Myanmar

During President Obama’s visit to Myanmar last week, for the East Asia Summit, the president said some of the right things about Myanmar’s faltering political reform process. He noted the ongoing discrimination – some would say outright ethnic cleansing – against Rohingya in western Myanmar, as well as the precarious rule of law in much of the country. He expressed concern about the challenges of Myanmar’s elections next year, which will be held under a constitution designed to bar Aung San Suu Kyi from taking the presidency and which still reserves enormous powers for the military. The constitution, as it stands, will pose a danger to any future Myanmar civilian government, even if Suu Kyi’s party, as expected, wins control of Parliament next year. And much of the press coverage of the Myanmar visit focused on the president’s remarks about Myanmar’s political challenges. Indeed, Obama’s aides clearly briefed reporters covering the trip to emphasize that the visit was focused on pressuring the Myanmar leadership to reform, since several news articles picked up this theme. However, Obama also was far too optimistic about the path forward for Myanmar. His administration clearly is so wedded to its policy of rapprochement with Naypyidaw that it is hard for it to consider that Myanmar’s success story might not actually be such a success. After noting Myanmar’s problems, Obama repeatedly indicated that, despite bumps, he believes Myanmar is solidly on the path toward democratic change. As the New York Times noted, after Obama’s meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, “In his meetings with government officials, opposition leaders and young people, Mr. Obama expressed confidence that the country would overcome its current troubles.” Or, as Bloomberg noted, the White House’s take is that “reform in Myanmar is bound to be difficult.” This is surely true, but just because reform is difficult does not mean the White House should ignore severe human rights problems and other serious gaps in the reform process. Obama also declined to offer any criticism of Suu Kyi or other government leaders for basically ignoring the violence against the Rohingya; on the Rohingya, Suu Kyi has done as little as the Myanmar government, squandering her moral authority. Obama also applied little rhetorical pressure on the Myanmar government to allow foreign NGOs greater access to populations of Rohingya and other internally displaced people, many of whom are living in camps described by rights groups as little more than open air prisons. More important, during the visit Obama offered no indication that the United States would halt growing military-to-military and diplomatic ties with Myanmar, at least until after the 2015 elections are held and declared free and fair. Slowing the pace of rapprochement with Myanmar is a path some human rights groups and some hawks in Congress may push the administration to take – including the new Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who has long been known for his interest in Myanmar and in human rights in Myanmar. Obama’s unwillingness to match criticism of the Myanmar government with action is not surprising. The administration has touted the blossoming of U.S.-Myanmar relations as a major foreign policy victory, and likely 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made rapprochement with Myanmar a theme of her tenure as secretary of state. Admitting that Myanmar’s democratization process has huge flaws, and that perhaps the United States moved too quickly in normalizing ties with the country, would be admitting that the administration might not have won the victory in Myanmar that it claims.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Obama and Xi strike deals at APEC summit. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum proved remarkably productive for U.S.-China relations this week. U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping jointly announced commitments to cut carbon emissions, and agreed to a reduction in tariffs on a range of technology products, to greater communication between their militaries in the Pacific, and to extend the duration of visas. Though these agreements are certainly a welcome change from years of stagnating relations, underlying issues still remain. China and the United States have fundamentally different visions of Asia’s security and trade architecture that are not easily reconciled. 2. Abe tries to repair regional ties at APEC. After nearly two years in office, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Xi finally met, speaking briefly on the sidelines of the APEC summit on Monday. While the meeting only lasted twenty-five minutes, many are hailing it as an important step in repairing Sino-Japanese ties and deescalating tensions in the East China Sea. The brief encounter comes in the wake of last week’s four-point understanding on improving relations. Later in the week at the East Asia Summit in Myanmar, Abe also expressed hopes for a Japan-China-South Korea trilateral meeting in the near future. 3. Obama attends East Asia Summit in Myanmar. President Obama met with Myanmar President Thein Sein in Naypyidaw on Thursday while visiting the country for the annual East Asia Summit. During the meeting, Obama encouraged Thein Sein to pursue greater political reforms and end persecution of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in western Myanmar facing violence from the majority Buddhist population. Myanmar leaders call the minority Bengali rather than the internationally preferred “Rohingya,” and have refused to grant members of the minority citizenship. Obama also met with opposition leader and fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. 4. North Korea releases two American prisoners. U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper traveled to North Korea to negotiate the releases of Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae, arriving with a brief letter from President Obama to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in hand. Mr. Bae said he spent an “amazing” two years in prison after he was detained on charges of using a Christian evangelical organization to preach against the North Korean government. Mr. Miller entered North Korea earlier this year, tearing up his visa and asking for asylum; he was instead charged with unruly behavior. After the release last month of Jeffrey Fowle, another American detained by North Korea, the releases could be evidence that Kim Jong-un is making initial overtures toward the Obama administration. 5. U.S.-India deal rejuvenates WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Ahead of the Group of Twenty meeting this weekend, the United States and India reached a breakthrough agreement allowing India to continue its food subsidy program without the fear of being challenged in the World Trade Organization (WTO) until a permanent solution to food stockpiling is reached. India has been under mounting pressure since it withdrew its support for the package of trade facilitation measures agreed upon at the WTO meeting in Bali last December. With the impasse broken over food stockpiling, the WTO has announced that there is a “high probability” of passing the Bali trade package within two weeks. The Bali agreement is expected to add $1 trillion to the global economy and create twenty-one million jobs. Bonus: APEC outfits take world leaders where no one has gone before. The APEC forum traditionally includes a photo op in which attending world leaders wear the traditional dress of the host country; this year’s outfit drew comparisons to the uniforms of Star Trek. APEC apparel have drawn a variety of reactions before—click here for a rundown of the top ten.

As President Barack Obama arrives in Myanmar next week for the East Asia Summit, he will find less optimism not only about the political situation but also about Myanmar’s economic future. As I noted last week, when Obama first visited Myanmar in 2012, it was at the height of the country’s political reform process. Since then, the process of political reform has deteriorated, so much so that President Thein Sein last week held a kind of emergency summit with top civilian and military leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi. This meeting was held in an attempt, I think, to get all top Myanmar public figures to at least paper over their differences during the East Asia Summit. Still, it has become clear that the military does intend to just easily hand power over to a truly civilian government, freedom of expression and press has been curtailed once again, and western Myanmar has exploded into inter-religious conflict, leaving over 100,000 Rohingya living in squalid camps that have been described by the Arakan Project as open air prisons.  It will not be easy to paper over these serious problems. Myanmar’s economic progress has stalled as well. To be sure, the country’s offshore oil and gas deposits continue to attract significant interest, which is why the government in March awarded twenty tenders to foreign companies to explore different offshore blocks. Winners of tenders included ConocoPhillips, among other foreign companies. But these oil and gas multinationals have long experience operating in some of the most politically troubled and economically restrictive environments in the world, and the fact that they are exploring offshore makes them more insulated from Myanmar’s growing political instability than if they were exploring in Myanmar itself. In other industries, many U.S. companies that sent executives to Myanmar in 2012 and early 2013 on visits to assess the market’s potential have decided to do nothing for now. As the Wall Street Journal reported this past August,  although the Obama administration has eased sanctions on investment in Myanmar, U.S. companies have invested less than $250 million in the country, a tiny figure for a country with such low penetration of consumer goods and with a population of around 53 million people. Several prominent projects in Myanmar that were supposed to be hubs of investment have stalled, including the building of a new airport for Yangon and the Dawei Port project. In addition, as the Journal noted, a number of large foreign companies that had planned to invest in Myanmar’s aviation sector, which is badly under-served, or had been granted licenses to open bank branches in Myanmar, have shelved their plans. There are several reasons why U.S. investment into Myanmar has not reached the high expectations set in 2011 and 2012. The instability caused by violence in western Myanmar, which has led to Buddhist-Muslim violence in other parts of the country, clearly worries some foreign investors not used to this level of political risk. After traveling outside Yangon and Naypyidaw during second, third, and fourth trips to the country, many U.S. executives have come to better appreciate how poor Myanmar’s physical infrastructure is outside of the capital and Yangon, which makes even low-end manufacturing more expensive than in neighboring nations like Vietnam and Bangladesh. (Yangon isn’t exactly Singapore, either, but its infrastructure and workforce is better than in other parts of Myanmar.) And a series of recent court decisions have reminded foreign investors that Myanmar lacks any semblance of an impartial judiciary or any real protections for foreign investors. Meanwhile, U.S. companies still operate under restrictions in Myanmar that investors from most other countries do not, including being prohibited from dealing with certain companies that have links to Myanmar’s previous military regimes. Yet many of these blacklisted companies are among the most powerful potential partners in Myanmar. Given the potential of Myanmar’s consumer market and the quantity of its (onshore) natural resources, U.S. companies will continue to pay close attention to Myanmar. The Obama administration has sent a number of high-level missions to Myanmar to promote investment and improve overall economic ties—too many, in my opinion, given the potential of other markets in the region like Indonesia and Vietnam. Still, one cannot say that the White House has not tried to foster greater investment in Myanmar. But it will be many years before U.S. investment in Myanmar matches U.S. investment into other sizable countries in Southeast Asia.

In November, President Obama will travel to Myanmar to attend the East Asia Summit, which brings together a broad range of nations from across the Pacific Rim. It will be the president’s second trip to Myanmar, following his landmark 2012 trip, which was the first by a sitting U.S. president to Myanmar since the country gained independence six decades ago. During the East Asia Summit, Obama almost surely will hold bilateral meetings with Myanmar President Thein Sein and other senior Myanmar leaders, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The timing of the president’s visit to Myanmar will be important, but the rosy hue of U.S.-Myanmar relations that colored the president’s 2012 trip has dimmed significantly. This will be Obama’s only visit to Myanmar before the landmark 2015 national elections, the first truly contested national elections in Myanmar since 1990, when Suu Kyi’s party swept parliamentary elections and then the military essentially ignored the vote and kept control of the country. In the 2015 elections, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy is almost sure to win a sweeping majority of seats again. However, both foreign diplomats, Myanmar analysts, and some opposition politicians already are warning that the 2015 elections could be undermined or outright rigged by the military, to favor the military’s de facto party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Myanmar political scientists and many foreign diplomats in Yangon report that the USDP and the military are building up paramilitary squads that could be used for intimidation on election day. The potential intimidation could range from distributing cash to co-opt opposition supporters to purposefully instigating Buddhist-Muslim violence to show the public that an unstable Myanmar cannot be turned over to a political opposition with no experience in governing. In addition, since the high point of Myanmar’s reform process in 2012 and early 2013, the country’s political opening has stalled and, in my opinion, slid backwards. The recent murder of a Myanmar journalist while in army custody has highlighted the regression of the country’s media environment since 2012 and 2013. Although the online and print media in Myanmar remains far freer than it ever was under junta rule, journalists are once again being harassed, detained, tried—and apparently, murdered—by the military and police. In addition, journalists who dare the cover the conflict in western Myanmar’s Arakan State, where violence against Rohingya Muslims continues unabated, face severe threat from Buddhist paramilitary groups and their supporters. The deteriorating media environment is not the only sign of Myanmar’s backsliding. Cease-fires between the government and several ethnic minority insurgencies are collapsing, with the insurgents and the army preparing for war again. Arakan State remains a humanitarian emergency, and Thein Sein’s government has taken few constructive measures to help restore order and rights in Arakan State. The government initially simply denied the violence in Arakan State, pretending that massacres of Rohingya had not happened and tossing foreign aid groups out of Arakan State. Now, the Thein Sein government has come up with a plan for the Rohingya that is unworkable and simply racist: It wants the Rohingya to identify themselves as “Bengali” if they want to be granted Myanmar citizenship. If they do not accept this identification, the government plans to toss more Rohingya into detention camps. (A previous, military government stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship, though many of them had lived in Myanmar for generations.) But self-identifying as Bengali is akin to Rohingya marking themselves as foreigners, since to them—and to other Burmese—the term Bengali suggests that they are not indeed from Myanmar, came to Myanmar illegally, and thus can be discriminated against. Rohingya have few options. The NGO Arakan Project recently reported that over 100,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar in the past two years, with many dying at sea or finding themselves at the mercy of pirates, the ruthless Thai navy, and a human slavery trade that runs through Thailand. Obama thus should use his time in Myanmar to highlight to Naypyidaw that, although the Obama administration has made rapprochement with Myanmar a major goal of its Asia policy, rapprochement increasingly depends on continued political reform in Myanmar. A rigged 2015 election, Obama should warn Naypyidaw, would immediately undermine U.S.-Myanmar relations, and a return to all-out war with ethnic insurgencies also should be a serious impediment to closer ties. Finally, Obama should make clear that the Thein Sein government’s proposed plan for the Rohingya is unsatisfactory and outright racist. In my next post, I will look at how, despite its rich natural resources and large, untapped consumer market, Myanmar has thus far proven relatively unattractive for U.S. companies. As an article in the Wall Street Journal noted, despite the relaxation of U.S. sanctions on Myanmar, as of August 2014 U.S. companies have committed less than $250 million to investments in the country of fifty million people, a minuscule amount for a market the size of Myanmar.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Indian and Pakistani share Nobel Peace Prize; gunfire results in casualties in Kashmir. Kailash Stayarthi, an Indian activist against child labor and trafficking, and Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for girls’ education, jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. At seventeen, Yousafzai is the youngest person to ever receive the prize. In unrelated news, Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire over their border in the divided region of Kashmir, resulting in the deaths of at least seventeen civilians and forcing thousands out of their homes. Each country blames the other for targeting civilians and violating a border truce that has largely held since 2003. 2. U.S. and Japan enhance defense pact for the first time in decades. The United States and Japan released an interim report this week on their efforts to revise their defense cooperation guidelines. The development comes after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government announced in July that it will reinterpret the constitutions’s Article 9, in which Japan formally renounced war, to allow Japanese forces to fight abroad in support of collective self-defense. The last time the two countries revised these guidelines was in 1997. A senior U.S. State Department official noted that the new guidelines will reflect the alliance’s “more global nature.” The announcement will likely cause increased tension with South Korea and China, where memories of Japanese actions in World War II are still fresh. 3. North Korea and South Korea exchange fire across the DMZ. On Friday, North Korean forces fired machine gun rounds at balloons containing propaganda leaflets sent across the demarcation line by South Korean activists; South Korea’s military responded with gunfire of its own. There were no casualties. Also this week, South and North Korean patrol boats exchanged warning shots off the disputed western maritime border. These incidents dampen new hope for inter-Korean dialogue sparked by last Saturday’s unannounced visit of high-ranking North Korean officials to South Korea. 4. The leaders of Thailand and Myanmar meet amidst protests. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha traveled to Myanmar to meet with President Thein Sein, marking his first official foreign visit since the military coup. The two leaders—both former generals—discussed the expansion of economic relations, as well as a number of thorny issues marring the bilateral relationship, including border security concerns and the plight of Myanmar’s migrant workers in Thailand. The leaders also chose the Mae Sot district, an important border-crossing area, for the creation of a special economic zone. The visit was overshadowed by protests over the arrest of two Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand suspected of murdering two British tourists. Protesters in Myanmar are suspicious of the investigation, and results of DNA testing have cast further doubt on the involvement of the workers. 5. Hong Kong protests pick up steam after calm. Protests in Hong Kong dwindled into the hundreds over the past week as the Hong Kong government and student leaders agreed to Friday talks. But with neither side indicating a willingness to compromise, protesters called for a new round of civil disobedience on Thursday, and the government subsequently canceled the negotiations before they even began. Demonstrators are now repopulating the streets and barricades that they had previously manned. Meanwhile, an anonymous source informed the Sydney Morning Herald of a secret contract that paid Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying $6.4 million from an Australian engineering company. Both Leung, whose removal from power has been a focus of the Hong Kong protests, and the Australian firm, UGL, have denied that the contract and payments were improper. Bonus: Siberian tiger defects to China from Russia. Chinese forestry officials were alerted to the presence of an endangered Siberian tiger in the country’s northeast this week. The tiger, named Kuzya, was personally released earlier this year by Russian President Vladimir Putin (who celebrated his sixty-second birthday on Tuesday). No word yet if Putin will be called upon to wrangle the beast back to Siberia.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Amid a slew of world crises, U.S. secretary of state John Kerry travels to India. Kerry, accompanied by U.S. secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker, arrived in New Delhi for the fifth Indo-U.S. Strategic Dialogue to identify avenues for bilateral cooperation on trade, investment, and security, marking the first cabinet-level meeting between the Obama administration and the new Indian government. The visit also coincides with the deadline for the WTO trade facilitation deal, which India has threatened to block (even though a breakthrough agreement was reached in Bali last year); India’s top trade negotiators argue that the deal does not do enough for food security in developing countries. Kerry co-chaired the strategic dialogue with his counterpart, Sushma Swaraj, and met with Prime Minister Modi. 2. Zhou Yongkang formally under investigation for corruption. The former Politburo Standing Committee member and head of China’s domestic security apparatus is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline”—i.e., corruption—a major step in President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive. Zhou, reportedly under scrutiny for some time, is the highest-level “tiger” to be swept up by Xi’s campaign. The move comes as little surprise, as members of Zhou’s political patronage network have been falling steadily over the past two years, but the audacity of Xi’s move—Party members at Zhou’s level have historically been untouchable—is stunning. 3. Abenomics creating problems for Tokyo Olympics preparations. With six years remaining to prepare for its second Olympic Games, Tokyo is already facing a number of setbacks. Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid has been forced to redesign her controversial new Olympic Stadium after critics derided it as too large, too expensive, and unsafe. Now Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe has also announced that all ten new venues will be reviewed and possibly relocated. Part of the problem inadvertently comes from one of the Games’ foremost supporters, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who personally vouched for the safety of hosting the Games in Tokyo. While many hoped that hosting the Olympics in Tokyo would build on the success of Abenomics, the prime minister’s lauded efforts to bring growth and inflation back to a stagnant Japanese economy have also led to surging costs for construction materials due to a weakened yen and a labor shortage in the construction industry. 4. South Korea ruling party sweeps by-elections, wins control of parliament.  The conservative Saenuri Party (“New Frontier” Party) took eleven of the fifteen contested seats on the July 30 elections, gaining them a majority in the National Assembly. Party leadership had predicted winning more than the four seats necessary to claim control of the legislature, but Saunuri was also able to win in unexpected regions. A win in the progressive South Jeolla region, the first by a conservative candidate since 1988, was particularly notable for the country noted for its political regionalism. Criticism of President Park Geun-hye, leader of the Saenuri Party, and her government’s handling of the Sewol Ferry disaster in April this year was predicted to hurt Saenuri’s popularity as well, but some voters may have felt the opposition party overpoliticized the Sewol incident and wanted to express their faith in the current government. 5. Myanmar president replaces two key cabinet ministers. President Thein Sein removed Information Minister Aung Kyi and Health Minister Pe Thet Khin on Tuesday by issuing orders that “allowed” them to resign from their respective duties. No reason has been given for the resignations. In a letter to parliament, President Thein nominated Deputy Minister of Information Ye Htut and Deputy Minister of Health Than Aung as replacements. In an apparent bid to step up reforms before elections next year, these changes occur amid tighter restrictions on media and international criticism over the expulsion of Doctors Without Borders from areas hit by sectarian strife. Bonus: Communist Party squares. Officials in Tonghe County of Heilongjiang Province were anxious to complete a running track before the visit of a provincial-level leader—so anxious, in fact, that building an oval track would be too time consuming. Naturally, the logical and most impressive solution would be to build a track with four corners. No word on how impressed the leader was, though.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Andrew Hill, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Malaysia Airlines plane shot down over eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was downed by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 on board. Though the Ukrainian and Russian militaries, along with pro-Russian separatists, all possess weaponry capable of shooting down a plane flying at 33,000 feet, evidence is increasingly pointing to separatists as the perpetrators. The incident comes just five months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean, along with its 239 passengers and crew. 2. Controversial Chinese oil rig near Vietnam to be moved. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) announced that the billion-dollar oil rig that was deployed in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam two months ago has been relocated to an area closer to the Chinese province of Hainan. Chinese state media said that the rig was being moved “as planned” after discovering evidence of oil and gas. The establishment of the rig near the disputed Paracel Islands worsened already tense relations between China and Vietnam and  prompted clashes at sea between Chinese coast guard vessels and smaller Vietnamese boats. The announcement came one day after U.S. president Barack Obama called Chinese president Xi Jinping to discuss Sino-U.S. relations; though Washington previously expressed disagreement with the placement of the rig, it is not clear whether the cancellation was related to the phone call between the two leaders. 3. Japan set to restart nuclear power plant. On Wednesday, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) announced that, for the first time since the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, a nuclear power plant has met the country’s newly revised strict safety standards. Kyushu Electric Power Company will restart two idled reactors at Sendai nuclear plant in Kagoshima Prefecture, and they could be operational as early as autumn. The NRA plans to accelerate safety screenings of another seventeen reactors at eleven more plants. Prior to the 3/11 disasters, Japan obtained nearly a third of its power supply from nuclear plants, and has struggled in recent years to offset the loss imposed by the new restrictions. However, an Asahi Shimbun poll conducted in March 2014 found that nearly 60 percent of respondents oppose restarting Japan’s nuclear power plants. 4. New Development Bank established at BRICS summit. Heads of state from the five members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) gathered in Fortaleza, Brazil, this week for their six annual summit. The New Development Bank (NDB) was established with $50 billion in capital to finance infrastructure and development projects. In addition, there will be a $100 billion contingency reserve pool to help member countries experiencing financial difficulties. The NDB is viewed as a potential rival to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which disproportionately favor the United States and Europe. For example, although the BRICS make up more than one-fifth of the global economy, together their vote share in the IMF is only 11 percent. The bank’s headquarters will be in Shanghai, and India will provide its first president. 5. Crackdown on media in China and Myanmar. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television alerted Chinese journalists not to provide any information obtained in their work to foreign media groups or competing domestic media groups. Chinese journalists were told that their credentials would be revoked if they leaked information, and they could be put on trial for sharing state secrets. Elsewhere in Asia, five journalists convicted of violating Myanmar’s state secrets act for their piece on an alleged chemical weapons factory were sentenced to ten years in prison. In both China and Myanmar, this week’s developments are a clear step backward for press freedoms. Bonus: Nepal’s former crown prince arrested in Thailand for drugs, again. Former Nepalese crown prince Paras Shah was taken into custody after officers found marijuana in his Bangkok hotel room. Known for his hard-partying lifestyle, this is the second time he has been arrested for possession of marijuana in Thailand in the last two years. He was released on bail three days after his arrest.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Charles McClean, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. After a six month suspension, CIA resumes drone strikes in Pakistan. Two U.S. drones struck Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region this week, killing several militants from Pakistani Taliban-allied factions, including the Haqqani network (which until recently held Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl hostage). The strikes came in the wake of the terrorist attack on the international airport in Karachi last Sunday; more than thirty people were killed including the militants. The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack as retaliation for “the shelling and atrocities of the government.” Peace talks between the TTP and the Pakistani government have foundered and do not appear recoverable, and Pakistan is “mulling a new offensive of its own” against the militants. Although Pakistan has publicly condemned the U.S. drone strikes, anonymous government officials have admitted Islamabad gave the Americans “express approval” to carry out the strikes. 2. Japan, China exchange blame over jet encounter. For the second time since China established an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in November 2013—which overlaps with Japan’s own ADIZ above the East China Sea—a Chinese fighter jet and Japanese Self-Defense Force aircraft flew within just 30 meters (100 feet) of each other. The encounter followed another close call on May 24 between Japanese and Chinese jets, and like the earlier incident both sides were quick to blame the other. Japanese defense minister Itsunori Onodera said it was the Chinese fighter jet who flew abnormally close, calling the action “extremely dangerous as it could have led to an accident.” In contrast, China’s Defense Ministry released what it says is video footage of the incident, blaming the Japanese pilot for flying too close and for “playing up the so-called ‘Chinese military threat’.” Onodera responded by asserting that the video showed Japanese Self-Defense Forces aircraft scrambling in accordance with international rules, and urged Japan and China to develop a maritime communication mechanism “in order to prevent accidents from escalating to be a serious clash.” 3. Beijing releases white paper on Hong Kong policy, starts protests. Mere days after tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents held a vigil to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square military crackdown, Beijing released a white paper reminding Hong Kong that it has “comprehensive jurisdiction over all local administrative regions, including the HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region].” The white paper, issued by the Chinese State Council, also stressed that some “wrong views” exist in Hong Kong about political reforms. The white paper also reaffirmed Beijing’s promise to allow universal suffrage and direct election for Hong Kong’s leader in 2017, but residents are concerned that Beijing will only allow “patriots” to run. Hong Kong has retained a special status within China since it was ceased to be a British colony in 1997, and retains its own political system and some autonomy under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy. The Democratic Party of Hong Kong canceled a meeting with the mainland liaison office over the paper. 4. Trial of Sewol ferry crew begins in Gwangju, South Korea. The trial of the captain and fourteen crew members of the capsized Sewol ferry began on Tuesday in Gwangju, South Korea. The captain and three crew members face a potential death sentence, while eleven other crew members are being tried for lesser charges of criminal negligence and maritime law violations. The defendants argued that they could not control the number of passengers on the boat, which was decided in advance of the trip. The incident has sparked national outrage, leading to the examination and criticism of the national government’s capacity to react to such situations; indeed, to many this is a trial of Korean politics as much as the crew members. The search for the ferry owner Yoo Byung-un also continues; on Wednesday around 6,000 police officers raided a church compound partly owned by Yoo. 5. Myanmar proposes criminalization of interfaith marriage; U.S. has serious concerns. Amid rising sectarian tension in Myanmar, the country’s parliament is reviewing laws aimed at protecting the majority Buddhist identity by regulating religious conversations and interfaith marriages, banning polygamy, and curbing population growth. The U.S. Department of State voiced its serious concerns about the impact upon religious freedom; and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom further noted that the proposed laws risk stoking violence against Muslims and other religious minorities. After meeting with activists, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she will submit a report of recommendations to parliament. If the laws are passed, Washington will have to factor these developments into its evolving relationship with Myanmar. Bonus: Thai military junta requires telecom companies provide World Cup coverage for free. Following a military coup last month, the new ruling junta has ordered telecommunications officials to air the World Cup for free in Thailand as part of a “happiness campaign.” Whether the campaign takes citizens’ minds off of their newly lost democratic freedoms remains to be seen.

What has gone wrong in Southeast Asia? Between the late 1980s and the late 2000s, many countries in the region were viewed by global democracy analysts and Southeast Asians themselves as leading examples of democratization in the developing world. By the late 2000s, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore all were ranked as “free” or “partly free” by the monitoring organization Freedom House, while Cambodia and, perhaps most surprisingly, Myanmar had both taken sizable steps toward democracy as well. Yet since then, Southeast Asia’s politics have been stuck in neutral or reverse. Asia Sentinel today has an excellent adaptation of my recent CFR working paper on the regression of democratic politics in Southeast Asia. The Asia Sentinel adaptation is available here.

This past week, the Thai military launched its second coup in a decade, destroying what was left of Thailand’s shaky democratic system. This coup is likely to last longer, and be much harsher than the coup in 2006; already, the Thai armed forces are censoring Thai media and putting journalists and politicians in detention or in jail. Thailand’s return to military rule was hardly fated to happen. Between the late 1980s and the late 2000s, many countries in Southeast Asia were viewed, by global democracy analysts and Southeast Asians themselves, as leading examples of democratization in the developing world. By the late 2000s, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore all were ranked as “free” or “partly free” by the monitoring organization Freedom House, while Cambodia and, perhaps most surprisingly, Myanmar had both taken sizable steps toward democracy as well. Yet since the late 2000s, Southeast Asia’s democratization has stalled and, in some of the region’s most economically and strategically important nations, gone into reverse. Over the past ten years, Thailand has undergone a rapid and severe regression from democracy and is now ruled by a junta. Malaysia’s democratic institutions and culture have regressed as well, with the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition cracking down on dissent and trying to destroy what had been an emerging, and increasingly stable, two-party system. In Cambodia and Myanmar, hopes for dramatic democratic change have fizzled. Only the Philippines and Indonesia have stayed on track, but even in these two countries democratic consolidation is threatened by the persistence of graft, public distrust of democratic institutions, and continued meddling in politics by militaries. Southeast Asia’s rollback from democracy reflects a worrying global retrenchment toward anti-democratic political change. The implications of this regression from democracy are significant. On a human level, the regression from democracy means that, compared to a decade ago, more of the world’s people are living today under authoritarian or hybrid, semi-authoritarian regimes. People living under authoritarian rule are more likely to have shorter and less healthy lives, as shown by indicators of human development. An increasingly authoritarian and unstable Southeast Asia is also a poor partner for the United States. Southeast Asia contains U.S. treaty allies Thailand and the Philippines, increasingly critical U.S. partners Singapore and Vietnam, and potentially valuable strategic partners like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar. Southeast Asia has become one of the largest engines of global growth, and the United States and several Southeast Asian nations are attempting to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would be the largest free trade area in history in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). Regression from democracy will endanger all of this cooperation. History shows that the United States works most effectively around the world with other democracies, as demonstrated in organizations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The United States’ partnerships with the more democratic nations in Southeast Asia follow this trend—these relationships tend to be more stable than U.S. relationships with more brittle and autocratic Southeast Asian regimes. Stronger democratic governments, including those in Southeast Asia, also usually can deliver the kind of long-term economic liberalization critical to foreign investment, since these economic reforms are not just implemented by fiat. If this democratic rollback continues, it is likely to seriously endanger American security cooperation in East Asia, undermine the region’s growth and economic interdependence, and cause serious political unrest, even insurgencies, in many Southeast Asian nations. In my new working paper, I examine the severe regression from democracy now happening in Southeast Asia, the implications of this trend for the region and the United States, and some possible solutions to this democratic reversal. The working paper is available here.

As President Obama has traveled through Asia this past week, media attention has rightly focused on his trip and on some of the highlights (United States-Philippines defense agreement) and lowlights (breakdown of TPP talks, the president’s decision not to meet Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim). But although the president has briefly mentioned the looming catastrophe in western Myanmar, he has not recently devoted much time to talking about the situation there. A new story in Reuters, which already won a much-deserved Pulitzer for excellent reporting earlier this year on the crisis in western Myanmar, shows how the situation in Rakhine State, already disastrous, has emerged into a full-fledged humanitarian emergency comparable with some of the worst in the world. Basically, for nearly two years now it could have been predicted—and was predicted by many people—that the inter-religious conflict in Rakhine State eventually would have enormous repercussions for the health and welfare of both Muslims and Buddhists living in the state. The remoteness of many communities affected by violence, the rising number of internally displaced people, and the lack of any real government health care infrastructure combine to foster and spread disease. Until recently, international aid organizations—including the biggest health care operation in Rakhine State, Doctors Without Borders—were helping the state stave off the worst possible humanitarian emergency, even as Buddhist paramilitaries raged throughout Rakhine and Naypyidaw looked the other way. Now, with many aid organizations expelled from Rakhine, there is nothing to stop the emergency from spiraling further out of control. Unfortunately, Naypyidaw still either denies there is a serious problem in Rakhine State or abets the catastrophe.

Over the weekend, according to Radio Free Asia and other news reports, nearly all international aid groups operating in western Myanmar’s Arakan, or Rakhine, State, fled the state capital or hid in police stations and other (supposedly) secure locations. They had to flee or hide as mobs of angry Arakanese Buddhists attacked several aid workers, and threatened many other offices of international aid agencies. This comes on the heels of several other attacks on international aid agencies operating in Arakan State and on the government’s decision to bar Doctors Without Borders, the leading health care provider to internally displaced people in Arakan State, from operating in the state. The Irrawaddy has a summary of the events here. This time, the specific trigger for mob attacks on Rohingya and aid workers was Arakanese Buddhists’ anger at the upcoming Myanmar census. The census is a powder keg; for one thing, it might show that a myth propagated by many hardline Buddhists, that Myanmar’s Muslim community is growing very rapidly, is just that–a myth. But hardline Arakanese Buddhists simply want to silence anyone working with Rohingya in the state. As the Irrawaddy reported, “Arakanese Buddhists sought to chase out humanitarian organizations providing support for the Rohingya Muslim minority, officials and residents said.” The situation in Arakan State, already one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, is only going to get worse in the next year. Already, internally displaced people (IDP)–mostly Rohingya, but not all–across the state are living in squalid camps that have been called open air prisons. When I have visited these camps, I have found them among the worst IDP facilities I have ever seen. The aid organizations that are still operating in the state are some of the hardiest in the world, the most effective at working in dangerous and difficult environments. If these aid organizations are forced to shut down operations in the state and furlough local staff, who are always the ones at the front lines of such violence, the humanitarian crisis in Arakan will explode, since one cannot expect the Myanmar government and the state government to provide food, decent shelter, or medicine to the IDPs. After all, instead of addressing the crisis the government has blamed aid agencies for being too sensitive to the concerns of internally displaced people in Arakan State.

News this past weekend that the Myanmar government appears to have kicked Doctors without Borders/Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) out of Arakan/Rakhine State is just another disturbing piece of news suggesting that inter-religious hatred in the country is rising, and the Myanmar government continues to deny this powder keg is close to exploding. Doctors without Borders had been working across Arakan/Rakhine State,  where it has treated thousands of people. The organization has been working in Myanmar for two decades and, in addition to its work in Arakan/Rakhine State, where over 100,000 people have become refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the past three years, Doctors without Borders also has been a central part of Myanmar’s anti-HIV strategy and treatment for years. According to the Associated Press, the spokesman for President Thein Sein accused Doctors without Borders of hiring Muslim Rohingya and of creating fabrications about the massacre that apparently occurred in northern Arakan/Rakhine State in January. The government has continued to deny that this massive attack, supposedly led by a Buddhist mob that included local security forces, took place, but the United Nations’ investigation of the massacre appears to be pretty damning. According to the New York Times, the U.N. report on the massacre suggests that the killings on that particular night in Arakan/Rakhine State resulted in the deaths of “at least 40 men, women and children, one of the worst instances of violence against the country’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims.” The killings allegedly included beheadings, including beheadings of Rohingya children, the report states. The national human rights commission also has denied the massacre took place. The New York Times had an excellent summary of the story and the UN report on Sunday. The intensity of violence against Rohingya (and non-Rohingya Muslims) in Myanmar has not abated since it began three years ago. In some respects, it has gotten worse, with more people being killed in single attacks than in the past. In addition, while at times in 2012 and 2013 the government of President Thein Sein took a somewhat more humane approach toward the Rohingya, in recent weeks the government seems to have changed course. It has become more obstructionist and in denial about the severity of the problem of anti-Muslim violence, a denial that has culminated in tossing out MSF and refusing to admit the attack in northern Arakan/Rakhine State took place. Perhaps the Myanmar government, feeling more secure as investors pour into Myanmar and the United States and other countries work toward restoring military-military relations, simply feels no need to even pretend to care about the issue of anti-Muslim attacks. Perhaps, as some Myanmar politicians suggest, the president’s office is taking a harder line on the northern Arakan/Rakhine massacre so that Thein Sein does not look like he is giving into foreign pressure for a real investigation into Buddhist paramilitaries and security forces’ collusion in anti-Muslim massacres. Though Thein Sein is not running for president next year, he does not want the ruling party to look like it is catering to Muslims in a country where radical Buddhists are running wild and are extremely popular among Buddhist ethnic Burmans.  National League for Democracy leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, also have basically ignored international pressure for a more serious investigation of the perpetrators of anti-Muslim attacks and have at times encouraged the actions of radical Buddhists. Or perhaps, as some of Thein Sein’s advocates have privately suggested, he wants to take a more proactive and humane approach to the Rohingya and anti-Muslim violence, but he is actually much weaker than the powers of the president suggest, and cannot afford to take on hard-liners on the Rohingya issue when he is pushing other reforms. Whatever the reason, the Myanmar government’s denials are badly exacerbating what has become a severe human rights crisis in Arakan/Rakhine State; the IDP camps, which I have visited, are among the worst such facilities in the world. Booting one of the finest aid organizations in the world out of the state is hardly going to help.

This past week, the Myanmar government detained—and may be arresting—six Burmese journalists who reported that the country may have had a chemical weapons factory under the former military dictatorship. The local journal produced the following report, according to the Irrawaddy: [There was] a supposed chemical weapons factory in PaukTownship, Magwe Division. The report, which included photographs, said the factory was built in 2009 on more than 3,000 acres of land that had been confiscated from farmers, and that it was connected by over 1,000 feet of tunnels. The facility has been visited by the former military regime’s strongman Snr-Gen Than Shwe, as well as the current commander-in chief of the armed forces, Min Aung Hlaing, former Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo and current Vice President Nyan Htun. The Myanmar government has denied the report as baseless, and now detained six of the journalists and news executives involved in producing the story in a local journal. Most international attention now has focused on the detentions, suggesting that these arrests of reporters are a further sign that Myanmar’s period of reform has a long way to go, and that press freedom, supposedly one of the biggest gains in the reform period, is not quite as complete as some outside observers have suggested. The Committee to Protect Journalists and other press freedom organizations immediately condemned the arrests and called on Myanmar’s government to implement significant legal reforms that would better protect freedom of the press. To be sure, the arrest of the journalists is a serious problem, and it does indeed show that Myanmar’s reforms remain incomplete, suspicion of journalists runs high among Myanmar officials, and—quite possibly—Myanmar media outlets need time to develop higher standards of sourcing and fact-checking. But the report and the arrests also throws light on the fact that Naypyidaw still has a ways to go to completely disavow any links to WMD production programs. For years, rumors and stories of nuclear and chemical weapons plants circulated in the Myanmar-watching community, particularly in the last decade of Myanmar’s military rule. A prominent report by the highly respected Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), released in 2010, suggested that numerous suspicious military sites around Myanmar could be undeclared nuclear activities and facilities. Myanmar’s current, reformist government has denied all of those past allegations. It has taken important strides to improving the transparency of all of its military-related activities, including signing the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol—strides praised by ISIS, among other watchdogs. Still, Myanmar seems to retain some opaque military-military cooperation with North Korea, which remains a concern, and the country also has never ratified the international conventions on chemical and biological weapons, though it signed both of them during the long period of military rule. Given the continued opaque style in which Naypyidaw operates, the paranoia over the journalists’ reports, Myanmar’s history, and its continued ties with North Korea, the country still needs to go farther to show that it has broken all links to any WMD ambitions in the past. Ratifying the chemical and biological weapons conventions would be an important marker of this change.