SINGAPORE -- At a Feb. 23 international conference in Tokyo titled "Future Prospects of the East Asian Economy and Its Geopolitical Risks," which was organized jointly by the Policy Research Institute, Japan's Finance Ministry and the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, I presented a paper on the geopolitical risks in Southeast Asia.
The discussion was held in the context of fast-evolving developments in East Asia and the implications of the recent recovery and rise of East Asian economies. Although Northeast Asia is a potential source of conflict and uncertainty (notably due to the North Korean debacle), Southeast Asia also contains risks, though less apparent, during this period of political, economic and social transition.
Southeast Asia's political economy has recently been molded by three waves of change and transformation -- namely, the liberalization/globalization of the 1980s and early 1990s, the 1997-98 financial crisis, and the Oct. 12, 2002, Bali bombing followed by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003.