Burma/Myanmar and the United States: The Dilemma of a Delicate Balance

In 2021, in the midst of a "confluence of crises" catalyzed by the Myanmar military's seizure of state power on February 1, the year 2015 will be viewed as the halfway point in Myanmar's now interrupted journey of reform and democratic transition.¹ Bilateral relations between Myanmar and the United States, which started to normalize in the almost ten years between April 2011 and January 2021, are now "paused" at best, with Washington imposing and increasing targeted sanctions against the military regime in Myanmar since February.²

In 2015 I suggested that Myanmar would be engaged in an "eternal balancing act" between the United States and China.³ I continue that assessment in this essay, taking a closer look at how this balancing act is underpinned by domestic perceptions that motivate Burmese policymakers and diplomats to continue this policy of a "delicate balance."⁴ Examining the domestic underpinnings to foreign policy takes on heightened relevance in the current geopolitical moment where major-power competition seizes imaginations globally, including in Southeast Asia. The current political moment in Myanmar, where the military coup has catalyzed a contest for foreign policy dominance and legitimacy assertion in the international arena, also calls for this additional lens of assessment. In this essay, I briefly assess Burmese domestic perceptions of the United States and its policy toward Myanmar along three broad themes: perceptions and expectations, the importance of legitimacy (to the Burmese), and revealed pragmatic preferences in bilateral interactions.⁵

Expectations and Perceptions

The "dawn" of bilateral relations with the United States dates from a letter sent in February 1857 from King Mindon—the penultimate monarch in Burma's last dynasty before the country came under British rule—to President James Buchanan, the fifteenth U.S. president.⁶ The letter, which does not address the president by name, was originally intended for President Franklin Pierce and expressed the Burmese king's hope to seek bilateral ties with the United States. In 1856–57, Burma had already fought and lost two wars with the British, ceding territory with each loss. King Mindon's perception of the United States as a former British colony now independent was probably tinged with an expectation of a possible alliance against the United Kingdom. The alliance did not materialize; the United States was on the brink of the Civil War, and James Buchanan merely sent a cordial but noncommittal reply.

Burma under British occupation had little formal contact with the United States. In the 1930s the general view seemed to be that U.S. interests were more aligned with those of the UK and thus of less use to Burma.⁷ Washington's interests in Southeast Asia—and Burma—increased as a result of U.S. military involvement in the region during World War II and continued after the war in light of the rising tide of Communism. The United States and Burma established diplomatic relations in September 1947 before the latter gained independence from the British in 1948.⁸

Following independence, Burmese decision-makers' perceptions (and expectations) of the United States became linked to ethnic tensions at home. Burmese senior government officials were suspicious of U.S. intent and motives regarding the separatist movements that had sprung up after independence. Among Prime Minister U Nu's key advisers, some leaned left, while others nursed grudges against "American-inflicted slights," and the then army chief, General Ne Win, was frustrated with both U.S. and British policies toward Burma.⁹

Notwithstanding his own largely favorable attitude toward the United States, Nu himself was frustrated with U.S. support of the Kuomintang remnant forces that had fled China to the border areas of Burma and Thailand. The Kuomintang emergency exposed CIA moves in Southeast Asia and fanned further suspicions in Burma, particularly in the military. This dilemma tested U.S.-Burma relations, leading to Nu lodging a formal complaint to the United Nations in 1953 after several failed efforts at bilateral negotiations.

Burmese suspicions and perceptions of U.S. motives in the geopolitical moment of the times serve as a...