The Burmese military declared a state of emergency on Feb. 1, detaining several national leaders, lawmakers and civilian officials. Burma’s Senior Minister of State Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were formally charged on February 3 and could face several years in prison. Some U.S. scholars have suggested that the coup may have been tacitly approved and supported by Beijing, turning Burma into a pariah state and into a dictatorship; U.S. sanctions should target military leaders rather than isolate Burma as a whole.
The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won more than 80 percent of the vote in last November’s election, but the military, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has been questioning the validity of the election and eventually seized power on February 1, quickly taking control of Burma’s infrastructure, suspending most television broadcasts, and canceling domestic and international flights.
The U.S. Biden administration quickly defined the operation as a military coup and is reviewing aid to Burma and considering sanctions, while continuing humanitarian programs, including aid to the Rohingya.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), speaking in the full chamber, said it was “a military coup and an attack on democracy” and that the Chinese media’s language about a “cabinet reshuffle” was A joke.
McConnell: “Burma has two paths in front of it. It can continue to grow into a modern democracy that is in tune with the global economy, or it can continue to be a corrupt, impoverished dictatorship in the shadow of the People’s Republic of China. The Burmese people have already expressed their choice at the polls. The threat of force cannot be allowed to suppress their choice.”
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told a media briefing on Feb. 2 that the United States is on “daily calls” with allies such as Japan and India, but has no current contact with the Burmese military or the leader under house arrest. The official said he would not answer questions about Beijing’s role.
China, Russia Stall UN Security Council Action on Burma
Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesman for the German CDU and CSU parties in the Bundestag, told Deutsche Welle that the Chinese Communist Party‘s foreign minister’s meeting with Burmese military representatives in January may have encouraged a coup by the Burmese military and called for an EU investigation.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed claims that China had acquiesced to or supported the coup in Burma, calling it a “friendly neighbor” and hoping that all sides would “properly handle their differences under the constitutional and legal framework and maintain political and social stability.”
However, according to the Associated Press, the UN Security Council has prepared a draft statement on restoring democracy in Burma, but China and Russia are delaying the process.
Chinese Communist Party Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Min Aung Hlaing last month during a visit to the Burmese capital. In an article in Foreign Policy, Azeem Ibrahim, director of the U.S. Center for Global Policy, said the meeting may have been a key moment in deciding the coup in Burma, with Beijing perhaps unspokenly expressing its support in advance, “Xi’s regime would shift from supporting dictators in Central Asia and crushing Hong Kong‘s emerging democracy to actively overthrowing its neighbor’s young democracies.”
This speculation has not been investigated or confirmed. Ibrahim told the station that Burma is likely to end up being another stronghold for Beijing’s ideological confrontation with democracy, “Beijing wants to prove that the democratic model is fundamentally fraught, unstable and stupid, and that only a strong and centralized leadership can control Burma.”
At the same Time, however, the Burmese military has long maintained a cautious and distrustful attitude toward Chinese Communist infiltration. Similar to North Korea, Burma is an extremely closed country, Ibrahim said, and is very wary of the CCP’s economic colonization. Min Aung Hlaing will need to make difficult trade-offs or he will resign as commander-in-chief when he retires this July.
Anders Corr, publisher of Political Risk and director of Corr Analytics, told the station that if a coup can happen in Myanmar, it can happen anywhere. It could be part of Beijing’s strategic setup in Southeast Asia, a blow to global democracies.
“This coup would turn Burma into a pariah state (exile), more dependent on China from trade and investment and diplomacy, into its orbit and sphere of influence. This includes Cambodia, Laos, and even the Philippines, which are increasingly converging on China’s orbit and being encouraged to isolate themselves from the international community.”
Cole analyzed that economically sanctioning Myanmar would push it into the arms of China, which would help address the root causes of the problem; the U.S. could create a Military Corridor to help bring the Rohingya Home, deploy a peacekeeping force, or even join with allies to replace Min Aung Hlaing’s army with Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy force.
“No one thinks the U.S. is going to take military action on this. The U.S. needs to decide, are we going to sit back and do nothing about the subversion of democracy in Burma? Ignore the genocide of the Rohingya? Or do we continue to do business with China? This will be a marker signal of whether Beijing will win dividends from its own rampage.”
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping meets with Myanmar Defense Forces chief Min Aung Hlaing in Nay Pyi Taw on Jan. 18, 2020
China-Myanmar Community of Destiny: from Uighurs to Rohingyas
In recent years, China has gained increasing weight in Myanmar’s economy and foreign policy as U.S. influence in Asia has waned and Western sanctions have been imposed. In addition to cooperation in trade, weaponry and infrastructure development, ethnic strife in Myanmar has also relied on China’s intervention in mediation.
In 2017, China’s Communist Party defended Myanmar from accusations by U.N. officials that its military was “ethnically cleansing” the Rohingya population by citing arguments about avoiding “interference” in the internal affairs of other countries.
Olivia Enos, senior analyst for Asian security policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the station that the role of the Chinese Communist Party remains to be seen, given the complex power dynamics of the leadership before the coup and the 2008 Constitution that gave the military the power to take over the country and veto constitutional amendments.
“We don’t yet know the role of the CCP in the coup, or whether it intervened. Whatever form of government Burma has, the Chinese Communist Party will find a way to work with it. And the U.S. needs to be on the side of preserving freedom and standing with the Burmese people who can’t speak out.” Enos said. “My biggest concern is that the Chinese Communist Party will later export surveillance equipment from Xinjiang to Burma and its own authoritarian model.”
U.S. May Reinstate Targeted Sanctions Against Burma
In 2016, former U.S. President Barack Obama met with Aung San Suu Kyi and announced plans to lift some sanctions on Burma. since 2012, the U.S. has donated $1.5 billion to Burma to support its democratic transition, internal peace and violence-affected communities.
According to Olivia Enos, “The Obama administration’s easing of sanctions in the expectation of giving Aung San Suu Kyi more space for democratic reform and driving a fundamental transformation in Burma has fallen flat. We need more strategic, targeted sanctions that target specific elements of the military, not target Burma and isolate it.”
She recommended that the U.S. declare a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and revive the Stop Anti-Democratic Practices by Burmese Military Groups Act (JADE); sanction military-linked companies, including Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) and sister company Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), under the Magnitsky Act, Specially Designated Nationals List (SND), etc. The Myanmar Army’s August 2017 massacre of Rohingya was recognized as “genocide” and P-2 refugee status was extended to survivors, among other things.
On February 3, the G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as senior representatives of the European Union, unanimously condemned the military coup in Myanmar and called on the military to lift the state of emergency and allow outside humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable.
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