Trade with Myanmar Key Part of US Pivot to Asia
US
President Barack Obama shakes hands with Burma’s President Thein Sein
in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on May 20, 2013.
(Photo: Reuters / Larry Downing)
Is there a pivotal link between the United States’ concerns over
China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and inroads into the Indian
Ocean and bids from the US to expand Yangon’s airport and improve the
roads between Myanmar’s main commercial city and Mandalay?
The rapid rapport developing between Washington and Naypyitaw
coincides with US efforts to reassert influence in the Asia-Pacific
region as China’s belligerent territorial claims on most of the South
China Sea create angst for old US allies such as the Philippines.
US concern about China’s growing influence and assertiveness in East
Asia has led to President Barack Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia, and
the key element of Washington’s bid to counteract China is not military
but commercial. The days of cold war politics are past.
“Simply put, the pivot is meant to be a strategic ‘rebalancing’ of US
interests from Europe and the Middle East toward East Asia,” said The
Atlantic, a Washington based business-political magazine, in April.
This pivot lies behind Obama’s promotion of yet another Asia-Pacific trade grouping, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.
Obama’s TPP is both new and still small, with just 11 countries, plus
firm interest from Japan. Following its most recent meetings this year,
the TPP loosely comprises tiny Brunei, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand,
Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada and the US. It is
also still drawing up its trade pact plans.
The Atlantic described the TPP as “one of Washington’s most ambitious
trade proposals in years” and a key element of the pivot to Asia.
“For Washington, improving relations with established markets like
Tokyo and Seoul and emerging ones like Jakarta and Manila presents
tremendous opportunity, while for these countries the American presence
acts as a check against growing Chinese power,” the influential US
magazine said.
But it isn’t just the Pacific Rim that concerns Washington. China’s
expansions into the Indian Ocean are of equal concern, say analysts. And
this is where greatly improved US-Myanmar relations seem highly
relevant.
“The opening up of Myanmar after decades of isolation will make it an
increasingly important geopolitical country, not just for the United
States but also for India, China and the Asean bloc,” a military attaché
at a Western embassy in Bangkok told The Irrawaddy.
“Until now China has held the box seat in Myanmar and it has clearly
used its influence to secure large supplies of gas and to use the
country for access to the India Ocean. We can clearly see the benefit of
this in the port and oil pipeline the Chinese have built to open up a
new supply route into its landlocked southwest region,” said the embassy
official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of
the subject.
China has plans to further strengthen its infrastructure to the
Indian Ocean with a new railway route from its southwestern Yunnan
Province through Myanmar to the coast at Kyaukphyu, where its oil
transhipment port is based. Kyaukphyu will also be the focus of a
special economic zone, as yet still only on the drawing board in
Naypyitaw.
As well as a diplomatic smiles offensive in Myanmar, the US is
clearly eager to match China’s infrastructure build-up in the
re-awakening economy.
US business is already bidding to win contracts to expand Yangon’s
international airport and to build much-needed roads, notably in the
main commercial corridor between Yangon and Mandalay.
It is significant that the US State Department’s former Assistant
Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Kurt Campbell, is playing a
“pivotal” role in the airport development bid.
Mr. Campbell and his former colleague at the State Department, Nirav
Patel, have formed a consulting company which has now teamed up with a
US business consortium, the ACO Investment Group, bidding for
infrastructure projects in Myanmar.
Mr. Campbell was an influential component of Mr. Obama’s decision to
re-engage with Myanmar and through visits to Naypyitaw laid the path for
Washington’s suspension of sanctions.
“The ACO consortium is clearly interested in capitalizing on that
work,” said the Washington magazine Foreign Policy recently. “Kurt
Campbell is widely regarded as one of the key architects of the United
States’ efforts to engage and normalize relations with Myanmar,” the
political magazine noted.
The ACO includes several prestigious US companies, including Boeing and Burns & McDonnell Engineering.
Another still influential Washington political figure, former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, has also suddenly taken a renewed
interest in Myanmar, as chairwoman of the National Democratic
Institute, an organization created by the US government to promote
democracy in developing countries.
The US is not alone in being concerned about China’s rising influence
in the Indian Ocean rim. India is now flanked by two ports managed
exclusively by Chinese state-owned interests—Kyaukphyu on the Bay of
Bengal and Gwadar on Pakistan’s coast abutting the Arabian Sea.
“It is possible that if the political situation in Myanmar had not
changed the Chinese might have gone on to develop some sort of naval
port on Myanmar’s coast. This would have been worrying for both
Washington and Delhi, but I do not see this happening now,” the Bangkok
embassy official told The Irrawaddy.
“What we are seeing instead in Myanmar is a free for all. China’s
continued presence is certain but it will be less influential and must
compete now more on commercial grounds with the rest of the world,
notably I would think Japan and increasingly the United States.”
This story first appeared in the July 2013 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.
credit- The Irrawaddy News.
Maung Kyaw Nu, a former political prisoner of conscience.
Friday, July 26, 2013 - 5:11 pm
