Is Asia for Sale?: Resource Grabbing, Investments & People’s Campaigns in Southeast Asia Mary Ann Manahan, Focus on the Global South September 15, 2014
Jul 04, 2015
Is Asia for Sale?:
Resource Grabbing, Investments & People’s Campaigns in Southeast Asia
Mary Ann Manahan, Focus on the Global South
September 15, 2014
Outline
• Framework: Emerging Green Consensus• Context• Drivers of Investments in Land: ASEAN
Economic Integration • Trends: Enclosures and Territorialization • People’s Campaigns and Struggles
UNEP’s Green Economy: Nature as Capita l multiple crises caused by misallocation of ‘capital’; sets the stage
for the creation of markets where nature and its ecosystem functions will be priced
Land, Water, ‘Green’ Grabbing and Control of Commons
CONTEXT
• Resource grabbing not a new phenomenon
• In recent years, increase attention on new wave of foreign acquisitions of agricultural lands/ global land grab in global South due to media reports
• Triggered by complex and interrelated crises in food, finance, energy and climate--- revaluation of rush to control land
• Mantra: for development, food and water security, agricultural investment, and energy security.
ASEAN Economic Community: A Driver of Land Investments in Asia
(1) ASEAN FDI
Record level FDI in 2010 amounting to US$75.8 billion compared to US$37.8 billion in 2009
(2) Sectoral Composition
Where is the money going?
(3) Global Value Chains
Increasing pressure on raw materials (esp. for mining)- resource wars trigger greater competition; leads to increase price of raw materials
Agriculture Value Chain Example CP operations
The parent company of CPF, CP Group is one of the first Asian multinational companies with revenue reaching $33 billion yearly. It has subsidiaries in 15 countries in the world engaged in several businesses, including agribusiness, food processing, retail, telecommunications and property development.
Growth in the Mekong RegionCountry GDP Growth Main Drivers of Growth/Slump
Cambodia 6.8 % Garments and Footwear exportsTourism
Lao PDR 7.8 % Hydropower, Mining, manufacturing
Tourism
Myanmar 5.5% Investments in hydropower, gas and oil
Thailand 0.1 % Effect of widespread flooding; slump in manufacturing
Vietnam 5.9 % Expansion in services; Tourism
Development Plans
Policy ContextCountry No. of signed BITS
(as of 2012)
Brunei 6
Cambodia 21
Indonesia 63
Lao PDR 23
Malaysia 67
Myanmar 6
Philippines 35
SIngapore 41
Thailand 39
Vietnam 58
TOTAL 359
Investment Policy
ASEAN Comprehensive Investment
Agreement (ACIA) A single investment agreement that provides
clearer interaction of relevant provisions: e.g.
liberalization and protection
Regional Economic Integration
ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint: Free flow of investments in AEC A free and open investment regime is key to
enhancing ASEAN’s competitiveness in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) as well as intra-ASEAN investment
Investment is a core element of the goal toestablish ASEAN as a Single Market and Production Base
Integration and Investments
In fact, for CPF Philippines, the timing was just right. “We will be ahead when others decide to come to the Philippines” -- Pinij Kungvankij, vice chair of Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) Philippines Corp.
ASEN integration was a major consideration when the company decided to start infusing investments into the Philippines last year.
WHAT ARE HAPPENING TO LAND AND OTHER RESOURCES?
Enclosures
• New frontiers of resource control : new enclosures for agriculture, mining, forest exploitation, conservation, national parks, real estate, townships, extraction, industry, etc.
• “Green grabbing” /Payment for Ecological Services– enclosures with ostensible environmental aims
Kratie, Cambodia
Enclosures are detrimental to those who rely on what we call as ‘commons’, esp. poor and
marginalized women
• threatens access to and control of land and natural resources including customary rights to water, forests and ecosystems
• Affects people’s livelihoods and ability to feed themselves and the community, especially of low-income and poor rural women
A rubber plantation owned by a Vietnamese
Company in a community forest
What happened to the the people?
They lost their sources of food, water
and fuel and their access to their
community forest.
• Employment opportunities? For whom?
Case of Kampongcham, in the subdistrict/commune of
Chomkravean
Other Issues
• Embedded in struggles of farmers, IPs, rural women for access to land/land rights
• Myth/Creation of “frontiers”—newly available land (newly valuable land) for export production
• Accompanied by militarization and harassment/violation of human rights
• Differentiated impacts– across class, gender and ethnicity
Territorialization
Power of the State: Eminent Domain
• Creation of new territories for investment through ceasefires, relocation of villages from upland to lowlands (as in Laos, VN, Burma, Indonesia)
• Burma—“ceasefire capitalism”—alliances with Chinese and other Asian investors and Singaporean banks to move from jade and timber economies to large scale industrial agricultural economy (big support from China—esp. in Northern Burma)
DAWEI
Source: TERRA, 2012
Conceptual Plan of Dawei Mega Project
204.5 square kilometerthe fifth biggest Industrial Estate in the world and the biggest one of Thailand. (30 sq KM)
Source: TERRA, 2012
Source: TERRA, 2012
Community defence struggles Land occupation /
positioning / cultivation has often been used as a legitimate strategy for communities
Ensuring the right to information as in the majority of land deals, local communities are kept in the dark.
Land rights/agrarian reform/ resource rights struggles
Peoples’ Campaigns to Reclaim the Commons
Women at the forefront of resource rights struggles
• As actors and leaders mobilizing against processes that exclude them (despite criminalization and harassment)
“I live here. I have rights and I am working with the women here so
we won’t have to move. I will keep on fighting here”
- Kun Cha Tha who quit her job selling rice to devote her time to protesting
90% of the protestors and leaders in the Boeung Kak lake are women Cambodia’s Boeung Kak Lake
land grabbing case Source: Reuters/Samrang Pring
Local struggles
Source of Photos: Judy Pasimio
In reclaiming their ancestral lands/domains
Delsa Justo, Ati Chieftain who led the land occupation of their
ancestral lands in tourist destination, Boracay
Delsa Justo, Ati Chieftain who led the land occupation of their
ancestral lands in tourist destination, Boracay
In asserting the Right to Self-Determination of Indigenous Peoples
Source of Photos: Judy Pasimio
Summary Southeast Asia continues to be a high growth region SEA in the global value chain- traditional roles but also
looking for new drivers of growth Economic integration is driving new investments
including in agriculture, land and natural resources There is a push to reform policies including investment
policies and land and environment policies to facilitate more investments
Peasants and indigenous communities continue to defend their lands and resources through various resistance struggles
Thank you very much for listening!