Myanmar

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Robert Kagan suggested that, in this period of uncertain governance by the White House, Congress should take a much more forceful approach to governing, as it did in the 1860s and, to some extent, in the 1920s. He noted that Congress already has defied the president on Russia policy and, to some extent, on health care, and he outlined ways in which Congress could become the central policymaker in Washington. Among others, Kagan suggested that: “on matters where [Republicans and Democrats] both see a threat to the nation’s interests … Congress can wield the power of the purse … [like] a joint national security committee headed by the chairs and ranking members of the foreign relations, armed services, and intelligence committees, for instance.” It seems hard to believe that the current Congress, split among GOP factions, with little experience legislating, and unsure how to approach a president who enjoys high popularity with the GOP base, will take on broad governing powers the way Kagan suggests. What’s more, congresspeople in both parties have, over the past twenty years, gotten used to an increasingly so-called “imperial presidency,” in which so much of the policymaking process is driven by the executive, especially on foreign policy issues. However, on one region of the world—Southeast Asia—the possibility for Congress to take the lead, to be the driving policy actor, actually exists. As I noted in an earlier blog post, over the past two decades Congress has played a central role in determining Southeast Asia policy. In many respects, Congress has dominated Southeast Asia policy more than it has any other region of the world; several top House and Senate leaders including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have significant interests in Southeast Asia policy. For years, the region was largely ignored by multiple U.S. administrations, and Congress was free to craft sanctions policy on Myanmar, to shape policy toward Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and to weigh in significantly on U.S. policy toward Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia. Now, not only has the White House paid relatively little attention to growing crises in mainland Southeast Asia but those crises are quickly spiraling out of control. In just the past two months, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has shut down the National Democratic Institute’s operations in Cambodia, cracked down on top members of the opposition CNRP party, shut a range of press outlets, and seems prepared to potentially close the CNRP for good, in the run-up to next year’s 2018 national elections. Cambodia was never a true democracy, but this intense repression goes far beyond the political situation in Cambodia during the 2000s and early 2010s—it is a dramatic increase in the level of repression, one that puts Cambodia on the verge of becoming a full dictatorship. Hun Sen is only growing bolder; this week, he vowed “to continue leading his impoverished Southeast Asian nation for another 10 years,” according to the Associated Press. The White House has seemed mostly uninterested in the Cambodia crackdown; the State Department has said it is “deeply concerned” over Hun Sen’s actions. With the offices of Senator Mitch McConnell and several other top congressional leaders long interested in Cambodia, the opportunity is there for Congress, rather than the White House, to develop a tough approach to the growing climate of repression in Cambodia. Similarly, in Myanmar the situation in Rakhine State has in recent months spiraled from bad to worse. Some 120,000 people have fled into Bangladesh in recent weeks, after a spate of attacks by Rohingya insurgent groups and a brutal Myanmar army campaign in Rakhine State, which reportedly has included widespread burnings of homes and swaths of land. Official figures state that around 400 people have been killed in the latest spate of fighting in Rakhine State, but it is hard to know if that number is accurate—it could be wildly understated. The military is stepping up its force presence in Rakhine State. The BBC today reported that Myanmar may be mining the border with Bangladesh. Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of government, has downplayed the severity of the crisis, earning international condemnation. Yesterday, in a call with Turkey’s president, Suu Kyi reportedly blamed “terrorists,” for what she dubbed “a huge iceberg of misinformation” about the crisis in Rakhine State. She previously has downplayed the scale of the crisis and the army’s role in it, and there is little indication that Suu Kyi will or can restrain the military from a scorched earth policy in Rakhine. Again, the White House has taken a low-key stance toward the crisis, as it has in Cambodia. Politico’s Nahal Toosi reported this week that the “Trump admin – including the State Department has been silent re: killings of Rohingya” but that after significant prodding from Toosi, the State Department issued a comment to Politico that “expresses ‘deep concern’ re: Myanmar violence. But it doesn't name Rohingya.” Congress, again, should take the lead. The letters sent this week to Suu Kyi and her government by Senator John McCain and Congressman Edward Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were important first steps. But Congress could do more. It can revisit the possibility of extending IMET to Myanmar, and call new hearings on the Rohingya crisis, before the visit of Pope Francis in November, to expose the potential atrocities and help people understand the situation in western Myanmar. And if the situation in Rakhine State gets worse, Congress should consider even sterner measures toward Myanmar—despite the fact that Aung San Suu Kyi in theory now runs the country.

The National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government in Myanmar has now been in office for more than a year, with Aung San Suu Kyi as de facto head of government. Suu Kyi certainly wields sizable influence. In fact, Suu Kyi has often been criticized, by commentators and members of her own party, for keeping too tight-fisted control of actions by the government, so much so that NLD members of parliament seemingly have little to do. To be sure, on some policy areas, Suu Kyi does not have the level of control that leaders of other, more established democracies enjoy. The military remains an extraordinarily powerful actor in Myanmar, and one apparently capable of operating, in outlying areas at least, without even clearing policy through the Cabinet. The military retains its percentage of seats in parliament, essential control over its budget, and its strong resistance to any constitutional change. Proponents of constitutional change that might reduce the formal powers of the armed forces, like former NLD lawyer U Ko Ni, have been murdered. Nonetheless, there are areas of policy over which Suu Kyi should enjoy significant influence, and freedom of the press is one of them. Suu Kyi was a longtime opposition leader, at a time (mostly) when Myanmar’s media was tightly controlled, the security forces regularly detained reporters, and state media outlets used their pages to mock and condemn her. She could use her bully pulpit to promote independent media, greater freedoms for journalists working throughout Myanmar, and an end to media monopolies. She could step in strongly if journalists were detained, and call for greater transparency in government— transparency that might actually work in her favor, since a more vibrant Myanmar press could well expose abuses by the armed forces and, indirectly, apply pressure for constitutional change. But Suu Kyi has not taken this approach. Instead, over the past year, press freedom in Myanmar seems to have regressed. In some respects, press freedom in Myanmar now seems more restrictive than it was in the final years of the former Thein Sein government. The Suu Kyi government has not tried to change existing laws that are major barriers to a free press. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Shawn Crispin notes: “Chief among those laws is section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, a broad provision that carries potential three-year prison terms for cases of defamation over communications networks. While the law was used only occasionally against journalists under military rule, politicians, military officials, and even Buddhist monks are increasingly using it now to stifle online and social media criticism.” The Myanmar chapter of the PEN press freedom group has estimated that over 55 cases have been filed, under this law, just in the year since Suu Kyi’s government came into office. Meanwhile, late last month three journalists were arrested in Shan State, under a different Unlawful Association law. These reporters included one from The Irrawaddy; they had been covering one of the country’s ethnic insurgencies as well as allegations of abuses by the state security forces. “The return of a climate of fear is very disturbing,” wrote The Irrawaddy’s editor-in-chief, Aung Zaw, after the publication’s reporter was arrested. As with the rising toll of defamation cases, Suu Kyi has said nothing about the arrests in Shan State. A spokesperson for her party told the New York Times, “For media personnel, press freedom is a key need … For us, peace, national development and economic development are the priority, and then democracy and human rights, including press freedom.” Meanwhile, Suu Kyi’s government has enacted other restrictions on press access.  It has made it nearly impossible for journalists to cover parts of Rakhine State in the west. The Suu Kyi government also recently refused to provide visas to UN investigators tasked with analyzing the situation in Rakhine State and allegations of abuse by Myanmar security forces in Rakhine State. In some ways, the Suu Kyi government is looking more and more like its predecessors.  

Roughly one year after Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party took control of Myanmar’s parliament, and Suu Kyi became de facto head of state (Myanmar has a president, but Suu Kyi is widely known to control the government), the euphoria of last year has melted away. When the NLD won a sweeping electoral victory in November 2015, the country’s first truly free and accepted national elections in decades, it gained a massive majority in the lower house of parliament, as well as control of most of the country’s provincial legislatures. Myanmar citizens swept onto the streets of Yangon and other cities to celebrate. The military, which had ruled the country as a junta or a quasi-civilian regime between 1962 and 2015, publicly affirmed that it would accept the results of the election---and, in theory, a transfer of power to a civilian, Suu Kyi-led government. Suu Kyi, the democracy icon and Nobel Peace laureate who was kept under house arrest for years under military rule, had offered a broad slate of promises to the Myanmar public. She had vowed to aggressively push for a lasting peace deal with the country’s many ethnic insurgencies, some of which have been fighting the government for decades. “The first responsibility of the next government is to build peace,” she said in an address in January 2016. She had promised to protect threatened minorities, such as those Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State. She had promised to build a developed country that did not rely on handouts of foreign aid, telling people on the campaign trail in 2015, “we don't want to be a country which needs to ask other countries for help.” Yet in the past year, most of these promises have seemed hollow, and Myanmar’s stability, always fragile, appears to be disintegrating even more rapidly than it was in 2015. For more on my assessment of Suu Kyi’s first year in office, read my new article in The National.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Larry Hong, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Park Geun-hye impeached. South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled unanimously on Friday to uphold a parliamentary vote that impeached Park Geun-hye in December, decisively ousting her from office and igniting violence from pro- and anti-Park demonstrators that led to at least two deaths in Seoul. Park’s abbreviated term, serving four years of a five-year term, has been marked by controversy and criticism of her apparent aloof and autocratic governing manner. For example, despite the court’s seventeen hearings on the matter since the impeachment vote, Park failed to ever appear personally in court for questioning. Park is the first South Korean president to be impeached despite the scandal-ridden terms of Korea’s past presidents. Her impeachment has left her open to prosecution on criminal charges for her alleged role in the corruption and influence-peddling scandal that has roiled South Korea since last year. The allegations against Park center on Choi Soon-sil, a close confidante of Park’s, and allegations that Park allowed Choi to edit speeches, install appointees, and secretly make policy decisions. Together, Park and Choi are accused of pressuring South Korea’s major chaebol conglomerates, such as Samsung and Hyundai, into giving millions to nonprofit organizations started by Choi that were used as personal slush funds to benefit Choi and her family. A snap presidential election has been triggered by the court decision, and is expected to be held in early May. South Korean opinion polls thus far favor the leader of the opposition party, Moon Jae-in, as the next president of South Korea, which has led to regional uncertainty due to his party’s markedly less hawkish North Korea policies and ambivalence toward U.S. deployment in South Korea. 2. Violence in Myanmar drives 20,000 into China. Early on Monday morning, armed rebels of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) launched a surprise attack on a hotel and Burmese military and police buildings in Laukkai, a town in northeastern Myanmar just miles from the Chinese border. The ensuing violence, which was the deadliest conflict in the area since early 2015, left at least thirty dead, including five civilians. The MNDAA, one of the many ethnic rebel groups active in Myanmar, claimed its most recent attack was to protest “continued military pressure” on four minority armies that have not yet joined national peace talks. As a result of the fighting, as many as 20,000 local residents, many of whom are ethnically Chinese, have streamed across the nearby border to China’s Yunnan province seeking safety. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson stated that China was providing humanitarian assistance to the displaced persons and urged for the combatants to negotiate “an immediate ceasefire.” The new clash puts a damper on the Burmese government’s ambitious deal begun in August 2016 that aims to broker nationwide peace between the government and Myanmar’s array of ethnic groups. 3. ZTE to pay $1.19 billion fine in U.S. sanctions case. The U.S. Department of Commerce announced this week that “the games are over” and Chinese telecom giant ZTE will pay $1.19 billion in fines to the U.S. government for violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran. The sanctions were in relation to ZTE’s 283 sales made to North Korea and its purchase of electronics components in the United States for products eventually sent to Iran. Roughly 25 to 30 percent of components for ZTE products come from the United States. Last year, the United States government placed restrictions on ZTE that required U.S. firms to obtain an export license before selling the company supplies. In addition to the violations of sanctions on Iran and North Korea, the U.S. Commerce Department also disclosed ZTE documents discussing how to evade U.S. commercial restrictions on other countries including Cuba, Syria, and Sudan. Despite the fine’s large size, the price of ZTE shares actually rose following the announcement. The company reported strong earnings last year and some analysts attribute the rally to ZTE’s willingness to reshuffle leadership and implement reforms in the wake of the scandal. Although the ZTE case may be wrapping up, the worries aren’t over for Chinese telecoms: Huawei is reportedly under investigation for sanctions violations as well. 4. Compassion International closes its doors in India. After a forty-eight-year presence in India, Colorado-based Christian charity Compassion International is being forced by the Modi administration to cease its operations in the country. The Indian parliament passed the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) in 2010, which strictly regulates monetary foreign donations given to nonprofits operating in India. However, since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, over 20,000 nonprofits’ FCRA license renewals were cancelled. Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to “curtail[s] the flow of foreign money to activities it deems “detrimental to the national interest.” Compassion International, suspected of engaging in religious conversion, receives foreign donations through a $38 monthly sponsor-a-child child program, which are dispersed at church-affiliated service centers. The organization’s executives strongly deny the government’s accusations. 5. China’s “Two Sessions” set annual benchmarks. Meetings for China’s highest legislative and advisory bodies, the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, kicked off last week. Premier Li Keqiang’s government work report, the centerpiece of the two sessions, shows that China’s focus for 2017 is maintaining the stability of the Chinese economy rather than radical structural reforms. The GDP target for 2017 was set to “around 6.5 percent, or higher in possible in practice,” a reduction from last year’s 6.5 to 7 percent goal; the consumer price index target was set at 3 percent, the same level as last year; and the M2 money supply growth target was reduced to about 12 percent from 13 percent. These targets are in line with China’s stated goal of pursuing a “prudent, neutral monetary policy in 2017.” Mr. Li’s work report also focuses on dealing with China’s growing debt levels as well as controlling the risks associated with “nonperforming assets, bond defaults, shadow banking, and internet finance.” While U.S. President Donald Trump was not mentioned by name, some analysts suggest that the issue of how China should deal with the Trump administration over a wide range of issues secretly looms over the two sessions. Bonus: Controversy over Chinese sex-ed textbook heats up. This week, thanks to one Chinese parent’s Weibo post, a Chinese sex-education textbook used by eighteen elementary schools in Beijing went viral online, attracting both praise and criticism. The textbook series, published by Beijing Normal University, was the product of nine years of testing and depicts a wide range of sex and relationship issues in remarkable depth and with exceptional candor. Many parents are shocked and embarrassed by the radically honest education materials, even going so far as to call them pornographic comic books. On the other hand, a teacher who participated in writing the textbooks defends them: “We decide to teach [students] in the first and second grade of their elementary school, because we think that students will learn about [sex education issues] anyway. It is easier to learn about them earlier than later, because sex education is harder to teach at a later stage, and teaching them earlier can help avoid things we all worry about from happening.” China is often criticized for its lack of adequate sex education, so the discussion around these textbooks may lead to a wider discussion about the role of sex education in the country.

The apparent assassination of an advisor to de facto Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi outside Yangon airport last month has raised disturbing questions about the country’s stability, and about Suu Kyi’s control of Myanmar’s military and police. U Ko Ni, a well-known lawyer and advisor to the National League for Democracy (NLD), was shot at close range just outside Yangon airport on January 29, after returning to Myanmar from Jakarta. He died on the spot. Although parts of Myanmar – especially Rakhine State and parts of the north and east where the military is still fighting insurgent groups – are wracked with violence, shootings in Yangon, Mandalay, and other major cities in the country’s ethnic Bamar center are relatively uncommon. It is difficult to legally obtain a handgun in Myanmar, especially for people who have no links to the armed forces. Friends and acquaintances of Ko Ni reacted immediately with shock to the brazen killing. Although gun violence is uncommon in Yangon, Ko Ni certainly was involved in several causes that could have made him many enemies in Myanmar. He was one of the best-known Muslims in Myanmar, at a time when violent anti-Muslim sentiments have become common in social media, hardline Buddhist nationalist monks have become mini-celebrities, and violence between Buddhists and Muslims has destroyed many communities in western Myanmar. The anti-Muslim fervor has spread outside of western Myanmar; there have been attacks on Muslims in Yangon and other large cities in the Bamar heartland over the past five years. For his part, Ko Ni was involved in programs to promote inter-religious discussions and had repeatedly condemned the rising religious intolerance in Myanmar, according to Benedict Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a longtime Myanmar observer and activist. In Myanmar’s increasingly toxic domestic political climate – a situation combined with a weak rule of law – these actions could have made U Ko Ni a target. Not long after the apparent assassination, Ko Ni’s daughter told Al Jazeera, "A lot of people hate us because we have different religious beliefs, so I think that might be why it happened to him.” Ko Ni also publicly pushed for constitutional reform; the constitution that the Suu Kyi government is working under was essentially drafted and passed by a military-installed government. The lawyer had worked on the NLD’s 2015 national campaign, and constitutional changes that he advocated would have, in the long run, probably diminished the power of the armed forces. Under the current constitution, the military retains vast power over its budget, as well as over internal security and, to some degree, the functioning of the legislature; the current constitution gives the armed forces so much power that it is hard to imagine the country becoming fully democratic under this charter. The New York Times reported that Ko Ni had been working on a draft of a plan to alter the constitution to drastically reduce the military’s political powers. (It is unclear whether Ko Ni would have had any ability to convince lawmakers to push to change the constitution.) Any changes to the current constitution would almost surely be resented by many senior army leaders. As a result of Ko Ni’s advocacy for constitutional change, many Myanmar officials and commentators want to know whether there were links between some members of the armed forces and the killing of Ko Ni. The Myanmar police and army have together launched an investigation into the murder. Notably, in recent weeks there have been several arrests in the case. In addition, the Myanmar police told reporters that they believe a former military officer, Colonel Aung Win Khine, masterminded the killing of Ko Ni. The announcement of Colonel Aung Win Khine’s alleged role has only fostered greater suspicions, in Myanmar, that some elements of the armed forces might have played a role in Ko Ni’s killing. Several other suspects arrested in the case also have military backgrounds. But Suu Kyi has been relatively reticent to even speak about the killing, perhaps for fear of further alienating the powerful military. The Irrawaddy reported that, in the days after the startling killing, state-run media outlets did not feature stories about Ko Ni on their front pages, despite the fact that independent Myanmar media ran numerous stories about the shooting.

Rakhine State, where violence has been escalating for two months after Rohingya militants allegedly attacked a border guard post on October 9, is spiraling into chaos. As I noted in a recent post, the government of Aung San Suu Kyi seems unable, or unwilling to control security forces operating in northern Rakhine State, where they have been numerous reports of reprisal killings, beatings, and house-burnings against Rohingya in the weeks since October 9. The Myanmar government reportedly has made parts of northern Rakhine State off-limits to journalists and aid groups, making it hard to assess the true state of damage there. The unrest in western Myanmar has been going on for at least five years, since a first round of violence in the early 2010s. As army rule gave way to quasi-civilian rule in Myanmar at that time, violence against Rohingya expanded throughout Rakhine State, driving over 100,000 people out of their homes, and destroying many Rohingya communities. At the time, many Rohingya fled Myanmar or crowded into makeshift camps, but there were few attacks by Rohingya on Buddhist Rakhines or state institutions. That may be changing. Now, in a comprehensive report, the International Crisis Group (ICG) lays out a new potential impact of the years-long campaign, by security forces, paramilitaries, and average citizens, against the Rohingya in Rakhine State. According to ICG’s investigators, Rakhine State is witnessing the “emergence of a new Muslim insurgency there. The current violence is qualitatively different from anything in recent decades, seriously threatens the prospects of stability and development in the state and has serious implications for Myanmar as a whole.” Indeed, ICG is the first to report that a sizable militant network has emerged among Rohingya. It argues, based on extensive interviews, that:   The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits.   Some other Myanmar-based reporters and civil society groups have questioned the ICG report, wondering whether the reported militant network is really that well trained and equipped, given that the Myanmar security forces mostly seem to be arresting alleged militants with knives, or ancient guns, Still, the possibility that Rohingya angered by the state’s growing political, social, and economic marginalization of them, would eventually turn to violence, could never be ruled out. Even before ICG’s report outlined the rise of new militant Muslim networks in Rakhine State, some Myanmar security experts had warned that scorched earth government tactics, and the disenfranchisement of most Rohingya before last year’s elections, would eventually fuel a counteraction. ICG notes:   Disenfranchisement prior to the 2015 [national and state] elections severed the last link with politics and means of influence. At the same time, the disruption of maritime migration routes to Malaysia closed a vital escape valve, particularly for young men whose only tangible hope for the future was dashed. An increasing sense of despair has driven more people to consider a violent response.   Indeed, even before this report there have been rumors floating around for years among diplomats and security experts in Myanmar that the Islamic State, militant groups based in Persian Gulf states, and older, seemingly defunct Rohingya militant groups that operated in the 1990s and 2000s, were trying to recruit young men in Rakhine State. Militant groups were allegedly targeting those alienated by the violence of the early 2010s, and trying to convince them to launch attacks against Rakhine Buddhists and representatives of the state. Until early October, these rumors seemed just that. The question now is, how widespread has militancy become among Rohingya---and how much support militant sentiment might have? How real and how large is this supposed insurgency? ICG has identified a potentially new and dangerous militant network, but it is unclear how much it draws on the actual views of the Rohingya population. Second, and most important, how can the Myanmar security forces---notorious for abusing civilians and allegedly complicit in the attacks on Rohingya going back to the early 2010s---effectively prosecute a campaign to shut down militant networks without turning to even more brutal tactics against the entire Rohingya population? As ICG notes, de facto head of government Aung San Suu Kyi has little actual control over the military, or little desire to exert control. Since early October the armed forces operating in Rakhine State appear to be operating without any civilian leadership from Naypyidaw. To eradicate militant networks, security forces in Rakhine State will have to increase intelligence gathering, work with regional governments to understand growing radicalism in Rakhine State---but also stop the wanton beating, torture, and killing of civilians in Rakhine State that has, too often, been the norm for security forces. The army’s usual scorched earth tactics have been the major source of the chaos in Rakhine and are totally counterproductive in any strategy to combat militant groups. But given what has taken place since early October, as the Myanmar security forces have been unleashed with few checks in northern Rakhine State, it is hard to imagine any new, more nuanced approach to the Rakhine conflict occurring.

The ongoing bloodshed in Rakhine State, where security forces reportedly are engaging in a rising pattern of abuses against Rohingya, seems to be worsening. International human rights groups have warned that violence is escalating, and Kofi Annan, head of an international commission to study conditions in Rakhine State, this week told reporters he was “deeply concerned” with reports of dozens of Rohingya killed in the state in recent weeks, according to the New York Times. Human rights groups have warned that security forces are targeting groups of Rohingya for extrajudicial executions and also are blocking aid shipments to areas of northern Rakhine State. The New York Times reports, “Activists have relayed stories of rapes, arson, targeted killings and other atrocities said to have been committed against the Rohingya there by the army since Oct. 9, when insurgents killed nine police officers in attacks on border posts." In late November, former UN Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta and Benedict Rogers, a leading Myanmar rights activist, warned that Rakhine State was at risk of descending into ethnic cleansing resembling the past tragedies in Rwanda and Bosnia, among others. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has done little to stop the unfolding violence. Senior generals have said that there are no abuses happening in Rakhine State currently, and Aung San Suu Kyi has chosen a top army general and current vice president, Myint Swe, to investigate the attacks in Rakhine State. Myint Swe headed military intelligence under the former junta, which repeatedly crushed protests, including the 2007 Saffron Revolution. In addition, Aung San Suu Kyi has chastised the international community for fueling division in western Myanmar, claiming that the international community is “drumming up cause for bigger fires of resentment” in Myanmar. There are three lessons we can clearly see from the response, or lack thereof, of the Myanmar government to the rising violence, apparent arson, and forced displacement in Rakhine State. First, Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have minimal personal interest in issues related to the Rohingya. During the 2014–2015 campaign season, she rarely spoke about the Rohingya, and when she did so she often downplayed the violence that has occurred in Rakhine State over the past five years. The broadest base of her support comes from the majority ethnic Burmans, and there is little political capital to be gained among most Burmans from advocating for the Rohingya. Since becoming de facto head of the Myanmar government earlier this year, Aung San Suu Kyi has appointed Annan’s commission but invested little personal time or use of her bully pulpit to address the situation in Rakhine State. Although she said, last spring, that resolving conflict in Rakhine was a priority, in recent weeks she has just said, over and over, that Naypyidaw is in control of the situation in northern Rakhine. Or, she has blamed foreign groups for stirring up tension in Rakhine State. She has continued saying this despite ongoing abuses and significant evidence that Naypyidaw does not have control of the chaos in Rakhine. On other domestic challenges, the former Nobel laureate has been much more personally engaged, showing that she can indeed command the bully pulpit impressively. Aung San Suu Kyi has been more than willing to use her bully pulpit to address ongoing civil conflict in the north and northeast. It is reasonable to assume that she regards the violence in Rakhine State as less important, less deserving of her attention than the conflict in the north and northeast, as well as many other Myanmar issues. Second, Aung San Suu Kyi and her government either cannot control the military forces operating in Rakhine State, or they choose not to, perhaps for fear of alienating the army, which retains enormous political influence. There is no evidence, either from published reports or from my own conversations with Myanmar government advisors, that Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders are taking real, concrete steps to scrutinize the actions of security forces in western Myanmar and to end the climate of impunity for forces involved in abuses in Rakhine State. A lack of government control of the military is unsettling; a disinterest in controlling an armed forces that have been accused, for decades, or massive crimes, is an unsettling prospect as well. Placing Myint Swe, regarded as a military hard-liner, as a top investigator into the Rakhine crisis, does not suggest a serious desire to investigate the security forces’ actions. Third, despite considerable media coverage of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib tun Razak’s recent speech warning about abuses in Rakhine State, there is actually little evidence other Southeast Asian nations will do anything concrete to stop the bloodshed. Earlier this week, Najib told a crowd in Kuala Lumpur that “enough is enough” and that Aung San Suu Kyi has to take more dramatic action to stop crackdowns on Rohingya. Like most Malaysian Malays, the Rohingya are Muslims, and a sizable group of Rohingya has fled to Malaysia, although they mostly do not have legal status in Malaysia. But Najib, like other leaders in the consensus-first Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), will do little more than offer occasional public statements and possibly meet in private with Aung San Suu Kyi to encourage her to take stronger action to protect rights in western Myanmar. ASEAN’s long history shows that the organization is ill-equipped to do anything concrete about human rights crises, and that is not likely to change now, even though ASEAN has a human rights charter that supposedly obliges member-states to respect rights. What’s more, Najib (and most other regional leaders) is not exactly a stirring spokesman for respecting rights. His government has presided over a crackdown on civil society and opposition politicians over the past three years. He is, most likely, highlighting the violence in western Myanmar as a way of seeming tough on Muslims’ rights, and distracting domestic attention from his squabbles with former members of Malaysia’s governing coalition, regular large street protests, an ongoing corruption scandal, and other domestic challenges facing his administration.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, and Gabriel Walker look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Rohingyas suffer under Rakhine lockdown. Myanmar’s Rakhine State, home to roughly 1.1 million stateless Muslims self-identified as Rohingya, has been on military lockdown since October 9 following attacks on three border security posts. Government officials claim that the perpetrators were members of a jihadist organization, and that military exercises are counterterrorism measures. The military’s goal is to eradicate the presence of the group Aqa Lul Mujahidin, which is reportedly linked to the Organization for Rohingya Security, an armed group active during the 1990s. Over 130 people have died and 234 have been arrested in the heaviest wave of violence in the region since 2012. The local Rakhine government has vowed to demolish all “illegal” structures, including over 2,500 homes, 600 shops, twelve mosques, and over thirty schools, all belonging to Rohingya. As of November 13, Human Rights Watch has identified via satellite over 430 destroyed buildings in villages that have become military strongholds where food is scarce and rape and looting by soldiers are common occurrences. The organization is calling for Myanmar’s government to establish a UN-assisted investigation, but authorities are rejecting all allegations of violence and closing off the area to Western journalists. At least 500 Rohingya refugees have fled to neighboring Bangladesh where they are residing in four refugee camps. 2. Pro-independence Hong Kong lawmakers disqualified from taking office. Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that Sixtus “Baggio” Leung and Yau Wai-ching, elected in September, had willfully and deliberately insulted China by refusing to swear allegiance to the “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China,” in effect declining to take their oaths. During their swearing-in, they had referred to the “Hong Kong nation” and used a derogatory term for China, while wearing flags saying “Hong Kong is not China.” The court’s decision was expected after Beijing’s recent announcement that anyone advocating for the city’s independence would be barred from holding office there. Leung and Yau intend to contest the ruling. A different attempt to unseat a pro-democracy lawmaker failed Friday, when the High Court dismissed the case against Lau Siu-lai, who had registered her protest by taking extremely long pauses during her swearing-in. 3. Choigate continues to roil Korean politics. President Park is facing a second investigation into her ties with confidante Choi Soon-sil, who allegedly used her close relationship with Park to coerce Korean companies into donating millions to nonprofit foundations used by Choi for personal gain. In response to concerns voiced by opposition leaders that the Ministry of Justice is linked too closely to the president and the executive branch to conduct a credible investigation, the National Assembly passed a measure on Thursday appointing an independent special counsel to conduct a separate probe in addition to the one being conducted by the Ministry of Justice. Despite weeks of massive public protests, increasing calls in the National Assembly for her to resign or be impeached, and with her approval rating hovering between 5 and 10 percent, Park seems intent on completing her single, five-year term of office that ends next year. 4. Blasphemy case brought against Jakarta governor. The investigation into Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian from Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community, stems from comments he made in reference to a Quranic verse that some believe bans Muslims from having a non-Muslim leader. Basuki, who also goes by the nickname Ahok, implied this interpretation might be used to draw voters away from him during his re-election campaign. Although he apologized for his comments, there have been ongoing protests against him including a rally of more than one hundred thousand on November 4. Other supporters, however, including Muslims, have rallied around him in advance of the February election. According to authorities, Ahok’s case could go to court in approximately one month and a travel ban will be placed on him during the investigation. Blasphemy convictions can result in up to five years of jail time under Indonesian law.  Ahok assumed his current position when former governor Joko Widodo was elected president. And while the two have been political allies in the past, the blasphemy investigation may strain ties between them and project an image of Indonesia as a nation of religious intolerance. 5. Abe meets Trump. Last night at Manhattan’s Trump Tower, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a visit to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for an unofficial ninety-minute meeting. Though the get-together was hastily planned, and just a brief stopover for Abe on his way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru this weekend, there were hopeful signs from both sides: Trump called it the start of a “great friendship,” and Abe claimed he was “convinced Mr. Trump is a leader in whom I can have great confidence.” But the two leaders will need to do more than establish a personal rapport in the coming years to make the alliance work. Trump suggested during his campaign that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons to defend itself and that it should share more of the cost of stationing U.S. troops in Japan, throwing into question his support for the alliance. He also made promises to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that would buoy Japan’s flagging economy. If that happens, China is likely to fill the free-trade vacuum with its own deal. Bonus: Chinese internet hails the pheasant-elect. Images of a golden pheasant bird at China’s Hangzhou Safari Park flew across the web after a local journalist observed the similarities between the bird’s flaxen coif and that of President-elect Donald Trump. The bird, named Little Red for its crimson body, garnered much attention among Chinese netizens, some of whom found the bird more attractive than Trump. While the bird’s online popularity may not last much beyond the next news cycle, Little Red’s keeper indicated that he expected the bird’s popularity to draw more visitors to the park. And the golden pheasant isn’t the only of nature’s creatures that have earned Trumpian comparisons; others include caterpillars, rabbits, and howler monkeys.

Over the past month, the situation in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, which has been extremely volatile since an eruption of violence in the early 2010s, has deteriorated once again. Following an attack on police outposts near the border with Bangladesh in early October, which killed at least nine policemen, the state is on edge. Some human rights groups have reported that the security forces and police, as well as individuals, are striking back at ethnic Rohingya, since militant Rohingya Muslims were believed to be behind the killings of the police. Although the security forces, which are dominated by Buddhist ethnic Rakhines, supposedly have been targeting only militant suspects, they have spread their net widely, unleashing a wave of destruction. For more on my analysis of the increasingly dangerous situation in western Myanmar, see my new article for World Politics Review. 

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Lincoln Davidson, Samir Kumar, Gabriella Meltzer, and David O’Connor look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Deadly forest fires exact major toll on Southeast Asia. A study published this week in Environmental Research Letters by public health and atmospheric modeling experts at Harvard University and Columbia University reveals the severe public-health ramifications of forest fires that engulfed Indonesia in 2015. The researchers estimated that fires deliberately set to clear land for agricultural purposes caused the premature deaths of 91,600 people in Indonesia, and 6,500 and 2,200 deaths in Malaysia and Singapore, respectively. These figures exclude damage done to children and infants or miscarriages caused by the toxic haze. Fatalities resulted from exposure to fine particulate matter, commonly referred to as PM2.5, which can result in health problems including asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, and cardiovascular disease. The fires, exacerbated by severely dry El Niño conditions, destroyed 10,000 acres of land and resulted in $30 billion worth of economic losses for the country. The annual fires have strained relations between Indonesia and its neighbors, and the government’s response is a greater crackdown on private companies and individuals who ignited the fires for commercial gain. 2. Eighteen Indian soldiers killed by militants in Kashmir. Early Monday morning, four militants crossed the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, and attacked an Indian army outpost in the remote village of Uri, killing eighteen soldiers. India attributed the attack to Jaish-e-Mohammed, an anti-India terrorist group with ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service most notable for their 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh dubbed Pakistan a “terrorist state” in a tweet, while General Raheel Sharif, the chief of the Pakistan army, condemned a “hostile narrative propagated by India.” An outspoken senior member of India’s ruling party called for aggressive action against Pakistan, remarking, “for one tooth, the complete jaw,” but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his advisors appear settled on a policy of aggressive diplomacy to isolate Pakistan in multilateral fora. Reaction to the attack from major countries like Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, was uniform in referencing, implicitly or explicitly, the role that Pakistan may have played in support of terrorist groups. 3. Greenpeace finds chemical accidents occur nearly daily in China. A report released by Greenpeace on Wednesday reveals that China experienced 232 chemical accidents in the first eight months of 2016—nearly one a day—causing 199 deaths and 400 injuries. The report comes little more than a year after a mismanaged chemical storage facility in Tianjin exploded, leaving 173 people dead and hundreds more wounded. Using government-provided data, Greenpeace found that more than half of chemical accidents occur during transportation, while 27 percent occur during production. Leaks caused 43 percent of accidents, while fire and explosions accounted for 27 and 16 percent, respectively. The report notes that the true number of accidents is likely higher than official statistics indicate. Furthermore, these accidents often result in casualties due to the close proximity of chemical plants to densely populated areas. The most recent such accident occurred on Tuesday, when an explosion at a chemical plant in Yantai caused four deaths. 4. Record numbers of Burmese refugees settle in the United States. Recently, the number of Burmese refugees resettling in the United States has exceeded that of Syrian refugees doing the same. Even as the civil war in Syria worsens and the debate surrounding resettlement of Muslim refugees becomes increasingly fervent, a growing number of Burmese nationals, many Muslim, have quietly settled in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of State, from October 2015 to mid-September 2016, 11,902 Burmese refugees and 11,598 Syrian refugees were resettled in America. An increasing number of those from Myanmar are Rohingyas, a self-identified Muslim ethnic minority group that has suffered persistent persecution in Myanmar by the Buddhist majority. The surge in refugees was exacerbated by long-standing and increasingly severe discriminatory practices against the Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state, causing thousands of Rohingya refugees to flee Myanmar. Figures from the Refugee Processing Center show that Rohingya arrivals from Myanmar jumped from just over 650 in the 2014 fiscal year to 2,573 last year. The majority of Rohingya Muslims end up in the United States after spending years in refugee camps in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. 5. Write-downs increase on Chinese non-performing loans. Chinese banks have undertaken further efforts to get non-performing loans (NPLs) off their balance sheets. In the first half of 2016, the number of NPLs written off by the four largest Chinese banks rose by 44 percent, and in the year’s first three months China experienced the slowest growth of NPLs in three years. Some of China’s largest banks–such as China Construction Bank, China Merchants Bank, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China–have announced plans to sell $600 million worth of securities backed by NPLs. In addition to write-downs, bad loans have also been bought up by state-controlled asset management companies and addressed through other government initiatives. Concerns about credit growth and the stress bad loans place on China’s banking system have been mounting. However, estimates of the ratio of NPLs to all corporate loans in China vary considerably between institutions depending on the types of loans included: the IMF places it at 15 percent, but the Chinese government says it is just 1.7 percent. Bonus: North Korea, cyber superpower. North Korea, isolated economically and diplomatically, is also largely cut off from the global internet, but it does have a small web presence. How small? The country has a total of twenty-eight websites on its top-level domain, .kp. A slip-up by an administrator at a North Korean nameserver this week resulted in the list of all the country’s websites that face the internet being visible to anyone who requested them. The websites include an airline, sites showing off the country’s culture and cuisine, the website of Kim Il-sung University, and several state news outlets. You can find a full list here. Oddly, twenty-eight seems to be something of a magic number in North Korea: Kim Jong-un, the country’s dictator, was appointed head of the Korean Workers’ Party when he was twenty-eight and the country has twenty-eight approved haircuts.

Rachel Brown, Sherry Cho, Gabriella Meltzer, David O’Connor, Gabriel Walker, and James West look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. In western Myanmar, a lockdown by security forces. Reports that thirty people have been killed by official Myanmar security forces in reprisal for the October 9 border post assaults that left nine police officers dead have increased fears of mounting violence in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh, has long been troubled by unrest, and was the site of conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012 that left hundreds dead. These killings have provoked accusations from Rohingya activists of an official security force campaign targeting Rohingya civilians. The Rohingya are denied citizenship by the Myanmar government, which views the group as Bangladeshi migrants, and suffer human rights violations such as denial of health care and education, forced labor, and sexual violence due to their outcast status. Neither version of the killings has been independently verified; however, an advocacy group recently stated that it had interviewed witnesses who described what seemed to be extrajudicial killings by military forces. The Myanmar government has attributed the October 9 attacks to an organized Muslim militant group, though no solid evidence has been provided and the government has since backtracked somewhat from the charge. 2. Hospital blaze in India kills over twenty. A fire at the private SUM Hospital and Medical College in the eastern city of Bhubaneswar killed twenty-two and critically injured forty people on Monday evening. The fire, which broke out in the hospital’s intensive care unit, was reportedly caused by a short-circuit in the central air conditioning unit that spread to the ICU and dialysis unit. The over twenty victims likely perished from inhaling carbon monoxide. Following the fire, the National Human Rights Commission issued a notice to the state government of Odisha, stating that “the callous attitude and lapses of the authorities, if any, amounted to violation of right to life of the patients.” This is demonstrated by the fact that recommended changes based on a 2013 fire safety audit were not implemented. In addition, the hospital is facing allegations that during the evacuation of roughly 500 patients, those in critical condition were taken off life support, leading to their deaths. Manoj Ranjan Nayak, the owner of SUM Hospital and trustee of its managing Shiksha O’Anusandhan Charitable Trust, was arrested along with four other officials. This incident is only one of many similar in India, which has poor public safety regulations. Prime Minister Modi said on Twitter that he was “deeply anguished” by the loss of life. 3. Two Americans killed by Afghan service member. On Wednesday, a gunman opened fire on several Americans at a military base near Kabul, killing a U.S. service member and civilian contractor while wounding three others. The gunman, who was killed in the ensuing firefight, was reportedly wearing an Afghan military uniform—if confirmed as an insider attack, or a so-called “green-on-blue” incident, it would mark the first such attack on American service personnel in more than a year. The attack is the latest event in a series of concerning news from Afghanistan: the Taliban once again threaten Kunduz in the north, the city they briefly seized in late September 2015; more than one hundred Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) personnel were killed earlier this month in an ambush near Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in the south that has been nearly completely surround by Taliban forces; and the ANDSF continue to suffer near-record-high casualties as the Taliban continue multiple operations in provinces across the country. 4. Australia doubles down on blocking Chinese bids. Over the past two months, Australia has blocked two high-profile investment attempts by Chinese companies in the country: one $7.6 billion bid by State Grid Corp. of China to purchase a majority stake in Ausgrid, a major electricity distributor, and another $277 million bid in part by Shanghai Cred Real Estate Stock Co. to purchase S. Kidman & Co., Australia’s largest cattle farm that covers over 1 percent of the continent. The bids were nominally vetoed because of “national interest” and “security concerns,” but Beijing pushed back, urging for Australia’s openness, transparency, and nondiscrimination. Opinions toward Chinese investment within Australia have been mixed, with some advocating for more leniency in foreign investment and others for greater transparency on the investor’s part to allay local concerns. Former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans stressed the importance of taking national security concerns seriously, but also stated that the Australian government must “come up with some clear ground rules soon” for foreign infrastructure investments, or “a great deal of damage will be done,” likely to international ties. 5. China cracks down on Crown Resorts. Eighteen of the Australian casino company’s employees were detained last week in connection with efforts to stop the promotion of gambling in China, where it is a crime outside of Macau and Hong Kong. Among those arrested is Crown’s vice president of VIP international affairs, who is tasked with attracting high-level clients to the company’s Australian casinos, where a majority of the top players are now from mainland China. The fallout of the arrests is not limited to Crown, but is expected to have wider consequences for the casino industry, spelling trouble for Macau’s already beleaguered economy. Bonus: A hot dog by any other name… Calls by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia for the U.S. chain Auntie Anne’s to change the name of a snack known as the “pretzel dog” sparked a brouhaha in Malaysia this week. The head of the department suggested that the items sold at Malaysian outlets should be renamed “pretzel sausages” to receive halal certification, since dogs are deemed unclean. This isn’t the first time such a change has been proposed. For example, at some restaurants, root beer is labelled as “RB” to avoid confusion with an alcoholic beverage. Many Malaysians criticized the recent decision as making them look naïve or unsophisticated, but as halal food becomes a bigger market worldwide, this may not be the last we hear of these debates.

Rakhine State, in western Myanmar, has been rocked by violence over the past five years. As the Myanmar government transitioned from a military junta to a quasi-civilian regime and, now, to a government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD), gangs and paramilitaries have repeatedly attacked Rohingya communities. Over 140,000 Rohingya have been driven from their homes in Rakhine State, with many winding up in camps that are little more than barren internment centers. Their homes have been taken over, making it unlikely they could ever return. The violence has been part of a broader rise in anti-Muslim sentiment that has swept through Myanmar since the early 2010s. This violence has included firebombings and other attacks on Muslim-owned stores, mosques, and other sites throughout the country. In my article for the Washington Monthly earlier this year, I outlined the vast devastation wreaked upon western Myanmar. Earlier this year, there was some hope that the NLD-led government, which had mostly ignored the violence in western Myanmar during its campaign in 2015, was starting to take proactive steps to foster reconciliation in the west and find some lasting solution that would address the disenfranchisement and brutality against Rohingya. On the campaign trail last year, Aung San Suu Kyi regularly dismissed concerns about the unrest and abuses in Rakhine State. Then, this past summer, Aung San Suu Kyi’s government appointed a commission, headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to assess the situation in Rakhine State. The commission could possibly write recommendations for fostering reconciliation, the restoration of human rights, and development in western Myanmar. The establishment of the commission was widely praised by international rights groups and organizations working with the Rohingya. But now, the situation in western Myanmar appears to be further deteriorating, in what is surely Rohingya advocates’ worst nightmare. On October 9, someone launched assaults on border police posts in Rakhine State, and since then the security forces have reportedly waged a fierce campaign in Rakhine State, although it remains unclear who they are fighting. Still, the government Monday told Myanmar reporters that at least thirty people had been killed in fighting in Rakhine State since October 9, and some Rohingya organizations claim that security forces and other actors in Rakhine State also have started forcing Rohingya from their homes, detaining groups of Rohingya, and burning down houses. These claims---both the number killed since October 9 and the reports of detentions---remain unverified Still, some Myanmar government officials and foreign observers are speculating that groups of Rohingya, furious at their mistreatment over the past five years, are now going to take up arms against local police, security forces, and other officials---and that the October 9 attacks were the first blow in the battle. Yet Rohingya militant groups that have been mentioned by the Myanmar authorities as linked to the October 9 attacks have no prior track record, and several Myanmar experts who focus on Rakhine State had never heard of these organizations. In reality, every Myanmar official I spoke with admitted that they had little information about these supposed organizations---and that they were unsure if these organizations existed at all. Some apparent groups of Rohingya have posted videos on social media in the past two weeks, celebrating the October 9 attacks and calling for a battle in Rakhine State, but it remains unclear who these posters are or whether they really have any connection to the past two weeks’ worth of violence. Nonetheless, violent attacks by Rohingya in western Myanmar would not only undermine the Rohingyas’ international standing but also possibly undermine the work of the Annan commission. A spate of violent attacks by Rohingya militants could give the government and local security forces the pretext to attack back, using further tactics like burning homes and forcing Rohingya into internment camps. Moreover, a deteriorating security situation, particularly in northern Myanmar, has made it harder and harder for aid workers to get food and other essentials to civilians on the ground there. According to a new article in the New York Times, the UN World Food Program and other aid agencies are unable to move food to some parts of northern Rakhine due to the closure of some roads after October 9 and the temporary bans on movement to several areas. The World Food Program has had deliveries into parts of Rakhine State. The situation in western Myanmar once again looks very grim.

Later this week, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi will visit Washington, as part of a broader trip to the United States that will include addressing the United Nations General Assembly. In addition to meeting President Obama, Vice President Biden, and several senators and congresspeople, Suu Kyi reportedly will appear at a dinner hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council. There, she plans to outline Naypyidaw’s economic strategies, and likely make a pitch to potential U.S. investors in sectors ranging from mining to telecommunications. But will anything Suu Kyi says, or a reduction in U.S. sanctions on Myanmar, actually spark significantly increased U.S. investment in the country? To be sure, foreign investment is rising sharply overall in Myanmar – up 18 percent year-on-year between March 2015 and March 2016, according to data from Myanmar’s investment authority. But at this point, total approved U.S. direct investment in Myanmar stands at around $250 million although that number surely will increase over the next ten years. Still, $250 million is a small figure, and U.S. companies’ projects make up a handful of proposals currently being vetted by Myanmar’s investment authorities. By comparison, total Singaporean direct investment in Myanmar stands at over $50 billion, while Japan, which was once a nonfactor in Myanmar, has become the eighth largest source of foreign direct investment, and could well be the biggest source by the end of this decade. The head of a Singapore business delegation visiting Myanmar this week told reporters that Myanmar was now the favorite country for Singaporean companies looking for new investment opportunities abroad. These figures for U.S. investment are unlikely to grow that much even if Suu Kyi outlines, in Washington, a clear plan for fostering macroeconomic stability and if the Obama administration relaxes some sanctions.  (The White House is reportedly considering relaxing some remaining sanctions, but is waiting to do so until consulting with Suu Kyi and her aides later this week.) There are large obstacles to U.S. investment in Myanmar that have little to do with sanctions, and that will remain for years, if not decades. The country’s labor force is expensive, when compared to other countries in the region that have increasingly attracted manufacturing investment, like Vietnam. High electricity costs and office rents (in Yangon), and poor physical infrastructure, are major deterrents to companies selling consumer goods. With the price of oil and other commodities currently low, even some of Myanmar’s natural resources are not as attractive as they once were. In addition, although Suu Kyi has taken important steps toward a national peace deal that would bring significant political stability, a lasting national ceasefire is a long way off. The most powerful ethnic insurgency walked out of the Suu Kyi-led peace conference in August. Political instability will remain a part of life, as will military involvement in many sectors of the economy. In addition, as I have written numerous times, while Myanmar has been cited by the White House as a powerful signal of democratic change, and the influence of the rebalance to Asia, the country is of much less strategic importance to the United States than it is to Asian powers like Japan, China, India, and even Singapore. The NLD’s victory has not made the country much more important strategically – to the United States. Since the NLD’s dominant election victory last November, the Japanese government, which had already identified Myanmar as vitally important to Tokyo’s regional interests, has promised nearly $1 billion in loans and grants for the country, to be disbursed roughly over the next year. China, India, and other Asian powers also have substantial aid programs in Myanmar, targeted partly to help boost investment in the country. U.S. assistance is ramping up, and the United States will become a much larger player in aid in Myanmar. But in the near term, the U.S. aid and economic presence will remain relatively small.