Alan MACLEOD

Australia’s 18 million Facebook users woke up yesterday to find that, without warning, local and global news sites were unavailable, meaning that they could not view or share news at all. Facebook users across the world were also unable to read or access any Australian news publications. The tech giant had taken the step of essentially shutting down its site and “unfriending” an entire nation in response to the government’s proposals to tax them.

Lawmakers in Canberra had drawn up plans to “level the playing field” between social media giants and the traditional press. In practice, this would mean Facebook and Google handing over a sizable chunk of their advertising profits to the government to subsidize struggling news outlets, on whom they depend for content.

In choosing the nuclear option, Facebook appears to have hoped to trigger a public outcry that would force the government into a U-turn. However, it seems to have miscalculated, as the action drew widespread condemnation, even from human rights groups. Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch’s Australia Director condemned the company for “severely restricting the flow of information to Australians,” not just for news, but also information on government health and emergency services. “This is an alarming and dangerous turn of events,” she concluded.

“It is extremely concerning that a private company is willing to control access to information that people rely on. Facebook’s action starkly demonstrates why allowing one company to exert such dominant power over our information ecosystem threatens human rights,” said Tim O’Connor of Amnesty International Australia. “Facebook’s willingness to block credible news sources also stands in sharp distinction to the company’s poor track record in addressing the spread of hateful content and disinformation on the platform,” he added.

Myanmar: digital accessory to a genocide

One particularly shocking example of Facebook’s complicity in spreading hate is in Myanmar, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been killed and more than 700,000 have fled to neighboring countries.

A United Nations human rights investigation found that the platform, which is virtually ubiquitous in Myanmar, had been used to spread fake news about Muslim atrocities in order to spark a genocide. “I’m afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended,” said UN investigator Yanghee Lee.

Facebook admitted that played a role in the violence. However, it resisted calls for it to suspend its service inside the country. “Facebook does a good deal of good — connecting people with friends and family, helping small businesses, surfacing informative content. If we turn it off we lose all of that,” said a company executive.

Facebook when its platform is a driving force for genocide vs Facebook when it faces possible regulation pic.twitter.com/XrA8uHzuDY

— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) February 17, 2021

In 2018, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said that he felt “fundamentally uncomfortable sitting here in California at an office, making content policy decisions for people around the world.” This discomfort apparently disappeared when the company’s bottom line was threatened with regulation.

A media behemoth

Facebook can certainly afford to pay a levy to help journalism. The Silicon Valley giant recently announced it had taken in over $84 billion in advertising revenue in 2020 (a 21% increase from 2019) and posted a spectacular total post-tax profit of $29 billion. 71% of Australians use the company’s services, making it by far the most widely used social media platform in the country, ahead of YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp respectively.

Unlike traditional media, Facebook and Google do not produce any reporting of their own, nor do they employ any journalists. Together, the two companies bear significant responsibility for the decline of journalism across the developed world, as advertisers have ditched the traditional press in favor of targeted advertising offered online. Together, the two companies account for over three-quarters of all online advertising revenue in Australia. Facebook’s marketplace has also largely made small advertising — a key source of income for print media — obsolete. From a high of over $49 billion in 2006, advertising revenue for U.S. newspapers has decreased by over two-thirds, with a corresponding drop in the number of journalists employed. It is clear that, if old media is to be saved, something must be done. Whether this is the solution is up for debate.

Behind closed doors, Google has already signed a number of deals with Australian outlets, promising to cut them in on their advertising revenue. Facebook, however, has chosen to up the ante, participating in a direct standoff against the Australian government. Other nations, such as Canada, are already promising to give the social media giants the Australia treatment, meaning that the outcome of the conflict will likely have global repercussions for the future of the press and of social media.

Perhaps this explains why Facebook was comparatively uninterested in shutting itself down to stop a genocide in Myanmar but chose the nuclear option when it came to government regulation of its business model.

mintpressnews.com

The (jade) elephant in the elaborate room housing the military coup in Myanmar had to be – what else – China. And the Tatmadaw – the Myanmar Armed Forces – knows it better than anyone.

There’s no smoking gun, of course, but it’s virtually impossible that Beijing had not been at least informed, or “consulted”, by the Tatmadaw on the new dispensation.

China, Myanmar’s top trade partner, is guided by three crucial strategic imperatives in the relationship with its southern neighbor: trade/connectivity via a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) corridor; full access to energy and minerals; and the necessity of cultivating a key ally within the 10-member ASEAN.

The BRI corridor between Kunming, in China’s Yunnan province, via Mandalay, to the port of Kyaukphyu in the Gulf of Bengal is the jewel in the New Silk Road crown, because it combines China’s strategic access to the Indian Ocean, bypassing the Strait of Malacca, with secured energy flows via a combined oil and gas pipeline. This corridor clearly shows the centrality of Pipelineistan in the evolution of the New Silk Roads.

None of that will change, whoever runs the politico-economic show in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Aung San Suu Kyi, locally known as Amay Suu (“Mother Suu”) were discussing the China-Myanmar economic corridor only three weeks before the coup. Beijing and Naypyidaw have clinched no less than 33 economic deals only in 2020.

We just want “eternal peace”

Something quite extraordinary happened earlier this week in Bangkok. A cross-section of the vast Myanmar diaspora in Thailand – which had been ballooning since the 1990s – met in front of the UN’s Asia-Pacific office.

They were asking for the international reaction to the coup to ignore the inevitable, incoming U.S. sanctions. Their argument: sanctions paralyze the work of citizen entrepreneurs, while keeping in place a patronage system that favors the Tatmadaw and deepens the influence of Beijing at the highest levels.

Yet this is not all about China. The Tatmadaw coup is an eminently domestic affair – which involved resorting to the same old school, CIA-style method that installed them as a harsh military dictatorship way back in 1962.

Elections this past November reconfirmed Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the NLD, in power by 83% of the votes. The pro-army party, the USDP, cried foul, blaming massive electoral fraud and insisting on a recount, which was refused by Parliament.

So the Tatmadaw invoked article 147 of the constitution, which authorizes a military takeover in case of a confirmed threat to sovereignty and national solidarity, or capable of “disintegrating the Union”.

The 2008 constitution was drawn by – who else – the Tatmadaw. They control the crucial Interior, Defense and Border ministries, as well as 25% of the seats in Parliament, which allows them veto power on any constitutional changes.

The military takeover involves the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. A year long state of emergency is in effect. New elections will happen when order and “eternal peace” will be restored.

The man in charge is Army chief Min Aung Hlaing, quite flush after years overseeing juicy deals conducted by Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (MEHL). He also oversaw the hardcore response to the 2007 Saffron revolution – which did express legitimate grievances but was also largely co-opted as a by-the-book U.S. color revolution.

More worryingly, Min Aung Hlaing also deployed wasteland tactics against the Karen and Rohingya ethnic groups. He notoriously described the Rohingya operation as “the unfinished work of the Bengali problem”. Muslims in Myanmar are routinely debased by members of the Bamar ethnic majority as “Bengali”.

No raised ASEAN eyebrows

Life for the overwhelming majority of the Myanmar diaspora in Thailand can be very harsh. Roughly half dwell in the construction business, the textile industry and tourism. The other half does not hold a valid work permit – and lives in perpetual fear.

To complicate matters, late last year the de facto military government in Thailand went on a culpability overdrive, blaming them for crossing borders without undertaking quarantine and thus causing a second wave of Covid-19.

Thai unions, correctly, pointed to the real culprits: smuggling networks protected by the Thai military, which bypass the extremely complicated process of legalizing migrant workers while shielding employers who infringe labor laws.

In parallel, part of the – legalized – Myanmar diaspora is being enticed to join the so-called MilkTeaAlliance – which congregates Thais, Taiwanese and Hong Kongers, and lately Laotians and Filipinos as well – against, who else, China, and to a lesser extent, the Thai military government.

ASEAN won’t raise eyebrows against the Tatmadaw. ASEAN’s official policy remains non-interference in the domestic affairs of its 10 members. Bangkok – where, incidentally, the military junta took power in 2014 – has shown Olympic detachment.

In 2021, Myanmar happens to be coordinating nothing less than the China-ASEAN dialogue mechanism, as well as presiding over the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation – which discusses all crucial Mekong matters.

The mighty river, from the Tibetan plateau to the South China Sea, could not be more geo-economically strategic. China is severely criticized for the building of dozens of dams, which reduce direct water flows and cause serious imbalances to regional economies.

Myanmar is also coordinating a supremely sensitive geopolitical issue: the interminable negotiations to establish the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, which pit China against Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei and non-ASEAN Taiwan.

The Tatmadaw does not seem to be losing sleep over post-coup business problems. Erik Prince, former Blackwater honcho and now the head of Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group (FSG) – financed, among others, by powerful Chinese conglomerate Citic – is about to hit Naypyidaw to “securitize” local companies.

A juicier dossier involves what’s going to happen with the drug trade: arguably Tatmadaw getting a bigger piece of the pie. Cartels in Kachin state, in the north, export opium to China’s Yunnan province to the east, and India to the west. Shan state cartels are even more sophisticated: they export via Yunnan to Laos and Vietnam to the east, and also to India to the northwest.

And then there’s a gray area where no one really knows what’s going on: the weapons highway between China and India that runs through Kachin state – where we also find Lisu and Lahu ethnic groups.

The dizzying ethnic tapestry

The Myanmar electoral commission is a very tricky business, to say the least. They are designated by the Executive, and had to face a lot of criticism – internal, not international – for their censorship of opposition parties in the November elections.

The end result privileged the NLD, whose support is negligible in all border regions. Myanmar’s majority ethnic group – and the NLD’s electoral base – is the Bamar, Buddhist and concentrated in the central part of the country.

The NLD frankly does not care about the 135 ethnic minorities – which represent at least one third of the general population. It’s been a long way down since Suu Kyi came to power, when the NLD actually enjoyed a lot of support. Suu Kyi’s international high profile is essentially due to the power of the Clinton machine.

If you talk to a Mon or a Karen, he or she will tell you they had to learn the hard way how much of an intolerant autocrat is the real Suu Kyi. She promised there would be peace in the border regions – eternally mired in a fight between the Tatmadaw and autonomous movements. She could not possibly deliver because she had no power whatsoever over the military.

Without any consultation, the electoral commission decided to cancel voting, totally or partially, in 56 cantons of Arakan state, Shan state, Karen state, Mon state and Kachin state, all of them ethnic minorities. Nearly 1.5 million people were deprived of voting.

There were no elections, for instance, in the majority of Arakan state; the electoral commission invoked “security reasons”. The reality is the Tatmadaw is in a bitter fight against the Arakan Army, which want self-determination.

Needless to add, the Rohingyas – which live in Arakan – were not allowed to vote. Nearly 600,000 of them still barely survive in camps and closed villages in Arakan.

In the 1990s, I visited Shan state, which borders China’s strategic Yunnan province to the east. Nothing much changed over two decades: the guerrilla has to fight the Tatmadaw because they clearly see how the army and their business cronies are obsessed to capture the region’s lavish natural resources.

I traveled extensively in Myanmar in the second part of the 1990s – before being blacklisted by the military junta, like virtually every journalist and analyst working in Southeast Asia. Ten years ago, photojournalist Jason Florio, with whom I’ve been everywhere from Afghanistan to Cambodia, managed to be sneaked into Karen rebel territory, where he shot some outstanding pictures.

In Kachin state, rival parties in the 2015 elections this time tried to pool their efforts. But in the end they were badly bruised: the electoral mechanism – one round only – favored the winning party, Suu Kyi’s NLD.

Beijing does not interfere in the dizzyingly complex Myanmar ethnic maze. But questions remain over the murky support for Chinese who live in Kachin state in northern Myanmar: it’s possible they may be used as leverage in negotiations with the Tatmadaw.

The basic fact is the guerrillas won’t go away. The top two are the Kachin Independence Army and the United Wa State Army (Shan). But then there’s the Arakan Liberation Army, the China National Army, the Karenni Army (Kayah), the Karen National Defense Organization and the Karen National Liberation, and the Mon National Liberation Army.

What this weaponized tapestry boils down to, in the long run, is a tremendously (Dis)United Myanmar, bolstering the Tatmadaw’s claim that no other mechanism is capable of guaranteeing unity. It doesn’t hurt that “unity” comes with the extra perks of controlling crucial sectors such as minerals, finance and telecom.

It will be fascinating to watch how the (Dis)United Imperial States will deal with post-coup Myanmar as part of their 24/7 “containment of China” frenzy. The Tatmadaw are not exactly trembling in their boots.

The US State Department slammed the move, claiming that weapon sales to that country were inappropriate because of the Rohingya crisis. According to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, the deal would add fuel to Myanmar’s internal conflict. It should be noted that she said nothing about US shipments of lethal weapons to Ukraine. Nor did she mention the fact that the Rohingya rebels are just one of many armed insurgent groups operating in Myanmar, although it is the only one the US government is worried about.

Bill Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and the ex-governor of New Mexico, has just resigned from an international advisory panel on the Rohingya refugee crisis. According to him, it is a "whitewash and a cheerleading operation" for Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he blames for the fallout from her military's operations against the Rohingya rebels."

That conflict has nothing to do with Russia and Moscow has not taken sides, but the US State Department will seize upon anything as a pretext for attacking Russia and painting it as an “evil empire.” One does not have to be an expert on defense issues to see that the Su-30 fighter jet is not designed for fighting rebels. Its primary mission is delivering high precision strikes against naval targets. It is also effective against any high-value ground assets an enemy might have. In a nutshell, it is an aircraft for a big war against a sophisticated enemy. The Myanmar military has US-made F-16s to use for guerilla warfare purposes. When Washington was selling F-16s to the Myanmar government, it did not care one bit about the fact that that US-made aircraft could be used against rebels.

The US military has  disliked the Su-30 ever since the Indian Su-30MKI version outperformed US F-15C Eagles in 2004 and 2005. In any comparison, the Su-30MKI dominates the US-made F-16. In 2015, the Su-30 MKI outmaneuvered the UK Typhoon during training exercises. Myanmar is a lucrative market for arms exports. The US views Moscow as a competitor. Moscow and Naypyidaw were working together militarily as far back as the 1990s. Myanmar has purchased Russian MiG-29 fighter planes, Yak-130 combat jet trainers, Mi-17, Mi-24, and Mi-35 combat helicopters. Russia is their biggest supplier of surface-to-air missiles.

US-made weapons are used to kill civilians in Yemen. American arms have also managed to find their way into the hands of Syrian rebels. The Islamic State has used American weapons in Iraq and Syria. Washington sells weapons to more than 100 countries and many of those are authoritarian regimes. Recently, US weapons were used by Shi'ite Muslim militias against the Kurds, America’s allies, in Iraq.

Russia is the second–largest arms exporter in the world and it is strengthening its position at breakneck speed. It is busily inking lucrative contracts with America’s traditional partners in the Middle East. Russia has a global edge in air-defense systems. Its latest S-400 is a huge success, with ongoing deliveries to China and a signed contract with Turkey. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are just two more potential customers currently negotiating terms. Russia owes its success to the fact that its defense industry is able to offer the highest quality at an acceptable price. Washington is ready to go to any length to buck that trend.

Washington also relies on this same policy in other parts of the world.. The US has resorted to openly pressuring Europeans buy its gas, which is more expensive than what Russia can provide. Nor does it shy away from using any methods it can find to promote its foreign-policy objectives. Now that Washington sees Russia as a competitor that can withstand pressure and pursue its own independent foreign policy, it is blamed for anything that goes wrong in the world. And so, once again the pot is calling the kettle black.

Two speeches by two leaders made headlines this week – one by US President Donald Trump, the other by Myanmar’s head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi.

No two leaders could be so unlike each other. Trump is a widely ridiculed figure in the international community, which mocks him for being, variously, pompous, boorish and sometimes just plain ignorant. Sui Kyi, a Nobel laureate, is a fallen angel caught up in the maelstrom of her silence over the attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, on August 25 , and the ensuing military response, which has forced over 410,000 displaced people to flee to Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi probably faces the greater challenge insofar as she has, lately, been vilified for not being the Mother Teresa figure the world had come to expect. Trump is rather better placed, because he stands on ground zero: his reputation can only go up.

What impressions did their speeches leave behind?

Trump began his by boasting about the US military being “the strongest it has ever been,” thanks to the US$700 billion he has added to its budget. He went on to assert the US’ prerogative of imposing its values on other countries. Specifically, he threatened North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, and to blackmail the United Nations by warning that he may withhold funding unless the organization served American interests better.

Far from resenting the intrusive and highly provocative role of outsiders, Suu Kyi welcomed a constructive engagement with the international community in the period ahead

Trump spoke in Manichean terms, breaking everything down into “good” or “evil.” His signal message was that thanks to his “America First” strategy the US has regenerated itself in economic and military terms and intends to reclaim global hegemony.

Trump must be delusional if he really believes the US can attack North Korea – or Iran – and achieve anything more than a Pyhrric victory. But Trump is a businessman and the paramountcy of deal-making is never lost on him.

A sure sign of this was the complete absence of any derogatory reference to Russia or China in his entire speech. Moscow and Beijing must be quietly chuckling to themselves that this clever fixer is counting on them to salvage his reputation. Welcome to the “multipolar” world.

Constructive engagement

Suu Kyi’s speech, on the other hand, offered a study in moderation, restraint and reconciliation. She didn’t exude any “exceptionalism” but instead sought in all humility the understanding of the world community for her country’s deficiencies.

Sui Kyi’s purpose was not to apportion blame. She acknowledged the “allegations and counter-allegations” but pragmatically reserved judgment.

Security operations against the militants enjoy massive popular support within Myanmar, but a large section of the Rohingya community in Rakhine state has been unaffected by the violence.

Suu Kyi called attention to the pervasiveness of ethnic divides in her country. She could have taken the easy route by putting all the blame on the “foreign hand” or “Islamist extremism,” or struck a nationalist chord. But she chose to be introspective. She squarely placed recent developments within the context of Myanmar’s political economy and related them to three core challenges that her government faces – democratic transition, peace and stability, and development. And she candidly admitted that Myanmar is an “imperfect democracy.”

The salience of Suu Kyi’s speech hinged on three inter-related planes. First and foremost, she pledged to implement the recommendations made by a commission headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Secondly, she spoke of a strategy with a “definite timeline” for conducting “citizenship verification.” In particular, she called for a speeding up of the process of refugees returning from Bangladesh according to norms previously agreed between the two countries.

Thirdly, and importantly, far from resenting the intrusive and highly provocative role of outsiders, Suu Kyi welcomed a constructive engagement with the international community in the period ahead.

Repellent, even to well-wishers

Trump should study Suu Kyi’s speech to get a better understanding of the realities of developing countries. The two speeches reveal contrasting visions of today’s world. Is shared self-interest the sole basis of cooperation, as Trump implied?  Can international life be reduced to threats to US hegemony?

There is a whole world out there beyond America’s shores with myriad problems – stemming from poverty, disease, ignorance, terrorism, climate change, and so on. It takes an erudite mind to comprehend such problems, let alone prescribe solutions.

Suu Kyi didn’t use the word “global governance,” but she sought help from the UN to navigate issues arising from imperfect nationhood following five decades of authoritarian rule. It is inconceivable that Trump would seek help from the UN to address the deep-rooted disease of racial prejudice and violence that wracks American society.

Trump uses the language of threat and blackmail – “rocket man” (Kim Jong Un); “rogue nations”; “scourge of our planet”. He is unforgiving, essentially because countries such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela do not follow America’s lead. He vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea.

Such self-righteousness doesn’t win friends. It repels even well-wishers, especially when coming from someone whose sole contribution in power for nine months has been to exacerbate uncertainties in the international situation through a steady stream of contradictory bombastic tweets.

Suu Kyi made a crucial pledge of reconciliation. The least Trump can do is to desist from tearing up more international accords, negotiated in a spirit of consensus, that jar against his megalomaniacal world-view.

atimes.com

Few people have ever heard of Myanmar’s Rohingya people.  Not many more could find Myanmar on a map – particularly after its name was changed some years ago from Burma to Myanmar.

The exception is Burma’s sainted lady leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who became a worldwide celebrity and Nobel Prize winner.  The media loved her, a sort of Burmese Joan of Arc versus its brutal military junta.

But now, tragically, the Rohingya are headline news thanks to Myanmar’s brutal ethnic cleansing of one of the world’s most abused, downtrodden people.

Almost as revolting is the world’s failure to take any action to rescue the Rohingya from murder, rape, arson and ethnic terrorism.  In recent weeks, over 270,000 Rakhines have been driven from their homes in Rakhine State in western Myanmar and now cower in makeshift refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh in the midst of monsoon season.

Rohingya have lived for centuries in Burma/Myanmar.  Some of their ancestors may have been brought as coolies or indentured laborers from neighboring East Bengal (today Bangladesh) by the British rulers of the region.  Once again, the British Empire was behind yet another world problem.

Burma is a hodgepodge of peoples and ethnicities.  The largest, about 60%, are Buddhist Burmans, but there are many other important groups like Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon and Shan.  About two million Burmese are Muslim Rohingya from Arakan state.  They have been savagely persecuted, denied education, health care and even food.  Rohingya women are routinely raped.  Those who fled to wretched Bangladesh – surely the last place on earth one would want to seek refuge – have been starved, herded into camps and fall victim to human traffickers or become stateless boat people.

Myanmar denies that its two million Rohingyas are Burmese citizens.  Bangladesh also denies them citizenship.  The Rohingyas are the world’s most unwanted people – and through no fault of their own.

Burma wants an ethnically pure state, though its border regions are filled with rebellious Thai and ethnic Chinese minorities.

I covered some of the wars waged by the central government against regional separatists that have flared on and off since 1945.  To me, Burma/Myanmar is a sort of Asian Yugoslavia, filled with inimical peoples seeking independence.

What about the sainted Aung San Suu Kyi?  She, shamefully, has mutely watched the ethnic cleansing and atrocities.   This so-called champion of human rights has not made a peep because she shares power with the powerful Burmese army which is conducting the anti-Muslim pogroms.  And she fears losing popularity with majority Burmans.

The official Burmese line is that the current violence was caused by Rohingyas attacking army posts.  This is a lie.  Burma has been persecuting and trying to expel Rohingyas for decades.  Few saw and none cared.

Particularly not the three nations that could provide significant help:  China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.  China is trying to crush Muslim peoples in its western regions and is thus in no mood to help.  Pakistan can’t mount a long-range operation.  Saudi Arabia, the self-styled ‘Defender of Islam’ –its claim to legitimacy – is too busy massacring Yemeni civilians with US and British help to give a hoot about the Rohingyas.

The true Koranic meaning of ‘jihad’ means going to the aid of fellow Muslims who are being persecuted because of their faith.  We can think of few better examples than the horrors in Myanmar where mobs, led by fanatical anti-Muslim Buddhist priests (in contravention of everything that this marvelous faith holds dear) are murdering Muslims and raping their women.

The Saudis averted their eyes when the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo were being savaged by Serb fanatics. Now, the ‘defenders of Islam’ are doing it again.  They could provide food, money, shelter, even troops to help protect the Rohingyas.  Two important Muslim majority states, Turkey and Malaysia, have spoken out and warned Burma/Myanmar to halt its persecution.  Turkey’s mighty armed forces could do much to stop the rapine and murder.  President Recep Erdogan of Turkey is clearly out of patience with Burma’s thuggish government.

Suu Kyi should have her Nobel Prize revoked.  The world must demand that Burma’s military and police immediately cease their ethnic cleansing of Muslims.

The crimes being committed in Myanmar, a beautiful country to which I am very attached, are an affront to the entire world and a massive crime without any possible justification.

Madame Suu Kyi, I once risked prison in Ragoon to go visit you.  I wish I hadn’t.  Go hide your head in shame.

ericmargolis.com

At issue at the moment are the Rohingya, approximately one million of whom constitute a large minority in Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state in Myanmar (formerly Burma). According to reports in the prestige media and from (government-funded) human rights groups, Myanmar’s government is oppressing the Rohingya, many of whom have fled next door into predominantly Muslim Bangladesh.

We are told that the Rohingya, «often described as ‘the world's most persecuted minority’» at the hands of Rakhine Buddhists incited by fanatical monks backed up by the national government, are facing genocide and ethnic cleansing. The international community must do something! Where’s Samantha «the Genocide Chick» Power when we need her?

If all this sounds familiar, it is. Almost word-for-word the foregoing could describe the western official and media narrative of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija in the late 1990s. Just replace «Rohingya Muslims» with «Albanian Muslims», «Rakhine» with «Serb», «Theravada Buddhist» with «Orthodox Christian».

Of course the Kosovo official narrative was, and remains, almost a total perversion of the truth. In the late 1990s, western intelligence services and their friends in the Islamic world, notably Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Turkey, as well as al-Qaeda-linked Islamic «charities», pumped weapons into Kosovo to support armed terrorist groups known as the «Kosovo Liberation Army» (KLA). Headed by kingpins in the Albanian mafia, the KLA attacked Serbian officials and civilians, as well as murdered insufficiently militant Albanians, in a bid to invite a government crackdown which would serve as a pretext for intervention by the international community, meaning the U.S. and NATO, to stop a fictional Serbian genocide of Albanians. As I noted in an August 1998 U.S. Senate report months before supposed massacre that «justified» the NATO attack on Serbia, military action had already been decided upon and awaited only a suitable «trigger»:

«As of this writing, planning for a U.S.-led NATO intervention in Kosovo is now largely in place, while the Clinton Administration's apparent willingness to intervene has ebbed and flowed on an almost weekly basis. The only missing element appears to be an event – with suitably vivid media coverage – that would make intervention politically salable, even imperative, in the same way that a dithering Administration finally decided on intervention in Bosnia in 1995 after a series of ‘Serb mortar attacks’ took the lives of dozens of civilians – attacks, which, upon closer examination, may in fact have been the work of the Muslim regime in Sarajevo, the main beneficiary of the intervention. [For details, primarily reports from European media, see RPC’s ‘Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base,’ 1/16/97] That the Administration is waiting for a similar ‘trigger’ in Kosovo is increasingly obvious: ‘A senior U.S. Defense Department official who briefed reporters on July 15 noted that «we’re not anywhere near making a decision for any kind of armed intervention in Kosovo right now». He listed only one thing that might trigger a policy change: «I think if some levels of atrocities were reached that would be intolerable, that would probably be a trigger»’ [Washington Post, 8/4/98]. The recent conflicting reports regarding a purported mass grave containing (depending on the report) hundreds of murdered Albanian civilians or dozens of KLA fighters killed in battle should be seen in this light». [from ‘Bosnia II: The Clinton Administration Sets Course for NATO Intervention in Kosovo,’ August 1998]

To note the similarities between official and media about the Rohingya in 2017 and «Kosovars» in 1998-99 is not to say that armed outside intervention against Myanmar is imminent or even in the cards. Nor does it disprove the claim that the Rohingya, or some of them, may indeed be suffering persecution. It is only to suggest that when the usual manipulators in the media and the self-appointed international community get on their genocide high horse, caution is in order. It needs to be asked, what is the other side of the story?

For example, as analyzed by Moon of Alabama:

«Media attention is directed to some minor ethnic violence in Myanmar, the former Burma. The story in the ‘western’ press is of Muslim Rohingya unfairly vilified, chased out and killed by Buddhist mobs and the army in the state of Rakhine near the border to Bangladesh. The ‘liberal’ human interventionists like Human Rights Watch are united with Islamists like Turkey’s President Erdogan in loudly lamenting the plight of the Rohingya.

«That curious alliance also occurred during the wars on Libya and Syria. [JGJ: And in Kosovo.] It is by now a warning sign. Could there be more behind this than some local conflict in Myanmar? Is someone stoking a fire?

«Indeed.

«While the ethnic conflict in Rakhine state is very old, it has over the last years morphed into a Jihadist guerilla war financed and led from Saudi Arabia. The area is of geo-strategic interest:

‘Rakhine plays an important part in [the Chinese One Belt One Road Initiative] OBOR, as it is an exit to Indian Ocean and the location of planned billion-dollar Chinese projects—a planned economic zone on Ramree Island, and the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port, which has oil and natural gas pipelines linked with Yunnan Province’s Kunming.’

«Pipelines from the western coast of Myanmar eastwards to China allow hydrocarbon imports from the Persian Gulf to China while avoiding the bottleneck of the Strait of Malacca and disputed parts of the South China Sea.

«It is in ‘Western interest’ to hinder China's projects in Myanmar. Inciting Jihad in Rakhine could help to achieve that. … A clearly Islamist insurgency was build up in the area. It acts under the name Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and is led by Ataullah abu Ammar Junjuni, a Jihadist from Pakistan. (ARSA earlier operated under the name Harakah al-Yakin, or Faith Movement.) Ataullah was born into the large Rohingya community of Karachi, Pakistan. … Reuters noted in late 2016 that the Jihadist group is trained, led and financed through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia:

‘A group of Rohingya Muslims that attacked Myanmar border guards in October is headed by people with links to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on Thursday, citing members of the group. … «Though not confirmed, there are indications [Ataullah] went to Pakistan and possibly elsewhere, and that he received practical training in modern guerrilla warfare», the group said. It noted that Ata Ullah was one of 20 Rohingya from Saudi Arabia leading the group’s operations in Rakhine State. Separately, a committee of 20 senior Rohingya emigres oversees the group, which has headquarters in Mecca, the ICG said.’

«The ARSA Jihadists claim to only attack government forces but civilian Arakanese Buddhists have also been ambushed and massacred. Buddhist hamlets were also burned down». 

Finally, it needs to be noted that showing sympathy for Muslim victims, real or fake, has several attractions for western governments and media:

• It pleases western elites’ friends in Riyadh, Ankara, Islamabad, etc., to see effete post-Christians take the Muslim side in a way none of them would ever stick up for Christians. How nice to see how weak, corrupt, and cowardly the unbelievers are! (How many protests did we hear from our Saudi, Turkish, Pakistani, and other supposed friends about the suffering of Christians in Syria and Iraq at the hands of al-Qaeda and Daesh? For that matter, how much did we hear about it from western governments? When have western governments and media ever demanded that the so-called international community «do something» to save a non-Muslim population – anywhere?)

• It allows western elites to scrub away the suspicion that somewhere, somehow any hint of concern about Islamic terrorism or Muslim mass migration into Europe is evidence of «racism» and «Islamophobia». Championing persecuted Muslims like the Rohingya and Kosovo Albanians shows the west harbors no such biases.

• Perhaps most importantly, standing up for allegedly persecuted Muslim minorities allows western governments and media to deflect any blame for the hundreds of thousands – in all likelihood millions – of Muslims killed in the process of «democracy promotion» in majority Muslim countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and other places, or the many more who would be killed in the process of «bringing freedom» to Iran. Sure, many non-Muslims have also been killed in these noble humanitarian efforts, but their deaths are not politically actionable – no government or terrorist movement will threaten retribution.

The undivided NSCN, led by the ‘triadic’ leadership of SS (Shangwang Shangyung) Khaplang, Isak Chisu Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah was set up on January 31 1980 to fight uncompromisingly for “securing the independence of the contiguous Naga-inhabited regions of India and Myanmar.” The Indian and Myanmar Naga territories were thus brought under a single leadership for the first time.

In 1997, Isak and Muivah (NSCN-IM) opted for ceasefire and negotiations with India within the four corners of the Indian Constitution. Though the Naga movement was indivisible between India and Myanmar with the Nagas of both countries facing similar problems in contiguous areas, Khaplang was sought to be excluded from the negotiations under pressure from the NSCN-IM on the argument was that Isak and Muivah were Indian Nagas while Khaplang was a Myanmar national. The argument defied the fact that Naga social and political life in India and Myanmar cut across international boundaries and that the leadership too was for all practical purposes transnational. This “divide and rule” approach was useful for the Indian authorities since they could avoid discussion of the tougher issue of sovereignty that Khaplang held primary.

On March 27 2015, Khaplang scrapped the tactical ceasefire agreement that he had earlier had with India and resumed violent actions in India’s northeast. He also brought into existence the new political instrument of struggle, the UNLFWSEA, whose militants carried out the devastating June 4 attack on the Indian army convoy in the Chandel district of Manipur. The attack constituted a powerful demonstration of the ability of Khaplang to upset the secret negotiations between India and the NSCN-IM for the resolution of the festering Naga insurgency.

The social and political background of SS Khaplang was brought out by Bertil Lintner in his “Great Game East: India, China and the Struggle for Asia’ s Most volatile Frontier,” 2012. This is carried forward by Rajeev Bhattacharyya in his “Rendezvous with Rebels, 2014,” a book which calls for separate treatment. The life and work of Khaplang in India and Myanmar and his complicated relationship of cooperation and conflict with his comrades Isak Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah are indeed the stuff of a fascinating drama.

Khaplang was born in 1940 and was baptised in 1955. He went to the Baptist school in Myitkyina in Myanmar. He is said to have spent his early life in Margherita in Assam. No political movement could emerge among Myanmar Nagas till the mid-1960s, given low literacy and absence of a common religion such as Christianity.

Inspired by Kachin rebels, Khaplang and a few other Nagas set up the Naga Defence Force (NDF) in 1964. In 1968, he became leader of the Eastern Naga Revolutionary Council (ENRC). He was then 28 and was reasonably educated. The Naga National Council (NNC) mission to China in the late 1960s led to closer relationship between Khaplang and the Naga leadership from the Indian side of the Myanmar border.

In 1972, ENRC became the Eastern Naga National Council (ENNC) emphasising a new partnership between Indian and Myanmar Nagas. After the Shillong peace accord of 1975, the Indian Naga militants who opposed it, led by Swu and Muivah, were being hunted by the Indian security forces. They needed the support and sanctuary provided by the Khaplang and the Myanmar Nagas who fully cooperated in the setting up of sanctuaries. After a fierce struggle supported by Khaplang, Swu and Muivah established their presence in the then “Burmese” Naga Hills. Khaplang became the vice chairman of the NSCN when it was set up in 1980.

The “Burmese” Naga Hills, a wild and untamed area, came to be called “Eastern Nagaland.” In 1988, Khaplang broke with Swu and Muivah because of ideological differences and the brutality NSCN practised against the less advanced Eastern Nagas. He attacked NSCN headquarters fiercely. Swu and Muivah fled to Manipur and then with the help of leading Assamese rebel group ULFA, settled down in Margherita in Assam till they could return to Nagaland. The old base area across the border from Nagaland remained with Khaplang. In 1991, Khaplang, ever an Indo-Myanmar rebel set up the Indo-Burmese Revolutionary Front (IBRF) indicating his commitment to both India and Myanmar. Indian intelligence agents met NSCN-IM leaders in 1996. A move for a political settlement of the Naga conflict began in 1997 with ceasefire and secret talks in several international venues, which continued for several years culminating in the looming possibility of a final settlement in 2015.  Khaplang was isolated but has stuck to his position of no compromise on the issue of sovereignty for the Naga people.

On April 17 2015, SS Khaplang, affectionately called “Baba,” remarkably young at 75 and active in India and Myanmar, set up United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNLFWSEA) consisting of the region’s multiple rebel groups in the Sagaing Division of Myanmar with a view to waging a united struggle for the liberation of indigenous tribal lands and groups.  The Indian intelligence agencies not only failed to anticipate June 4 militant attack on the army convoy in Manipur but also failed to assess the capacity of Khaplang to upset the apple cart of negotiations between India and the NSCN-IM.

The emergence of the new political formation under the wings of Khaplang is likely to cost the government of India heavily. Poor statesmanship in dealing with the Naga insurgency, involving India and Myanmar, stands sharply exposed. The attempt to fracture the NSCN (K) and to weaken its ability to stand up to divisive tactics has proved inadequate. Three splinter groups have emerged: NSCN-K (Unification); (NSCN-Kholey-Khitovi); and NSCN (Reformation) set up by the recently expelled NSCN-K activist and former negotiator with the government Myanmar Wangtin Naga and his colleague P. Thikhak. Khaplang may be a Myanmar national but he has a mixed Indo-Myanmar Naga identity, which it is fool hardy to ignore. He has emerged today not just as the leader of the Indian and Myanmar Nagas but also as the leader and champion of a broader coalition of regional militant forces, which are uniting to fight for independence from India.

Khaplang has concluded a mutually convenient ceasefire with the government of Myanmar, which has accepted his autonomy and authority as the undisputed head of the Government of the People’s Republic of Nagaland (GPRN) in the Sagaing area. NSCN (K) is among the many militant groups who have entered into peace deals with the government of Myanmar ahead of the forthcoming elections in that country described by Bertil Lintner as the ‘cockpit of anarchy’. Khaplang is unlikely to be disturbed by Myanmar in order to please India.

Kadayam Subramanian was Director General of Police in India’s Northeast. He is a writer and scholar and was Director of the Research and Policy Division of the Government of India’s ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi)

atimes.com

The geopolitics of the Indian Ocean will never be the same again. The White House spokesman Jay Carney explained that the United States would be henceforth «as a courtesy in appropriate setting, more frequently using the name Myanmar». 

Diplomacy is indeed largely courtesy and the «appropriate setting» was the visit by President Thein Sein to the White House, which signified the formal launch of the US’ rebalancing strategy to the west of the Malacca Strait. 

A common thread

Even as Thein Sein visited Washington, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Delhi. From Delhi, Li headed for Islamabad. Meanwhile, Thein Sein returned to Naypyidaw just in time to receive Shinzo Abe, the first visit by a Japanese prime minister to Myanmar since 1977. And no sooner than Abe got back to Tokyo, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in the Japanese capital on a 3-day visit. 

Indeed, neighboring Beijing also received a visitor from South Asia on the day Manmohan arrived in Tokyo – Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse. The spectacle got rounded off on Saturday at a security conference in Singapore that also brought the US defence secretary Chuck Hagel to the region. The common thread that ran through all this congested diplomatic traffic in the past fortnight was the rise of China and the US’ rebalancing strategy. 

Thein Sein was the first head of state from «Burma» to visit Washington in 47 years. A big slice of history drifted away, marked by deep chill and total breakdown of relations between the two countries. The lifting of US sanctions and the conclusion of a trade and investment framework agreement enable US companies to invest in Myanmar, which is the last frontier in the scramble for mineral resources. The economic spinoff can be mutually beneficial. 

Myanmar gets income, investment and integration into the world economy, while the US hopes to reassert its presence in a region that is crucial to the rebalancing strategy. The strengthening of ties with Myanmar helps Washington to contain China, which visualizes Myanmar as a vital communication link connecting the Indian Ocean – a route that bypasses the Malacca Strait…

Sitting in an important area

Abe’s mission to Myanmar supplemented Obama’s overture to Thein Sein. Japan also aims to erode China’s economic presence in Myanmar. Japan has no legacy of sanctions that Abe needed to put behind and there has been a dramatic jump in the Japanese economic presence in Myanmar lately. Abe took with him more than 100 Japanese businessmen. 

He agreed to write off another $1.74 billion in debt in addition to the $3.4 billion in arrears owed by Myanmar that was waived off last year. Abe also pledged a new aid package of $500 million for infrastructure and power projects. Kyodo news agency noted Abe’s visit «could counter China’s strong influence» in Myanmar. In the Japanese assessment, Beijing overestimated its political and economic clout in Myanmar and is facing growing dissatisfaction in that country, which Tokyo can exploit by making investments and creating job opportunities and presenting a more systematic and credible way of doing business. 

Hardly six months into his spectacular return to power, Abe is creating waves in the region west of the Malacca Strait. Taking note of China’s rising influence in Sri Lanka, the «teardrop in the Indian Ocean», he moved to safeguard Japan’s traditional ties with the island. Abe invited President Rajapaksa to Tokyo in March. The joint statement issued after the talks said,

«The two leaders acknowledged that, as maritime countries, Japan and Sri Lanka had a responsibility to play important roles for the stability and prosperity of the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. In this regard, the two leaders shared the view that Sri Lanka, being located on the Indian Ocean sea lanes and having a potential to be a maritime hub of the region, would play a crucial and positive role among the international community. Prime Minister Abe expressed his intention that Japan would continue to provide necessary assistance to Sri Lanka’s efforts to that end.» 

Sri Lanka will henceforth allow port calls by Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels and the two countries decided to cooperate in maritime security. Japan signed a loan package of 41 billion Yen for Sri Lanka. 

Abe swiftly followed up in early May by deputing Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and Senior Vice Minister of Finance Uko Obuchi to Colombo (as part of a South Asian tour). Kyodo cited Aso pledging Tokyo will support Colombo’s efforts to improve its coast guard, as the South Asian country «sits in a geopolitically important area.» 

Petty burglars

However, it is Abe’s aggressive pursuit of stronger ties with India that falls in a category by itself and provokes China to no end. Abe’s agenda is two-fold: bilateral engagement and trilateral cooperation alongside the US. Indeed, the US also visualizes India as the «lynchpin» of its rebalancing strategy. A whole new coinage has appeared in the strategic discourses – «Indo-Pacific,» which connotes that the US, Japan and India actually belong to a common strategic space. 

Abe has successfully wooed India by resuming negotiations for an agreement in nuclear cooperation despite the debris of Fukushima and by making huge investments in India’s technology sector and infrastructure. Without doubt, China is a focal point for Tokyo in the expanding framework of strategic partnership with India. India has been playing it cool and a delicate game of hedging was on. 

Delhi’s preference has been to leverage the relationship with Japan to secure an optimal position in negotiations with China, a game that the mandarins in Delhi have perfected over the years. But that may be about to change. The recrudescence of border tensions following China’s troop incursions in mid-April has changed the alchemy of regional politics. The anxieties regarding Chinese intentions gnaw Indian mind and the pundits in Delhi are clamoring for a concord with Japan and the US. 

Abe is highly regarded in Delhi and «Abepolitik» appeals to the Indian nationalistic sensibility. Manmohan said in Tokyo, «India and Japan are natural and indispensable partners» and the two countries should place «particular importance on intensifying political dialogue and strategic consultations and progressively strengthening defense relations.» 

The alacrity with which Beijing reacted to Manmohan’s words drew attention to the new cadence in the Indian voice. The ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily lashed out at Japanese leaders, terming them «petty burglars» trying to cash in on the transient India-China disharmony. The Global Times newspaper noted that India and Japan are close to signing a deal to supply amphibious US-2 planes to India and that it would mark a strengthening of the alliance between Japan and India in terms of defence and military cooperation. 

The daily accused Japan of trying to take advantage of the border tensions between India and China and to contain the latter with the possible military sale. 

But Beijing isn’t far behind Abe in wooing India. The new Chinese leadership made an extraordinary gesture by picking India for Li’s first visit abroad as premier. Li offered a «handshake across the Himalayas» to the Indians during his 3-day visit and proposed a «strategic consensus and cooperation» between the two countries. Delhi chose to mull over it but is far from disinterested. 

National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon will be visiting Beijing in coming days, followed by Defence Minister A. K. Antony and Manmohan himself. There is ample scope for the two countries to ponder over what happened on the disputed border and to negotiate the irreducible minimum needed to preserve mutual trust in relations. Beijing appreciates that it is not in India’s DNA to jettison its independent foreign policy and to be shepherded into alliances and blocs. It is largely up to Beijing not to drive Delhi into a Japanese and/or American embrace. 

By slotting Pakistan as the second leg of Li’s foreign tour, Beijing signaled that China’s glorious relationship with that country is no longer «India-centric». Li had the principal objective of preserving the uniqueness of the Sino-Pak relationship at a historic juncture when Pakistan is in transition and there are very many uncertainties surrounding its future. 

He made two proposals aimed at strengthening China’s strategic presence in the Indian Ocean – promoting the building of a China-Pakistan economic corridor from the Persian Gulf across Pakistan to western China and maritime cooperation with Pakistan. 

However, out of the entire flurry of Chinese engagements through the past fortnight, it was Rajapaksa’s visit to Beijing that proved most substantial and specific. To be sure, China-Sri Lanka relationship is fast expanding and Beijing senses that it holds potential to acquire something of the verve of China’s «all-weather friendship» with Pakistan. 

During Rajapaksa’s visit, China extended a huge $2.2 billion loan package to Sri Lanka in the infrastructure sector and has announced wide-ranging Chinese participation in Colombo’s ambitious program to transform Sri Lanka into another Singapore. Beijing finds the buoyancy of the Sri Lankan economy quite encouraging for stepping up investments. The two countries have afreed to conclude an FTA. 

During Rajapaksa’s visit, Beijing «upgraded» the ties with Colombo to one of «strategic cooperative partnership» and the two countries decided to step up military and security cooperation. 

A minimalist agenda

The unspoken running theme of this extraordinary string of events in a packed fortnight finally surged to make its appearance in flesh and blood in an «exchange» at the weekend security conference in Singapore. 

Hagel, upon the conclusion of his speech at the conference, was openly challenged by a Chinese general to explain the US military’s Asia pivot. The general said the Obama administration’s new focus on the Pacific has been widely interpreted as an "attempt to counter China's rising influence and to offset the increasing military capabilities of the Chinese PLA. However, China is not convinced." In pointed remarks, the Chinese general asked Hagel how he can assure China that the increased US deployments to the region are part of an effort to build a more positive relationship with Beijing.

The point is, China is making sure in front of the regional audience of defence ministers and security experts that it is easily provoked. And, arguably, the fear of China getting provoked may already be working on many Asian minds. The heart of the matter is that so long as the Chinese economy continues to grow, its interdependency develops with it for the other Asian economies. After all, there is a limit to how much Japan or the US can aid its regional parties if the latter got into a flashpoint with China. 

Indeed, the Obama administration is also causing misgivings in the minds of the Asians by ostentatiously wooing the new leadership in Beijing as a stakeholder in global partnership. There has been a constant flow of senior officials from Washington to the Chinese capital in recent weeks and the dramatic initiative to hold a US-China summit in California later this week took Asia-Pacific by surprise. 

Besides, Beijing’s big advantage is that in the emergent power dynamic, it has a minimal agenda – namely, deny Japan or the US the scope to recruit the countries of the region to join any containment strategy directed against China. It is not a tall Chinese demand for most countries of the region – including for a traditional ally of the US like South Korea or an old adversary of China like Vietnam. On the other hand, it is simply not enough for the US or Japan if other Asian countries remained fence sitters. Clearly, time works to China’s advantage. 

Countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka or Pakistan would perceive the advantages in maintaining a relative balance among the big powers with a view to win economic and technical support and assistance from both China and the west. Thein Sein most certainly grasped the import of Obama’s momentous decision to call his country by its proper name. Rajapaksa has secured much negotiating space already vis-à-vis an overbearing India. Pakistan feels emboldened to resist the US pressure. 

Manmohan would also see that while the partnering with Japan in strategy and security is all very well as a long-term goal, India’s near term priority lies in generating a peaceful environment in which development becomes possible. Japan lags far behind China as India’s partner in trade and investment. 

India’s advantage lies in factoring in the high level of US-China interdependency and the lack of clarity as yet that Abe is Japan and «Abepolitik» is for all time.

The two pipelines would have immense geopolitical significance. The Xinhua news agency aptly described them as «China’s new strategic energy channels.» The 1100-kilometre long pipelines with annual capacity of 22 million tonnes of oil and 12 billion cubic meters of gas respectively will connect the port of Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal with China’s Yunnan Province.

Quite obviously, China is now well placed to tap into the energy reserves in Myanmar and Bangladesh. It is repeating a pattern that is by now familiar to the Central Asian countries and Afghanistan – China finances and builds transportation routes leading to its hinterland and connects them to the upstream projects in neighboring regions.

The pipelines through Myanmar have an added strategic importance for Beijing. They will help China to reduce its heavy dependence on the Strait of Malacca for the transportation of energy. Around 80% of China’s energy imports are presently transported via Malacca Strait, which of course has grave strategic implications against the backdrop of the United States’ «rebalancing» in Asia and the maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

Beijing has not hidden its sense of unease that China’s energy security is vulnerable to the «choke point» of Malacca Strait, which is effectively under US control. President Hu Jintao once famously described the worrisome dependence as China’s «Malacca Dilemma». The new pipelines through Myanmar could reduce the dependence by about one-third.

The economics of the enterprise are equally significant. The new routes could cut down transportation distance for the African and Arabian oil shipments by 1200 kilometers. It gives a big boost to Beijing’s ambitious plans to develop China’s southern regions.

Spiritual partner

New Delhi will keenly assess the impending tectonic shift in the geopolitics of the Bay of Bengal. The Indian strategic thrust all along has been to keep the Bay of Bengal as its «sphere of influence». But in another 6 months, Bay of Bengal, which has many highly sensitive Indian defence installations, will begin to turn into a busy waterway for oil tankers plying between Myanmar and the Persian Gulf and Africa.

The spate of high-level visits by Indian officials to Myanmar in the recent period can be viewed against this backdrop. In fact, Defence Minister A.K.Antony has just begun an official visit to Myanmar. This follows the visit by External Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s path-breaking visit to Myanmar last year underscored the highest priority India attaches to relations with that country. New Delhi is invoking India’s ancient Buddhist heritage to build special bonds with Myanmar. While India has slipped down on the economic ladder and currently figures as only a measly number 9 or 10 in the order of Myanmar’s business partnerships, it hopes to be way up as that country’s cultural and spiritual partner in a way that the US or China cannot rival.

The common conception among Indian pundits has been that the Great Game in the Indian Ocean involves India and China at its epicenter with the US acting as a referee or moderator. But what emerges bears striking similarity to the big-power rivalries in Central Asia where many extra-regional powers have entered the fray. Indeed, the 5 «Stans» themselves are increasingly playing their own little games of hide-and-seek hoping to create space for themselves by tapping into the big-power rivalries – and often succeeding.

The point is, countries such as Myanmar or Sri Lanka are already adept at negotiating with the big powers to their best advantage. Thus, Russia is the latest big player to enter Bangladesh’s first circle of partnerships. If the US was hoping to get a grip on the exploitation of Bangladesh’s energy reserves – ConocoPhillips is exploring offshore Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal – Russia promises to give it good competition. The focus of the recent visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Moscow (first-ever visit by a Bangladesh leader to Moscow) was on energy and arms purchase. Moscow is putting big money on the table [http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/621744_print.html] both to finance its arms exports as well as to build Bangladesh’s first nuclear reactor.

Advantage to China, Russia

Equally, Russia is also asserting its presence in Myanmar. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Myanmar last week and called for the complete dismantling of sanctions against that country. Do not be surprised if Russia makes offers to build a nuclear power plant in Myanmar or to sell weapons. Interestingly, Lavrov’s visit to Naypyidaw coincided with the visit of a team of US nuclear officials to negotiate a safeguards regime that allows inspection of Myanmar’s suspected atomic sites.

Meanwhile, Japan’s new Finance Minister Taro Aso also picked Myanmar for one of the first overseas trips by a member of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet that took office last month. Tokyo plans to provide Myanmar with a 50-billion yen ($574 million) loan by the end of March and to continue with previously announced plans to waive debt that it is owed.

Clearly, there is a beeline leading to Myanmar and the speed with which Beijing advanced the construction of the two pipelines should not come as surprise. Direct foreign investment into Myanmar increased by 40 percent last year to touch a record level of $3.99 billion. According to the Asian Development Bank forecasts, Myanmar’s gross domestic product may expand 6.3 percent this year after an estimated 6 percent gain in 2012. «Myanmar could become one of the next rising stars in Asia if it can successfully leverage its rich endowments,» the ADB forecast said.

China accounts for about half of the foreign investment Myanmar has attracted since 2008. But the equation is changing, although China’s influence in Naypyidaw remains formidable. In 2011, Myanmar abruptly halted work on the $3.6 billion Myitsone hydropower dam across the Irrawaddy River that was being built with China Power Investment Corp., on the ground that the project was against the «will of the people.» China Power viewed the development as «bewildering» but Beijing was determined not to feel disheartened. Meanwhile, the CNPC continued with its work on building the pipelines.

How does it all add up? Like in Central Asia, a multi-vector Great Game in the South Asian region is apparent, which devolves upon many processes such as the US’s «rebalancing», China’s assertiveness, Russia’s re-entry as a global power, Japan’s quest for economic revival, politics of energy security and so on.

The regional security scenario in the Indian Ocean is poised to transform phenomenally when these processes advance. Much is going to depend on the fate of the US-Russia «reset» and on how the US-China rivalries will play out in Asia in the coming period. However, a qualitative difference will be that unlike in the ASEAN region, the US has been historically an «outsider» in the South Asian region.

Except for Pakistan, South Asian countries kept away from building cold-war alliances with the US against the Soviet Union. Quite obviously, the US’ pressure tactics toward Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh (and even Myanmar) in the most recent years failed to work.

Therefore, it is highly improbable that any of the South Asian countries will cooperate with the US’ containment strategy toward China (or Russia). Suffice to say, the advantage goes to China and Russia if they are interested in a «pivot» to South Asia… If only China and Russia can reconcile their divergent priorities within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the grouping could even emerge as a regional platform bringing together the countries of South Asia.
 

One of Mrs. Clinton's lasting legacies from her time as Secretary of State is her penchant for encircling China with governments that are advancing America's interests in the region. For example, Clinton’s use of India to confront China in the South China Sea officially avoided getting the United States involved militarily in the Sino-Southeast Asian maritime conflict while assuring claimant countries like the Philippines and Vietnam that other non-claimant naval powers like India, in addition to Australia, have stakes in the maritime dispute with China. 

However, it is the future of Sino-Japanese relations, especially with the advent of a right-wing revanchist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government in Tokyo and a new and younger Chinese government willing to flex China’s new-found financial and military might that poses the greatest challenges and risks for a Secretary of State Kerry.

The new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stated he will not yield one inch of claimed Japanese land and maritime territory of the disputed Senkaku isles in the East China Sea. China maintains that it retained sovereignty of the islands before World War II and the U.S. occupation of the islands did nothing to change China’s claim over what it calls the Diaoyu islands. The United States transferred control of the Ryukus — where the U.S. maintains military bases on Okinawa — and the uninhabited Sekanku isles to Japan under the terms of the 1971 Okinawa Reversion Treaty. 

The LDP captured 294 seats in the lower house of parliament and the LDP allies, the new Komeito, won 31 seats. In what will surely push the LDP even further to the right, the pro-imperialist Japan Restoration Party of ex-Tokyo Governor Shintaro Isihara and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto won 54seats. The governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the former Socialists, saw their majority reduced to 54 seats. Outgoing DPJ Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda never deviated from Japan’s pro-U.S. policies so, in fact, Japan’s foreign policy will shift from right-wing to farther right-wing. 

Isihara is the author of the book The Japan That Can Say No, which seeks to warn the United States that Japan can go it alone and not be under any dictates from the United States.

The prospects for military showdowns with not only China over the Senkakus / Diaoyus, but South Korea over the contested Liancourt Rocks in the Sea of Japan (called Takeshima by Japan and Dokdo by South Korea), loom on the horizon. South Korea’s conservative government studiously avoided congratulating Abe and his LDP on their election victory. Abe said he wants to review a 1993 apology from the Japanese government to South Korea for the wartime use of Korean women as forced prostitutes for the Japanese Imperial Army. That has set off alarm bells in Seoul. Memories of Japan’s occupation of Korea are so incendiary, North Korea backs South Korea’s claim over the Liancourt Rocks, which is astounding considering that South and North Korea are in a technical state of war with one another.

What may also exacerbate Sino-Japanese tensions is Abe’s stated desire to increase ties between Japan and Taiwan, which China claims as its territory. Abe’s nationalist policies will likely result in Japan scrapping the nature of Japan’s military from a «self-defense» force to a full-blown military with offensive capabilities capable of a global reach. What will drastically change the dynamics of East Asian relations will be a decision by Abe to shift Japan’s «screwdriver's turn» short turnaround time for the acquisition of nuclear weapons to a fully functional deployed nuclear deterrent. Such a development will impact Japan’s relations with all of its neighbors and the wider international community. 

Abe’s government can also be expected to increase pressure on Russia for the return of what Japan calls the «Southern Kurils», four islands in the Kurile chain north of Hokkaido occupied by the Soviet Union as World War II was ending. 

Japan may also seek to increase its military presence in the South China Sea, as China increases its naval presence in the area. A Japanese naval presence in the disputed waters, in addition to an increased U.S. and Indian naval presence in the waters could trigger a naval confrontation that could easily expand into attacks and counter-attacks on naval bases and even cities in China, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India. Top Chinese People’s Liberation Army generals responsible for China’s military in southwest China, including Tibet, have long wished to deliver a knockout blow to India’s armed forces in the Himalayan region.

India, Singapore, and the United States, all non-claimants to South China Sea territory, have stated that if China boards and seizes any vessels in the region after January 1, 2013, they will look on it as a violation by China of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). 

Joint naval exercises during the past few years between the United States and the Philippines and Vietnam have incurred the ire of Beijing. In April 2012, U.S. and Philippines naval vessels participated in the Balikatan 2012 exercise in the South China Sea. The same month, the U.S. and India conducted the joint Malabar 2012 naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal. The United States has extended the reach of its joint military exercises to Mongolia with Khan Quest 2012, South Korea with Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2012, Thailand with Cobra Gold 2012, Keen Sword/Keen Edge 2012 and Ichi Ban with Japan, Talisman Saber 2012, with Australia. The annual Rim of the Pacific exercises involve the U.S. and Australia, South Korea, Japan, Britain, Chile, Canada, and, after a long hiatus after a breakdown in military ties with the United States over U.S. Navy nuclear ship visitation policy, New Zealand. The annual Valiant Shield exercise, based out of Guam, is a major American «show the flag» military demonstration aimed at getting the attention of China and Russia.

The United States has invited Myanmar to participate in military exercises in the region. There is an interest in expanding full participation in Cobra Gold to include military personnel from not only Myanmar but Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 

The U.S. and India also conduct an annual joint special operations exercise called Yudh Abhyas 2012. The last was held in the desert of Rajasthan near the Pakistani border and there was little doubt about the identity of the fictitious country being attacked in Operation Desert Lark. The U.S. and Indian armed forces have conducted joint jungle warfare training as part of exercise Balance Iroquois at the Indian Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School in Vairengte in Mizoram, northeastern India. The exercises have not only involved U.S. and Indian troops, but also those from Bhutan, Bangladesh, Singapore, Nepal, and Israel. And in a move that threatens to inflame China, the U.S. military exercises have included members of the Indian Special Frontier Force, ethnic Tibetans who engage in counter-intelligence activities within historical Tibet, which extends beyond the borders of the Tibetan Autonomous region of China… 

The U.S. strategy, as outlined by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, is to have U.S. naval forces nearby to respond to any crisis in the region. The U.S. is transferring 60 percent of its naval assets to the Pacific region.

Abe and the right-wing LDP in Japan, the effects of Mrs. Clinton’s China encirclement, and a resurgent China all spell huge diplomatic problems for Mr. Kerry at Foggy Bottom.

Photo: Reurets