<i>Obama's symbolic visit to Myanmar</i>
Photo: AFP
Fresh from his election win, President Barack Obama has become the first US president to visit Myanmar. The visit demonstrates Myanmar's political and commercial significance to the US at a time when the Obama administration has been shifting focus on Asia-Pacific region. Myanmar -a land mass as large as Britain and France combined with only 57 million population- shares borders with 40% percent of the world's population in India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand. Its ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea sit just north of the Malacca Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Myanmar is endowed with rich natural resources and the country's recent re-emergence onto the world stage and sweeping political progress may signal a larger, more important shift in Asian strategic and economic relations. The government of Myanmar has begun implementing economic, political and other reforms, a process the Obama administration sought to encourage. The process of normalisation of relations between the US and Myanmar has moved forward relatively swiftly, and it represents an opportunity for the US to have a greater stake in the region and so, at least partly counter the dominant influence of China. In response, the US has appointed a full ambassador to Myanmar. Last September, Myanmar's President Thein Sein's US visit, partly to speak at the UN General Assembly, the first by a Myanmar leader in 46 years, is the strongest sign yet of rapprochement between the two countriessomething that could help a superpower intent on boosting its political and economic muscle in a booming region. President Barack Obama rolled back gradually almost all sanctions to ease its import ban on goods from Myanmar, and waived a ban on US participation in providing development loans from international financial institutions like the World Bank. On November 2 , the World Bank earmarked $245 million in credit and grant funding for Myanmar under an 18-month work plan, the first lending in 25 years. The Bank also approved an $80 million grant for community-driven rural projects. A handful of US giants - including GE and Coca-Cola - already have returned to Myanmar. "Many of our competitors have been in that market for many years, so we are already late to the game," said John Goyer, senior director of Southeast Asia for the US Chamber of Commerce. In the longer term, a "military-to-military" partnership or dialogue is a definite possibility, according to US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. The move would see Myanmar's military to join as an observer in January 2013 to the annual US Cobra Gold drills, the largest multilateral exercise in the Asia-Pacific region. In a recent report, the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies called on the US government to "increase engagement with Myanmar's military … to provide training to a new generation of military officers in such areas as civilian-military relations, law of war, and transparency." Before the Myanmar President's visit to the US, Myanmar's Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while visiting the US in September, has reportedly said that her country's relations with the US will have "impact on its relations with China" to a certain degree. She, however, said that Myanmar's growing relationship with the US should not be seen as a "hostile step" towards China. The question is how a new politically and economically open Myanmar fits into the Asia-Pacific region in the context of the larger initiatives of the US towards China. Observers say the US's new effort at engagement with Myanmar is likely to inflame the unease of China. Myanmar could potentially serve as a counterweight to Chinese influence, acting as an economic bridge between India, Bangladesh and China. Moreover, could Myanmar's resurgence be a game changer for the rest of Asia, breaking the cultural, political and economic barriers between South Asia and South East Asia? Human rights groups have criticised President Obama's visit as premature, given that the ruling government has failed to prevent outbreaks of communal violence in the west of the country. Clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state have left about 140 people dead and more than 100,000 people - mostly members of the Muslim Rohingya minority - displaced. On October 30, Asean Secretary General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan reportedly proposed tripartite talks between Asean, UN and Myanmar government to prevent the violence from having a broader regional impact. But the Myanmar government turned down the proposal stating that it was an internal matter. Dr. Pitsuwan further reportedly warned that the bloodshed could leave the Rohingya minority "radicalized", and the entire region could be destabilized including the Malacca Straits, the vital shipping lane between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. Finally the visit of President Obama to Myanmar is highly symbolic in nature, and it underscores the fact that the 21st century would be the "Asian Century" and the Obama administration is fully aware of its implications in the region.
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