What Myanmar’s 2020 Election Tells Us About U.S.-China Competition

Although Washington remains fixated on the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to a Biden administration, Myanmar’s November election also deserves attention due to its implications for the future direction of the nation and as an indicator of the future of U.S.-China competition. The incumbent victory of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) reflects their continued resilience and popularity, the country’s halting transition towards democracy, and the likelihood of deepening ties between Naypyidaw and Beijing.

At the geopolitical level, the election in Myanmar underscores the nuanced role that ideology plays in U.S.-China competition. Myanmar’s democracy remains limited and fragile—the military (known as the Tatmadaw) is constitutionally protected and the NLD has cracked down upon its own perceived enemies and independent voices, as well as defended the Myanmar military’s human rights violations against the Rohingya in the Rakhine. However, the recent vote largely reflected the will of the people in spite of Myanmar's highly flawed democracy, a result that demonstrates widespread pro-democracy feelings in Myanmar. At the same time, the NLD is closer to Beijing than it is to Washington despite the United States' interest in supporting democratic transition and a latent anti-China wariness in Myanmar. Overall, due to China’s pragmatic approach to advancing its own national interests, Beijing can safely ignore concerns about democracy or human rights, and Myanmar’s close geographic proximity and relatively weak geopolitical position vis-à-vis China means that Beijing has a degree of leverage the United States cannot hope to replicate, let alone eclipse. These difficulties aside, the United States must still work to adopt a tailored pro-democracy policy in Myanmar that simultaneously fosters Myanmar's flawed democratic transition, counters China's geopolitical objectives, and avoids pushing Naypyidaw further into Beijing's open arms.

The NLD’s Victory and Its Impact on Myanmar

On November 8th, 2020 the electorate largely embraced the country’s nascent democratic transition, but complexities remain that challenge easy characterizations. The incumbent NLD received a large majority of parliamentary seats in the November 8th vote—397 seats in a 476-seat parliament. This earns the NLD a majority even larger than their original victory in the 2015 election. On the other hand, the military-aligned party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), lost over half its seats. This failure demonstrates their unpopularity, and the clearly-chastened USDP recently issued challenges to the Supreme Court alleging fraud. The extent of the victory is such that the NLD expanded its support among minority ethnic voters. The historically Bamar-dominated NLD had been unpopular in ethnic minority-dominated regions as a result of its lack of progress on federalism, or local autonomy in this context, and even suffered a stark electoral blow in the 2018 mid-term contests. As such, it is clear that many in Myanmar continue to view the NLD as the nation’s best hope for further democratic progress, constitutional reform, and the long-stalled peace process.

Even so, the success of Myanmar’s nascent democratic transition does not mean that the country embraces a liberal form of democracy. Following the 2011 launch of its democratic reform process, Myanmar instituted some elements of electoral democracy while also remaining quite illiberal in terms of political and social rights. Indeed, the country’s democratic prospects remain haunted by the military’s constitutional privileges. Despite the NLD’s victory, the military maintains its legally-mandated permanent 25% of seats in parliament. With these guaranteed-seats, the military and the USDP hold just enough seats to veto any NLD-proposed constitutional amendments aimed at weakening their role in government. Furthermore, the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs), some of which allegedly receive arms and influence from China, continue to engage the Tatmadaw in combat.

Beyond the Tatmadaw, the NLD’s own record on the liberal aspects of “liberal democracy” is quite poor. Fighting in outlying states and regions led the central government’s election commission to cancel voting in 17 Rakhine State townships, one of the few regions in which the NLD consistently lacks dominance in the state-level legislature. Perhaps not coincidentally, this region’s locally-dominant Arakan National Party expected to perform well. The NLD also continues to vocally support the Tatmadaw’s campaign against the Rohingya, and it even prevented three ethnically-Rohingya politicians from running in the election. Furthermore, the government arrested numerous journalists and students throughout its first term. Hopes in the West and among pro-reform activists in Myanmar for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD to embrace liberalism as well as democracy have been dashed for several years.

Given its mixed record, the current NLD victory can best be interpreted as a “lesser of two evils”-style choice. With the military widely opposed, many voters in Myanmar view the NLD—despite its flaws—as the best hope for continuing democratization. Moreover, many ethnic minority citizens identify democracy and the sidelining of the Tatmadaw as prerequisites to long-desired autonomy under a federalist system. Furthermore, outside observers should recall that regardless of the outcry in the West, the repression and violence faced by the Rohingya are not viewed negatively by the populace at large. Thus, the resounding NLD victory should therefore not be seen as a strict win for liberal democracy, but instead as a reflection of the complicated nature of Myanmar’s flawed constitutional system and the illiberal impetus within the NLD leadership.

China’s Position in Post-Election Myanmar

Given expanding great power competition, Myanmar’s election also carries implications for the region’s geopolitics, and the NLD government will face questions as to its position in the U.S.-China rivalry. Strategically located at the intersection of China’s southwestern Yunnan Province, Bangladesh, India’s eastern states, ASEAN’s western flank, and the increasingly contested Indian Ocean, Myanmar’s choice of government matters for geopolitics. While Myanmar may hope to strike an independent balance  in a tough neighborhood and conduct outreach to powers in the West, China looks set to make relative gains, and the United States will have scant opportunities to offset its growing deficits vis-à-vis China in Myanmar. Seemingly paradoxically, the democratically-elected NLD government continues to value warm, but balanced, ties to Beijing.

Beijing for its part also values strong ties to Myanmar. China may have waited over a week to congratulate Aung San Suu Kyi, but Beijing’s patience does not reflect a preference for the military. Instead, China’s views demonstrate its pragmatism. Reports indicate that Chinese leadership preferred the NLD to win reelection, and some in the military-aligned USDP vocally adopted anti-China rhetoric during the election. In initially waiting to recognize the NLD, perhaps Beijing hoped to avoid antagonizing the Tatmadaw while the USDP criticized the results, similar to how it behaved after the 2020 U.S. election. In either case, Xi Jinping eventually issued a letter congratulating the NLD and touching upon its major concerns: “[Xi] called for concerted efforts to promote practical cooperation in various fields within the frameworks of the Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas, and push for a fruitful China-Myanmar community with a shared future.”

China stands to benefit most from the NLD’s victory by further entrenching its already extensive involvement in the country. Governed by its need to secure access to the Indian Ocean and Middle Eastern oil through the over land Yunnan-Myanmar route, China-Myanmar relations are highly complex. China simultaneously supports EAOs, shepherds the peace process, serves as a major investor under the Belt and Road Initiative’s China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), and actively engages the NLD’s democratically-elected government. Beijing hopes to balance anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar with the NLD’s need for international cover in the Rakhine and economic development. For the NLD, this Chinese cover grows increasingly vital as the West and its investors express concerns over the Rohingya issue. Going forward, we can expect China to try and take advantage of its positive ties to the NLD to advance CMEC with the ultimate goal of enshrining an overland route from Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal.

Key opportunities for entrenchment hinge on China’s unique value adds for Myanmar. Although anti-China sentiment is widespread in Myanmar, the NLD needs China to accomplish many of its own goals. As criticism of human rights violations increases and possibly expands under a Biden administration, China can continue to provide crucial diplomatic cover for Myanmar in the United Nations. Recently, two Tatmadaw soldiers confessed on video to killing Rohingya villagers in 2017 and were brought to The Hague amidst ongoing proceedings between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Additionally, Myanmar and China face similar novel legal challenges in the ICC over their Rohingya and Uighur crackdowns. On the domestic front, the NLD issued a post-election public letter to 48 ethnic political parties calling for a renewed peace process as an early priority in 2021. Considering China’s strong influence over several insurgent groups, such as the United Wa State Army, Beijing could position itself to advance the peace process. Finally, public blowback may have stymied the Myitsone Dam, but China will continue expanding Myanmar’s strategic infrastructure to draw the NLD further into its economic orbit.

That said, these are long-term goals unlikely to be accomplished within the next five years of NLD governance. Indeed, China’s current strategic position in South and Southeast Asia at large is relatively fragile compared to India and the United States, particularly regarding power projection. However, firmly entrenching the BRI and CMEC against earlier domestic pressure, assuaging Myanmar’s concerns over China’s influence, minimizing cross-border instability, and preventing the United States from making inroads will ensure continued Chinese influence in Myanmar and a strong access point to a contested region.