In the late 1950s, two Americans with a keen interest in political dynamics in Southeast Asia published a best-selling novel set in a fictitious country called “Sarkhan”—“a small country out toward Burma and Thailand”, as the monolingual political hack owed a favour by his party whom Washington sends out as its ambassador is told when he is offered the post.* William Lederer and Eugene Burdick used Sarkhan as a generic Mainland Southeast Asian country of the high Cold War, a land with graceful people and an ancient culture, a predominantly rural society with a sophisticated elite over whose fate the West and the Soviet Bloc were locked in a brutal contest. Was Sarkhan really Laos, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia? It had traces of all four. It was meant, as noted, to be generic.
Few observers have considered Myanmar generic for a long time. By the time of the fall of Saigon, its xenophobic “Burmese path to socialism” had already led many to view it as a quaint Southeast Asian outlier. After the 1988-1990 period—which brought terrible blood-shed on the streets of Yangon, the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi, the abrogation of her party’s election victory, the introduction of naked military rule, international pariah status and deep economic decline, and a long, long wait for a break that many thought would not come in their life-times—Myanmar’s particularities appeared even more striking. Neither have the events of the past year and a half made it seem any less generic, above all in the eyes of those who would now hail it as “the last economic frontier in Asia” and join what the editor of a leading Yangon weekly recently called the current “Myanmar rush”.
Such views were always deeply silly. Thankfully, the marked change inYangon’s climate relative to six and even three months ago has now made them demonstrably silly. This change is encouraging. Facts on the ground are becoming clearer. The realities that will defineMyanmar’s political economy in the medium-term future seem to be coming into focus. For foreign firms and governments and international organizations that take Southeast Asia seriously, whose understanding of the region transcends the level that one associates with, say, the leadership of American chambers of commerce in Southeast Asian capitals or the pampered, parochial globalists-in-their-own-minds who staff the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, this is good news.
As the irrational exuberance of the past year ebbs, Myanmar is not becoming Sarkhan. The high Cold War inSoutheast Asia is long over. But the country is beginning to present what look like familiar, even generic, contours of post-Cold War Southeast Asian political economies. It is worth tracing some eight of these contours.
1. Agriculture dominates employment in Myanmar, with 70 percent of the population employed in the sector. It accounts for just over 40 percent of GDP. It is the largest sector of the economy, but one whose productivity lags that of other sectors. Many Myanmar people on the land face deep, deep poverty. Food is often an issue; nutrition is almost always an issue. Linkages between the Myanmar farm sector and other sectors merit close attention. Few observers will believe—pace John Mellor and his student Lee Teng-hui—that agricultural surplus is destined to fuel industrial growth in the second decade of the twenty-first century, in Myanmar or elsewhere. But unless Myanmar can, to borrow an expression from the late Arthur T. Mosher, get its agriculture moving, its people’s lives will remain difficult and its consumers’ purchasing power low. There will in all likelihood be political consequences, not least as manifest in elections.
2. Myanmar faces a resource curse. Inflows of money to buy Myanmar’s primary products from the limited number of countries doing business with the country had already driven the exchange rate up and distorted the national economy, even before the waiver and suspension of sanctions began. With the country now open to many other business partners, this effect may well be exacerbated. The development of a foreign-owned plantation sector could worsen this curse. Any investor lusting afterMyanmar’s natural resources is a potential agent for further worsening still. Myanmar may not escape its resource curse and the ensuing risk of long-term economic distortion any time soon.
3. As it marks all of Southeast Asia, urban primacy marks Myanmar. Yangon and Mandalay dwarf other towns. The first is home to at least seven, eight, or nine percent of the country’s population, but to far higher percentages of its doctors, good schools, newspapers, and more. Pronounced urban bias is already evident in Myanmar’s economic policy regime. The continued overvaluation of the exchange rate hurts producers but benefits urban consumers. While Myanmar needs capital goods, some observers point to an extended luxury import boom. Observant businessmen from Asia visiting Myanmar for the first time have a hard time squaring the signs of prosperity that they see in Yangon with the country’s amply documented poverty. All of this is typical of the region, a region of primate cities. Urban primacy brings benefits: it concentrates economic activity and thus creates certain efficiencies. For the foreseeable future, serious industrialization in Myanmar will be centred onYangon. But urban primacy also brings disadvantages: the atrophy of and fiscal starvation of sub-national government as well as urban congestion, slums, pollution, and eventual diseconomies of scale.
4. A complex dynamic among technocrats and soldiers and domestic business interests also numbers among the contours of Myanamar’s emerging political economy. The country’s ascendant technocrats have articulated a commitment to economic growth through the creation of a competitive setting for foreign direct investment. They have sold many of the former soldiers now in power on this model. They have sought to broaden the base of the country’s technocracy by creating a new National Economic and Social Affairs Council to serve the executive branch. This council joins parliament’s Commission on the Assessment of Legal Affairs and Special Issues among Myanmar’s brain-trusts. But these bodies serve as an arena—an arena that those familiar with, say, the Thai and Indonesian stories will recognize—for a continuing dance among technocrats, soldiers or ex-soldiers, and businessmen. One of the leading foreign observers of the Myanmar economy remarked not long ago that Myanmar’s leading businessmen are at one and the same time actively in favour of change, willing passively to go along with it, and nervous about the competition that change will bring. And there is another level to this dynamic. Some big business interests have begun to criticize the technocrats’ commitment to FDI, not necessarily out of concern for their own firms but rather with warnings that smaller Myanmar firms and the social bases of post-socialist urban Myanmar cannot survive what the technocrats plan. These criticisms may well shape the rarely reported politics of economic change in Myanmar, politics that will matter. What is certain is that the remarkable absence of open economic xenophobia characteristic of much of 2011 and early 2012 has given way to a more realistic sense that Myanmar’s domestic business sector needs a seat at the table, that asserting one’s interests does not make one a corrupt, rent-seeking “crony”. This new awareness has been manifest in what is perceived as the possible roll-back of some opportunities for foreign enterprise and in resultant terms governing foreign investment that may hold nothing unfamiliar in the Southeast Asian context. Observers note that this dynamic will play out differently in different sectors. It is not about “booty capitalism”. The commitment to building a real economy remains broad, but the perceived “stalling” in the making of some decisions reflects the dynamic among ex-soldiers, technocrats, and domestic business interests, one as regionally familiar as it is likely to be enduring.
5. Another feature of the landscape is and will remain state-owned enterprises, fully familiar to observers who know today’s Singapore and Vietnam or the Thailand and Indonesia of the recent past well. Several weeks ago, at the Myanmar Forum in Singapore, presidential economic advisor Winston Set Aung said that leading reformer, ministry of industry, and chairman of the Myanmar Investment Commission U Soe Thein was committed to a Myanmar without state-owned enterprises. But he spoke in the same breadth of measures such as “corporatization” and “equitization” that have had such chequered histories in contexts such as Singapore and Vietnam. Will Myanmar’s private-sector firms grow so rapidly as to render irrelevant even unreformed state enterprises, as in Thailand? Will they reduce the current role of the military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings to nothing? Will these corporations be dismembered? Will they prosper, as through joint ventures? None of this is clear. But none of it will happen overnight. That much is clear. State-owned enterprises will remain a feature ofMyanmar’s political economy for the foreseeable future.
6. Also in footsteps its neighbours, Myanmar is beginning to grope toward industrial and investment policies. Viewers may not see Myanmar versions of the “Remarkable Indonesia” commercial of the Badan Koordinasi Penanaman Modal RepublikIndonesia on BBC World television any time soon. But the effect is the same. Myanmar will promulgate a revised special economic zone law and a foreign investment law. But will these laws help more than on the margins? Reference to other large Southeast Asian economies may be instructive here.
7. Much the same is true of the role of the international financial institutions. One may well see crucial interventions in specific policy areas, as has occasionally been the case elsewhere in Southeast Asia. But the IBRD, IMF, and ADB are not going to wave magic wands and create a modern Myanmar economy. Rather, they will become more and more taken-for-granted parts of the scenery. How many in today’s Saigon hang on the words of these outfits’ expatriate economists sitting in Hanoi? Would Thailand notice if the IBRD mission in the Siam Discovery tower were vaporized tonight?
8. Finally, many in this post-Asian Financial Crisis world may find it curious or outright unbelievable, but Myanmar will have a domestic—and domestically controlled—banking sector. Bank credit today amounts to only five percent of GDP. Yet there are some 20 non-government commercial banks. Yes, there will be banking and foreign exchange laws. Yes, the Myanmar Central Bank will up its game, not least through cooperation with foreign institutions. More branches of fewer banks will, ideally, help finance growth in the countryside and then mobilize resultant savings. But knowledgeable observers do not consider large domestic firms under-capitalized. These firms are hardly waiting for foreign banks to enter Myanmar and ride to their rescue. Trade finance defines the activities of much of Myanmar’s financial sector, broadly understood, just as it long did inThailand. Foreign involvement, on some terms, will become part of the financial landscape. But the hedge-fund gang needs to take a cold shower and, upon emerging, look “financial sovereignty” up on the Web.
Along with these eight rather generic features of post-Cold War SEA which characterize Myanmar’s emerging political economy, the country does show a few distinctive wrinkles. One is the significant role of parliament vis-à-vis the executive branch in deliberations over economic policy. A second is the possibility that a competitive election in 2015 will change the cast of characters making economic policy before this emerging political economy is fully consolidated. A third is the relatively poor preparation and thinness of the Myanmar technocracy, a weakness due not least to a failure to offer young Myanmars the right sort of educational and training opportunities in recent decades on the part of Japan, the United States, Australia, and Europe. Myanmar thus presents a real contrast to post-1958 Thailand, to Indonesia in the early New Order, and even perhaps to Vietnam as the results of “đổi mới” began to attain critical mass. Fourth, of course, is Myanmar’s relationship with its largest neighbour. To amend the long-time Mexican president Porfirio Díaz’s probably apocryphal lament, the country is so far from God and so close, so very close, to the People’s Republic of China!
What are the implications of this quick tracing of the contours of Myanmar’s emerging political economy? The most surprising implication is how familiar it all looks. But, please note, this familiarity is not due to Myanmar’s being destined to follow the path that its neighbours inSoutheast Asia have already followed. This is not the story of a laggard. It is not even the description of a path. Rather, it is the characterization of a not so unfamiliar political-economic environment, one likely in most of its features to endure, and one to which those who would understand and maybe even take a hand in Myanmar’s future ought to accustom themselves.
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*William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1958).
Brave attempt of catalog. Even though titled “political”, as is usual, the article was about financial. (Money) Just as so called the “openings” are opening for business (money), “developments”are various communication, transport, infrastructures and others for money.
Just to add three little elephants.
First little elephant is again usual practice of the “elites” making all the plans and decisions affecting the whole country never bothering to find out what these people might possibly want. See, the tumultuously supporting German public may have entirely different opinion to dear Adolf if one bothered to asked their opinion before his inspiring rhetoric of call to march to hell. One will never know. Neither would what the multitude of today’s Burmese want either. They are so dumb, the elites and Harvard crowd (or is it Columbia/ Oxbridge?) would have to make up their minds for them. After all the brightest financial mind of he world is not to be scoffed at. Look at Europe, euro. Look at Greece.
Second little elephant is military expenditure. If there is so much astonishing “reform” by the “soft liners” (he,he, excuse me) why is the military getting bigger and fighting and killing getting worse? Is the plan to improve more economy with money going into more and more killing? If so, the plan is right on track.
Last elephant is the largest opium and ATS production to distribute all over the world. If one can selectively take away “narco dollars” from the businesses in Burma, most hospitals and banks let alone the restaurants will fall to a heap. Likelihood is that with or without any financial improvement for the country as a whole ( totally unlikely for the majority public) domestic illicit drug market itself will grow exponentially in the next few years may be catching up the avid Thai consumption in no time. That itself will improve the financial sector to a degree.
Agriculture though is of utmost importance. How one deals with it will define future Burma. Current pattern of getting low wage jobs for the illiterate massesunbanning factories with highly efficient mammoth scale high yield mechanized farming will improve the rice exports to far surpass the rest of the world put together with the identity of Burma (Burmeseness) gone along the way. Does anyone really want it? In exchange for big bucks? That can be easily arranged. Simply evict all the farmers to the low wage factories to make socks and soap.
Mega-urbanization. Desired curse! Does anyone go for holiday (vacation if you like) to Maxico city?
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Thanks for that, Ohn. And, yes, it is *small-holder* agriculture that Myanmar needs to “get moving”.
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To an acutely observant article and good additional comments, I would add a few things. First, the proximity to China is or can be a two edged sword. While there are obvious negative possibilities, there are also many positive ones – the development of hydro, if done properly, could help end the Kachin insurgency and provide Myanmar with more electricity (which it badly needs) at less cost and more quickly than alternatives. Chinese manufacturing investment, if pollution is controlled, could also provide badly needed jobs and net benefits as well. Second, the author misses just how behind Myanmar is now relative to its neighbors. I saw very poor parts of Java in 1971 and Vietnam in 1989, and Cambodia in 1993 but many parts of Myanmar lag far behind even those places at those times. There is a need to move from an imposed state to a negotiated nation, as well as catching up in so many ways. Third, the millions of Myanmar workers abroad are a critical piece of the development puzzle – Myanmar competes with the Philippines (relative to population) as an exporter of its people. No government will find it easy to handle all of these complicated issues with a thin layer of capable administration. But at least the journey is started.
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Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture… and bridging the urban rural divide, not dislodging farmers from their land to a multitude of sweatshops in Yangon and Mandalay. Build up the domestic economy and consumption based on food production first, and not putting all your investment eggs in the volatile export oriented basket.
Elitist top down measures by diktat lack a proper foundation pointed out here in this excellent analysis by Elliott Prasse-Freeman in Foreign Policy.
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Prof Dapice’s reference to poor reaches of Java in the early 1970s is sobering. At the same time, it can also be taken as a clear tasking: to do exactly what Moe Aung advocates. A critical mass of Myanmar’s rural people can emerge as significant producers *and* consumers in fairly short order, if resources are allocated and policies framed accordingly. Among other things, those policies need champions among the country’s ex-soldiers, businesspeople, and technocrats. In the case of that third group, however, the jury may still be out.
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Sorry to be a resident spoiler.
“Poor” does need to be defined. The conventional academic money, water supply, house, television, number of telephones, etc., etc. and of course for the country, the most sacred GDP (money) may not necessarily be a good guide even if the whole international academia agree on it.
In other words, U Khin Myint and Daw May Win in Kyaukse living in pitch darkness every night tending their four acre of paddy may simply want to have a cheap loan for a water pump and some excess this year to put their only son into monkhood. Should we then insist that according the Harvard / or ANU for that matter, you guys should have two storied house and ten latrines and five water bores to be up to the level and asked them to go work at the gold mine in Yamethin.
All very well to mould like clay someone or a populace to a person’s or a group of learned people’s shape and form of the ideal statute. The monkey may continue to prefer banana to the Royal Cake even at the risk of indigestion.
The very problem of everyone earning 3000 dollars a year is the unmeasurable s. Social, societal, cultural, familial . And of course environmental. Level of drug use for example.
There is also innate arrogance that the economic development thing is bringing goodness to every one. True only if there is income parity and social stability. For example the parallel thread of Thai economy being resilient on this site is truly wonderful only if that very economy is not based on inhumane exploitation of millions of foreign and domestic workers and even then only if sustainable whichever way the global economic wind blows. Any chance?
It does seems, based on all the thin ice economic skating of the world, that people should think long and hard before they implement their own desired pattern of “economic development” on a society which has for millennium maintained their unique social and cultural integrity and cohesiveness which cannot be reclaimed once lost for the sake of good looking GDP.
All that was needed was the intrusive, destructive and downright evil (was and still is, in spite of international grooviness) military hegemony to be removed and to let the people do what they desire in freedom. Not to have double masters as is the current situation now. The old military stronger and the additional “elites’ prescribing a large dose of their own wonderful medicine.
Hence, please go and ask the people what do they want. Please don’t feed them Royal Cake of desired flavour when they are happy to die dining on Mont-pya-tha-let while keeping their love for each other and closeness unlike Thant Myint-U’s wonderful faux-American Chinese in Yunan.
What is” rich”?
What is “poor”?
Are the people of Burma toys for the academics and elites to play? Dear Adolf did think in the same line.
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The bottom rungs of the ladder have to be there, sound and sturdy. Small scale farm mechanisation combined with security of land ownership and availability of credit will constitute a very firm foundation to build on.
Electricity and fuel, local workshops and parts for repair and maintenance of power tools/implements, not least good road links, will go a long way in bridging the urban rural divide, and help keep the younger generation in the countryside providing gainful employment on the land and its spin off industry.
Reliable power supply, water supply and sanitation can make life more than just tolerable, in fact arguably make ‘big city bright lights’ not all it’s cracked up to be. Satellite TV, DVDs, cell phones and motorbikes have already made their impact on village life in Burma, however uneven in their distribution.
You need to see off the bullock cart and oxen plough, turn them into museum pieces and funfair/festival items, and eventually make the pickup truck and the small tractor like the Ford Ferguson 40 ubiquitous instead.
Small is Beautiful, keep it simple and easy to start with.
PEACE, LAND and FOOD! The rest will follow.
BEWARE of the New World Order and its nasty traps.
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I think #3 is a very interesting point. There is a pronounced dicotomy between the urban and rural areas of Myanmar, especially concerning the primacy of the metropoles of Yangon and Mandalay, and particularly as this applies to the diaspora of Burmese in Thailand. Nearly all the educated Burmese I know are from Yangon, and they do not want to be lumped together with those from the poor rural border regions, who make up the vast majority of the laborers and workers in the construction, fishing and canning industries living in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province.
When Aung San Suu Kyi came to Mahachai early in June, the thousands who turned out to see her chanted “we want to go home!” They were telling her they no longer wanted to be exploited for their cheap labor by their Thai capitalist employers/overlords. She told them to be patient; their time will come. The intellectuals and professionals want to go home, too. However, there are stiffer conditions attached, and when they do go home they want to take their occupations with them. One observation I was told is particularly illuminating. The rector for an American university operating a branch campus in Thailand was approached with an offer to offer a branch campus in Yangon. If you do so, he was told, the source could provide him with a complete faculty of at least 70 Burmese academics from Thailand who want to leave and teach at the university level in their home country.
There is the potential for a mass exodus should the right conditions occur, for both of these groups.
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Moe Aung is right on the mark. Ohn, I have been among too many people in Myanmar who are poor, desititute really, by *any standard*, people without access to land or sufficient water during some months of the year, people trapped in deep, deep debt. These people can become part of a more prosperous rural society . . . If your “U Khin Myint and Daw May Win in Kyaukse” had the wherewithal to meet the desires to attribute to them, well, that would be fine, a big step in the right direction for Myanmar as a whole.
And thanks, Arthurson. Myanmar people now abroad, both professionals and others, have a big role to play, as Prof Dapice suggests. My only hope is that we do not end up with a new division in Myanmar: between those with foreign experience and those without.
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U Moe Aung, #7
That is absolutely right.
If the farmers are truly supported to do exactly what they want to do with easily available, functional, reasonable rate loan, offer- but not coercion- of mechanical, technical assistance and availability – not coercion- of knowledge of more modern farming techniques, the social system and commercial system will truly evolve with harmony and peace while making the rural youth proud to be farmers rather than half-drugged work/ strike cycle SEZ zombies as planned by all wise people drooling for good looking GDP. (sadly funny that only thing the brightest financial and political minds after centuries of expensive university study and Nobel Prizes can come out is human exploitation to make socks and soap for “economic development”. Mostly helped by ATS. See, GDP and ATS are twins.)
That is why the attitude of the whole society that having those Sky Rails, Boat shaped buildings, etc, etc as something to drool as mentioned by one famous “dissident” ( in reality ex- dissident) after another is so dangerous while seemingly innocuous. One now sees all the Facebook profiles and photo’s of foreign travels and Landmarks.
Greed and desire is how the multinationals make their money from nothing. Sachi and Sachi teaches people effectively how to feel superior to others using their customers’ 3 dollar products on sale for forty.
Peace as you mentioned though is sadly unlikely. Military chauvinism and absolute self-conviction of superiority is such that there will never be devolution of power with or with any real or fake elections 2015, 2020,?… 3000… as people around the world are cheating themselves.
The reason Aung San Suu Kyi is now tolerated is simply because she is effectively working for them. She also shuts up any domestic and international dissenting voices against military atrocities and lawless land grabbing.
KNU may yet be bought well and truly by Aung Min/ Thein Sein to follow the disastrous Kachin social and environmental devastation later while simply postponing their own version of current Kachin tooth and nail struggle.
Land ownership though is of utmost importance. The Investment Law seems to say that if you want to make business you can simply come in and evict People from any land you want, employ cheap labour ( the price- one dollar a day) and take all the money out with no tax. One wonders why people used to need to fight wars for such privileges to free rape. Aung San’s disastrous Japan connection is reenacted by Thein Sein here as well. Japs may not believe their luck with this “Yaw- daw – shi” Law.
If there is no land security, Than Shwe / Thein Sein may be underestimating the likely fury of the masses with or without their mojo Aung San Suu Kyi.
Food is essentially no worry traditionally so long as there is no market monopoly or artificial restriction.
While keeping the current unique and beautiful social system, there are ample opportunities to make a prosperous and peaceful living.
But not the way it is heading now. Current course is set headlong rush towards Cambodia.
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Ohn, while I am not convinced that Myanmar is yet headed toward Cambodian conditions, you are right to raise the prospect of this happening. It ought to be raised again and again and again. As for the SEZ matter, I do not disagree with you. The one qualifier that I might add is that land costs and the current state of transportation and communications do argue for the creation of an SEZ near Yangon–NOT so that SEZ-style industrialization becomes the driver of the “new” economy, but so that that economy has diverse foundations, including agriculture, small-scale industry, and some large-scale industry.
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Myaungmya Aung Myint Myat’s reference to ex-soldiers makes me wonder what the effects of the demobilization of all the soldiers in both the Burmese military and the ethnic forces would be if at some point peace were truly achieved.
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I’m totally with Myaungmya Aung Myint Myat over the desirability of a ‘mixed’ economy, big, medium and small enterprises, a conventional mix in state and private, also joint, ventures, an inevitable mix in global and domestic markets.
It’s a balancing job with an eye on self reliance and self sufficiency that can protect us from the buffeting winds of the global economy with its boom and bust cycles. There are certain sectors the state cannot do a virtual cop out and leave the people completely at the mercy of private enterprise such as public transportation, health, education, energy and water supply.
Both agriculture and industry need state support as well as protective measures from the so called free trade onslaught on a far from level playing field against outsiders. All advanced industrialised nations grew from infancy through protectionism still selectively applied to this day.
It would be extremely unwise to let ‘free competition’ unleashed on native agriculturits and manufacturers. Food sufficiency based on small scale mechanised farming has to be the foundation stone of a thriving economy that benefits the majority of the people, not something that can interest a handful of comprador bourgeoisie who would rather go for large scale industrial farming driving people off the land or preferably for a chain of sweat shops, rentier capitalism and property development.
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I am in agreement with both #11 and #13.
Plans coming out now seems to be how to copy any particular model or how much money country shuld accrue in such and such time using people as commodities.
In people orientated plans like #11 and #13 there is never going to be the richest country or GDP 20 times increased in 5 year or such Soviet claims but people will truly improve their own lives happily and cohesively.
Industry is important. But it has to be with strict environmental regulations and fair rights for the workers. It is inhumane to be rich like Thailand with the blood and sweat and lives of trapped foreigners or any unfortunate people. Human may need to evolve another ten thousand years before they realise exploitation of each other however rich they become is not a cool thing to do.
The sad thing about current situation in Burma is there is immense opportunity to do things right. As most “developed” countries have already a long list of “we wished…”.
Fundamantal need of health and education being a political football in all countries is totally undesirable. They are best served by statutory independent body with full government backing regardless of whoever is in power. Like Jobs’ iPAD, there is no such pre-existing model. But it is going to be far better than those in existance.
Scandinavian and to a degree British/ Canadian model of health care is far more desirable to American system which is effectively what Asian countries are going to by default and Burma will follow that again by default. And thre is the isue of training,licencing and litigation and compensation. Here New Zealand model of Accident Compensatiojn Commenssion is uniquely human and efficient and equitable even though no one could become invalid millioniar like in the States.
It is a sad indictment of the state of disengagement of the people of Burma -in and out of the country- that all these important issues are never put to air or discussed or debated in public arena. There should have been websites dedicated to each of these topics with florid debate and discussion.
For that thank you Ko Aung Myint Myat for the initiation. By the way if the Dam your professor thinks is a good idea does go ahead and come into existance ( which will NOT happen as Irrawaddy is LIFE for people of Burma, not a water stream for exploitation), Myaungmya Aung Myint Myat may become Little Filthy Creek side town Aung Myint Myat.
aiontay @ 12
Very futuristic. “The Pipe” alone will need more military than you can count- hoping you are not a mathematician. It is a constant liability. Chinese and military (Tin Aung Myint Oo) obviously cannot rely on “good will” of the people. Inflammable pipes of any sort anywhere are not so cool in hostile environment. And none of the “peace deal” armed groups are demobilizing. They will use the time to consolidate for future killings or business ventures. Real peace can happen only when the army pulls back. Any chance of it with this astonishing “reform”? People cannot even spell “Federalism” anymore.
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Thanks for the article and impressive comments.
I do see a shortcut to the fastest development. That is to build the Internet broadband infrastructure for the entire country, as the top priority. Of course, electricity has to be there first.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi mentioned in Thailand that, in order for democracy to sustain, the country has to reach the critical mass of educated people, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean highly educated, but secondary education is a must.
In order to arrive at that critical mass, the fastest way is to make education accessible. Internet would be the fastest way to allow young people to learn from anywhere, and easier for teachers to provide richer information beyond their own knowledge.
Even farmers can improve their farming knowledge from YouTube.
What’s in the way of making this happen? If the government is truly visionary, they should borrow all the money necessary (or use the drug money) to make this happen.
Having this shortcut is the advantage of developing in the 21st century.
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Couldn’t agree more, Sammy. Visionary is the operative word here, but what are the chances of that? Can’t help being not so sanguine about this lot. Their track record says single-minded self seeking, although admittedly they’ve changed more than their attire.
Hopefully the reform process will take on a life of its own, impossible for them to renege on the ‘democratisation’, so that at least it becomes a slippery slope to something significantly better for all the myriad peoples of Burma. People both outside and in must continue with some gentle but firm guidance i.e. push and shove together.
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Ohn, the reality is that, under any circumstances, both “technocrats” and their visions are always very limited. They are in love with ideas that have little relation to the real world. The question is how to overcome their serious limitations. One of my hopes is that the resistance of what the Marxists call “national capitalists” to the sweeping visions of the technocrats can be part of the answer. Not sure if you and Moe Aung are in Myanmar or not. But the time to start public discussions of these matters is now.
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Depends how strong the national bourgeoisie is in relation to the military-crony comprador bourgeoisie who hold sway at this juncture. A bit like the new found confidence by civil society groups in making their voices heard in the newly permissive climate outside of parliament, the one ‘legitimate arena’ where you are allowed to play politics.
I for one entertain no illusions as to my own ability to bend their ears, either those who are calling the shots or those who may be potential contenders, second force, third force whatever.
While we are getting all excited to the point of getting swept off our feet, a cautionary tale of the Celtic Tiger in this brave New World Order (with all its advantages of an educated English speaking workforce and whose footsteps we can’t even hope to follow with any confidence, albeit with our vast natural resources and a massive army of cheap labour) wouldn’t be entirely out of order.
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Given that the fighting is still ongoing in the Kachin and Shan State, yes demobilizing troops is “futuristic”, but then so is this entire discussion. I don’t see much evidence Thein Sein is taking your advice. Besides, the type of development you want at some point is going to have to take in to account this issue. Burma’s economy simply cannot support the level of militarization the country currently has. Burma isn’t the US, and even the US can’t keep up its “guns and butter” approach indefinitely, despite what GOP and a lot of Democratic lawmakers might think. And it is not just the regime’s troops, but all the insurgent and pro-government militias as well. When I was in the Shan States in the 1990s I was constantly struck by how ubiquitous soldiers, whether Burmese Army, ceasefire groups or pro-government militias, were. The only time I think I have ever seen anything comparable was during Chinese New Year at Doi Mae Salong back in the early 1990s and I think that was because it was Chinese New Year and everybody was drinking and gambling. I never saw soldiers in the same numbers in Rangoon. The point is, in the border regions where the development you talk about is the most necessary, there are going to be a lot of folks whose trade is blowing stuff up suddenly unemployed. Did I mention the drug trafficking and other smuggling in those areas? Futuristic? Sure, but don’t be dismissive of it because it is in the future. The future may very well be here sooner than you think.
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Sammy @15,
Good thought, impractical.
Incidentally the electricity has to be thought out deliberately. It may not be necessary to get the New York level electricity for every citizens immediately whatever is the usual parameters of measuring the progress. And the price. Meaning environmental damage going along with that particular desire or greed! And the drug money is itself big problem now. Idea is to get off it not hooked on it.
For insemination of ideas and debate and discussion though currently practically one would be as Elliot Presse-Freeman once suggested, community Radio Stations and local papers. Small circulation, free writing ( free idea,not free papers) local papers many of which do need local business sponsership if one can manage to keep it at arms length.
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“High-Minded Bigots: How Burma’s pro-democracy movement betrayed its own ideals and rehabilitated the military”, Francis Wade’s provocative Foreign Policy magazine piece on recent political shifts in Burma.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/05/high_minded_bigots?page=0,0
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aiontay @19,
It wasn’t meant it be dismissive at all. Simply that the militarily is still in its perpetual active recruitment stage and so are the ” peace deal” armed groups.
There are reportedly already more than 50 battalions just for the “Pipes”.
It is very disappointing to see people falling over each other squeezing Thein Sein’s hands for ” reforms” which should mean reduction of the military and their horrendous bully tactics, while the opposite is true.
The reason Burma is currently financially poor is indeed due to the military conflicts taking away manpower and land from productive efforts while having to pay the Chinese and Russians for hardware. Americans may now become next beneficiary.
There is no chance of real peace because of the chauvinism and ruthlessness of the Burmese military which is the strongest in the history now. With new investments coming in with more money and more paranoir, it may even double the size in the next 5 years.
Peace is not about selling things out and splitting the spoilts like what they are doing now. Peace is possible only with devolution of power, opposite to the current situation. If that happens, there will be true commercial ventures for the demobilized troops.
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Thanks for the reality check, aiontay. That’s why “PEACE, LAND and FOOD!” is as relevant a slogan for today’s Burma as the 1917 Bolshevik one “Peace, Land and Bread!”.
Whilst we may be ahead of ourselves in engaging in this discussion, it isn’t premature as we seem to be rushing headlong to join the New World Order.
Admittedly we are making some big assumptions here:
a. that the reforms are irreversible, regardless of the real agenda, and
b. those movers and shakers will have the vision and be receptive of an alternative view of a new society in contrast to the New World Order.
Maureen Aung-Thwin was spot on in the article The Race for Rangoon in Bloomberg Businessweek.
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Slip Slinding Away ®
Just as one might think there is a consensus to a solution to Myanmar quagmire:
Through an internationally concerted effort of massive improvement in Health Care, Education and Economic well being, a sure fool proof betterment to ALL Myanmar Citizenry thus assuring eventual return to The Rule of Laws.
Out come more useless careless voices of yesteryear:
Sven #21
Rehabilitating the Military aside, the premises of SPDC legitimacy has ended decisively with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi participation in Hlutthaw.
Fondness for yesteryear useless careless policy has unequivocally shown to promote the hold of this Military government.
Ko Moe Aung #23
Quoting Maureen Aung-Thwin, an early ‘re-engagement’ advocator to back up your archaic “Siêmpré Revolución” advocacy?
Besides Myanmar ≠ Mozambique in any respect. Anyone using Mozambique comparison is absolutely ‘out of their mind’.
Expenditure of any Military Budget has ALWAYS shown as % of GDP or GNP.
Only the growth in a country economy as a whole will made the military budget a lesser % as in the better examples of Asiatic China and Vietnam.
The fantasy of any reduction in absolute Military Expenditure belies the very characteristics of EVERY military government, in the history of the world, let alone this PARANOID regime’s ‘SINCERITY’.
Maureen Aung-Thwin will better serve Myanmar Citizenry by asking Soro’s to invest his bottomless wealth, in Education, Health Care and Economic Development in Myanmar.
Thus hastening the return to The Rule of Laws presently so lacking in Myanmar.
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So according to plan B, rule of law has nothing to do with politics/govt and all to do with investment. Such sage words of wisdom make us lesser mortals so humble.
The need to reduce military budgets, however you measure it, is of course hardly unique to Burma, what with the Anglo-American axis demanding austerity from the public because the ruling classes cannot afford to spend tax payer’s money on public services such as health and education, the very same that citizenry need everywhere, while fighting evidently highly affordable/desirable foreign wars all over the planet. The difference is the Burmese military fights not foreign devils but internecine wars within its own borders. Enforced austerity to all intents and purposes with no recourse to protest, let alone checks and balances which at least Western people enjoy.
Just as the ruling classes get richer than ever in the West while the majority populace see both their jobs and public services/benefits go down the drain, so does the military-crony ruling class in Burma exponentially richer while the rest of the country finds life harder than ever (Maung Aye goes to Singapore for medical treatment, people just die quietly) .
All you need to do is throw money at the problem. And in whose lap will it land?
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Ko Moe Aung #25
Your piped dream of ‘becoming the next dictator’ need to take a back seat for now.
I am absolutely certain that “Siêmpré Revolución” concept NEVER lead to Rule of Laws.
History has shown unequivocally lead to another even worst dictatorship.
Useless careless policy and advocacy like yours aside, it take 0ver 50 years of ( Ne Win + SPDC) dictatorship to degrade Myanmar to present quagmire.
It will surely take as much time to restore RoL.
As for the present inequities that you profess to care between the have and have not will certainly be taken care of in due time with the advent of the RoL.
Have the West that is so bent on punishing the military through whipping the Citizenry with deprivation now see the numerous avenues available to restore, promote and strengthen institutions, individuals and everything else that will promote the RoL?
Education, Health Care and Economic well being of Myanmar Citizenry are within the realms of advocating/Facilitating an independent judiciary system, that will rectify past abuses and simultaneously strike down further abuses that you and you® ilks like to dwell on.
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Just carry on blaming the West and spouting platitudes like a holier than thou clueless plod. That sure will improve the lot of ‘Myanmar citizenry’. With a little help from the INGOs that fulfill the role of missionaries from the 3 Ms of colonialism and behave in much the same way in ministering the barbarians. Never mind the ongoing Kachin war, land confiscations, arbitrary arrests and censorship etc…things you’d rather sweep under the carpet.
It’s the political will, stupid! How many times!
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Ko Aung Myint Myat,
In case you find interesting, recycling one of previous posts.
http://www.dictatorwatch.org/articles/monkeypaw.pdf
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