Asymmetric bargaining between Myanmar and China in the Myitsone Dam controversy: social opposition akin to David's stone against Goliath

The Myitsone Dam suspension is an asymmetric negotiation between Naypyitaw and Beijing. The bilateral agreement of the hydropower project was concluded in 2009. However, Myanmar's civil society started to oppose the dam when political opportunities expanded in 2011. The quasi-civilian government in Myanmar was caught in an ‘audience cost dilemma': either to disappoint domestic constituents by fulfilling international obligations, or to compensate the Chinese dam developer for breaching the contract. In September 2011, Myanmar President Thein Sein declared the suspension of the dam throughout his tenure. Unexpectedly, China's state-owned dam company did not sue Naypyidaw. Moreover, Beijing even engaged with societal actors in Myanmar to seek their support for the project. How could Naypyitaw defy Beijing in this Myitsone Dam case? Drawing from 35 interviews with anti-dam campaigners and other stakeholders, as well as secondary data, this article argues that the rise of civil society successfully conditioned Naypyitaw's diplomatic options in the controversy. The change of Beijing's diplomatic strategy confirms that domestic constraint in Myanmar is not rhetorical. The Myitsone Dam case is an example that shows bilateral agreement without domestic endorsement can become China's business risk. Presumably, the dispute has wider implications for other Chinese overseas projects outside Myanmar.     

THE ROHINGYA CRISIS: WHY THE WORLD MUST ACT DECISIVELY

The dimensions of the crisis generated by the systematic persecution and expulsion of Rohingyas by the Myanmar authorities have been a sustained subject for global debate in these present times. The refusal of the Myanmar government to heed the world's warnings, its obfuscations in the matter of following through on the recommendations of the Annan Commission, and the dogged reluctance of Aung San Suu Kyi, once an ardent advocate of democracy and human rights in her country, to speak up for the Rohingyas have left the international community deeply disappointed. And disturbing too is a report by UN investigators on human rights abuses in Myanmar's Rakhine state. The problem does not look about to be resolved any time soon, with more than 750,000 Rohingyas taking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh, pushing social dynamics in an already over-populated country to the edge. The fear is that the crisis could fester before getting dangerously out of hand, unless the global community goes for decisive action.     

LASTING PEACE A decades-old international relations tenet remains crucial to global security

正Although China is demonstrating its peaceful approach to international affairs,it has always been an easy target for critics in the Western media.Any unharmonious interaction between China and its neighbors is likely to be exaggerated by the outside world as China’s wrongdoing.Observers call it undergoing the"growing pains"of a giant.Regardless,China is trying to     

二战后归国难侨“复员”缅甸析论

二战后在归国难侨“复员”缅甸问题上，国民政府与英缅政府、缅甸新政府在中国侨民返缅条件、时机、资格甄审等问题上进行了大量交涉，难侨“复员”缅甸结果差强人意。国民政府的华侨“复员”交涉并未因战后东南亚局势的变动而及时调整，墨守成规，缺乏智慧和勇气。独立后的缅甸也基于该国内政的考虑，利用甄别侨民资格、分期分批返回等手法尽量减少华侨重返当地。随着国共两党内战的加剧，国民政府对华侨“复员”工作无暇关注，遣侨工作不了了之，引起归侨的不满。     

The Pyu Ancient Cities World Heritage application: lessons from Myanmar on transnational advocacy networks

The announcement of 22 June 2014 from the World Heritage Committee that Pyu Ancient Cities had been added to the World Heritage List was significant for Myanmar, since it represented the country’s first World Heritage site. The World Heritage listing was the culmination of a process driven by a convergence of forces originating from within and outside of Myanmar. An interpretation of Pyu Ancient Cities as involving a transnational network of supporters echoes the work on transnational advocacy networks, which looks to phenomena involving transnational efforts to advance particular issues on behalf of activists against their government. This study examines Pyu Ancient Cities by producing a model that helps to illuminate the efficacy of its social network to engage in transnational advocacy.     

Grabbing back: essays against the global land grab

ABSTRACT

Extensive research, mainly undertaken by nutrition scientists and economists, indicates that the presence of a home garden is positively associated with improved household nutrition in rural households of the global South. However, this literature is relatively silent on the contexts that influence home garden uptake. This is problematic given rapidly changing social and economic landscapes, which reshape the place and scope for home gardens within households’ livelihood and food provisioning arrangements. Original research from Myanmar reported here reveals that emergent socio-economic contexts for rural households are posing heightened challenges for home gardens to contribute to food and nutrition security.     

全球化背景下的缅甸政治危机

在一场佛教僧侣和学生带头的和平示威平息之后,美国参议院一致通过决议强烈要求东盟暂停缅甸的会员资格,缅甸问题成为东盟会议关注的焦点.经过磋商,东盟最终拒绝了美国参议院要求东盟暂停成员资格以惩罚缅甸军政府的要求.新加坡总理李显龙在峰会开幕仪式致词时说:"东盟将努力防止缅甸问题成为我们加深一体化和建立东盟共同体的障碍."     

缅甸政治形势探析

粉碎一起由军事强人———奈温的亲属策划的家庭政变对许多人来说是好消息 ,但这对民主发展并没有什么帮助。奈温的亲属告诉审问者 ,他们策划政变是因为政府的经济政策导致他们损失了许多钱 ,而且他们不再享有特权。没有人会相信那些被逮捕的人竟然会策划一场“政变”。这起粉碎政变最有可能的目的便是军政府自身在为后奈温时代做准备。军政府旨在打垮奈温家庭势力的紧急行动非常明智。他们不希望出现另一股势力。     

Networks of Reciprocity: Precarity and Community Social Organisations in Rural Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Growing precarity amongst rural households in Myanmar is characterised by increasingly debt-fuelled agriculture, decreasing sufficiency and sustainability of rural livelihoods and an absence of social safety nets. This constrains the capacity for viable livelihoods, as risk-averse coping strategies undermine long-term economic sustainability. In this context, informal support networks may be expected to decline or collapse. However, recent evidence demonstrates the widespread emergence of community-based social organisations in rural communities, formed along traditional principles of reciprocity. Analysis of large-scale rural household surveys demonstrates that such organisations are found in nearly 40% of communities in rural Myanmar. These organisations collect and redistribute funds to help with healthcare, education, funerals and other social needs. The presence of such organisations is linked to higher levels of household resilience, achieved through reducing the inequalities linked to gender, disability and poverty, and through providing enabling environments for effective income diversification. Communities with higher levels of migration are more likely to have community-based social organisations, possibly a result of economic and social remittances. In the absence of effective formalised social protection, these social organisations provide most of the social assistance in rural communities, representing new networks of reciprocity in the face of increasing precarity.     

Reworking Bandung internationalism: decolonization and postcolonial futurism in Burma/Myanmar

ABSTRACT

This commentary examines how futurity has been imagined across politics and political economy in Burma/Myanmar. Three areas are discussed: the revolutionary horizons of anti-colonialists, who combined Buddhist and Marxist ideas of historical progress; the developmental socialism of the early independence area, with its industrial telos and modernist commitments; and a contemporary development project in southern Myanmar, where processes of dispossession are troubling earlier temporal imaginaries. I suggest that a vision of postcolonial transformation coheres across anti-colonial and early independence claims to futurity. This temporal imaginary, which I call postcolonial futurism, promises transitions from farm to factory, peasant to the proletariat, and precapital to capital. This imaginary resonated widely. Today, however, scholars of South and Southeast Asia argue that modernist promises of transition now lack empirical and political purchase amid ongoing dispossession and trends towards low-wage, informal labour. Yet in the wake of postcolonial futurism, responses to dispossession are creating novel political possibilities. Responding to Kuan-Hsing Chen’s call to rework Bandung internationalism in the present, I consider how struggles over dispossession today indicate both openings and limits for the making of new political futures. Integrating Glen Coulthard’s work on colonialism and dispossession, I argue that decolonizing subjectivity is central to this process.