Dear Jxxxxx and all HR comrades:
Greetings! Hope all of you are doing great and fine. In response to Jxxxxxx email, here is my socio-political and global security perspective on the China - Burma - India relations.
Jxxxxxx, Thanks for voicing out your opinion on the issue of India being so conservative on the issue of Burma atrocities against its own people. It is a pity and a shame for India to behave like this given that it claims to be largest democracy in the world. It does not actually live up to the expectations of being a democratic country and it does not honor human rights and humanitarian principles at all rather it throws away its democratic values in exchange for economic and security reasons which is very obvious since its interests in Burma lies within accessing energy resources through the Shwe Gas Pipeline and natural gas exploration in Rakhine State (India - Burma border).
Socio-politically speaking, this move of India is actually a protective stance against its own interests in Burma in competition with that of China. It is actually having this thought that the moment it will act in honor of its democratic ideals and be critical of the Burmese military generals it would eventually lose its ground and favor from the military junta which it has been cultivating for so many years now and then favor will solely go to China and China will have the upper hand in exploiting the natural resources of Burma especially its energy resources and indirectly enslave its people. This is the real politic here. National interest wise, India is torn between two things right now. It is trying to configure what it important to its own stability as a emerging and developing global economic power base - securing it energy needs through exploiting and have a share of the gas pipeline project or living to the so-called democratic ideals it claims to posses. But I guess in this scenario right now, what is happening is India adopts a neo-conservative perspective in its stand on the issue of Burma. It tends to secure economic gains out of its relations with the Burmese generals in Rangoon vis-a-vis China. And this is actually the biggest challenge for us HR activists especially those who are directly working for Burma. It is quite difficult to pose and arguments to convince the Indian government that taking that stand is not actually beneficial to India as a whole when the material reality says it is good for the domestic economy and the industrialization of India. This same logic, in a purely national interests and political economic perspective applies to China - Burma relations though China is having this constructive engagement policy with Burma just like the ASEAN member countries.
This is quite hard case to deal with looking at an international relations and economic interests' perspective between these three countries. But I am not saying that we can't do something about this as collective HR activists from Asia since this is our concern. I guess, what we can do right now is to collective think, discuss and have exchanges how we can convince by issuing or writing a policy paper of even a paper discussing how the Burma issue affects and threatens the security situation in Asia as a whole and how it will affect India and China's security in the long run. Security is always the name of the game in international and global politics. Once a government or country knows that its own security will be threaten and at risks, it will for sure reconsider its engagements with whatever or even with a country. Now the challenge here is, in what sense and at level Burma and its internal military and political turmoil will create or pose a regional security threat and risk especially to India and China? And in what way we can make good and concrete argumentations against this so-called "non-intervention, non-interference policy" being shared and to some extent being respective by Asian countries and the main arguments being used by China and India in defense of their soft stand and approach to the Burma crisis.
I really strongly believe that we should offer a different and more critical approach to the Burma crisis beside staging protest actions and rallies and statements containing the same motherhood statement like Freedom and democracy and starting making analysis base on the actual geo-political and economic and security relations among these three countries (Burma, India and China) to make a real and tangible difference in the issue. Rallies and demonstration have their own strength as tool for espousing grievances and challenging irresponsible and repressive governments like Burma, however, this should be combined with real paper, analytical and critical analysis on the issue at hand which can be presented to decision makers not only to direct concern parties but to the rest of the world. This is my perspective on this whole Burma crisis vis-a-vis China and India.
I guess HR friends and colleagues we need to start discussing and brainstorming on these grounds and exchange ideas and put them into writing and use these as lobbying tool to China and India. Please let me know what you think.
Hope all of you are fine. I miss you all. Hope we can get together again in the near future.
Warm regards!
axxx
2007/10/22
Greetings! Hope all of you are doing great and fine. In response to Jxxxxxx email, here is my socio-political and global security perspective on the China - Burma - India relations.
Jxxxxxx, Thanks for voicing out your opinion on the issue of India being so conservative on the issue of Burma atrocities against its own people. It is a pity and a shame for India to behave like this given that it claims to be largest democracy in the world. It does not actually live up to the expectations of being a democratic country and it does not honor human rights and humanitarian principles at all rather it throws away its democratic values in exchange for economic and security reasons which is very obvious since its interests in Burma lies within accessing energy resources through the Shwe Gas Pipeline and natural gas exploration in Rakhine State (India - Burma border).
Socio-politically speaking, this move of India is actually a protective stance against its own interests in Burma in competition with that of China. It is actually having this thought that the moment it will act in honor of its democratic ideals and be critical of the Burmese military generals it would eventually lose its ground and favor from the military junta which it has been cultivating for so many years now and then favor will solely go to China and China will have the upper hand in exploiting the natural resources of Burma especially its energy resources and indirectly enslave its people. This is the real politic here. National interest wise, India is torn between two things right now. It is trying to configure what it important to its own stability as a emerging and developing global economic power base - securing it energy needs through exploiting and have a share of the gas pipeline project or living to the so-called democratic ideals it claims to posses. But I guess in this scenario right now, what is happening is India adopts a neo-conservative perspective in its stand on the issue of Burma. It tends to secure economic gains out of its relations with the Burmese generals in Rangoon vis-a-vis China. And this is actually the biggest challenge for us HR activists especially those who are directly working for Burma. It is quite difficult to pose and arguments to convince the Indian government that taking that stand is not actually beneficial to India as a whole when the material reality says it is good for the domestic economy and the industrialization of India. This same logic, in a purely national interests and political economic perspective applies to China - Burma relations though China is having this constructive engagement policy with Burma just like the ASEAN member countries.
This is quite hard case to deal with looking at an international relations and economic interests' perspective between these three countries. But I am not saying that we can't do something about this as collective HR activists from Asia since this is our concern. I guess, what we can do right now is to collective think, discuss and have exchanges how we can convince by issuing or writing a policy paper of even a paper discussing how the Burma issue affects and threatens the security situation in Asia as a whole and how it will affect India and China's security in the long run. Security is always the name of the game in international and global politics. Once a government or country knows that its own security will be threaten and at risks, it will for sure reconsider its engagements with whatever or even with a country. Now the challenge here is, in what sense and at level Burma and its internal military and political turmoil will create or pose a regional security threat and risk especially to India and China? And in what way we can make good and concrete argumentations against this so-called "non-intervention, non-interference policy" being shared and to some extent being respective by Asian countries and the main arguments being used by China and India in defense of their soft stand and approach to the Burma crisis.
I really strongly believe that we should offer a different and more critical approach to the Burma crisis beside staging protest actions and rallies and statements containing the same motherhood statement like Freedom and democracy and starting making analysis base on the actual geo-political and economic and security relations among these three countries (Burma, India and China) to make a real and tangible difference in the issue. Rallies and demonstration have their own strength as tool for espousing grievances and challenging irresponsible and repressive governments like Burma, however, this should be combined with real paper, analytical and critical analysis on the issue at hand which can be presented to decision makers not only to direct concern parties but to the rest of the world. This is my perspective on this whole Burma crisis vis-a-vis China and India.
I guess HR friends and colleagues we need to start discussing and brainstorming on these grounds and exchange ideas and put them into writing and use these as lobbying tool to China and India. Please let me know what you think.
Hope all of you are fine. I miss you all. Hope we can get together again in the near future.
Warm regards!
axxx
2007/10/22
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