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Myanmar protesters pressure Singapore to ‘stand for justice’ and compel Min Aung Hlaing to cede power
• The island nation is the top source of foreign direct investment in Myanmar, and is allegedly friendly with the generals who seized power from an elected government
• These ties have been put in the spotlight by demonstrations against Singaporean businesses in Myanmar such as Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Crystal Jade Kitchen
Published: 9:20pm, 18 Feb, 2021
Singapore’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Thursday told the military leaders behind Myanmar’s coup that the use of live rounds against unarmed civilians protesting the seizure of power was unacceptable “under any circumstances”.
Diplomatic observers said the language in a foreign ministry press statement, released after Balakrishnan’s meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi, signified a toughened stance from the city state as it came under pressure from protesters over its purported cosy relationship with the generals who had seized power from a democratically elected government.
In recent days, Singapore has been put in the spotlight by protesters from Myanmar who are demanding that the island republic use its economic clout to compel the coup’s architect, army chief Min Aung Hlaing, to end the crackdown on protesters, swiftly restore democratic rule, and release detainees.
Singapore is the top source of foreign direct investment in Myanmar.
Social media posts on Thursday showed protesters gathered outside Singapore’s embassy in Yangon, chanting “please be a good neighbour” and “stand for justice”.
Similar demonstrations had taken place outside the embassy over the weekend.
Online, some Myanmar citizens urged compatriots to boycott Singaporean businesses such as restaurant chains Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Crystal Jade Kitchen over the republic’s allegedly friendly ties with the generals.
“Singapore is not very supportive [of the anti-coup protests] … that means they are spitting on their customers [the Myanmar people],” one social media post read. “As long as it doesn’t harm its own interests, I don’t think a ‘broker’ like Singapore would care about us.”
Not all protesters bore such sentiment, however. A Myanmar-based film director in his 30s told This Week in Asia he would refrain from answering the boycott calls as it would hurt the livelihoods of those working in the targeted businesses.
Some of the anti-Singapore sentiment online referenced foreign minister Balakrishnan’s remarks to the island nation’s parliament on Tuesday, when he said the country was against “widespread, generalised, indiscriminate sanctions” on Myanmar as these would hurt ordinary citizens there the most.
An analyst said the minister’s remarks might have been misinterpreted by protesters as meaning Singapore was against all forms of sanctions – including targeted censures of the generals – when that was not the case.
BOYCOTT: The famous Singapore brands Yakun Kaya Toast and Tiger beer are now largely under boycott in Myanmar.
https://archive.is/uaMpC/fa3d834755a6c71d5d04ea3821fb11a12f7f333c.jpg ; https://archive.is/uaMpC/5be1052ea0a2c2d6a51c165ed28e56da47eeea8b/scr.png ; http://web.archive.org/web/20210218214218/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuZ6hR0XYAEn4kz?format=jpg&name=900x900 ; http://web.archive.org/web/20210218214254/https://twitter.com/mrattkthu/status/1361910667020816384 ; https://archive.vn/bsT4h
▲ 1. BOYCOTT: The famous Singapore brands Yakun Kaya Toast and Tiger beer are now largely under boycott in Myanmar.
‘THE ASEAN CONSENSUS HURDLE’
In its statement, Singapore’s foreign ministry said both Balakrishnan and Indonesian foreign minister Marsudi hoped for dialogue and for Myanmar to return “to its path of democratic transition”.
“Minister Balakrishnan urged all parties involved to exercise utmost restraint and take urgent steps to de-escalate the situation,” it said. “He stressed that there should be no violence against unarmed civilians. In particular, live rounds should not be fired on unarmed civilians under any circumstances.”
The statement added that Balakrishnan and Marsudi – who is on a whistle-stop regional tour to gather backing within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) for talks over the crisis – expressed “strong support” for an informal meeting of foreign ministers from the association’s member states to be convened as soon as possible.
Dylan Loh, a foreign policy scholar at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said the reference to live bullets by the country’s foreign ministry was “certainly stronger than previous statements”, even though it did not go as far as responses from Western governments.
He said it was noteworthy that the statement was released in the context of Balakrishnan’s bilateral meeting with Marsudi, as the tough language might not have “cleared the Asean consensus hurdle”. The statement was a “smart way to exert some pressure on the junta without violating Asean principles, while allowing differing views to ventilate”, Loh said.
The 10-nation association operates on strict principles of non-interference in domestic affairs and mutual respect for national sovereignty, with statements of censure usually requiring unanimous assent from all member states.
Speaking to This Week in Asia before Singapore’s Thursday statement, Myanmar watcher Hunter Marston said it was important to note that Balakrishnan’s remarks earlier in the week were about widespread sanctions rather than all sanctions in general.
“That’s something most sanctions proponents agree on,” Marston, an Australia-based Southeast Asia scholar, said by email.
All the same, Myanmar social media users’ visceral anger towards Singapore has rekindled discussions in the regional commentariat over whether the wealthy city state – as well as other major investor nations – had adequately distanced themselves from dealings with Myanmar’s military prior to the coup.
Singapore is no stranger to such questions. In 2007, in the aftermath of a bloody crackdown by the then-ruling junta, it came under similar pressure for its purportedly close relationship with strongman leader Than Shwe and his lieutenants.
Now, as it was then, one of the biggest topics of discussion is the sheer scale of investment from Singapore into Myanmar – in particular into entities deemed to be connected to the Tatmadaw, as the military is known locally.
Singapore’s rejoinder at the time was that the Asean bloc as a whole needed to maintain its economic leverage on the then-isolated country. “If we in Asean boycott Myanmar, we would lose our moral influence, which is not insignificant,” the island nation’s then foreign minister George Yeo said.
SEVERAL OPTIONS AVAILABLE
As of December last year, the cumulative amount of approved investment from Singaporean sources to Myanmar stood at US$24.1 billion.
In his remarks to lawmakers on Tuesday, Balakrishnan said a “major proportion” of these investments had actually occurred in the past five years, after now-deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide election in 2015 against the military’s civilian proxies.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s February 1 seizure of power – and detention of Suu Kyi as well as her key allies – came after the military complained of vote rigging following another decisive election victory by the NLD in November.
Asked by an opposition lawmaker whether the government would provide necessary “assistance and advice” to Singaporean companies operating in Myanmar that could be caught up in Western sanctions against entities linked to the military, Balakrishnan said the administration’s position was that businesses should make “commercial decisions and investment decisions on their own merits”, adding that the republic had long sought to maintain a separation between politics and business.
Chong Ja Ian, associate professor in the political science department at the National University of Singapore, suggested that maintaining such a position would be difficult, especially in a country such as Myanmar where the Tatmadaw was “deeply involved in both politics and business”.
He said there were several options available to Singapore to exert more pressure on Myanmar, including the possibility of the republic publicising “financial and business-dealing activities of the Tatmadaw in Singapore” as it had done to the United Nations for a 2018 report on North Korea.
It could also suspend or slow dealings with junta-linked entities, and “suspend or cease the sale of military and law enforcement equipment and services to Myanmar”, Chong said, referencing a 2019 announcement by the Singaporean state-linked firm ST Engineering that it was collaborating with Myanmar to provide cybersecurity services and training.
“[But] the question, however, is not what Singapore can do, but what it is willing to do,” Chong said. “If Singapore expects the Tatmadaw to continue to be a key actor in Myanmar’s politics, it may have a strong incentive to keep a working relationship.”
He added: “So long as the costs of the protests [against Singapore] do not outweigh the benefits of those relationships with Myanmar, there may be less expectation of action from Singapore.”
There have also been suggestions that Singaporean companies could find themselves targeted if there were further sanctions imposed by the United States. President Joe Biden’s administration has already slapped fresh sanctions on Min Aung Hlaing and other top military figures, in addition to the targeted censures put on them by Washington in 2019 over their alleged role in the killing of Rohingya Muslims.
Marston, a doctoral candidate at the Australian National University, said: “Whether or not the US goes after Singaporean businesses with ties to the Myanmar military depends on how the Biden administration intends to enforce existing sanctions and whether Washington expands targeted sanctions to include more military businesses.”
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3122254/myanmar-protesters-pressure-singapore-stand-justice-and-compel
• The island nation is the top source of foreign direct investment in Myanmar, and is allegedly friendly with the generals who seized power from an elected government
• These ties have been put in the spotlight by demonstrations against Singaporean businesses in Myanmar such as Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Crystal Jade Kitchen
Published: 9:20pm, 18 Feb, 2021
Singapore’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Thursday told the military leaders behind Myanmar’s coup that the use of live rounds against unarmed civilians protesting the seizure of power was unacceptable “under any circumstances”.
Diplomatic observers said the language in a foreign ministry press statement, released after Balakrishnan’s meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi, signified a toughened stance from the city state as it came under pressure from protesters over its purported cosy relationship with the generals who had seized power from a democratically elected government.
In recent days, Singapore has been put in the spotlight by protesters from Myanmar who are demanding that the island republic use its economic clout to compel the coup’s architect, army chief Min Aung Hlaing, to end the crackdown on protesters, swiftly restore democratic rule, and release detainees.
Singapore is the top source of foreign direct investment in Myanmar.
Social media posts on Thursday showed protesters gathered outside Singapore’s embassy in Yangon, chanting “please be a good neighbour” and “stand for justice”.
Similar demonstrations had taken place outside the embassy over the weekend.
Online, some Myanmar citizens urged compatriots to boycott Singaporean businesses such as restaurant chains Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Crystal Jade Kitchen over the republic’s allegedly friendly ties with the generals.
“Singapore is not very supportive [of the anti-coup protests] … that means they are spitting on their customers [the Myanmar people],” one social media post read. “As long as it doesn’t harm its own interests, I don’t think a ‘broker’ like Singapore would care about us.”
Not all protesters bore such sentiment, however. A Myanmar-based film director in his 30s told This Week in Asia he would refrain from answering the boycott calls as it would hurt the livelihoods of those working in the targeted businesses.
Some of the anti-Singapore sentiment online referenced foreign minister Balakrishnan’s remarks to the island nation’s parliament on Tuesday, when he said the country was against “widespread, generalised, indiscriminate sanctions” on Myanmar as these would hurt ordinary citizens there the most.
An analyst said the minister’s remarks might have been misinterpreted by protesters as meaning Singapore was against all forms of sanctions – including targeted censures of the generals – when that was not the case.
BOYCOTT: The famous Singapore brands Yakun Kaya Toast and Tiger beer are now largely under boycott in Myanmar.
https://archive.is/uaMpC/fa3d834755a6c71d5d04ea3821fb11a12f7f333c.jpg ; https://archive.is/uaMpC/5be1052ea0a2c2d6a51c165ed28e56da47eeea8b/scr.png ; http://web.archive.org/web/20210218214218/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuZ6hR0XYAEn4kz?format=jpg&name=900x900 ; http://web.archive.org/web/20210218214254/https://twitter.com/mrattkthu/status/1361910667020816384 ; https://archive.vn/bsT4h
▲ 1. BOYCOTT: The famous Singapore brands Yakun Kaya Toast and Tiger beer are now largely under boycott in Myanmar.
‘THE ASEAN CONSENSUS HURDLE’
In its statement, Singapore’s foreign ministry said both Balakrishnan and Indonesian foreign minister Marsudi hoped for dialogue and for Myanmar to return “to its path of democratic transition”.
“Minister Balakrishnan urged all parties involved to exercise utmost restraint and take urgent steps to de-escalate the situation,” it said. “He stressed that there should be no violence against unarmed civilians. In particular, live rounds should not be fired on unarmed civilians under any circumstances.”
The statement added that Balakrishnan and Marsudi – who is on a whistle-stop regional tour to gather backing within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) for talks over the crisis – expressed “strong support” for an informal meeting of foreign ministers from the association’s member states to be convened as soon as possible.
Dylan Loh, a foreign policy scholar at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said the reference to live bullets by the country’s foreign ministry was “certainly stronger than previous statements”, even though it did not go as far as responses from Western governments.
He said it was noteworthy that the statement was released in the context of Balakrishnan’s bilateral meeting with Marsudi, as the tough language might not have “cleared the Asean consensus hurdle”. The statement was a “smart way to exert some pressure on the junta without violating Asean principles, while allowing differing views to ventilate”, Loh said.
The 10-nation association operates on strict principles of non-interference in domestic affairs and mutual respect for national sovereignty, with statements of censure usually requiring unanimous assent from all member states.
Speaking to This Week in Asia before Singapore’s Thursday statement, Myanmar watcher Hunter Marston said it was important to note that Balakrishnan’s remarks earlier in the week were about widespread sanctions rather than all sanctions in general.
“That’s something most sanctions proponents agree on,” Marston, an Australia-based Southeast Asia scholar, said by email.
All the same, Myanmar social media users’ visceral anger towards Singapore has rekindled discussions in the regional commentariat over whether the wealthy city state – as well as other major investor nations – had adequately distanced themselves from dealings with Myanmar’s military prior to the coup.
Singapore is no stranger to such questions. In 2007, in the aftermath of a bloody crackdown by the then-ruling junta, it came under similar pressure for its purportedly close relationship with strongman leader Than Shwe and his lieutenants.
Now, as it was then, one of the biggest topics of discussion is the sheer scale of investment from Singapore into Myanmar – in particular into entities deemed to be connected to the Tatmadaw, as the military is known locally.
Singapore’s rejoinder at the time was that the Asean bloc as a whole needed to maintain its economic leverage on the then-isolated country. “If we in Asean boycott Myanmar, we would lose our moral influence, which is not insignificant,” the island nation’s then foreign minister George Yeo said.
SEVERAL OPTIONS AVAILABLE
As of December last year, the cumulative amount of approved investment from Singaporean sources to Myanmar stood at US$24.1 billion.
In his remarks to lawmakers on Tuesday, Balakrishnan said a “major proportion” of these investments had actually occurred in the past five years, after now-deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide election in 2015 against the military’s civilian proxies.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s February 1 seizure of power – and detention of Suu Kyi as well as her key allies – came after the military complained of vote rigging following another decisive election victory by the NLD in November.
Asked by an opposition lawmaker whether the government would provide necessary “assistance and advice” to Singaporean companies operating in Myanmar that could be caught up in Western sanctions against entities linked to the military, Balakrishnan said the administration’s position was that businesses should make “commercial decisions and investment decisions on their own merits”, adding that the republic had long sought to maintain a separation between politics and business.
Chong Ja Ian, associate professor in the political science department at the National University of Singapore, suggested that maintaining such a position would be difficult, especially in a country such as Myanmar where the Tatmadaw was “deeply involved in both politics and business”.
He said there were several options available to Singapore to exert more pressure on Myanmar, including the possibility of the republic publicising “financial and business-dealing activities of the Tatmadaw in Singapore” as it had done to the United Nations for a 2018 report on North Korea.
It could also suspend or slow dealings with junta-linked entities, and “suspend or cease the sale of military and law enforcement equipment and services to Myanmar”, Chong said, referencing a 2019 announcement by the Singaporean state-linked firm ST Engineering that it was collaborating with Myanmar to provide cybersecurity services and training.
“[But] the question, however, is not what Singapore can do, but what it is willing to do,” Chong said. “If Singapore expects the Tatmadaw to continue to be a key actor in Myanmar’s politics, it may have a strong incentive to keep a working relationship.”
He added: “So long as the costs of the protests [against Singapore] do not outweigh the benefits of those relationships with Myanmar, there may be less expectation of action from Singapore.”
There have also been suggestions that Singaporean companies could find themselves targeted if there were further sanctions imposed by the United States. President Joe Biden’s administration has already slapped fresh sanctions on Min Aung Hlaing and other top military figures, in addition to the targeted censures put on them by Washington in 2019 over their alleged role in the killing of Rohingya Muslims.
Marston, a doctoral candidate at the Australian National University, said: “Whether or not the US goes after Singaporean businesses with ties to the Myanmar military depends on how the Biden administration intends to enforce existing sanctions and whether Washington expands targeted sanctions to include more military businesses.”
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3122254/myanmar-protesters-pressure-singapore-stand-justice-and-compel
