【外交政策11.30】现实政治和缅甸春天

lilyma06

Realpolitik and the Myanmar Spring
Wondering why Hillary Clinton is in Myanmar right now? Hint: it's allabout China.
   BY BERTIL LINTNER |            NOVEMBER 30, 2011
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/30/democracy_myanmar_china_clinton
文章比较长，大家可以摘取翻译

      
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Myanmar, on a trip thatis being hailed as a stunning breakthrough in bilateral relations and a signthat the Southeast Asian pariah state may finally be ready to rejoin theinternational community after two decades of isolation. It is a victory,analysts say, for the long-suffering forces of good and democracy over a brutaland self-serving military junta. But the truth is far more complicated.

According to the conventional wisdom in the Western media, Myanmar's Nov.2010 elections may have been rigged and flawed, but nevertheless led tounprecedented policy changes and new initiatives. The new president, TheinSein, has even been dubbed "Myanmar's Gorbachev" forhis seemingly daring moves toward openness and respect for (at least some)democratic values. He has held talks with pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi,political prisoners have been released, and censorship of the media has beenrelaxed. Consequently, Clinton has saidthat the time is right to visit the country to "promote further reform."
But the secretary's visit has as much to do with Myanmar's relationswith China and North Korea as with its tentative progress on democracy andhuman rights.
If Western observersare to be believed, recent developments in Myanmar reflect a power strugglebetween "reform-minded moderates" and "hardliners" within the government andthe military that still controls it.
The political reality is far more convoluted.
In August and September of 1988, Myanmar saw the most massive andwidespread pro-democracy demonstrations in recent Asian history. Strikes andprotests were held in virtually every city, town, and major village throughoutthe country against a stifling military dictatorship that has held Myanmar inan irongrip since the army seized power in 1962 and abolished the country'sdemocratic constitution. Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar'sindependence hero Aung San, happened to be in the country at that time (shethen lived in England) and people turned to her for leadership. She thenemerged as the main leader of the country's pro-democracy movement.
But the government didn't fall. It retreated into the background, and onSept. 18, 1988, the military moved in, not to seize power -- which it alreadyhad -- but to shore up a regime overwhelmed by popular protest. The result wasa brutal massacre. Thousands of marchers were mowed down by machine-gun fire, protesters were shot in custody, and the prisons were filled with peopleof all ages and from all walks of life.
Not surprisingly, Western countries, led by the United States, condemnedthe carnage. Later, sanctions were imposed on the regime, but they were alwayshalf-hearted and had little if any effect in terms of foreign trade. Still, sanctionsturned Myanmar into an international outcast and prevented it from having fullaccess to U.N. funding and international monetary institutions.  
China, which long had coveted Myanmar's forests, rich mineral andnatural gas deposits, and its hydroelectric power potential, took fulladvantage of the situation. In fact, it had already made its intentions clear in the Sept.1985 edition Beijing Review, anofficially sanctioned news magazine and a mouthpiece of the government. An article titled"Opening to the Southwest: An Expert Opinion," written byPan Qi, a former vice minister of communications,outlined the possibilities of findingan outlet for trade for China's landlocked southern provinces of Yunnan andSichuan through Myanmar to the Indian Ocean. It also mentioned the Burmeserailheads of Myitkyina and Lashio in the north and northeast, and the IrrawaddyRiver as possible conduits for Chinese exports. It was the first time theChinese outlined their designs for Myanmar, and why the country was soimportant to them economically. Until then, China had supported the CommunistParty of Myanmar and other insurgent groups, but after the death of Mao Zedongin 1976 and Deng Xiaoping's ascendance to power, Beijing's foreign policyshifted from supporting revolutionary movements in the region to promotingtrade. This was the first time this new policy towards Myanmar was announced,albeit rather discreetly, by the Chinese authorities.
The first border trade agreement between Myanmar and China was signed inearly August 1988, days before the uprising began in earnest. After themovement had been crushed and sanctions were put in place, China moved in andrapidly became Myanmar's most important foreign trade partner. It helped Myanmarupgrade its antiquated infrastructure -- and supplied massive amounts ofmilitary hardware. In the decade after the massacres, China exported more than$1.4 billion worth of military equipment to Myanmar. It also helped Myanmarupgrade its naval facilities in the Indian Ocean. In return, the junta gaveBeijing access to signals intelligence from key oil shipment sealanes collectedby the Burmese Navy, using equipment supplied by China. The strategic balanceof power in the region was being upset in China's favor.
But the real resource play came later, and in spades. A plan to buildoil and gas pipelines was approved by China's National Development andReform Commission in April 2007. In Nov. 2008, China and Myanmar agreed tobuild a $1.5 billion oil pipeline and $1.04 billion natural gaspipeline. In March 2009, China and Myanmar signed an agreement to build anatural gas pipeline, and in June 2009 an agreementto build a crude oil pipeline. The inauguration ceremony marking the start of constructionwas held on Oct. 31, 2009, on Maday Island on Myanmar's western coast. The gas pipeline from the Bay of Bengal toKunming, in China's Yunnan province,willbe supplemented with an oil pipeline designed to allow Chinese ships carryingfuel imports from the Middle East to skirt the congested Malacca Strait. And inSeptember of last year, China agreed to provide Myanmar with $4.2 billion worthof interest-free loans over a 30-year period to help fund hydropower projects,road and railway construction, and information technology development.
Western sanctions did not cause Myanmar's economic -- and strategic --push into "the hands of the Chinese," as many foreign observers have argued.But Western policies certainly made it easier for China to implement itsdesigns for Myanmar. This has, in return, caused the West to rethink its Myanmarpolicy -- at the same time as the country's growing dependence on China hascaused considerable consternation within Myanmar's military leadership. U.S.strategic concerns were outlined as early as June 1997 in a Los Angeles Times article byMarvin Ott, an American security expert and former CIA analyst. "Washington canand should remain outspokenly critical of abuses in [Myanmar]. But there aresecurity and other national interests to be served...it is time to thinkseriously about alternatives," Ott concluded.

But the turn took some doing. When it was revealed in the early 2000sthat Myanmar and North Korea had established a strategic partnership,Washington was alarmed. North Korea was providing Myanmar with tunnelingexpertise, heavy weapons, radar and air defense systems, and -- it is alleged byWestern and Asian intelligence agencies -- even missile and nuclear-relatedtechnology. It was high time to shift tracks and start to "engage" the Burmeseleadership, which anyway seemed bent on clinging on to power at any cost, nomatter the consequences.
The 2010 election in Myanmar, no matter how fraudulent it was, was justthe opportunity that Washington needed. Myanmar suddenly had a new face and acountry run by a constitution, not a junta. It was the perfect time for Myanmar'sgenerals to launch a charm offensive in the West, and for the United States andother Western countries to begin the process of détente -- and of pullingMyanmar from its uncomfortable Russian embrace. Hardly by coincidence, Clintonvisited South Korea before continuing on to Myanmar. For more than a year, it has been known insecurity circles that the United States wants South Korea to lure Myanmar awayfrom its military cooperation with North Korea. The much richer South would beable to provide more useful assistance to Myanmar than the North, the argumentgoes.
At the same time, many staunchly nationalistic Burmese military officershave become dissatisfied with their country's heavy dependence on China as wellas uncontrolled immigration by Chinese nationals into the north of the country.The first blow against China came in Oct. 2004, when the then-prime ministerand former intelligence chief Lt.-Gen. Khin Nyunt was ousted. The Chinese atfirst refused to believe that their man in Myanmar, Khin Nyunt, had been pushedout. How could the generals dare to move against a figure so key to therelationship? Nevertheless, both sides managed to smooth over the incident, andbilateral relations appeared to be returning to normal. Then, in 2009, Burmesetroops moved into the Kokang area in the northeast, pushing more than 30,000refugees -- both Chinese nationals and local, ethnic Chinese -- across theborder back into China.
Still, China did not get the message -- until Sept. 30 of this year,when Thein Sein announced that a China-sponsored, $3.6 billion hydroelectricpower project in the far north of the country had been suspended. The dam wasgoing to flood an area in Myanmar bigger than Singapore, and yet 90 percent of the electricitywas going to be exported to China. Now, China has threatenedto take legal actions against the Burmese government for breach of contract. Thiswas the final straw. Today, it is clear that Sino-Burmese relations will neverbe the same.
To strengthen its position vis-à-vis China, Myanmar has turnedincreasingly to its partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN), which it is due to chair in 2014. Even moresignificantly, when Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who was appointed commander-in-chiefof Myanmar's military in March, went on his first foreign trip in mid-November,he did not go to China -- but instead to China's traditional enemy, Vietnam. Myanmarand Vietnam share the same fear of their common, powerful northern neighbor, soit is reasonable to assume that Min Aung Hlaing had a lot to discuss with hisVietnamese hosts.

But the strategic change in Myanmar didn't happen overnight. In the same year as Khin Nyuntwas ousted, an important document was compiled by Lt. Col. Aung Kyaw Hla,a researcher at Myanmar's Defense Services Academy. His 346-page top secret thesis,titled "A Study of Myanmar-U.S. Relations," outlined the policies whichare now being implemented to improve relations with Washington and lessendependence on Beijing. The establishment of a more acceptable regime than theold junta provided has made it easier for the Burmese military to launch itsnew policies, and to have those taken seriously by the international community.
As a result, relations with the United States are indeed improving,exactly along the lines suggested by Aung Kyaw Hla in 2004. While paying lipservice to human rights and democracy, there seems to be little doubt thatSino-Burmese relations -- and North Korea -- will be high on Clinton's agendawhen she visits Myanmar this week. On a visit to Canberra in November,President Barack Obama stated that, "with my visit to the region, I am makingit clear that the United States is stepping up its commitment to the entireAsia-Pacific region." The United States is a Pacific power, Obama said, and "weare here to stay." But he was quick to add: "The notion that we fear China ismistaken. The notion that we are looking to exclude China is mistaken."
That statement was about as convincing as Thein Sein's assurance that hehad suspended the dam project in the north because he was concerned about "thewishes of the people."
The two old adversaries, Myanmar and the United States, may have endedup on the same side of the fence in the struggle for power and influence inSoutheast Asia. Frictions, and perhaps even hostility, can certainly beexpected in future relations between China and Myanmar. And Myanmar will nolonger be seen by the United States and elsewhere in the West as a pariah statethat has to be condemned and isolated.
Whatever happens, don't expect relations to be without some unease.Decades of confrontation and mutual suspicion still exist. And a powerfulstrain in Washington to stand firm on human rights and democracy willcomplicate matters for Myanmar's rulers -- who are still uncomfortable andunwilling to relinquish total control. And last of all, there's China. Myanmar maybe pleased that the reliance on a dominant northern neighbor might be lessenedshortly, but with so many decades of ties and real, on-the-ground projectsunderway, the relationship with Beijing isn't nearly dead yet.

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