Southeast Asia was, and continues to be, a major destination of mass long-distance labor migrations. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries labor migration from China and India to the region was a defining feature of Asian globalization. Asian migration also approximated European transatlantic migration; it was consistent with the development of export production and industrialization in Europe and impacted on Southeast Asian economies and societies. Migration was largely unrestricted and led to settlement by immigrant communities and the creation of plural societies in colonial territories. Since the 1980s Southeast Asia has re-emerged as a major player in global migration movements and the scale, diversity and significance of migration flows has grown exponentially. The people who now cross international borders move mainly for economic reasons, or are forced to move for a variety of reasons, including displacement by wars. In the main Southeast Asian destination countries—Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand—foreign workers comprise between 15-30 percent of the labor force and their share is rising. Contemporary flows also comprise illegal movements and Southeast Asian states are striving to control their frontiers through evolving border strategies.

Migration in Southeast Asia today is transforming cities and societies, labour market relations and national cultures. The regulatory capacities of nation states are also changing against the backdrop of the reformulation of national frontiers and construction of legislative instruments governing migration and citizenship. In this context, the issue and urgency of integration has become a major challenge facing these transforming societies.

The Commission's underlying theme that improving health for all because it is a good thing in itself is commendable because we should 'get real' about what really matters – the implementation of social justice policies that will reduce health inequality within a relatively short period of time. Examples of policies that impact on people's socio-economic circumstances and will result in widespread health improvement include tax, housing and transport policies. Governments should ensure a living wage for workers, a reduction in work-related stress and a healthy life-balance. These policies are commensurate with the Millennium Development Goals. The body of evidence presented in the Report clearly demonstrates major and unacceptable levels of health inequity between, and within, countries. The Report also provides helpful and useful illustrations of some familiar themes and in establishing and explaining the connections between basic factors that are causing poor health and health inequities globally.

The current immigration debate in labour-importing countries such as Malaysia centres largely on whether migrants are an asset or a threat. On the one hand, migrant labour is an important economic asset in meeting labour shortages, keeping down labour costs and providing a range of skills not available locally. On the other, there are concerns that migrants put pressure on health and educational services and affect national security. It is also increasingly evident that many people move in disregard of the borders that delineate nations because they aspire to achieve a better life. This movement is perceived to undermine national structures since some migrants operate outside official channels and it is thus in local situations and contexts that the impact of migration is experienced, debated, and contested most directly. The current debate suggests that Southeast Asia is facing an important change of direction due to migration contributing to the reinvention and reconstruction of increasingly impenetrable borders. With the aim of contributing to this ongoing debate in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region, the Malaysia and Singapore Society of Australia addressed these and other issues at its Fourteenth Colloquium in December 2006. The Colloquium theme - Boundaries and Shifting Sovereignties: Migration, Security and Regional Cooperation In Asia - was tackled from a variety of perspectives. Seven papers from the interdisciplinary colloquium were selected for this special issue and provide new insights into the debates around migration and security in the region. In this volume we first examine migration issues focussing on state and societal perceptions towards migrant workers in Malaysia, the migration-trafficking-refugee nexus and the role of the Jesuit Refugee Service, a faith-based organisation that works with refugee groups in the Asia-Pacific. Second, in the context of rethinking about borders, we examine the key issue of security and how Malaysia in particular deals with regional security issues and conflict at its borders with Thailand and the Philippines. The question of suicide bombers in Indonesia is also considered in the wider context of national and regional security.

The cross-border movement of people, associated with the increased integration of economies and ongoing changes in the international division of labour, forms an essential component of the globalisation process. A sharp increase in labour mobility has coincided with official recruitment agencies and private entrepreneurs providing all sorts of services to migrant workers in exchange for fees. Yet while trade and financial flows are welcomed by nations, labour flows raise concerns about possible influxes of both documented and illegal migrants, the potential erosion of national sovereignty; and, since 11 September 2001, fears of terrorism. This has resulted in more stringent immigration policies and border controls by the state. Migration has thus become a major domestic and international political issue, particularly for developed countries. Moreover, the issue continues to be debated mainly in the context of developed countries. Nevertheless, international migration (in response to global economic forces) within developing regions, such as Southeast Asia, is also an important phenomenon, and worthy of attention on its own. This chapter examines the changing labour demand patterns and labour supply in the context of increasing economic integration in the Southeast Asian region. It focuses on the economic disparities and structural interdependencies between source and destination countries; and the employment of unskilled contract workers, especially in Malaysia and Singapore. The chapter also makes the point that the institutionalisation of the migration process, particularly for unskilled labour, serves to create both a black market in migration and conditions conducive to human trafficking and exploitation.

In the past three decades the Asia-Pacific region has experienced a major wave of immigration despite tighter migration policies and better border controls. Southeast Asia has been prominent in this change, with some countries being important sources and destinations of skilled and unskilled migrants. Australia has also increased its migration quotas, particularly the skilled migration intake. The emergence of new regional migration patterns, the fast growth in the demand for knowledge workers and skilled migrants in specific occupational categories, and the creation of subregional labour markets are all manifestations of the scale and diversity of recent migratory movements in the region. Key factors accounting for these developments include disparities in economic growth; income and poverty levels between countries; labour shortages arising from demographic transformations; structural change in labour supply; and the role of social networks and the migration industry as drivers of migration.

This study will examine three aspects of railroad development in Malaya: first, the railroad as both a consumer and a transport agency; second, the specific role of the railways in contributing to the emergence of an extractive-colonial economy; and finally, the ways in which the railroad system led to the uneven distribution of capitalistic development in Malaya. It should be noted that parallel developments took place in road construction, but the railway was a more substantial line of communication, and the economic effects of its construction were much greater. This study begins in 1874, when the pace of expansion accelerated distinctly, with official British. intervention in the internal affairs of the Malay states and the formulation of specific transport construction programs. The discussion ends with the Japanese invasion in 1941, by which time the major transportation lines had been laid out and the hegemony of the railroad was being challenged by road transportation.

Indian labour migration to Burma and Malaya in the late nineteenth century was an important dimension of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia and coincided with the region's greater integration into the international economy. Compared to the Chinese, Indians formed an important minority only in these states where they filled a critical need in the urban manufacturing sector (Burma) and the plantation sector (Malaya). Their importance declined after World War Two, both in absolute and comparative terms. There were fewer millionaires and traders among them and their emigration to these territories was largely regulated by law. Moreover, the specific political and economic relationship between the Colonial Office in London and these territories determined recruitment patterns and influenced employment relations and working conditions. In turn, these impacted on the living conditions and mortality suffered by workers and shaped the structure of health services.

Migration is regarded as the earliest form of globalisation and human migrations have been a constant theme throughout history. Because there were no political boundaries, the movements of people were usually referred to as migration. According to Bohning (1984) the international migration of human beings dates back only to when the 'nation-state' took hold in Europe during the Industrial Revolution, and as a result of colonialism spread in all directions throughout the world. The nation state brought along with it a 'we-they' or 'in-out' distinction and people become identified with a particular nation. Movement from one nation to another or international migration required a change in allegiance and citizenship. In Asia and elsewhere colonial powers carved out new states with precisely delineated boundaries but kept borders open to trade, investment and labour flows in keeping with the growth of the international economy. In the post Second World War period, decolonisation and the dissolution of empires resulted in the emergence of independent nation states in the Asian region. The East Asian states embraced the 'new' globalisation via trade liberalisation strategies and export-led growth. Concurrently, a new form of the international division of labour brought opportunities for export-oriented industrialisation in East Asia. These countries' comparative advantage lay mainly in lower labour costs, and the labour market thus became one of the main channels through which globalisation impacted on the Asian economies.

Transnational labour migration has been a dominant feature of Southeast Asian labour history since the 1870s, affecting those who moved, and impacting on host communities. Moreover, until about the 1940s, borders were porous and migration was largely unrestricted, consistent with colonial migration goals and the region's demographics. Since the 1970s, however, labour migration in the region has become more diversified, and consists predominantly of intra-Southeast Asian flows. Migration goals have also changed and coincide with state polices that emphasise the nationality, race, geographical origins, gender, skills and occupation of migrants. Free migration has thus given way to institutionalised and restricted migration policies that include stringent border controls and internal enforcement measures. Crucially, a sharp increase in labour mobility has coincided with the development of a migration industry and the emergence of officially-sanctioned recruitment agencies and entrepreneurs providing all sorts of services to migrant workers in exchange for fees.