This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/world/asia/long-reliant-on-china-myanmar-now-turns-to-japan-for-help.html
The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Previous version
1
Next version
Version 0 | Version 1 |
---|---|
Long Reliant on China, Myanmar Now Turns to Japan | Long Reliant on China, Myanmar Now Turns to Japan |
(1 day later) | |
YANGON, Myanmar — On a street in central Yangon, the final moments of Kenji Nagai’s life were captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, an image that exemplified the brutality of military rule in Myanmar. Mr. Nagai, a Japanese journalist, was shot five years ago during a crackdown on protesters by security forces, and his death was a low point in relations between Myanmar and Japan. | |
Now, as Myanmar seeks to shed its authoritarian past, a much different picture is emerging. Japan is rapidly ramping up its presence in the country with a heavyweight deployment of government assistance and corporate investment that is challenging China’s dominant position in Myanmar. | |
One block away from the spot where Mr. Nagai was killed, on the fourth floor of City Hall, two dozen Japanese engineers are drawing up a master plan to remake the roads, telephone and Internet networks, and water supply and sewage systems of Yangon, the country’s long-neglected commercial capital. | |
“Myanmar is saying, ‘Welcome! Please help us,’ ” said Ichiro Maruyama, the deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Yangon. | |
President Thein Sein, who traveled to Tokyo this year to plead for help, is outsourcing to the Japanese crucial parts of his drive to redevelop the country. In addition to the makeover of Yangon, a Japanese consortium has been asked to build a large industrial zone and satellite city on the city’s outskirts. | |
“I’ve been somewhat astonished by the extent of the Japanese involvement and alacrity with which they’ve moved,” said Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar’s economy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. | |
By choosing Japan for these crucial projects, Myanmar is diversifying away from China, its largest foreign investor in recent years, making Myanmar something of a strategic battleground between Asia’s two economic titans, China and Japan. “This is a competition for pre-eminence and influence in Asia,” Mr. Turnell said. | |
China and Japan have diverging interests in the country. Japan is eager to tap into Myanmar’s cheap labor force and extend its extensive network of factories in the region spanning Thailand and Indochina. China is more focused on extracting Myanmar’s natural resources like natural gas, gems, timber and rubber as well as generating electricity from its hydroelectric dams. | |
The impression that China is robbing the country of these resources has led to an anti-China backlash, including recent protests against a copper mine near the central city of Monywa and the suspension last year of the Myitsone hydroelectric dam. | The impression that China is robbing the country of these resources has led to an anti-China backlash, including recent protests against a copper mine near the central city of Monywa and the suspension last year of the Myitsone hydroelectric dam. |
John Pang, the chief executive of CARI, a research organization based in Malaysia, said the Myanmar government’s shift toward Japan “is not so much an attraction to Japan as much as a revulsion against the Chinese.” | |
“It’s a game the Chinese gave away,” Mr. Pang said. The Japanese “come across as nonthreatening” and have managed to build up trust with Myanmar’s leaders, he added. | |
Many other governments have sought to upgrade relations and business contacts with Myanmar — South Korean and Singaporean companies are active in the country — but Japan has been far more comprehensive in its approach. | |
Japan’s overall strategy is to deploy the full force of what used to be called Japan Inc. Some of the country’s largest conglomerates — Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Sumitomo — are working in cooperation with the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. | Japan’s overall strategy is to deploy the full force of what used to be called Japan Inc. Some of the country’s largest conglomerates — Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Sumitomo — are working in cooperation with the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry. |
“We haven’t had any project like this in at least 20 years,” said Masahiko Tanaka, the chief representative of Japan’s International Cooperation Agency, which will provide financing for the projects. | “We haven’t had any project like this in at least 20 years,” said Masahiko Tanaka, the chief representative of Japan’s International Cooperation Agency, which will provide financing for the projects. |
The Japanese government says it is willing to lend Myanmar money for the projects on terms that are near giveaways: loans with an interest rate of well under 1 percent payable over 50 years, with no payments due for the first 10 years. | |
While the cheap money is no doubt attractive on its own, Mr. Thein Sein appears to be counting on something else: help in winning the next election, scheduled for 2015. | |
Mr. Thein Sein is “requesting that the project be finished before 2015,” said Mr. Maruyama, the Japanese deputy chief of mission, referring to the industrial zone, which is called Thilawa and will also include banks, schools, hospitals and other amenities of a city built from scratch. He jokingly calls the timetable “Mission: Impossible.” | |
Yohei Sasakawa, the chairman of the Nippon Foundation, a Japanese charity that concentrates on assisting areas of Myanmar where impoverished ethnic minorities live, says the government is very aware that the population will want to see a “democracy dividend” that includes tangible benefits from the transition away from military rule. “Every single person in the country will want the fruits of democratization,” Mr. Sasakawa said. | |
Mr. Thein Sein has requested that the Nippon Foundation give priority to projects that can be completed quickly, like the construction of primary schools in remote areas, Mr. Sasakawa said. | Mr. Thein Sein has requested that the Nippon Foundation give priority to projects that can be completed quickly, like the construction of primary schools in remote areas, Mr. Sasakawa said. |
Signs of Japan’s increasing influence can be seen across Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. New billboards advertise Canon cameras. The Japanese airline, All Nippon Airways, will resume direct flights to Myanmar this month, 12 years after discontinuing the service. | |
Japanese investors have their work cut out for them. Large parts of the city’s infrastructure were built during the British colonial days, which ended in 1948. Train cars on British-built tracks ride over rotting railroad ties. Yangon sidewalks are scarred by deep and treacherous crevices. A dilapidated sewage system covers only the central area, and pipes meant to deliver clean water are a Swiss cheese of leaks. | |
Much of Yangon’s infrastructure is held together with Band-Aid fixes. At a water reservoir on the edge of the city, workers have jury-rigged strips of bamboo as a filtration system to prevent fish, foliage and trash from entering the pumping station. | |
The Japanese government is also studying plans for mass transit systems, the rehabilitation of four power plants that provide electricity to Yangon, the construction of a second bridge over the Bago River and the addition of six berths to the port near Yangon that will serve the Thilawa project. | The Japanese government is also studying plans for mass transit systems, the rehabilitation of four power plants that provide electricity to Yangon, the construction of a second bridge over the Bago River and the addition of six berths to the port near Yangon that will serve the Thilawa project. |
The Japanese government says it will have a better idea about the cost of the projects once feasibility studies are completed at the end of the year. But it is sure the price tag will be in the billions of dollars. It has already reached a deal that would forgive or reschedule Myanmar’s outstanding debt to Japan. | The Japanese government says it will have a better idea about the cost of the projects once feasibility studies are completed at the end of the year. But it is sure the price tag will be in the billions of dollars. It has already reached a deal that would forgive or reschedule Myanmar’s outstanding debt to Japan. |
While Japan’s interest in Myanmar is partly geostrategic, for some older Japanese the re-engagement by Japan also cements a longstanding — and checkered — relationship between the two countries. The Japanese occupation of the country, then known as Burma, during World War II was brutal. But Aung San, the country’s independence hero (and father of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now the leader of the opposition in Parliament), trained in Japan before leading efforts to oust the British. | |
Myanmar and Japan eventually developed a kind of kinship of former foes, something akin to the United States and Vietnam today. | |
The sentimentality that many Japanese have toward Myanmar may be in part because of a popular 1956 film, “The Burmese Harp,” in which a Japanese soldier dons the robes of a Buddhist monk and remains behind after the war. | The sentimentality that many Japanese have toward Myanmar may be in part because of a popular 1956 film, “The Burmese Harp,” in which a Japanese soldier dons the robes of a Buddhist monk and remains behind after the war. |
For Mr. Sasakawa of the Nippon Foundation, helping out in Myanmar is also personal. He remembers eating rice shipped from Burma in the lean years after World War II. “We are really late in repaying our obligation,” he said. “We are passionately looking forward to paying back the kindness of Myanmar.” |
Previous version
1
Next version