Scot Marciel was U.S. ambassador to ASEAN from 2008 to 2010 and ambassador to Myanmar from 2016 to 2020. A career diplomat who joined the U.S. Foreign Office in 1985, he has also served in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Hong Kong and knows the region better than most. In the week of Donald Trump’s inauguration for his second term as U.S. president, The Irrawaddy asked Marciel what the next four years will mean for America’s Myanmar policies.
The Irrawaddy: You previously served in Southeast Asia. Working along with key allies such as Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, how is the Trump administration preparing to counter China’s rising power?
Scot Marciel: I think we can look a little bit at the first Trump administration. Trump never appointed an ambassador to ASEAN. He didn’t really go to the meetings. But he did work to improve the relationship with Thailand. I would expect that to continue. The relationship with Singapore—I think it’s still fine. Since Trump left office, the relationship with the Philippines has grown much stronger. It’s likely that the Trump administration would continue to support that. Trump himself has not taken a huge interest or made a big cause of human rights per se, and probably won’t. But there are a lot of other parts of the U.S. government that do take an interest and will continue to do so unless the president takes a direct interest.
A lot might depend on Marco Rubio as secretary of state. Not that he would ignore the president, but the president won’t focus on every country. And I would think you will see more continuity with traditional U.S. policy. But the administration’s focus will certainly be on China. Another focus will be on economics and trade, though not so much in the case of Myanmar.
The first Trump administration pursued some rapprochement with the Thai military government under Prayut. Some people liked that, some people didn’t, but it reflected Trump’s willingness to work with a quasi-military government. That doesn’t mean he’s going to see Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC) the same way he saw Thailand at that time. I think the Myanmar situation is seen to be very different, so I’m not suggesting that they’re going to want to go and shake hands and spend a lot of time with the generals in Myanmar. I’d be surprised. And there are still a lot of people in Congress and the Senate who care a lot about Myanmar, and who will, I think, push for more continuity and support for the people.
In Congress, there is a bipartisan approach to Myanmar, and there was a Burma Act, but no implementation. So what’s your reading on that under the Trump administration?
It’s hard to say. Honestly, I don’t know if Myanmar policy will go to the president’s desk. My assumption is that he’s not all that familiar with the situation there and won’t necessarily take a great interest in it. I think implementation of the Burma Act will depend a little more on the secretary of state or who the USAID director is. There’s now more of an “America first” mentality, questioning why we are helping other countries when we have problems of our own.
On the other hand, the amount of money involved in a place like Myanmar in terms of U.S. humanitarian assistance and so on is not big enough to provoke a major policy debate. Hopefully it’s big enough to be helpful but not big enough to become a big political issue in Washington. So if I had to guess, I would guess more continuity on that front.
More and more migrants and refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar have fled to Thailand since the coup. Civil war is going on. And then drugs production has increased since the coup, and transnational crime, online gambling, and human trafficking have increased dramatically. Myanmar poses a national security threat to neighboring countries, and even American citizens are being targeted. The conflict is not going to end soon, and ASEAN is frustrated but has no tool to intervene. The bloc’s Five-Point Consensus on Myanmar of four years ago now seems outdated. Will the new U.S. administration look into this mess? Or ignore it?
I would expect this to continue. A lot of these things are done without explicit policy direction from the president. I don’t want to say it’s autopilot, because that sounds like nobody is thinking, but it’s just done routinely. Some will depend on whether there’s a new ambassador, but much of it is managed by career people. Unless the administration says, “Stop doing this,” I would expect it largely to continue as it has been.
A lot of this will depend again on who takes the lead in the administration on relations with Thailand and the situation in Myanmar. I would be surprised if cyber crime and other crime that’s become such a big deal did not get a fair amount of attention from the new administration, because as you said, it’s affecting a lot of Americans. I worked on a report with the Asia Foundation last year that offered recommendations for the incoming administration that specifically highlighted this as an issue needing a lot of attention, which means working with the Thais, other ASEAN countries, and maybe even with China, which is also a victim of this. So that’s one way to get attention on Myanmar.
After four years in power, the military has suffered huge setbacks and been heavily defeated in some regions. Were you surprised to see that? A lot of people—we ourselves, Western institutions, and ASEAN—believed that the military was one of the strongest institutions that could stabilize the country.
Yes, I can’t say that I expected the resistance to do as well as it has. I wasn’t surprised at the popular feeling against the coup and against the military. Many people I talked to throughout the country, whether they were NLD supporters or not, didn’t want the military back in charge. So the level of popular opposition to the military didn’t surprise me. But I was surprised by their ability to turn that into a reasonably effective resistance, and the stunning weakness of the military, militarily but also politically.
The generals apparently never had any kind of plan to gain public support—at least some public support. So I can’t say I would have predicted this. And it just shows how rotten the military is—the generals are corrupt and don’t understand the attitudes of Myanmar society. The military has consistently overestimated its own popularity and underestimated how much people in Myanmar want change. And they’re blind to it because they live in their own bubble and don’t really listen to other people.
The resistance’s success is good in the sense of pushing the military back out of power, which I think the country needs. But the problem is that this doesn’t happen quickly. There’s so much suffering, as you know so well. So many people are suffering. But it seems that people are willing to make a lot of sacrifices to get the military out of power because, if the military is in power, what hope is there for Myanmar?
But again neighboring countries, including China, worry about the collapse of the regime, fearing fragmentation and the spread of conflict to neighboring countries. So I think some ASEAN countries or China want to maintain the status quo. That means suffering for people, it’s been huge over the last four years.
The military has shown that it is unable to bring stability back to the country. It is unable to govern. So the status quo is already the chaos and risk of fragmentation that everyone’s supposedly so afraid of. That’s the status quo. The longer the status quo holds, I think the greater the risk of fragmentation. And this idea that supposedly the Chinese and others are supporting of having an election run by the military will not solve the problem.
Neighboring countries’ governments are excited by the word “election.” Of course, in a democratic system, there has to be an election. But for Myanmar now, an election for what, for whom?
My understanding is that some are pushing an election that would produce a type of compromise in terms of the people in power, maybe not including General Min Aung Hlaing. Supporters of this idea might imagine something like what happened in 2012. I haven’t lived in Myanmar for four years, so maybe I’m wrong. But from everything I’ve heard talking to people, this scenario is delusional.
First of all, if the military runs the election, it would have no credibility. Nor would the military even be able to carry it out in much of the country. So I don’t see how such an election would really change the situation on the ground very much, other than a few foreign governments saying, oh, they had an election, so everything is okay. It wouldn’t really change that much inside Myanmar. But also, if so many Myanmar people have not been willing to accept military rule since the coup, why would they now accept it because of some sham elections? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Now China is one of the key external players that has influence over Myanmar. In the past, ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), including Kachin, were quite smart in the way that they kept both the U.S. and China in balance, trying to get more political leverage to advance their own interests. But now it seems China is the only one. There’s no one else.
I think that the U.S. could and should play a bigger role, but it has to be done in a smart way. One idea would be to appoint a special envoy who engages with the various groups, the NUG, the EAOs, civil society, etc., but not really with the junta. I think that makes sense and could be helpful. Ideally, ASEAN would be playing a role, but it seems to be stuck. So I don’t see much happening on that front.
I remember that when Trump came to power for the first time, the generals in Naypyitaw were very happy. They believed that Trump would not have any interest in Myanmar. When the Capitol riots happened, generals and their supporters said on social media: “This is how the U.S. is behaving.” And I think Trump’s second term may be happy news for the generals, the thugs, and criminals in Naypyitaw. What are your thoughts?
Yes, I saw some of the rhetoric that came from the generals around “fake news” and “election fraud”—language they obviously borrowed from someone.
I don’t know the generals’ attitudes now. I think they are wrong if they think that President Trump wakes up in the morning and thinks, “How can I help the generals in Naypyitaw?” I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen. And the U.S. interest in Myanmar has always been much greater than the views of a particular president. It’s a lot of people in different positions of power, and I think it will continue, and it will not be on the side of the generals. Even though Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care as much or at least doesn’t believe the U.S. should be as engaged on human rights and promoting democracy as some others, I still think that the broader U.S. political system will remain very supportive of the Myanmar people and their desire for democracy, human rights, justice, and opportunity. Again, I can’t say for sure what the Trump administration is going to do. But I think celebrations in Naypyitaw may be premature.
