India must not lose another chance in Myanmar

When India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in Myanmar on May 28, he will commence a long overdue visit to a neighbour whose military junta has just initiated far-reaching changes.

Aimed at breaking Myanmar out of the over two decades of isolation imposed by the US and the West and allowing it to benefit from the consequent economic opportunities, these changes will simultaneously expand Myanmar’s diplomatic space enabling it to reduce dependence on China and usher in democracy. Unless there are serious missteps by Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s other politicians, this trend will become irreversible in a couple of years.

Myanmar’s initiatives first received an unmistakable nudge from the US in 2009, after which there were a flurry of visits to Yangon by senior US officials culminating in the meeting between then Myanmar Prime Minister Than Sien and US President Obama on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Singapore on November 15, 2009.

This was the first meeting at this level between the two countries in 43 years. Hints followed that a US Ambassador could take up residence once issues like democracy and human rights begin to be addressed. As part of preparations for the changes, Myanmar’s military leaders sought the advice of US economists like Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s release on November 13, 2010, from the latest bout of house arrest was critical to the process. Discussions were held between Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s military leadership during 2011, following which many political prisoners were freed in an amnesty and trade unions were legalised. In November 2011, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD announced its intention to re-register as a political party and contest by-elections.

Forward movement in US-Myanmar relations was evidenced when Hillary Clinton undertook a landmark visit to Myanmar in December 2011, the first by a US Secretary of State in fifty years. During her visit she met Myanmar’s President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Hillary Clinton said the US would be willing to consider easing sanctions if further progress was made towards political reform. Developments were rapid after Aung San Suu Kyi’s victory in the election held on April 4, 2012.

The EU foreign policy chief visited and announced the lifting of all non-military sanctions for a year. At a meeting in Washington on May 18, 2012, with Myanmar’s foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced the suspension of sanctions and urged “American business: invest in Burma and do it responsibly.”

She said Washington would issue a general license to permit US investments in Myanmar’s economy, and that US energy, mining and financial service companies were free to look for opportunities.

US business will soon enter Myanmar’s natural resource-rich, unexploited market. Visible changes can be expected to quickly occur in the life styles of the local people. This could trigger a domestic reaction, which will get exacerbated as proselytizing American Christian missionaries move into this predominantly devout Buddhist nation.

The Buddhist ecclesiastical hierarchy, which has shown signs of getting re-energised after attending the Global Buddhist Congregation in New Delhi in November last year, could take some initiatives including establishing linkages with the global Buddhist community.

The mention of the Dalai Lama for the first time in twenty years, in the Myanmar Times in September 2009, is a pointer.

China is apprehensive of US intentions. It views the US ingress into Myanmar more in strategic terms and as endangering its strategic space. US presence on its vulnerable south-western flank, which is inhabited by a sizeable ethnic minority, is assessed as potentially threatening.

China additionally has considerable investments in Myanmar which it will safeguard, including by exerting control over insurgent elements in northern Myanmar. For example, the Kokong are remnants of the last Ming dynasty of China and have received considerable aid from China.

During their clashes with the Myanmar army in 2009, China’s official media reports reflected a bias in their favour. The Wa people, who have the Wa State Army (UWSA), are also an ethnic Chinese people. Latent factors with potential to give a sharp edge to Sino-US competition in Myanmar are thus already present.

The Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Myanmar after 25 years — the last was by Rajiv Gandhi in 1987— occurs in this backdrop. India will need to tread decisively, yet carefully, to make up for the years it has lost and discard grandiose plans of regional cooperation in favour of projects that focus on bilateral ties, make a visible popular impact and are operationalised within 2-3 years.

Health, education, IT and tourism are among the sectors where India could cooperate. Failure to seize this opportunity could marginalise India in South Asia.

The author is a former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India.