said that an inquiry into the incident in Chandel has been ordered by the Army’s 3 Corps headquarters based in Dimapur,” Bhattacaryya reports.

What Comes Next: For now, the resistance groups in Myanmar are wondering about their continued relationship with India – upon whom many such groups are dependent for survival, given their only sources of trade and supply come from across the Indian border. “We mean no harm to India, Manipur, and its government,” one senior leader of a resistance group told The Diplomat. “...But under such circumstances, how can we trust the Indian government?”

INTERVIEW

Selina Ho, the co-director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, on the intersection between Chinese government policy and the spread of organized crime: “The scale of fraud, scams, human and drug trafficking, and money laundering committed by these criminal elements rose to an entirely new level when China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. The BRI provided cover for these criminal groups, which tried to legitimize their activities by placing them under the BRI banner.”

Northeast Asia

On May 17, Taiwan shut down its last operating nuclear power plant, fulfilling a long-standing pledge by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to end the use of nuclear energy. Nuclear power has long been a contentious issue in Taiwan, with the DPP emphasizing safety concerns post-Fukushima as well as the issue of where to store spent nuclear fuel. Critics of the phase-out, however, say that nuclear power is the only way to guarantee Taiwan’s energy security given the looming threat of a blockade from China. They also point to a 2018 referendum in which Taiwan’s public voted against the nuclear phase-out. The contentious referendum was itself a messy microcosm of the polarized nature of the nuclear debate.

South Asia

From May 16 to 18, Nepal hosted Sagarmatha Sambaad, also known as the “Everest Dialogue,” to shine a spotlight on how climate change is impacting mountain environments in the Himalayas and beyond. It’s part of Nepal’s growing effort to carve out a leadership role for itself in climate diplomacy, and particularly to convince the world’s top emitters – including Nepal’s neighbors, China and India – to take more concrete action on climate change. As the Nepali foreign minister warned ahead of the summit, “Nepal lies in the third pole, so if the snow melts here, everyone will suffer.”

Southeast Asia

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week traveled to Indonesia for a meeting with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. Following the talks, Albanese described Jakarta as an “indispensable partner,” while Prabowo said that he was “determined to maintain the best relationship with our neighbor.” Albanese also expressed support for Indonesia’s membership in the CPTPP trade pact, and the two leaders discussed ways to expand economic and security relations, building on recent free trade and defense agreements. Albanese, who was sworn into office earlier this month after his Australian Labor Party won a second term in office, said that his visit showed the priority his government places on strengthening its relations with Indonesia. (The Australian leader also made Jakarta his first destination after his initial election in 2022.) Despite the warm neighborly talk, bilateral relations have long fallen short of the rhetoric, and the two nations follow divergent strategic visions that will likely continue to be a source of misunderstandings.

Central Asia

Last week, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (PDPU), which holds 20 seats in the country’s 150-seat Legislative Chamber, announced it would adopt an opposition position in the parliament. It's not quite what it sounds like. The PDPU has previously deemed itself “opposition” within the parliament, a step most analysts view as performative at best. None of the country’s five officially registered political parties has ever offered a genuine challenge to the government, necessitating the theatrical performance of opposition in order to maintain the illusion of pluralism within Uzbekistan’s political arena.

Source: Global Flourishing Study

A new global report on human “flourishing” – “living in a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are going well” – found that the only two Southeast Asian countries included in the study were both ranked in the top three.

SECURITY

Guǐ dǎo: Mandarin for “ghost island,” a slang term for Taiwan that refers to the limited opportunities for young people and the decline in birthrates.