The Burmese military staged a military coup on February 1, detaining a number of leaders of the National League for Democracy, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and causing an outcry in world opinion. The U.S. government quickly issued a statement expressing concern over the development. However, some opinion believes that it is because the U.S. and other Western countries have been too critical and not supportive enough of Aung San Suu Kyi in the past few years that the military has been given the opportunity to take advantage of the situation. Meanwhile, some experts believe that the coup in Myanmar provides an opportunity for China to increase its influence.
The military coup in Burma took place on the morning of Feb. 1, just as the evening of Sunday, Jan. 31 (EST). Nevertheless, the U.S. White House and State Department reacted quickly.
Later that evening, the two government departments issued statements calling on the Burmese military to withdraw the current military operation and release the detained elected government leaders.
The White House statement went further, stressing that if the Burmese military did not withdraw the operation, it would take action to hold the parties involved accountable.
New U.S. President Joe Biden issued another statement at noon on Feb. 1, saying that the United States has withdrawn sanctions against Burma because of the progress it has made on the road to democratization; if the current situation in Burma does not improve, the United States will reconsider sanctions against Burma.
Derek Mitchell, who served as head of the U.S. government’s diplomatic mission in Burma (at the ambassadorial level) during the Obama administration, told the station, “The sanctions that the U.S. government could consider include mainly military and economic means. I think they should be weighing these different options right now, and the primary target I think would be against the people directly responsible for this incident.”
The Biden Administration has been in power for just over a decade, and the coup in Burma appears to be its first official diplomatic test.
But the coup did not seem sudden. Last Tuesday (Jan. 26), Burmese military spokesman Zaw Min Tun again publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the results of last November’s parliamentary elections and threatened to use a military coup if election irregularities were not addressed.
Faced with the first signs of a coup, the U.S. mission in Burma joined thirteen other countries in issuing a joint statement last Friday urging the Burmese military to abide by democratic rules and oppose any attempt to change the outcome of the democratic elections.
The current situation suggests that the main reason for the military coup in Burma is the military’s dissatisfaction with the election results.
The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a big victory in the controversial election, winning a total of 396 of the 498 seats open for election in both houses of parliament. The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which represents the military forces, won only 33 seats, a further decline from the seats they won in the first democratic parliamentary elections in 2015.
Although the military still retains 25 percent of the seats in parliament under the current Myanmar constitution, the military immediately accused the election of fraud after the results were released, with a total of 8.6 million votes suspected of being incorrect or fraudulent, and demanded that the election commission declare the election invalid.
But the election commission argued that even if there might be errors in the ballots, they did not constitute widespread fraud. Conflicts between the two sides built up over the next three months, until a military coup broke out.
Myanmar’s Senior Minister of State Aung San Suu Kyi (left) and two military generals
Support from the West
In the wake of the coup, some public opinion suggested that the lack of Western support was responsible for Myanmar’s democratically elected government being so unstoppable.
During the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017, Aung San Suu Kyi, as the de facto ruler of Myanmar’s democratically elected government, supported the military’s repressive measures against the country’s ethnic Rohingya minority; and, during her past five years in power, Aung San Suu Kyi has not actively sought power space for the democratically elected government from the military, even as nearly 200 journalists and dissidents have been persecuted by the government under her administration.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized by Western governments and media for this. Aung San Suu Kyi’s title of “Ambassador of Conscience” was revoked by Amnesty International, followed by the removal of her name from the EU Sakharov Prize winners’ association, and even rumors that the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991 may be revoked.
Debra Eisenman, an expert on Burma at the Asia Society, a U.S. think tank, observes that while criticizing the authoritarian style displayed by Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, the West is still calling for support for Burma’s democratic forces.
But she also argues that the previous U.S. administration did not give enough support to Myanmar’s democratically elected government, and that “over the last four years, the U.S. seems to be moving away from the trajectory they left behind in Asia, and the foundation that was laid under the Obama administration, Trump has thrown away. This has led to a lot of authoritarian forces regaining power, and our own populist governments have left a vacuum for Asian democracy because of their internal problems.”
For his part, Midway analyzed that it is hard to put the blame on the U.S. for not providing enough support to Myanmar’s democratically elected government, “but it is true that during the Trump Administration, not enough attention was given to Myanmar, and that did cost us. We used to have a good relationship with Burma and we had the ability to move when the crisis was brewing to bring about better results through our government offices on the ground. I hope we can re-establish good communication with Myanmar, but it may be a bit difficult in this current situation.”
On Feb. 1, 2021, the Burmese military staged a coup and arrested top NLD and Burma’s current government officials, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
Another battleground in the U.S.-China rivalry
While the U.S. government issued a series of statements, Burma’s closest neighbor and longtime ally, the Chinese government, showed a cloudy posture toward the military coup in Burma.
At a regular press conference on Feb. 1, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “We have noticed what is happening in Myanmar and are learning more about the situation. China is a friendly neighbor of Myanmar, and we hope that all parties in Myanmar will properly handle their differences under the constitutional and legal framework and maintain political and social stability.”
But China’s intentions toward Myanmar are clearly not going to be as shallow as they appear. Last January, Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping made a historic visit to Myanmar; earlier this month, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the country again.
File photo of the meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Aung San Suu Kyi.
It is widely believed that China also maintains good relations with the Burmese military, and that China’s rising influence in Myanmar in recent years has raised alarm in the Western world.
An article in the U.S. magazine The Diplomat the previous year criticized the U.S. and its allies for their lack of interaction with Burma on all fronts, and that Chinese influence would be detrimental to Burma’s democracy.
Midway agreed that the Burma crisis could create an opportunity for Beijing, “China has never had a problem with the junta, they don’t care about democracy, they don’t care about what people say, they don’t care about the sovereignty of any country, they just care about protecting their own interests. When there’s a military government there, it’s not good for the West that’s competing with China, but China happens to fill the gap.”
He stressed that in Burma now, the more appropriate statement is not that the U.S. is competing with China for influence, but that China may increase their influence as a result.
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