Could 'Asian flu' of Soeharto's fall be catching?

Could 'Asian flu' of Soeharto's fall be catching?

By John Gittings

LONDON: Will a new epidemic of Asian flu -- political as well as economic -- send the region into convulsion? From Beijing to Yangon, the toppling of Soeharto's regime has a resonance.

Even in new democracies such as South Korea, the Indonesian example could rekindle militancy among students and workers. Might not the toppling of one paternalist leader make Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad more vulnerable, and even weaken Lee Kuan Yew's political legacy in Singapore?

Chinese wariness of revolutionary contagion has been evident in its coverage of the Indonesian crisis. Communist Party advice to its media seems to have been: "Don't mention the students."

Only brief images have appeared on Chinese television of the cheering Indonesian students occupying the grounds of parliament who could easily evoke the nine-year-old ghosts of Tiananmen Square.

Thursday's official statement from Beijing was in cautionary code. China would not comment, it said, on Soeharto's resignation, but hoped -- as a friendly neighbor -- that Indonesia could "maintain social stability".

Stability is the mantra with which China has always justified the suppression of its own student revolution. Last week the China Daily broke editorial silence to deplore the "violence" in Jakarta -- whatever its causes. It said: "Indonesia's turbulence also (has) a bad impact on other countries in the region."

Yet the impact of Indonesia's crisis on the region's politics will not be so widespread as it continues to be on its economies. This is not eastern Europe in 1989-90, when political change in Poland and policy shifts in Hungary (with unintended help from Mikhail Gorbachev) triggered mass protests and swiftly toppled regimes in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania.

Their common targets were the deformed political structures of Soviet-led communist rule. Asia's common denominator is less tangible. Most of the region has already broken free from the distortions of the cold war. Politics has moved on -- although differently -- in Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea.

Soeharto, propped up by the West after he "defeated communism" in the 1960s (and condoned the murder of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians), was almost the last survivor. North Korea -- where student protest is almost unimaginable -- is the only other living dinosaur.

But globalization, which along with rapid economic growth has brought unemployment and wider disparities in income, is a harder, hydra-headed monster for any mass movement to tackle.

Indeed for China, still able to pick and choose which aspects of the world market to admit within its borders, the benefits of globalization have so far served to lull political protest.

Vietnam, where the equation is less favorable, could be more vulnerable to unrest -- already simmering in parts of its countryside.

Asia's discontented workers and farmers, as well as students, will be watching Jakarta to see how the struggle unfolds. The biggest question is whether the Indonesian revolution will substitute real democracy for the "guided" version under military tutelage? And, when the real might of the Indonesian armed forces is finally confronted, will the tanks roll in as they did in Beijing?

If Indonesia's army power can be defeated or won over, it could encourage even Myanmar's battered opposition. Thailand's army has already seen the wisdom of accommodation with civil power, but it will feel all the more obliged to tread carefully. (Military regimes outside Asia -- such as Nigeria -- could also shiver.)

The habit of democracy, Hong Kong's leading democrat Martin Lee (about to contest the first post-handover elections on Sunday) said Thursday, is infectious. Many would add that the example of repression is equally potent. The ultimate outcome in Indonesia may not cause immediate change elsewhere, but it will color the political climate one way or another.

-- Guardian News Service