Welcome to Overseas Coverage’s Southeast Asia Temporary.
The highlights this week: Southeast Asia faces spiking meals costs, Myanmar’s high normal turns into president, the Philippines and Vietnam strike offers with Iran, and deforestation surges in Indonesia.
Southeast Asia’s Coming Meals Disaster
Whereas the gasoline disaster brought on by the U.S.-Israeli warfare with Iran continues to dominate headlines, meals would be the subsequent stress level. The United Nations’ World Meals Program (WFP) estimates that the battle within the Center East implies that 45 million extra folks will endure from acute starvation in 2026.
In Asia and the Pacific, meals insecurity is predicted to extend by 24 %, the largest relative enhance of any area. Southeast Asia is grappling not solely with rising oil and fertilizer costs but in addition with a grim warmth wave.
Meals costs carefully monitor hikes in oil costs. But a discount in oil costs doesn’t end in proportional reductions in meals costs, a WFP consultant advised Overseas Coverage.
The Persian Gulf is a significant producer of fertilizer and its parts—most notably urea, which is made out of pure fuel and gives nitrogen, one in all three key parts in most fertilizers.
With provides of each urea and pure fuel disrupted, fertilizer costs have risen not less than 85 % because the begin of the 12 months, based on information from Fertilizerworks.com.
Confronted with the worth hikes, some farmers would possibly resolve that it’s merely not value planting if crop costs gained’t cowl their prices. The WFP consultant advised Overseas Coverage that there was already anecdotal proof of this taking place within the area.
To high all of it off, a warmth wave gripping Southeast Asia may additionally hit crop yields. In Kedah, Malaysia’s rice bowl, water reserves in dams are working low. The warmth can also be hitting Thailand’s livestock manufacturing.
Timing couldn’t be worse, because the primary Asian rice planting season is about to start. Results can be felt towards October or November, with analysts ballparking the discount in crop yields at someplace between 10 % and 15 %.
Myanmar is the place the human value can be felt most acutely. The nation is ranked fifth on the earth for meals insecurity, based on the WFP, which estimates that greater than 12 million folks there’ll face acute starvation in 2026.
To make issues worse, civil warfare and a large earthquake that hit final 12 months have devastated livelihoods.
“It’s more and more the state of affairs of the proper storm,” Michael Dunford, the nation director for the WFP in Myanmar, advised Overseas Coverage.
The very popular season forward might alter the setting in two methods, Dunford stated. There may be each an affect on rising and, doubtlessly, extra dramatic storms. All this, in a rustic that’s already liable to pure disasters.
The worth of a mean meals basket was up 9 % in Myanmar on the finish of March in comparison with the top of February, based on WFP calculations.
Different nations are in for robust instances, too. Thailand is an agricultural powerhouse that’s closely depending on fertilizer imports. And in 2024, 29.4 % of its fertilizer imports got here from the Gulf, based on information from the Observatory of Financial Complexity.
4 of the world’s 10 largest rice importers are Southeast Asian nations, based on information from the OEC: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Ought to a worldwide meals disaster immediate massive producers akin to India to as soon as once more curtail exports, they are going to be hit arduous. 4 of the world’s 10 largest exporters of rice are additionally Southeast Asian: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Rising meals and gasoline costs might even result in political instability within the area. Final 12 months’s riots in Indonesia got here in opposition to the backdrop of rising meals inflation.
Myanmar “new” president. Min Aung Hlaing, 69, has been declared the president of Myanmar following a sham election that concluded in January.
Previously the commander in chief of the nation’s army, Min Aung Hlaing’s transfer is the capstone of a push to cement his personal energy following his 2021 coup. That coup eliminated the democratically elected authorities and plunged the nation into civil warfare.
Changing him as commander in chief of the army is Ye Win Oo. Till just lately, he served as the pinnacle of Myanmar’s feared army intelligence company, and he was swiftly promoted to move the military in March earlier than assuming his new place.
Ye Win Oo’s background in intelligence, restricted battlefield expertise, and hasty promotion up the ranks make him an uncommon selection. Nevertheless, he’s deeply loyal to Min Aung Hlaing—and near the brand new president’s household.
In the meantime, Soe Win—who served as Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy commander in chief and as soon as appeared inheritor obvious—was not solely handed over but in addition pushed from his place and never given a brand new one.
It might be that Min Aung Hlaing noticed him as a menace. Soe Win is common among the many army and its supporters. Because the junta reeled on the battlefield in 2024, some overtly known as for Soe Win to interchange his boss.
Philippines, Vietnam strike Iran offers. The Philippines and Vietnam have each reached offers with Iran to let their vessels move safely by way of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has assured the Philippines that it’ll enable the secure passage of Philippines-flagged vessels by way of the strait, Philippine Overseas Minister Maria Theresa Lazaro introduced on April 2. The event would possibly assist relieve spiking gasoline costs, which noticed the Philippines declare a nationwide vitality emergency on March 24.
The deal is especially notable, because the Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally. Regardless of this, relations between Manila and Tehran appear positively convivial. On X, Lazaro declared that the Philippines was “grateful for the nice and cozy spirit of cooperation” from Iran.
The identical day, the Vietnamese Ministry of Overseas Affairs additionally said that Iran was implementing measures to let Vietnamese vessels move by way of the Straits.
A readout of a name between Vietnam’s and Iran’s international ministers, Le Hoai Trung and Seyed Abbas Araghchi respectively, said that Le referenced the “Vietnamese folks’s historic expertise of defending their nation in opposition to aggressors.”
These two nations be part of a rising checklist of Southeast Asian governments—together with Thailand and Malaysia—which have efficiently struck such offers.
Indonesia, a Muslim-majority nation whose technique of cuddling as much as U.S. President Donald Trump on his Board of Peace initiative now appears ill-advised, is conspicuously absent.
Indonesian peacekeepers killed in Lebanon. Three Indonesian peacekeepers had been killed in two separate incidents in Lebanon on March 29 and March 30. Two others had been severely injured.
On Friday, three extra Indonesian peacekeepers had been injured in one other blast.
The incidents got here as Israel launched an incursion in southern Lebanon. Indonesian troops have been stationed there as a part of a peacekeeping drive since 2006.
The events liable for the deaths have but to be recognized, although the United Nations Interim Pressure in Lebanon has stated that it’s investigating each incidents. Nevertheless, an nameless U.N. supply advised AFP that an Israeli tank was liable for the loss of life of the peacekeeper on March 29.
The Indonesian Overseas Ministry known as each incidents “unacceptable,” known as for an investigation, and condemned Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
President Prabowo Subianto is now underneath stress for his broader Center East coverage.
His determination to affix Trump’s Board of Peace and provide peacekeepers for Gaza was controversial from the beginning. Polls of Indonesians have proven robust public opposition to each plans.
Former presidential contender Anies Baswedan, who campaigned on an Islamic ticket and sure retains political ambitions, has pounced on the incidents. In a assertion launched on March 30, following the primary loss of life, he declared himself “outraged,” squarely blaming Israel.
Penitent Ruben Enaje and two others are nailed to crosses through the observance of Lent within the village of Cutud in San Fernando, the Philippines, on April 3.Ted Aljibe/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
FP’s Most Learn This Week
Who killed Ersa Siregar? Greater than 20 years after the incident, Ridhwan Siregar tries in Channel Information Asia to unravel how his father, additionally a journalist, died whereas overlaying the battle in Aceh.
Yearly, smoke from forest fires and crop burnings envelops Thailand’s second metropolis, Chiang Mai, however this 12 months it’s worse than ever, based on a chunk within the Straits Instances.
In Focus: Indonesia’s Deforestation Spikes
The speed of deforestation in Indonesia elevated by 66 % in 2025, based on a report by nongovernmental group Auriga Nusantara, which primarily based its analysis on satellite tv for pc information. The group discovered that greater than 1 million acres had been cleared, probably the most in eight years.
A key driver of deforestation appear to be the insurance policies of President Prabowo Subianto, who assumed workplace in 2024. The president has promoted government-led meals estates. These huge plantations are supposed to extend the nation’s meals and gasoline safety, rising crops for consumption and biofuels.
Notably, a few of the largest will increase in deforestation got here in Papua.
A few of Prabowo’s largest meals property tasks are situated in Papua. They’ve attracted appreciable controversy over troops being deployed to assist the tasks amid claims of corruption, ecological destruction, displacement of locals, and the land’s unsuitability for crops.
Till just lately, Indonesia’s push to scale back deforestation had been a significant success story.
From 2016, the federal government had efficiently carried out insurance policies that sharply decreased deforestation. A key driver was devastating forest fires, which enveloped swaths of the nation in addition to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore in smoke.
Nevertheless, even earlier than the 2025 surge, deforestation charges had begun to creep again up within the early 2020s, after the federal government weakened environmental protections.
The federal government is contesting the nonprofit’s figures, with official statistics exhibiting solely a slight enhance in deforestation. The foundation of the distinction is methodological, with Auriga Nusantara claiming that its technique captures smaller-scale clearances which are omitted by the federal government’s strategy.
