InAsia

The State of Conflict and Violence in Asia

October 27, 2021 The Asia Foundation
InAsia
The State of Conflict and Violence in Asia
Show Notes Transcript

Has a decade of growing prosperity tamed intercommunal violence in Asia? 

A comprehensive new report documents declining levels of conflict, but also warns of the destabilizing influence of social media.

Read a comprehensive introduction to the report: https://asiafoundation.org/2021/10/27/podcast-the-state-of-conflict-and-violence-in-asia/

Adam Burke (00:03):

These countries are extremely diverse. You've got really plural societies, with groups from all different religions, all different ethnicities. It's partly what makes these countries so engaging and fascinating. So they've always struggled with diversity and how to manage that. And when it comes around to the internet, this all has to be done again in a news sphere.

John Rieger (00:19):

Has a decade of growing prosperity, tamed inter-communal violence in Asia? A new report offers reason for hope, and cause for vigilance. This week on InAsia, from The Asia Foundation, I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (00:32):

And I'm Tracie Yang. Using comprehensive country by country data. The State of Conflict and Violence in Asia 2021, paints a cautiously optimistic picture of declining violence. But a new chapter on social media, offers some sharp words of warning for the future.

John Rieger (00:48):

Here now to talk about some of these findings are The Asia Foundation's Adam Burke, principal author of the report. And internet researcher Sarah Oh, who contributed to the social media chapter. Adam and Sarah, welcome to InAsia.

Adam Burke (00:59):

Hi John. Good to be here.

Sarah Oh (01:00):

Thanks for having us.

John Rieger (01:02):

Adam, since 2017 we've seen open warfare in Marawi in the Philippines. The exodus of the Rohingya, fleeing state violence in Myanmar. The subsequent coup in that country. And of course the continuing violence in Afghanistan. Yet this new report finds that overall levels of violence in Asia have gone down in the past decade. How can that be?

Adam Burke (01:23):

What I found really interesting is, when you look at the levels of violence year on year, from 2010/11, right through till last year. You see across the region a general slow increase in deaths from combat. And I was looking at this thinking, I bet that the greatest number of these casualties is from Afghanistan. So I just took Afghanistan out of the stats and you see a totally different trend. Deaths from armed combat from war go down, almost year on year. Right the way through, and go down significantly from some 10,000 or something per year, down to a couple of thousand. So this is a significant trend.

John Rieger (02:03):

How do you explain this trend?

Adam Burke (02:05):

When you start to pick it apart, what you have seen across much of Asia over the last 10 years, is a significant rise in economic growth and in state capacity, and the ability of states to govern. These days there isn't much war between countries. So it's mostly what you can call sub-national conflict. And these are ethnic conflicts that often bubble away for many decades in corners of countries across Asia. From Mindanao in the Philippines, through to Balochistan in Pakistan, and many, many places in between. So you've seen some reforms that have enabled these areas to be governed more effectively in one or two places. But you've also seen quite lot of suppression actually, which in most of these cases, it's not going to solve the problem, the problems are much more deep seated than that. But they're bubbling away and causing fewer casualties. That's what the data seems to show.

Tracie Yang (02:57):

So this year's Conflict and Violence report for the first time has a section on conflict in social media. What changed?

Adam Burke (03:05):

Obviously what's changed on the surface is that social media is a much bigger thing now than it has been in the past. But also there are deeper trends at play here, which social media is exacerbating. These countries are extremely diverse. You've got really plural societies with groups from all different religions, all different ethnicities. It's partly what makes these country so engaging and fascinating. So they've always struggled with diversity and how to manage that. And when it comes around to the internet, this all has to be done again in a news sphere.

John Rieger (03:32):

Sarah, you studied hate speech trends in Myanmar prior to the coup. And you've also worked at Facebook studying social media and conflict. Does social media look or work differently in Asia or is it the same, but more so, how does it compare to what we see in the West?

Sarah Oh (03:48):

It's dramatically different. I think not just between the West and Asia, but even by country, within countries. In Myanmar, the top 10 Facebook pages in the first phase of what many people call the connectivity revolution were news outlets. It was BBC Burmese, it was politicians. So people were glued to their phones, trying to follow what was happening in the country. You can imagine if you have actors who want to spread propaganda that, that suddenly becomes a very vulnerable place, very fertile. The classic example is how the military and conservative Buddhist monks went to Facebook to justify acts of violence, targeting the Rohingya minority and Muslims across the country. A single post could invoke deep fear among entire communities. So, that offline effect of online speech was very deeply felt in the Myanmar context. And we've seen that ripple across other countries in the region as well.

John Rieger (04:58):

Your fellow report contributor, Maria Ressa. Who just won a Nobel Peace Prize for her activism in the Philippines. Warns that bad actors are using social media in Asia as a testbed for techniques to disrupt the West. Do you agree with that?

Sarah Oh (05:12):

I do. I mean we see everything Maria has talked about, and I will say she was one of the early voices to call attention to what was happening in Asia. I remember when she came to California, at a conference at Stanford many years ago, and was raising the alarm bells about political speech targeting journalists like her.

John Rieger (05:34):

Can you give us an example?

Sarah Oh (05:35):

I think the Philippines, and how we've seen supporters of Duterte target journalists. It's very misogynistic, reputation based attacks. That's a tactic we've seen almost in every country where there's a populous leader. Questioning scientific evidence around misinformation, I think also stems from these same patterns that we see in the Philippines and Asia.

Tracie Yang (06:01):

So speaking of misogyny. Adam, you argue that gender-based violence may now be the single most common form of violence in Asia. That's shocking. Are those solid numbers?

Adam Burke (06:13):

I thought you might pick that one out. How did that get put together. I think it's unquestionable that the number of casualties I was talking about earlier from wars is relatively low across the region, except for Afghanistan. Whereas the levels of gender-based violence are horrific, and remain a significant problem.

Tracie Yang (06:32):

So how does social media play into this problem?

Adam Burke (06:36):

Well it fits across the board. You've seen across the world how the initial expectations of social media would be a great liberating force, that enables people to mobilize, to speak to each other, to take forward issues. Doesn't necessarily mean that, that mobilization and those issues are positive or benign. So you have groups of misogynists organizing through social media.

John Rieger (06:57):

We've certainly got that in the United States.

Adam Burke (06:59):

Right. You see it on gender issues and you see it of course, on political issues. And you've seen it particularly against Muslim minorities. This has been the case in South Asia, in Southeast Asia. What I find very interesting is to compare different countries here. So you've seen campaigns against Muslim communities in India. There've been riots, there've been communal attacks. Politicians were unquestionably stoking some of the concerns for populist gain to build a support base. Sri Lanka is another example where you saw some similar trends and traits. But in both of those countries, politicians also got involved in trying to stem the violence.

Adam Burke (07:35):

Whereas Myanmar, that moderating force was far weaker. And you saw that level of violence, actually in some cases being aided and abetted directly by the state. Particularly against Rohingya in Rakhine State, but elsewhere in the country too. You look at how those riots were held back, and often it was civil society. It was civil groups, NGOs, local leaders, religious leaders. Who got together on their own, and pushed back against the extremists and stopped them really taking over the whole public sphere. In Thailand, you saw whispers of ultra conservative, extremist, religious figures, and community leaders, trying to push against Muslim communities in a pretty xenophobic way. And it was rapidly stamped out by the state. Actually it was the government that came in and decided that they weren't going to have any of that, and it stopped it. So you can see how actors can come in and do something about it.

John Rieger (08:30):

Let's take a look at the social media companies themselves. Sarah, the Facebook Oversight Board was in the news just today, blasting Facebook for its lack of transparency with the board. This is Facebook's own board. Can social media companies be expected to police themselves?

Sarah Oh (08:48):

It's a big task. I think what we really need to hold all companies to account to, is really high levels of transparency and accountability. Especially when it comes to human rights, the experience of minority groups on their platform. We're talking a lot about South Asia and Southeast Asia. For a long time, it was really hard for groups from these countries to engage the companies. And that's part of the work that I did when I joined Facebook. I think that is a important bar to set, and something we really need to all work together to see through.

John Rieger (09:24):

Last question. Adam, is the latest edition of the Conflict and Violence report, optimistic or pessimistic?

Adam Burke (09:33):

Oh, you put me on the spot there John. I could be sneaky and say that it's not one or the other, but I'd like to be optimistic to be honest.

John Rieger (09:41):

The Asia Foundation's Adam Burke, and researcher, Sarah Oh. Thank you both for joining us today on InAsia.

Adam Burke (09:47):

It's great to be here. I've enjoyed it.

Sarah Oh (09:48):

So lovely to chat. Thanks for hosting this.

Tracie Yang (09:51):

That's our show for this week. If you'd like to learn more about The State of Conflict and Violence in Asia. Adam has crafted a concise introduction in this week's InAsia blog, where you can also link to the full report. It's important work.

John Rieger (10:04):

And as always, we invite you to subscribe to the InAsia podcast, by pointing your browser to InAsia, one word, and clicking as appropriate. Until next time, I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (10:15):

And I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (10:16):

Thanks for listening.