INTRODUCTION

Our guest today is Ambassador Vicky Bowman, who has over three decades of experience in international relations and business, including serving as Britain's former ambassador to Myanmar. We'll start our conversation talking about sanctions and Myanmar’s current foreign and economic links including within ASEAN. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects including major power involvement in Myanmar and the future geoeconomic and geopolitical landscape in the country.

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RIGHTSIZING THE ROLE OF SANCTIONS IN POLICY

ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Vicky. Thank you for joining us and let's get started. One of the periodic focus areas or topics in the headlines on Myanmar is the use of sanctions. We saw the US add the telecommunications firm Mytel to its sanctions list, which is part of an ongoing process of so-called targeted sanctions that have touched on various areas including finance and aviation fuel. The use of sanctions has been billed as a tool in the wider toolkit for some governments. And there's long been a debate in terms of academic and policy circles on how smart or targeted you can make sanctions, in terms of making sure that you're punishing the regime for actions it's not taking, but also ensuring that you're insulating the rest of the population from some of the impacts that are actually happening. As somebody who has been observing and helping shape policy in Myanmar for decades, how do you assess the current state of how Western countries, including the UK, the US, are calibrating their approach to sanctions relative to other levers that you can use in policy to address the ongoing situation in Myanmar in terms of its politics and its economic development?

Ambassador Vicky Bowman: Thank you, Prashanth. Thank you for inviting me on ASEAN Wonk. It's a delight to be here. What you have just said really takes me back to when I was ambassador, which was between 2000 and 2006, because a number of the more senior Asian diplomats were always inviting us around for what were rather tedious diplomatic dinner parties where they would put me on the spot and say: Vicky, why does the West do sanctions? And at sometimes, I even used to arrange for friends to call me so I could leave home – leave the dinner party – because of an urgent call because it got rather boring. To be honest, I see sanctions as a little bit of a sideshow for the West's efforts. Important, definitely headline-grabbing. To some extent, they have some impact. In a way, their deterrent impact, I think, is perhaps more important from the perspective of the private sector.

I note that at least certain Myanmar businesses who were on sanctions lists previously are very keen to effectively behave in order to avoid that in the future. But I don't see them as being the thing which is going to lead to change in Myanmar. And what we're really seeing at the moment is a sort of gradual ticking off of various military-linked companies, one that you mentioned, Mytel, being a joint venture with the Vietnamese telecoms company in which the Myanmar side has a significant shareholding by one of the military-owned companies. So when I saw that coming on, I was quite surprised they weren't already on the list. But I think what's more important to remember rather than focusing on this differentiator between Asian governments and Western governments being sanctions, it's actually the effort of the West on humanitarian assistance which is most important. And I think this is often forgotten.

“I think what's more important to remember rather than focusing on this differentiator between Asian governments and Western governments being sanctions, it's actually the effort of the West on humanitarian assistance which is most important. And I think this is often forgotten.”

And I was just digging out some figures on this. So the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs assessment of what's needed and I think what's needed and could be delivered if the money was there is currently only just over a third funded. So of that funding, that third, $409 million last year, a third of that came from the US government. And then beyond that, you had 13 percent coming from Australia. You had 9 percent European Commission, 7 percent Japan, 5 percent each Sweden and UK. At the bottom, you've got ASEAN with $760,000, which is really, you know, a very significant differential. And I think sometimes it's important for Asian countries, rather than criticizing the West on sanctions, to understand how much contribution is coming in and humanitarian. And then for us all to be somewhat concerned that with the recent U.S. election and sort of reviews to USAID, what is that going to mean in the future? [Note: Ambassador Vicky Bowman wanted us to note in the transcript that this discussion of assistance volume is occurring amid uncertainty in the United States in a new administration over what Washington’s future role will be both in general and with respect to Myanmar more specifically].

Even I hadn't been aware of quite how significant the US was in this area. But if I look at all the other donors as well, all of them are facing budget constraints. All of them are facing other priorities. You know, Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan should be much higher up people's lists. So I fear that those numbers are going to go down. And the victims of that change are going to be people, particularly in rural areas. And that somewhat is the reason why the work I've been doing and continue to do, although on a much sort of less full-time basis now, is all around trying to keep the formal economy going and maintaining jobs. Because if you lose that, then how are people going to eat? And we see them obviously leaving the country to the extent they can. But jobs in the country are often funding three or four people in a family. We see that even in really poorly paid jobs in the government sector. So it's really important to keep those in.

And what I'm pleased to see is that compared to those debates we were having 20 years ago, there are certainly very few governments – no governments, really – but also very few Myanmar stakeholders who are arguing for everyone to leave. It's very much a minority position. But there are a few who seem to think of a sort of scorched earth [scenario] for the economy – I mean, one of them the other day said we need to completely reset the Myanmar economy. Well, for me, resetting it means just basically leaving a blank slate where there will only be organized crime left there. And we're already seeing too much of that: the organized crime, the scam centers, the drugs. So trying to help companies to stay there and continue to function and to function responsibly, I think, is still a really important priority for the West as well as for ASEAN: in some cases, more for the West than for ASEAN.

STANDARDS CALIBRATION IN GEOECONOMICS

ASEAN Wonk: So Vicky, just to build on the point that you were mentioning earlier on sanctions being a sideshow relative to some of the huge humanitarian needs that are required in the country. How do we balance the considerations with respect to making sure that the trajectory of the country is diversified – so not focused on a more isolated landscape with respect to China, Russia – and making sure that the regime actually has the sort of the incentives to make sure that it's leaning in the right direction? Because what we're seeing now is a trajectory where there are some businesses that are in the country but some of them – including major businesses – have actually left the country. And there is this dynamic, which is not unique to Myanmar, where obviously businesses are going to follow profit – there's business considerations that are there – but there are also really geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations, which is the more businesses leave, Western businesses in particular, for all of their flaws and issues, they tend to help lift the overall standards in the in the country relative to, say, businesses from China and Russia. So them leaving the country actually creates this broader issue or challenge where the overall standards in the country might actually be depressed relative to where we are now. So as somebody who has seen this country Myanmar through various cycles – not just the recent cycle of the post-c