NED and its core institutes work in 16 countries in Asia, in addition to regional programming, which focuses on building democratic unity in the Indo-Pacific and addressing the impact of authoritarian influence on democratic development. Although North Korea remains the world’s least free country and China continues to crackdown on dissent, including in Hong Kong, East Turkistan, and Tibet where it has virtually eliminated political rights, and exert its influence in the region, the broader region is marked by growing political contestation.  South Asia witnessed the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in Bangladesh and the National People’s Power (NPP)’s victory in Sri Lanka. Moreover, the campaign for constitutional reform in Thailand, the prodemocracy movement in Burma, and the attempt to push for greater accountability and transparency in the Philippines, shows resilience.

By the Numbers

Regional Focus Areas

Expanding Space for Those Living Under Repressive Regimes 

Throughout the region, there has been a rejection of autocratic regimes and a demonstrated desire to create more open, democratic societies. From Burma where its population has turned against the military as the civil war continues to Vietnam where the pace of scrutiny, repression, and attacks on civil society continues to increase, the Asia program works with democrats throughout the region to thwart regressive elements such as the military or authoritarian parties that seek to contain the democratic progress of their societies.

As China’s economy enters a period of unprecedented turbulence and the Chinese Communist Party seeks to exert control over every aspect of political and economic life, activists are working through domestic mechanisms to document abuses and bring justice for victims. They are also collaborating with diaspora groups to hold the authoritarian government accountable at the international level. In addition, grantees working on North Korea are taking advantage of the burgeoning private markets and the smallest fissures inside the country to provide independent news and information to the country’s population.

 Using Elections as Organizing Tools 

As Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka held elections in 2024, the NED and the core institutes sought to work with partners to use these elections not only as vehicles of expressions of the peoples’ desire for change but also as opportunities to further organize and bolster the democratic movements in these countries. Although the odds were stacked against the democrats, each election presented opportunities to challenge those in power and were starting points for activists to organize and attempt to undo the democratic dismantling that has been occurring for years. Moreover, in all of these countries, the NED family doesn’t focus solely on the results of elections but instead works to find opportunities to strengthen democratic institutions and develop new generations of democratic activists.

Strengthening Democratic Governance  

Mismanagement of the economy, widespread corruption, and extremely poor governance have led to growing discontent with their governments among a wide swath of people throughout the region. Throughout the region, people have grown increasingly concerned that their leaders and governments lack the necessary skills to manage economies that meet the basic needs of their citizens and are unable to govern without resorting to oppression, populism, and fear mongering. In response, the NED and its core institutes work with a variety of actors to improve governance throughout the region. Working with business associations, think tanks, political parties, and unions, the NED family works to strengthen these institutions to be a voice of citizens’ aspirations and to create conditions for improved governance and more open and democratic governments.

Promoting Democratic Unity

The erosion of democratic practices and institutions in a number of once relatively liberal countries has presented democrats in the Asia region with mounting challenges, ranging from extreme repression in totalitarian states to a lack of governance capacity in relatively stable democracies. International trends have contributed to an expansion and escalation of extremist rhetoric and violence, while authoritarian states and leaders are increasingly deploying information and communications technology to erode democratic norms and values. Simultaneously, China’s rise as a regional and global power and its economic leverage have made it a powerful benefactor to and influencer of regimes in the region. Using its considerable financial power, China has signaled that respect for democracy and human rights is not a prerequisite or even a desirable feature for any potential partners.

Recognizing the need to protect and uphold democratic values, the rule of law, and rules-based institutions, and to effectively push back against the growing illiberal trends in the region, Asian democracies are exploring how to cooperate and assume a greater responsibility in the defense and maintenance of internationally recognized norms and values. Without strong regional mechanisms or frameworks that prioritize commitments to democracy and human rights, there is a pressing need for stakeholders in Asia, from civil society and non-governmental actors to governments and political leaders, to address these challenges through cross-border collaboration and transnational responses.

To that end, the NED support a variety of initiatives focused on bolstering democratic unity and cooperation among democratic nations in Asia as well as strengthening and expanding regional solidarity and cooperation among democratic actors. Specifically, the NED and the core institutes support partners in the region’s leading democracies to facilitate dialogue, build support, and promote greater leadership in defense of democratic norms and values. It supports regional networks of democracy and human rights activists and advocates that work to amplify democratic voices, facilitate exchanges, and strengthen regional solidarity around key democratic issues such as media freedom, free and fair elections, digital security and protection, and fundamental human rights.

Country Highlights

China

Since General Secretary Xi Jinping assumed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012, the political environment in mainland China, East Turkistan, Tibet and Hong Kong has sharply worsened as measured against nearly every metric of democratic development. The CCP has taken decisive action to consolidate and centralize political power at every level of the Party-state apparatus. The government has intensified its crackdown on dissidents, activists, and marginalized communities, while punishing the family members of human rights defenders and engaging in transnational repression against overseas civil society, including in the West. Armed with the world’s most sophisticated censorship apparatus, the CCP aims to promote distorted narratives that only “tell the Chinese story well.”

Since 1984, NED has supported efforts to promote democratic values and institutions in China, to protect fundamental rights and freedoms, and demand accountability for human rights abuses. NED funding supports independent civil society, activists, and human rights defenders. To counter China’s surveillance and censorship, NED works to enhance digital security, freedom of expression, and the free flow of information. Confronting a rapid deterioration of the rule of law in Hong Kong and crimes against humanity in the Uyghur region, NED supports efforts to strengthen the capacity of civil society to engage in local and international advocacy on behalf of persecuted groups. To respond to the CCP’s increasing influence undermining democracy globally, NED fosters expertise and analysis of the CCP’s tactics and tools and cultivates a global community of experts and practitioners who are concerned about the impact of China’s authoritarian influence on their communities and democracy for mutual learning and collaboration.

As a steadfast supporter of the Tibetan people for over 35 years and one of its longest running programs, NED supports initiatives that promote religious freedom, strengthen the free flow of independent information into and out of Tibet, document human rights atrocities, amplify the voices of activists inside Tibet, and strengthen the democratic resilience of the diaspora. In particular, to counter the CCP’s escalating attempts to erase the religious, cultural, and linguistic identity of the Tibetan people and coopt the Dalai Lama’s succession process, NED works to increase access to outside information and support bold actions to push back, as well as efforts to foster solidarity among supporters of religious freedom and co-religionists on issues of succession integrity, all while strengthening the capacity of the Tibetan exile freedom movement.

Grantee Spotlight

The Uyghur Transitional Justice Database (UTJD) has been at the forefront of documenting the Chinese regime’s human rights violations against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. Since 2017, the Chinese regime ramped up a campaign of mass internment, sending millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples to re-education camps and arbitrarily sentencing hundreds of thousands of them to long prison terms while going to extraordinary lengths to conceal its repression. In face of these abuses, UTJD played a critical role in informing the international community of the nature of the persecution.

UTJD has conducted in-depth interviews with survivors of the internment camp system who managed to escape China and documented 12,670 testimonies of missing Uyghurs and identified 843 suspected internment sites of various types in East Turkistan. UTJD’s research served as a critical evidential base that helped the Uyghur Tribunal, an independent panel composed of prominent barristers and scholars, to conclude in 2021 that the Chinese regime had committed the crime of genocide. The following year, the UN determined that this campaign of mass arbitrary detention might constitute “crimes against humanity.” In addition to these important accountability efforts, UTJD has developed a virtual reality simulation of a re-education camp. Using a VR headset, this groundbreaking and innovative work enables people to experience the horrors and terror of the persecution to which the Uyghurs have been subjected, demonstrations of which have been shown the throughout the world.

Grantee Spotlight

The winner of the NED’s 2024 Democracy Award, the Tibet Action Institute (TAI) brings together rights activists, strategists, and technologists to harness the power of new technologies and strategic nonviolent action to strengthen Tibetans’ digital resilience and capacity to fight back against China’s digital authoritarianism. TAI’s groundbreaking report exposed China’s network of colonial boarding schools in Tibet where nearly 1 million Tibetan children, as young as age four, are forcibly separated from their families, deprived of practicing their religion and culture, and subjected to political indoctrination. These colonial boarding schools threaten to erase the Tibetan people’s distinct national identity within one generation. NED’s support helps fund TAI’s cutting-edge research and international advocacy to hold China accountable for its genocidal policies.

Burma

Following the 2021 military coup d’état, Burma witnessed some of the most expansive and diverse public demonstrations in its history along with the coordinated emergence of an organized movement for federal democracy drawing on decades of resistance to military rule. In response, the military unleashed widespread brutality on its citizens, including political imprisonment, extrajudicial killings, digital repression, heightened surveillance, and the targeting of civilians in conflict. As both new and longstanding resistance organizations challenge the military, civil society and key political stakeholders are working alongside emerging local governance actors across the country to build federal democracy from the bottom up, developing policies and administrative systems that are democratic, inclusive, and responsive while also mapping out a broader vision for a future federal democratic union.

The Burma program aims to strengthen civil society and political efforts to defend civic space and advance the struggle for human rights and an inclusive federal democracy. As part of this effort, NED seeks to bolster coordination and coalition-building among key political stakeholders, including women, youth, and ethnic minority pro-democracy leaders; support human rights organizations with strong on-the-ground networks to document atrocities and advocate for accountability; strengthen independent media; support research to shape the policy and political strategy debate; and strengthen emerging and evolving local governance structures’ capacity to demonstrate that the opposition can deliver democratically for diverse communities.

Grantee Spotlight

Since its founding more than two decades ago, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – Burma (AAPP), through skilled documentation, advocacy, and assistance, has made the number and treatment of political prisoners a litmus test for the health of Burma’s state of democracy, even during the country’s brief opening period. In the wake of the 2021 military coup d’état, which resulted in the arbitrary detention of approximately 27,000 people for varying lengths of time, the AAPP’s mandate has never been more critical. Beyond just documenting the demographics of those imprisoned for their political actions or beliefs, AAPP has used its expansive network to document and verify widespread reports of systematic extrajudicial killing, torture, and sexual violence against detainees. These reports are not only significant for ongoing international accountability investigations but will also be the backbone for any future transitional justice efforts led by the people of Burma.

Although the organization’s advocacy has been essential in keeping the international community’s attention on Burma, AAPP continues to pair this work with essential humanitarian and psychosocial assistance to current and former political prisoners and their families. AAPP, and other NED grantees, do so not only on humanitarian grounds, but because Burma’s political history has demonstrated that human rights defenders often continue to organize communities even while behind bars and at great risk. Furthermore, when these activists do get released, many return to the movement, often as leaders, infusing the struggle for democracy with new energy.

North Korea

North Korea remains one of the most closed, isolated, and repressive countries in the world. The Kim regime suppresses the fundamental rights of its 25 million people, committing widespread human rights abuses including arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and other harsh penalties to instill fear and maintain its authoritarian grip on power. North Korea’s stifling censorship and information blockade is also unparalleled. The regime exercises extreme control over all forms of media including print, television, and the internet. State-controlled media extols propaganda while draconian laws impose inhumane punishments, including public execution, on citizens found accessing foreign media such as South Korean dramas. Yet despite such penalties, North Koreans’ demand for outside news and information has never been higher, and discontent with the regime continues to grow.

NED’s support for the North Korean human rights movement spans over 25 years. As the movement’s earliest institutional donor, NED has been a critical lifeline to leading groups in the movement. With NED support, organizations are disseminating independent news and information into North Korea, documenting the regime’s human rights atrocities, advancing accountability through international advocacy, leveraging technology to enhance information access, and empowering North Koreans to aspire for rights and freedoms. In addition, NED supports the empowerment of next generation defectors to lead the North Korean human rights movement and future democratic transition processes.

Grantee Spotlight

One of the largest and most influential online newspapers on North Korea-related news, Daily NK offers unparalleled insights into the Kim regime and serves as a critical source of information on conditions inside North Korea, both for those inside the country and audiences around the world. Daily NK informs North Koreans about the atrocities committed by the Kim regime and provides them with an indispensable counterpoint to relentless state propaganda. Leveraging its network of sources to collect feedback from citizens inside the country, Daily NK empowers defector journalists and curates news content that helps foster North Koreans' free expression and critical thinking.

Daily NK has been able to maintain its in-country sources and continue reporting activities despite North Korea's intensified crackdown on information flows, particularly during the pandemic. Daily NK’s reporting provides vital on-the-ground information about human rights violations in North Korea to governments, media, and human rights advocates around the world. Daily NK publishes over 1,200 articles annually with close an audience close to nine million.

Philippines

Though its 1986 People Power Revolution was hailed as a global success story for peaceful democratic change, the Philippines has seen a backsliding in democratic development in recent years. This decline has been characterized by an increase in political and economic capture by powerful dynasties across the country as well as impunity for human rights abuses, most notably evident by the thousands of extra-judicial killings committed by state forces under the previous administration’s war on drugs. Together these factors threaten the consolidation of hard-won democratic gains over the past four decades, and mark a disturbing turn toward authoritarianism wherein attacks on critics and the weakening of checks and balances have led to a widespread lack of government accountability.

NED seeks to support the Philippine prodemocracy movement to amplify its message and reach to make democracy deliver and counter the authoritarian populism that has spread throughout the country. The program’s two strategic focus areas include protecting and promoting basic rights and freedoms, including in the digital space, and expanding a shrinking civic landscape. Under the first area, NED supports independent media and the promotion of freedom of information, as well as projects that increase awareness of and respect for human rights for the pursuit of justice and accountability. Under the second strategic focus area, NED funds projects that help citizens to understand the stakes and impact of policies and actions that undermine democracy; make their voices heard in policy discussions; and take civic action to promote and protect democratic principles. Both focus areas underscore efforts to protect the democratic system by strengthening and raising public awareness about attacks on democratic processes and promoting government accountability.

Grantee Spotlight

In the Philippines, app-based work remains unregulated, excluding app-based delivery workers from the formal economy and the basic labor protections, such as minimum wage, healthcare, and insurance. Through the NED-funded Solidarity Center program, the Philippine trade union SENTRO organizes app-based delivery workers on a national scale, launching four chapters, with active organizing in 15 provinces across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao - the three major islands of the Philippines.

Formed in 2021, the National Union of Food Delivery Riders (RIDERS) has since held multiple rallies and actions, which have caught the attention of local and national legislators. For example, 200 GrabFood delivery riders in Metro Manila protested a pending fare cut, which garnered media attention. In Cebu, 300 GrabFood and Foodpanda delivery riders filed a collective case regarding 150M pesos (approximately $2.6 million) in wage theft. On the national stage, RIDERS takes an active role in shaping policy. Its worker-leaders have participated in multiple hearings as part of the Technical Working Group of the Freelance Protection bills. They have also contributed to dialogues that helped draft the Protected Online Workers, Entrepreneurs, Riders, and Raketera Bill.

Thailand

Thailand’s 2023 national elections demonstrated a public rejection of authoritarianism, giving many activists and human rights defenders fresh hope for democratic change. The elections exposed the surprisingly contested nature of politics since the 2014 coup as well as the durability of the democratic opposition. In light of these developments, civil society has shown a strong fortitude to capitalize on this momentum to mobilize citizens and build broader awareness of and support for democratic reform. Democracy advocates will continue to play an essential role in presenting a truly democratic vision for Thailand’s future and helping citizens understand and contribute to democracy building, particularly as political reforms are debated at the highest levels of government.

The NED strategy in Thailand focuses on supporting efforts that are taking advantage of the opening political space to advocate for democratic reforms while also protecting, unifying, and expanding the grassroots pro-democracy movement built over the last decade. This support is more critical than ever in a dynamic national political landscape where citizens are more politically engaged and continue to discuss previously taboo topics.  As Thai citizens search for a new consensus on how to reform the political system, the NED aims to support civil society organizations that are leading the charge in public policy analysis, independent media, civic engagement, labor and human rights, and legal assistance.

Grantee Spotlight

VOTE62 was established before the 2019 election by a coalition of civil society organizations to mobilize networks of engaged citizens to conduct a parallel vote tabulation for greater government transparency and accountability. Despite only establishing the platform shortly before the 2019 election, the coalition's work helped highlight the irregularities of the delayed official count and provided citizens with more immediate results.

Four years later, VOTE62 worked to ensure the election process in 2023 was more free, fair, and transparent than in 2019. With more resources and preparation time, VOTE62 coverage and popularity grew substantially; around 6 million people visited the website, and its hashtag was used 7.4 million times. On election day alone, its website received 1.7 million page views, and its 40,000 volunteers submitted more than 405,000 photos and tabulated 29 percent of the total votes cast. The initiative demonstrated Thai citizens' political engagement and desire for change through the sheer number of individuals mobilized over just a few months. Ultimately, despite the political maneuverings that kept the most popular democratic party out of the government, thanks to VOTE62's awareness-raising and volunteer engagement, the election process itself was widely considered to be sound, and the power and influence of an engaged electorate has become a force for long-term political change.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s 2022 economic crisis – the worst in its 76-year history – precipitated the aragalaya, mass protests calling for “systems change.” Disenchanted by corruption and impunity, the protesters sought reforms to the root causes of the crisis, including weak and compromised institutions, limited checks on executive power, and political patronage-based decision making. Civil society, the press, and voices on social media provided information and analysis and offered alternative perspectives, identifying the throughline of poor governance in the state’s legacy of corruption and human rights abuses. Some are starting to use the popular awakening to reckon with decades of ethnic and religious minority discrimination and vilification for political gain. The presidential and general elections in fall 2024 saw the rejection of Sri Lanka’s dominant political parties and leaders. Having run on an anti-corruption platform, President Dissanayake emerged the victor and represents sustained calls, especially from Sinhalese youth, for a shift away from the status quo.

The NED strategy in Sri Lanka focuses on fostering the power of civil society organizations to support the demand for systemic reforms and mobilize citizens to engage more deeply in political processes. Civil society-developed research that raises awareness of authoritarian practices of previous governments and promotes solutions that encourage systematic reform can build knowledge and inform awareness campaign and advocacy efforts, thereby deepening demands for democratic governance. Collective action that connects grassroots struggles to larger governance issues can build public conscience and encourage an issues-based political culture that prioritizes responsiveness to the needs of the people.

Grantee Spotlight

The mass protests of 2022 shook the civic consciousness of many Sri Lankans and unleashed a societal conversation around the root causes of the economic crisis and its links to governance failures and mismanagement. As new bills are drafted, constitutional amendments are proposed, and political promises are made, the Sri Lankan public is scrutinizing the decisions that its elected members take and is ready to hold them accountable.

Verite Research provides straightforward and objective information and analysis on governance processes and the economy, thereby contributing to a more issues-based political debate in Sri Lanka. One such way is through the operation of online tracking tools that monitor the performance of members of parliament on topics such as attendance, voting record, and debate participation, as well as the performance of presidents against their campaign manifesto promises. Similarly, Verite Research developed an IMF tracker that facilitates public and media monitoring of the government's progress toward economic and governance reform commitments made in the 2023 IMF deal. Each tracker and associated content have been covered widely in the Sri Lankan and international press and cited by government and elected officials.

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