BANGKOK It was more than symbolic that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made Kuala Lumpur the first stop on his first overseas trip as president of Indonesia. The visit was dominated not by its exchange of Malay courtesies but by the awkward issue of the fate of the 400,000 undocumented Indonesian workers currently facing prison and the lash if they don't leave Malaysia by a twice-extended deadline, now March 1. The visit underlined the fact that migration issues in Southeast Asia surpass those in Europe. More than movements of either trade or capital, movements of people within the region are likely to be a strain on neighborly relations for years. They are the natural outcome of economic imbalances more akin to those between North Africa and the European Union than between the countries of the EU. Well handled, the movements will continue to enhance economic growth. Badly handled, they could be politically as well as economically destructive. The scale of the issue in Malaysia is stunning. The Malaysian work force is around 11 million. In addition there are roughly half a million legal foreign workers, mostly in agriculture, construction, catering and domestic employ. Until recently there were an estimated one million illegals, of whom roughly half are believed to have left following an amnesty. Indonesians are the majority though there are also large numbers from the Philippines, Bangladesh and India. They have become a political issue. Middle-class Malaysians blame a wave of mostly petty crime on the illegals. But it remains to be seen what happens to the catering and construction industries, let alone to crime, when they are gone - even if the number of legal workers is substantially increased. The fact is that a combination of huge wage disparities and long coastlines between Indonesia and peninsular Malaysia ensure that the demand and supply will remain. Meanwhile Malaysia's reputation has been hurt by claims of human rights abuses in camps for detained illegals. As one would expect in a tightly run city-state, Singapore has the issue under better control, but the sheer numbers of low-wage contract workers, mostly from Indonesia, inevitably leads to frequent cases of abuse that strain neighborly relations. There are about 150,000 foreign domestic servants in a city of four million people. Singapore, which lacks an extradition treaty with Indonesia, is also host to some very rich Indonesian Chinese accused of major frauds. The Philippines is second to Indonesia as labor supplier within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and domestic pressure to look after its workers continues to cause periodic tiffs with neighbors. But the regional center of human movement in the region is Thailand, which is both a supplier of labor, mainly to Northeast Asia and the Gulf, and the recipient of more than one million mostly undocumented workers from Myanmar and Cambodia. The tsunami underlined how little is known about them. There were several construction camps in the disaster area, but no one seems to know how many died. Many Burmese fled back home afterward because there was no work or they feared arrest. Thai official attitudes toward the Burmese workers have, according to some nongovernment sources, often been callous. Indeed, if the Yangon government cared for its citizens, its relations with its neighbor might well have been strained by the tsunami. The supply of labor from Myanmar to do the dirty and difficult jobs or work in factories for wages far below what Thais would accept is likely to continue for years. Thai officials often turn a blind eye to the labor needs of business and - as was learned during the Asian financial crisis - understand the flexibility that is provided by a large labor force with no rights or political power. Even if Myanmar gets a government capable of ensuring sustained economic growth, there is a huge amount of catching up to do. Migration pressures may increase as populations in the poorer countries grow more rapidly than in the rich ones. In the next 25 years, working-age populations are expected to grow by 63 percent in the Philippines, 51 percent in Vietnam and 38 percent in Indonesia but only 22 percent in Thailand and 12 percent in Singapore. Labor-supplying countries are unlikely to make much fuss about their compatriots' pay and conditions. Families need remittances, nations the foreign currency. But it will require flexibility, common sense and avoidance of racial stereotyping if labor movement within Southeast Asia is to continue to be broadly beneficial and not lead either to backlashes against foreign labor or to the worker abuse and social problems that would be likely in a totally unfettered market. See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune. < < Back to Start of Article