256- Winning and Losing in Autocratic Southeast Asia

Myanmar and Vietnam

            We might pivot for a column away from the dreadful killing fields of Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan to examine startling democratic advances in war-torn Myanmar and a major expose of  corruption within the Communist regime in Vietnam, a growing supplier of U. S. electronic goods once manufactured in China.

Myanmar (Burma)

            As discussed in this Newsletter earlier, the combined military forces allied with the National Unity Government (a democratic movement of protesters against military rule in Myanmar) and ethnic-based Indigenous armies long opposed to the Myanmar government, continue to achieve startlingly unexpected victories against the army junta that removed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's massively elected and embryonic democratic government in early 2021.

            The latest victory of civilians against the military rulers who oppress them occurred last week at Myawaddy, on the Thai border opposite the city of Mae Sot, where about 500 government soldiers surrendered to the Karen National Liberation Army. It now controls that important trading and border entrepot, although local people expect the junta to mount retaliatory attacks from the air, with bombing raids likely. The Karen are one of seven ethnic groups that are fighting with the National Unity Government to free Myanmar from its long repressive rule by a succession of corrupt military juntas.

            From 1962, through the student-led electoral success of 1990 that first propelled Suu Kyi to democratic leadership, and then throughout the two-decade long junta repression that eventually led to a slight relaxation in 2010 and the re-emergence from twrnty-five years of detention of Suu Kyi as a democratic political leader in 2015, the 150,000 strong Myanmar army, called the Tatmadaw, imprisoned masses of protesters, completely eliminated free expression, and kept the 55 million Burmese in total thrall. At the same time, once the wealthy rice bowl of Southeast Asia, Myanmar became poor, the leaders of successive juntas profiting from massive corruption, the growing of poppies for opium, and the sale of jade and gold to China.  Nearly half of all Burmese still live below the national poverty line.

            The Myanmar core is populated by Bamar or Burmans, about 68 percent of the total national population. They speak Burmese and are largely Buddhist. Surrounding that core are Christian and animist Indigenous ethnic states  -  especially the Shan, Karen, Rakhine, Mon, Kachin, Karenni, Wa, and Chin -- each with its own history, culture, and language.  Several of the larger states, the Karen, Shan, and the Kachin in particular, have been battling junta-ruled Myanmar almost since independence in 1948.  They were thus happy to join student and professional-class protesters who fled Yangon and Mandalay and other cities to create an opposition movement to the junta in 2021. Together, the ethnic armies and the new student rebels have been more formidable in surging against the Tatmadaw than ever before.

            Earlier this year and late last year, several other ethnic armies achieved striking military successes against the once-thought impregnable Tatmadaw.  In the far northwest, ethnic fighters from the Kachin captured several border posts. And in Shan state, next to China, the Shan army did the same. Also mobilized against the junta is the Arakan National Army in Rakhine State (next to Bangladesh) and elements of the Karenni and Chin.  Some of these same opposition groups have also managed to launch kamikaze drones against the national capital of Naypyidaw when top Tatmadaw generals were visiting. 

            Weaker than expected, the forces of the Tatmadaw have even tried to reinforce their ranks by inducing Rohingya people, previously persecuted and forced into Bangladesh a decade ago, to join the ranks of the official army. Nationally, too, the Tatmadaw promised recently to conscript more Burmese to fight on the side of the junta.

            The fall of Myawaddy to the Karen army transfers a major trading hub into the hands of the rebels. If necessary, Thailand says that it will receive and shelter up to 100,000 refugees.

            The struggle for Myanmar's freedom is by no means won. But the succession of Tatmadaw setbacks give hope to those in their country who have for decades sought a more democratic future and - for the first time almost since 1962 -- view a repressive force that is potentially beatable. If so, it is an alliance between the ethnic armies and the Bamar opposition that will have made the decisive difference.

Vietnam

            The single-party, authoritarian Communist state is now in disarray. This hardly means that democratic forces are even tentatively raising their heads and hoping for less state control.  Nor does the political turmoil that roils its Communist leadership as yet threaten Vietnam's new, profitable, role as an assembler of electronic equipment for Western consumers -- as a possible replacement for high tech Chinese export performers.

            But it could. Continued public internal struggles over who leads and who profits could cause foreign investors to flee. They won't return to China but they may double down on their commercial relations with Malaysia, Thailand, and India.

            Vietnam has lost two (ceremonial) presidents in a year, the latest in March -- presumably because of an unspecified corruption scandal. They were ousted by Nguyen Phu Trong, the country's all-powerful leader and party secretary. He is seriously ailing and 80 years old.  Like China's President Xi Jinping, he has systematically been centralizing control of the once collaborative top leadership of the party. He has been removing threats within the party to his command, banning criticism from within the party (and the country), and has already served three instead of the customary two terms as secretary. Whether the corruption accusations were a coverup for Trong's fear of losing power, or were real, Vietnam is a kleptocracy, with deeply embedded corruption. Exactly how Vietnam will transition from his hegemonic rule back to a collective form of leadership, or to the autocratic guidance of a single party chief, is not clear.

         Vietnam is riddled with graft in ways that have presumably benefited Trong and other top Communists. Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan is on trial, along with 85 of her alleged accomplices, on charges of defrauding Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank of roughly $12.5 billion. Such massive alleged fraud—the biggest acknowledged in Vietnam’s history— implies that her connections at the bank participated in the embezzlement -- just like Brazil's politicians gained massive piles of cash from the Petrobras/Odebrecht corruption scandal called Lava Jato.

         During Vietnam's battle against Covid-19, two ministers (in charge of health and science and technology) took bribes while overseeing the rollout of testing kits and importing vaccines. They allegedly altered the country’s COVID-19 strategy and used faulty kits provided by a Vietnamese company that gave them kickbacks.

         Vietnam has few known democratic forces akin to those in nearby Myanmar.  But autocratic rule occasionally gives way to more participatory, popular, non-personalistic rule. General Min Aung Hlaing's junta is losing ground to a democratic amalgam of tribal and student rebels. Trong may overreach as well, giving vague hope to Vietnamese.