The Manila Times

Electoral possibilities

ANTONIO CONTRERAS

Not oil is well

THIS election cycle, I am not endorsing any particular candidate for president or vice president. Not only that, but I also cannot find the perfect candidate who can suit my taste. I want to be as non-partisan as possible considering that I am the chief political analyst of a startup organization that seeks to offer an alternative to the way opinion polling is done.

WHEN elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. Asia needs no convincing about that well-worn adage of superpower rivalry. In the 1950s-to-1990s Cold War between the capitalist United States and the Russian-led communist Soviet Union, the region suffered bloody wars in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, plus leftist insurgencies, including the world’s longest, still decimating Filipinos more than 90 years after the country’s communist movement began in 1930.

Today, two decades after the Soviet Union itself ceased to be, it’s America against China. Despite the new protagonists, however, the grass remains under tough, if not extreme pressure.

Just as America sought to isolate Cuba after it turned communist in 1958, even instigating the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion by pro-American Cubans, China has blocked Taiwan’s participation in international bodies and threatened invasion if the island moved toward independence. Now, tensions have escalated between Beijing and Taipei, including more aggressive Chinese military flights, as the West has increased overt support for Taiwan.

Hong Kong, too, has suffered from Beijing’s reaction to what the latter sees as Western interference and machinations stirring up the city’s democrats against China. Thus, the Chinese National People’s Congress enacted a tough National Security Law restricting Hong Kong freedoms, leading to this week’s closure of its most outspoken newspaper, Apple Daily, following the arrest of its founder Jimmy Lai and the freezing of its funds.

But the most painful and tragic fallout of superpower rivalry in Asia so far is in Myanmar. More than 860 have reportedly died since the February 1 coup deposed the government of election landslide winner National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu

Kyi, who was detained and recently charged in court for what the West and her supporters have denounced as baseless accusations.

When frictions rise, so do buffers

How is the Myanmar coup and protests a result of China-West rivalry? Think buffers.

Big powers facing threats from rivals want buffer states to keep hostile forces away from their borders. Thus, the Soviet Union had its Warsaw Pact allies separating it from the forces of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. Today, for the same reason, Russia does not want next-door Ukraine to join NATO, and cultivates Belarus as a close ally.

For China, the buffers keeping hostiles away from its borders include longtime allies North Korea, Pakistan and — you guessed it — Myanmar. But with its decade of gradual democratization, with the powerful military allowing elections and even NLD rule since its first landslide victory in 2015, the country has become the West’s darling, with more Western aid, trade and investment expected in the 2020s under Aung San Suu Kyi’s de facto leadership.

That prospect of increasing closeness between Myanmar and the West surely would have made China uncomfortable, especially with rising rivalry with America and, in recent years, India. The latter is part of the US-led Quadrilateral Alliance, along with Australia and Japan, opposing what the grouping sees as Beijing’s drive to dominate East Asia.

Also raising Chinese worries over Western inroads into Myanmar is the expansion of America’s regional security embrace beyond East Asia and the Pacific to include the Indian Ocean and subcontinent. Hence, the US military headquarters in Hawaii was renamed the Indo-Pacific Command.

Thus, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), already worried about forays by Quad and even NATO warships in the South China Sea, may also have to contend with naval interdiction of Chinese shipping in the Indian Ocean if there is war.

There’s an even bigger worry for the Chinese if Myanmar turns westward: oil. Fully 30 percent of China’s oil and gas imports go through Myanmar pipelines. That enabled Beijing to reduce energy shipments passing through the narrow Malacca Strait and the South China Sea to half of its imported petroleum, down from four-fifths.

But if Myanmar under NLD leadership swings toward the West, lured by aid and diplomacy, the Chinese pipelines going through the country may not be so secure, especially if America and Europe lean on Aung San Suu Kyi amid a conflict with China.

Beijing’s fears of an NLD-led Myanmar falling into the West’s embrace has probably grown even more after last week’s Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, England. The US-led grouping of Western European nations, Canada and Japan announced strategies to directly compete with China, including the donation of a billion vaccines to developing nations and a global infrastructure push to match China’s Belt and Road Initiative linking the country with Asia, Europe and Africa.

The West’s focus on China looms even larger with the minimal mention of Russia in the summit, even if its impact on most G7 members is greater than China’s. What’s more, the Geneva summit between US President Joseph Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin went far better with more positive Western

coverage than Biden’s online meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.

Recently, Yangon Archbishop Cardinal Charles Bo called on Filipino Catholics to pray for Myanmar, and Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, led the faithful in prayer.

With China and the West getting even testier in their rivalry, it may well take a miracle for Myanmar democracy to stop bleeding and breathe freely again.

Trusted Since

en-ph

2021-06-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://digitaledition.manilatimes.net/article/281556588791674

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