Burma Redux: Global Justice and the Quest for Political Reform in Myanmar (43 page)

For some proponents of a Burma redux agenda this is in many ways unpalatable, as in concert with regional and global allies the US has long been a leading advocate of political reform up to and including regime change. From the analytical perspective developed here, however, it is entirely appropriate that the US be required to work with and through regional powers. Indeed, after decades of sometimes highly assertive US action in distant parts of the world culminating in military interventions ordered by President Bush, it is widely recognized that a change of approach could be productive for American interests.
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In themes sketched by President Obama and in initiatives taken by his administration can thus be found extensive strategic reorientation as Washington seeks to address global challenges through alliance and rapprochement.
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Moreover, in making a course correction it has always been clear that the US need not abandon its most cherished ideals. In many cases, a change of tone is more necessary than a change of objective, with a focus on patient implementation of workable policies an essential ingredient.
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Although it made no more than limited steps in this direction, the 2009 Myanmar policy review was one example of this shift.

Examination of the role the wider world might play in promoting meaningful political reform in Myanmar must therefore be undertaken above all inside the region. There the possibility of growing US disengagement following years of mixed experience raises concern.
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Equally, rivalry among China, India and Japan is a worry, for an ideal and perhaps even necessary basis for progress is broad regional consensus.
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At the same time, however, issues of this kind need not be disabling in this case, for core elements of a shared approach are discernible above all in fears about the negative impact ongoing authoritarianism in Myanmar might have on the wider world.
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Indeed, the cynical view that regional states’ designs on Myanmar are uniquely predatory conflicts with evidence that what they seek above all is peace, stability and strategic alliance.
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Just as China and India worry about turmoil along lengthy borders should the domestic situation spiral out of control, so the US and its major allies are readily persuaded that state weakness and failure pose some of the greatest challenges to contemporary global order.
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More than anything, the potentially catastrophic consequences of military government and ethnic division in Myanmar generate a foundation for collaboration among all major stakeholders in Asia and outside.
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In this way, however, only a limited common position emerges. While it may be enough to moderate some of the worst excesses of military rule, it cannot be expected to sustain anything approaching a full agenda for political change. For that, some degree of agreement that real power needs to be returned to the people is required. In a situation where authoritarian China is the pivotal external actor, this may seem unattainable. Even here, however, progress could be possible, for a strategy of incremental, grassroots engagement is likely to generate few concerns about pushing Myanmar too hard and risking instability. Beyond that, the governance changes sought by major powers are often quite similar, with even Beijing prepared in UN Security Council statements to condone language pointing to a key role for local people.
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Additionally, there are broad hints that China may slowly be developing a new “dictatorship diplomacy” aimed at distancing itself from some of the world’s worst pariahs and partnering with western states to deal with others.
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Instructive in this regard is the case of Darfur in western Sudan, acknowledged as one of the major humanitarian crises of the 2000s. Strategically, Darfur has important parallels with contemporary Myanmar. China is a key external actor through significant oil interests and a broad desire to reassert great power status. Western states, while deeply concerned about humanitarian issues, are often preoccupied with other matters and essentially inertial. As the crisis intensified in the course of the decade, Beijing was therefore able to step into the void left by western nations and become a humanitarian rule-maker. The maxims it put in place indicate that arguments about socialization into established international society need to be handled with care.
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On one side, it was motivated by humanitarian concern. On the other, the norm to which it appealed was that of a state-based international system. It thereby developed a novel set of rules for humanitarian intervention, articulated through a triple consent mechanism embracing the host country, the relevant regional association and the UN.
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Similarly, in March 2011 an Arab League request for the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya was critical in removing a potential Chinese veto.
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When the issue is not a distant African state in which China has a reasonably large stake, but rather a neighboring Asian state in which it has absolutely core interests, then Beijing’s political primacy is assured. The lesson to be drawn from Darfur and Libya is that it will look for explicit backing and preferably energetic leadership from ASEAN as the relevant regional body. It will also seek some indication that the Myanmar government is comfortable with any proposed engagement. In the unlikely event that assertive action is on the agenda, it will want full UN endorsement. Given the geopolitics of the situation, these can be taken as the major parameters within which future foreign involvement must unfold. ASEAN, furnished since December 2008 with a Charter promoting aspirations for economic integration and good governance, will therefore have to make some hard choices with regard to Myanmar and craft a policy capable of securing support primarily from China.
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India, though facing trenchant criticism of its Myanmar policy and attempting to redefine an increasingly anachronistic strategic posture, will have little choice but to fall in line.
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Japan could be better placed.
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As a benign regional power with excellent historical ties to Myanmar, Tokyo could position itself as a critical mediating force capable of shuttling between all relevant parties. In particular, it could draw in the US and may even be able to revive its Pacific alliance.
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Moreover, since state action is likely to work best if designed to support grassroots progress facilitated by aid agencies and global corporations, it could readily embrace the full range of discursive engagement.

In this way, the new dynamics of multilateralism could be fully exploited to access the networks of non-state actors increasingly captured in foreign policy calculations.
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In the US the importance of such individuals has been openly acknowledged through Secretary Clinton’s support for “leading through civilian power.”
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This notion of citizen diplomacy reaches back to analysis promoting connectivity within networks as the key to power in the twenty-first century.
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In Asia, these dynamics resonate strongly with regional preferences for economic development as a first step and political change in its wake, for the objective is to build not only civic but also economic capacity.
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Looking to other positives, there is ample reason to hold that among Asian publics a regional approach seeking to facilitate political change from the ground up inside Myanmar would secure generalized assent. The available data show that Asian opinion broadly endorses liberal values, but is resistant to quasi-imperial modes of disseminating them.
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Attention thereby returns to local people in local communities, and the need to focus above all on their demands and agency. In this regard, western leaders currently make the right noises, but have not yet fully retuned their Myanmar policies. In Cairo in June 2009, Obama said that “No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation on any other.”
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In the Nobel Lecture delivered in Oslo in December 2009, he made the case for moving beyond sanctions on rogue states: “I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach—condemnation without discussion—can carry forward only a crippling status quo.”
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To date, however, his administration’s Myanmar policy has taken no more than limited steps in this direction. Similarly, having visited Egypt and Tunisia in the wake of mass uprisings, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton argued in February 2011 that “listening to the revolution” was critical: “We are listening now not to avoid action, but to make sure the action we take over the coming months and years is effective.” Such action, she noted, would be “detailed, unglamorous, work on the ground … laying the foundations of deep democracy and then building it up, brick-by-brick.”
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Again, however, the annual policy review undertaken in April 2011 provided only limited evidence that this approach is informing the EU’s Myanmar stance. Equally, the UN has not satisfactorily addressed the multiple challenges facing Myanmar. As Thant Myint-U put it in July 2009, “The UN always says security, development and human rights are interlinked. I think this is right. But where is this more complex approach when it comes to Burma?"
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Clearly the eventual political impact of a bottom-up approach seeking to boost grassroots agency above all through a wealth of non-state transnational engagement cannot be determined with any precision. Experience shows that “activists beyond borders” can sometimes provoke political reform in target jurisdictions.
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Indeed, one study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights found evidence of change in countries and regions as diverse as Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Guatemala and Eastern Europe.
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Against this, however, another report looking directly at third-party mediation in conflict situations held that while diplomacy was generally positive in its effects, and informal workshops were also helpful if used to complement state action, non-state action on its own did not have a good record.
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Again, though, a further study reported that non-state engagement was useful in and of itself in the South African case, and still another noted that such engagement can make an indirect contribution by triggering formal diplomatic activity.
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On balance, then, there appears to be empirical support for the strategy sketched here. More widely, several other consequences of foreign engagement are now well established. One is that INGO human rights action inside a conflict-ridden society can assist in turning it away from violence and toward peaceful civic engagement.
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A second is that foreign aid can be destabilizing for dictatorship.
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A third is that subsequent peacekeeping efforts can boost human rights.
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All of these impacts can be sought as external actors look to support reform efforts in contemporary Myanmar.

At the same time, dismal scenarios cannot be ignored. In an analysis written soon after participating in a December 2010 live video-link discussion with Aung San Suu Kyi, Garton Ash commented that “A sober analysis … shows a constellation of forces in and around Burma less favourable than those in South Africa, or Poland, or the Philippines, or Chile, or the many other stories of eventually triumphant self-liberation over the last three decades.”
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Regional states, he noted, prioritize commercial and strategic interest above human rights. Exile activist Zarni, who also took part in the forum, advances a similar argument, holding that neighboring states have few problems with Myanmar’s current political system and the unregulated access it gives them to plentiful natural resources and cheap labor.
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Thus, what is broadly a positive record of external democracy promotion in the post-Cold War period faces real challenges in Myanmar.
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