Myanmar

The International Court of Justice issued an important decision aimed at protecting Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, but its impact is unclear.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group, have fled persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, fueling a historic migration crisis.

Coming off a year with critical elections in Thailand and Indonesia, in 2020 Southeast Asians will go to the polls in several important countries. Most notably, both Singapore and Myanmar will hold general elections. Taiwan will hold a general election as well, in January, but I will examine Taiwan’s election prospects in a forthcoming CFR In Brief. Singapore and Myanmar sit at opposite ends of the economic spectrum in Southeast Asia; the city-state is the richest country in the region, and Myanmar is one of the poorest. Their elections, too, will have relatively little in common. In Singapore, the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has dominated the country since independence, will surely be returned to power, although probably with a new prime minister after the vote, current Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat. Singapore politics has become increasingly contested in the past decade, with opposition parties making modest gains. This year the opposition will include not only the longstanding Workers Party but a new party, the Progress Singapore Party, led by a former PAP member of parliament named Tan Cheng Bock. As a former PAP member of parliament, and a former candidate for the mostly ceremonial presidency, he has a more centrist appeal than the Workers Party, and could potentially draw voters who would never pull the lever for the Workers Party. Still, the opposition will probably be fortunate to keep the tiny fraction of seats it currently holds in parliament, and it is not impossible that the opposition gets shut out entirely. In Myanmar, meanwhile, the election is much more uncertain. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has not delivered on its economic promises, and instead has fallen back onto appeals to nationalism, including standing up against global criticism of Myanmar’s approach to the Rohingya. This approach has had some effect, domestically, in boosting Suu Kyi’s popularity, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) remains in solid shape for the 2020 elections. The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the successor to the military’s mass organization during the junta period, still has not become an effective grassroots political party, and its massive loss in the 2015 general election proved difficult to rebound from. It is possible that the NLD’s failures, rising anger against Suu Kyi in some ethnic minority areas, and more effective campaigning by the USDP could work against Suu Kyi’s party in the 2020 contest. However, many ethnic minorities will not want to back what is still viewed as the military’s party, and some voters will instead turn to newly formed parties, like the one set up by former house speaker Shwe Mann. The result could be a parliament with many smaller parties, causing further instability. And the army chief Min Aung Hlaing, who seems to be acting like he wants to become president (while also standing accused of overseeing crimes against humanity) if the USDP and its allies can scratch together enough seats to place him in the presidency, could add another wild card to the equation. One common aspect, however, will be concern about disinformation. In Myanmar, that disinformation largely comes from within. The country has become a hotbed of hate speech and conspiracy-mongering online, often against ethnic and religious minorities—Rohingya, Christian ethnic minorities like the Kachin, and others. Hate speech and conspiracy theories, spread on Facebook and through other online means, helped spark several rounds of killings of Rohingya, including the 2017 ethnic cleansing. In the run-up to the 2020 election, the prospect of more massive disinformation and hate speech looms large. While Facebook has tried to crack down on the sharing of hate speech in Myanmar, the social media giant could take more steps to fight disinformation in one of the most toxic online environments in the world. The government in Naypyidaw, meanwhile, has little incentive to stop disinformation, and the prospect of a combustible election period is high. This year, disinformation might not necessarily be focused on ethnic and religious minorities—it could instead be used against political rivals—but the results could lead to violence, and could spill over and spark attacks on minorities. As James Gomez of the Asia Center in Bangkok has shown, recent election seasons in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have included politicians, faith-based groups and other actors using disinformation to mobilize political supporters. He believes that Myanmar could easily fall into the same pattern. In Singapore, meanwhile, the threat of disinformation comes as much from outside the city-state as from within. Singapore faces a growing threat of Chinese influence in its elections and within Singapore society in general. Prominent opinion leaders such as former Ambassador-at-Large Bilahari Kausikan have warned that the city-state must get much tougher in responding to Chinese influence, including expanding efforts to educate the public about Chinese influence operations. Partly due to growing concerns about Chinese disinformation regionally—China has spread disinformation widely in Taiwan—the Singapore government this year passed an anti-fake news law, officially known as the Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act. However, the law is not only about China. In an environment as controlled as Singapore, the anti-fake news law, which gives the government broad powers to decide what online information is true or not, raises concerns that it will be used not only against legitimate disinformation but also to silence opposition voices. Such silencing could be particularly relevant in the run-up to the general election. Already, Facebook has complained to the Singapore government that the fake news law must not infringe upon free speech, even as Facebook went along with the law and told users in Singapore that a posting by a Singaporean dissident contained false information.

By Hunter Marston and Joshua Kurlantzick Hunter Marston is a doctoral candidate at Australian National University. In the run-up to Myanmar’s elections next year, there is little positive news to report about a country that seemed like a democratic success story less than five years ago. On Aung San Suu Kyi’s watch, over the past four years the country has seen a regression in press freedom, expanded usage of anti-defamation laws and a general crackdown on speech, and massive rights abuses in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Although over one million Rohingya have already fled Rakhine, and chaos is engulfing the state again, as the military battles the Buddhist, ethnic Rakhine Arakan Army; the fighting is spreading, as army units reportedly have been attacking civilians as well. Fighting has ramped up in other ethnic minority areas as well, in the north and northeast, and Suu Kyi’s government also has made little headway towards serious economic reform either. Her government has shown little ability to develop or implement economic policy, tourists are scared off by the country’s deteriorating international image, inbound investment is falling, and Suu Kyi reportedly remains focused on the shaky peace process with ethnic rebels, not paying enough attention to the country’s dire economic needs. (To be fair, in recent months the National League for Democracy (NLD) has appeared to take up some reformist ideas, calling for changes to Myanmar’s constitution that would dilute the power of the military and potentially foster democratic progress.) The situation is unlikely to improve this year or next. Although army chief Min Aung Hlaing has embarked upon a goodwill tour of the country that apparently aims to polish his image and possibly prepare him to be nominated for the presidency, he already has been linked to attacks in Rakhine State for which a UN special fact finding panel has said top Myanmar military commanders should be prosecuted for genocide. If he were to be elected, the country’s international image will probably get worse (although Suu Kyi has done it no favors by minimizing rights abuses and defending crackdowns on freedom of speech), and it is hard to imagine Min Aung Hlaing resolving the conflicts in the north and northeast, or the spiraling battle between the military and the Arakan Army. Meanwhile, with the situation still miserable for Rohingya in Rakhine State, and for Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh, there is a greater possibility of a more organized, armed Rohingya group emerging as compared to the shadowy, seemingly small group that has already launched attacks. When Suu Kyi’s party triumphed in 2015, in the first free national elections since 1990, Myanmar was expected to turn a corner. Building on five years of progress under a civilian government installed by the military, Suu Kyi’s government, which took power the next year, would pave the way toward democratic consolidation and attract foreign investment while taking steps to reduce deep poverty and inequality. With the goodwill she enjoyed, Suu Kyi would even possibly end some of Myanmar’s long-running civil wars. The Barack Obama administration, and many in Congress, believed that Myanmar was clearly on the right track and also was an example of successful diplomacy by the United States and other countries, which had pressured the country’s generals with years of sanctions but then slowly eased pressure as real political change emerged. In reality, as Thant Myint-U acknowledges in his new book exploring Myanmar’s current crisis and its roots, the country was closer to a failed state when Suu Kyi took over than many outsiders would have imagined—and it veers even closer to a failed state today. Its infrastructure was destroyed, the central government faced ongoing insurgencies, the education system was in tatters, the military remained the dominant institution in society, and the history of Myanmar royal rule, British colonial rule, and junta rule had left the population extremely divided along ethnic and religious lines. These divisions would be exacerbated by social media, which flourished in Myanmar with few constraints, spreading dangerous conspiracies and fomenting hate against the Rohingya and other minorities. Thant Myint-U, a former UN diplomat and advisor to Myanmar president Thein Sein, Suu Kyi’s predecessor as civilian leader, (Suu Kyi is not technically president but she clearly is Myanmar’s civilian leader) has become one of the ablest chroniclers of modern-day Myanmar and its multiple deep economic, religious, and ethnic fault lines. (He also, notably, has worked to preserve some of Yangon’s most important architectural legacies.) As a prominent advisor to Thein Sein and other military reformers who shepherded the country between 2011 and 2016, a period when most Western states ended their isolation of the country, he had a first-hand view of Myanmar’s challenges, and how they could have been addressed. In some cases, as he notes, because he was a prominent member of Myanmar society (his grandfather was former UN secretary general U Thant) and had enjoyed ties to both military reformists and the NLD, he served as an interlocutor between Myanmar leaders and top foreign leaders, including Barack Obama, during his time advising Thein Sein. Thant Myint-U looks deeper into Myanmar’s history, beyond 2011, however, to explain why the country that seemed so hopeful really was always going to be tough to transform. His book is elegant and concise, cramming in Myanmar’s older and modern history, background on the country’s racial and ethnic divisions, stories of the run-up to the 2011-2015 reform period, his personal experiences, and his assessment of Myanmar’s long, complicated history with free market economic models. Although detailed, it could appeal not only to Myanmar experts and policymakers but also to a general audience of people simply interested in what happened to the country and its icon. Thant Myint-U traces Myanmar’s history—from its ancient kingdoms to its period of British colonial rule to its early years of independence. He pays special attention to the deep and lasting divisions that the legacy of colonization left on the country. Among other efforts to divide Myanmar, the British brought with them thousands of Indian migrants from British-administered India, with whom they filled the ranks of colonial administration in the country, much to the detriment of Burmese civil service, education, and the development of Myanmar’s aspiring middle class. These divisive policies left indelible scars on society, casting a long shadow after independence, on government capacity (only a small minority of Myanmar citizens benefited from both the higher education and administrative training of their colonial rulers) and on the collective memory of many Myanmar citizens. A sour ethnic nationalism curdled among the majority Burmans, and during decades of military rule the Myanmar government forcibly ejected hundreds of thousands of ethnic Indians and launched multiple scorched earth operations against the Muslim Rohingya. This sour nationalism would have effects on many other minorities as well. When Myanmar achieved national independence in 1948, the country’s numerous ethnic and religious divisions quickly posed a problem for the first Prime Minister U Nu. Civil war erupted across the country within the first year of Burmese independence. Ultimately, the army would wrest political control in 1958 with promises of a “caretaker government” that soon gave way to decades of brutal military rule, with the army faced off against communist and ethnic insurgencies. By the time the country began to shift away from military rule to civilian rule in the 2010s, it already had vast internal divides, a ruined economy, a legacy of vicious racial conflicts, and the ongoing effects of authoritarian rule. Thant Myint-U, like many other scholars, argues that, given the deep, possibly unbridgeable divisions left by Myanmar’s history, in the modern era outsiders have seen the country in too binary a focus: A people oppressed by a ruthless military dictatorship. Furthermore, he argues, there has been little effort outside Myanmar to understand the complexities of Myanmar’s authoritarian history or its myriad ethnic conflicts. This myopia, he believes, has limited the international community’s ability to respond to many of Myanmar’s modern-day crises, like the ongoing battles between the military and ethnic armies. But by mostly focusing on structural causes and the legacy of history, Thant Myint-U gives the impression that these factors are unchanging determinants of Myanmar’s present and future—that the country was ruined, potentially doomed. And this type of essentialism also allows the author to avoid placing responsibility for Myanmar’s problems on individual policymakers—both military and civilian. Thant Myint-U does discuss some of the pivotal players in Myanmar’s political transformation in the years leading up to and immediately after 2010-2011, but his discussion focuses on a quite narrow cast of actors, including the NGO leader Nay Win Maung of Myanmar Egress, Aung Min and Soe Thane (two former generals Thant labels as “reformers”), and Aung San Suu Kyi. The book accords Nay Win Maung, Aung Min, and Soe Thane central roles in Myanmar’s moment of political reform. Nay Win Maung was a controversial figure in the country’s budding civil society movement between the years of 2006, when he founded Myanmar Egress, and early 2012, when he died of a heart attack. His NGO was frequently accused of sacrificing the principle of providing independent advice to the numerous advantages of working with the former junta as a self-described “third force.” Aung Min and Soe Thane were respectively minister of railways and minister of industry in the former administration of President Thein Sein, himself a former general and prime minister under the military junta of Senior General Than Shwe. Yet Thant Myint U’s account mostly ignores the contributions of countless other individuals to the reform process and glosses over the murky pasts of some of the key figures discussed. By only hearing the perspectives of these few elites, a casual reader may infer from the retelling of the reform years that Myanmar lacks a diverse and talented pool of grassroots civil society actors, and that the reform process did not stem from a broader societal push. This narrative also verges on whitewashing the records of former generals such as Aung Min, Soe Thane (formerly commander in chief of the navy), and Thein Sein, who worked within a junta that regularly violated its peoples’ human rights, for instance by employing forced labor, enlisting child combatants, and using rape as a weapon of war. Thant’s account also doesn’t tell the reader much about where or why Aung San Suu Kyi and the current ruling party, the NLD, may have failed to achieve greater political liberalization, progress toward peace with ethnic armies, and any solution to the human rights crisis in Rakhine State. In the end, Thant Myint-U lays the blame for Myanmar’s stalled democratization and continued polarization on (unnamed) opportunistic actors playing on the fears of foreign influence amidst rapid change and “a failure of the imagination” to challenge Myanmar’s insular nationalism. The book leaves the reader with little hope. He also hints at a future in which the NLD and military’s shared vision of ethnic nationalism and managed market reforms may lead the two former adversaries to a brokered political trajectory that allows each side to benefit: the military would maintain its traditional prestige as guardian of national unity, and Suu Kyi and the NLD would be able to actually implement policies, on issues ranging from economic reform to even potentially some modest military reforms, without the military negating the NLD’s decision-making. But given the military’s and the NLD’s record so far—both sides’ unwillingness to compromise and also the NLD’s failures to develop coherent policies on almost every issue—this brokered transition is hard to imagine. Yet if Myanmar is to escape its past divisions and overcome the constraints of its colonial legacy, its leaders will have to find a way to enshrine pluralism and tolerance in the national imagination. Thant Myint-U suggests that overcoming economic and social inequalities will be essential to that transformation. But he advances few tangible policy visions for a more equitable society. With the NLD unable to stimulate foreign direct investment and kickstart economic growth, such challenges may be insurmountable for decades to come. However, Thant Myint-U makes a compelling case for the urgent need for creative thinking—creative thinking that could result in new and effective policy responses to the multiple crises unfolding in Myanmar. In so doing—and by rooting his new book deeply in Myanmar's historical context—he offers a valuable contribution, and one accessible to a broad array of readers.

In recent months, the Myanmar government has begun pushing for some of the over one million Rohingya living in Bangladesh to return to Myanmar’s Rakhine State. As I noted in a blog post for CFR.org earlier this month, Naypyidaw recently launched a plan to facilitate Rohingya repatriation that was actually the second proposed plan, after an earlier one last November failed. The Bangladesh government has supported Naypyidaw’s proposed repatriation of Rohingya, although so far no Rohingya have taken up the offer to return to Rakhine State. Yet lost in much of the coverage of the Rohingya’s grim fate as refugees in Bangladesh, and the growing tensions between the Rohingya and citizens of Bangladesh, is that the situation in Rakhine State itself remains dire. So dire, in fact that another genocide of Rohingya is certainly possible, two years after earlier crimes against humanity decimated Rohingya in western Myanmar. For more on the situation in Rakhine State, see my new World Politics Review article.

Earlier this month, the Myanmar government embarked upon a new plan to begin repatriating Rohingya who had fled Rakhine State after waves of brutal violence there. It was the second time Naypyidaw tried to begin the repatriation process—the first attempt was in November—and this time the Myanmar government reportedly had approved some three thousand Rohingya to return, with the backing of Bangladesh for this action. None apparently voluntarily took up the offer, instead fleeing back to the camps in Bangladesh or hiding out. That Rohingya would not want to return to Myanmar is hardly surprising. It has been only two years since the deadliest wave of violence against them in Rakhine State. Rakhine State, where most Rohingya in Myanmar live, remains a violent and unstable place. In recent months, violence in Rakhine State has been rising again, as the army battles the ethnic Rakhine Arakan Army. The military has resorted to its usual scorched earth tactics in response, and the UN’s human rights office has accused the Tatmadaw of launching attacks against civilians in this fighting. Amnesty International has further issued a report claiming that the Myanmar military is committing new atrocities in Rakhine State, against both ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya—including extrajudicial executions. Meanwhile, the Myanmar government, while telling Rohingya that they can come back safely, has not exactly created a safe, trustworthy environment for their return. The ongoing violence in Rakhine State certainly does not indicate a strong prospect for safe return. Senior Myanmar government leaders continue to demonize the Rohingya and also refer to those still in Myanmar as illegals. A report released this week by Fortify Rights, a human rights and investigative group closely monitoring the situation for Rohingya, found that Myanmar authorities have continued to force Rohingya still living in Myanmar to accept National Verification Cards, which basically mark them as foreigners and preclude their getting citizenship rights. And the Myanmar and Bangladesh authorities did not appear to consult with Rohingya who were put on a list for repatriation, or prepare anywhere for them to restore their lives in Myanmar. The UN fact-finding mission found that the Myanmar government has simply leveled portions of northern Rakhine State where Rohingya had lived. Naypyidaw has done little to rebuild to prepare for a return, or offer infrastructure or social services of any kind in northern Rakhine State. Instead, Myanmar companies are developing tracts of land formerly occupied by Rohingya. A UN fact-finding report released in early August found that the Tatmadaw’s “crony companies” are funding projects in Rakhine State now designed to reengineer the province’s ethnic makeup and “erase evidence of Rohingya belonging to Myanmar.” Instead, the more than one million Rohingya in Bangladesh may try to stay in Bangladesh indefinitely, a scenario that is becoming increasingly plausible—though as Bertil Lintner notes, the Bangladesh government desperately does not want them to remain. Already, the camp on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border is the largest refugee camp in the world, overflowing with people, crowded, and highly vulnerable to disease and human trafficking. As Lintner notes, Bangladeshi citizens are growing increasingly resentful of the refugees and worried that they might take locals’ jobs, the camp’s massive size is causing environmental damage, and there are real fears that, the longer so many Rohingya stay as refugees in desperate conditions in Bangladesh, they could become targets for radicalization by extremist groups. Yet given the abysmal prospects for Rohingya if they returned to Myanmar, he is probably correct to note that the Rohingya are “there to stay” in Bangladesh, at least for a long time. If this is the reality, what can Bangladesh, and other governments and aid agencies do about it? For one, while continuing to prepare for the (remote) possibility that Rohingya would be safely repatriated to Myanmar, the UN and other third party actors could push harder for a third country settlement solution for at least some Rohingya. There is at least some precedent for this option—Bhutanese refugees in Nepal have almost all been resettled in third countries—although it will obviously be difficult in the current global environment of large refugee flows and leaders increasingly opposed to taking in refugees. Still, there are third countries, in the region and globally, where more Rohingya resettlement might be possible in at least modest numbers, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Canada. Yet the likelihood is that the Rohingya are going to remain in Bangladesh, and both the Bangladesh government and outside actors need to prepare for that possibility.

Last month, the United Nations released a scathing report about the organization’s own actions in Myanmar over the past ten years. The report, written by an independent investigator, but commissioned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, lambasted the UN for a “systemic failure” by UN agencies to find any common strategy toward the Myanmar government. This strategic failure, it noted, continued even as abuses escalated in the past five years against the Rohingya, and ultimately resulted in such atrocities that the UN’s own fact finding mission has called for Myanmar’s top military leaders to be investigated on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. The fact the UN was willing to investigate and criticize its own actions might offer some hope for change. For more on the UN’s approach to Myanmar, and whether it might shift, see my new World Politics Review article.

Last weekend’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, held in Bangkok, yielded several notable accomplishments. But several of the announced breakthroughs actually contain less than meets the eye. 1. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. At the ASEAN summit, leaders from the ten Southeast Asian nations vowed to rapidly push forward the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which also includes non-ASEAN states including Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and others. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said, over the weekend, that he expects RCEP to be completed by the end of the year, echoing a promise made by RCEP participants last year. This is probably an overambitious goal—there is still considerable negotiating to be done, especially with Australia and India; Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was probably closer the mark when he stated that Southeast Asian states hope to conclude much of the substantial negotiations on RCEP by the end of 2019. Nonetheless, real progress toward finalizing RCEP would be another huge step forward for regional multilateral trade integration—and a further sign that such integration will continue even though the United States has largely abdicated trade leadership in Asia. 2. The Indo-Pacific Outlook. ASEAN states came together and jointly announced their vision for the Indo-Pacific region, after some doubts voiced from Singapore and other members as the vision took shape in the months prior to the summit. The Outlook is a five-page document, with a lot of holes; it lacks significant details about many issues. As Prashanth Parameswaran notes for the Diplomat, the Outlook covers several areas: “the integration of the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions; the promotion of dialogue and cooperation instead of rivalry; the advancement of development and prosperity of all; and the importance of the maritime domain in the regional architecture.” The release of ASEAN’s Indo-Pacific Outlook at least allows ASEAN to have some vision, at a time when other actors including the United States, Australia, France, and Japan all have released regional visions. And the outlook will attempt to place ASEAN at the center of regional integration and regional security—a view core to ASEAN’s beliefs. But given that it is a thin document, and offers only a minimal insight as to specifics of how ASEAN would organize the region—and that ASEAN states still appear divided about how to put meat on the Outlook—it is hard to imagine it as a document that will help restore ASEAN’s unity and will have as much impact as documents issued on the Indo-Pacific by major powers. The thin document does not really offer much rationale for ASEAN centrality in Asia, and it says little of note about major powers in the region—the United States and China—or about central issues like the South China Sea. 3. The Rohingya. Before the summit, ministers from ASEAN states like Malaysia, and many rights organizations, applied pressure on the Myanmar government to offer the Rohingya Myanmar citizenship after violence in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, which has been labeled genocide and crimes against humanity by the United Nations and human rights groups. Some ministers also called for real justice for the perpetrators of these crimes. Perhaps predictably, the Myanmar government refused—and ASEAN, wedded to consensus, did not make any public demands on Naypyidaw. The ASEAN way, of playing down tough issues and often abdicating on rights, has triumphed again—to the detriment, of course, of the Rohingya.

The summit this weekend of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), held in Bangkok, will probably be less contentious than some of the ASEAN summits earlier this decade, when the organization’s divides over China were plainly on view. Still, there are several key issues to follow when the ten leaders meet in the Thai capital. 1. Prayuth Chan-ocha as the chair. Prayuth, newly confirmed as Thailand’s civilian prime minister, will head the meeting, since Thailand holds the rotating chair of ASEAN this year. Thailand has been aggressively advertising the meeting, probably to use it as a sign that Prayuth is in firm command, and that the event will signify his transition from coup leader to civilian leader. Prayuth will get the warm welcome he seeks. Although some other ASEAN leaders may be uncomfortable with a chair who launched a coup against an elected government, ASEAN’s norm of noninterference in other states’ affairs, and the fact that all the leaders probably will have to work with Prayuth for a long time, will muffle any comments about how Prayuth became Thailand’s civilian prime minister. 2. The ASEAN Indo-Pacific Outlook. The ten ASEAN states will probably approve and reveal a vision for the region called the “ASEAN Indo-Pacific Outlook,” which will emphasize ASEAN’s centrality to the region—although, the outlook will likely be so vague that it will be hard to glean much more from it. But there are already tensions among key states about aspects of the vision; Singapore reportedly is wary of the concept, which has long been pushed by Indonesia as a counterpart to the regional visions that have been developed by the United States, Australia, France, and Japan, among others. It is possible that these tensions will keep the vision from being revealed at the summit. 3. The ongoing crisis for the Rohingya. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh after ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State; smaller numbers have fled to ASEAN member-states including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Although the issue of whether, and how, Rohingya refugees could be repatriated will definitely be a major area of discussion at the summit, ASEAN states likely will play down any criticism of the Myanmar government, given ASEAN’s usual practice of not harshly criticizing member-states. Thailand’s foreign minister already has said that the group will not be “pointing out who is right or wrong” regarding the Rohingya issue—despite the fact that the UN, and numerous rights agencies, have accused the Myanmar military and government of abetting genocide and crimes against humanity. Indonesian President Joko Widodo likely will push the Myanmar government to make real progress on promoting peace in Rakhine State and ensuring safety for Rohingya returning there; right now, it would be unsafe for Rohingya to return. But he could easily get the cold shoulder from the Myanmar government, which has bristled at even the mildest critiques and suggestions from neighbors. 4. Trade tensions. Although the ASEAN states have few options, they surely will spend considerable time discussing what, if anything, Southeast Asia can do as the region is increasingly caught up by regional trade current, including the escalating trade war between the United States and China. The trade battle has actually had some positive, short-term impacts on ASEAN states like Vietnam, a location that is absorbing outflows of investment leaving China. But overall, an extended trade battle will seriously concern many Southeast Asian states, especially those, like Singapore, whose economies are almost totally trade dependent. The countries likely will discuss the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, but there is little indication the deal will be completed anytime soon; the massive agreement has so many potential stumbling blocks. 5. China. With Thailand as the ASEAN chair, instead of Singapore (last year’s chair) or Vietnam (next year’s chair), China may have more leverage within the group; Thailand and China have much warmer relations than China does with Vietnam or Singapore. When Cambodia was chair, in 2012, Beijing appeared to wield significant leverage over ASEAN meetings. Thailand is far more powerful and independent than Cambodia, but China still likely will have more sway than it did last year or will next year. However, it is unlikely that ASEAN will agree on a proposed South China Sea code of conduct with China during this summit; there remain deep tensions within the organization about the proposed code, and a Chinese vessel just last week rammed a Philippine fishing boat in disputed waters, angering Filipinos.

Three events this week served as a reminder that, in a world where democracy is buffeted on many fronts—the rise of populists who often undermine the rule of law, a growing disinterest in democracy promotion from leaders of the United States and other states, and the influence of major authoritarian powers—armed forces remain political actors in many countries, despite an overall reduction in coups since the days of the Cold War. In Thailand, ruled by a military junta since 2014, the military’s favored party won the largest share of the popular vote in elections last month, but a group of anti-junta parties appear, overall, to have garnered the biggest number of seats in the lower house of parliament. So, the Thai military appears to be maneuvering to ensure that the second-biggest party in the anti-junta alliance is defanged, and to use a range of inducements to convince smaller political parties to join the pro-military alliance in parliament. No matter what happens, it is almost certain that Thailand’s military will remain in control of government, resisting attempts at real civilian oversight of the armed forces. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, which holds presidential elections next week, the military is steadily regaining much of the power it lost in the period after the fall of Suharto, as Indonesian democracy emerged. As Evan Laksmana notes in the New York Times, both candidates in the Indonesian elections, incumbent Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi) and challenger Prabowo Subianto, have helped the military regain power, or will likely do so if elected. If Prabowo, a retired former lieutenant general, were to win (which still seems unlikely given polls of the race) there is a possibility that he would reduce limits on the central government and undermine democratic checks and norms—and potentially allow the military and other security forces far greater rein domestically. Jokowi, though not as openly disdainful of democratic norms and institutions as Prabowo, has surrounded himself with military men. He has allowed the armed forces to reassert their influence over domestic issues including counterterrorism and counternarcotics, among other areas. This is a worrying trend in a country where, for decades, the armed forces were known for dominating politics and committing rights abuses. In other parts of Southeast Asia, militaries retain significant political leverage, though outright coups have declined since the Cold War, as they have in regions like Africa as well. In Myanmar, the military, still by far the most powerful actor in the country despite a technically civilian government, appear to be extending their new battle in Rakhine State. There, fighting has intensified in recent weeks between the military and the insurgent Arakan Army. The military retains near-total control over internal security, and it is unclear whether operations, like the one ramping up against the Arakan Army, are taken solely on the military’s initiative, or whether the armed forces even really consult with the civilian government before acting. But Southeast Asia is not unique. In Sudan this week, the armed forces indeed launched a coup, removing longtime leader Omar al-Bashir. To be sure, Bashir was one of the most repressive rulers in the world, and came to power three decades ago in a coup as well. But the military takeover could neuter the massive protest movement in Sudan, prevent a real transition to a freer form of government, and install just as repressive a regime in Khartoum as Bashir’s government. Just as other types of autocratic regimes have freer rein today than they did in the 1990s and early 2000s, militaries also face fewer constraints on their power. Democratic powers are distracted by their own deep political problems, populations in some states have soured on democracy and looked to other alternatives, and the U.S. government views regions like Southeast Asia as places home to a growing contest for influence with China—and thus requiring closer ties with almost any government willing to align with Washington. The U.S. government appeared ready to completely normalize military-to-military relations with Bangkok, before the election last month, even though the election process was unfair. With Egypt, the White House has lavished fulsome praise on autocratic leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, a military man who took power in a coup six years ago and now has indicated he wants to stay in office another fifteen years. The Indonesian military’s creeping re-emergence in Indonesian domestic politics has had little impact on U.S.-Indonesia security ties, or Indonesia’s security links with other regional democracies. Meanwhile, in a world increasingly looking for strongman rule as an alternative to democracy, to solve crises of graft and a lack of political accountability by elected leaders, military men have become more attractive. In some countries, like Thailand, where populists already have ruled, populations have looked to the military as means of ousting populist leaders—though in reality military governments only further erode democratic norms and institutions. In places like Egypt, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, or even Brazil, armed forces, too, are again embedding within their military cultures a resistance to civilian oversight—or refusing to change their cultures to embrace civilian oversight. For a time in Thailand in the late 1990s and early 2000s, for instance, it appeared that the Thai armed forces were beginning to shift, with younger officers at least considering an end to the kingdom’s cycle of coups and military meddling in politics. Whatever glimmer of hope there was for a civilianization of the Thai military now has vanished. The country has had two coups in the past fifteen years, and both older and younger generations of Thai officers seem committed to the continuation of the Royal Thai Army as the dominant political actor.

Why the world’s swelling refugee population has shrinking options.

Developments in conflicts across the world that you might have missed this week.

Over the past two years, the international community, and much of the media, has focused on the situation in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where a brutal campaign against the Rohingya, reportedly by the Myanmar military and its associates, has been called crimes against humanity and genocide by leading rights organizations and the United Nations. The situation in Rakhine is undoubtedly horrific, and there appears to be little chance of it improving measurably in the coming years. Despite an agreement by Bangladesh and Myanmar to begin repatriating Rohingya from Bangladesh back to Myanmar, few Rohingya are willing to return, given that little has changed on the ground in Rakhine State. Some Rohingya are trying to escape refugee camps to prevent themselves from having to return to Myanmar. The horrendous situation in Rakhine State, which is essentially defended by Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is compounded by the fact that, in other parts of the north, east, and northeast, violent conflict has spiked as well, despite getting little attention from the international media, save some Southeast Asia–focused outlets. The spiraling conflict in other parts of the country undermines any hope for a longtime peace agreement between the central government and ethnic minority armies, adds to instability in Myanmar, and potentially further empowers the military, which takes advantage of instability to continually assert itself as the real power in the country. As Asia Times recently noted, the Karen National Union (KNU), one of the longest-standing insurgent groups, now has pulled out of the Myanmar government’s peace initiative with ethnic minority rebel outfits, at least temporarily. This deals a further blow to the sputtering peace initiative, one of the Suu Kyi administration’s biggest priorities. The KNU had been the biggest group to sign onto the initiative. The withdrawal sets the stage for possible renewed conflict between the KNU and the military. Meanwhile, in the north, the Kachin Independence Organization and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which are not signatories to the peace imitative, have been engaged in significantly stepped-up conflict with army units. As longtime Southeast Asia conflict expert Anthony Davis notes, the military has been engaged in the broadest counterinsurgency program in Myanmar in “decades,” and in response the KIA has prepared for long-term guerilla warfare with the military, with no end in sight. Davis notes that the military launched multiple dry season offensives against the KIA earlier in the year. These offensives have caused significant civilian casualties, with internally displaced people fleeing to camps throughout Kachin State. UNCHR, in a report released earlier this year, said there had been a recent “spike in reported human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law in Kachin and Shan states.” Meanwhile, the lack of any progress between the central government and ethnic armies in the north and east like the KIA further convinces other insurgent groups that Naypyidaw has no real interest in peace. Many of the smaller ethnic armies are increasingly suspicious of the peace initiative, while the United Wa State Army, the biggest armed ethnic group in Myanmar, has no real reason to move forward and support the peace initiative. The United States has little influence over Naypyidaw’s approach to these myriad conflicts. U.S.-Myanmar relations are tense, due largely to the crisis in Rakhine State. Other outside actors—notably China—do have real leverage over Naypyidaw’s approach to the ethnic armies, especially since some of the conflicts, such as those in Shan state, flare up right by China’s borders. China has shown some signs of support for the peace process, such as paying for some representatives of armed insurgent groups to attend talks with Naypyidaw and serving as an interlocutor for some of the ethnic armies. But if Naypyidaw can provide stability on China’s borders by crushing insurgent groups, rather than a peace deal, Beijing probably would be happy with that result too. So far, Beijing seems content to mostly back the Myanmar military’s approach to Kachin State. Fortify Rights, a rights documenting group, released a report in August noting that Beijing has tried to keep aid groups from assisting internally displaced people in Kachin State, near the Chinese border, a move that could cause even more suffering.

In by-elections held in Myanmar over last weekend, Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) (at least, ruling the civilian portion of the government), won seven of the thirteen seats up for grabs, losing several seats that had been held by NLD politicians. The NLD did take most of the seats contested in central Myanmar, an area dominated by ethnic Burmans. Taking just more than half the seats open in the by-election was a significant drop from the 2015 national elections, when the NLD won about 85 percent of the seats in the lower house of the Myanmar parliament. The shift signifies several potential trends, which will be watched closely in the run-up to the 2020 Myanmar national elections. For one, popular sentiment may be moving against the NLD overall. The government has done little to improve the Myanmar economy, offering relatively incoherent economic plans and presiding over continuing severe inequality. Suu Kyi's popular image has been dented international by the massive rights abuses in Rakhine State, and her willingness to stand up for the Myanmar army, although it is unclear whether those actions would have hurt her with ethnic Burman voters. Still, these actions make her seem indecisive and ineffective, damaging her political brand. Voter turnout was low in several of the by-elections, possibly suggesting overall dissatisfaction with the government and the NLD for failing to right the economy, improve the rule of law, and make good on promised peace deals, among other challenges. Worse for the NLD, the seats lost were mostly in ethnic minority areas, where popular sentiment appears to be swinging hard against Suu Kyi and her party. That many ethnic minority voters would be souring on the NLD is not surprising. Under the Suu Kyi government, the military has actually expanded its battles against many ethnic minority insurgent groups, and peace deals that would affect ethnic minority areas in the north and northeast have gained little traction. Ethnic parties are combining forces, and may continue to do so in the 2020 elections, making the NLD's road to a lower house majority harder. The NLD has time to revive its declining fortunes, and Suu Kyi remains the central figure in Myanmar civilian politics. But these trends are potentially ominous for the NLD for the 2020 election. According to AFP, “political analyst Maung Maung Soe told AFP that the low voter turnout in most of these constituencies hurt the NLD's showing, and voter apathy could really impact them in the next election in 2020—adding that in comparison, the military-aligned USDP has unwavering support.” This is an astute observation. A significant increase in voter apathy could pave the way for the military's favored party, itself bolstered by the popularity, among Burmans, of the military's brutal actions in Rakhine, to make major gains in 2020.