M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Over the past weeks, there
has been a rising drumbeat of criticism from both sides of the Atlantic about
the generals in Myanmar. After considerable behind-the-scenes U.S.-EU pressure,
there have been bleats from the two biggest neighbors of that country, India
and China, about the need for the generals to rein themselves in. However,
neither they nor ASEAN is likely to adopt the U.S.-EU policy of isolation and
sanctions.
While China and ASEAN each have their own
special reasons for restraint, they also share several in common with India,
including the belief that the Gordon Brown style of moral declamation has more
than a trace of hypocrisy in it.
For starters, Myanmar is hardly the only
military dictatorship in the vicinity. Both Bangladesh and Pakistan are ruled
by generals who have assumed total power through coups against elected
governments. Why the people of Myanmar alone should have freedom from military
rule and not those of Pakistan and Bangladesh remains a mystery.
Few would fault the oft-expressed wish of
Western capitals that the people of Myanmar should be given the government of
their choice. Yet why such a preference is not made with equal emphasis -- or
indeed any visible emphasis -- in the case of, for example, the 1.3 billion
people of China or the Myanmar-sized population of Saudi Arabia, remains
obscure, except to foreign policy experts in the NATO capitals.
The reality is that the engine driving
Western protest is less a commitment to democracy than the desire to change a
junta that -- unlike those installed in Islamabad, Dacca or elsewhere -- treats
Chinese interests as a much higher priority than it does those of countries
volubly seeking its overthrow. Were the generals in that country to follow
Moammar Gadhafi in genuflecting before the United States and the European
Union, the shrill tone of U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad's demands that the U.N.
Security Council take strong action may fall by several decibels, and would
most likely be replaced by praise of the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's military.
Why such a transparent focus on national
self-interest is morally repugnant when practiced by New Delhi -- as numerous
op-ed contributors in the United States and Europe have been pointing out --
but not in the case of India's fellow democracies farther to the west, needs
more explanation than such writers seem willing or able to give.
Unlike the NATO powers, India shares a
border with Myanmar of over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), and that country is
moreover New Delhi's only land bridge to the rest of the ASEAN region. In order
to enhance the volume of regional cooperation -- still low enough to be derided
by the same op-ed writers -- such road-rail access is critical. This is why
India is pursuing toward Myanmar the same policy it is carrying out toward
Pakistan and Bangladesh and working with the regime in office, preferable
though a democratic replacement would be.
For both the United States and the European
Union, there are clearly generals and there are generals -- just as there are
people hungering for democracy in Myanmar but apparently not yet in China or in
other authoritarian regimes, a fact that is perhaps not obvious to those
formulating and commenting on policy in the NATO states.
Indeed, the generals in Myanmar have been
far more accommodating of Indian interests than those ensconced in Dacca and
Islamabad, both capitals of countries that provide safe haven to hundreds of
extremists waging a low-intensity war against the world's most populous
democracy. The Pakistan army, in particular, has long nurtured Wahabbi
fanatics, and continues to do so, while the Bangladesh army is unwilling to
admit that their country has become infested with "al-Qaida"
elements.
By contrast, after the earlier policy of
isolation was replaced by vigorous engagement nine years ago, the Tatmadaw has
blocked Indian-born extremists from using their territory to launch attacks
against their home country, and has sought to check the abundant flow of
armaments from China's Yunnan province to the hands of anti-India extremists.
And yes, access to the country's oil and
gas resources is another reason for New Delhi's refusal to take seriously the
advice of the NATO powers, to stop all contact with the regime in Myanmar. At
present, and unusually for any part of the world, Chinese companies are far
ahead of Western entities such as Chevron and Total in gaining control of
hydrocarbon reserves, a factor that some suspect may be influencing U.S.-EU
policy.
New Delhi would like to carve for itself a
larger slice of the pie, even while continuing to maintain close links with the
democracy movement, several thousand of whose activists have made India their
home for decades. Unlike the West, which is selective about which countries it
sees as ready for democracy, Indian policy recognizes both the desirability of
that system as well as the double standard involved in a Churchillian
application of Jeffersonian ideals.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University.)
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