Myanmar

Over the past decade, up until the beginning of Myanmar’s reform period in 2010, China had appeared to consolidate its influence over the country. Without a doubt, China had become Myanmar’s most important ally, diplomatic partner, and aid donor, and probably its largest trading partner, though the statistics were hard to keep. Yet China’s policy toward Myanmar was always more complicated than it appeared. There were multiple Myanmar policies, driven by multiple actors: the Yunnan provincial government and investors from Yunnan; the central government in Beijing; and, the big Chinese resources companies. Not all of these actors were working in sync, and on several occasions the central government appeared to be displeased with Yunnan officials and businesspeople’s activities in Myanmar. Now, as Myanmar has opened up, it certainly has become less reliant on China—though I do not agree that balancing China was the primary driver of Myanmar’s opening, I do agree with many analysts that it was a factor. Yet China’s Myanmar policy has, if anything, become even more complicated, as shown by a recent report in Xinhua and cited by the New York Times and many other sites. According to the report, Chinese troops in Yunnan have begun training in the hills near Kachin State, Myanmar in preparation for the war between the Myanmar army and the Kachin Independence Army spilling across the border into China.  Although there have been several cease-fires, and attempted Chinese mediation, a lasting cease-fire has not yet held. Although it is certainly natural for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to take preparations for a conflict spilling across its borders, both Chinese and Burmese officials have raised to me the concern that this development is also a sign of the PLA growing frustrated with the lack of resolution in the Kachin conflict, and taking a larger role in policy in general toward Myanmar. Several Burmese officials say that the continuing war in northern Myanmar has bolstered PLA hawks, and also has given credence to (credible) claims by many PLA officers and leaders that the army is ill-prepared to actually handle any insurgencies or other low-intensity warfare that crossed into China, whether from Myanmar or from other unstable neighbors of China. Although the New York Times notes that Xi Jinping has spoken of the need to strengthen the PLA, when it comes to policy toward Myanmar the greater presence of the PLA is only going to make it harder for Beijing to regain its influence. Some Yunnan policymakers and businesspeople resent the greater presence of the PLA in Myanmar policymaking, according to several Chinese sources. Meanwhile, the PLA deployment has worried both the Kachin Independence Army and some senior Myanmar officials.

Over the past year, as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has made the transition from democracy icon kept under house arrest for almost two decades to working politician, she has found the going harder than some of the people who were in similar situations, like Nelson Mandela in the early 1990s. Despite her best intentions, Suu Kyi seems to have surrounded herself with few competent political advisors, experts on business and the economy, or interlocutors with leading ethnic minority groups in Myanmar. Unlike in South Africa in the early 1990s, also, Suu Kyi faces in President Thein Sein not only a potential partner but also a rival stronger than F.W. de Klerk, who represented only a small minority group. Though Thein Sein has not faced any real elections, he has managed to amass significant talent around him, including the cream of Burmese exile academics and political analysts. And at the same time, Suu Kyi has spent a considerable time out of the country in recent months—hard to hold against her, given she was locked up for years, but a decision that has taken her out of Burmese politics for stretches at a time. Meanwhile, she has been strangely low-key on the two biggest conflicts currently tearing at Myanmar, the violence in Rakhine State and the ongoing war in Kachin State. For a period last year, criticism of Suu Kyi was building, but remained confined to ethnic minority leaders who were angered by her focus on Burman politics, and perhaps would never trust any ethnic Burman, even Suu Kyi. But now this criticism has spread, to mainstream outlets like The Irrawaddy, which has castigated Suu Kyi for her silence on conflicts in Myanmar and her lack of a clear idea for a future federal state. Though the foreign community remains almost uniformly supportive of and uncritical of Suu Kyi, criticism has spread to many Burman activists in the major cities of central Myanmar, especially after Suu Kyi recently seemed to welcome many former army cronies to her side, provided they started spending their money on social programs. At this point, with the critical 2015 national elections still two years away, Suu Kyi seems to be stuck in an in-between mode—still traveling the world receiving honorary degrees for her admirable courage during Myanmar’s darkest years, while dipping her toe into politics as an elected member of parliament but not taking the time to develop a serious platform, prepare her statements, hire qualified staff, and get ready to play a larger political role in two years. The democracy icon will need to make this shift soon.

Over the past year, as conflict has flared in Rakhine State in Myanmar, growing numbers of Rohingya have fled their homes. It remains unclear to me—even after a trip to Rakhine State—exactly why the conflict started now, and what role the local security forces have played, if any.  However, it is abundantly clear that the region’s management of Rohingya outflows is horrendous, a failure pointed out by the increasing numbers of Rohingya who are fleeing by boat, rather than going to camps in Myanmar or Bangladesh. In the past month, many of these boats of Rohingya have landed in southern Thailand; the Bangkok Post quotes Thai officials as saying that four thousand refugees have come between November and January. Thailand has no clear policy on the Rohingya. It has refused to set up camps for them, and wanted to deport them back to Myanmar—where they are clearly endangered—before bowing to pressure from the international community and Muslim nations, and granting some Rohingya a temporary stay in Thailand. Thailand has some legitimate concerns about refugee inflows—that they are being encouraged by traffickers, and that Thailand should not have to bear the cost of taking the refugees alone. These concerns do not justify the aimless and sometimes brutal policy of the Thai authorities—turning back Rohingya, deporting them, and on at least one occasion several years ago, pushing Rohingya boats back into the sea. But Thailand is also not getting much support from neighbors like Malaysia, Singapore, or Indonesia, all of which also have had Rohingya turn up on their shores. As the region, and Western nations, did with the Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970s, now it needs a more coordinated approach to the Rohingya challenge, since it is unlikely to go away in this period of turbulence in Myanmar. Wealthier Muslim nations like the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia (or Japan, the European Union, and the United States) could provide the bulk of the funds for Rohingya temporary camps in Thailand, as well as for helping Rohingya resettle in third countries like Malaysia. Meanwhile, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) together could agree on one approach to intercepting Rohingya boats, and to more effectively differentiate between Rohingya fleeing persecution in western Myanmar and the professional traffickers who might help them flee.  And ASEAN nations like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore could agree to accept certain numbers of Rohingya, assured that the economic burden would not fall on them alone.

The continuing violence in Rakhine (or Arakan) State in western Myanmar, as well as the expanding war in Kachin State (see an excellent piece on Kachin State by Bertil Lintner here) threaten the reforms that Thein Sein continues to push through. Some specialists on western Myanmar are now urging that Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been mostly quiet on the conflict, become a kind of personal special envoy to both sides in Rakhine State to try and cool tensions. In a new article in The National, I examine the roots of the conflict, and discuss my ultimately pessimistic conclusions about whether it can be resolved. You read the entire piece here.

Last month, democracy icon and Burmese parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi traveled to New Delhi at the invitation of Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to deliver the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture.  Despite the two countries’ close proximity—India and Myanmar share an 800-mile border—the occasion marked Suu Kyi’s first visit to India in forty years. In recent years, Suu Kyi has publically expressed her disappointment in the Indian government’s decision to reverse decades of pro-democracy support regarding Myanmar, and pursue a more realist policy of accommodating the ruling junta. Thus, Suu Kyi’s address in New Delhi marked a potential shift in Indian-Burmese relations, and an opportunity for India to publically express support for its neighbor’s democratic transition. But, as M. Kim, a Burmese activist and coordinator at the Burma Centre in Delhi, recently pointed out in a piece for The Irrawaddy, the Indian government prohibited press from attending the address: “Once again, India failed to seize the moment…There was no better moment to highlight the cause of the Burmese people to the local population, who know little of their eastern neighbor.” India’s failure to promote democracy in Myanmar, and elsewhere in its neighborhood, is indicative of larger trend in the world;  Today, the biggest emerging democracies have not only failed to step up as advocates for democratization, but have also, in many cases, continued to prop up authoritarian regimes.  In a new piece for the Boston Globe, I examine how emerging powers like India, Brazil, and South Africa have thus far avoided a leadership in democracy promotion commensurate with their new global statuses. This trend is just one part of the larger democratic regression that has been occurring worldwide for the past decade —a rollback that I detail in my forthcoming book Democracy in Retreat, which is being published by the Council on Foreign Relations and Yale University Press in early 2013. You can read my piece for the Boston Globe “Are the New Democracies Pro-Democracy?” in its entirety here.

Nathan LaGrave is an intern for the Southeast Asia studies program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Last week, during his historic trip to Myanmar, President Obama demonstrated the United States’ continued commitment to the country’s transition with the announcement of a $170 million aid package. The announcement coincides with the reestablishment of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Myanmar, which was suspended for twenty-four years during the brutal reign of the former military regime. Now comes the critical time in which Chris Milligan, the newly-appointed USAID mission director in Myanmar, must develop a strategy for the distribution of these dollars. It is vital that the United States recognize those hazards which can potentially surround the offering of aid and tread cautiously, understanding the issues that could stall a successful transition in Myanmar and negate the positive effects of aid. Firstly, the United States needs to acknowledge a reality that most official development assistance (ODA) providers would rather not: the historically mixed results of aid in Southeast Asia. One doesn’t need to look far to see an example of undesirable consequences brought on by an oversaturation and misallocation of foreign aid in the region. As Sophal Ear argues convincingly in his recently released book, foreign aid has thus far proved a detriment to development and democracy in Cambodia. Since Cambodia’s transition from a one party state in the early 1990s, billions of dollars in ODA has flowed into the country from international agencies, foreign governments and NGOs, making it one of the largest recipients of aid in the world. Ear notes that despite GDP per capita doubling since 2005, inequality has increased dramatically in Cambodia while health indicators have declined. Citing the clear failures of certain ODA projects —including the World Bank-sponsored land titling venture in Boeng Kak Lake— Ear demonstrates how aid has failed to result in successful, grassroots development and has instead entrenched what he calls an irresponsible culture of trial-and-error aid experimentation. In the Boeng Kak Lake case, aid funds were utilized by Shukaku Inc.—a firm owned by a senator in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party— to evict Cambodians with little or no compensation, a land-grabbing issue that is just one of many trends of inequality that persists in Cambodia’s development. Ear cites Cambodia’s budget as further evidence that aid has negatively affected the country’s transition. From 2002-2010, roughly 50 percent of Cambodia’s public spending came from foreign aid. This amount of financial support reduces the need for the Cambodian government to collect taxes and subsequently minimizes a sense of democratic participation and the accountability its citizens demand from their leaders. The fact that Cambodia consistently ranks among the lowest on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and that human rights abuses are committed with impunity would seem to confirm Ear’s arguments. While there is of course no guarantee that aid will have this same negative effect in Myanmar, Washington should note those circumstances in the country which could push it onto a similar trajectory. Last year, President Thein Sein ordered construction on the Myitsone dam project in Kachin State stopped. More recent reports suggest that those villagers who have attempted to return to their homes have been forcibly evicted by the military while Chinese workers remain at the site, indicators that the project will likely move forward. This situation may involve foreign investment rather than ODA, but the incident suggests that central government may have limited control over local military and police forces. What stands in the way of the still-powerful regional military leadership from utilizing soon-to-arrive ODA funds to carry out similar policies of unequal development that benefit only a select few? At present, the mantle of democracy and progress seem to rest on reformer Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, both aging and who, however committed, cannot be expected to carry the burden of democracy and development alone. Should ODA from the United States and elsewhere overwhelm this fragile and complicated process and somehow diminish an expectation of accountability from the people of Myanmar to its leaders as it has in Cambodia, Myanmar’s democratic transition will be at risk and its development will miss those who need aid most. Along with ensuring the international aid community’s experience in Cambodia is not replicated in Myanmar, the United States needs to construct its aid strategy in conjunction with other Western governments who have commenced aid. It’s obvious that the United States is not alone in hoping to gain favor with Myanmar. Instead of moving unilaterally to counteract aid overtures and risking its dollars and credibility in an increasingly important geopolitical region, the United States should seize this opportunity to demonstrate leadership in aid administration to transitioning states. Through soberly acknowledging past failures and moving forward with aid in concert with other donors, the United States will safeguard against redundancy and make certain that development dollars are disbursed effectively to even the country’s most remote regions—regions like Kachin State and Rakhine State— that need assistance the most.

In advance of President Obama’s historic visit to Yangon this week, the U.S. government announced Friday the easing of yet another round of sanctions against Myanmar. The latest suspension will allow for goods made in Myanmar to enter the U.S. market for the first time in nearly a decade.  Since the Obama administration first began lifting economic restrictions against the one-time pariah in April, Western companies have been clamoring to enter Myanmar —an enormous (60 million) market that, because it was essentially closed to Western investment for decades, could be a sizable opportunity. Its abundance of natural resources and its geographically strategic location, between China and India, further add to its allure. But in a new piece for Bloomberg Businessweek I argue that this land of golden promise may in fact be a chimera. The rapid transformation underway in Myanmar, though generally positive, has also ignited interethnic and interreligious conflict. This social instability, coupled with a tremendous  dearth of both physical infrastructure and rule of law, are among the many reasons why I argue that the Myanmar gold rush is wildly premature. You can read my entire piece on why investors should tread warily in Myanmar here. 

On Monday Yangon time, President Obama visited Myanmar’s former capital and became the first sitting American president ever to travel to the one-time pariah. His itinerary included meetings with both President Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as an address before Burmese students, officials and former generals at the historic University of Yangon. “When I took office as President, I sent a message to those governments who ruled by fear.  I said, in my inauguration address, ‘We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,’” said Obama during his remarks. “And over the last year and a half, a dramatic transition has begun, as a dictatorship of five decades has loosened its grip.” While Obama acknowledged “this remarkable journey has just begun,”  the rapid evolution of U.S. policy toward Myanmar over the past year suggests the Obama administration is betting heavily on Thein Sein and his ability to maintain the momentum of reform. In a new piece for Foreignpolicy.com, “Head Over Heels,” I argue that the economic and political changes underway in Myanmar —though substantial—may not be as secure as  the United States and other outside observers think. You can read my entire piece for Foreign Policy here.

President Obama’s visit to Myanmar only a year after the country has begun to embark on a dramatic but “tenuous” reform path has naturally fed speculation about lessons the leadership in Pyongyang might take from the visit. President Obama highlighted that question for North Korean leaders in his speech at the University of Yangon, issuing a direct challenge to North Korean leaders to “let go of your nuclear weapons and choose the path of peace and progress . . . you will find an extended hand from the United States of America.” This is the second time this year President Obama has publicly addressed direct messages to the North Korean leadership, following a speech at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul last March in which he reiterated that the United States has no hostile intent toward Pyongyang, that the United States is prepared to take steps toward normalization, and that further provocations will only bring North Korea more isolation. In answer to a question in a speech at CSIS last week in advance of President Obama’s visit, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon provided specifics by stating that if North Korea were to “demonstrate a seriousness of purpose” on denuclearization, then the path of entry into the international community would be available to North Korea. But the Burmese path to political reform provides an imperfect analogy for North Korea since Burma’s experience did not involve denuclearization. Kim Jong-un has recognized that it is necessary to address North Korea’s economic problems, promising in his first public speech last April that the North Korean people should not again have to “tighten their belts.” But the regime is also holding on to its nuclear program, threatening to expand the program if the United States does not drop its “hostile policy” toward North Korea rather than making the “right” choice. North Korea’s options for earning hard currency are narrowing. Myanmar’s reforms have curtailed the military relationship with North Korea and UN sanctions implementation has squeezed North Korean missile and conventional arms sales to other partners. In the coming months, Kim Jong-un will seek expanded assistance from new Chinese leaders, and will test prospects for assistance from South Korea’s new president as strategic alternatives to denuclearization. Given the risks reform may post to North Korea’s regime stability, it is unlikely that North Korea will pursue both economic reform and denuclearization without a prior strategic understanding with the United States, hence North Korea’s public insistence on the removal of the U.S. “hostile policy” as a prerequisite for denuclearization. In President Obama’s first inauguration address in 2009, he promised to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Kim Jong-il responded in the months following that speech with a multi-stage rocket test in April 2009 and a nuclear test the following month. Let’s hope that in the Obama administration’s second term, North Korea under Kim Jong-un offers a more constructive response to America’s “extended hand.”

While we on the East Coast of the United States get battered by the hurricane, reports suggest that the most recent wave of strife in Rakhine State has cooled, at least temporarily. The Irrawaddy reports that at least 22,000 people have been displaced by the most recent conflict in Rakhine State, according to the UN, but that calm has been restored for now, albeit with a significantly larger presence of security forces on the streets of major towns and cities in the state, including 5,000 more police and at least 1,000 more border security forces. Although it is certainly good that some calm has been restored, no one believes that another explosion of violence will not occur soon in Rakhine State. Other than putting more police and border guards on the streets, the government has done little to address the underlying problems that are sparking unrest. In the short term, the government and other parties in parliament should consider these steps: Stop resisting outside aid. Although letting in outside aid to Rakhine State in a significant way is obviously not popular with many Buddhists in Myanmar, this step is critical to helping with refugee flows, feeding people, and rebuilding homes. Allowing the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to establish an office, and letting in money for Rakhine State from major Muslim donors like Saudi Arabia, would be an important start. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also could play a significant role, through Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, who is a Muslim and highly respected in the region. Keep the security forces away from rebuilding and rehabilitation as much as possible. The Irrawaddy and multiple other sources report that the security forces are closely involved in whatever rebuilding and moving of people is going on in Rakhine State. Given the horrendous history of Myanmar’s security forces being involved in forced relocation, and its limited knowledge and capacity for development work, the security forces should be kept away from rebuilding  —especially since many Muslims in Rakhine State suspect security forces of helping instigate rioting. Work with the National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party on a public posture on these ethnic clashes. In this case, President Thein Sein actually has been more open and forthright about the problems in Rakhine State than the NLD leadership has. Some NLD supporters insist that, since the NLD is not running the country (at least not right now), it does not need to have a position on the Rakhine violence. But even if it is not directly making policy now, the party cannot claim to be the future leaders of the country, as well as an open and progressive party, with no policy on the ethnic violence. Work more closely with Bangladesh. Although Bangladesh does not want to take in Muslims from Rakhine State, the violence is already potentially seeping across the border, so peace and some short-term solution in Rakhine State is in Bangladesh’s interest as well.

Over the past week, violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State, in the western part of Myanmar, has flared up badly once again. According to reports in local media and the news wires, over the past seven days at least sixty —and as many as one hundred— people have been killed in clashes. The local security forces allegedly have been firing on some crowds, and other reports suggest that the refugee camps set up for Muslims in the area have already become so overcrowded that they can no longer hold new arrivals. The cause of the new violence is very murky, with reports and rumors suggesting that some local activists, or even the security forces, have been triggering the clashes in order to lead to a crackdown on Muslims. Other reports suggest that some local fights between young men sparked the violence. But amidst the murkiness and the chaos, a larger question has arisen: Who in Myanmar’s leadership is going to take a serious, progressive approach to solving this ethnic tension? Though President Thein Sein has passed laudable economic and political reforms, his government has been mostly silent on the violence in Rakhine state, refusing to allow the Organization of the Islamic Conference to open offices to help investigate and potentially resolve the violence. It remains unclear whether the security forces are directly involved in the violence, and whether Thein Sein has tried to restrain local commanders, or even has total control over them. Aung San Suu Kyi has been nearly as quiet, alas. Throughout the violence in Rakhine State, which has gone on for months now, Suu Kyi has said almost nothing, even as other leading members of her party have issued harsh, anti-Muslim statements. During her recent trip to the United States, Suu Kyi mostly dodged questions about the violence, and she has been vilified by some Muslim leaders in Myanmar for her silence. To be sure, Suu Kyi is trying to make the shift from opposition leader and symbol to parliamentary leader and party leader, and backing rights for Muslims in Rakhine State is not popular among the Burman majority, many of whom back the National League for Democracy (NLD). And yet if Suu Kyi and her party were to be in power, running the government, they would need a real plan to reduce violence in Rakhine State, deal with the power of local commanders on the ground, and restrain the security forces. Thus the violence is not only an issue of rights —which Suu Kyi in the past paid great lip service to— but also of making coherent policy for the future, policy that at least calms the situation in Rakhine State and allows for some greater aid to flow in to refugees. Failing to make any real statement on the crisis seems a poor choice morally for Suu Kyi and the NLD leadership but also a sign of their great gap in policy experience.

The past two weeks have probably been the most high-profile weeks for Myanmar in the United States since the uprisings and crackdowns in Myanmar in 1988. The much-awaited visit of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi drew crowds that could be compared, in some ways, only to visits of Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. And Suu Kyi, in many ways, delivered, showing flexibility on sanctions that will allow for a much greater U.S. presence in Myanmar, displaying the humor and lightness of touch at events that was concealed by years of harsh government policy toward her, and offering a level of forgiveness of her former jailers that could help show the way forward for reconciliation in a future democratic Myanmar. Mynamar president Thein Sein, meanwhile, got much of what he wanted during his less acclaimed, but just as important, visit. His meeting with Hillary Clinton in New York demonstrated the importance the Obama administration places on Myanmar, the United States agreed to dramatic changes in sanctions policy, and Thein Sein returned home to Yangon to a hero’s welcome. But both leaders’ trips have had their pluses and minuses. Here is my take: Aung San Suu Kyi On the plus side, Suu Kyi emerged as a more complete politician and speaker, being able to leave the confining status of icon and appear as a real, funny, and down-to-earth person. She also appeared to have a solid understanding of the ways and means of the American capitol, not an easy thing to understand for even the most grizzled Washingtonian. She was consistent in her messages of forgiveness and reconciliation, and she at least tried to move forward from her previous stance of simply ignoring the issue of violence in Rakhine State. She appeared to be gaining a better understanding of what she does and does not know about the state of international relations, and of Burmese politics, today —a critical skill for any politician. She demonstrated that she was moving beyond icon to politician, and that her visits outside Myanmar would be as much about listening as speaking. On the minus side, Suu Kyi still has nowhere near the type of support network and brain trust that she will need if her National League for Democracy party (NLD) is indeed going to contest and probably win the 2015 elections, putting it into place to run parliament. Burmese businesspeople who spoke in advance of Suu Kyi’s trip noted that, although top NLD people have reached out to the business community and been getting a better sense of Myanmar’s economic needs, the NLD still has no coherent economic ideology, or even a real sense of how it wants to handle Myanmar’s economic opening and looming investment boom, other than calling for investment to broadly benefit all Burmese. Suu Kyi herself takes advice from both Burmese and foreign economists and businesspeople with great expertise, but she does not yet have a mastery of the many crosscurrents within the NLD, including some who want to open the doors to more investment and some who, like many Burmese, have a deal of (well-earned) skepticism and outright xenophobia about foreign aid and investment. During her trip, Suu Kyi still did not convince many foreign businesspeople, economists, or analysts that the NLD was prepared to be a governing party. That said, there are of course over two years until 2015, and this is a party made up of many people who focused their whole life on one cause: ridding the country of military rule. Can the party adapt now that its goals are far broader? In my next blog post, I will analyze the visit of President Thein Sein.

As reported yesterday, following a meeting with Myanmar president Thein Sein, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States would now be easing the American ban on imports from Myanmar, which will be enormously beneficial to the Myanmar economy. This follows a similar move by the European Union, which now has allowed Myanmar to join the Generalized System of Preferences scheme it has for poor countries to access the EU market. Though the announcement was important, just as important was the fact that Clinton met with Thein Sein during his trip to the United States —the United Nations General Assembly period is packed with bilaterals, and it would not have been hard for her to skip one more bilateral—and publicly handed Myanmar a reward that reflected positively on President Thein Sein. Though most of the Myanmar policy community in the United States has been focused this past week on the historic visit to the United States of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi —and rightly praised her enormous fortitude and role in keeping democracy alive in Myanmar—Thein Sein’s role in the reforms has been the central one over the past two years. This is not moral equivalence: Thein Sein has a military background, and had senior positions of power during periods when the Burmese military harshly repressed dissidents; Suu Kyi is rightly a global icon for having faced the most trying circumstances possible, and living to inspire generations of Burmese. But the fact is, for reform to proceed, and for the United States to play a role, Thein Sein is in charge, at least for now, before the planned elections in 2015. To have had him arrive in the United States and not get a substantial visit, and reward, while at the same time Suu Kyi tours America, might have created significant trouble back in Naypyidaw.

An interesting recent piece by Agence France Presse, from a major drug production area of Myanmar, comes timed with the visits to the United States by Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar president Thein Sein. The article points out one of many challenges that are going to remain in Myanmar, if not get worse, once the euphoria over the dramatic reforms of the past two years ebbs a bit. In this case, the problem is surging narcotics production and use, which (when it comes to injectable drugs) is also linked to rising rates of HIV/AIDS. The reporter notes that the country is facing skyrocketing rates of methamphetamine production, which is harder to track and stop than opium/heroin, and that addiction rates are rising as well, in part because of a near-total lack of social-welfare spending on addicts in areas like the northwest. The local authorities have little money for methadone or other treatment options, and the fastest-growing group of users is under eighteen years old. The United Nations last year showed that methamphetamine use has gone up every year in Myanmar since 2005, according to the AFP report. As Myanmar’s politics open up, it is likely that the drug problem is only going to get worse. In a period of a power vacuum, organized crime will flourish ---particularly in the northwest, the major drug production area. And in a country with such vast needs, and a wildly overstretched budget, it is likely that treating addiction will fall to the bottom of priorities, as it often does even in developed countries.

Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s two-week visit to the United States has thus far proven highly successful, at least on the terms understood in advance. As she did in Europe, Suu Kyi has wowed audiences in the United States, on a level that can be compared to no one other than the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela for the awe that people feel in meeting her. She has received award after award, and graciously sat for more policy meetings, roundtables, events, and conferences than any Washington official would ever want to endure while jetlagged. Without a doubt, Suu Kyi’s relationship with the United States, as well as with other democratic powers, is important for Myanmar’s future, and critical to increased aid flows to the country. Yet much of the discussion at policy seminars and other events with Suu Kyi has seemed to focus on the idea that the U.S. and Europe are the critical players in Myanmar’s future. In part, this is due to the admiration for Suu Kyi in the West, and the low profile of President Thein Sein in the West —his United Nations General Assembly appearance has received far less coverage than Suu Kyi’s bravura tour, and yet Thein Sein, despite his military past, has been the key to implementing the radical reforms over the past two years. Thein Sein also is primarily responsible for the recent cabinet reshuffle that further consolidated the control of reformers in the government, marginalizing or simply canning several important hard-liners. What’s more, the discussions in the United States with Suu Kyi have also tended to avoid another fact: the most important players in any future democratic Myanmar are China, India, Thailand, and Singapore. That truth is not going to change, and in fact, as Myanmar opens up, it will become even more closely integrated with its near neighbors. And yet the relationship between Suu Kyi (and the broader Myanmar democracy movement) and nearly all of these near powers is tenuous and sometimes downright poor. Even with India, the democracy movement’s relationship has gone downhill in recent years, after India reversed decades of pro-democracy support regarding Myanmar and pursued a more realist policy, accommodating the past ruling junta. If Suu Kyi and the democracy movement really are going to win national elections in 2015 (which, if they are free and fair, is almost sure), they must rapidly repair their relations with these critical neighbors, rather than focusing on the West, which is where most Burmese democracy advocates have become most comfortable over the past two decades.