Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Southeast Asia faces spiking food prices, Myanmar’s top general becomes president, the Philippines and Vietnam strike deals with Iran, and deforestation surges in Indonesia.
Southeast Asia’s Coming Food Crisis
While the fuel crisis caused by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran continues to dominate headlines, food will be the next pressure point. The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) estimates that the conflict in the Middle East means that 45 million more people will suffer from acute hunger in 2026.
In Asia and the Pacific, food insecurity is expected to increase by 24 percent, the biggest relative increase of any region. Southeast Asia is grappling not only with rising oil and fertilizer prices but also with a grim heat wave.
Food prices closely track hikes in oil prices. Yet a reduction in oil prices doesn’t result in proportional reductions in food prices, a WFP representative told Foreign Policy.
The Persian Gulf is a major producer of fertilizer and its components—most notably urea, which is made from natural gas and provides nitrogen, one of three key elements in most fertilizers.
With supplies of both urea and natural gas disrupted, fertilizer prices have risen at least 85 percent since the start of the year, according to data from Fertilizerworks.com.
Faced with the price hikes, some farmers might decide that it is simply not worth planting if crop prices won’t cover their costs. The WFP representative told Foreign Policy that there was already anecdotal evidence of this happening in the region.
To top it all off, a heat wave gripping Southeast Asia might also hit crop yields. In Kedah, Malaysia’s rice bowl, water reserves in dams are running low. The heat is also hitting Thailand’s livestock production.
Timing could not be worse, since the main Asian rice planting season is about to begin. Effects will be felt toward October or November, with analysts ballparking the reduction in crop yields at somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent.
Myanmar is where the human cost will be felt most acutely. The country is ranked fifth in the world for food insecurity, according to the WFP, which estimates that more than 12 million people there will face acute hunger in 2026.
To make matters worse, civil war and a massive earthquake that hit last year have devastated livelihoods.
“It’s increasingly the situation of the perfect storm,” Michael Dunford, the country director for the WFP in Myanmar, told Foreign Policy.
The very hot season ahead could alter the environment in two ways, Dunford said. There is both an impact on growing and, potentially, more dramatic storms. All this, in a country that is already prone to natural disasters.
The price of an average food basket was up 9 percent in Myanmar at the end of March compared to the end of February, according to WFP calculations.
Other countries are in for tough times, too. Thailand is an agricultural powerhouse that is heavily dependent on fertilizer imports. And in 2024, 29.4 percent of its fertilizer imports came from the Gulf, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity.
Four of the world’s 10 biggest rice importers are Southeast Asian countries, according to data from the OEC: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Should a global food crisis prompt big producers such as India to once again curtail exports, they will be hit hard. Four of the world’s 10 biggest exporters of rice are also Southeast Asian: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Rising food and fuel prices could even lead to political instability in the region. Last year’s riots in Indonesia came against the backdrop of rising food inflation.
What We’re Watching
Myanmar “new” president. Min Aung Hlaing, 69, has been declared the president of Myanmar following a sham election that concluded in January.
Formerly the commander in chief of the country’s military, Min Aung Hlaing’s move is the capstone of a push to cement his own power following his 2021 coup. That coup removed the democratically elected government and plunged the country into civil war.
Replacing him as commander in chief of the military is Ye Win Oo. Until recently, he served as the head of Myanmar’s feared military intelligence agency, and he was hastily promoted to head the army in March before assuming his new position.
Ye Win Oo’s background in intelligence, limited battlefield experience, and hasty promotion up the ranks make him an unusual choice. However, he is deeply loyal to Min Aung Hlaing—and close to the new president’s family.
Meanwhile, Soe Win—who served as Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy commander in chief and once seemed heir apparent—was not only passed over but also pushed from his position and not given a new one.
It could be that Min Aung Hlaing saw him as a threat. Soe Win is popular among the military and its supporters. As the junta reeled on the battlefield in 2024, some openly called for Soe Win to replace his boss.
Philippines, Vietnam strike Iran deals. The Philippines and Vietnam have both reached deals with Iran to let their vessels pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has assured the Philippines that it will allow the safe passage of Philippines-flagged vessels through the strait, Philippine Foreign Minister Maria Theresa Lazaro announced on April 2. The development might help relieve spiking fuel prices, which saw the Philippines declare a national energy emergency on March 24.
The deal is particularly notable, as the Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally. Despite this, relations between Manila and Tehran seem positively convivial. On X, Lazaro declared that the Philippines was “grateful for the warm spirit of cooperation” from Iran.
The same day, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated that Iran was implementing measures to let Vietnamese vessels pass through the Straits.
A readout of a call between Vietnam’s and Iran’s foreign ministers, Le Hoai Trung and Seyed Abbas Araghchi respectively, stated that Le referenced the “Vietnamese people’s historical experience of defending their country against aggressors.”
These two countries join a growing list of Southeast Asian governments—including Thailand and Malaysia—that have successfully struck such deals.
Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country whose strategy of cuddling up to U.S. President Donald Trump on his Board of Peace initiative now looks ill-advised, is conspicuously absent.
Indonesian peacekeepers killed in Lebanon. Three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed in two separate incidents in Lebanon on March 29 and March 30. Two others were seriously injured.
On Friday, three more Indonesian peacekeepers were injured in another blast.
The incidents came as Israel launched an incursion in southern Lebanon. Indonesian troops have been stationed there as part of a peacekeeping force since 2006.
The parties responsible for the deaths have yet to be identified, though the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has said that it is investigating both incidents. However, an anonymous U.N. source told AFP that an Israeli tank was responsible for the death of the peacekeeper on March 29.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry called bothincidents “unacceptable,” called for an investigation, and condemned Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
President Prabowo Subianto is now under pressure for his broader Middle East policy.
His decision to join Trump’s Board of Peace and offer peacekeepers for Gaza was controversial from the start. Polls of Indonesians have shown strong public opposition to both plans.
Former presidential contender Anies Baswedan, who campaigned on an Islamic ticket and likely retains political ambitions, has pounced on the incidents. In a statement released on March 30, following the first death, he declared himself “outraged,” squarely blaming Israel.
Photo of the Week
Penitent Ruben Enaje and two others are nailed to crosses during the observance of Lent in the village of Cutud in San Fernando, the Philippines, on April 3.Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images
FP’s Most Read This Week
- Why Trump’s Speech Was So Worryingby Howard W. French
- Why Jet Fuel Is the Real Harbinger of the Energy Crisisby Keith Johnson
- Russia’s River of Consciousnessby Eli Wizevich
What We’re Reading
Who killed Ersa Siregar? More than 20 years after the incident, Ridhwan Siregar tries in Channel News Asia to get to the bottom of how his father, also a journalist, died while covering the conflict in Aceh.
Every year, smoke from forest fires and crop burnings envelops Thailand’s second city, Chiang Mai, but this year it’s worse than ever, according to a piece in the Straits Times.
In Focus: Indonesia’s Deforestation Spikes
The rate of deforestation in Indonesia increased by 66 percent in 2025, according to a report by nongovernmental organization Auriga Nusantara, which based its research on satellite data. The organization found that more than 1 million acres had been cleared, the most in eight years.
A key driver of deforestation seem to be the policies of President Prabowo Subianto, who assumed office in 2024. The president has promoted government-led food estates. These vast plantations are supposed to increase the country’s food and fuel security, growing crops for consumption and biofuels.
Notably, some of the biggest increases in deforestation came in Papua.
Some of Prabowo’s biggest food estate projects are located in Papua. They have attracted considerable controversy over troops being deployed to support the projects amid claims of corruption, ecological destruction, displacement of locals, and the land’s unsuitability for crops.
Until recently, Indonesia’s push to reduce deforestation had been a major success story.
From 2016, the government had successfully implemented policies that sharply reduced deforestation. A key driver was devastating forest fires, which enveloped swaths of the country as well as neighboring Malaysia and Singapore in smoke.
However, even before the 2025 surge, deforestation rates had begun to creep back up in the early 2020s, after the government weakened environmental protections.
The government is contesting the nonprofit’s figures, with official statistics showing only a slight increase in deforestation. The root of the difference is methodological, with Auriga Nusantara claiming that its method captures smaller-scale clearances that are omitted by the government’s approach.
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