China Ache: After ASEAN, Myanmar might come closer to US

November 19, 2011

The developments last week mark a renewed focus on the part of US to wean away each one and everything it could from China.

1st: US President Barack Obama said in Australia on Thursday, on his last stop before ASEAN (Association of South East Asian) meetings in Indonesia, that the US military would expand in the Asia-Pacific and that America was “here to stay” as a Pacific power.

2nd: In the ASEAN meet the United States pushed for a trans-Pacific free trade agreement to ASEAN saying “lowering barriers” is the important and it “wants to work with” what is worlds’ economic powerhouse region.

3rd: In another ASEAN meet of business people, Clinton focused on the positive aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The initiative has already been joined by four ASEAN members (Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam) as well as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Peru.

4th: Come December 1, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be in Myanmar for a historic visit, the first in the last fifty years by a top US official, that could draw the country out of half a century of global isolation.

President Barack Obama said last Friday that he saw “flickers of progress” in Myanmar. Obama had spoken for the first time with Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the sidelines of ASEAN meet.

After Suu Kyi’s release Burma has been showing signs of political reforms. Kyi’s National League for Democracy re-registered last week to fight by-elections. Myanmar has welcomed the visit.

Due to Western sanctions, China has emerged as Myanmar’s biggest ally, investing in infrastructure, hydropower dams and twin oil-and-gas pipelines and sea ports. But the relationship has been strained, with a long history of resentment of China among the Burmese population and fierce public opposition to a Chinese-built dam at Myitsone that prompted Myanmar President Thein Sein to shelve the project last month, a move that stunned Beijing.

Myanmar had been feeling the China heat for quite some time. That’s why the mellowing down in its attitude towards the west. Meanwhile, America’s growing worry about China’s growing ties with ASEAN and the recent heat in South China sea pushed it grab every Chinese that was willing to come its way.

Reuters reported that a US official said the Obama administration “fully expects” China to welcome US engagement with Myanmar and the United States would consult China closely on its engagement with the Southeast Asian country.

China is wary of greater US influence in the region, especially in countries on its border. But the US decision to engage with Myanmar should not be seen as an attempt to contain China, the US official said, adding that a stable Myanmar was in China’s interests.

“It’s about Burma, not about China,” the official said.

Southeast Asian nations endorsed Myanmar on Thursday for the chairmanship of its regional grouping in 2014. The United States said that it has no objection to ASEAN’s decision hoping this would be another incentive to the country’s leaders towards greater political reform.

India being another largest neighbour of Myanmar also has great stakes in political reform in Myanmar. India’s northeast could witness a turnaround if trade relations with Myanmar boom. Myanmar is also a critical link in India’s Look East policy