Business before rights in Southeast
Asia By Roberto Tofani
Impressive economic growth, democratic
opening in Myanmar and prolonged financial crises
in the West have renewed United States and
European Union (EU) interest in Southeast Asia
after a decade of relative neglect. But will
Washington and Brussels sacrifice their
long-standing advocacy of democracy and human
rights on the altar of new economic and strategic
interests?
The increasing geopolitical
relevance of the South China Sea, where China has
competing and contentious territorial claims with
Southeast Asian neighbors, has helped to drive the
US's declared strategic "pivot" towards Asia. Many
analysts view that strategic shift as an attempt
to counterbalance China's rising regional
influence by courting and defending its Southeast
Asian neighbors.
The US has avoided taking
overt sides in the recent stand-off
between China and the
Philippines over the contested Scarborough Shoal,
but has stated its interest in freedom of
navigation in the contested waters. Recent joint
US-Philippine naval exercises underscored this
interest while raising hackles in Beijing. Its
engagement with Myanmar is also seen as an attempt
to undercut Chinese influence in the
resource-rich, strategically-situated country.
Americans and Europeans have historically
sanctioned or strongly criticized countries like
Myanmar and Vietnam over their abysmal
human-rights records and lack of respect for basic
civil liberties. Both have applied a dual approach
to encourage economic and political change. While
international financial institutions have provided
help to stimulate market-driven growth, Western
governments have dangled humanitarian and
development assistance in return for promised
democratic reforms.
That approach has only
partially worked. Southeast Asian countries have
shown scant interest in improving basic rights and
concentrated instead on strengthening their
economies through trade and investment relations
with the West. More recently, China has helped
many regional countries diversify their economies,
without demands for reform. As that economic
balance shifts, the US and the EU have seemingly
softened their calls for universal rights and
intensified their pursuit of new markets.
To be sure, the rhetoric is still in
place. Take, for instance, Vietnam. In February,
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell told his Vietnamese
hosts that moving their improved bilateral
relationship to the next level "will require some
significant steps on the part of Vietnam to
address both individual cases of concerns, human
rights concerns, but also more systemic challenges
associated with freedom of expression, freedom of
organization".
In the meantime, US and
Vietnamese authorities are working towards a new
Trans-Pacific-Partnership (TPP) - a multilateral
free trade agreement that aims to further
liberalize trade and investment in the
Asia-Pacific region. A 2001 bilateral trade
agreement was a significant milestone towards
normalizing US-Vietnam relations and helped to
boost bilateral trade from US$3 billion in 2002 to
$18.6 billion in 2010, making the US Vietnam's
second-largest trading partner after China.
While the US State Department still
considers Vietnam "an authoritarian state", seen
most visibly in its ongoing crackdown on activists
and bloggers, trade relations have been
unaffected. Washington has moved cautiously only
on the issue of sophisticated arms sales,
partially due to rights concerns, but more likely
to avoid a direct conflict with China.
The
EU is Vietnam's third-largest trading partner and
one of its largest foreign investors. Last year,
European investors committed some $1.8 billion
worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) outlays,
representing more than 12% of Vietnam's total
committed FDI, according to Vietnamese sources.
More than the promotion of human rights,
the EU's current stated aim is "the signature of
the new EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation
Agreement in the near future", Catherine Ashton,
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy/vice president of the commission,
stated at the end of April.
Since joining
the World Trade Organization in 2007, and with a
rising critical mass of Western investments,
Vietnam is no longer considered in Washington or
Brussels a country of particular concern, despite
its ongoing and persistent rights abuses.
Priority shift There are
concerns that strategic and economic interests are
dictating the course of relations with Myanmar, a
country where both the US and EU maintain but have
recently suspended economic sanctions imposed
against abusive military rule. The EU and US now
seem to be coupled in an investment race to catch
up with Asian countries, including China, India
and Thailand, that maintained normal relations
through decades of military rule.
Myanmar President Thein Sein's political
reforms, including the release of hundreds of
political prisoners, the loosening of media
restrictions and allowances for the Aung San Suu
Kyi-led opposition to join parliament, have been
rapidly rewarded by Washington and Brussels. The
US and EU have respectively eased and suspended
their sanctions and both are planning to ramp up
development aid within the country.
"We
say to American businesses, invest in Burma
[Myanmar] and do it responsibly," Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton said after announcing the
rollback of sanctions after talks with Myanmar
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin in Washington
this month.
Myanmar exiles, former
political prisoners and international rights
groups championed the sanctions and have long
opposed their removal without demonstrable
progress on the country's rights situation.
Despite recent releases, hundreds of political
prisoners are still behind bars, they note.
Meanwhile, there are credible reports of
ongoing and widespread military abuses against
civilians in the government's conflict with Kachin
rebels in the country's northern region. And the
local press is still censored against reporting
critically on the previous or current regime.
The US and EU have decided to look past
these abuses and have concentrated instead on
economic matters. Echoing Clinton's call on US
corporations to invest in Myanmar, the British
Embassy in Yangon recently published its "Burma
business guide" to assist potential investors in
the country.
Ironically, the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights
(AICHR) will hold its next meeting in Yangon in
early June. With Myanmar's restrictions on civil
society organizations and continued black listing
of activists and journalists, few expect progress
towards an ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, a
proposed roadmap for regional rights developments
in the region. Myanmar will chair the 10-member
ASEAN for the first time beginning in 2014.
In the past, the US and EU balked at
Myanmar's membership in the regional grouping and
through their sanctions would have boycotted any
meetings held in the country. Now, with the recent
shift in diplomatic priorities, Washington and
Brussels seem increasingly willing to subjugate
rights and democracy concerns in pursuit of
commercial and geostrategic interests.
While the gambit may aim to counter
China's influence, by looking the other way on
rights abuses and lauding token democratic
reforms, the US and EU are effectively endorsing
Beijing's approach.
Roberto
Tofani is a freelance journalist and analyst
covering Southeast Asia. He is also the co-founder
of PlanetNext (www.planetnext.net), an association
of journalists committed to the concept of
"information for change".
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