The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Ambassador Scot Marciel has been appointed the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, working within the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC). Mr. Marciel has more than 35 years of experience in diplomacy and public policy, much of it focused on Southeast Asia. Most recently, he was a visiting scholar and practitioner fellow on Southeast Asia at APARC.

“Scot brings a deep understanding of Southeast Asian nations and unique expertise on the policy dynamics that have shaped the course of U.S.-Southeast Asia relations,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC. “We are fortunate to have him with us at APARC as we continue working together to bridge the worlds of scholarship and practice to foster intellectual exchange and policy dialogue on Southeast Asia and U.S. interests in the region.”

During his foreign service career, Marciel served as U.S. ambassador to Myanmar from March 2016 through May 2020, leading a mission of 500 employees during the difficult Rohingya crisis and spearheading U.S. efforts to normalize the bilateral relationship with Myanmar during its democratic transition. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia from 2010 to 2013 and the first U.S. ambassador for ASEAN affairs from 2008 to 2010. He twice served as the senior U.S. official responsible for relations with Southeast Asia in the State Department, first as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific and later as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific.

Early in his career, Marciel opened and led the U.S. State Department’s first post-war office in Hanoi, Vietnam, and worked in the U.S. embassies in the Philippines and Hong Kong. His other assignments included posts in Turkey, Brazil, and in the State Department’s Office of Monetary Affairs.

Marciel is the author of the forthcoming book Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia, which will be published by Shorenstein APARC in fall 2022. Drawing on his extensive experience as a former senior U.S. diplomat and his direct involvement in some of the most pivotal turning points in America’s relationships with Southeast Asian nations, the book analyzes important domestic developments in the region, examines the interplay between them and U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia, and considers the way forward in U.S. engagement with the region.

“I'm looking forward to continuing to write and speak about critical, current policy issues in Southeast Asia, ranging from the Myanmar crisis to U.S. efforts to bolster its economic diplomacy," said Marciel.

Marciel earned a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Davis.

An edited version of this opinion piece first appeared in the 14 July 2022 issue of The Jakarta Post.

How preoccupied is America with its own domestic problems? To the point of impairing the ability of President Biden’s administration to give Indonesia and Southeast Asia the foreign-policy attention they deserve?

The Group of Twenty’s meetings are now at or near the top of the Indonesian foreign ministry’s list of things to do. Foreign minister Retno Marsudi has worried, amid talk of boycotts, that Moscow-Washington animosity over Ukraine could ruin the G20 summit in Bali this November, to the embarrassment of its Indonesian host and chair. Presumably to her relief, Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Indonesia to attend in person the preparatory G20 foreign ministers meeting that she hosted and chaired in Bali on 7-8 July 2022, and he did so despite the participation of his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.  In addition to holding a one-on-one session with Marsudi, Blinken also met with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi for a discussion of US-China relations that reportedly lasted five hours. Indonesia can take pride in having made that lengthy interaction possible. 

The foreign ministers’ meeting was not without drama. Twice, in response to criticism of Russia, Lavrov walked out of the room, and he left the conference altogether before it ended. Perhaps he forgot that in democracies, praise is not required.  But things in Bali could have gotten much worse, and in that sense America’s presence throughout the event helped save Indonesia’s face.

Biden’s administration has not neglected Indonesia or Southeast Asia, as recent diplomacy shows. In May he accommodated the priority on economic development favored by Indonesia and other Asian states by traveling to Japan to announce the formation of an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Its 14 founding partners, including Indonesia and six other ASEAN members, account for 40 percent of global GDP. Earlier in May, in Washington, DC, Biden hosted a special summit with Indonesia and other ASEAN states. Their Joint Vision Statement with the US, as in IPEF, emphasized economic cooperation.

None of this diplomacy, however, could temper the strident political polarization that continues to disrupt America. Understandably, that frenzy of distrust and dissension has led some Indonesians to wonder how reliable a partner the US will turn out to be in years to come.    

The splitting of many Americans into rival partisan camps is in part structural. For example, compared with better-educated urban and suburban dwellers, less well-educated rural and small-town Americans are more likely to hold right-wing Republican views. The reasons why those views have become more extreme include the popularity of Donald Trump and his anti-democratic if not proto-fascistic campaign to re-install himself in the White House after losing the free and fair election of 2020.  His effort, Republican complicity in it, and the backlash against it have widened the separation of often coastal or near-coastal Democratic states from Republican ones more or less clustered in middle and southern America. Political scientist and statistician Simon Jackman goes so far as to argue that the US has not been this divided politically since the Great Depression of the 1930s—or possibly even since the 1860s Civil War.

The Vanderbilt University Project on Unity and American Democracy chooses the longer timeline. “Not since the Civil War,” it concludes, “have so many Americans held such radically opposed views not just of politics but of reality itself.” The project’s own findings, however, undermine the caricature of a country fatally hobbled by national schizophrenia and group delusions. 

The Vanderbilt Unity Index combines quarterly data from 1981 to 2021 on five variables—presidential disapproval, congressional polarization, ideological extremism, social mistrust, and civil unrest—to calculate changes in American national unity across those four decades on a 0-to-100 scale, from least to most unified. Over that period of time, the index has fluctuated in a close to middling zone between 50 and 70 on that 100-point scale. 

The index shows deep plunges in unity only twice since 1981, and both of those dives were linked to the uniquely calamitous presidency of President Trump. In contrast, the average score during the first five quarters of the Biden administration has been 58, a sharp improvement from the average of 51 under Trump. Heartened by that betterment, two of the Vanderbilt scholars surmise that America’s “disharmony may be dissipating.”

That could be an overoptimistic guess. Unity is one thing, victory another. Legislative elections will be held on 8 November this year. As of the end of June, prominent forecaster Nate Silver gave the still largely Trump-beholden Republican Party an 87 percent chance — a near-certainty — of replacing Biden’s Democrats as the majority party in the House of Representatives. The race for a majority in the Senate was too close to call. But even if Republicans control only the House, they will likely use that platform to undermine Biden’s administration during his final two years in office.      

As if likely losses of legislative power were not enough for Biden to worry about, maneuvers by Republicans to stack the Supreme Court with right-wing partisans have tilted that juridical balance steeply in their favor. The court’s new reactionary 6-to-3 majority has already made two shocking decisions. They have, in effect, denied women their long-standing right to abortion and made it easier to carry a concealed gun in public. Republicans claim to support individual rights. But they and their court appointees have deleted the long-standing constitutional right of a pregnant woman to decide whether to give birth or not, thereby depriving her of assured responsibility over her physical body and personal future. 

Regarding gun violence, in barely five months from 1 January through 5 June of this year, America has experienced 246 mass shootings — incidents that kill or wound four or more people. That puts the US on track in 2022 to match or exceed its record of 692 mass shootings in 2021, more than in any year since the Gun Violence Archive began counting them. The Republican-majority court’s unconscionable impulses seem to be to make women make more babies, wanted or not, and to make murders more likely as well.

There is good news. First, a massive popular backlash against these Republican decisions has either begun or is likely. Second, a nationally televised Congressional investigation of the violent attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 has displayed the complicity of Trump, and by association the Trump-infected Republican Party, in an insurrection that killed at least seven people and injured roughly 150 more. Third, although Trump may not end up where he belongs, namely, in jail, at least he faces Republican rivals for the party’s nomination to run for president in 2024. Conceivably those rivals could come to include a candidate who is politically more moderate and personally less criminal, corrupt, and narcissistic than he. 

President Joko Widodo will host the G20 leaders in Indonesia merely one week after the 8 November 2022 midterm legislative election takes place in the US. Will Biden go again to Bali? Not if at that time right-wing fanatics claiming election fraud are destabilizing America. For long-term interactions between Jakarta and Washington relations, however, what will matter is not who will attend the 2022 G20 summit in Bali. It will be the names and plans of the Indonesians and Americans who will run and win in the national elections to be held in their respective countries in 2024.

Donald K. Emmerson heads the Southeast Asia Program at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. His recent publications include an edited volume, The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21^st Century.

This article originally appeared in The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.

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The numbers tell part of the story. While US merchandise trade with the Southeast Asian region grew by a respectable 62.4% from 2010 to 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year), China’s trade increased by an impressive 115% during the same period, according to the statistics of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Over a longer period, the US share of the region’s total merchandise trade fell from 16.1% in 2000 to 11.6% in 2020, while China’s share rose from 4.3% to 19.4%. Although infrastructure investment numbers are harder to come by, there is no question that China is playing a much more significant role in Southeast Asian infrastructure development than the US.

Some of the relative decline in the US economic role in the region is the inevitable result of China’s dramatic economic growth and the resulting increased trade and investment. That trend, however, only partly explains the US predicament. Over the past 10–20 years, Beijing has been much more aggressive in its economic statecraft than Washington. Beijing signed a Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN, then joined a new multilateral trade agreement—the Regional Cooperation and Economic Partnership (RCEP)—and more recently asked to join the high-standard Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free trade accord. On infrastructure, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the high-profile Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to funnel billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

The BRI initiative generally has been welcomed in the region for one simple reason: Southeast Asia has huge and urgent infrastructure needs—estimated by the Asian Development Bank to be $210 billion per year through 2030—that it cannot meet by mobilizing domestic resources. Through BRI, Beijing is offering to meet a portion of those needs with greater speed and fewer conditions than other would-be partners. Southeast Asian governments have lined up for BRI projects, with outgoing Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razaq having signed on for more than $20 billion of BRI-funded infrastructure projects in the 2015–2018 period. Although the BRI has been the subject of substantial criticism for overpromising, project delays, quality problems, employing Chinese rather than local labor, and raising the host government’s debt obligations, the initiative still dominates the discussion of infrastructure in the region.

The US, meanwhile, has underperformed in terms of its economic diplomacy. Most importantly, in 2017 it summarily withdrew from its primary economic initiative in the region, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. President Trump’s decision to pull out of that accord was a severe geostrategic and economic blunder, as TPP would have bound the US into the broader region for a generation or more, as well as facilitated greater US trade with a number of fast-growing economies. With the US out of the TPP and China joining RCEP, the prospects are for a growing percentage of ASEAN trade to be with China (and other RCEP partners) and for the US and American businesses to lose further ground.

The US also has struggled to compete on infrastructure. The US is not going to match China, particularly in areas such as road, rail, and port development, but it could do more. The Trump administration launched several initiatives—including the Blue Dot Network, Clean EDGE Asia, and the establishment of the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), a larger, more ambitious version of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal entity that helps insure US ventures abroad—all of which sought to leverage private sector funding to offer high-quality projects. The Biden administration has followed up with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, announced in June in coordination with G-7 partners, and promised via the Quad $50 billion in infrastructure funding. To date, however, these initiatives generally have not significantly changed the overall infrastructure picture in the region.

The US failure to engage in the region’s burgeoning free trade networks—combined with the big splash that China’s BRI initiative is making and the lack of a countervailing American initiative—is fueling the perception in the region that the US is a declining economic player. In an ASEAN 2021 survey of regional opinion leaders, 76% believed China was the most influential economic partner in the region, compared to less than 10% who felt that way about the US. Even more telling, I recall asking a senior Myanmar economic minister in 2017 why he had led private-sector roadshows to China, Japan, and South Korea but not the US, and he replied: “We didn’t even think of the US.”

Thus, the US faces a problem of both reality and perception. To address this, the US does not need to match Chinese numbers. It does, however, need to find a way to re-energize its trade engagement and to become a more significant player in Southeast Asian infrastructure, and to do so in ways that change the narrative in the region.

Recognizing this reality, the Biden administration recently launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which is expected to result in negotiations on trade, supply chains, clean energy, and decarbonization, as well as on tax and corruption issues. The administration touted this initiative as reflecting the needs and realities of the 21st-century global economy. The good news is that seven of the ten ASEAN member nations signed onto IPEF, presumably reflecting their interest in greater US economic engagement and their hope that IPEF can produce just that. Skeptics say the initiative does not offer the promise of greater access to the US market via tariff reductions, which normally would be the carrot to entice other governments into adopting the high standards Washington wants. Also, as Matthew Goodman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has pointed out, the fact that the administration is unwilling to take any negotiated agreement to Congress for ratification is likely to raise doubts in the minds of Asian partners about the IPEF’s durability, since a future administration can easily toss it aside.

Despite or maybe because of these doubts, the US needs to do all it can to turn the IPEF into something that is economically meaningful. Can it produce a digital trade agreement, real substance on strengthening supply chains, or can it possibly even use trade facilitation tools to enhance market access as former senior US trade official Wendy Cutler has suggested in a recent podcast hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies? It is too early to say, but the bottom line is that many in the region—and indeed even in the US—will remain privately doubtful until and unless the IPEF shows that it can result in tangible business and economic benefits.

The White House put the IPEF forward because it believes it lacks the political support either to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or to launch another significant trade initiative. The domestic politics of trade might be tough right now, but that is not an excuse that is going to go very far in Southeast Asia. The region is not going to say “no problem, we understand.” Instead, it will go ahead without the US. If Washington wants to maintain influence, it needs to find a way to make the domestic politics on trade work. That almost certainly will entail appealing to bipartisan concern about Chinese geostrategic dominance, as trade alone probably will not sell.

On infrastructure, the various US initiatives to date have disappointed to some extent, although the Development Finance Corporation has been a step in the right direction. They do little other than offer the prospect of quality to give the US a competitive edge over Chinese-funded projects. The Chinese offer relatively speedy approval processes, low or zero conditionality deals, and complete project packages, including financing. Chinese state companies often are willing to undertake projects that do not appear to be commercially viable. Plus, Chinese political leaders weigh in personally to push the projects forward. I have seen this on the ground, in Indonesia and Myanmar, countless times. The Chinese pull out all of the stops, with intensive lobbying and full financing, and they often win.

Economic officials in the region complain that the multilateral development banks and Japan, which also offer substantial infrastructure deals, move much more slowly and laboriously than China. The design, discussion, and approval process often takes many years. With the US, it is almost always the private sector taking the lead, and private American companies have a hard time finding well-developed, “bankable” infrastructure projects in the region. Plus, US companies often come to the table without full financing or even all the pieces of the project. Government lobbying and financing usually lags, if it is there at all.

If the US is going to compete effectively for infrastructure projects in the region, it is going to have to change the way it does business. To begin with, the US will have to make it easier for Southeast Asian governments to say “yes” to deals. That means offering the full project package, including financing, and accelerating the project preparation and approval timeline to come closer to matching that of the Chinese. It also means more government funding for project development along with heavy US government lobbying, including by the president when appropriate, for major projects. The US is not going to engage in bribery or support projects that destroy communities or the environment, nor should it. But it needs to use just about all the other available tools to compete.

The US should consider establishing an overseas infrastructure czar in Washington who can lead and oversee government-business teams that identify potential projects where the US can compete, put together a full project package, including private and public financing, and then aggressively lobby the host government for approval. I often hear that the US does not work that way on overseas business. Perhaps, but if Washington wants to win some victories—and more significant projects—it needs to be willing to adopt new thinking.

Re-engaging on trade and winning more infrastructure deals are essential, but there is one more thing the US needs to do to reverse the perception that it is a declining economic player in Southeast Asia. It needs to do a much better job of telling its economic story. For example, the US remains the largest foreign investor in Southeast Asia, but I am willing to bet few people in the region know that. Similarly, America remains a huge market for Southeast Asian exports, just slightly smaller than China, but again that is not well known or much talked about in the region. The US should devote more resources and time to telling this story and to reminding the region of the incredible power of American private sector innovation and the US commitment to quality investment. Better communications alone will not solve the problem, but combined with trade and infrastructure initiatives it can help the US persuade the governments and people of Southeast Asia that it remains a major economic partner.

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Conceptualizing China as an Unconventional Great Power

Most studies on China’s presence in Southeast Asia tend to focus on China’s power dynamics and how it wields it to gain influence within the region. The emphasis is on intention and causation: how China willingly uses its power to coerce, coopt, or persuade Southeast Asian states to behave in particular ways. This characterization, Han argues, ignores the contemporary Chinese state as fragmented, decentralized, and internationalized. Han goes beyond this conventional approach to explore the variety of actors and the intended versus unintended outcomes associated with China’s presence in Southeast Asia. It is necessary to understand such nuance and complexity, he claims, if we are to make sense of China’s relations with Southeast Asian states.

China’s presence in Southeast Asia is by no means monolithic, notes Han. Rather, it takes numerous everyday forms and involves not only state actors, such as diplomatic missions and state-owned enterprises, but also non-state actors that may or may not be closely associated with the Chinese state. These include civil society organizations, private businesses, and ordinary Chinese citizens who reside in Southeast Asia for work, study, or retirement, in addition to Chinese tourists. The actions of these multiple stakeholders can have intended and unintended consequences, Han argues. In particular, the effects of non-state Chinese actors’ daily encounters with local communities in Southeast Asia deserve attention, he says.

Shadow Economy and Offshore Gambling in Eastern Myanmar

Consider, for instance, the case of the “new city” of Shwe Kokko in Myanmar’s Southeastern Kayin State (known as 'Karen State' among the ethnic-Karen population living there), on the border with Thailand. The emerging “Chinatown” project in Shwe Kokko began attracting international attention as capital investment flowed into the former farmland on the banks of the Moei River and residential complexes, hotels, shops, Chinese restaurants, and glitzy casinos sprang up. Allegations of Chinese mafia involvement have plagued the massive city project, and media outlets and Western observers attributed culpability to the Chinese government, portraying the project as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

However, Han points out that empirical details show that the new city project was led by a company headed by a fugitive Chinese businessman fleeing the Chinese government’s crackdown on illegal offshore gambling. Therefore, Shwe Kokko is not quite a case of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative expansionism using complex networks of PRC citizens and ethnic Chinese in a neighboring country to fuel dangerous activities colluding with Chinese officials and government agencies. Instead, it demonstrates how shadow economies like the online gambling industry are responding to regulatory attempts by the Chinese state. According to Han, to make sense of the Shwe Kokko story, one must understand who the non-state actors are and how they interact with local communities in Southeast Asian borderlands.

Market Demand and Agricultural Transformation in Northern Myanmar

Now turn to Northern Myanmar, where Han conducted fieldwork in 2019. Over the past decade, he explains, Northern Myanmar has undergone accelerated deforestation due to rising agricultural production in response to increasing demand for grains such as maize and their elevated global commodity market prices. In Myanmar’s Shan State, which borders China, the expansion of maize cultivation is closely related to a surge in Chinese demand for animal feed resulting from the rising domestic consumption of meat. However, a Chinese state ban on maize import from Myanmar had created rampant smuggling coupled with irregular enforcement of border inspections and schisms between the commodity production cycle and financing for local farmers.

One may draw a correlation between the rising demand for meat consumption in China that seemingly created a ripple effect in Myanmar, leading to the expansion of maize cultivation, deforestation, and economic precarity for local farmers. But then again, is this a case of Chinese influence operations? There is no evidence pointing to such deliberate attempts by the Chinese state to influence its neighboring country, although the resulting economic and environmental consequences are related to conditions in China.

Thus, Han argues, understanding an increasingly globalized China and its variegated impacts around the world requires conceptual flexibility. In particular, when referring to China's presence and influence in Southeast Asia, one must not assume a monolith with hegemonic designs for its neighboring states but rather differentiate between multiple types of actors with long histories and multifaceted consequences, both intended and unintended.

This interview with Scot Marciel was originally published by The Irrawaddy. Marciel, who served as U.S. ambassador to Myanmar from March 2016 through May 2020, is a visiting practitioner fellow on Southeast Asia at APARC. His forthcoming book, Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia, which interprets the region and its relations with the United States historically and at present, will be published by APARC later this year.

Since it seized power in February 2021, Myanmar’s military regime has ignored international calls to end its use of violence, release political prisoners and negotiate with its opponents. Some Western nations have applied sanctions, while powerful neighbors India and China have largely sought to protect their own interests. Regional bloc ASEAN has been split, with some members seeking to engage the junta and others calling for contact with the shadow National Unity Government. The Irrawaddy spoke to Scot Marciel, former United States ambassador to Myanmar (2016-20) and currently a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Walter Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, about the current state of regional and international efforts to tackle the Myanmar crisis.

The Irrawaddy: There have been many tragic stories in Myanmar since the coup. It is not enough to just pressure the regime to change its behavior or to make concessions. Can you talk about how the international community and regional groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should assist the Myanmar people?

Marciel: I would offer two thoughts. First, I don’t think you can expect ASEAN to solve this problem, certainly not by itself. The ASEAN Five-Point Consensus, while it’s done with very good intentions, not only are the points not being implemented, they are actually not appropriate for the situation in Myanmar in my view. So it is a mistake to dwell on the Five-Point Consensus. I don’t really blame ASEAN too much for that because the junta is refusing to be reasonable at all and make any kind of concessions. Second, as Malaysia’s foreign minister has suggested publicly, more engagement with the National Unity Government (NUG) and other figures opposed to the junta is really important. I am pleased to see that [US] Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met with Zin Mar Aung [the NUG foreign minister, on Aug. 12] in Washington. I think there needs to be more engagement with the NUG and other actors, recognizing that trying to convince the generals to hold talks with those who oppose them is not really a very useful way of going about things.

The Irrawaddy: Do you think the NUG is the best option, aside from Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) and other stakeholders, in terms of whom the US and ASEAN should be engaging with?

Marciel: I know some people have not been fully satisfied with the NUG. I understand that, but it’s certainly one important factor that has a lot more legitimacy than the junta for sure. I think it is useful to engage with the NUG, but also with actors who are seeking to return the country to a democratic and peaceful path.

The Irrawaddy: When we talk about ASEAN there are some criticisms because so far the Five-Point Consensus as you said is going nowhere, but people keep talking about it. We, ourselves, have become the hostages of the consensus. Beyond ASEAN, there has also been some criticism that the US and other Western countries are outsourcing the Myanmar crisis to ASEAN. We know that ASEAN is toothless and powerless, and so far has achieved little on Myanmar. Why has the West outsourced the problem to ASEAN?

Marciel: To be fair, at least for the United States, I don’t think the United States is necessarily expecting ASEAN by itself to solve the problem. The truth is I don’t know any outside player that can solve the problem. ASEAN can help. This goes back to, among other things, the Five-Point Consensus. It’s not just that the points aren’t being implemented, they really aren’t appropriate for the situation. A ceasefire… OK If the military stops all violence and allows peaceful protests, that would be useful. But does anyone really think that is going to happen? Second, dialogue, my sense is, again I can’t speak for the Myanmar people, but it seems people aren’t interested in negotiating and compromising with the military junta. They want them out of power. And I think the international community should be supporting those efforts, rather than proposing and calling for some kind of dialogue that is completely unrealistic, at least at this time.

The Irrawaddy: In the past, the US has played a major role in promoting democracy, freedom and federal union in Myanmar. You know in 2008-09, we had Kurt Campbell, one of the key architects of the pivot to Asia and of course specific Myanmar policies of principled engagement, and the carrot-and-stick approach, where sanctions were imposed but also with the incentive that if reforms took place, the sanctions would be eased. There was very consistent and intense communication with the-then regime and the opposition in Myanmar. Do you think that, in coordination with ASEAN, the US can work on Myanmar issues with the same vigor and energy as it did in the late 2000s?

Marciel: It’s a good question. It’s very clear that the US and the Biden administration remain very supportive of efforts to help the country go back to democracy and peace and federal union. But my sense is that it’s hard to figure out what they can actually do to make that happen. There’s not a lot of easy choices, whether it’s the United States or ASEAN, because the generals do not seem interested in doing anything positive, they are just holding onto power. We’ve seen what they are willing to do to their own people for the sake of holding power. And it narrows the space for diplomacy, certainly. I would have a very hard time if I were still in the government saying we should engage with the junta and try to create incentives for them because I think there is no chance, absent them feeling much more pressure, that they are willing to seriously consider changing their approach.

The Irrawaddy: Do you think there should be more sanctions, more pressure, including maybe an arms embargo? What about ASEAN and other countries like China, Thailand, and India?

Marciel: There is no great option right now. I don’t believe there is, at this point at least, any opportunity for dialogue that will return the country to a democratic path or democratic federalism. I don’t think the military can restore stability and govern the country effectively. So the best possible scenario is for the military to face so much pressure, that they then begin to look for a way out. So yes, I think maximum pressure, both internally and externally, on the military whether it’s by sanctions or other means is the best chance of achieving progress, though it won’t be easy.

The Irrawaddy: We have a powerful neighbor, China, which shares a long border with Myanmar. We also have our neighbor Thailand, which is absorbing refugees, migrant workers, and asylum seekers. Because of the crisis, they are also sharing the burden. Obviously, China is always supportive of those in power, whether it is the regime or a democratic government. If China and Thailand don’t make any moves, don’t apply any external pressure, it is hard to see any policy of maximizing pressure on the regime working. Do you agree?

Marciel: I agree that there are limits in terms of external pressure. That’s why there is no easy answer. It seems that China is willing to support the junta even though nearly the entire population of Myanmar opposes that. I don’t think that is likely to change. On Thailand, I hope that the Thai authorities will see that the longer the military is in power, the more problems there are going to be across the border, including refugees and instability. And the Thais, I think, will have an interest in pressing in their own way, pressing the military to look for a way out, because otherwise this crisis is going to continue and Thailand’s going to suffer from some of these cross-border challenges, including very serious humanitarian issues.

The Irrawaddy: We have heard that the regime is not happy with the idea of—the wording is quite sensitive—a humanitarian corridor. But Thailand will have to play a key role if cross-border assistance and humanitarian assistance are to reach a large number of Myanmar people. What are your thoughts on that, as the US has made at least four high-ranking official visits to Thailand since the coup? Should the Biden administration engage and cooperate with the Thai government to provide assistance?

Marciel: There is a lot of discussion between the US and Thai officials on this. I don’t know the substance of those discussions. I am not sure what exactly has been said. But to me the United States and Thailand, even if we may have somewhat different views on the coup and the junta, we should try to find a way to work together at a minimum to address the serious humanitarian need right along the Thai border and just across the border. You know it is not easy for Thailand as a neighbor of Myanmar having to deal with the junta. But I think there are ways that this could be done carefully and I assume that these discussions are happening between the United States and Thailand. I hope that they lead to greater and more successful efforts to get humanitarian assistance to the border and across the border on behalf of Myanmar people.

The Irrawaddy: Not only Thailand but, since 1988, the US has also been one of the more generous countries in taking Myanmar refugees and asylum seekers from the Thailand-Myanmar border. This time, again, we see the educated people, the middle class, technicians, professionals, artists, media, and IT people leaving Myanmar. It is a brain drain for Myanmar, but a brain gain for the countries they go to. Do you agree that those people are hugely beneficial to those societies?

Marciel: Yes, I agree. I think, the US processing of…I hate to sound bureaucratic, but you know working to welcome refugees is not a fast process, because there are so many refugees around the world who are seeking asylum in the United States and other places. The US does, as you said, have a long record of accepting and welcoming refugees from Burma/Myanmar. I expect that will continue. I mean, it serves one aspect. A lot of people want to go back to the country and contribute, but right now the conditions aren’t right. For those who definitely want to leave, I think the United States will continue to welcome them. But there is a process because there are so many refugees around the world now.

The Irrawaddy: In Myanmar, as in any country, the people need a professional military, but not the one we have right now. That’s why people have taken up arms against it and the regime. You wrote an article about the Myanmar military last year. Can you talk about reform in the military and security sector?

Marciel: It is too bad that the situation has reached the point that people feel like they have no choice but to take up arms. I don’t judge them for that. It is unfortunate. But the military took away the peaceful option for people to protest or express their views against the junta. It is understandable why a number of people have taken up arms. I wrote the article because I was hearing from some people in the region and around the world saying well, the Myanmar military is an essential institution and one of the country’s few unifying institutions. I disagree. In theory, it should be a unifying institution, but it hasn’t been one. It’s been one that has been a source of so much division and so much conflict. I am sure that there are individuals in the military who would like to work in a professional military but, at least at the leadership level, the culture of brutality and impunity is so deeply ingrained that I don’t think you can reason with these generals. I think Myanmar does need a military, but a dramatically reformed military that will be answerable to the civilian government and that, over many years, will adopt a very different culture and will respect human rights instead of waging war on the people.

The Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowship supports Stanford students working within a broad range of topics related to contemporary Asia. APARC is now accepting applications for the 2022-23 Predoctoral Fellowship. Up to three fellowships are available to Ph.D. candidates who have completed all fieldwork and are nearing the completion of their dissertation. Applications are due by April 15, 2022.

The Center will give priority to candidates who are prepared to finish their degree by the end of the 2022-23 academic year.

This opportunity is open to current Stanford students only.

APARC offers a stipend of $37,230 for the 2022-23 academic year, plus Stanford's Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) fee for three quarters. We expect fellows to remain in residence at the Center throughout the year and to participate in Center activities.

Shorenstein APARC invites highly motivated and dedicated undergraduate- and graduate-level students to join our team as paid research assistant interns for the duration of the summer 2022 quarter. The research assistants work with assigned APARC faculty members on projects focused on contemporary Asia, studying varied issues related to the politics, economies, populations, security, foreign policies, and international relations of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

All research assistant positions are open to current Stanford students only.

Apply Now
 

APARC is now accepting applications for our summer 2022 RA positions. The deadline for submitting applications and letters of recommendation is March 1, 2022. 

All summer research assistant positions will be on campus for eight weeks. The hourly pay rate is $17 for undergraduate students, $25 for graduate students.

Decisions regarding the options for telecommuting work will be made closer to the appointment start dates in accordance with the evolving COVID-19 situation and the University's recommendations.

Please follow these application guidelines

I. Prepare the following materials:

• A current CV;
• A cover letter (up to 1 page).
• Completed Student Information Sheet
   

II. Fill out the online application form for summer 2022, including the above two attachments, and submit the complete form.

III. Arrange for a letter of recommendation from a faculty to be sent directly to Shorenstein APARC.
Please note: the faculty members should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only applications that include all supporting documents.