A Game of Cat and Mouse

Advising Burma’s generals on how to run the country’s economy is a risky business.

During a rare economic forum held in cooperation with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in December, U Myint, a retired economics professor at the Rangoon Institute of Economics, unveiled a few economic reform proposals.

Two Rangoon farmers chat in their feld after harvesting rice. About half of Burma’s GDP comes from agriculture. (Photo: AFP)

In a follow-up to this gathering, which was attended by former World Bank chief economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, U Myint, who has also served as an economic adviser to ESCAP, held a press briefing at the Myanmar Egress Capacity Development Center in Rangoon on Jan. 9.

In a press statement, U Myint recalled that someone at the earlier conference expressed the view that the only people worth talking to in Burma are the generals, but the generals are poor listeners, so it was a waste of time talking to them because nothing useful will result.

Responding to this view, U Myint said in his statement: “The military establishment here, like other establishments, is not a monolith. It has its hard-liners and soft-liners, a conservative wing and a liberal wing, poor listeners and good listeners.”

U Myint is not in the camp of some Burma military watchers who regularly predict that the power struggle among the military leaders will lead to the establishment’s disintegration. He prefers to try to influence the military establishment.

However, U Myint understands very well just how difficult it is to make progress in Burma. The problem, he believes, lies not just with the junta, but with the general mindset that prevails in Burmese society.

“Another issue that has bothered me over the years … has to do with inadequacies in our society regarding conflict resolution and our inability to satisfactorily deal with those who hold views and ideas and who recommend courses of action that we disagree with,” said U Myint.

“Despite being devout Buddhists, we do not appear to be good at mediation and reconciliation, and we do not seem to have sufficient capacity to resolve conflict and differences of opinion among ourselves in an amicable and peaceful manner.”

U Myint

Some Burma observers were critical of the economic forum in December, saying that the presence of Stiglitz, who was in the country to gather information about the Burmese economy and offer advice to the generals, only served to help the junta reduce international political pressure before the election, which is to be held later this year.

But the forum also offered a platform for economic reformers like U Myint to state their views—always a risky business for those who dare to criticize the generals’ economic mismanagement while trying to engage them in a dialogue.

“It does not matter if the mouse is black or white, as long as it is not caught by the cat,” said U Myint, reversing former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxim advocating economic pragmatism. “Keep in mind that mice take considerable personal risks in trying to bring about change in Myanmar [Burma].”

Although the Stiglitz visit provided a rare opportunity for other economists to offer their views, this was not the first time that seminars on Burma’s economy involving the junta and Burmese economists have been held.

U Myint is, in fact, a committed economic reformer who has tried to change Burma’s outdated and ineffective economic policies. Since the heyday of spymaster Gen Khin Nyunt, he has tried to engage with the generals to improve the country’s economy.

On Jan. 22, 1998, the state-run New Light of Myanmar reported the attendance of Gen Khin Nyunt at the closing ceremony of a five-day seminar called “An Analysis and Assessment of the Current Economic Situation in Myanmar.”

It was co-sponsored by the Office of Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Defense and the Tun Foundation Bank, of which U Myint is a director.

Later, U Myint publicly criticized the junta’s economic mismanagement. In 2006, he gave a talk on Burma’s economy at the American Center in Rangoon.