By Jason Kumar
Since President Obama pivoted America’s foreign affairs focus from the Middle East to East Asia, Myanmar has shown up a lot in the news. The country, one of the poorest in the world, ruled for the past 20 years by a military junta that has drawn comparison to North Korea’s regime, has more to it than meets the eye. With its strategically important location and richness in natural resources, Myanmar has been fought over by nations in the region for decades. Sanctions imposed by the Western world have sought to weaken Myanmar’s junta, but ironically, have only served to strengthen it. Now with a decade of dramatic change behind it, a Myanmar on the cusp of democratic revolution has come onto America’s national agenda. With sanctions still in place and America’s eye wavering towards China, could a functionally democratic Myanmar be in Southeast Asia’s future?
Hung out to dry
America’s policy towards Myanmar began in 1988, when the current ruling junta seized power, and both America and the EU nations declared economic sanctions in an effort to quash the junta before it could establish itself. The junta immediately turned to Myanmar’s rich natural resources and leveraged its strategically valuable border, selling itself to both India and China as a corridor to the ASEAN nations. Myanmar’s long-time ally, China, came to aid immediately, providing economic assistance that, to date, has amounted to the order of tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure and military support. At the same time, fearing China’s growing influence at its borders, India established trade with Myanmar in 1993, giving the fledgling government the means by which to stand on its own two feet.
From there, Myanmar had nowhere to go but up. While US foreign policy continued to denounce Myanmar’s corrupt and violent government, other nations took note of Myanmar’s economic openness and efforts to stabilize the post-revolutionary nation. Despite border conflicts and occasional disputes with its ASEAN neighbors, Thailand forged a strong economic relationship with Myanmar, most recently resulting in an $8.6 billion joint venture to construct an industrial complex, one 16 times larger than anything like it in Thailand. At the same time, ethnic rebels in Myanmar’s Kachin and Karen states found their bases of support rapidly defecting away from their side, and ultimately decided to call a ceasefire in their decades-long war with the central government, leading to the first era of nationwide peace since the 1950s.
Throughout these events, the law of unintended consequences romped through the streets, with the weight of US sanctions falling harshly on Myanmar’s people, while the junta grew increasingly entrenched and prosperous. Lacking Western aid and development assistance, Myanmar’s education, healthcare, and other social services were greatly diminished. By being denied access to international financial institutions and the best practices that they offer, Myanmar was unable to adopt effective macroeconomic and fiscal policies, dropping the country far behind its other ASEAN neighbors economically, possibly for decades to come. Despite a growing GDP from foreign investment, Myanmar’s government is still heavily involved in the local economy, resulting in severe job losses and high inflation.
Slow and steady change
Shortly after President Obama took office, America re-opened diplomatic engagement with Myanmar, producing what appeared to be the first trickles of change towards democracy. While Myanmar’s 2010 elections (the first since the junta took power) prevented opposition parties from participating, and were essentially a farce, the fact that elections were held at all did signal that the junta was willing to rebuild its rapport with the Western world. Over the next few years, the US State Department has done an excellent job in taking the junta’s first, cautious steps to democracy, and turning them into a potential for true change. With election reform passed and open elections coming up in April, permitting even famed Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to run for the presidency, things appear to be changing in Myanmar.
But is this a lasting change? With America’s foreign affairs focus shifting to China and the latter’s spheres of influence, encouraging democratic and developmental progress in Myanmar can be an easy way for America to exert its influence in Southeast Asia. Just as easily, though, America could leave its counterproductive sanctions in place and keep Myanmar mired in economic squalor while it searches for a grander stratagem. As Aung San Suu Kyi said at the World Economic Forum last month, “We are not yet at the point of a ‘great transformation’, but we have a rare and extremely precious opportunity to reach such a point”. America should take care to not let Myanmar’s opportunity pass.
Established in 1995, the Georgetown Public Policy Review is the McCourt School of Public Policy’s nonpartisan, graduate student-run publication. Our mission is to provide an outlet for innovative new thinkers and established policymakers to offer perspectives on the politics and policies that shape our nation and our world.