The road to Myanmar

Three hard facts set the boundaries for the talks between Myanmar's ruling generals and the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are; military rule will maintain unless there are obvious splits among the military rulers, no choice but to hold on to power at all costs and until China decides not to support. Read this interesting story by JAMIE F. METZL.

The road to Myanmar passes through Beijing

NEW YORK — Three hard facts set the boundaries for the talks that United Nations negotiator Ibrahim Gambari is undertaking as he shuttles between Myanmar's ruling generals and the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
First, despite the heroic leadership of the Buddhist clergy and the prodemocracy community, almost 50 years of military misrule and terror tactics have worn down Myanmar's people, who will likely find it hard to maintain their defiance unless there are obvious splits among the ruling generals or widespread desertions among ordinary soldiers.
Second, Myanmar's generals know that they face a stark choice: Either maintain power or risk imprisonment, exile, and possible death. In their eyes, this leaves them with virtually no choice but to hold on to power at all costs.
Finally, as long as China provides political, financial and military support for Myanmar's rulers, it will be all but impossible for any meaningful change to occur. Until China decides that it has more to gain from a more legitimate government in Myanmar than it does from the current incompetent military regime, little can happen.
China's decision to block the U.N. Security Council from condemning the Myanmar regime's assault on the Buddhist monks and other peaceful protesters last week underscores its long-standing political support for the junta.
Last January, China, alongside Russia, vetoed a Security Council resolution that condemned Myanmar's human rights record and called on the government to stop attacks on ethnic minorities, release political prisoners and begin a transition toward national reconciliation and democracy. For years, China has also blocked meaningful sanctions against Myanmar.
China's economic ties to Myanmar's rulers are strategically important for both sides. Annual bilateral trade, estimated at $1.1 billion — a huge figure, given Myanmar's total GDP of $9.6 billion — provides an economic lifeline for the Myanmar government. China is also Myanmar's largest military supplier.
At the same time, the $2 billion oil pipeline that China is seeking to build from Myanmar's southern coast to China's Yunnan province will allow China to get Middle East oil to its southern provinces more easily and securely. When completed, the pipeline will make China much less susceptible to foreign military pressure in the event of international conflict.
So the stakes in Myanmar are high for China, as are Chinese fears of how any future "national reconciliation" government might react to China's record of complicity with corrupt military rulers.
It should be remembered that America and its allies, faced with strategic fears of a similar type during the Cold War, also supported repugnant and oppressive regimes in places like Zaire, Chile and Indonesia. But America and the West did, at key turning points, realize that times had changed so much that these dictators had outlived their usefulness. Thus, despots like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Chun Doo Hwan in South Korea were jettisoned, because the price of supporting their despicable regimes became greater than the benefits.
In today's Internet age, the costs of China's support for Myanmar's generals are rising fast. Just as in Darfur, where China's perceived support for the Sudanese government translated into harsh criticism and threats to brand the 2008 Olympics the "Genocide Games," China's backing of the Myanmar generals, particularly if the death toll rises, could cause similar problems.
Indeed, an Olympic boycott will become more likely if scenes of murdered or brutalized Buddhist monks are flashed around the world. Moreover, Myanmar's public health woes and drug and human trafficking are increasingly being exported to southern China.
Although China has expressed some vague concerns over the crisis to the Myanmar government, it has not taken any action that could meaningfully affect the regime's calculations, despite its singularly unique leverage.
To encourage China to take the lead in fostering national reconciliation in Myanmar, the international community must convince China that pushing for reform and change can be a win-win proposition. The international community must make clear that China's interests would be protected during a transition to a more open society in Myanmar, and that some version of the oil pipeline project will be supported by any new regime.
Because China has been competing with India for access to Myanmar's natural resources, India also needs to be actively included in efforts to pressure the Myanmar regime, a process that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) might effectively coordinate.
In a statement issued Sept. 27, ASEAN foreign ministers expressed a surprising degree of condemnation of the crackdown in Myanmar. They could play an essential, leading role in a process that includes the Myanmar parties, China, India, the European Union, Russia and the United States and that devises a road map for change in Myanmar.
Such an international process simply cannot happen without China. The road to change in Myanmar runs through Beijing.
Jamie F. Metzl, who served on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council, is executive vice president of the Asia Society.