Neglecting
Asia's importance over the last decade may impair the US' ability to regain its
former power position.
Standing on a platform in Honolulu last week
as United States military officials and heads of Pacific islands looked on,
Hillary Clinton charted Washington's course for re-entry to the Asia-Pacific.
The hour-long talk, the content of which was first thrashed out in a seven-page
article in Foreign Policy magazine last month, set the framework for Clinton's
visit to the region this week. There she will strike out on a path that, beset with
difficulties, is crucial to the US' continued status as the world's sole
superpower.
The plan she lays out is ambitious and, for
the sceptic, weighed down with a sense of foreboding familiarity: she speaks
repeatedly of the need for the US to gain a foothold here, but said in the
knowledge that her government's myopic focus on the Middle East over the past
decade has cleared the way for China to stretch its tentacles across the
region. This China has done adeptly: its deployment of soft power, buoyed by
the ability to find common ground with the nationalistic sentiment that
dictates the policy of its neighbours, has won it favour with nations wary of
the historically aggressive track record of the US here. As such Hillary et al
face a difficult task in convincing wavering governments to 'look West' rather
than be drawn further into Beijing's strategic orbit.
The rhetoric of this blueprint for the coming
decade is bold, but tinged with apprehension: the US needs to find new ground
as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, access to resources is secured, and
all eyes turn to the cluster of countries rapidly reshaping the global economy.
"In a time of scarce resources, there's no question that we need to invest
them wisely where they will yield the biggest returns, which is why the
Asia-Pacific represents such a real 21st-century opportunity for us."
Awkward references to human rights abound, but
only one line, in which Hillary speaks of being "mindful of the bipartisan
legacy" of her country's history here, acknowledges the bloody footprint
it has left in the region. Although hidden deep within a forest of political
speak, it may well be the most significant statement she makes, for this
selectivity is likely to characterise US' reengagement with the region in the
coming years.
Ominous signs already suggest that the US will
saddle up to repressive regimes in order to realise its overarching priority
for returning here, that of containing China and penetrating deeper the
region's markets. An early indication came last year with the announcement that
Washington would rekindle relations with the maligned Indonesian military
outfit, Kopassus, following suggestions that Jakarta may look to China for
military support should the US refuse an alliance. The West Papua Advocacy Team
didn't share Robert Gates' rosy assessment of Kopassus at the time as
"reformed": they met his announcement of renewed ties by labelling
the outfit, whom the US had supplied with lists of communist sympathisers
during the 1960s before breaking ties, "the most criminal and unreformed
element of the Indonesian military".
Since then, and amid frequent exchanges of
snide criticism between Beijing and Washington, the US has manoeuvred to
develop a network of allies in the region, massaging hostilities in the South
China Sea to draw Vietnam away from Beijing's grasp and, perhaps most
worryingly, signalling that it is ready to break with years of isolationism to
become a "partner" of Burma.
Its descriptions of the Burmese government
over the past two months have been cloaked in an optimism not seen since Lyndon
B Johnson enthusiastically backed the "policy of peace and
nonalignment" of Burma's first dictator, General Ne Win, in 1966. That
came at a time when the CIA was arming the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang army
who waged attacks on Mao's forces from their bases in north-eastern Burma. As
with now, the US was bent on restricting a hostile China from expanding south.
Today, the new US envoy, Derek Mitchell, is
leading the charge, having made three trips to Burma in the space of seven
weeks and rounding off the last one with a statement hailing the "rapid
reform" of the nominally-civilian government, whilst opening up the
possibility of military co-operation between the two countries. Further up in
government, and the sentiment builds: Hillary spoke last week of the potential
for the US to become a "partner" of Burma in light of the "first
stirrings of change in decades", although she added the requisite
preconditions the government supposedly needs to meet before this happens,
including the release of political prisoners.
History tells us however that the standards
the US sets for its allies are wildly inconsistent and arbitrary. Much of the
talk on Burma among White House officials is of "reform", and less so
that of "democracy", allowing Naypyidaw some flexibility in the
benchmarks it is required to meet. Washington's relations with Cambodia, very
much an autocratic state under the 13-year rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen, demonstrates
the stunted length that "reform" in Burma will need to go before the
US strides in. Additional evidence is given by US' warming ties with a
sceptical Vietnam, whose regime has been newly made acceptable by Washington's
PR hawks.
The
US, China, and Asia
From its status as a pariah, Burma has risen
over the past five years to that of a highly sought-after ally, hence the US
interest. This evolution has largely been China's work, but fuelled by
competing US priorities for the region. Of the many economic interests Beijing
has in Burma, its pièce de résistance is the dual pipeline project that will
take Middle Eastern and African oil cargoes offloaded on Burma's western coast
up to Yunnan province, whilst giving China access to its neighbour's vast
offshore gas reserves. A key thrust for this project is Beijing's anxiety about
its eastern seaboard: the South China Sea dispute with Vietnam only adds to
concerns that the Malacca Straits beneath Singapore, through which much of its
oil shipments travel, can be closed off by patrolling US warships, exemplifying
how a nervy China-US dynamic could play out over the coming decade.
China has poured billions of dollars into
tapping Burma's vast natural resources, as well as those of neighbouring Laos,
and is busily damming the length of the Mekong river from its passage through
Yunnan down to Cambodia. A similarly aspirational India is looking hungrily on,
with Burma its only land passage to Southeast Asian economies, but cannot match
Beijing's huge foreign investment capital and seat on the UN Security Council.
The US knows that securing Burma would, hypothetically speaking, bring an ally
right to China's doorstep at a time when its power is sweeping southwards
across a region that Washington needs to penetrate.
But the timing of the recent upsurge in
dialogue between US officials and their Burmese counterparts coincides with an
unprecedented strain in relations between Beijing and Naypyidaw, triggered by
President Thein Sein's shock cancellation of a lucrative China-backed dam
project in the country. The US then may be quietly attempting to exploit this
fissure. Several analysts believe there to be unease in the top echelons of the
Burmese government over its dependence on China, but whether this will prompt a
turn towards the West anytime soon is doubtful: a leaked US diplomatic cable
from 2004 quotes then Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt telling the head of the
rebel Karen National Union that allying with the US would allow Washington to
"use Myanmar as a staging ground to penetrate China. That is the reason
why America is exerting a lot of pressure on our nation. Hence, we do not have
the slightest bit of trust in America".
Despite talk of change in Burma, that
unwavering nationalism remains the compass bearing for government policy, as
evidenced by Thein Sein's decision to risk a souring of relations with Beijing
in order to stem the encroaching Chinese influence over the country. While the
US may see this as an opening, what it really demonstrates is the mammoth task
it faces in drawing into its arms a group of nations, including Burma, that
place a premium on their own sovereignty, particularly when the other option is
acceding to a rapacious West. China has curried favour here by achieving what
the US and colonial Europeans did through centuries of aggression without
firing a single bullet - that of attracting and eventually co-opting
resource-rich, strategically well-placed nations to act both as a buffer
against competing states, and a source of plunder for the soaring energy
demands of its own population. Deep scars take time to heal, and the myriad
countries in the region that have felt the pain of past US ventures here may
justifiably continue to see China as a preferred friend.
The US then, who prefixed its arrival in
Afghanistan with similar talk of "securing our interests, and advancing
our values", will need to navigate these waters with prudence. With its
economy flagging and global reputation tarnished by a decade of war in the
Middle East, Washington is steeling itself against the likelihood that soon its
position as chief international ringmaster could be usurped. New ground
therefore needs to be conquered, and a reinvigoration of its image abroad
carefully spun.
"Our capacity to come back stronger is
unmatched in modern history," Hillary says. "It flows from our model
of free democracy and free enterprise, a model that remains the most powerful
source of prosperity and progress known to humankind." Bar its strong
relations with the likes of Thailand, Korea and Taiwan, the audiences Hillary
will address in the coming days are unlikely to swallow this crusading rhetoric.
Observers would also do well to read its newly-found praise for the region's
more despotic players with the knowledge that ulterior motives are at play: to
pass measures that would allow the US to make a substantial return to the
region, notably the dropping of various financial sanctions that block trade
with the likes of Burma, Congress needs certain benchmarks to be met, many of
which the White House has little time for. It may be that there is less to the
progress in these "reforming" pariahs - which remain far from the
norms of democratic governance the US paeans to - than has been noted by
Hillary, who must sell a new conquest to the sceptics in her government with
the knowledge that if she fails to do so, the US may not this time come back
stronger.
Francis Wade
Francis Wade is a journalist with the
Democratic Voice of Burma, and has written this article from a personal
capacity.
Source: Al Jazeera
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Consulting, Investment and Management, focusing three main economic sectors: International PR; Healthcare & Wellness;and Tourism & Hospitality. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programs. Sign up with twitter to get news updates with @SaigonBusinessC. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment