http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1592-7277
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Abstract
This article addresses an important empirical puzzle: why has the United States, without exception, chosen not to intervene in the six humanitarian catastrophes in post-war Asia, namely in Indonesia, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, Sri Lanka and Myanmar? We use an eclectic approach that blends arguments about the international normative structure and geostrategic interests to examine what has made the absence of humanitarian intervention in Asia by the US possible and legitimate. Specifically, we focus on the paradox between calls for humanitarian intervention and the historically and geographically contingent social construction of the norms of humanity, national sovereignty and United Nations-backed multilateralism in conjunction with US and Chinese concerns over their regional geostrategic interests. The normative narratives about race, ‘communists’, ‘terrorists’, international order and inclusive multilateral processes, and the geostrategic interests of the US and China, combine to make non-intervention possible and legitimate.
Acknowledgements
The authors are greatly grateful to Ingvild Bode, Paolo Dardanelli, Anisa Heritage, Ian Holliday and two anonymous reviewers for their useful and constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, Report of the Detailed Findings, paragraphs 1411–41.
2 ICJ, “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment,” 23.
3 See eg Ronayne, Never Again?
4 ICG, Long Haul Ahead, 15.
5 Fair, “Making of the Rohingya Genocide”; Guilloux, “Myanmar: Analyzing Problems.”
6 ICG, Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis, 15.
7 UN Security Council, S/PRST/2017/22, 6 November 2017 (emphasis added).
8 HRW, “Myanmar: UN Rights Council’; Charbonneau, “UN Members Thwart China’s Bid.”
9 The anti-PKI politicide brought about a break-up of China’s alliance with the PKI and President Sukarno. Mozingo, Chinese Policy toward Indonesia, 234–63.
10 Krain, “International Intervention,” 366.
11 Bass, Freedom’s Battle, 6–7, 28.
12 Levene, “Why Is the Twentieth Century.”
13 Mayersen and Pohlman, “Introduction,” gives a good overview of the major genocides in Asia.
14 Bachman, The United States and Genocide, 78–80; Bellamy, “The Other Asian Miracle?,” 4; Cribb, “Genocide in Indonesia.”
15 Cordera, “India’s Response to the 1971 East Pakistan Crisis,” 48.
16 Jahan, “Genocide in Bangladesh,” 290–95.
17 Ibid., 291.
18 Bellamy, “The Other Asian Miracle?,” 3; Hinton, Why Did They Kill?, 1; Kiernan, “Cambodian Genocide.”
19 Bellamy, “The Other Asian Miracle?,” 4; Dunn, “Genocide in East Timor,” 265.
20 Dunne and Staunton, “Genocide Convention,” 39.
21 ICG, War Crimes in Sri Lanka; Kurtz and Jaganathan, “Protection in Peril”; Nackers, “Sri Lanka,” 76, 79.
22 Jones, Genocide, War Crimes and the West.
23 Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, 176–201, at 191.
24 Simpson in Bachman, The United States and Genocide, 86 (emphasis in original).
25 Ibid., 84–9; Kadane, “US Officials’ Lists.”
26 Robinson, Killing Season, 196–206, at 204.
27 Bevins, “What the United States Did in Indonesia.”
28 Bass, Blood Telegram, 289–324; Ganguly, “Pakistan’s Forgotten Genocide,” 171–3.
29 Robinson, If You Leave Us Here, 60.
30 Miller, “Why Sovereignty Matters Despite Injustice,” 39.
31 Kiernan, “Cambodian Genocide,” 346.
32 Jago, “InterFET,” 384; Robinson, If You Leave Us Here, 193.
33 Finnemore, “Paradoxes in Humanitarian Intervention.”
34 Barnett, “Culture, Strategy and Foreign Policy Change,” 5.
35 Ibid., 7.
36 Bode and Karlsrud, “Implementation in Practice,” 460.
37 Barnett, “Culture, Strategy and Foreign Policy Change,” 7.
38 Bode and Karlsrud, “Implementation in Practice,” 460 (emphasis in original).
39 Bellamy and Williams, “On the Limits of Moral Hazard,” 545.
40 Bass, Freedom’s Battle; Finnemore, Purpose of Intervention, 58–66.
41 Badescu, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect, 9; Finnemore, Purpose of Intervention, 53; Pattison, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect, 28.
42 Badescu, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect, 41.
43 The paragraph above also draws on Lee and Chan, “China’s and India’s Perspectives on Military Intervention.”
44 Hemmer and Katzenstein, “Why Is There No NATO in Asia?,” 583.
45 Finnemore, “Paradoxes in Humanitarian Intervention,” 201.
46 Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Policy.
47 Kadane, “US Officials’ Lists.”
48 Bachman, The United States and Genocide, 91.
49 Dunn, “Genocide in East Timor,” 269.
50 Ibid., 281–2.
51 Cited in Hemmer and Katzenstein, “Why Is There No NATO in Asia?,” 602.
52 Ibid., 575.
53 Ibid., 594.
54 Ibid., 596.
55 Cited in Ronayne, Never Again?, 66.
56 Simpson, “‘Illegally and Beautifully,’” 304.
57 Nackers, “Sri Lanka,” 878.
58 Nackers, “Framing the Responsibility to Protect,” 93–7.
59 Nackers, “Sri Lanka,” 880.
60 Destradi, India and the Civil War in Sri Lanka, 15.
61 Weiss, Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka, xxii.
62 Suan, “Statement by Ambassador U Hau Do Suan.”
63 Acharya, Constructing Global Order, 74–85.
64 Wheeler, Saving Strangers, 65–71.
65 Ibid., 58–59; Nanda, “A Critique of the United Nations Inaction,” 63.
66 Jackson, South Asian Crisis, 126–8; Nanda, “Critique of the United Nations Inaction,” 60–2.
67 Jackson, South Asian Crisis, 125.
68 Cited in Wheeler, Saving Strangers, 93.
69 Bellamy and Drummond, “Responsibility to Protect in Southeast Asia,” 184.
70 Thakur, “Developing Countries and the Intervention-Sovereignty Debate,” 195.
71 Yuwaka, “ASEAN Way as a Symbol.”
72 Jago, “InterFET”; Robinson, If You Leave Us Here, 58, 185–204.
73 Ibrahim, The Rohingyas, 75.
74 Reuters, “Myanmar Says ‘Seriously Concerned.’”
75 Sun, “China Finds Opportunity in Myanmar Crisis.”
76 Franck, Recourse to Force, 142.
77 Metzl, Western Responses to Human Rights Abuses, 87, 130.
78 Cited in ibid., 124.
79 Lee and Chan, “China’s and India’s Perspectives on Military Intervention”; Bellamy and Williams, “New Politics of Protection.”
80 AHA Centre, “AHA Centre Deployed ASEAN-ERAT”; New Humanitarian, “In Search of a Regional Rohingya Solution.” See https://www.baliprocess.net/ for the Bali Process.
81 Iskandar, “Non-Citizen Rights in ASEAN”; McAuliffe, Resolving Policy Conundrums.
82 ASEAN, “Press Statement by the Chairman”; Frelick, “Call Them What They Are.”
83 Lee and Chan, “China’s and India’s Perspectives on Military Intervention”.
84 Destradi, “India and the Civil War in Sri Lanka.”
85 Ibid., 12, 13, 15, 18.
86 Nackers, “Framing the Responsibility to Protect,” 98.
87 Weiss, Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka, 200, 202 (emphasis added).
88 Nackers, “Sri Lanka,” 879–80; Thakur, The People vs. the State, 203–05.
89 UN Security Council, S/PV.8133, 12 December 2017.
90 The Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, chaired by Kofi Annan, submitted its final report and policy recommendations to Myanmar’s government in August 2017; see http://www.rakhinecommission.org/the-final-report/
91 Reuters, “China Calls for Understanding.”
92 Ibid.
93 Hulse, “Rohingya, R2P, and Civilian Protection.”
94 Toosi, “Genocide the US Didn’t See Coming.”
95 Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, US Department of State, Documentation of Atrocities in Northern Rakhine State.
96 Toosi, “Genocide the US Didn’t See Coming”; Reuters, “US Imposes Sanctions.”
97 Lancaster, “Intervening Interests.”
98 Welsh, “Authorizing Humanitarian Intervention,” 187.
99 Schissler, Walton, and Thi, “Reconciling Contradictions.”
100 Ibid., 378.
101 Finnemore, “Paradoxes in Humanitarian Intervention,” 221; Ibrahim, The Rohingyas, 2, 63–70.
102 Bass, Blood Telegram, 218–21; Burr, “Nixon/Kissinger Saw India as ‘Soviet Stooge.’”
103 Peel, “Great Land Rush – Myanmar”; Dutta, North East and the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor.
104 The two huge enterprises own at least 120 subsidiary companies involved in a wide range of business activities in the country. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, Economic Interests of the Myanmar Military.
105 Guilloux, “Myanmar: Analyzing Problems,” 391–2.
106 Hulse, “Rohingya, R2P, and Civilian Protection.”
107 Welsh, “Responsibility to Protect after Libya and Syria,” 80.
108 Ibid.
109 The US has also imposed a travel restriction on Sri Lankan Commander of the Army Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva, over his alleged role in the genocide of 2009. Abi-Habib and Bastians, “US Bar Sri Lankan Army Chief.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pak K. Lee
Pak K. Lee is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese politics and international relations in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. His most recent publication is Order, Contestation and Ontological Security-Seeking in the South China Sea (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020; with Anisa Heritage). His work has appeared in leading academic journals such as Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Nationalities Papers, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Global Governance, Review of International Studies, Contemporary Politics, Third World Quarterly, Pacific Review and China Quarterly.
Cecilia Ducci
Cecilia Ducci is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna, Italy. She earned her BA in Politics and International Relations from the University of Kent, United Kingdom in 2017; and received an MSc in Political Science (International Politics) from Leiden University, the Netherlands in 2018.