After months of condemning Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi over the persecution of its Rohingya Muslims, the world’s democracies have belatedly caught on to the Burmese military’s culpability. The State Department has announced that the United States is cutting back on contacts with the military and “exploring accountability mechanisms” including sanctions against individual military personnel. Meanwhile—in a “sharp reversal,” says Joshua Kurlantzick—European leaders “infatuated” with the armed forces commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing are also reviewing defense cooperation with Myanmar.
Suu Kyi’s approach to the Rohingya has deeply disillusioned her admirers and dealt a devastating blow to her international standing. By contrast, the military’s record of brutality against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities was well known. So were the systemic barriers to consolidating democracy in Burma. Suu Kyi does not have authority over the military, which is a law unto itself. The constitution gives the armed forces control over the security ministries and guarantees the military enough seats in the parliament to thwart amendments.
All of this was clear before the United States lifted sanctions. In its rush to declare a rare foreign policy success, the Obama Administration squandered the decades of sacrifice by the Burmese people, political prisoners, and, of course, Suu Kyi herself during long years of house arrest and enforced separation from her family in the U.K.
America’s objectives in Burma have always been twofold: supporting the democracy movement, and gaining a strategic foothold that would prevent China from gaining access, through Burma, to Indian Ocean ports, among other things. The question remains: Is democracy desirable but dispensable? Or do America’s interests in Burma and around China’s periphery rely on both military strength and support for democracy—that is, the “the configuration of power and ideas” that Robert Kagan argues enabled democracy’s “third wave” late in the 20th century.
Asia lacks the type of institutions that helped Central and Eastern European countries emerge from Soviet domination, establish democracy, and reform their institutions. How much differently might things have turned out in Burma if Asia had such supporting organizations?
Certainly the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), based on the principle of “non-interference” in members’ affairs, cannot play such a role. Efforts to introduce a more democratic character to the organization ended in the late 1990s with the admission of autocratic Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. Ironically, Suu Kyi opposed her country’s admission at the time because of the junta’s repression and its failure to respect her party’s election victory in 1990. Now a member, Burma can block criticism of its treatment of the Rohingyas.
Historically, it has been an article of faith among defense experts that Asia isn’t suited to a multilateral organization of democracies. Post-war enmities and nationalism, the argument goes, makes such an idea impossible. Accepting the idea that Asia could not, like Europe, support such an approach, the United States has relied on bilateral agreements often referred to as the “hub and spokes” model.
The country that benefits most from the lack of democratic multilateralism in Asia is now leading a multilateral effort against democracy. After decades of aloofness from multilateral organizations, China’s involvement in them has surged—and not to the benefit of democracy. In the UN, China is dictating terms in the Human Rights Council. In ASEAN, its proxies fend off censure over its aggression in the South China Sea. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which China leads, helps member nations resist and reverse the spread of democratic norms.
China is gaining sway in Southeast Asian countries where democracy is deteriorating. In Thailand, a U.S. treaty ally, the military has unseated democratic governments twice in a little more than a decade. The military government has postponed elections, drafted a new constitution strengthening military rule, and cracked down on activists and journalists. Prosecutions for criticisms of the monarchy have increased.
In Cambodia, Hun Sen has been in power for more than 30 years, thwarting elections and using deadly violence against political opponents and rights activists. The leader of the opposition has been jailed. Foreign NGOs are being expelled, while an independent newspaper, the English-language Cambodia Daily, has been shut down. America’s military alliance with the Philippines hangs in the balance, as President Rodrigo Duterte endorses extra-judicial killings.
George W. Bush suggested a new approach. During his first presidential campaign, he spoke of a “fellowship of free Pacific nations as strong and united as our Atlantic partnership.” It was a worthy idea, and coming soon after the triumph of democratic transitions in Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Indonesia it might have prevented the democratic backsliding the region faces today. With the United States preoccupied after September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the idea never got going.
Any serious effort to build a democracy-based organization must include Taiwan lest it become incoherent, conceding from the outset the main goal of protecting and advancing democracy. That is particularly important because of the emphasis General Secretary Xi Jinping placed on acquiring Taiwan at the 19th Communist Party Congress. Another problem is President Trump’s admiration of autocrats and disdain for the geostrategic value of even trade agreements.
The existence of a democratic club doesn’t by itself prevent backsliding or guarantee democracy’s success. It must articulate principles, enforce standards, and stiffen backbones. It should create a dynamic for democratic expansion and against retrenchment while Xi advances alternative norms abroad and revives Marxism-Leninism at home.
Suu Kyi has remarked that you don’t choose your neighbors. True. You do, however, choose your friends and your principles. There may have been better moments to pursue greater coordination among democratic nations in Asia. Missed opportunities and new challenges that have emerged since only make the pursuit of a new effort more urgent.
