The mainland of Southeast Asia, historically known as Indochina, is home to a wide range of ethnicities that extend across a vast territory. Spread interchangeably are forests, mountains, valleys, rivers, deltas and coastlines. With such a divergent environment, the nations of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam have distinctly different identities, beliefs and geopolitical needs.
I'm your host Shirvan and welcome to Caspian Report. Stretching from the Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayan foothills give Indochina a geography that is distinct from the rest of continental Asia. This terrain hosts such a dense tropical vegetation that it's practically inhospitable for humans.
Moreover, due to the impenetrable landscape, cartographers cannot exactly draw a straight line through the jungle and call it a border. As a result, The delineation of the borders between the regional nations is somewhat ambiguous and therefore contested. The central governments of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are all concentrated on patchworks of arable land where rivers, deltas and valleys traverse. However, the pockets of human settlements in the borderlands are isolated from their respective heartlands.
More importantly, the borderlands are populated by ethnic minorities that do not necessarily abide by the rules of the central governments. These large, ungoverned swaths of land are predisposed to illegal activities and separatist attitudes. Such are the complications of Indochina.
Historically, the lack of authority over the borderlands allowed foreign powers to exploit these elements at the expense of the feudal rulers. Ultimately, this is what allowed the Europeans to colonize the area and it's also what enabled the Japanese and allied forces to advance into the region during World War II. As technology improved, the Americans and the Soviets turned the separatist militias into well-armed proxies, which they used against one another. This history of foreign exploitation has left a deep, lasting impression on the local people. Yet, despite their common legacy, the regional nations also remain distrustful of each other as they still cope with artificial borders, and unsettled civil conflicts.
So the lack of complete authority aggravates frictions from within and without. This regional division also hampers the economic potential of the area. According to the Asian Development Bank, the economies in mainland Southeast Asia need to allocate at least 5.7% of their GDPs towards integrated infrastructure projects through 2030 to unlock their trade potential.
Yet, And with the situation on the ground, even if the funds were available, there is little political will for regional integration. This also explains why political and economic integration through the association of Southeast Asian nations has been such an incremental process. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar are all preoccupied with the consolidation of power and remained reluctant to forge better relations with each other.
Perhaps the best evidence of the regional division can be witnessed by the individual agreements with China. For instance, the upstream control of the Mekong River, which runs from the Tibetan Plateau in China to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, grants the government in Beijing significant leverage over the economies of the downstream nations. Although the Mekong River is difficult to navigate, it remains an important supply line for small vessels between West China and Southeast Asia.
The Chinese trade activity is particularly noticeable in Laos and Cambodia. Despite their shared geopolitical vulnerability, the downstream nations have negotiated bilateral agreements with China over the management of the Mekong's resources. These individual talks give Beijing the ability to negotiate from a position of strength.
because the Chinese can always play off the downstream countries against each other and extract maximum concessions. Overall, the unyielding geography of mainland Southeast Asia that is invested with conflict and exploited by foreign powers means that long-lasting stability and peace is an elusive concept. Yet some nations benefit from this arrangement more than others. For instance, the Kingdom of Thailand, which sits at the nexus of mainland Southeast Asia, has the potential to emerge as a regional power.
Its heartland, located around the rich lowlands of the Chao Phraya River basin, enabled the Thai rulers to form a strong unified ethnic and economic base. Its largest city, Bangkok, is one of the most centralized capitals in the region. This seat of power is protected by mountains to the north and the Korat Plateau to the northeast, while the Thanassariam Hills deflect the neighboring Myanmar from encroachment. Thailand's primary geographic vulnerability comes from Cambodia to the east, but the two states have an understanding that involves Vietnam.
In the past, Thailand's vast agricultural output and its position in between the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea was the focus of contention among European powers. Regardless, the country was never fully colonized, neither by the Europeans nor by the regional kingdoms on its flanks. Thailand's ability to deflect international and regional powers is a point of enormous national pride to this day. Since the 19th century, the Thai rulers have maintained a loose alliance with the Americans.
This arrangement was briefly disrupted during World War II, when Thailand declared war on the United States and the British Empire at the behest of the Japanese invasion. However, the Thai government rotated back to the West soon after the conflict. In fact, during the Cold War, Thailand served as a geopolitical counterweight to the spread of communism elsewhere in the area.
Today, Bangkok maintains an alliance with Washington, while its economy, which is mostly dominated by the industrial and manufacturing sectors, maintains deep ties with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. What's more is that since Thailand shares no border with China, the government in Bangkok is less fearful of Beijing and embraces Chinese investments as a result. This complex web of security and financial partners illustrates that Thai policymakers seek to reduce their dependency on a single ally and prefer to keep their options open.
Located on the easternmost edge of Indochina is Vietnam. Foreign policy-wise, it is one of the toughest countries imaginable. Having decisively won an armed conflict against the Chinese, the French and the Americans, the Vietnamese geopolitical mindset is shaped by its confidence and determination to maintain their painstakingly won independence.
As a result, Vietnam has invested fiercely in its armed forces, which, remarkably, stands its ground against the Chinese. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a coastline that extends for more than 3,200 kilometers and is adjacent to the Gulf of Tonkin, the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. However, Vietnam's narrow and long territory essentially splits its heartland in two. To the north lies the capital Hanoi, which sits by the Red River, while the city of Saigon sits in the south by the Mekong River Basin. These two heartlands are at a distance of about 2,500 kilometers and find themselves separated by a thin rugged patch of land in the center, which at its narrowest crossing is only 50 kilometers wide.
This is Vietnam's Achilles heel. Aggravating Vietnam's predicament is the fact that Hanoi and Saigon are divided along cultural, social and political fault lines. This division leaves the country vulnerable to foreign exploitation. Historically, the Vietnamese dealt with their dilemma by expanding along the Mekong River into neighbouring Laos and Cambodia to create some buffer space. Today, the notion to expand the buffer zone at the expense of its western neighbours remains a geopolitical objective for policymakers in Hanoi.
However, in recent years, Beijing's maritime claims in the South China Sea has raised concerns in the Vietnamese capital. The closer China encroaches on Vietnamese waters, the less secure the link between Hanoi and Saigon becomes. Thus far, Vietnam's military capabilities have discouraged the Chinese from taking forceful measures.
But policymakers in Hanoi are coming to the realization that they need allies to contain the geopolitical advances of Beijing. And the Vietnamese are looking to their Russian, Indian, Japanese and even American counterparts for aid. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Cambodia is doing the opposite. As a small nation between Vietnam and Thailand, Cambodia has a complex relationship with its neighbors due to its violent past. A century of non-ending conflict which saw European colonization, an American bombing campaign and the rise of the Khmer Rouge nearly annihilated Cambodia from existence.
Ironically, the country was rest... by its nemesis Vietnam when they invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge from power. Even now after decades of somewhat stability, Cambodia is still recovering from its past. However, the reconstruction process has been slow because the country lacks any form of wealth.
In fact, Cambodia is recklessly dependent on foreign aid and its economy mostly revolves around low-cost manufacturing. With a GDP per capita that is comparable to Landlocked Zambia in South Central Africa, Cambodia is the poorest nation in the region. Due to this desperation Cambodia completely embraces China. At least 26% of its total trade goes by China and in the past decade large sums of Chinese Investments have channeled into the capital Phnom Penh as well as into the pockets of top officials In exchange, Cambodia rejects the West and prevents the ASEAN member states from forming a collective position on China. Considering the poor position of Cambodia, its policymakers believe they have no choice but to continue their Patreon client relationship with China.
To the north sits Laos. It's the only landlocked state in Southeast Asia and most of its landscape consists of thick forests and rugged mountains. As a result, the country has very few areas that can sustain large population centers.
This explains why Laos has a population of only 6.7 million people, which is remarkably small when compared to its neighbors. What's more is that the central government has no real control over the countryside. It also lacks the funds to invest in infrastructure to unify the nation. This insecurity, in combination with the rugged terrain, has enabled separatist factions from staking claims on the remote outskirts of the country.
In addition, Laos finds itself wedged between three larger neighbours and fears becoming a battleground for other powers. During the proxy conflicts of the Cold War, the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than on Japan and Germany during World War II. Understandably, policymakers and the capital Vientiane are not keen on cooperation with the West.
Instead, Laos has turned to China. Much like Cambodia, trade along the Mekong River dominates the economic life in Laos. Nearly 27% of its total trade is conducted with China, which is the highest percentage in all of Southeast Asia. Additionally, Beijing is constructing a high-speed railway across Laos, which includes 75 tunnels and 167 bridges.
The government in Vientiane claims to follow a policy of neutrality, yet in practice Laos is steadily turning into a Chinese client state like Cambodia. The final contender in Indochina is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. The Irrawaddy river, which flows from the north to the south before emptying into the Andaman Sea, is not just Myanmar's primary commercial waterway, but its drainage basin forms the heartland of the country.
The central location of the capital Naypyidaw allows the government to skillfully exercise its power over the basin. Yet not all of Myanmar is this secure. The mountainous borderlands, although they provide some security for the heartland, are inhabited by ethnic minorities who largely reject the central government.
With at least a dozen active separatist factions, Myanmar is rife with conflict, and the government has never succeeded in consolidating full control over the countryside. So it's not surprising that in the past, the military rulers in Naypyidaw isolated the country from the outside world. Myanmar has only recently started to open up after decades of international isolation.
However, as the military faction loosens its grip on power, the liberalization process has intensified internal, ethnic, and religious tensions in the country. The most evident example is the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people. Such frictions expose Myanmar to overt and covert foreign intervention, and given Myanmar's close cooperation with China on pipelines, ports and railway networks which are designed for China's bypassing of the Strait of Malacca, there are plentiful reasons for outside powers to exploit Napido's standoff with ethnic minorities. In this sense, Myanmar is one of the most exposed countries in Southeast Asia.
It faces threats within and without. Overall, the nations in mainland Southeast Asia are all unique and have their own distinct needs. Some are desperate and embrace foreign patronage, while others are determined to stand their ground regardless of the odds. It is this divergence that solidifies the region's division.
and allows regional and global powers to reshape their geopolitical trajectories. I've been your host Shirvan from Caspian Report. Credit goes to our contributors on Patreon who give us the means to research and produce content like this.
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