Clinton’s visit to Burma warns China of U.S. refocus on Asia Hilary
Clinton’s visit to Burma warns China of U.S. refocus on Asia
Hilary Clinton’s arrival in Burma this week – at the start of the first visit by an American secretary of state to the southeast Asian nation for half a century – is the latest in a chain of recent messages that Washington is reasserting its links with Asia.
It is a message aimed very much at China, and all the indications are that Asian governments welcome the renewed attention of the Americans after a decade of White House fixation on the Middle East.
Indeed, the “pivot” to Asia by the administration of President Barack Obama is in part a response to the clear anxiety in Asian capitals and, in several cases, among their citizens at Beijing’s growing economic, political and military assertiveness, but lack of a clear message about the objectives of China’s power.
Obama’s focus on the region began earlier this month with his hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Honolulu, which then rolled seamlessly into his long-delayed visit to Australia.
It was during a speech to the Australian parliament that Obama made the symbolic but nevertheless significant announcement that 2,500 Marines as well as American ships and aircraft will be stationed at a new base at Darwin.
This is the first expansion of U.S. military establishments in Asia since the end of the Vietnam War and puts Washington’s forces close enough but not too close to what is becoming the major threat to security in the region: China’s claim to own the whole of the South China Sea and the threats of war by state-owned media aimed at littoral states Vietnam and the Philippines.
From Australia Obama went on to Bali in Indonesia for the East Asia Regional Summit, where he drew the ire of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao by insisting on raising the issue of Beijing’s claim to own the South China Sea and its aggressive stance against the shoreline states including Malaysia and Brunei as well as the Philippines and Vietnam.
It was an apparent attempt by senior Chinese officials and military officers last year to assert that there is no automatic right of passage for shipping across the South China Sea – one of the world’s most important routes for maritime trade – that first moved Clinton and Washington to push back against Beijing.
That continued at the Bali summit with the announcement that Clinton will visit Burma on Wednesday.
Burma, which the country’s military leaders call Myanmar, has become a vivid and unexpected illustration of how even some of the Asian countries that have benefited most from China’s growing potency are now worried about the end result and looking to America for cover.
There was much skepticism when Burma’s military rulers, who in one form or another have been in power since 1962, orchestrated earlier this year what they said was a transition to a civilian government.
But as the months have passed there have been more and more signs that the change may be genuine.
An important one came a few weeks ago when the government of President Thein Sein announced a halt to construction of a controversial hydro electric dam at Myitsone in norther Kachin state.
The dam is one of several in northern Burma being built by Chinese companies to supply electricity to the Chinese market across the border.
Thin Seine said in suspending construction he was “responding to people’s will.” But it soon became apparent that he was also responding to increasing public alarm in Burma at the extent of China’s control over the country’s retail sector and resource industries.
In another sign that the decision by the Burmese military regime to come in from the cold is genuine, the country’s nine fellow members of the Association of South East Asian Nations agreed, after years of deferment, to allow Burma to host the group’s annual summit in 2014.
The news soon after that Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy who has spent much of the last 20 years in detention, has given her blessing to the developments and intends to join the political fray, was undoubtedly the key to Clinton’s decision to visit Burma.
She will no doubt tell the Naypyidaw government it has made the right choice, encourage it to release remaining prisoners of conscience and hold out the prospect of an end to U.S. and international economic sanctions.
At the back of her mind, she might even think that she is setting an example for the other “hermit kingdom” of Asia, North Korea.
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