U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Myanmar President U Thein Sein in the Oval Office of the White House, May 20

Why the US is interested to engage Myanmar?



Myanmar’s President, U Thein Sein, paid a visit to Washington on May 20, another important step in the warming of relations between the United States and Myanmar.



President Thein Sein, a former general who surprised many critics by ushering in democratic changes, had been the first leader from Myanmar for a bilateral visit to Washington since 1966. He visited the US to attend the UN General Assembly last year.



The process of normalisation of relations between the US and Myanmar has moved forward relatively swiftly, and it represents an opportunity for the US to have a greater stake in the region and so at least partly counter the dominant influence of China. In response, the US has appointed a full ambassador to Myanmar some time ago.



President Obama made a landmark visit to Myanmar in November, and the White House, in its announcement, said Thein Sein’s visit was in recognition of the democratic reforms undertaken by his government.



The White House said in a statement “The president looks forward to discussing with President Thein Sein the many remaining challenges to efforts to develop democracy, address communal and ethnic tensions, and bring economic opportunity to the people of his country, and to exploring how the United States can help,”.



In welcoming President Sein to the White House, President Obama that “What has allowed this shift in relations is the leadership that President Sein has shown in moving Myanmar down a path of both political and economic reform”



Obama reportedly raised the issue of continuing violence against Muslim communities and said: “I have indicated to President that countries that are successful are countries that tapped into the talents of all people and respect the rights of all people.”

President Sein responded by promising attention to the problems without making any specific public commitments. He said: “Our democratic government is just two years old. We still need a lot of democratic experience and practices to be learned.”

The statement referred to Thein Sein as the President of Myanmar — not the usual US government usage of Burma. The country’s leaders have long advocated the use of Myanmar instead of the old colonial name, which is preferred by many exiles and by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.



The Obama administration has suspended most sanctions on Myanmar as part of a diplomatic drive it launched in 2009 to provide incentives for reforms.



Myanmar -a land mass as large as Britain and France combined with only 57 million population- shares borders with 40% percent of the world’s population in India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand. Its ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea sit just north of the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.



Reasons for engagement with Myanmar by the US



The US is keen to engage Myanmar for several reasons and some of them deserve mention below:



• Washington’s biggest military concern in Asia is reportedly China’s growing and increasingly assertive armed forces, in particular in South China Sea. Washington wants to strengthen military ties with Myanmar and invited Myanmar to witness early this year the major military exercise in the Asia Pacific region with about 10,000 US soldiers with Thailand and other Asean countries.



• Myanmar has the potential to be a game-changer for Washington’s efforts to maintain US influence in Asia, because of its clear-cut diplomatic and security direction. By bringing Myanmar into the US military exercise, the US clearly intends to turn the US-Thai military “games” into a loose multinational military arrangement.



• This relationship may eventually lead to arms sales and other forms of military aid and training. As such, it will further embed the US military presence in the Bay of Bengal, a strategic linchpin and gateway to the Indian Ocean for Washington.



• The question is how a new, politically and economically open Myanmar fits into the Asia-Pacific region in the context of the larger initiatives of the U.S. towards China. Myanmar could potentially serve as acting as an economic bridge between India, Bangladesh and Asean.



• The US wants to strengthen commercial relations with Myanmar which potentially has a vast market for US goods. A handful of U.S. giants – including GE and Coca-Cola – already have returned to Myanmar. “Many of our competitors have been in that market for many years, so we’re already late to the game,” said John Goyer, senior director of Southeast Asia for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.



• Myanmar’s resurgence could be a game changer for the rest of Asia, breaking the cultural, political and economic barriers between South Asia and South East Asia.



On communal violence, Obama administration officials argue that Thein Sein has been active in trying to end the ethnic violence, whose roots predate his tenure. However, US law maker Joe Crowley said he remained “incredibly concerned by the facts on the ground,” including violations of ethnic minorities’ rights and “brutal violence” against the Rohingyas (Muslims).



A recent Human Rights Watch report accused the country of a “campaign of ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya, who are not considered citizens of the country. The watchdog said that many Rohingya were among at least 211 people killed in two outbreaks of ethnic violence since June 2012 in the western state of Rakhine, where tens of thousands have been forcibly displaced.



In March 2013, rioting and arson attacks spread to villages outside the city of Meiktila, in central Myanmar where clashes between Buddhists and Muslims have reportedly left at least 20 people dead. On April 30, it was reported hundreds of Buddhists armed with bricks stormed a clutch of Muslim villages in the closest explosion of sectarian violence to Myanmar’s main city, Yangon. Again in May the ethnic violence erupted in the town of Lashio in the Shan State.



The violence reportedly has spread beyond the country’s borders including Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. In Indonesia, the authorities broke up a plot by Islamic extremists to bomb Myanmar’s embassy. The President’s office sent a high-level delegation to Malaysia to visit and help Myanmar Muslim migrants in the wake of deadly communal attacks in Myanmar.



The US might have nudged the President Sein to resolve some of the ethnic and communal conflicts raging in the country. The conflicts are likely to have adverse impact on the foreign investors and it is imperative that the issue should be resolved soon.



The trip to Washington demonstrates that both sides are keen to develop interactions in the context of global shift of economic power and strategic transformation to Asia.



Observers believe that Myanmar wants to have a balanced relations with the US and China. President Sein visited twice to China in the past six months. Chinese 500- mile pipeline for transporting natural gas from the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar is expected to start in July.



In the long term, it is difficult to see a Myanmar where China is not important. But there is a chance that China will no longer be the dominant actor in Myanmar as the country veers towards the Western countries including the US.



The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva