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2 India likes what it sees in
Myanmar By Chietigj Bajpaee
Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to visit
Myanmar in May as the country comes in from the
cold and emerges as the new darling of the
international community. This comes amid Myanmar's
ongoing political reform process, evidenced most
recently by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi's victory in parliamentary by-elections on
April 1.
Manmohan has pledged to seek
opportunities in Myanmar for "trade expansion,
economic cooperation and connectivity to the
larger ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian
Nations] region," alluding to New Delhi's approach
toward the neighboring Southeast Asian nation
being a microcosm of the India's "Look East"
policy that was launched in 1991.
However,
India's relations with Myanmar (and its "Look
East" policy by extension) are not purely economic
and extend beyond
India's goal of
accessing markets and resources in East Asia. A
political, security and more holistic strategic
dimension also characterize India's relationship
with the country (and region as a whole).
Notably, the ongoing normalization of
relations between Washington and Naypyidaw serves
New Delhi's strategic interests. The US policy of
"principled" or "pragmatic engagement" with
Myanmar under the Barack Obama administration
could further cement the recent rapprochement
between the US and India by highlighting a further
area of policy convergence, notably diluting
China's traditionally predominant role in Myanmar.
Furthermore, more than any other state
around India's periphery, Myanmar's geostrategic
significance demonstrates the inter-linkage
between stability in India's immediate
neighborhood and its larger foreign policy
ambition of emerging as a major global power
(through strengthening its role in East Asia).
Coming in from the cold April
has been a big month for Myanmar. The
international community has been quick to embrace
Myanmar in the aftermath of Suu Kyi's election
win. The United States has announced the
establishment of full diplomatic relations with
Myanmar with Derek Mitchell, former US special
envoy to Burma (Myanmar) tipped to become the
country's first accredited ambassador to the
country since 1990.
This has been
accompanied by the US relaxing travel
restrictions, permitting aid agencies to conduct
financial transactions to facilitate humanitarian
operations in the country and a targeted easing of
sanctions on US exports and investments to
Myanmar.
British Prime Minister David
Cameron became the first Western head of state to
visit Myanmar since the country's parliamentary
election in 2010, pledging the "right to suspend"
all sanctions on the country with the exception of
an arms embargo. This followed the visit of US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the country
in December 2011. Japan has also waived $3.7
billion in debt and resumed financial assistance
to Myanmar while the European Union has granted a
one-year suspension of sanctions on some 500
individuals and more than 800 companies in the
country.
The country's rapprochement with
the West has also coincided with a deterioration
in relations with China, prompting speculation
that the democratic reform process in Myanmar may
be partially driven by the desire to reduce the
country's overwhelming reliance on trade, aid and
investment from China.
This was most
visibly illustrated by the suspension of the $3.6
billion Myitsone dam and hydroelectric power
project in Kachin state in September 2011 over
social and environmental concerns, though rumors
persist that China Power International has resumed
the project.
Controversies over the
Myitsone dam project are the most recent in a
string of tensions between both states emanating
from environmental degradation and the influx of
immigrant workers for Chinese-funded projects and
historical animosities rooted in Beijing's support
for the Communist Party of Burma during the Cold
War; the arrest of former pro-China prime minister
and intelligence chief Khin Nyunt in October 2004;
and the displacement of ethnic Chinese Kokang
following a military operation in northeastern
Shan State in August 2009.
Nonetheless,
the rapid pace of Western re-engagement has raised
concerns over the sustainability of the current
rapprochement with the formerly isolated country.
Parallels can be drawn with Libya which also
normalized relations with the West after it
pledged to abandon its weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) program in 2003, prompting the removal of
sanctions and high-level meetings between
now-deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi and then US
secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and former
British prime minister Tony Blair.
However, change in Libya appeared to be
superficial as the repressive political system
under Gaddafi remained intact until the Arab
Spring last year. To be sure, there are limits to
the Libyan analogy. In Libya's case changes to its
foreign policy (through the abandonment of its WMD
program in 2003) preceded changes to its political
system (triggered by the Arab Spring in 2011).
In Myanmar's case it appears that internal
political reform is preceding foreign policy
shifts, as noted by recent concerns over the
country's military trade with North Korea.
Pragmatism remains the likely catalyst
behind Myanmar's ongoing rapprochement with the
West. For Western nations, there has been growing
recognition that the sanctions regime has done
little to push forward the process of political
reform in Myanmar while pushing the country
further into China's orbit and denying access to
the country's market of 60 million people and
abundant natural resources, including timber,
minerals and oil and gas.
For Myanmar, the
regime has sought to gain international legitimacy
through its democratic reform process, which has
also offered a means to diversify its source of
investment and aid to revive its ailing economy.
Fragile democracy The sudden
international rapprochement with Myanmar comes
despite the fact that the political reform process
is still in its infancy.
After earlier
boycotting the country's general elections in
November 2010, Suu Kyi's National League of
Democracy (NLD) won 43 of 45 contested seats in
April's by-election. However, the NLD's election
win comprises less than 7% of seats in the
664-seat parliament, of which a quarter are
occupied by unelected military officials while the
military-backed Union Solidarity and Development
Party (USDP) is the dominant party in the
parliament.
Key ministries such as the
defense, home and border management portfolios are
also occupied by serving military officers while
the president retains the right to declare a state
of emergency in order to prevent a "disintegration
of national solidarity".
This will give
the NLD a limited voice in the parliament and
hinder its ability to push for reforms to the
country's military-drafted constitution given that
it requires three-quarters of the USDP-dominated
parliament to make such changes.
The
decision by the NLD to boycott its first day in
parliament on April 23 amid disagreements over the
wording of the legislators' oath demonstrates that
the government's self-proclaimed roadmap to
establishing a "discipline-flourishing genuine
multi-party democracy" remains rocky.
It
was not long ago that the military junta regime
clamped down on pro-democracy protests across the
country in August-September 2007. Given its
overwhelming control over the upper and lower
houses of parliament, hardliners still retain the
ability to have a change of heart over the
political reform process, especially given latent
factionalism within the government between
pro-Beijing elements (led by Vice President Tin
Aung Myint Oo) and pro-reform elements (led by
President Thein Sein). This could lead to a
tug-of-war over the country's political, economic
and foreign policy trajectory.
Tensions
also remain between the Burman majority and ethnic
minority groups that comprise 40% of the country's
population and occupy 60% of its territory. The
previous military junta regime secured ceasefire
agreements with 17 ethnic rebel groups though
several groups opposed the new constitution as it
ignored their demands for a federal state.
Notably, fighting has flared with the
Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) since June
2011 following the collapse of a 17-year
ceasefire. The KIO have refused to join the Border
Guard Force (BGF), a government-led initiative
aimed at co-opting rebel groups into the state
governance structure.
While Thein Sein has
pledged to hold a national convention on ethnic
issues he has maintained a preference for dealing
with each ethnic group individually rather than
through a multi-party process, which could dilute
his leverage. Suu Kyi could emerge as an important
player in the ethnic reconciliation process by
facilitating a "second Panglong", referring to the
Panglong Agreement that her father, General Aung
San, forged with most ethnic groups in 1947.
On the economic front, despite revisions
to the country's archaic investment, land and
labor laws and efforts to reconcile the country's
dual exchange rate, progress is still required to
make Myanmar an investor-friendly environment. The
country lacks a stock market, suffers from chronic
power shortages, maintains a narrow tax base, and
is plagued by corruption and inefficient
state-owned enterprises. Rapid foreign capital
inflows could also serve to exasperate corruption
and inflationary pressures within the country.
India finding its feet New
Delhi has the potential to play a significant role
in supporting the ongoing but as yet incomplete
reform process in Myanmar. India has traditionally
been "second-fiddle" to other players such as
China and Thailand in Myanmar while struggling to
push for a "middle path" approach toward reform by
exploiting its geographic advantage and unique
historical position as an ally of Myanmar's three
poles of influence (the military junta regime,
popular democratic forces and ethnic groups).
On the political front, New Delhi's
self-proclaimed label as the "world's largest
democracy" has played a limited role in
facilitating Myanmar's democratization process.
New Delhi appears to have moved from one extreme
of voicing its opposition to the military junta's
crackdown on pro-democracy activists in 1988 to
the other of engagement with the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) government since 1993.
It
has pursued this increasingly pragmatic approach
in order to obtain the support of military junta
regime in countering insurgent groups in India's
northeast, as well as gaining access to Myanmar's
energy resources and Southeast Asia's markets.
However, in doing so New Delhi has lost the moral
high ground in Myanmar while only making limited
gains on the economic, security and strategic
fronts.
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