This chapter brings into view important political actors, particularly political parties, in the Thai political scene since the 22 March election. Between the March and September elections, there were some significant changes with regard to major political parties. First, a general picture of the political parties in Thailand is presented, followed by a discussion of a number of political parties that played major roles in the two elections.

If the political development of a country can be judged by the maturity of political parties of that country, Thailand would rank relatively low. The Thai party system has not been able to serve as a strong base on which a democratic system can develop. Nevertheless, considerable development has already taken place in the party system since the 1970s. Weaknesses in the Thai political party system can be seen in at least two areas. First, in terms of their organization, political parties in Thailand are peer-based rather than people-based. That is, parties are not so much a mass party based on certain shared political beliefs as a forum where political friends gather for specific, short-term interests. Because of this characteristic, the party base is narrow and shallow. Also, this makes party- switching a common thing. Causes of splits can be personal rather than ideological, or a change of party may take place when a switchover brings about better political opportunities. A politician who has switched party would generally not feel guilty about it, and some have switched to more than three parties over the course of two general elections; yet they continue to get elected and can hold up their heads. This situation is not alarming especially when party-switching is done on the basis of loyalty to friends. But it damages the political system when politicians can be literally “bought off by a wealthier party, which shows that politicians are after money rather than political programmes.

Secondly, in terms of political programmes. Thai parties are interest-based rather than policy-based.

Comparisons of foreign direct investment (FDI) should be regarded with great caution. Some argue that they should not be used at all due to significantly differing methodologies. An analysis of methodological problems suggests that overall comparisons are, at a minimum, less useful than measurements of the trends — which in most data sources show recent Japanese investment increasing at a rapid rate while U.S. investment in the Asia-Pacific region has been relatively stagnant during the past decade, especially as measured in constant dollars.

Japanese FDI data is based on notifications to the Japanese Government of intent to carry out investment approved by the host government, whereas U.S. data from the Department of Commerce's Survey of Current Business is based on estimated capital flows and equity positions of U.S. firms and foreign affiliates. Thus Japanese data tends to be anticipatory and the methodology tends to overstate Japanese investment when compared to U.S. investment as measured by the more conservative U.S. method. Host government estimates, which often are based on approvals of proposed investment, tend to overstate both Japanese and U.S. investment.

In what is probably an extreme case of understating U.S. investment compared with Japanese FDI, the U.S. Commerce Department valued U.S. investment in the People's Republic of China (PRC) as of 1988 at only US$310 million, versus US$2.6 billion in approved investment estimated by the Chinese Government. (Recent disinvestment in China has brought U.S. equity down to under US$300 million.) On the other hand, the Japanese Ministry of Finance estimate of US$2 billion in cumulative notified Japanese FDI as of 31 March 1989 is nearly the same as the Chinese estimate of US$2.1 billion.

Recipient countries vary widely in how they track foreign investment. Hong Kong doesn't keep overall data on foreign investment but conducts an annual voluntary survey on manufacturing investment — by admission an incomplete and imprecise process. The U.S. Survey of Current Business shows US$594 million invested in manufacturing in Hong Kong as of 1988, versus an original cost estimate of US$1.1 billion shown by the Hong Kong Government's annual report.

Today, it is recognized the world over and especially in Asia with its growing population that education has not only a social and moral function but is also an economic necessity. The education system generally provides limited access to the rural poor and other disadvantaged groups and to a certain extent, contributes to the inequalities in society. How does one provide wider access to education to the rural poor, to working adults, to women at home and to disadvantaged groups?

There is a growing perception that the schools and conventional universities cannot be the sole purveyors of knowledge and shapers of social attitudes and that mass communciations media such as radio and TV can play major roles in transmission of knowledge to large numbers of people. There are many reasons for looking into alternatives in education delivery especially for Asian countries. Good quality educational materials are not widely available. Human and financial resources are limited in many countries. There is not only increasing demand for education for city youths and working adults, but also a need to provide practical knowledge to rural youths and farmers for the development of related skills. Furthermore, among educational leaders and social and policy planners, there is a growing belief that despite quantitative gains in education in Asia, there has been a decline in its quality.

The Concept of Distance Education

The terms “distance education” and “open learning” have been used with a variety of different meanings. “Distance education” is best referred to as the educational process where a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone, removed in space or time from the learner; and where programmes use a combination of educational media varying from print to audio to TV broadcasts, video recordings and computers and microprocessors. Opportunities for face-to-face study as well as learning from recorded materials are included. There is a rich and oft changing mix of media and meeting — this is what has been the strength of distance education programmes.

BROAD RESULTS OF THE MNC SURVEY

Methodology

In order to study the investment patterns of the MNCs and the impact they have had on the ASEAN-3, the authors felt that one way was to focus on MNCs with operations in at least two of the three countries and compare their operations in each location. These were identified from a questionnaire survey of 570 MNCs operating in Singapore. The companies were all in the manufacturing sector and from a cross-section of industries — food, chemicals, electronics, fabricated metal products, precision engineering, and so forth. The MNCs, the majority of whom were from the United States, Japan and Europe, were asked if they had manufacturing operations in Malaysia and Thailand, and if so, to provide details on: the date they established operations in the ASEAN-3; the products they made; the number of staff they employed in each location; and the linkages between their operations. From the responses, thirty MNCs were selected for a more detailed study, based on a further questionnaire survey and interviews with key personnel in the three countries.

Initial Questionnaire Survey Findings

From the initial survey of 570 MNCs, a total of 510 (89-5 per cent) responded to the questionnaire. Of these, 128 companies (25 per cent) indicated that in addition to their Singapore operation they also had operations in Malaysia and/or Thailand. An analysis of the sequence of their investments yielded the following result:

1. • 91 of the 128 (or 71 per cent) started production in Singapore before establishing operations in Malaysia and/or Thailand;

2. • 30 companies (23 per cent) started operations in the other two countries before coming to Singapore;

3. • the remaining 7 companies (6 per cent) started operations in the ASEAN-3 at about the same time.

The ninety-one MNCs which started operations in Singapore before moving to Malaysia and/or Thailand formed a large enough group from which a sample could be drawn for further detailed study. They also formed a broad spread in terms of origin — mainly Japanese, American and European companies and 100 per cent foreign-owned in almost all cases.

It is pertinent at this stage to recapitulate on the strengths and weaknesses of distance tertiary education institutions.

Distance education is flexible and accessible. Its courses do not impose rigidities. It reaches people in their homes and provides large numbers of people with access to education.

Several institutions produce very high quality teaching materials. What is unique in the system is that all students benefit from the same material unlike in conventional university teaching, where quality varies from lecturer to lecturer, and from university to university.

The rapid developments in technology have strengthened the potential of distance education. The electronic and technology developments lend greater flexibility and innovation. As the cost of these technologies is decreasing and electronic media are improving and growing, they will be used extensively in the near future for the support of distance education.

Distance education has its weaknesses. A major weakness is the isolation and loneliness of the learner. The home-based student, deprived of peer group interaction, is also deprived of learning from others. It is therefore worthy to note that in countries where there are well-developed regional study centres and good support systems for students, the success rate for undergraduate studies is correspondingly high. It is herefore necessary to develop and strengthen study centres to support distance learning in Asia.

Another important problem is that in the eyes of the conventional academic, and many political leaders, who were trained in conventional universities, distance education does not have parity of esteem with formal systems. It is sometimes viewed as a fringe form of tertiary education.

Media broadcast material and actual broadcast time costs are high for distance education. Compounded to the economic cost is the difference in the philosophies between education and broadcasting. In the former, repetition and getting the lesson across is important, whereas broadcast producers are on the lookout for novelty.

Agriculture

1. • Cultivating, producing, processing, and marketing of seasonal agricultural crops (including tapioca and tobacco)

2. • Establishing plantations (including medicinal plants, coffee, tea, palm oil, horticulture, etc.) and producing, processing, and marketing of their produce

Livestock and Fishery

1. • Livestock breeding, processing, canning, and marketing of livestock and its products (including pig breeding and pork processing, etc.)

2. • Production and marketing of animal feeds, additives, supplements, and veterinary medicines

3. • Breeding, fishing, processing, and marketing of fresh-water and marine fish, prawns, and other aquatic organisms including fish fry, fingerlings, post larvae of shrimp, but not including breeding and production of fish and prawns in fisheries which have been reserved for research by the government

4. • Production, processing, marketing of all kinds of fish feeds

Forestry

1. • Production and marketing of basic construction materials, furniture, parquet, etc., using teak extracted and sold by state-owned economic organizations (to be carried out jointly with state-owned economic organizations)

2. • Production and marketing of carvings and handicrafts made of teak that has been extracted and sold by state-owned economic organizations engaged in the extraction and marketing of the same

3. • Production, processing, and marketing of hardwoods (other than teak), bamboo, cane/rattan, and other forest produce

4. • Production and marketing of construction material, furniture, and other products using hardwoods (other than teak), bamboo, cane/rattan, and other forest produce

Mining

1. • Exploration, exploitation, production, and marketing of non-metallic industrial minerals, such as coal, limestone, gypsum, etc.

2. • Marble quarrying and production and marketing of marble blocks and slabs

3. • Carrying out other quarrying industries and marketing of products thereof

Industry

Foodstuff

1. • Manufacturing and marketing of bakery products, including biscuits, wafers, noodles, macaroni, spaghetti, etc.

I suppose I am not revealing any state secrets when I say President Bush has never allowed burdens of state or the baitings of his political opponents either to deter him from his mission or to cloy his feelings for his fellow citizens. Moreover, as more than amply demonstrated today, his perceptions include a vision that is not only far-sighted and reassuring, but one that sees America's domestic imperatives and its global responsibilities as but two mutually compatible and profitable sides of the same coin.

In short, to him the future of a great America and that of a stable and prosperous world are inseparable twins.

We are, therefore, Mr President, all the more inspired and beholden and may I on behalf of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and all present thank you for the unique opportunity and honour of listening to you in person.

We also have the added distinction of having the other half of the illustrious Bush partnership with us, and needless to say, Mrs Bush, we are delighted that you could grace the occasion as well. May I wish you and the other distinguished members of the presidential delegation a pleasant visit and a Happy New Year.

It is fitting too that this first Lecture by a President of the United States of America has taken place under the chairmanship of Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, and before the largest audience ever to attend the series. We deeply value this support and participation, and especially the encouragement and the privilege of the presence amongst us of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and his Cabinet colleagues.

On that note, Ladies and Gentlemen, may I conclude by saying once again what a pleasure it has been to welcome our special guest, President George Bush, and each and everyone of you.

Thank you all and good day.

The declaration of the Fukuda Doctrine on 18 August 1977 was timely and significant given the changing situation in Southeast Asia as that region entered a new phase of regional politics. The United States came to play a less and less visible role in the region while the five countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – embarked on their search for a new framework for conducting regional policies. After the Bali Summit of 1976, ASEAN's search for a new partner and Japan's quest for a new regional policy resulted in a top-level meeting between ASEAN heads of government and Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda in August 1977. At the Summit, Japan played a central role in effecting the advent of a new era in Southeast Asian regionalism. Although there existed some differences between ASEAN's expectations for Japan and Tokyo's intentions, their co-optation constituted a major turning point in the history of Japan-Southeast Asia relations. By announcing the Doctrine in 1977, the Japanese Government expressed its readiness to play a positive role in promoting politico-economic and cultural relations between Japan and Southeast Asia. It is against this general background that external factors will be examined in this chapter.

Based upon the framework constructed in Chapter I, we will delve into the process of decision-making in the case of the Fukuda Doctrine. In articulating the causes of policy shift, we will examine four perspectives, external as well as internal. In particular, their causal relationships will be explicated so as to assess which perspective best accounts for the adoption of the Doctrine. The case study will be divided into three parts. This chapter will deal with the external factors, that is, the international system and the regional subsystem while the internal factors, that is, domestic politics and ideas, will be examined in the following two chapters.

Introduction

What does the end of the Cold War signify for Southeast Asia? How far has the Cold War been a cause of security problems in Southeast Asia? Obviously it played a major role, in at least six principal ways.

First, in a more general sense, it reduced the United Nations to relative impotence as the basic guarantor of international security.

Second, in a regional sense, it transformed the nature of the Malayan Emergency and the French campaign against the Viet Minh, most of all in the sight of the United States Administration, the Congress and people. What was seen as legitimate nationalism initially was viewed after 1950 as totalitarian in aim, and had therefore to be opposed, in this region as in Europe and Korea. The Cold War changed U.S. policies towards Southeast Asia from stand off and avoidance of commitments to the provision of support and ultimately to the acceptance of leadership in a long and frustrating struggle to stem the flow of Communism into Indochina. Given America's economic and military strength, this was a change of fundamental importance to the region. It was a change whose consequences are still strongly felt in the 1990s.

Third, the Cold War led both Communist China and the Soviet Union to support the Viet Minh. China's military assistance and political involvement in Indochina in the 1950s encouraged Beijing leaders over the following forty years to think of Indochina as a sphere of influence. This has a continuing legacy today. Soviet military and economic power also became significant factors on the Southeast Asian scene over the past thirty years, culminating in the use of Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang by Soviet naval and air forces. The legacy of this Soviet involvement will be much less durable than that of the Chinese.

Fourth, the United States became steadily more formally and widely committed to the Southeast Asian and Southwest Pacific regions via its bilateral treaty with the Philippines, the trilateral ANZUS Pact, the informal trilateral consultational arrangements made with the British and French in 1952-53, and the eight-sided Manila Treaty, which we came to know best through its planning agency, SEATO, after 1954.

For more than a quarter of a century, Australian social scientists have lamented the deficiencies of country of birth as an index of ethnic origin. National boundaries do not always coincide with the historical, geographical, and cultural bonds that unite groups with a common ancestry. Even if they once did, wars and political realignments can sever the nexus. Partly in response to these concerns, and partly to the growing importance of multiculturalism, the 1986 census of Australia broke new ground by including a question on ancestry. Together with information on birthplace, birthplace of parents, religion, and language spoken at home, these ancestry data throw new light on the ethnic composition of the Australian population.

For some immigrant groups, such as the Italians, ancestry data provide little additional information beyond conventional birthplace data. Most immigrant Australians of Italian ancestry were born in Italy, although some came from Egypt and Malta as well. However, other groups like the Chinese cannot be easily identified from birthplace figures, because they originate from different overseas countries, in many of which they were an ethnic minority. To identify such groups, ancestry data are needed. Ancestry data also permit the identification of third-generation members of different immigrant stock, that is to say, the ethnic origins of persons born in Australia of Australian-born parents. This chapter discusses an analytic strategy for comparing labour market outcomes among different immigrant generations, focusing on persons of Chinese ancestry.

Theory and Analytic Approach

Economists and sociologists have advanced two types of theories for understanding how immigrants (and women) fare in labour markets. The first type stems from neo-classical theories of human capital and examines the international transferability of training and experience. The second derives from status attainment models that explore how social background and early socialization affects achievement. Both theories usually consider the issue of how far discrimination affects socio-economic outcomes.

My journey through Southeast Asia, which began in Kuala Lumpur with my meetings with the leaders of ASEAN, is now approaching its end. I am delighted, as a kind of finishing touch to this journey, to be able to share my ideas with you, here in the Republic of the Philippines, our nearest neighbour in the distinguished presence of one of Asia's most eminent leaders, and my close friend, President Marcos.

Let me begin with one strong impression I gained from my tour. It was the spectacular and rich diversity of the area I have just visited, the diversity in ethnic composition, language and religion, in the cultural impact of distinct histories, and in economic structures. Southeast Asia is by no means a homogeneous or uniform part of the world. It is no wonder that some have been sceptical of the prospects for intraregional co-operation in this area. Yet, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has just celebrated its tenth anniversary, is now in the process of firmly establishing itself as a self-reliant organization for regional co-operation in the area. The first Summit conference in Bali was a milestone in progress toward solidarity, and the success of the Summit conference which has just ended confirms the belief that the determination of the ASEAN members to strengthen their solidarity is now irreversible.

ASEAN is, indeed, a historic and successful attempt to seek and create a regional identity of this area through the strengthening of solidarity while affirming the rich diversity of its membership, and respecting the proud nationalism of each member country. I saw, and was impressed by one expression of these creative efforts, the ardent dedication to solidarity of the ASEAN leaders whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The solidarity of ASEAN, strengthened by the success of co-operative undertakings, in turn opens up new opportunities for useful collaboration, thus further strengthening solidarity. This dynamic and self-reinforcing process will, I believe, characterize the future course of ASEAN.

The modern history of migration is in part a demonstration of power. Many might migrate, the powerful to exercise permanent sway over virgin, rich land; the powerless as near-slaves, on a temporary contract on a plantation. And power, more often than not, had a racial basis. White settlers claimed new lands, displaced aborigines, and restricted, and increasingly excluded, Asians from their territory. From 1870–1914 mankind had moved in two massive streams: 36 million Europeans sought permanent residence in largely temperate lands; a slightly larger number of Asians moved, often on contract, as temporary labourers. The streams were almost equal, the rewards were not. Europeans peopled the Americas and Australasia, and excluded Asians from their midst and many of their possessions. Even in Africa the restrictions on Asiatic migration increased with time. White supremacy reached its zenith before World War II. Japanese migration, however, challenged the White-ordained division of the world. It did not overcome it, but Japan alone of the Asian nations modified White power. As Elizabeth Schumpeter succinctly writes: “The net emigration of Japanese has been surprisingly small in view of the extent of the popular agitation against it and the number of diplomatic crises il has precipitated” (Schumpeter 1940, p. 70).

The initial focus of this chapter is upon a brief but crucial period. In 1890, Japan could hope to foster economic growth by giving labour, capital and trade free play. The only obstacles were the unequal treaties, which permitted the great powers considerable, but unreciprocated, access to Japan. Until the treaties were revised in the mid-1890s, Japan had not encouraged migration lest its nationals be treated with the indignity of Chinese coolies. Once the treaties were revised, the Japanese entertained high hopes of migration, only to find that White-settler societies in Australasia and North America imposed sharp restrictions on Japanese nationals. Between 1906 and 1908, the migrant issue seemed likely to precipitate a war.