Word: burma
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...change in policy also reflects the political and economic reality in Asia. While the U.S. and European Union have stayed away, other countries have poured money into Burma - most notably its neighbors China, Thailand and India, who are hungry for the country's plentiful natural resources. The sting of western sanctions has been lessened by such investment forays, leaving the Burmese military brass with plenty of money to prop up their regime. (See pictures of what lies behind the discontent in Burma...
...part of the policy shift, Kurt Campbell, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited Burma earlier this month - the first such high-level tour in nearly 15 years. In a significant concession, Campbell was allowed to meet for two hours with the opposition leader and Nobel Peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Her party won by a landslide in 1990 elections that the junta then ignored; and her continued detention has angered the West. But not everyone was available to meet Campbell: junta supremo General Than Shwe stayed holed up in his army...
Besides a possible winding down of sanctions, what does Burma get out of a rapprochement with the United States? Despite its reputation as a self-isolating regime, Burma's army just may be looking for a little international affirmation. Next year, the generals will orchestrate a national election - the first since the 1990 polls that they ignored because their party lost so badly. This time around, the military has done its best to ensure its ruling clique will stay in power. The new constitution reserves top government positions for members of the military, and an esoteric set of rules seems...
...Obama does exchange more than photo-op pleasantries with Thein Sein in Singapore, it would be natural for the American to ask the Burmese Prime Minister about Suu Kyi's fate. In a tantalizing announcement earlier this month, Min Lwin, a director-general of Burma's Foreign Ministry claimed to the Associated Press that "there is a plan to release [Aung San Suu Kyi] soon
...which the U.S. held ASEAN in recent years. While China, India, Australia and other regional economies have been assiduously wooing Southeast Asia by signing free-trade agreements with the bloc, the U.S., particularly under the presidency of George W. Bush, kept ASEAN at arm's length. One reason was Burma's accession to ASEAN in 1997, which put the U.S. in a tough spot. Washington had been tightening sanctions on the Burmese junta because of its dismal human-rights record. By participating in ASEAN confabs, Bush's State Department worried that it would send an overly conciliatory message...