Myanmar

Over the past month, Myanmar’s multiple domestic crises have spilled over into the region, highlighting setbacks in the country’s reform process just before highly anticipated national elections. The outflow of Rohingya, fleeing violence and discrimination in western Myanmar against their ethnic group and Muslims in general, has attracted the most global news coverage. Yet the flight of the Rohingya is but one issue undermining Myanmar’s stability. Fighting has flared again between the Myanmar army and ethnic Kokang rebels based near the Chinese border, a group known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army. Last month, shelling from the conflict hit areas inside southwestern China. Since February, at least 200 people have been killed, and more than 50,000 driven out of their homes, by fighting between the Kokang and the Myanmar army. Many of those fleeing their houses have crossed into China looking for shelter. Meanwhile, in early June, conflict erupted along the Myanmar-India border as well, between ethnic Naga rebels and the Myanmar and Indian militaries. On June 4, Naga rebels ambushed an Indian army patrol, killing at least eighteen Indian soldiers in the deadliest single attack in northeastern India in two decades. For more on Myanmar’s domestic challenges, and how they are spilling across borders, you can read my latest article for World Politics Review.

So far, despite global coverage of Southeast Asia’s desperate migrants, Myanmar leaders continue to try to cast doubt on the idea that there is a migration crisis at all, though Myanmar officials attended the regional conference on the migration crisis held in Thailand in late May. Still, Myanmar officials reportedly refused to attend the meeting unless it was pitched as a broad discussion about migration, rather than a meeting to address the crisis of fleeing Rohingya. At the meeting, Myanmar “categorically refused to discuss its role as a cause for the crisis,” notes Matthew Davies of Australian National University, an expert on human rights in Southeast Asia. Yet a lasting, regional solution that stops Rohingya from fleeing Myanmar en masse, and that forces Naypyidaw to stop discriminating against Rohingya, is not impossible, although many Southeast Asian leaders appear to think the crisis unsolvable. For more on my recommendations for addressing the migration crisis, you can read my latest article for The National.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lincoln Davidson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, and Ariella Rotenberg look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. China’s ex-domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang to serve life sentence. The former Politburo Standing Committee member was convicted of abuse of power, accepting bribes, and revealing state secrets and sentenced to life in prison Thursday, just shy of a year after his arrest. While officials initially suggested Zhou’s trial would be open and transparent, it wasn’t, with Xinhua adopting the amusing terminology “non-public open trial” (in Chinese) to describe the proceedings. Zhou is the most senior Chinese official to be convicted of graft in PRC history, but this isn’t likely to be the end of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign (tigers beware!). Some have suggested that Zhou may have been escaped the death sentence because the leadership hopes to use him as leverage against other corrupt officials, further consolidating Xi’s hold on power. 2. MERS fatalities in South Korea reach eleven; President Park cancels U.S. visit. As of Friday, eleven South Koreans have died from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and the total number of people infected has reached 126. The fatalities have occurred in people with pre-existing medical conditions, such as cancer. Hospitals and schools are closing in response to the outbreak, and public panic has led to a measurable drop in spending at department stores and attendance to large public events like baseball games, amusement parks, and movie theaters. South Korean President Park Geun-hye was scheduled for a working visit to Washington next week, but amid mounting domestic criticism of her government’s handling of the outbreak on Wednesday she canceled the trip. The Park administration has previously faced criticism of her handling of the Sewol ferry disaster in April 2014. 3. Aung San Suu Kyi begins five-day visit to China. Myanmar’s opposition leader met with Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, in Beijing in the hopes of building better ties with Naypyitaw’s most important neighbor and biggest trading partner. Relations have been strained in recent months by violence on the Myanmar-China border; government forces have been fighting ethnic Kokang rebels near the border with China’s Yunnan province. Though Myanmar’s democratic reforms have been lauded by the West, since Suu Kyi’s release from prison and rise as a politician, she has been largely silent on human rights issues, in particular the Rohingya migrant crisis. Human rights advocates hope that Suu Kyi will lobby for the release of Liu Xiaobo, a fellow Nobel Peace laureate and Chinese democratic activist who remains in prison. 4. Recovery in Nepal suffers setbacks from fresh tremors and landslides. Aftershocks from Nepal’s devastating April quake continue to inhibit recovery efforts. Now that it is monsoon season, Nepali citizens also worry about impending landslides that could prove more intense this year due to the recent earthquakes. This week, at least fifty-five people were killed, with scores still missing, in a dozen landslides in six villages caused by torrential rains in an area east of Kathmandu. Search-and-rescue efforts headed by security personnel and soldiers have been hindered by thick fog and intense weather, and authorities fear the death toll could rise. 5. Four nude climbers detained in Malaysia. Four backpackers who posed for nude photos on the top of Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia have been detained for public indecency. The four, who still remain in police custody, are a subgroup of the ten tourists from various Western countries who stripped naked for a photograph as a challenge to one another to see who could stand the cold longest without clothing. Although the photos were done in jest, many locals believe they are to blame for a 6.0-magnitude earthquake that left eighteen people dead on Mount Kinabalu last Friday. The locals believe the nudity offended the spirits of the mountain, which is considered sacred by various tribes in the area, and therefore drew the wrath of the mountain’s aki, or protectors. BONUS: Ai Weiwei holds—and attends—exhibition. The West’s second favorite Chinese dissident, who has been barred from leaving the country since he sparked the ire of the Chinese government in 2011, opened his first-ever solo exhibition in China this week. He was even allowed to attend the exhibit, which avoided the overt political statements for which he’s become famous. The world-famous artist and ersatz metal musician rounded out his week by sitting down with hacker Jacob Appelbaum to stuff shredded NSA documents into toy pandas.

For more than three years, as Rohingya in western Myanmar have faced violent attacks, seizure of their homes, and a growing climate of intolerance in public discourse, leaders across the Myanmar political spectrum have either remained silent or actually encouraged discrimination. The Myanmar government surely deserves much of the blame for this environment. Thein Sein’s government participated in last month’s regional crisis meeting in Bangkok on migration only reluctantly, and only after the scope of the meeting was publicly changed so that it addressed migration generally and not the Rohingya. At the meeting, Myanmar officials told reporters that “finger pointing” would not help resolve the crisis, and denied that Naypyidaw bore any blame for the conditions that led Rohingya to flee. However, the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which is likely to dominate national parliamentary elections in the fall, has hardly been outspoken about the Rohingya. When the violence against Rohingya erupted more than three years ago several NLD members and other prominent democracy activists actually seemed to blame the Rohingya for the attacks. Ko Ko Gyi, a longtime democracy activist and former political prisoner, said in 2012 that “Rohingya [Muslims] are not one of the ethnic groups of Myanmar at all … genetically, culturally, and linguistically [these] Rohingya are not absolutely related to any ethnicity in Myanmar.” Since then, most of the NLD leadership has avoided any public criticism of the Rohingya, but also has not criticized attacks on the minority group or government policies that encourage anti-Rohingya discrimination. Aung San Suu Kyi has been notably silent on the issue. Other NLD leaders, like party vice chairman Tin Oo, also have had little to say about the Rohingya. The Nobel laureate was pointedly not invited to address a conference on the Rohingya crisis held in Oslo in late May; another Nobel laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, spoke to the conference and expressed despair at the plight of the Rohingya. (Another Nobel Peace laureate, the Dalai Lama, in May told The Australian newspaper, "It’s not sufficient [for Suu Kyi] to say: ’How to help these people?’") In the middle of May, however, the NLD seems to have shifted, at least a bit, on the Rohingya issue. On the sidelines of a meeting between political parties in Yangon, NLD spokesperson Nyan Win told reporters that the rights of the Rohingya should be protected, and that Naypyidaw should consider granting them Myanmar citizenship. "If they are not accepted (as citizens), they cannot just be sent onto rivers. Can’t be pushed out to sea. They are humans. I just see them as humans who are entitled to human rights," spokesperson Nyan Win told Agence France-Presse. Nyan Win then told The Independent, “The problem needs to be solved by the law. The law needs to be amended. After one or two generations [of residence] they [the Rohingya] should have the right to be citizens.” Nyan Win’s remarks were by far the boldest by the NLD; the government, and many NLD members, insists that the Rohingya are illegal migrants to Myanmar, even though many Rohingya have lived in the country for generations. Although this statement does not make up for Suu Kyi’s continued silence, and it does not change the situation on the ground in Arakan State, it is a small step forward for the NLD, and one that party members could build upon. To be sure, Nyan Win’s statement does not even have the force of an official change in policy position by the NLD leadership. Yet having spoken with many of the younger generation of NLD members and leaders, I know that there is a group of NLD members who want the party, and Suu Kyi, to speak out more boldly about protecting Rohingya rights. Perhaps NLD members who want to speak out about the Rohingya will do so now, and might even encourage Suu Kyi to take a stronger stance.

Over the past week, the worldwide news coverage of Rohingya migrants at sea in Southeast Asian waters has helped convince some of the region’s governments to take action to prevent an imminent crisis. Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia last week agreed to take in around 7,000 migrants, at least temporarily, and the Thai government is apparently considering taking in migrants as well. The United States and other donors apparently will cover some of the costs of providing shelter and care for the migrants temporarily. But the Myanmar government, the most critical actor in the entire crisis, has done almost nothing. Myanmar leaders continue to try to cast doubt on the idea that there is a crisis at all, or at least one involving Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, and putting themselves in the hands of human traffickers and dangerously shoddy boats. The Myanmar army’s commander in chief told the country’s state media that many of the refugees are just posing as Rohingya “to receive UN aid and that many had fled neighboring Bangladesh,” according to a Reuters report over the weekend. Naypyidaw also quickly moved to deport a group of migrants, some of whom apparently claimed to be Rohingya, and who were rescued at sea last Friday by the Myanmar navy. The Myanmar government vowed to immediately send the migrants to Bangladesh, and did no investigation of whether any of the migrants were actually Rohingya. The Myanmar government also seems extremely unlikely to take steps that might stem the outflow of Rohingya, leading to further crises on the seas; Naypyidaw refuses to admit that its own policies are a major reason why the Rohingya are fleeing, instead simply claiming that the migrants leave to pursue better-paying work elsewhere. The news coverage of the Rohingya, and the global pressure on Southeast Asian nations to address the migration crisis, does not appear to have had any impact on the policies of the Thein Sein government. Myanmar Muslim leaders repeatedly have accused Naypyidaw of taking no action against human traffickers who are taking advantage of fleeing Rohingya, and Naypyidaw has done little to either improve the condition of displaced persons camps in western Myanmar or to reduce discrimination and violence against Rohingya in Arakan State. The government’s policies, in fact, help create a climate that encourages discrimination against Rohingya, and a new law put into effect just last week may only further entrench discrimination. The Thein Sein government has consistently made it difficult for Rohingya to obtain Myanmar citizenship, and has branded most of the Rohingya community as illegal immigrants, despite significant evidence that many have lived in Myanmar for generations. The government also recently passed a family planning law that gives provincial governments the power to enact population control measures. Although the law is broadly worded, possibly on purpose, many Rohingya fear the legislation will be used, in western Myanmar, to restrict Rohingya births and to attempt to boost the percentage of Buddhists living in western states. (Muslims in other parts of Myanmar also fear that the new law will be used to limit Muslim birthrates, even if the targets are non-Rohingya Muslims.) Indeed, Rohingya leaders have little hope in Naypyidaw, which is why Rohingya men and women continue fleeing Arakan State, even though the conditions aboard the vessels they cram into are by now widely known. (Migrants questioned by the New York Times essentially said that conditions for them in Myanmar were so horrific that taking to the seas in unseaworthy boats was a better choice for them.) Will anything change Naypyidaw’s stance toward the Rohingya, making it possible for this embattled minority to remain in Myanmar---and reducing the threat of future crises on the seas? Although no one has taken a comprehensive poll of the Myanmar electorate on the Rohingya issue, many Myanmar politicians, including some in the opposition National League for Democracy, believe that the Myanmar public generally supports a tough, even brutal policy toward the Rohingya. Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who was already planning to be in Myanmar, used his visit last week to emphasize the need to change the conditions for Rohingya in Arakan State. But without exercising any leverage over Naypyidaw, the United States is unlikely to have any impact on Myanmar’s policies, and the crisis likely will continue.

As countries in Southeast Asia dither and argue with each other about how to handle the thousands of Rohingya migrants currently stranded on the seas, the migrants’ condition presumably is getting worse. Most of their boats are barely seaworthy, their conditions on board are often horrendous, and they frequently lack proper food and water. The United Nations has warned that the boats could become “floating coffins.” When a New York Times reporter came across a boat of migrants in the Andaman Sea last week, he noted that hundreds were crammed aboard the wooden fishing vessel, with no one to guide them. They “had been on the boat for three months ... The boat’s captain and crew abandoned them six days ago. Ten passengers died during the voyage, and their bodies were thrown overboard,” the Times reported. Southeast Asian nations and other regional powers can work together to ensure that Rohingya who are out at sea are not abused, sold into slavery, or left to die on the open waters. All Southeast Asian nations could immediately stop pushing boats carrying Rohingya back to sea. The United States, Australia, India, and Singapore, which have the best navies in the region, could work together to lead more comprehensive search and rescue operations in Southeast Asian waters, to ensure that boats carrying Rohingya are found. In addition, Southeast Asian nations could more effectively share intelligence to crack down on human trafficking, to prevent migrants out at sea from vanishing into traffickers’ networks. Currently, police and navies in the region rarely share information about trafficking. A second step toward addressing the crisis would involve all Southeast Asian nations coming together and adopting a plan that facilitates the resettlement of Rohingya currently at sea into other countries in the region. Not all countries would take equal shares of Rohingya. As Klaus Neumann, an expert on comparative approaches to refugees at Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology, notes, the European Commission has recently proposed a strategy for dealing with migrants to Europe under which, he notes, “asylum seekers would be distributed equitably across member states, with each being required to accommodate and process a certain proportion. Neumann adds, “A complicated formula, which takes into account a [European Union] country’s economic performance, its unemployment rate, its population, and the number of asylum applications and resettled refugees would be used to arrive at these percentage figures” of how many migrants each EU member takes in. The numbers of Rohingya at sea now are far less than the numbers of refugees coming ashore in southern Europe, but the same general principles could be applied in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian countries each could take in a certain number of Rohingya, and that figure would be calculated from a range of factors. Although the European Union is far wealthier, overall, most of the countries in Southeast Asia, and outside actors, such as the United States, Japan, and wealthy Persian Gulf nations, could potentially donate to a fund designed to help pay for Rohingya resettlement, lessening the financial burden for poorer Southeast Asian nations or ones likely to take in the largest numbers of Rohingya, like Indonesia. Ultimately, an effective long-term strategy would be one that reduced the number of Rohingya setting out to sea in the first place. Such a strategy would require the cooperation of the Myanmar government, which has thus far denied that it is even to blame for the crisis currently unfolding; and, it would require significant change in the political environment in Myanmar. Right now, the threat of violence against Rohingya in Myanmar remains so severe that many seem to believe that getting on crowded and rickety boats and putting out into the open waters is a safer bet than staying in Myanmar and facing anti-Muslim violence. Unless the Myanmar government takes a tougher approach to the paramilitary groups targeting Rohingya, and accepts that many Rohingya families have lived in Southeast Asia for generations and have the right to live in Myanmar (rather than planning to deport them if they cannot prove decades of residence in Myanmar), it is likely that Rohingya will continue trying to flee.

In the wake of the latest horrific reports of Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, the United States government has called Southeast Asian nations to come together and adopt a region-wide strategy for addressing the refugee crisis. “This is a regional issue. It needs a regional solution in short order," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters last week, according to the Associated Press. As of today, thousands of Rohingya reportedly remain at sea, off the coasts of Malaysia and Indonesia, on rickety boats, after human smugglers abandoned them; Malaysia and Indonesia refuse to accept any more of the refugees stranded at sea. Last week, Malaysia turned away two boats of Rohingya migrants. Meanwhile, Thailand continues to investigate the story behind a mass grave, found earlier this month, at an abandoned camp in southern Thailand known to be used by Rohingya traffickers. This regional solution is unlikely. The Rohingya crisis is, sadly, not new to Southeast Asian leaders, even though the discovery of the mass graves and the vivid reporting on the crisis by the New York Times has raised awareness of the problem in the United States and around the world. Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar en masse for at least three years now, as the country’s increasingly open politics have also fostered rising Burman nationalism and a wave of attacks on Rohingya shops and homes through western Myanmar. At least 100,000 Rohingya, and probably many more, have fled their homes in Myanmar since 2012. Governments in the region have had ample time to respond, and have demonstrated little interest in doing so. The Myanmar government has taken no concrete action to stem the tide of refugees or help them be resettled safely. Bangladesh takes the position that the Rohingya are Myanmar’s problem. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have refused, over the past three years, to devise any comprehensive solution to the Rohingya problem; Reuters’ investigative reporting, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year, has revealed the cooperation of the Thai authorities in trafficking of Rohingya. (Indonesia, at least, has adopted a policy under which migrants who reach its shores are not sent back, a policy not unlike the United States’ longtime policy on Cuban migrants.) Only since the discovery of the mass grave has the Thai government arrested police and other authorities for allegedly being involved in human trafficking. Whether any of these suspects will be tried and potentially penalized remains an open question. In addition, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has once again shown itself incapable of handling a real crisis. ASEAN’s Secretary-General has been all but mute. The ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, which has had three years to formulate a regional policy on Rohingya migrants in collaboration with Southeast Asian leaders, has declined to do so; Malaysia is the current chair of ASEAN, while Myanmar was the chair last year. Myanmar reportedly has blocked discussion of the Rohingya at ASEAN meetings for at least two years. Over the weekend, the Myanmar government blamed its neighbors for the migration crisis, with the office of President Thein Sein declaring that Myanmar’s leader will not even attend a proposed regional meeting to discuss the issue if the migrants are referred to as Rohingya. The Myanmar government prefers to call them “Bengalis,” a term that suggests they have no right to be in Myanmar. Major Zaw Htay, director of the office of Myanmar’s president, told the Associated Press over the weekend: "We will not accept the allegations by some that Myanmar is the source of the problem.” Given the lack of action by Southeast Asian (and South Asian) leaders, there is room for outsiders, like the United States, Australia, and Japan, to play a role. Other than calling for a regional solution, will the Obama administration do anything else about the Rohingya crisis? Will it provide naval ships for search and rescue missions, or increase aid to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, to help them take in Rohingya? Will the United States and Japan, which sees Myanmar as important strategically and is encouraging Japanese investment there, do more than express concern about the Myanmar government’s tolerance of Burman paramilitary groups that have stoked the violence against Rohingya?

In the end of October, Myanmar will hold what will be probably its first truly free national election in twenty-five years. Several reports released this week on the upcoming election suggest that, for all the problems with Myanmar’s reform process over the past five years, the actual Election Day is likely to be relatively fair. A new International Crisis Group (ICG) report on the upcoming election notes that the election commission has, thus far, operated transparently and consulted widely and that the government has reached out to credible international observers to help ensure Election Day is fair. Myanmar has a history of actually holding fair votes on Election Day, no matter the circumstances leading up to the vote. In 1990, after a brutal crackdown by the military on demonstrators two years earlier, the Myanmar armed forces allowed a free and fair election, which was won by the National League for Democracy (NLD). Of course, after the large NLD victory, there was no transition to democratic rule; the military came up with various excuses for not seating the parliament elected in 1990, and eventually made clear it would simply ignore the results of the election. This time around, after reforms initiated by the Thein Sein government, the military is unlikely to simply step in and just annul the results of the autumn elections. But once again, just because Election Day is free and fair does not mean Myanmar will make a transition to a democratic government. Although the NLD is likely to win a significant share of seats in parliament, the election may be contested by as many as seventy political parties. The vote may be splintered, with many small parties winning a handful of seats. Worse, as the ICG report notes, since Myanmar’s constitution still contains provisions that bar Suu Kyi from becoming president, even if the NLD wins a majority of seats in the election, it will have to find some other figure to take the presidency. This compromise figure could possibly be current speaker of the lower house Thura Shwe Mann. Yet such a compromise, which would be engineered in the three months between the election and the electoral college’s choice of a president, is likely to anger core NLD supporters, confuse some voters, and possibly lead to a power struggle between the president and NLD members in parliament unhappy that Thura Shwe Mann, a military man with no opposition credentials, had been handed the presidency. “It is unclear whether the NLD’s base fully understands likely post-election scenarios,” ICG writes. A relatively weak president, not chosen directly by voters, could struggle to get anything done. A similar situation occurred after Abdurrahman Wahid became the Indonesian president in 1999, following a lot of backroom dealing, despite the fact that his party controlled only a small percentage of seats in parliament, compared to Megawati Sukarnoputri’s PDI-P. Or, as a Financial Times report on the upcoming Myanmar election notes, a weak president---but one with military ties---may be confronted by a parliament full of MPs who want to pass laws to weaken the institutional power of the armed forces, which ruled Myanmar for nearly six decades and harshly repressed the NLD for more than twenty years. If the compromise president cannot stop parliament from passing such laws (the Myanmar president does not have veto power over legislation), the military may feel it needs to step in directly once more.

Lauren Dickey is a research associate for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Violence along the border between China and Myanmar, in the ethnically Chinese-populated Kokang region, has left Beijing with the dual challenges of refugee outflows and instability along its border.  For the last seven weeks, armed conflict between the Myanmar Army and Kokang rebels, under the banner of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), has sent at least thirty thousand people across the porous border between Myanmar and China’s Yunnan province. In response, Beijing has increased its military presence along the border with Myanmar, and has even been accused of supplying the rebel forces with weapons and supplies. While the cause of the initial outbreak in fighting between Kokang rebels and government troops is debated, official Chinese media have given the fighting little coverage. Social media and alternative news outlets, however, offer evidence of a robust Chinese military presence on the border. Pictures and video footage show a Chinese military with ground forces, fighter jets, air defense missiles, and anti-aircraft artillery batteries deployed along the China-Myanmar border, presumably ready to intervene should the Kokang conflict get out of hand. The Chinese already have ample reason to intensify their response to events in Kokang—several Chinese citizens were killed by a poorly directed Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, air strike last month. However, a militarized response by the Chinese government risks sparking increased refugee flows into China and derailing current peace negotiations. Moreover, an armed incursion or other heavy-handed response would drag Beijing into a conflict on its periphery, a clash Chinese officials do not have the appetite for, in part because there are “no territorial issues” between China and Myanmar. Beijing is confronted by a tough decision: can it balance its commitment to protecting ethnic Chinese in Kokang while avoiding straining an already tense relationship with Myanmar? This is not the first time violence has flared between the MNDAA and the Myanmar military. In 2009, a 1989 ceasefire agreement faltered, and the MNDAA, led by Peng Jiasheng (who also inspired the current spate of fighting), were defeated by central government forces. Peng was once part of the Communist Party of Burma, which received broad support from Beijing. After the losses his forces suffered in 2009, Peng fled to Yunnan, along with a flood of refugees. In recent months, however, Peng has returned with anywhere from one thousand to five thousand troops and the goal of retaking Kokang. The Chinese leadership has few options to resolve the issue quickly. Using the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ground forces currently in place to seal off the border and prevent further inflow of refugees to Yunnan province would check the spillover of fighting into Chinese territory. But it would suggest a Chinese complacency toward the challenges faced by the ethnic Chinese in Kokang. Those fleeing the conflict zone would be trapped in Myanmar. Those in Yunnan dependent upon business ties with Kokang would be hurt, as trade flows would come to a near halt. Even as Chinese support for the ceasefire is made clear, Beijing also has several, palatable short-term options to consider. Beijing should keep its borders open to Kokang refugees entering Yunnan while forgoing any subsequent actions that could be perceived as supporting the rebels. Similarly, Beijing has the option of granting citizenship to the Kokang refugees already on Chinese soil, or offering it to those fleeing the fighting. Even if the conflict ends soon, tens of thousands already displaced face an uncertain future. Both near-term options would preserve stability along the border and protect ethnic Chinese, while ameliorating the potential for increased conflict. These options allow for Beijing to keep a strong military presence on the border in such a way that the PLA’s presence does not distract from other objectives in resolving the current border challenge. Additionally, at the request of the Myanmar government, Chinese officials could openly encourage rebels from the active conflict in Kokang to set down their weapons in exchange for more active participation in ceasefire talks. The draft ceasefire agreement signed in late March between the central government and sixteen armed ethnic groups (but not including the MNDAA) was no small accomplishment, as only bilateral ceasefires have been signed in the past. But to be truly effective, the ceasefire must also include the armed Kokang rebels. If Chinese officials could help persuade the rebels from Kokang to commit to the terms of a ceasefire, such steps would help pave the way for both a formal ceasefire agreement and political dialogue between warring parties in the months ahead. Such diplomatic efforts must, necessarily, take place at the highest levels of both governments in order to preserve a Chinese intention of “non-interference” in the internal affairs of Myanmar. Whatever policy route Beijing chooses, there is neither an easy nor a fast resolution to the current conflict in Kokang. Despite warnings from top Chinese military officials of a possible armed response should fighting further “endanger Chinese territorial sovereignty and national security,” Beijing should remain focused on more pragmatic alternatives. A delicate balance between a proactive but firm response to incursions on Chinese airspace and territory is required. With armed conflict between the MNDAA and the Myanmar government on China’s doorstep, Beijing should seize the opportunity to play a leading role in resolving tensions between the two sides and encouraging the MNDAA to enter ceasefire talks. As presidential elections in Myanmar scheduled for later this fall approach, it is in the interests of the Myanmar and Chinese people to ensure that fighting ends, the newly minted ceasefire is upheld, and border stability is restored before voters take to the polls.

Ashlyn Anderson, Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, William Piekos, and Ariella Rotenberg look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. U.S. rebukes UK for joining Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The UK announced that it would become a founding member of the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), despite the urging of the United States. Washington has openly lobbied against the AIIB, influencing South Korea and Australia to eschew membership, but Britain’s decision opens the door for other Western countries to reconsider. One U.S. official warned of the UK’s “trend toward constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power,” while another expressed “concerns about whether the AIIB will meet [the] high standards [of the World Bank and the regional development banks], particularly related to governance, and environmental and social safeguards.” The United States fears that the AIIB will undermine the impact of these organizations and serve as an extension of Chinese soft power. 2. Modi mounts a charm offensive aimed at Indian Ocean island nations. Accompanied by the national security advisor and foreign secretary, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a five-day visit to Seychelles, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka on Tuesday. Since taking office, Modi has prioritized India’s neighborhood in his foreign policy, partially in response to growing Chinese influence in the region. By shoring up economic and defense assistance, Modi hopes to revitalize India’s relations with the island nations. In Seychelles, India gifted the small island nation an aircraft, and Seychelles leased India an island to boost security ties. Modi commissioned the Barracuda in Mauritius, the first naval ship built by India for a foreign country, and inked a number of agreements. Modi also pledged to deepen cooperation with Sri Lanka, which includes plans to partner on an oil storage project. Modi is the first Indian prime minister to visit Sri Lanka in almost three decades. 3. Police and students clash in Myanmar. After a weeklong standoff, police in Myanmar beat and detained students, monks, and journalists protesting an education bill that they say stifles academic independence. Several hundred protesters had planned to walk ninety miles from Mandalay to Yangon, but were blocked by police who refused to allow them to hoist flags, sing songs, or travel in convoy. While reports suggest the students attempted to break through police lines, protest leaders rejected the suggestion that they instigated the violence. The violent scenes are a reminder of Myanmar’s authoritarian military past, from which the country began to emerge four years ago under a nominally civilian government. 4. Sri Lanka vows domestic inquiry into war crimes within a month. Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena announced that a domestic investigative committee will be established shortly to probe allegations of atrocities committed in the final stages of Sri Lanka’s twenty-six-year civil war. Dissatisfied with Sri Lanka’s efforts under former president Rajapaksa to examine its wartime abuses, the United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) attempted its own international inquiry into Sri Lanka’s wartime atrocities. A UNHRC report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes scheduled to be released earlier this month was postponed at the request of Sri Lanka until September, allowing time for President Sirisena’s to set up a domestic investigation. Sri Lanka continues to be insistent that international players remain outside of the investigative process, but is open to considering outside advice. 5. Chinese extremists from Xinjiang are joining the Islamic State, claim Chinese government officials. State officials in China have claimed that Chinese extremists from Xinjiang are going overseas to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Officials claim that these extremists are abroad in order to train and return home to execute terror attacks in their own country. China’s westernmost province, Xinjiang, borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and is home to the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs. This region of China has long been a location of tension between the ethnic Uighur minority, and the majority Han Chinese. The state-sponsored Global Times claimed in December that three hundred Chinese are in Syria and Iraq to fight, though Beijing’s assertions of Uighur extremists taking up arms with the Islamic State are largely unproven. The Communist Party chief in Xinjiang, Zhang Chunxian, reported rising violence in the region, particularly in the context of a global violent extremist movements, and has vowed to crack down on extremist violence. BONUS: Bhutan, world’s worst soccer team, wins World Cup qualifying match. The 209th-ranked team defeated Sri Lanka in Colombo for its first victory since 2008; in between wins, Bhutan suffered eighteen defeats, including a 5-2 loss to Sri Lanka in 2013. Though Sri Lanka isn’t ranked too much higher at 174th, overconfidence contributed to the higher-seeded team’s downfall. The Bhutanese side still has work to do, however, as the two countries will meet again in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, on Tuesday for the second leg of the qualifier.

This week, Amnesty International released its assessment of Myanmar’s 2014 human rights record. Although Myanmar’s bumpy road to reform had been well-documented, the report is even more negative than I had expected. Program toward improvement in political and civil rights in Myanmar “stalled” and went into reverse in 2014, Amnesty reported in the Myanmar chapter of its annual global assessment of freedom. According to the report, discrimination against Muslims, particularly in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, worsened last year, the government prevented humanitarian aid from reaching refugees in areas where the army is still battling ethnic insurgencies, and Naypyidaw maintained what Amnesty called “severe restrictions” on freedom of assembly. These were just a few of the lowlights for Myanmar in 2014. In the first two months of 2015, which are not covered in the Amnesty 2014 report, human rights have apparently deteriorated further in Myanmar. The country is still more open, in terms of both political and civil rights, than it was during the decades of military junta rule, but already this year Myanmar has witnessed serious outbreaks of conflict in the northeast. There have been numerous reports of rights violations by both ethnic Kokang insurgents and by the military in the northeast conflict during the past two months. Aid workers trying to evacuate displaced people in the northeast have had their convoys, which were flying the symbol of the Red Cross, fired upon. There are also, unfortunately, few signs that the core problems revealed by Amnesty’s report will be addressed by President Thein Sein’s government---or by whatever government is formed after elections to be held later this year. As I noted earlier this week, the Myanmar military still operates without sufficient civilian control, fostering a culture of impunity for officers and generals that only abets rights abuses. The ethnic insurgencies in the north and northeast still fester due to a lack of trust-building between Naypyidaw and many of the ethnic militias. The ongoing insurgencies continue to cause refugee flows and facilitate rights abuses by both sides. Meanwhile, no prominent Myanmar political leaders, including National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders, are willing to take a public stance clearly denouncing the anti-Muslim hate-mongering propagated by Buddhist Burman nationalist groups. This hate-mongering has helped create an environment in which attacks on Muslims in western Myanmar go ignored by most Burmese or are even applauded in public discourse. The hateful environment further suggests to the nationalist paramilitary groups which have emerged in recent years that attacking Muslims has no consequences. In addition, although the media environment and the environment for public expression is far freer than it was under military rule, Myanmar’s leaders still seem unwilling to create the foundations of a truly free press, allowing for journalists to be routinely harassed by authorities and jailed for their reporting. Will the elections later this year resolve these ongoing challenges? A peaceful change in government would be a milestone for Myanmar, but just having a new, elected leadership will not do much to address these entrenched problems. In fact, although I wholly support Myanmar’s election process, an NLD government might frankly have a tougher time establishing civilian control of the armed forces, as well as reaching a permanent peace with the myriad armed insurgencies.

Over the last three weeks, fighting has broken out in Myanmar’s northeast between the military and several ethnic minority militias, including the ethnic Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and, allegedly, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The KIA is one of the most powerful insurgent groups in Myanmar. At least 30,000 civilians have fled across the border into China, and the fighting has killed at least 130 people. The Myanmar military has attacked rebel groups with air strikes, and the fighting shows no sign of letting up. The fighting began on February 9, when Kokang rebels attacked government troops in the town of Laukkai and the Myanmar army launched a fierce counterattack. The exact reasons for the clash on February 9 remain somewhat unclear. The fighting may stem from a personal feud between the Kokang group’s leader and the Myanmar armed forces’ commander in chief, or it may have been sparked by a desire by the Kokang militia to take back control of Laukkai. Or, the attack may have been retaliation for previous unreported attacks on Kokang fighters by the Myanmar military. Or, it may have stemmed from a dispute over drug trafficking and its profits; the northeast of Myanmar is one of the biggest producers of opium and synthetic methamphetamine stimulants in Asia. Still, the broader security environment in Myanmar clearly has played a role in this recent outbreak of fighting. Indeed, the Kokang clashes with the Burmese army are reflective of several disturbing trends in Myanmar – trends that, if they continue, could undermine the country’s peace process and possibly lead to a wider outbreak of civil war. For one, it remains unclear whether the president has total control over the military. Did President Thein Sein order Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing to hit back so hard against the Kokang, or did the military move essentially on its own?  Any lack of civilian control of the military under a president who is a former general himself is hardly going to improve if the National League for Democracy (NLD) wins the 2015 elections and takes over the reins of government, since the NLD is even less trusted by senior military men. The lack of clear channels of control over the military remains a major impediment to a national peace deal that includes all insurgent groups. In addition, this fighting reveals that, although the government is pushing for a nationwide, long-term peace deal with all the remaining insurgent armies, it is still far from gaining the trust of many insurgent leaders. Such trust is a necessary predecessor for any permanent peace. Naypyidaw wanted to announce a nationwide cease-fire, a step toward a permanent peace, by Union Day, a national holiday that takes place on February 12. That date was missed. Yet many of the insurgents do not trust the government to follow through on any promises, and a nationwide cease-fire appears unlikely anytime soon. Naypyidaw has not helped the process of trust-building by repeatedly attacking the KIA in recent years and by demanding that insurgent groups make major concessions, such as disarming, before the government responds with reciprocal concessions. Although the Kokang insurgent group is relatively small, the KIA has been reported to have at least 8,000 fighters under arms. The KIA will be critical to any nationwide peace deal. Finally, the conflict in northeastern Myanmar is a reminder that narcotrafficking remains a major source of income for several insurgent groups, including the most powerful of them all, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which reportedly has ties to the Kokang. Although it is unclear whether the Kokang battle is related to a dispute over drugs or drug profits, the leader of the Kokang insurgents, Peng Jiasheng, reportedly has a long history of involvement in the drug trade, according to journalist Bertil Lintner, the leading authority on narcotrafficking in northern and northeast Myanmar. The UWSA, meanwhile, has been cited by the State Department and many foreign diplomats in Myanmar as one of the world’s most heavily armed narcotrafficking organizations. How will Naypyidaw address narcotics production in the northeast as part of any long-term peace deal? Narcotics have allegedly become the essential ingredient in the survival of the UWSA and several other groups, and in previous ceasefires the government in Myanmar essentially allowed the UWSA to keep producing drugs, as long as it refrained from attacking government forces. But this is not a model for a long-term deal.

Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski, U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell, and a group of other U.S. officials from State, Defense, and USAID were in Myanmar for the second U.S.-Burma Human Rights Dialogue. The dialogue came at a time when Myanmar’s rights record is backsliding, more than one-hundred thousand Rohingya Muslims remain internally displaced in Myanmar, and there are concerns, both within Myanmar and among outside countries, that this year’s critical national elections will be waylaid, not allowing the vote to go on freely and fairly. U.S. officials clearly understand these concerns—President Barack Obama very gently expressed his worry about the challenges in Myanmar during a trip to the country last fall—but before the dialogue, the Obama administration had continued to push forward its rapprochement with Naypyidaw. In part, as I argue in a new CFR working paper on the pivot and Southeast Asia, the White House has continued its rapprochement with Myanmar so as not to undermine what it considers a foreign policy success story of Obama’s presidency. I further argue in the paper that rapprochement has had yielded limited strategic benefits for the United States (and minimal quality opportunities, other than in oil and gas, for U.S. companies up to this point), while undermining U.S. credibility on democracy promotion in Southeast Asia. U.S. officials had previously been reluctant to offer significant public criticism of Myanmar’s faltering reforms. So it was refreshing to see Assistant Secretary Malinowski be quite blunt, in a press conference, about Myanmar’s problems. “There is a great deal of skepticism in some quarters about whether the reform process is continuing and fears about tensions and other problems that might arise in a year in which the election will be first and foremost in people’s minds,” Malinowski said. He also expressed concern that Myanmar’s government is “playing with fire” by not taking a tougher approach toward people using religion to create divides among Myanmar citizens—people like those leading the growing Buddhist paramilitary movement in Myanmar. In fact, the government has not only ignored the anti-Muslim violence but also has abetted it, allowing new legislation that would make it almost impossible for people in Myanmar to have interfaith marriages and conversions. However welcome Malinowski’s comments were, the Obama administration should not only offer frank criticism of Myanmar’s leadership, in public and in private. The United States has significant leverage in Myanmar. The Myanmar armed forces desire a much closer relationship with Washington, and while U.S. investment is not that significant in Myanmar at this point, it could become much greater if the bilateral relationship is completely normalized and it becomes easier for U.S. companies to invest in Myanmar. The White House should take steps, beyond offering public criticism of Naypyidaw, to freeze aspects of the bilateral relationship with Myanmar until after the 2015 elections are completed. This freeze should remain in place until the country has made a transition to a new, fairly elected government. Most importantly, the White House should halt further restoration of military-to-military ties until after the election. This halt would serve, in part, as a signal to the still-powerful Myanmar armed forces that they need to allow the election to go forward freely, even if the opposition National League for Democracy party clearly is going to triumph. The freeze on military-to-military relations also should be utilized to apply more pressure on Naypyidaw to investigate possible links between uniformed military and the Buddhist paramilitary groups, and to punish military officers involved with the paramilitaries.

Since the start of President Barack Obama’s first term, the United States has pursued a policy of rebuilding ties with Southeast Asia. By 2011 this regional focus had become part of a broader strategy toward Asia called the “pivot,” or rebalance. This approach includes shifting economic, diplomatic, and military resources to the region from other parts of the world. In Southeast Asia, a central part of the pivot involves building relations with countries in mainland Southeast Asia once shunned by Washington because of their autocratic governments, and reviving close U.S. links to Thailand and Malaysia. The Obama administration has also upgraded defense partnerships throughout the region, followed through on promises to send high-level officials to Southeast Asian regional meetings, and increased port calls to and basing of combat ships in Southeast Asia. Yet despite this attention, the Obama administration’s Southeast Asia policy has been badly misguided. The policy has been wrong in two important ways. First, the White House has focused too much on the countries of mainland Southeast Asia, which—with the exception of Vietnam—have provided minimal strategic benefits in return. This focus on mainland Southeast Asia has distracted attention from the countries of peninsular Southeast Asia—Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore—that are of greater value strategically and economically. Indonesia, in particular, is a thriving democracy and an increasingly important stabilizing force in regional and international affairs. Second, increased U.S. ties with mainland Southeast Asia have facilitated political regression in the region by empowering brutal militaries, condoning authoritarian regimes, and alienating young Southeast Asian democrats. This regression is particularly apparent in Thailand. It seemed to have established a working democracy in the 1990s, but has regressed politically more than any other state in Southeast Asia over the past twenty years. In May 2014, Thailand was taken over by a military junta. Reform also has stalled in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. This political regression has had and will have strategic downsides for the United States as well. In the long run, young Southeast Asians—the region’s future leaders—will become increasingly anti-American and an authoritarian and unstable mainland Southeast Asia will prove a poor partner on economic and strategic issues for the United States. Through the remainder of the Obama presidency, the United States should refocus its Southeast Asia policy in two ways: prioritize the countries of peninsular Southeast Asia and restore the emphasis on democracy and human rights in the region. In particular, the United States should slow and, in some cases, halt growing military-to-military ties with the countries of mainland Southeast Asia such as Myanmar. Washington also should refocus its aid on democracy promotion in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the United States should upgrade its relations with Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam by working to sign a treaty alliance with Singapore and expanding diplomatic, economic, and military ties with these four nations. Such a shift in Southeast Asia policy would allow the United States to better align Asia policy with democratic values and maximize the strategic benefits of U.S. interest in Southeast Asia. For more on how Obama’s Southeast Asia policy has gone wrong, and what the administration can still do to fix it, see my new CFR Working Paper, "The Pivot in Southeast Asia: Balancing Interests and Values."

Following up from last week, I am now counting down my top five predictions for 2015. 5. Jokowi wins over majority of parliament Currently, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s coalition still lacks a majority in parliament, which is hindering Jokowi’s ability to pass legislation. But by the end of 2015, I think Jokowi’s party, PDI-P, will be at the head of a coalition that includes of majority of members of parliament. Jokowi has for weeks been wooing former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), whose Democrat Party lawmakers could, if they switched from the opposition to Jokowi’s coalition, give Jokowi a majority in parliament. Although Yudhoyono and PDI-P chief Megawati Sukarnoputri still reportedly detest each other, SBY and Jokowi have reportedly gotten along well at a series of private meetings since early December. In addition, SBY, who always saw himself as a major figure in Indonesian history, clearly is worried that people will remember only his behavior at the end of his second term, when he did nothing as the opposition in parliament passed legislation that would drastically reduce the number of direct elections for regional governors and other local offices. This is a strikingly anti-democratic piece of legislation, and one that, polls show, is not supported by most Indonesians. (SBY also probably still hopes to eventually find some sort of senior job at the United Nations or another global agency, for which his reputation matters as well.) Now, SBY may be trying to move the Democrat Party into Jokowi’s camp to show the public that Yudhoyono will fight to maintain direct elections, and to bask in some of the reflected Jokowi’s democratic glow. 4. The NLD dominates Myanmar elections In the run-up to next fall’s national elections in Myanmar, some analysts have begun suggesting that the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, might not win such an overwhelming victory as it did in 1990, or in by-elections held in 2012, when the NLD won nearly every seat contested. The military and its favored party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), have allegedly already begun handing out money, and surely will provide more handouts as Election Day gets closer. In addition, the USDP is the party of President Thein Sein, who helped launch Myanmar’s reform process; many foreign analysts, still besotted with Thein Sein despite Myanmar’s backsliding in 2013 and 2014, believe the linkage to Thein Sein will help win the USDP seats next year. In addition, the NLD remains a party too dominated by Suu Kyi and lacking an effective apparatus for research, for developing policy positions, and potentially for governing. It won’t matter. The NLD is going to sweep the polls in late 2015, though Suu Kyi will remain barred from the presidency by the Myanmar constitution, and the Myanmar military will continue to wield excessive power through its allocation of 25 percent of seats in parliament and through its enormous network of various security forces throughout the country. Then, the NLD will have to govern. The party’s policy weaknesses will be exposed, it will have to work with a president other than Suu Kyi – perhaps current parliament speaker Shwe Mann – and it will face the tough task of trying to slowly reduce the military’s influence over politics. But the NLD will win the election, and win big. 3. Hillary Clinton walks back her embrace of Burma policy As she lays plans in 2015 to run for president, Hillary Clinton will have to grapple with the legacy of U.S. rapprochement with Myanmar, which Clinton helped launch as secretary of state in Barack Obama’s first term. Up to now, Clinton has continued to point to this rapprochement as a highlight of her time as secretary, a foreign policy victory in which the United States helped spark reform in one of the most isolated nations in the world. Clinton made Myanmar a central success story in Hard Choices, her book on her time as secretary. Yet since 2013, Myanmar’s political reforms have stalled, and though the NLD will win the 2015 election, its victory will hardly guarantee a return to democracy. Instead, the country is likely to face chaos, as the NLD fights the military and its allies to retain control of the government, civil strife continues in several parts of the country, and violence against Muslims rises. A consummate strategist, Clinton will find some way in 2015 to write herself out of the troubled story of U.S.-Myanmar rapprochement. 2. Southeast Asia survives (and even thrives on) low oil prices Low oil prices already have wreaked havoc on Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, and other oil producers, particularly those whose state companies, like Gazprom or Petrobras, have issued large amounts of corporate debt. Cheap oil will hurt some Southeast Asian countries that are significant exporters, like Brunei, Malaysia, and, to some extent, Vietnam. Of all the large Southeast Asian economies, Malaysia, which has developed a range of sophisticated oil-related industries that together account for about 30 percent of GDP, will be hurt worst. Yet none of these countries’ state petroleum companies have issued as high the levels of debt as Gazprom or Petrobras. Despite Malaysia’s many economic challenges, its state oil company, Petronas, is well-managed, a far cry from Petrobras, which is now facing a massive corruption scandal. In addition, the drop in the price of oil will be a huge boon to Indonesia, significantly cushioning the impact of President Joko Widodo’s recent cut in fuel subsidies – and possibly allowing Indonesian consumers to spend more on other items, helping goose the economy. Cheaper oil also will be a boon to consuming nations like Thailand, the Philippines, and other oil consumers in the region. 1. Congress smacks down Barack Obama’s policies Granted, that could be a headline related to almost any foreign or domestic policy issue in 2015; you have an incoming Congress dominated by the GOP, with leaders angry that, after the November elections, President Obama issued several groundbreaking executive orders that will transform relations with Cuba, immigration, and climate change. But on Southeast Asia, Congress has always played a much larger role than it has played in many other areas of foreign policy. Congress has for two decades been central to policy-making on Myanmar, Vietnam, and other authoritarian states in mainland Southeast Asia, partly successive presidents mostly ignored these countries, partly because of the legacy of American wars in mainland Southeast Asia, and partly because of genuine concern in Congress that American presidents, of both parties, ignored human rights abuses throughout Southeast Asia. Seeing a void in policy-making, Congress imposed tough sanctions on Myanmar, injected human rights questions into U.S.-Vietnam rapprochement, restricted U.S. military sales to Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries in the region, and took other measures over the past two decades to make human rights a centerpiece of U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia. Combine Congress’s historical interest in Southeast Asia with anger at Obama and you have a recipe for a Congress active on Southeast Asia issues, and possibly hostile to the administration’s efforts to build relations with Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia, all of which are authoritarian states of one kind or another. New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell long has been a hawk on Myanmar, critical of the Myanmar military and skeptical of the chances of reform there. Though McConnell warily went along with the Obama administration’s plan for rapprochement with Myanmar, the slowdown in Myanmar’s reforms and a desire by the White House to continue moving forward with closer military to military ties with Myanmar are likely to lead to pushback from McConnell’s office, especially if the Myanmar constitution remains rigged so that Suu Kyi cannot become president. Other Republican senators also clearly see Myanmar as an issue on which they can stake their human rights bona fides, and question Obama’s commitment to rights as well.  As Roll Call noted earlier in the year: McConnell certainly isn’t alone in taking interest in the development of Myanmar’s political system. Fellow Republican Sens. Mark S. Kirk of Illinois and Marco Rubio of Florida fired off a joint letter to Kerry Thursday, asking him to address political issues while in the country. In addition to the specific problems with the constitution, Kirk and Rubio point to ongoing human rights abuses and what they term “the national phenomenon of anti-Muslim violence that is rooted in a narrative of Buddhist grievance. Expect similar congressional pushback on other human rights-related issues in Southeast Asia, including the administration’s rapprochement with Cambodia and Malaysia, the White House’s desire to move quickly toward significant arms sales to Vietnam, and many other issues.