President Trump’s Middle East tour was a success, even his critics admitted. Many of Myanmar’s political observers and journalists followed the news. What did they learn from the trip?
What many oppressed Myanmar citizens and opposition members fighting to end the brutal regime in their country learned from the visit was that the United States is done nation-building and intervening, and the superpower will “no longer be giving you lectures on how to live.”
During his address at an investment conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Trump said, “In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built… And the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.”
Trump surprised with an announcement that the United States will lift long-standing sanctions on Syria after meeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh.
It was the first high-level US-Syria meeting since US President Bill Clinton met with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in Geneva 25 years ago.
He said in his speech, “I have never believed in having permanent enemies.”
If Myanmar dissidents are hoping to revive the stalled Burma Act adopted under the Biden administration or to garner more political support from the Trump administration, they should not fool themselves. The Myanmar opposition will have to work harder to get support from the current administration. So far, the budget cuts by the Trump administration have had a crippling effect on health, education and democracy building.
Has the US lost interest in Myanmar? Seventeen years ago, President George W. Bush in June 2008 authorized the USS Essex battlegroup to deliver humanitarian aid to areas of Myanmar devastated by Cyclone Nargis after the regime refused to do so. The Bush administration imposed a round of sanctions aimed at putting more pressure on the government to make political changes and end human rights abuses. First Lady Laura Bush thundered that the Than Shwe regime should step aside, if it didn’t embrace democracy.
There has been no repeat of such actions today from the US. The Trump administration has no policy on Myanmar. Not yet.
However, in April, we saw a rare remark made by a senior US official during the ASEAN-US Dialogue in Cambodia.
Sean O’Neill, the US State Department’s Senior Bureau Official for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, called on Myanmar’s military regime to immediately cease violence against civilians and release those arbitrarily detained. He also called for unhindered humanitarian access to those in need.
But it was just a hollow statement from the State Department, as when meeting Association of Southeast Asian Nations officials the US side had to mention Myanmar.
Myanmar’s democratic movement and ethnic armed resistance have forged a strong friendship over the last four decades, particularly after the Myanmar military’s brutal crackdown on the popular uprising in 1988. In the intervening years, Myanmar dissidents were invited to the White House, Congress and State Department to brief them on the situation in Myanmar.
Detained State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, considered the highest civilian award in the United States.
For over four decades, both the Republican and Democratic parties supported Myanmar’s democratic movement, fostering longstanding institutional ties between US administrations and Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces. Today, the US is missing in action on Myanmar.
To put it plainly, Myanmar dissidents don’t have much affinity for China and would prefer the US to lead an international coalition to put pressure on the military junta and seek political reform in the country, as it did in the 2000s.
Today’s regime is merely a puppet of China.
In Myanmar, endorsed by China and Russia, the regime has increased its attacks and airstrikes on civilian targets. Last week, an airstrike by the military regime on a village in the country’s central Sagaing Region hit a school, killing as many as 20 students and two teachers. Myanmar experienced a major earthquake on March 28 and instead of focusing on quake victims, the regime escalated its attacks on civilians living in areas controlled by opposition and armed resistance forces. After the earthquake, by May 7, the regime conducted 372 airstrikes on civilian targets across 13 out of 15 states and regions, killing 334 people and injuring 552 others, according to the Human Rights Ministry of Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government.
In the wake of the junta’s bombing of a school in Depayin, we saw France, Canada and Australia belatedly join together to strongly condemn the attack. Notably the US was absent and silent.
More brutal attacks came after junta leader Min Aung Hlaing visited Russia, where he attended events to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany on May 9 in Moscow.
In Moscow, Min Aung Hlaing met Chinese President Xi Jingping on the sidelines of the military parade. The gesture from Beijing was a significant diplomatic victory for Myanmar’s pariah generals, who have been shunned by the West and some governments in Southeast Asia.
The fact that Xi received the junta boss and said nothing about the junta’s war crimes and daily airstrikes targeting civilians in Myanmar further bolstered the junta’s assumption of impunity.
The fact is that China and Russia, two major arms suppliers of the regime, are deeply resented and viewed with disgust by the majority of Myanmar’s population. Indeed, not just China and Russia, but whoever props up the brutal regime in Myanmar is considered an enemy of the oppressed Myanmar citizens, who have been struggling to liberate themselves for decades.
China and Russia are indirectly involved in war crimes in Myanmar committed by the regime. Myanmar people will not forget this, and China should not underestimate their wrath. They are sick and tired of China’s baltant intervention in Myanmar affairs under the pretext of “fraternal friendship”.
It is time for Myanmar opposition and civil society groups to be more vocal in their approach to the US, and ask it to do more for Myanmar, to assist the opposition and to punish the regime and its associates including China.
Myanmar democratic forces have traditional allies. Canada, the EU and Nordic countries—notably Sweden and Norway—have been steady allies of the Myanmar movement. They should be called on to step in to help the Myanmar people and the democratic opposition. In Asia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan can also be asked to step in and increase their assistance to the democratic movement, and to provide assistance along the border.
Trump exhorted from the stage of an opulent ballroom in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East: “Chart your own destinies in your own way.” The Myanmar people and opposition have been doing this for a long time.
Critics and diplomats have often sneered that the opposition won’t be able to remove the regime in Myanmar. Well, since China and Russia actively back the puppet war criminals, it is in fact remarkable that the Myanmar opposition and ethnic forces have done as well as they have.
Don’t be delusional. A peaceful, prosperous and stable Myanmar in the region is in the interest of the governments in the region. Only a democratic and civilian government in Myanmar can align with the US and governments in the region.
