Southeast Asia

This weekend, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will hold an emergency summit in Jakarta, focused on the dire situation in Myanmar, where the country continues to spiral toward widespread civil conflict and humanitarian crisis, and the Myanmar junta shows no sign of relenting in its iron-fisted control of the country. As a recent piece by longtime Myanmar observer Bertil Lintner noted, there is little reason to believe the Myanmar army will crack from within. The summit, in theory, could allow ASEAN to play a regional mediating role, and to demonstrate that it has some ability to influence events in Myanmar, where the deteriorating situation is already turning into a regional crisis, with refugees flowing across borders, hunger rising in Myanmar, and the possibility of conflict spilling over borders. But initial signs regarding the ASEAN emergency summit do not suggest much hope for optimism that the summit will produce results that change the situation on the ground in Myanmar. The fact that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing plans to attend the summit suggests that he feels somewhat comfortable that the other ASEAN states are not going to take any harsh approach toward Myanmar; given ASEAN’s consensus style, other authoritarian states in the region area likely to block any tough approach. Meanwhile, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the key actor who could potentially exert some leverage on the Myanmar junta—the two are personal friends and Myanmar is heavily dependent on economic ties with Thailand—is reportedly not attending the summit, a sign that, despite Prayuth’s mild expressions of concern about the situation in Myanmar, he is planning to sit back and do little while Myanmar continues to disintegrate. Without Prayuth and other Thai leaders playing a central role with the Myanmar junta, and even being willing to twist arms a bit, there are few other external actors with a line right to the top junta leaders, except perhaps China. Other major ASEAN leaders, like Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, also seem like they are not going to attend the summit, further undermining the unity of ASEAN at the summit and making the summit ultimately less important and effective. As a result, the summit is not likely to have a major impact on the junta. ASEAN might convince the junta to allow some ASEAN observers into the country, an idea pushed by Malaysia. But beyond that, expectations cannot possibly be high for the ASEAN emergency summit.

In the days after Myanmar’s military staged a coup on Feb. 1, it likely hoped to consolidate power with minimal bloodshed. Having overthrown the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are known in Myanmar, set out to create a managed democracy like neighboring Thailand’s, with an electoral system that guarantees victory for military-aligned parties and their allies. The coup leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, probably hoped that neighboring states and possibly even the world’s leading democracies would eventually recognize Myanmar’s new government. Indeed, as protests erupted across the country in the coup’s immediate aftermath, security forces responded at first with crowd control efforts rather than the widespread use of lethal force. The junta even tried to gain the support of some of Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups, many of which had signed cease-fire agreements with Suu Kyi’s government. But over the past two months, the growing anger and resilience of the protesters have made clear that the demonstrations are not going to stop. In response, the Tatmadaw has stepped up its repression, killing at least 700 people, including dozens of children. Some 2,700 people have reportedly been arrested. While the anti-coup resistance movement remains largely peaceful, the military’s brutality has caused some demonstrators to shift tactics, trading in their slogans and placards for makeshift weapons like slingshots, air guns and even Molotov cocktails. As for the armed ethnic groups that the junta had hoped to woo, many of them have declared past cease-fires null and void because of the coup, and some are launching new offensives. There appears to be no clear endpoint or offramp to the violence, which is causing public services and other state functions to collapse in parts of the country. Much of Myanmar, particularly its ethnic minority-dominated borderlands, was already difficult to govern due to decades of civil strife. As I wrote in an article for the journal Current History in 2011, Myanmar had the potential to become a failed state even then. Ten years later, that prospect could easily become reality, even in major cities like Yangon and Mandalay. A civil war across the country also seems increasingly likely, one that could spark a massive humanitarian emergency and a new refugee crisis. If not contained, such a conflict could destabilize other parts of mainland Southeast Asia and even neighboring India and China. The Tatmadaw apparently failed to anticipate the resilience of the anti-coup protesters, the resistance of ethnic armies, or the fact that it would get little cover from other countries, save China and Russia. Yet for all its weaknesses, the Tatmadaw enjoys high levels of unity and institutional cohesion. Soldiers are indoctrinated from an early age through an intense propaganda effort, and internal incentives prevent large-scale defections. At this point, the junta is unlikely to yield to protesters’ demands that Suu Kyi’s government be reinstated; apparently, it would rather preside over a failed state than give way to a solution that allows for better governance but dilutes the military’s power. One Western diplomat told The Irrawaddy, an independent news outlet based in Thailand, that the situation resembles the civil war in Syria. Like that country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, Min Aung Hlaing and his fellow generals are “open to destroying the country to protect themselves,” the diplomat said. There are troubling signs of escalating conflict in Myanmar’s outer-lying provinces. Two of the most powerful armed groups, the Kachin Independence Army and the Karen National Union, have attacked military outposts in recent weeks. And the Arakan Army, a hard-line Buddhist militia that is active in western Rakhine state, condemned the coup in a statement last month, adding that “the oppressed ethnic people as a whole will continue to fight for their freedom from oppression.” By some estimates, the ethnic armies have a total of 75,000 soldiers under their command—fewer than the Tatmadaw’s roughly 350,000, but still a sizable number. The volatile situation could also spark renewed fighting between rival armed groups, causing even greater chaos in the countryside. For example, the biggest ethnic army, the 30,000-strong United Wa State Army—which controls territory in the northeast and is also allegedly one of the biggest drug trafficking organizations in the world—might use the power vacuum to try and consolidate or expand the territory it controls. As some protesters in cities and towns begin to adopt more violent tactics, there is also the prospect of urban armed resistance or even guerilla warfare. Some protesters have met with members of the ethnic militias to learn their tactics. This is likely to prompt an even more heavy-handed response from the military, which recently conducted airstrikes against the Karen National Union. And in some residential areas, security forces are carrying out nighttime raids, going door-to-door to round up suspected demonstrators and subjecting them to beatings, detentions or, in some cases, summary executions. With a steady supply of weaponry and materiel from Russia and its own factories, the Tatmadaw is in no danger of running out of supplies. For now, though, neither the military nor the protesters nor the ethnic militias seem capable of gaining a major advantage. Instead, Myanmar seems poised for an increasingly bloody stalemate, though with fighting stretching across the country. The junta has largely shut down the internet, but reports of urban battles are emerging. Frontier Myanmar, one of the last remaining independent news outlets in the country, recently reported that one police officer who had apparently joined the resistance used hand grenades to kill five other members of the security forces. In another incident, a protester detonated a landmine in an apparent effort to harm a group of soldiers, who then shot at protesters in retaliation. Frontier Myanmar reported that these were just some of the multiple violent encounters that are increasingly common between security forces and protesters across the country. A prolonged period of civil unrest in Myanmar will certainly affect its neighbors. With the economy devastated, the financial system collapsing and food prices rising, an untold number of people will fall into poverty and hunger; COVID-19 is likely spreading as well. As the violence persists, refugees are going to pour across Myanmar’s borders in larger numbers, causing significant challenges for receiving states like Thailand, Bangladesh, India and parts of China. Bangladesh, in particular, already hosts hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees who have fled persecution. Many of these countries have no desire to take people in from Myanmar, but they will likely have little choice. If not carefully managed, new camps for refugees and displaced people could breed anger and despair, providing new recruits to trafficking organizations and armed groups. So far, the international community has responded to the situation mainly by trying to pressure Myanmar’s military leaders through economic sanctions. But these measures have apparently not had an impact thus far. Instead, the lack of foreign investment means the junta will likely turn to illicit revenue-generating activities, like narcotics and human trafficking. It remains unlikely that nearby states will intervene directly to prop up one actor or another, turning Myanmar into a proxy war like the ones that were common in mainland Southeast Asia during the Cold War. Still, if instability rises in Myanmar, regional powers may feel the need to intervene more assertively. All of this means that the situation in Myanmar could easily get much worse before it gets better.

With the situation in Myanmar disintegrating into chaos, and Myanmar possibly becoming a potential failed state, some regional powers, including the United States and Australia, have taken significant actions against the junta government. Australia has suspended military cooperation with the Myanmar military, and the Joe Biden administration has implemented a broad range of targeted sanctions against the junta and many of its businesses. Taiwan, which has significant investments in the country, has passed a parliamentary motion condemning the situation in Myanmar and calling on the junta to restore democracy. (Japan, historically reticent to take a tough approach toward Naypyidaw, has taken a more passive approach, calling on the Myanmar junta to restore democracy and having its defense head join a call rejecting the coup but so far not taking stronger moves.) But Southeast Asian states, which have some of the greatest leverage over Naypyidaw—and certainly among the most to lose if Myanmar becomes totally unstable, with refugees flowing out of the country and conflicts possibly spanning borders—have done little about the crisis. Many regional states have remained silent on the coup and the atrocities, or have expressed mild concern. Indonesia has been an important exception, with President Joko Widodo condemning the violence and pushing for an emergency Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, which seems in the works, but with no fixed date yet even as Myanmar unravels. Regional states claim they want to keep communication lines to Myanmar open, which is reasonable, but they have taken few other measures to address the crisis. As in many other crises, ASEAN remains torn, and with so many of its states now run by outright authoritarians or illiberal leaders who came to power in democratic elections, most of the region does not want to take a tough approach to the crisis. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations could suspend Myanmar, as some analysts like Elina Noor have suggested, because of the coup—the African Union has suspended countries like Mali after coups—but ASEAN is highly unlikely to take such a step, and is unwilling to abandon its principle of noninterference. If ASEAN does not suspend Myanmar, many leading democracies may decline to join meetings with ASEAN, like the East Asia Summit, where Myanmar junta representatives attend. The organization will seem powerless to affect events in its region, a further sign of ASEAN’s diminishment—even though, as others have noted, many countries outside Southeast Asia have looked to ASEAN to mediate in the crisis and help come up with solutions. There are virtually no signs the situation in Myanmar is going to improve any time soon. The junta recently refused to allow the UN special envoy for Myanmar to visit the country, the civilian death toll is spiraling, and a new criminal charge has been laid against Aung San Suu Kyi. The prospect of a national civil war, much broader than the existing conflicts in Myanmar, seems high. This is now almost surely ASEAN’s greatest crisis since the war in then-East Timor in the late 1990s and the financial crisis that rocked Southeast Asia at around the time. Since then, ASEAN has had triumphs, like building the ASEAN Economic Community. If individual ASEAN member-states, and the organization, continue to do virtually nothing as Myanmar becomes a failed state, what credibility will the organization have left?

In the initial days after the Myanmar armed forces launched a coup on February 1, deposing an elected government, the military may have hoped it would be able to pull off the putsch with minimal bloodshed. It would create a faux transition to democracy, and retain its power by eventually creating an election in which military parties and their allies would win—and then neighboring states and possibly even leading democracies would recognize that government. Indeed, in the first few days after the coup, as protest movements began to break out in the streets of many Myanmar cities and towns, the military responded with crowd control efforts, but did not immediately turn to widespread deadly force. The junta also tried to woo armed ethnic groups, many of whom had signed ceasefire agreements. But over the past two months, the resiliency and growing anger of the protest movement has made clear that the demonstrations are not going to stop. In response, the Myanmar military has stepped up its patterns of violence, shooting protestors and bystanders with live ammunition, arresting scores of people, killing children, and committing a wide range of other atrocities. In response, demonstrators, who had started by primarily yelling slogans, trying to pressure the military, and using civil disobedience to cripple the functioning of the state, have begun in some places to fight back, albeit mostly with makeshift weapons that are no match the for the military’s arms. Meanwhile, rather than aligning with the military, nearly all the armed ethnic organizations, some of which possess considerable numbers of men under arms, have united against the coup, and are beginning themselves to launch attacks against the armed forces. Two of the most powerful armed organizations, the Kachin Independence Army and the Karen National Union, have attacked military posts. The violence, and the continuing disintegration of state functioning, seems to have no clear endpoint, raising the possibility that all of Myanmar will become a failed state. For more on Myanmar’s potential disintegration into widespread civil strife, and a possible failed state, see my new World Politics Review article.

The past weekend was extremely bloody in Myanmar, where the Civil Disobedience Movement faces off against the military, and has so, for roughly two months now. On Armed Forces day last Saturday, military forces killed over one hundred people, including children, bringing the total death toll to over four hundred. Meanwhile, conflict seems to be ramping up in some ethnic minority areas, like the Kachin and Karen regions, where some of the ethnic armed organizations also have vowed to take on the junta—and this presages a potentially broader conflict in the country. The growing chaos also could spread the coronavirus, since there is massive movement of people, large street protests, and the country’s health infrastructure is mostly shut down. The violence occurred while junta leader Min Aung Hlaing hosted massive military parades in Naypyidaw, and a smattering of foreign dignitaries willing to meet with and essentially condone the regime—most notably, Russia, which sent a fairly high-ranking defense official to the Armed Forces Day gathering in Naypyidaw. Other countries including Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, Pakistan, and Thailand also sent representatives to the Armed Forces Day event in Naypyidaw, but these countries sent low-level people and have not recognized the junta government. The Russian representative met with Min Aung Hlaing and professed Russia’s close relations with Naypyidaw. As the Myanmar conflict has gained global attention from news outlets and policymakers, some policymakers have wondered why the demonstrations, and the failure of the armed forces to quickly consolidate the coup, have not led to splits in the Myanmar military. Such splits—think of the splits in the Philippine military in the 1980s that helped usher dictator Ferdinand Marcos out the door, or even splits that happened regularly in the past within the Thai military, sometimes leading coups to fail—are often the way that coup attempts falter and authoritarian regimes crumble. The New York Times and the Washington Post recently had two excellent articles showing, in part, why such a split in the is unlikely within the Myanmar military—a point understood by many Myanmar experts, but now being revealed to the world. Both the pieces show how the Myanmar military operates as a state within a state, with its own network of schools, housing, medical care and other types of social welfare, and other institutions. In addition, they show how the military inculcates officers and enlisted men with an intense amount of propaganda and almost brain-washing, while cutting them off from the rest of the country and from many sources of information. The New York Times article notes: From the moment they enter boot camp, Tatmadaw troops are taught that they are guardians of a country—and a religion—that will crumble without them … They occupy a privileged state within a state, in which soldiers live, work and socialize apart from the rest of society, imbibing an ideology that puts them far above the civilian population. The officers described being constantly monitored by their superiors, in barracks and on Facebook. A steady diet of propaganda feeds them notions of enemies at every corner, even on city streets. This approach serves to convince even rank-and-file soldiers, who still live in spartan conditions, that the military is the central institution in the country and of Buddhism in Myanmar, and one worth defending at any cost, even if that means murdering Myanmar civilians. This indoctrination—and the parallel social welfare net—also may cushion the sting of the fact that Myanmar soldiers are often treated poorly by superiors, live in the field in rudimentary conditions, and currently are often going unpaid. And at higher levels, top officers and top commanders are able to live lavishly, because the military has plundered the country to create a web of businesses in nearly every industry in Myanmar. To give in to the protestors, these top officers and commanders would risk not only punishment for their brutality but also probably would have to give up assets and these parallel business relationships. This combination of paranoid indoctrination and a web of business interests at the top of the Myanmar military suggests that it may be nearly impossible for a major split in the armed forces to occur.

After seizing power in a coup in early February, the Myanmar military has increasingly cracked down on civil society, the media, and opposition politicians. In recent weeks it has shuttered most independent media outlets, arrested many members of the National League for Democracy, and unleashed security forces on demonstrators in many parts of the country. But the Myanmar junta ultimately seems to seek to legitimize its rule, both by gaining recognition from leading regional powers and other countries around the world, and creating a supposed process that will lead to an election in the future. In this strategy of building a democratic facade, it clearly looks to the neighboring Thai armed forces as an example. For more on the links between the Thai and Myanmar militaries, and how the Myanmar army is likely to fail in its attempts, see my new World Politics Review article.

The situation on the ground in Myanmar continues to deteriorate. In the initial days after the February 1 military coup, the junta seemed somewhat reluctant to use brutal force to disperse demonstrations and curtail online and mobile communications. But in recent weeks, as the civil disobedience movement in Myanmar has grown in strength and size, and has convinced many civil servants and other workers to walk off the job, the junta has reacted with brutal fury. It has declared martial law in several parts of the country, including areas of Yangon, and has stepped up the pace of detentions, assaults, and killings of protestors and other civilians. Just this past week, some fifty people last Sunday were killed as authorities opened fire on demonstrators in Yangon and other areas, and the military also has increased Internet blackouts and other communications shutdowns in many parts of the country. (Some two hundred people have been killed since the coup, according to an estimate released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.) With communications increasingly shut down, it seems likely the military will step up arrests and killings, in areas where it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to get information out. The junta also has cracked down on independent media, forcing many outlets to close or move into exile, and further limiting coverage of potential atrocities. Some demonstrators have fought back with makeshift weapons, and some have attacked Chinese factories in the country. Foreign countries have multiple options for increasing the pressure on the Myanmar junta and supporting the civil disobedience movement—boosting targeting sanctions on military leaders and military holding companies, for instance—but they also must prepare for massive refugee outflows from Myanmar. In prior eras of protests and/or military crackdowns, like in the late 1980s, in 2007, and in 2017–18 in Rakhine State, many Myanmar nationals streamed across borders to Bangladesh, India, and Thailand, and also sought refuge further on in places like Indonesia, Malaysia, the United States, and other developed countries. Besides applying pressure, indeed, countries in the region and globally should make it easier for Myanmar nationals who manage to leave the country to get temporary asylum in other countries, and possibly permanent asylum as well. Unfortunately, some Southeast Asian neighbors appear to be taking the opposite approach: Malaysia deported some one thousand Myanmar nationals in February, despite the coup and the deteriorating security situation in Myanmar, and the Thai authorities reportedly have been pushing back Myanmar nationals fleeing the country into Thailand. Thai officials have told Reuters that they anticipate a surge of Myanmar nationals fleeing to the kingdom, and said they had set aside an area in the border region of Mae Sot for fleeing Myanmar nationals, but their history of pushing back migrants does not bode well. The Biden administration admirably has granted Temporary Protected Status to Myanmar nationals in the United States, so that they do not have to immediately return to Myanmar. But this status only affects a small number of people already in the United States—around 1,600, by some estimates, who will get eighteen months of Temporary Protected Status. The administration should consider applying pressure on Thailand not to push back Myanmar nationals and to allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees access to people fleeing Myanmar, and pushing for an emergency conference of major powers who could provide aid for countries, like India and Thailand, receiving incoming Myanmar nationals and possibly could also agree to take in certain amounts of people fleeing Myanmar. The Biden administration also should make good on its promises to significantly raise the limit on the number of refugees admitted to the United States for the next fiscal year. This might not immediately help people fleeing Myanmar. But the State Department’s report on Biden’s plan for refugee admissions notes that the coup and instability in Myanmar likely will cause a “renewed flow of people fleeing Burma. Raising the refugee cap significantly would provide many more opportunities for Myanmar nationals who had already made it out of the country to neighboring states to come to the United States as refugees.

Early this month, Myanmar’s armed forces took control of the country. Moving overnight, they detained most leading politicians and many civil-society activists, barricaded roads, cut off internet access, arrested people in the darkness, and made an announcement of the coup on state television. In the weeks since, the generals have declared a curfew, blocked foreign social media platforms, put Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, and this past weekend the authorities killed at least eighteen people on Sunday. Military dictatorships are nowhere near as common as they were during the Cold War, and leaders trying to roll back democracy today usually do so in creeping ways, by altering legal systems, voting rules and other institutions to give themselves greater power. This has been the path of illiberal bosses like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. They have whittled away at norms and institutions to centralize their authority—and Orban and Erdogan have become outright autocrats. They had the patience to undermine democracy by slowly suffocating it. And yet coups have not only lingered; they’ve become more effective in the past decade. Egypt’s military overthrew its government in 2013, Thailand’s in 2014, Zimbabwe’s in 2017, Sudan’s and Algeria’s in 2019, and Mali’s in 2020. In some countries that seemed to have moved beyond putsches, military meddling has returned—such as in Bolivia, even if the generals didn’t complete an outright takeover in that country’s 2019 political crisis. Successful coups have increased from lows in the early 2000s to higher numbers in the 2010s. Now, in 2021, Myanmar’s military also has staged a successful coup. Although there were forty-seven coups and attempted coups in the 2010s compared with seventy-six in the 2000s, according to a database created by the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois, “coups over the last decade or so have a far higher success rate than in previous periods,” according to an analysis by Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell, two leading scholars. Their calculations did not include 2020 and 2021, but there have already been two takeovers in that period. For more on the persistence of coups, and their success, see my new Washington Post Outlook article.

Over the weekend, and into Monday Myanmar time, the situation in the country continues to disintegrate. Although the civil disobedience movement continues to show its strength, with large demonstrations over the weekend and on Monday, the armed forces have begun to crack down with deadly force in Mandalay and other parts of the country; police killed two protestors in Mandalay on Saturday, and injured at least twenty others. This decision almost surely presages a coming crackdown with deadly force in Yangon. There, in the largest city, the protests have been massive, and the junta may have been wary of confronting such large groups, and especially in a place that is also the home of most embassies, reporters, and other foreigners working in Myanmar. But in other places, like Mandalay and other parts of the country, where there is less media coverage and few if any foreign observers, the authorities are already shooting at protestors. This escalation has not, so far, deterred demonstrators; there were large turnouts, in the thousands of people on Sunday and Monday Myanmar time. The situation is particularly ominous, however, for several reasons. One, as the independent analyst David Scot Mathieson notes in a detailed piece on the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military has consistently shown both high levels of brutality and an ability to keep itself from splintering, even in the face of protests and other pressures that have forced militaries in other countries to splinter. “The Tatmadaw has been remarkably successful at ensuring institutional cohesion,” he notes. Second, the Myanmar armed forces appear to be deploying military units that already have become notorious for brutality and crimes in other parts of the country, like the 33rd Light Infantry that operated in Rakhine State, to major cities such as Mandalay. This is a sign that the Tatmadaw leadership may be preparing for much greater violence, and it has parallels with crackdowns after prior coups in Myanmar like the one in 1988, when military units were unleashed in major cities, after being fed vitriolic propaganda about the protestors whom they then killed in large numbers. Arrests are rising as well—nearly six hundred people have been arrested or charged or sentenced in recent weeks, according to the Financial Times. Third, as veteran Myanmar analyst Bertil Lintner notes, this coup appears to have been long prepared, given that the junta government has put together such a large cabinet and advisory council, which probably was planned well in advance of the actual putsch. Such planning and coordination suggest an armed forces leadership prepared to dig in for the long run. On Monday, Myanmar protestors staged probably the largest demonstrations since the coup, in the face of junta warnings that the protests could be met with significant force. The civil disobedience movement, and much of the country is essentially shut down. Some Southeast Asian states have even slowly begun to respond, with Indonesia calling on other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states to develop a plan to push the junta to hold elections. For now, however, the prospect of a severe crackdown remains.

The coup in Myanmar in early February, the country’s first in more than three decades, has reshaped Myanmar’s political landscape. The country had been on a shaky path toward some kind of democracy, following the 2015 election landslide for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), and its repeat victory in the November 2020 national elections. Now, the coup has taken Myanmar back to some of its darkest days. Military units block roads, NLD members, civil society leaders and other activists have been jailed, multiple types of communications have been cut off, and Suu Kyi is back under house arrest on typically bizarre charges—this time, of having illegally imported walkie-talkies. In the past, when Suu Kyi was held under house arrest, she was often detained on similarly bizarre and spurious charges. The junta leader and now head of government, Min Aung Hlaing, has announced martial law in portions of the country, a curfew from 8:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m., and a ban on gatherings of more than five people and on processions of cars or motorcycles—a response to days of pro-democracy demonstrations that have been building in Myanmar’s towns and cities following the coup. Although protests have been springing up across the country, the military has issued ominous warnings about how it might respond to them and called for an end to protests. Moreover, the armed forces’ takeover will likely do further damage to the country’s already suffering economy. Junta rule will discourage any new foreign investment, and leading multinationals that already invested in Myanmar may reconsider, fearing for their corporate reputations. Already, for instance, Japanese giant Kirin has ended its deal with a leading Myanmar conglomerate linked to the military, after the coup. Other investors also are pulling out. The armed forces will not shy away from enforcing these rules with brutal force. Already, the military stands accused of perpetrating crimes against humanity and genocide in recent years in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine. During prior eras of junta rule—Myanmar was essentially run by the military from 1962 until the early 2010s—the army beat and murdered protestors who demonstrated in 1988, in 2007, and on multiple other occasions. In 2007, the military even brutalized protesters led by monks, normally revered in Myanmar society. Besides impacting foreign investment in Myanmar, and setting back Myanmar’s political progress, the coup also will have regional implications. While the United States, Canada and the European Union are likely to impose some penalties on the junta for its coup, Southeast Asian states, Japan, China and India will probably do nothing in response, other than issue some statements encouraging Myanmar to return to political negotiations and a democratic path. Western democracies are unlikely to impose the type of broad-based economic sanctions utilized against Myanmar (then called Burma by many countries) in the 1990s and 2000s. There is little appetite in Washington, or anywhere else, for such broad sanctions, which have wide effects on the economy, and would likely hurt poor Myanmar citizens, at a time when the coup, the global economic downturn, and the pandemic all have already damaged the country’s economy. After all, one study found about 70% of people in Myanmar had stopped working due to the pandemic, and hunger is widespread. Broad sanctions would impose more misery and might actually lead more Myanmar citizens to flee the country (mostly to Thailand and possibly China), potentially spreading COVID-19 and causing more challenges for Myanmar’s neighbors. Instead, the Biden administration, and the governments of Canada and European states will likely try to impose targeted sanctions on more top Myanmar military leaders and on Myanmar’s large military conglomerates, such as Myanma Economic Holdings Limited. They will also possibly put back into place sanctions on some exports of gems, like jade, from Myanmar. The United States and other democracies may also try to push a resolution at the United Nations Security Council that freezes the assets of top military leaders and imposes travel bans on them, although any measure is unlikely to pass, given that permanent members China and Russia can veto. Already, the Biden administration has frozen some Myanmar military assets in the United States and put targeted sanctions on a wider range of military leaders; Britain and European countries are considering measures. Even those limited sanctions may not gain support from democracies in Asia like Japan and India, which believe Myanmar is important to their strategic interests, and do not want to run the risk of China making further strategic gains in the country. Therefore, any sanctions that are passed, even limited ones, will probably be backed only by Western governments, even though Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a call with Biden, said that the democratic process and the rule of law must be upheld in Myanmar. The Japanese government has called for a restoration of democracy as well, but it is unlikely to sign onto any tough measures that might pressure Naypyidaw. And while some Southeast Asian countries, such as Singapore, have issued relatively strong statements about Myanmar’s political situation, the regional organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), adheres to a policy of noninterference in member states’ affairs. Indonesia and Malaysia have called for ASEAN to hold a special session dealing with the Myanmar coup, but even such a session is unlikely to yield much more than some statements. Meanwhile, Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, themselves essentially run by militaries, are loath to criticize the Myanmar armed forces. Ultimately, Myanmar’s coup is likely to have multiple regional impacts. It will further push the region toward democratic regression, at a time when other Southeast Asian states like the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand are suffering democratic backsliding as well. It will add to regional instability: beside outward migration flows, armed ethnic insurgencies in Myanmar might take advantage of the putsch to step up their military campaigns and end ceasefire deals. The coup might also push Myanmar closer to China, by necessity, if many democracies downgrade links to the country and apply more pressure. Even so, Beijing is not necessarily thrilled by the military takeover. Chinese leaders had built close links with Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD government, and China prefers stability in neighboring states, which the military coup—and possible protests, bloodshed, and renewed insurgencies—hardly guarantees. What is more, the Myanmar military’s top brass is notoriously anti-China, working with Beijing only when they have to—but with no love for close ties.

Over the past decade, illiberal populist leaders from across the political spectrum have won elections and taken power in many of the world’s biggest democracies, from the United States to India, the Philippines, Turkey and Brazil. Once in office, they have often undermined democratic norms and institutions, including the media, the judiciary, the civil service, and, in many cases, free and fair elections themselves. The rise of illiberal populism is a major reason why the annual “Freedom in the World” reports, published by the global watchdog organization Freedom House, have charted fourteen straight years of global democratic regression. (I serve as a consultant for several chapters on Southeast Asia in these reports.) The Economist Intelligence Unit’s most recent Democracy Index found that global freedom was at its lowest point since the index was started in 2006. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in further harm to democracy worldwide, as many illiberal leaders, particularly in developing countries, have taken advantage of the crisis to crush political opposition and grab more power. Donald Trump is among the first, and most prominent, of this recent wave of populist leaders to lose an election and leave office—albeit not without putting up a fight. Other populist leaders, like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, still appear to be gaining power and popularity. But Trump’s defeat in last November’s presidential election offered some hope to proponents of democracy and the rule of law. Now that he is out of power, can the United States restore the democratic norms and institutions that Trump badly undermined during his presidency? The histories of other countries that ejected their illiberal populist leaders do not give great cause for optimism, but their examples also suggest that American democracy is not doomed. The United States retains stronger democratic institutions than some other countries where populist strongmen rule today, like the Philippines, Brazil, Hungary, Mexico or Poland. Still, damage has been done. In an earlier study of populists leaders’ impacts on democracies, I found that many countries once ruled by illiberal populists, like Italy after Silvio Berlusconi, struggled mightily to put their political systems back together. Instead, they often wound up with permanently shattered norms that gave rise to a new wave of populists. In the case of Italy, an aging Berlusconi no longer wields much influence, but he has been succeeded by two powerful populist parties: the left-leaning Five Star Movement, which currently governs as part of a coalition, and the right-wing League, the largest opposition party. Indeed, populist leaders often play upon the idea that their country’s government is so broken that only a strongman can solve its problems. Even after they are ousted, the resulting lack of trust in government often lingers in many citizens’ minds. As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein has argued, a more mainstream leader who comes to power after a period of populist rule often becomes a kind of placeholder, unable to govern effectively because of obstreperous opposition and deep polarization. Quoting the political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe, Klein observes that “populists don’t just feed on socioeconomic discontent. They feed on ineffective government—and their great appeal is that they claim to replace it with a government that is effective through their own autocratic power.” This is why traditional politicians who replace populist leaders are often unable to govern effectively, which creates opportunities for populists to feed on that ineffectiveness and return to power. It is a timely lesson for President Joe Biden. But there are some reasons to be optimistic, as well. As I noted in a World Politics Review article in 2019, one factor that determines whether countries can rebuild after a period of illiberal rule is whether citizens took steps to reinforce checks on executive power during the illiberal leader’s time in office. In the United States, for instance, municipal and state-level governments served as powerful bulwarks against Trump’s overreach, as did the media and the country’s independent judiciary, despite its conservative leanings. The limits these institutions placed on Trump during his time in office will make it a bit easier for the Biden administration and its supporters to restore democratic norms and institutions. In addition, by limiting Trump to only one term, American voters laid a critical piece of the foundation for restoring democracy. In many cases, illiberal leaders compete in a relatively level playing field when they first seek reelection, but then move to co-opt electoral institutions, making it harder for voters to enact change at the ballot box. For instance, when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won his second term in office, in 2010—he had earlier served in the top job from 1998 to 2002—he did so in a relatively free and fair election. But each subsequent round of polls after 2010 proved more slanted in his favor, as Orban used extensive gerrymandering and many other tools to make it virtually impossible to defeat his Fidesz party. Finally, in 2020, with the pandemic raging, Orban seized emergency powers to become all but an outright dictator, assuming near-total control of the government. Russia, a more extreme case of illiberalism, is another example. When President Vladimir Putin first ran for reelection in 2004—he won his first full term in 2000 after serving in an acting capacity for several months—the election process, though not truly democratic, was somewhat contested. At the least, it was more contested and vibrant than later Putin-era elections, which were complete shams. Other historical examples show that it is possible to rebuild democratic norms and institutions after a period of illiberal rule, even if it is a steep road back. South Korea, for instance, witnessed abuses of power, intimidation of political opponents and a wave of high-level corruption scandals under the conservative President Park Geun-hye, who took office in 2013. She was impeached in 2017 and forced from office amid vibrant and peaceful street protests that helped encourage a democratic restoration. Park was subsequently sentenced to thirty years in prison on charges that included bribery, extortion and abuse of power, though the sentence was reduced on appeal to twenty years. In the immediate aftermath of her impeachment, South Korean activists and civil society groups mobilized to advocate for anti-corruption measures and transparency in government. Park’s successor, the more progressive President Moon Jae-In, won the 2017 election vowing to fight corruption, make government accountable and level the economic playing field. He has faced criticism from some commentators for politicizing the judiciary, limiting the speech of some conservative organizations and commentators, and trying to govern autocratically, using his Democratic Party’s majority in the legislature to hastily pass consequential laws. But the South Korean electorate has remained energized, keeping the pressure on Moon to follow through on his promised reforms. South Africa is another instructive example. After the disgraced President Jacob Zuma stepped down before the end of his term in 2018, amid massive corruption allegations, a revival of democratic norms and institutions has come from the top as much as from civil society and the public. Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, has made restoring South African democracy a central theme of his presidency, although he has struggled to deliver on that promise given the scale of South Africa’s problems following Zuma’s tenure. Still, Ramaphosa has attacked corruption within the ruling African National Congress, reduced politicization of the police and judiciary, and promoted ways to build national consensus and reduce polarization. There are lessons to be drawn from all of these examples as the United States repairs the damage from Trump, and as other democracies face their own potential breaks with populists. In the Philippines, where presidents are limited to a single six-year term in office, the historically popular Duterte’s rule will end in 2022. But his illiberal brand of leadership and his record of flouting democratic norms may live on if he is succeeded by his daughter, Sara Duterte, or another illiberal populist who gains his stamp of approval. For now, Sara Duterte claims she has no desire to run in the 2022 elections, and her father has said he does not want her to, as the presidency is “not for a woman.” Similarly, Brazil’s president, the far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, will be up for reelection in 2022. In all of these countries, the next election may be critical for any hope of maintaining democracy. But even if illiberal populism is defeated once at the ballot box, history suggests it is buried in a shallow grave.

The coup last week in Myanmar, the country’s first in over three decades, has reshaped Myanmar’s political landscape. The country had seemed on a shaky path toward some kind of democracy, following the 2015 election landslide for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), and the NLD’s repeat victory in the November 2020 national elections. Now, the coup has taken Myanmar back to some of its darkest old days. And the coup will have wide-ranging regional implications. For more on these regional implications, see my new article in Aspenia Online.

Over the past decade, illiberal populist leaders from across the political spectrum have won elections and taken power in many of the world’s biggest democracies. Once in office, they have often undermined democratic norms and institutions, including the media, the judiciary, the civil service, and, in many cases, free and fair elections themselves. The rise of illiberal populism is a major reason why the annual “Freedom in the World” reports, published by the global watchdog organization Freedom House, have charted fourteen straight years of global democratic regression, and why the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most recent Democracy Index found that global freedom was at its lowest point since the index was started. (I serve as a consultant for several Freedom House chapters on Southeast Asia in these reports.) If illiberal populists lose elections, can democratic norms and institutions be restored? Populist leaders often play upon the idea that their country’s government is so broken that only a strongman can solve its problems. Even after they are ousted, the resulting lack of trust in government often lingers in many citizens’ minds. For more on what happens after illiberal populists lose, see my new World Politics Review column.

Myanmar’s coup is a disaster for Myanmar, but it also is a signifier of the continuing regression of democracy region-wide in Southeast Asia. The region, which once had made significant progress toward democratization, has backslid badly in recent years, with regression in former bright spots including Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as Cambodia and now Myanmar. This backsliding affects not only domestic politics in Southeast Asian states but also has an effect on other countries in the region—a kind of diffusion effect in reverse, in contrast to the diffusion effect that can occur during waves of democratization. For example, the Philippines used to be one of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states that often vocally stood up for democratic rights in other countries, a fairly unique stance in ASEAN. Now led by Rodrigo Duterte, however, who is undermining the Philippines’ own democratic norms and institutions, Manila is much quieter on the Myanmar coup. Duterte himself has grabbed more power during the pandemic, with a new antiterrorism law giving the government extraordinary powers, amidst the ongoing extrajudicial drug “war” as well. The Philippine government, like many other regional governments, has called the coup simply Myanmar’s internal affair. Thailand, for all its challenges, in the past did sometimes have groups of politicians and civil society activists who were highly engaged in Myanmar politics and advocated for reform there. During the long period of junta rule in the 1990s and 2000s, many Myanmar activists sought safe haven in Thailand as well. Now, Thailand is cracking down on civil society, students, activists, opposition politicians, and the Thai government, dominated by military men, is not going to push for any change in Myanmar. If anything, the Myanmar generals may try to steal a march from the Thai generals who have used a wide range of judicial and election chicanery to cement their power, as Bertil Lintner argued a recent Asia Times article. The Myanmar generals may eventually, as he notes, allow an election, but with a system that, like the Thai electoral system, uses machinations to reduce the power of the most powerful parties—the National League for Democracy (NLD) in this case—and to promote the military’s favored parties and its allies. In some ways, such a system might seem fairer than Myanmar’s current first-past-the-post system, which allowed the NLD to take more seats in parliament than its actual share of the vote, and hurt the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and several ethnic parties. But the Myanmar military would not really be changing the electoral system to promote more fairness—rather it would be to try to permanently defang the NLD. Meanwhile, other countries that had led on Myanmar in the past, like Indonesia and Malaysia, have been relatively quiet, consumed by their own domestic politics, and by COVID-19; they also have suffered their own democratic regression. In the past, the Indonesian government had seen itself as playing a central role in helping the Myanmar military supposedly move toward civilian government, and give up its role as directly involved in politics. But Indonesia itself has seen a return to greater military involvement in politics and domestic policymaking under the Jokowi government, and Jokowi has been muted in response to the coup as well. And, powerful actors in Southeast Asia, like Japan, also have said little; Japanese companies have invested heavily in Myanmar in recent years, pushed in part by the Japanese government. Japan sees itself in intense competition for strategic influence with China in Myanmar, and is unlikely to prod the Myanmar military much. So, the regional democratic regression emboldens the Myanmar military, and, alas, also makes it easier for them to keep power. This post is adapted from my recent Twitter thread on the same topic.

In responding to the Monday coup in Myanmar, which has clearly put the military in power for an indefinite period of time, the United States and many other outside actors do not have a wide range of tools to respond. To be sure, the Biden administration, European states, Canada, Australia, and some other democracies have condemned the coup and called for the generals to accept the November election result and put Myanmar back on the path of (shaky) democracy. But regional powers, including China, Japan, and Thailand have either refused to denounce the coup, calling it Myanmar’s internal affair, or have been very slow to voice any denunciation. Japan, for instance, has been slow to criticize, because it views Myanmar as a vital strategic partner and a place where Japan is directly in competition for influence with China. Thailand, run essentially by a military-installed government and in the midst of cracking down on its own critics and democratic politicians, is not going to say or do anything about the Myanmar military, which also has had a close relationship with some senior Thai military leaders. The Philippines, once a regional leader in promoting democracy, is now run by Rodrigo Duterte. And Indonesia, which styled itself as playing a significant role in pushing the Myanmar military toward embracing civilian rule, released a moderate statement just pushing all parties in Myanmar to move toward some peaceful outcome. None of these regional neighbors is going to apply much, if any, pressure on the Myanmar generals to step away from what looks like a path toward indefinite military rule. Meanwhile, the United States, Australia, Canada, and the European Union still have limited strategic and economic links with Myanmar, compared to regional countries like China, India, Japan, Singapore, and Thailand. Overall, U.S. influence is limited, but that does not mean the United States and partners should do nothing. Some argue that, because Europe, the United States, and other partners have limited options, because they are dealing with their own massive domestic problems, and because Myanmar could respond by turning closer to China, leading democracies should respond modestly to the coup. But China is going to pursue its policies in Myanmar regardless or what measures are taken by the United States and other democracies, and U.S. policy should not be determined by how China is going to respond in Myanmar. In addition, Myanmar’s usually xenophobic military leaders and other elites do not really want to move even closer to China; one of the factors that initially spurred the move toward civilian rule and shaky quasi-democracy was the army’s concern that the country was becoming so isolated and highly dependent on China. The military has come to rely on China, but the army maintains a still-prickly relationship with Beijing, and does not want to be isolated again and totally dependent on Beijing. Given limited options, the United States and its partners could pursue several approaches. For one, the United States and partners should apply sanctions on Myanmar’s major military holding companies, Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corporation. These are sizable conglomerates in Myanmar that contribute massively to the armed forces’ coffers, and hitting them would impose a fairly severe economic pinch on the armed forces. The United States and partners also should use rhetorical pressure to push all major multinationals not to do business with Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and Myanmar Economic Corporation; reports from Amnesty International and others in recent years have shown several multinationals working with these two military conglomerates. The U.S. government should be able to develop and push forward a proposal sanctioning the two major military companies quickly and have it circulated to partners this week. The Biden administration also should go well beyond the targeted sanctions applied in 2019 on a handful of top military leaders, using the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to greatly expand the targeted sanctions to a broader level of top commanders, regional commanders, and senior leaders of the military’s holding companies, for a start. This targeting should include behind-the-scenes pressure on U.S. partners in Asia, principally Singapore, to also cut off access to Singapore’s financial institutions for anyone on the list of those faced with targeted sanctions. The White House also should call an immediate, emergency session of the UN Security Council regarding the coup, and also consider imposing other measures to limit the military’s earning power, like restoring the JADE Act.