1.
Overview
With this chapter, this thesis begins the main part of the empirical case study; Japan’s Myanmar policy in the post-Cold War era. This chapter covers Japan’s Myanmar policy from 1988 to 1996. This period began in August 1988 with the ‘8888 Uprising’, which meant that it was necessary for the Japanese government to deal with the development of the Myanmar problem. Responding to Myanmar’s destabilizing political situation after the ‘8888 Uprising’ the SPDC headed by Chairman Saw Maung declared a military coup d’état on 18 September 1988. Having announced a transitional government,52 the SPDC held a general election on 27 May 1990, resulting in a landslide victory for the NLD, which gained approximately 60% of the votes and 386 out of 485 seats. The military government, nonetheless, stayed in power throughout this period by emphasizing the necessity to establish a formal constitution before transferring power to a new civilian government. By successfully consolidating its power after Than Shwe’s succession from Chairman Saw Maung on 23 April 1992, the SPDC accelerated economic liberalization and carried out ceasefire negotiations with ethnic minority groups. Following the progress of these policies, the SPDC released Aung San Suu Kyi from house detention on 10 July 1995.
During this period, the diversifying policy agenda stemming from Myanmar’s domestic political turmoil from 1988 to 1990 and international structural transitions at
52
Staying in power for almost five months without any public announcement on future power transfer while defining itself as a transitional government, the SPDC finally made it clear in February 1989 that a general election would be held in May 1990.
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the end of the Cold War transformed the costs and benefits for the Japanese government in conducting its Myanmar policy. At the international political level, Myanmar had gradually lost its strategic significance, especially for Western governments, because of the collapse of the Cold War structure in East Asia. Whereas the PRC recognized Myanmar’s political turmoil as an opportunity to improve its relationship with a geopolitically crucial neighbouring country, Western countries were less concerned about international political games than in criticizing the SPDC’s lack of democratic legitimacy. At the international economic level, the SPDC’s moves toward economic liberalization policy were welcomed by transnational companies and many East Asian countries, leading to an increase in the amount of imports and foreign investment to Myanmar in the mid-1990s. In other words, Myanmar attracted international attention as an emerging market with high economic potential in East Asia. At the societal and transnational level, on the other hand, the military government retained dominance in Myanmar throughout this period even if Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD mobilized international pressure, especially from governments and NGOs in Western countries, by claiming democratic legitimacy.
The Japanese government had primarily been concerned about the Myanmar problem from the perspective of Myanmar’s political stability and economic development. In observing Myanmar’s domestic power distribution and social instability, Tokyo anticipated that Myanmar’s democratization would be a gradual process with various twists and turns, and hence considered that Myanmar’s gradual shift to economic liberalization and political democratization was preferable for Japan. Although it considered that domestic legitimacy was an essential value to be respected, the Japanese government regarded that it was necessary and more realistic to respect state sovereignty and try to persuade the SPDC to act for domestic political reconciliation and economic development. High-handed foreign interventions, which the U.S. and other Western governments had employed, had been regarded as a
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counterproductive policy measure toward the Myanmar problem by many Japanese policy-makers.
The Japanese government, nonetheless, remained in a nuanced engagement policy because of international structural pressures, especially from the U.S., as well as due to a lack of perceived critical interest in Myanmar. Western countries’ sanctions policy and U.S. pressures on Japan’s resumption of economic assistance were certainly recognized by Japanese policy-makers as substantial obstacles to reopen ODA disbursement. The Japanese government also seemed to perceive Myanmar as having less strategic significance around this period due to the decreasing tension of Cold War confrontation in the region. However, it presumably considered the Myanmar problem as important from the viewpoint of East Asian regional stability and Japan’s contribution to it. While it would have been possible for Japan to proactively engage with Myanmar if it had substantial interests there, as could be observed in Japan’s policy toward the PRC after the Tiananmen Square incident, the Japanese government appeared not to perceive enough crucial interests in Myanmar to overcome international structural pressures during this period.
Moreover, Japan’s pre-1988 Myanmar policy-making, which had become an organizational process of administrative coordination, was transformed into bureaucratic politics by Myanmar’s political turmoil from 1988 to 1990. While the development of the Myanmar problem transformed the costs and benefits imposed by multi-dimensional international structure on Japanese policy-makers and other domestic actors, political leaders did not take any distinct initiatives during this period. As a result, Japan’s Myanmar policy-making reflected the different interests of concerned bureaucrats and politicians, although it was generally coordinated by MOFA based on certain shared perceptions within the Japanese government. This made Japan’s Myanmar policy into a series of reactions to the development of the Myanmar problem
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and other governments’ policies towards it. To maintain a good relationship with a pro-Japanese Asian country, to seek increasing business opportunities in Myanmar, as well as to secure Myanmar’s debt repayment and support existing interests in on-going ODA projects seemed to have been, implicitly or explicitly, advocated by Japanese policy-makers and domestic actors.
In order to pursue these interests and despite the SPDC’s obvious neglect of democratic legitimacy, it was preferable for Japan to persuade the SPDC to employ a moderate policy and to take international criticism into account in order to depoliticize the Myanmar problem in the international arena. This was in contrast to other options such as the sanctions policy of Western governments and the unconditional support policy which the PRC began to employ. Although they did not have a substantial impact on Japan’s Myanmar policy-making, the emergence of anti-military government groups and domestic media reports on Myanmar’s political turmoil somewhat increased the domestic costs to the Japanese government of conducting a proactive engagement policy. A low-key policy of friendship engagement in the manner of ‘quiet diplomacy’ thus had been a preferred policy for the Japanese government, which could retain, at least implicitly, domestic support from traditional bilateral friendship groups as well as economic engagement groups. By analyzing this process, this chapter describes how the Japanese government responded to Myanmar’s changing political situation as well as international structural transitions after 1988.
2.
Foreign Policy Agenda
The development of the Myanmar problem after the ‘8888 Uprising’ as well as the SPDC’s new foreign and economic policy substantially transformed the agenda concerning Myanmar after 1988. The development of the Myanmar problem after the
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‘8888 Uprising’ revealed Myanmar’s domestic agendas of democratic legitimacy and human rights protection, which many Western governments particularly focused on. Meanwhile, continuous domestic insurgencies by Myanmar’s ethnic minorities and other anti-government groups remained as major risks to its political stability, which was assumed to have significant implications for regional political stability in East Asia. Moreover, emerging non-traditional security issues including narcotics trafficking as well as emigrants and refugees had an increasingly serious transnational impact, even though they did not attract so much international attention during this period.
In foreign relations, the SPDC attempted to make a policy shift from Ne Win’s isolationist foreign policy. Whereas the Ne Win administration kept a distance from the U.S., the PRC and the USSR primarily for the avoidance of foreign intervention, the SPDC sought foreign assistance in pursuit of its domestic political consolidation and economic development after seizing power. As most economic assistance was suspended by Western countries after the ‘8888 Uprising’, the SPDC’s efforts to acquire assistance had been directed to neighbouring countries, especially the PRC and ASEAN members. This means that the SPDC found it beneficial to retain neighbouring countries’ political support to counterbalance Western criticism and sought their economic assistance to ensure its domestic development, yet it was still cautious about excessive dependence on other countries.
The PRC increasingly became a major provider of political support, military procurement as well as economic and technical assistance to Myanmar during this period. At the same time, the SPDC began to commit to the ASEAN framework for the purpose of gaining political and economic support and thereby hedging against the PRC (Steinberg, 2001: 237-238). Having participated in the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at Bangkok in July 1994 as the chair’s guest, the SPDC had taken steps toward its formal entry into ASEAN, which would eventually take place at the 30th anniversary
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meeting in Kuala Lumpur in July 1997.53 At the international political level, Myanmar under the Ne Win regime made little substantial impact on the regional political structure insofar as it maintained domestic stability, but the SPDC’s policy shift began to be recognized by neighbouring countries as having some strategic implications for regional power politics.
At the economic level, Ne Win’s economic management not only identified Myanmar as a serious concern on the global development agenda but also seriously damaged Myanmar’s domestic economy and society. Major donor countries and international development agencies had come to recognize Myanmar’s economic stagnation and foreign debt accumulation as a serious risk for international development assistance. Myanmar’s economic crisis finally reached the point in 1987 that Yangon could not help but delay the repayment of its foreign debt and accept the status of LLDC at the UN General Assembly. This was in return for preferential treatment in foreign aid such as the extension of debt repayments in December 1987. Accordingly, by admitting certain failures in economic management, the Ne Win administration notified its partial liberalization of agricultural transactions on 1 September 1987. Only four days after the announcement, however, the Ne Win administration suddenly announced the demonetization of three kinds of banknote, notably the 75, 35 and 25
kyat, which represented more than 60% of Myanmar’s money circulation. Although it was officially explained as a measure to eliminate black market merchants, the demonetization policy seriously affected private merchants preparing for the liberalized agricultural business and ordinary people who generally preferred to save cash instead of using the unreliable banking system (Sakuma, 1993: 113-114).54 These inconsistent economic policies fuelled public frustration and anger against the government, leading
53
The SPDC signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) in 1995 and retained the status of ASEAN observer in 1996.
54
Actually, the Ne Win regime demonetized twice before this time: in May 1964 and in November 1985. Previously the regime exchanged new banknotes in return for demonetized banknotes but did not do this at this time except for public officers, pensioners and foreign diplomats (Sakuma, 1993: 113-114).
109 to the occurrence of the ‘8888 Uprising’.
In order to improve the domestic economic situation, the SPDC began to conduct economic reforms, of which trade liberalization and foreign capital introduction were the main pillars. For example, from 1988, the SPDC, legalized cross border trade by agreeing to open border trade points with Thailand, the PRC, India and Bangladesh, resulting in increasing imports from neighbouring countries. As a result, during the SPDC’s four year economic plan from FY1992 to FY1995 the Myanmar economy achieved 8.2% average GDP growth, which was far higher than its initial target of 5.1% (Kudo, 1997b).
Although the SPDC maintained economic liberalization as its basic policy line until the late 1990s, Myanmar’s economic growth was short-lived. This was due to several reasons. At the real economic level, there had been a widening gap between rapidly increasing imports and slower growing exports, which was partly due to the weakness of the export industry and partly due to restrictions on agricultural exports (Kudo, 2008: 8-13). Prior to 1988, Myanmar had insufficient foreign currency reserves to accommodate a rapid increase of short-term imports. This became even more serious because the SPDC could only attract limited foreign aid, especially from Western countries, most of which suspended economic assistance to Myanmar for normative reasons, as will be argued later. In addition, given its own unpopularity and Myanmar’s domestic instability, the SPDC could not carry out decisive economic reforms such as agricultural export deregulation for fear of causing social destabilization through the sacrifice of a stable domestic food supply.
Yet, at least until 1996, Myanmar kept attracting international economic interest because of a widespread expectation that Myanmar’s economic potential and the SPDC’s liberalization policy would lead to a certain level of economic growth. This
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might have been partly due to a kind of euphoria, particularly in East Asia, that Myanmar would follow the cases of other East Asian developmental states which had achieved economic liberalization and growth before then.
The agenda of democratic legitimacy in Myanmar became acute when the SPDC ignored the result of the 1990 general election. Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD claimed that they were the legitimate government and repeatedly called for direct dialogue with the SPDC by making the most of their support from foreign governments and domestic public opinion. Retaining control of material capabilities, the military government launched an initiative to formulate a new constitution at the National Convention,55 which was called for the first time in January 1993, by explaining it as a necessary step for the establishment of a civilian government. This separation of political power and political legitimacy was the basis of the struggle between the SPDC and the NLD.
The SPDC’s clear policy priorities were national unity and stability and the problem of democratic legitimacy could only be taken into account insofar as it would not harm such prioritized objectives. The SPDC’s basic stance toward the NLD was thus rather clear: to oppress NLD activities when they were judged as obstacles to its guidance and direction whilst welcoming it to the National Convention as long as NLD members obeyed the discussion rules and remained under control. This was simply unacceptable for the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi. Actually, while the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest on 10 July 1995 led to NLD members attending the National Convention, which restarted from 28 November 1995 after an intermission, they boycotted the discussion after the second day claiming that the SPDC was running the convention in an undemocratic way (Nemoto, 1995). In response to this, the SPDC
55
The National Convention originally consisted of 702 delegates appointed by the SPDC on the assumption that they represented various domestic groups. Only 15% of these delegates were those elected in the 1990 general election (Steinberg, 2001: 81).
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expelled 86 NLD members from the National Convention, resulting in further political tension between the SPDC and the NLD.
With regard to human rights protection, the crackdown of the ‘8888 Uprising’ revealed the military government’s cruel response to unarmed civilian protestors, resulting in more international attention on Myanmar’s human rights situation. To some extent this overlapped with the agenda of democratic legitimacy in terms of the SPDC’s repression of the NLD’s political activities, though it was not limited to it. Human rights issues in Myanmar varied considerably; from the infringement of political rights including freedom of speech, assembly and association to the problems of forced labour, censorship, judicial procedures without due process, and property rights violations. In ethnic minority areas where insurgency activities continued, the military carried out random killings, rapes and forced migration, though the scale of human rights violations reportedly decreased in accordance with the ceasefire process with domestic insurgency groups (Pedersen, 2008: 7-8). In spite of international and domestic criticism, however, the military government generally regarded such human rights violations as necessary costs in the process of nation-building and development, which many other countries had historically paid.
Myanmar’s domestic insurgencies had been a critical obstacle for the Myanmar government to achieve national unity since the end of the Second World War. The SPDC moved to make ceasefire agreements with domestic insurgency groups by utilizing both carrot and stick methods. These efforts were supplemented by the movement in the late 1980s of the PRC to end its support for the WFCP’s activities. It was reported in January 1996 that all domestic armed combat in Myanmar stopped for the first time since independence and that most of the major ethnic minority groups reached a ceasefire agreement with the military government (Sekai ShThou, 9 April 1996: 58-59). Such efforts for a ceasefire with domestic insurgency groups led to the participation of
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most ethnic minority groups in the National Convention, even if many of them never abandoned their armaments. At the same time, the fact that the military government primarily concentrated on dealing with the problem of domestic insurgencies meant that most of its political and material capabilities were focused on this purpose, resulting in limits to its policy resources for other objectives.
Narcotics trafficking was another very important issue in Myanmar. The Golden Triangle region, the border area between Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, was recognized as one of the biggest production bases for narcotics in the world.56 Whereas the military government conducted public anti-drug campaigns and eradicated poppy fields, some insurgency groups or local leaders earned money from narcotics sales or taxes mainly for the purpose of building up their weapons (Steinberg, 2001: 215). Such an interest system in narcotics production may have been, at least partly, promoted by the SPDC’s backstage deals with some ethnic minority groups to guarantee free economic activity in their areas, including narcotics production and trade, in return for agreeing to a ceasefire (Kudo, 1999: 55). As those narcotics were not only traded within Myanmar but also distributed across the borders by transnational networks, other countries, especially the U.S. and Thailand, were keen on tackling this problem.
A large number of emigrants and political refugees escaped from Myanmar in fear of the authority’s repression, in many cases because of their commitment to political activities since the ‘8888 Uprising’. At the same time, there became a growing number of refugees due to combat between the military and insurgency groups and due to forced relocation by the military. The number of illegal emigrants who sought jobs in