The relationship between Myanmar and the world

Abstract

Outside Myanmar, the 2021 coup d’état has often been portrayed as the end of a hopeful period for the country. In this Adelphi book, however, Aaron Connelly and Shona Loong argue that the Aung San Suu Kyi government that preceded it was a false dawn, unlikely to fulfil the international community’s aspirations for a stable, peaceful and strong Myanmar. Instead, the movement opposing the 2021 coup holds much greater promise – despite the bloody conflict that dominates the news today.

Connelly and Loong survey three fundamental relationships that have shaped Myanmar before and after the coup – between the military and the state, between the majority Burmese and ethnic minorities, and between Myanmar and the world – to explain how opposition to the coup has shifted all of them in a more liberal, pluralist and cosmopolitan direction.

Notes

1 Aung San Suu Kyi had also taken up the education, energy and electricity portfolios.

2 The facts of the relationship between Britain and the Karen rebels in the early years following independence are the subject of much historical debate. While British government policy was not to assist the Karen, some retired officers and officials who had served in Burma and fought with the Karen in the Second World War offered them assistance, among them the former colonial governor, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith. The British Services Mission in Rangoon also appeared to favour Karen officers in the new Burma Army, some of whom later defected to the rebels. This gave some in the Tatmadaw and the U Nu government the impression of a covert campaign of British support. See Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian Empire (London: Penguin, 2008), pp. 391–400.

3 As discussed in Chapter Two, most of Burma’s post-independence leaders were from the Bamar majority, who – unlike the ethnic minorities – were excluded from the colonial army and administration.

4 Robert H. Taylor, General Ne Win: A Political Biography (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2015), p. 5.

5 M.P. Callahan, Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 168.

6 Burmah Oil Company was paid GBP4.7 million for its assets, equivalent to approximately US$103 million in 2024. Other firms, such as the Burma Corporation, Unilever, the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation and Chartered Bank of India, were not compensated. See T.A.B. Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, Volume II: 1924–1966 (London: Heineman, 1988), p. 270.

7 Burmese Indians had also suffered pogroms at the hands of Burmese nationalists in the 1920s and 1930s. Xenophobia towards those of South Asian descent persisted long after. See R. Egreteau, ‘Burmese Indians in Contemporary Burma: Heritage, Influence, and Perceptions Since 1988’, Asian Ethnicity, vol. 12, no. 1, 2011, pp. 33–54.

8 Taylor, General Ne Win: A Political Biography, pp. 228–9.

9 Yi Li, Chinese in Colonial Burma: Migrant Community in a Multiethnic State (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p. 4.

10 Taylor, General Ne Win: A Political Biography, p. 365.

11 Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965–2000 (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2000), p. 360.

12 Michael Aung-Thwin, ‘1948 and Burma’s Myth of Independence’, in Josef Silverstein (ed.), Independent Burma at Forty Years: Six Assessments (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 25.

13 Taylor, General Ne Win: A Political Biography, pp. 311–14.

14 Andrew Selth, ‘Death of a Hero: The U Thant Disturbances in Burma, December 1974’, Griffith Asia Institute, July 2018, p. 6.

15 Ibid., p. 9.

16 Christina Fink, Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule (2nd ed.) (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2009), pp. 206–7.

17 Renaud Egreteau, ‘The Repression of the August 8-12 1988 (8-8-88) Uprising in Burma/Myanmar’, 25 February 2009, https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/repression-august-8-12-1988-8-8-88-uprising-burmamyanmar.html.

18 The Thai government’s decision to recognise the SLORC altered the dynamics of the civil war along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, as Chapter Two discussed.

19 Scot Marciel, Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), p. 280.

20 Ibid., pp. 280–1.

21 After the death of Mao Zedong, China cut its aid to communist insurgencies in Southeast Asia, undermining the CPB’s ability to equip its troops and maintain schools and hospitals in its territory. See Bertil Lintner, The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 2.

22 K. Woods, ‘Ceasefire Capitalism: Military–Private Partnerships, Resource Concessions and Military– State Building in the Burma–China Borderlands’, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 38, no. 4, 2011, pp. 747–70.

23 See Tin Maung Maung Than, ‘Myanmar and China: A Special Relationship?’, Southeast Asian Affairs, 2003, pp. 189–210, p. 197.

24 Thant Myint U, Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), pp. 53–4.

25 Lee, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965–2000, pp. 362–3.

26 Jürgen Haacke, Myanmar’s Foreign Policy: Domestic Influences and International Implications (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006): pp. 141-146.

27 Zarni Mann, ‘Returning to Scene of 2003 Massacre, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Focuses on Present’, The Irrawaddy, 12 March 2020.

28 Haacke, Myanmar’s Foreign Policy: Domestic Influences and International Implications, p. 52.

29 Ibid., pp. 54–6.

30 Maung Aung Myoe, ‘The Road to Naypyitaw: Making Sense of the Myanmar Government’s Decision to Move Its Capital’, ARI Working Paper no. 79, Asia Research Institute, 2006.

31 ‘New Myanmar Constitution Gives Military Leading Role’, Reuters, 19 February 2008.

32 Thant Myint-U, The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020), p. 94.

33 Ibid., pp. 176–83.

34 The SPDC sought to convert ethnonational fronts into ‘Border Guard Forces’, in which soldiers from the Myanmar military would be integrated with units run by ethnic armed organisations. While a few groups acceded to the scheme, it was mostly met with ire by other ethnonational groups and contributed to the collapse of the Kachin Independence Organisation ceasefire in 2011. See John Buchanan, ‘Militias in Myanmar’, Asia Foundation, July 2016, https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Militias-in-Myanmar.pdf.

35 Bertil Lintner, The Wa of Myanmar and China’s Quest for Global Dominance (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 2021), p. 137.

36 Fink, Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule.

37 Renaud Egreteau, Caretaking Democratization: The Military and Political Change in Myanmar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 40.

38 Ibid., p. 41.

39 Joe Jackson, ‘For Burma’s Exiled Journalists, the Promise of Reform Brings Peril and Possibility’, Time, 2 March 2012, https://world.time.com/2012/03/02/for-burmas-exiled-journalists-the-promise-of-reform-brings-peril-and-possibility/.

40 A freelance reporter died in custody in 2014, after being apprehended by the Myanmar military while reporting on the conflict between the Karen National Union and the Myanmar military. In the preceding year, the Thein Sein government had jailed ten journalists under various pretexts. See Helen Regen and David Stout, ‘A Reporter’s Death Shows Just How Little Burma Has Changed’, Time, 4 November 2014.

41 Tommy Walker, ‘Myanmar Media Suffering Under Nearly Two Years of Junta Rule’, Voice of America, 30 December 2022, https://www.voanews.com/a/myanmar-media-suffering-under-nearly-two-years-of-junta-rule-/6886367.html.

42 Linda Yueh, ‘Burma: Asia’s Last Frontier Is Opening Up’, BBC, 2 June 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-22721804.

43 C. Fink, ‘Dangerous Speech, Anti-Muslim Violence, and Facebook in Myanmar’, Journal of International Affairs, vol. 71, no. 1.5, 2018, pp. 43–52; and J. Ferrie, ‘SIM Sales Soar as Myanmar Races to Catch Up in Telecoms’, Reuters, 6 May 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-telecoms-idINKBN0NR1OK20150506/.

44 Kayleigh Long, ‘Myanmar’s Young Tourism Entrepreneurs’, BBC, 20 August 2014.

45 Thant Myint-U, The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century, p. 147.

46 Ibid., p. 147.

47 See, for example, Erin Murphy, Burmese Haze: US Policy and Myanmar’s Opening – and Closing (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2022), p. 77.

48 Sam Holes, ‘Myanmar Crackdown on Rebels Intensifies’, Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2013, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323706704578229333643270430.

49 Ankit Panda, ‘Myanmar Bombings in Yunnan Killed 4 Chinese’, Diplomat, 14 March 2015, https://thediplomat.com/2015/03/its-official-myanmar-bombings-in-yunnan-killed-4-chinese-citizens/.

50 Sui-Lee Wee, ‘Myanmar Official Accuses China of Meddling in Rebel Peace Talks’, Reuters, 9 October 2015.

51 Confidential interview, May 2013.

52 Ben Blanchard, ‘Irritated with Myanmar, China to Woo Opposition Leader Suu Kyi’, Reuters, 9 June 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/china-myanmar-san-suu-kyi-idINKBN0OP0X220150609.

53 See, for example, Lindsay Murdoch, ‘Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi Likely to Hold Ministerial Position’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 2016, https://www.smh.com.au/world/myanmars-aung-san-suu-kyi-likely-to-hold-ministerial-position-20160309-gnedhf.html.

54 Moreover, Aung San Suu Kyi’s membership of the Council did nothing to prevent the arrest of the president on the day of the 2021 coup d’état, thereby allowing the acting president to declare a nationwide state of emergency on the advice of the Council – the legal instrument by which Min Aung Hlaing sought to legitimise his seizure of power. Over time, the workload of a foreign minister became too much for Aung San Suu Kyi, as she was also acting as head of government and leader of the NLD. She disliked being on the receiving end of Western démarches, especially those on violence against the Rohingya. In November 2017, she appointed a minister of international cooperation, who took on many of the day-to-day responsibilities of a foreign minister.

55 ‘Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi Meets China Counterpart Wang Yi in Foreign Minister Debut’, Agence France-Presse, 5 April 2016, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/myanmars-aung-san-suu-kyi-meets-china-counterpart-wang-yi-in-foreign-minister-debut.

56 Thant Myint-U, The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century, p. 228.

57 Yun Sun, ‘Slower, Smaller, Cheaper: The Reality of the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor’, Frontier Myanmar, 26 September 2019, https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/slower-smaller-cheaper-the-reality-of-the-china-myanmar-economic-corridor/. As Sun notes, negotiations on Chinese infrastructure projects were sometimes difficult under the NLD . They represented a great improvement, however, in the investment climate for large Chinese infrastructure projects over that of the USDP administration, when the Myitsone Dam and other projects were suspended. More importantly, by 2021 the NLD had few alternatives to China if it wanted investment.

58 Mary Mostafanezhad, Robert A. Farnan and Shona Loong, ‘Anxiety in Myanmar: An Emotional Geopolitics of China’s Belt and Road Initiative’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 48, no. 1, 2023, pp. 132–48.

59 Marciel, Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia, pp. 330, 342.

60 Ibid., pp. 315–19.

61 ‘Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Talks with State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi’, Government of Hungary, 5 June 2019, https://2015-2019.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/news/prime-minister-viktor-orban-in-talks-with-state-counsellor-of-myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi.