Episode #129: The Pit and the Pendulum
“Myanmar's foreign policy [resembles] the shifting motion of a pendulum, tilting back and forth between two ideal types opposite archetypes of non-aligned behavior.”
So explains Andrea Passeri, who along with Hunter Marsten joined the conversation back in May to talk about an article they co-authored, entitled The Pendulum of Non-Alignment: Charting Myanmar's Great Power Diplomacy (2011–2021).
In the preface to their article, the authors further define this notion of pendulum swings: “[T]he analysis contends that Myanmar's evolving great power diplomacy is ultimately rooted in oscillating degrees of political legitimation held by its leaders, which pushed them to alternatively tilt towards ‘positive non-alignment’ or ‘negative neutralism.’” Both are forms of realizing the overarching goal of non-alignment.
Positive non-alignment refers to productive, dynamic engagement with the world while also seeking to maintain independence and freedom of action. Positive non-alignment seeks to not be reliant on, or beholden to, any one country. In contrast, negative neutralism is more isolationist, which Passeri also describes as “aloofness.”
Passeri and Marsten emphasize that like other small countries that emerged from under the yoke of European dominance, Myanmar’s pursuit of non-alignment—whether positive or negative—must be understood against the backdrop of the country’s colonial legacy under oppressive British rule.
During the time period that their article addresses, several key events sent the pendulum swinging first one way, then the other. Although the elections of 2010 were clearly rigged, the Thein Sein administration was able to move quickly to gain both domestic and international legitimacy. It instituted economic and political reforms, allowing the NLD, who had boycotted the elections, back into the political mainstream. There was also a sense of general relief and glimpse of freedom that the Burmese citizenry felt after years of harsh and oppressive military rule, so there was a palpable sense of optimism emerging in the country. From the international perspective, these positive domestic reforms caused the EU and the US to lift sanctions, with the US in particular going all-in on Myanmar to counter China’s dominating influence in the region.
This was in 2011-12, following many years of military rule which witnessed a more negative-neutral foreign policy, and the new reformist government began shifting to a positive and active policy of non-alignment. Passeri and Marsten note that without this kind of international legitimacy, it is impossible for a small country to be positively non-aligned in the sense they define it.
With Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s ascendence in the years that followed, this more outward-looking foreign policy continued. Obama’s 2014 visit lent her (and by extension the country’s overall transition) even more prestige, and her party soundly won the next round of elections. In 2015, Myanmar chaired ASEAN, and it was able to keep China—which always looms large along its borders, has periodically pillaged its natural resources, and with whom the Burmese military has historically had a tight relationship—at bay. Passeri and Marsten consider this sort of the high-water mark for Myanmar in terms of a policy of positive neutrality.
However, things started to turn in 2016. There was an increase in Buddhist-Muslim antagonisms, and then the Rohyinga crisis played out on a worldwide stage. As a result, sanctions once again began to be imposed on the country. Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s apologist stance towards the military turned off once-enthusiastic international supporters; foreign aid and investment dried up, and the country once again became more inward-looking. So as Myanmar’s international legitimacy dissolved, the pendulum began swinging back towards negative neutralism.
The question arises as to whether small countries can really be independent in this day and age, because it seems as though superpowers always seek some leverage or quid pro quo in the aid they give and the relationships they are willing to cultivate. Passeri and Marsten agree that it is very challenging, but contend that Myanmar came close to accomplishing this during the transition period. First, the flood of international support came in many forms and from many directions, and second, Myanmar was able through this multilateral involvement to push back on China, in fact surprising their dominating giant to the north by suspending a Chinese-sponsored dam project. However, Passeri adds that it is almost impossible for Myanmar to be ever truly inependent because of geography, situated as it is between the two huge powers of India and China. Interestingly, in this current post-coup period of negative neutralism, Myanmar’s military rulers find themselves back in China’s embrace.
The authors emphasize the role that self-reliance plays in the ability to successfully enact both positive non-alignment and negative neutralist policies. It is, in fact, quite a challenge for small countries like Myanmar either way, because they are most often not self-reliant enough to “go it alone.” On the one hand, they may be leery of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), knowing that one price of “opening up” to the world and accelerating economic development is becoming heavily indebted and beholden. However, to enact a negative neutralist policy, self-sufficiency is even more essential. The Myanmar military’s prior isolationism had brought economic failure, ultimately sending the country into the willing embrace of China, who not only acted as their main economic partner, but shielded them from sanction at the UN in its role on the Security Council after the Rohingya crisis.
So while Myanmar may never have fully realized a goal of positive non-alignment, it has never really been able to fully realize negative neutralism, either.
Looking now at ASEAN, the authors describe how this Southeast Asian coalition has played a role in helping legitimize military rule in Myanmar, whether inadvertently or by design. Historically, it has been loathe to chastise its member states, even repressive ones, because it values solidarity; it also “lacks the enforcement mechanisms, the collective spine,” according to Marsten. So the Tatmadaw has in turn seized on this general policy, as well as touting diplomatic visits from a few member states (whatever their motivation), to justify itself. When asked to compare ASEAN’s more hands-off response to the coup in Myanmar with the EU’s active, engaged response to Ukraine’s invasion by Russia, Passeri and Marsten point to the fact that ASEAN was founded in the late 1960s by many newly independent states in large part as a response to their recent colonial past, while the EU was formed for quite different reasons.
The conversation takes a closer look at the two governments in Myanmar during the time period explored in the article, in terms of legitimization. For Marsten and Passeri, the jury is still out on both Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi. Thein Sein was appointed by the junta leader, Than Shwe, partly because he was a fairly innocuous political figure, that “he wouldn't rock the boat,” so to speak. That he began to lead the country into a period of optimism, increased freedom and democratic transition was perhaps unexpected. So while he started with little to no legitimacy, he took gradual steps in earning it, both domestically and internationally.
In Aung San Suu Kyi’s case, she started with a huge reservoirs of domestic and international support and goodwill, and in the end mostly lost it. She was initially seen as a savior figure by the West, given the Nobel Peace Prize and put glowingly on the cover of Time magazine. So while the international community might have been willing to overlook her initial support of the military in their embrace of her as a popular, apparently freedom-loving and reformist figure, her continued embrace of the Tatmadaw, especially her defense of the military’s abuses of the Rohingya people at the Hague, could not be ignored. Yet it’s also often overlooked in the West that the NLD was jailing reporters, and that what Marsten calls “a creeping crackdown against civil society” was beginning to take place in the country underneath the more visible reforms and gradual, overall opening. Passeri adds that while one of the NLD’s main goals was reforming the 2008 Constitution, nothing was ever accomplished towards that end. He also notes that the NLD government’s rhetoric was growing nationalistic and xenophobic even before the Rohingya crisis.
Finally, the conversation touches on where the country is today. With few countries willing to countenance the Tatmadaw’s violent and repressive rule, Myanmar as a pariah nation internationally has become increasingly aligned with the authoritarian Great Powers, China and Russia. Interestingly, this makes Myanmar less reliant on China than in past periods of negative neutralism, since now it can also turn to Russia for arms shipments, aid and UN support. As for predicting the future course of the country, Marsten closes by saying, “There are lessons to be learned [as to] what goes into successful governance in Myanmar. And this is a combination of economic policies and social messaging…[A]ny government that's going to be able to guarantee security, peace and democracy and human rights across the country will [also] have to do something to deliver sustainable growth and equitable jobs, to a variety of people while working with ethnic minorities and bringing everybody under sort of a bigger umbrella.” He remains optimistic, because he believes that the younger generation has learned the lessons it needs to have learned to ultimately gain power and realize those goals.