Burma update, before the weekend

Following up on the post earlier this week about Myanmar/Burma’s unfolding saga, I should offer a quick update. Especially since for North America, Friday afternoon is on us, and the weekend’s distractions may soon begin.

President Bush and the U.S. administration did, indeed, back words with actions this week by ratcheting up sanctions against the military regime. There are some doubts about what impact the increased sanctions will have, but in fairness, I don’t think there is much the U.S. can do directly to influence the regime.

Instead of exploring the minutiae of the debate about whether sanctions are helpful or problematic, I’d like to highlight a few Burmese bloggers, brought to global attention by Richard Ehrlich of the San Francisco Chronicle (at least that is where I found out).

All the blogs he shares have at least a couple things in common: they are run anonymously, they are apparently run by people in Burma, and there is clearly a state of turmoil in what they are posting.

One, by an author claiming to be a woman is written in staccato snippets—posted all at once, but time-stamped and covering events over the course of a day.

Another is clearly more politically focused, with a photo collage on the front page including the caption “Stop Dictatorship Now!” Further down the page is an explanation/apology, “sorry i am closing down Cbox for a while for having miss used, and writing bad words. Thank you”. Most interesting are the photos posted to the site, and the link to a Picasa album of the processions of monks from Monday.

Lastly, there is a blog clearly maintained by a foreigner. It was mostly dormant for the previous 9 months (sounds familiar...) but was resumed shortly after the oil and gas price-hikes at the end of August. It gives a very lucid description of what has been happening, and puts it in a fairly clear context. I don’t know enough about Burma to know if it is accurate. It hasn’t been updated since last weekend.

On what may happen next: the U.S. has little influence in Burma, and has admitted as much. President Bush's statement seems directed at the largest country in the region, China, as much as our closest ally in the region, Thailand. Both have significant interactions with Burma--though it is unclear that either has great leverage. And neither has the same interest. A piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, by Michael Green and Derek Mitchell lays out the history, the current challenges, and a possible way forward.

By all accounts, the current protests in Burma began because of price-hikes, and concerns over acute economic conditions. This rapidly expanded into a broader political demonstration. Burma is not the only country with energy-related economic concerns, or political conditions that may change considerably with a small spark. With the world highly interconnected (see yesterday's post), it may be worthwhile to consider how to ensure global progress is not subject to major ups-and-downs caused by volatility in a relatively small number of places.

The coming age of thirst

If there was ever a need for the reminder of just how interconnected the world is, there is a piece in today’s New York Times (yes, I’m very happy Times Select is defunct) that helps bring it home.

China is consuming its freshwater at runaway speeds. In the words of Fred Pearce, “If northern China were a separate country, it would be one of the most water-stressed in the world.”

China’s industry consumes 3-10 times the water of comparable industry in the developed world, according the Times article. China’s farmers are siphoning water out of the ground to sustain crop-growth in semi-arid parts of the country. The easy answer would, of course be to stop farming in dry areas, and to ratchet up standards on manufacturing to use water more efficiently (see what a Coke-WWF partnership is striving towards, here).

If the solutions were easy, there wouldn’t be much need for a discussion.

Here is my guess at some of the problems China is facing in solving this challenge:

1. Modern, developed-country standards for manufacturing are more expensive, are probably less labor-intensive, and probably require a more sophisticated maintenance system than current operations. So to make this work would be to actually reduce the number of jobs available, and to increase the product cost (because in Northern China, labor is still cheaper than capital). To be environmentally responsible, then, might mean putting industry out of business.
2. Maintaining a near-self sufficient farming base gives China two things: first, a huge job-cushion. If a person can’t find a job, but has food (because he or she is a farmer), there isn’t the same kind of urgency as there would be if there were no farmers; and second, it gives an abundant supply of low-cost food for China.

A significant change in either of these policies exposes China to great uncertainty about the future, and likely unrest of some form or another. And all of this is independent of China’s challenges with providing its people (and economy) enough electricity to satisfy increasing demands from an increasingly affluent populace. Currently, most of that growing demand is slated to be satisfied by newly built coal-powered generation plants.

To this point, the problems have all been China-related. The connections to the world are numerous. Some overt, and others more subtle. Starting at the above the waterline issues, and plunging quickly:

Global food prices. If China changes its policies about domestic water use for farming, it could greatly impact the global supply of grains like corn, rice, and soybeans. This would be great for other farmers around the world who would receive higher prices for their crops. But it would be bad for global consumers—especially poor urban consumers—who have to spend relatively high portions of income on staple foods.

Global trade. European and U.S. trade imbalances with China would likely decrease, as our farmers would be able to sell their crops to China. If China’s industry was using more water-efficient processes, the per-unit cost would likely increase as well. This means that the American consumer would likely buy less (or the factories would leave China all-together). On the surface these two seem beneficial, but the ripple effects would likely trend negatively. Job-loss in rural northern China would require the government to spend more of its money on social-welfare, job retraining, or educational programs. And since we’re talking about programs for a few hundred million people, these would be significant expenses. There may also be programs to support grain-purchase subsidies, to keep the prices low for the urban poor. This means the Chinese will have less money to pump back into the U.S. economy in the form of buying our government debt. This leads to downward pressure on the dollar, which leads to an increasing interest rates and fears of inflation.

To be clear: China is going to do what is in China’s interest, not in the U.S. interest. But if the U.S. wants China to deal effectively with the water problem it is facing (which is, incidentally, the same water-problem the U.S. faces, by the way), we will have to find a way to work with China to use less water, grow or buy the same amount of grain, and do them both without significantly disrupting their current pace of economic growth.

New plan

The blog has been on life-support for almost a year now. Rather than mothballing it, I thought I'd make a couple of changes and take another run at it. The biggest change is that I'm moving out from behind the curtain. It's just me posting, so no real purpose in veiling my identity. It'll still be the same topics and format though. If anyone is still reading, I'm always interested in comments.

And, since I work in a sector that does international affairs research and writing, I should add one thing: these are my views. Only my views. Comments are not. Hopefully that will keep things interesting.

John

The stirrings of a democracy

President Bush has promoted his “Democracy Agenda” as a cornerstone of our foreign policy. Inevitably, Iraq has taken center-stage on that in the past several years. As Saturday’s Washington Post points out, there is an opportunity for the U.S. to bring greater attention to a movement that is actively pursuing real democratic reform in a country that is long overdue for it: Myanmar.

Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar is a country that has had a military junta for the past 19 years. It came to power by crushing a democratic movement spurred on by students and Buddhist monks and nuns. Most people in my generation know of Myanmar only through the movie “Beyond Rangoon”.

Myanmar has certainly moved beyond Rangoon. Since taking power, the junta has kept dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi detained under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years. More than that, though, their fear of the United States has caused the junta to build a new capital in the jungle about 200 miles north of Rangoon.

Myanmar allows limited interaction with other countries, and has an ongoing row with Thailand over the number of ‘displaced people’ who keep exiting Myanmar for Thailand. This limited interaction has changed to moderate attention in the past month.

On August 19, the junta raised the price of energy—for some forms, up to 500%--overnight. For comparison, if gasoline prices in the U.S. increased 500% overnight, we’d be paying $13.35 for a gallon of gas tomorrow. In a country where the average income is $1,800 per year and 70% of the people are farmers, that is nothing to sneeze at.

Following this price increase, people throughout Myanmar took to the streets to demand change. At first the protests were a relatively small affair. But they have grown steadily in the intervening month. Yesterday nearly 20,000 monks, nuns, and average citizens were reported to have marched through the streets. Some of the onlookers even shouting support for Suu Kyi.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a statement supportive of the Burmese people over the weekend, and said Bush was likely to say something soon. Attention for the most recent stirrings of democracy in Burma would be welcome, but action even more so.

Victory!

I am declaring victory in my one-man battle against Time Select. I discovered today (though it must have happened a few days ago) that the New York Times has discontinued it's strange and incomprehensible policy of trying to force online readers to pay extravagant amounts of money for today's news: Times Select is defunct. Let's hope it stays that way. And, just in case you want to find out yourself, the New York Times can be found at: www.nytimes.com. They have great international reporting. I especially like their Asia-correspondants.

Overheard in Washington

OK, so it wasn't overheard so much as received in an email, but it's both true and funny. I've played ultimate frisbee the past year-plus on a team. One of the players was quoted in a story in the Washington Post today on a fairly complicated, though significant, issue. My girlfriend, who also plays on the team, writes:

"What a classic Washingtonian moment. Reading the Post, and the expert quoted is on my freaking ultimate Frisbee team."

Who says DC isn't a small town?

What I've Learned

At the risk of angering the publishers at the Washington Post, I'm reprinting, in its entirety (with a link to the site) Kofi Annan's Op-Ed that was published in today's post. The timing, with a new Congress preparing to start, couldn't be more appropriate. Hopefully someone will listen.

What I've Learned

By Kofi A. Annan
Monday, December 11, 2006; A19

Nearly 50 years ago, when I arrived in Minnesota as a student fresh from Africa, I had much to learn -- starting with the fact that there is nothing wimpish about wearing earmuffs when it is 15 degrees below zero. All my life since has been a learning experience. Now I want to pass on five lessons I have learned during 10 years as secretary general of the United Nations that I believe the community of nations needs to learn as it confronts the challenges of the 21st century.

First, in today's world we are all responsible for each other's security. Against such threats as nuclear proliferation, climate change, global pandemics or terrorists operating from safe havens in failed states, no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. Only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves. This responsibility includes our shared responsibility to protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. That was accepted by all nations at last year's U.N. summit. But when we look at the murder, rape and starvation still being inflicted on the people of Darfur, we realize that such doctrines remain pure rhetoric unless those with the power to intervene effectively -- by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle -- are prepared to take the lead. It also includes a responsibility to future generations to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, to prevent climate change imposes higher costs on our children.

Second, we are also responsible for each other's welfare. Without a measure of solidarity, no society can be truly stable. It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalization while billions of others are left in, or thrown into, abject poverty. We have to give all our fellow human beings at least a chance to share in our prosperity.

Third, both security and prosperity depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law. Throughout history human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learned from each other. But if our communities are to live in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity and the need for our human dignity and rights to be protected by law.

That is vital for development, too. Both foreigners and a country's own citizens are more likely to invest when their basic rights are protected and they know they will be fairly treated under the law. Policies that genuinely favor development are more likely to be adopted if the people most in need of development can make their voice heard. States need to play by the rules toward each other, as well. No community suffers from too much rule of law; many suffer from too little -- and the international community is among them.

My fourth lesson, therefore, is that governments must be accountable for their actions, in the international as well as the domestic arena. Every state owes some account to other states on which its actions have a decisive impact. As things stand, poor and weak states are easily held to account, because they need foreign aid. But large and powerful states, whose actions have the greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people.

That gives the people and institutions of powerful states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests. And today they need to take into account also what we call "non-state actors." States can no longer -- if they ever could -- confront global challenges alone. Increasingly, they need help from the myriad types of association in which people come together voluntarily, to profit or to think about, and change, the world.

How can states hold each other to account? Only through multilateral institutions. So my final lesson is that those institutions must be organized in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.

Developing countries should have a stronger voice in international financial institutions, whose decisions can mean life or death for their people. New permanent or long-term members should be added to the U.N. Security Council, whose current membership reflects the reality of 1945, not of today.

No less important, all the Security Council's members must accept the responsibility that comes with their privilege. The council is not a stage for acting out national interests. It is the management committee of our fledgling global security system.

More than ever, Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system. Experience has shown, time and again, that the system works poorly when the United States remains aloof but it functions much better when there is farsighted U.S. leadership.

That gives American leaders of today and tomorrow a great responsibility. The American people must see that they live up to it.

The writer, secretary general of the United Nations, will leave office Dec. 31. This article is based on an address he will give today at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library in Independence, Mo.

Incomes, Inequality, and the World Bank

The Post has a story about a World Bank report that came out recently, describing the broad-spectrum failings of poverty alleviation programs.  In short, according to the report, 60% of countries receiving poverty-alleviation loans from the Bank have remained stagnant, or actually lost ground in the "war on poverty".

 

My favorite, exerpted quote, though is this:

"For a sustained reduction in poverty over a period of time, it really pays to worry about both growth and distribution," said Vinod Thomas, director-general of the Independent Evaluation Group. "It has been a mistaken notion that you can grow first and worry about the distribution later."

As China-watchers (and Chinese themselves) can speak on, one of the main concerns for the CCP right now is growing income inequality (and the social unrest that is coming along with it).

 

There are two big challenges that I see on this right now.  First, finding a plan for any given country that will allow it to effectively redistribute wealth/income while not creating a 'welfare state'; and Second, how to convince those who are accumulating the wealth and earning the income that it's actually a good idea for them to surrender some of that wealth.

 

My guess is that the first person who figures out a highly effective way to do this is going to earn a Nobel Prize.