RCAPS Working Paper Series “Dojo” RPD-13001 Myanmar's Rapprochement with the United States: Is it a Warning for China in Mainland Southeast Asia? July 5, 2013 Swe Sett Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Corresponding Author: Swe Sett E-mail: [email protected] Ritsumeikan Center for Asia Pacific Studies (RCAPS) Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU) URL: http://www.apu.ac.jp/rcaps/ 1 International Relations in the Asia Pacific Spring Semester, 1st Quarter, 2013 Professor: SATO Yoichiro (Final Report) Myanmar's Rapprochement with the United States: Is it a Warning for China in Mainland Southeast Asia? By SWE SETT Submission Date: 16 May 2013 Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University 2 Contents Introduction Major Power and Mainland Southeast Asia United States' Policy toward Myanmar China' Policy toward Myanmar Myanmar Foreign Policy Conclusion Reference 3 Abbreviations ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations BCP Burma Communist Party BSPP Burma Socialist Programme Party CPT Communist Party of Thailand EU European Union KMT Kuomintang MCP Malayan Communist Party NKCP North Kali-mantan Communist Party PCP Philippine Communist Party SLORC State Law and Order Restoration Council SPDC State Peace and Development Council US United States 4 Myanmar's Rapprochement with the United States: Is it a Warning for China in Mainland Southeast Asia? Keywords : Myanmar, United States, China, relations, Foreign Policy Introduction After the military coup government's crackdown on Myanmar's (Burma at that time)1 pro-democracy movement in 1988 and its failure to honour the 1990 general election results, bilateral relations between the United States and Myanmar strained and declined. The United States, some Western and European countries and international organizations imposed the several financial, economic and travel sanctions on Myanmar. In 1990, the United States has downgraded the diplomatic relation with Myanmar by reducing the representative level from Ambassador to Charge d' affairs (U.S. Department of State, 2012). In 2009, the United States launched a new policy of principled engagement including direct senior-level dialogue with Myanmar's authorities. Relations between the United States and Myanmar began to improve. After an election, which was held in November 2010, the new Myanmar civil government was formed in March 2011. The new government implemented a various reform process including meeting with opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, releasing political prisoners, removing the media censorship, negotiating ceasefire agreements with several minority ethnic armed and holding credible parliamentary by-elections (Hill, 2012). The Myanmar government has continued its reform and the United States has demonstrated its commitment to supporting Myanmar’s reform with an “action-for-action” strategy to respond to the reforms (U.S. Department of State, 2012). 1 The former official name of Myanmar was Burma. The country was renamed from Burma to Myanmar by the Myanmar military government in 1989. The United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) do not accept this name and still address the country as Burma. 5 Myanmar's administration was emerging as a "Civil Government" in good shape in 2011. Due to the reforming process, Myanmar was recognized by observers within and outside the country, especially with the landmark visit of U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton (Thuzar, 2012). Myanmar obtained the support and agreement of ASEAN to serve as the Chair of ASEAN in 2014, to resume the turn she gave up in 2006. Due to Myanmar military government's political repression of the democracy movement in the country, the United States, British and EU pressured and hinted that they might boycott the ASEAN annual meeting if Myanmar took the chair in 2006. Hence, Myanmar relinquished its turn as Chair of ASEAN in 2006 (Than, 2006). Ultimately, U.S. President Barak Obama's visit to Myanmar on November 19, 2012, has developed and encouraged Myanmar's flickers progress into steady of flame (Thuzar, 2012; Daga, 2012). The impressive U.S.-Myanmar rapprochement relations raised Myanmar's standing in the international and regional community. The recent rapprochement and improved relations with the United States play a critical role and create a better image of Myanmar in the international and regional community. Due to this circumstance, hope and expectations are high for the Myanmar government to continue and maintain the recent progress and development of the country in the international relations corner. This progress has to be maintained for future development of nascent Myanmar. In contrast, the U.S. policy towards Myanmar and their rapprochement have caught attention of Myanmar's neighbouring country, China. Myanmar's progressive relations with the United States generally puzzled China, the closest ally of Myanmar in the region (Clapp, 2010). As it is significant to keep up the improved relations with the United States, it is also important to maintain friendly relations with the neighbouring countries, especially with the two Asian Giants, China and India. Myanmar has been enjoying China's protection in the field of international relations for over two decades. 6 Some scholar had a pessimistic view on U.S.-Myanmar relations before 2011. Clapp examined the pragmatic engagement policy of the United States as a more flexible policy structure that aimed to respond to the results of Myanmar's transition process (Clapp, 2010). Clapp described the situation of U.S.-Myanmar relations as ''suspended animation'' and predicted that there will be no chance of rapprochement in the near future (Clapp, 2010). In contrast, Taylor suggested that the western countries might require to revise their foreign policy toward Myanmar, especially after the 2010 multi-party elections (Taylor, 2009). Although other authors have rejected the prospect of improvement in the U.S.-Myanmar relations due to the latter's domestic policies, Taylor predicted that there would be a recalculation of approaches toward Myanmar from China, Japan, the United States and EU countries (Taylor, 2009). Due to the current rapprochement relations between two countries, the prediction of Robert H. Taylor has become true. There were also different views on the recent U.S.-Myanmar relationship. Li asserted that the current U.S.-Myanmar ties was not a threat to the Chinese-Myanmar relations and China does not seek to use Myanmar as an ally to weaken or dilute ASEAN or its unity (Li, 2012). However, according to Yun SUM, China had seen the new engagement of the United States with Myanmar as one of the key factors to undercut China's security interests in the region and to lose China's monopolistic edge on Myanmar (Sun, 2012). China seems that Myanmar could be distanced from China in future China-Myanmar relations (Haacke, 2012). Under the surface of this situation, the question has risen about whether Myanmar's improved relations with the United States is a warning for China that Myanmar is parting from its closest ally. Hence, this paper aim to examine Myanmar significance in the U.S.-China geopolitical competition and Myanmar's calibrated relations with the both countries. 7 Major Power and Mainland Southeast Asia Geographically, Southeast Asia can be divided into Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia. Mainland Southeast Asia consists of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and this region is also known as Indochina. Maritime Southeast Asia is composed of Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore (Southeast Asia, 2013). Southeast Asia is surrounded by China in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east, the Indian Ocean in the south, Australian Continent in the southeast, the Bay of Bengal and India in the southwest. Due to their geo-strategic significance, both Mainland and Maritime Southeast Asia region became a region of great power competition (Weatherbee, 2009). Historically, the region had been influenced and ruled by outside powers, such as Great Britain, China, Portugal, Dutch, France, Japan, Spain and the United States (A Short History of Southeast Asia, 2013). In the late 19th century, all of the Southeast Asian countries, except Thailand, were colonized by European nations. Burma and Malaya were ruled by the British. Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were colonized by the French. Indonesia was ruled by the Dutch and Philippines was occupied by the Spanish and the United States (A Short History of Southeast Asia, 2013). During the period of World War II, Southeast Asia, except Thailand, was colonized by Japan. Japan invaded Burma, the Philippines, the Malaya and Singapore in January 1942 and colonized them in part or whole (A Short History of Southeast Asia, 2013). When Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, all Japan colonized countries were ruled again by their former colonial rulers. Because of this historical experience, the region became an interested site for international outlook (Morrison, 1994). Southeast Asia was seemed as a strategic region by the international and regional countries (Morrison, 1994). 8 Today, the region of Maritime Southeast Asia, situated at the strategic crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, plays a vital role in securing global trade flows, and the region has become not only one of the major focuses for U.S. strategists and policymakers but also for China as well (Denmark & Kliman, 2011). China realizes the significance of the mainland Southeast Asia region and firmly accepts that the region is a strategic unit for the security of China. Geographically, China shares its southwestern border with the mainland Southeast Asia (Grinter, 2006). Therefore, any conflicts in the Mainland Southeast Asia region can effectively destabilize China. The United States is concerned about China's rising influence in Southeast Asia. The Mainland Southeast Asia has become a new engagement site of the United States to limit the great power activities in the region (Grinter, 2006). The U.S. interests in mainland Southeast Asia during the Cold War were related to ideological reason.