Opinion | Myanmar, another pawn in the US-China confrontation

By Angelo Giuliano, Political and financial analyst

Myanmar is going through the same challenges as most of the Southeast Asian countries which are trying hard to rightly balance the relationship between the USA and China.

None of those countries will completely side with China or the USA, even the vassal states of Japan or Korea will carefully deal with China as none has interest to be too hawkish on China. The only indefectible US ally in the region is Australia (and to a lesser extent New Zealand) which is blindly following its master at the expense of destroying its economy which is very dependent on China (35% of its exports are to China).

Since the "Pivot to Asia", the Obama policy has shifted its focus from the Middle East to Asia in order to contain China by damaging the Belt and Road initiative projects but also by creating political instability through color revolutions by using the CIA propaganda division of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and all the other NGOs and fake human right entities / Human Right Watch, Amnesty, etc.

The latest victims in the region were Hong Kong, Thailand, more recently Myanmar and probably more countries will follow.

Myanmar used to have a pariah status for a long time until it started gradually accepting a certain level of US interference in its territory by accepting massive investment of US-backed NGOs and accepting a gradual shift towards democracy.

In order to better control Myanmar, the US had groomed Aung San Suu Kyi, an Oxford-educated lady and the daughter of a famous Myanmar politician, and she got all the attention of Western Media which portrayed her as another Navalny, Juan Guaido, Joshua Wong, etc. They made a movie about her and she had received the ultimate recognition of being US pawn: "Nobel peace prize", the same prize that Obama, the war criminal had received.

Aung San Suu Kyi became State Councilor of Myanmar in 2016, a special position that was created especially for her as she could not become President since Myanmar constitution doesn't allow a citizen as president when having husband and children with foreign passport.

Since 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi has been reluctantly accepting large BRI projects that were managed by the Army and has been also siding with the Army when dealing with the Rohingya issue. This has been upsetting the US which realized that she was not going to be an unconditional US pawn.

Nonetheless, the US will still back Aung San Suu Kyi as she is still its best asset in the country. What we could expect is that Myanmar might shift back in the list of pariah state together with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, DPRK.

The amount of foreign interference in Myanmar has greatly affected its sovereignty and it is probably the main reason the Army has staged a constitutional (legal) coup by taking over the power for a limited period of one year before new elections.

Some of the foreign interference were into financing Rohingya separatist movement through NGOs, the sensitive region where the Rohingya are located happen to be right in the most strategic area of the Myanmar Belt and Road initiative: The Rohingya populated Arakan state and the gas-rich area of Shwe (offshore gas production plant)

So if the West is crying about the plight of Rohingya population, it is not about human rights….it is about gas & Belt and Road.

I think that Myanmar will probably go through a period of getting rid of all the fake NGOs and other foreign interference and they will possibly issue some national security laws to better protect Myanmar's sovereignty.

No matter where, the Army is the last resort for a country to protect its sovereignty. Democracy is a difficult process and every country needs to go at its own pace and take into account the culture and development stage of the country as concepts of freedom and democracy can be better understood once one has a full belly and has basic needs fulfilled.

China and Russia have refused to condemn the coup at the UN and anti-Myanmar propaganda has started. All MSM are working hard to demonize Myanmar and the military. They will probably use the Rohingya issue and plant stories about a genocide in the millions. The bigger the lie, the better it works.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.