Myanmar Examined

Jim Rogers - Fri 03 Oct, 2003

"...A potential (and literal) investment goldmine...but have you got the stomach for turning dictatorship into democracy?..."

As recently as 1962, Myanmar – or Burma, as the British have called it for the last 150 years – was the richest country in Asia. Today, it is one of the ten poorest countries in the world.

In 1962, in a military coup, General Ne Win put an end to Myanmar's democratic government, establishing a one-party state and instituting the party’s “Burmese Path to Socialism.”

Guided by astrology and numerology and driven by xenophobia, chauvinism, and arrogance, Ne Win cut the country off from the rest of the world and ushered in the era of economic stagnation that persists today, despite Myanmar’s potential wealth in raw materials and agriculture and its large force of cheap labour.

Direct military control of the country came in 1988, when popular pressure forced Ne Win to resign. In 1989 the country’s name was changed back to Myanmar. Outsiders opposing the generals insist on calling the country Burma - a fairly new colonial name. The anticolonialist people of Myanmar and the generals insist on the historical name.

I decided to stay neutral on the political situation until I had done my homework, but on the matter of the country’s name I did take the side of history and the people in the street: Myanmar.

Various armed separatist movements have dominated the country's politics over the last four decades. Nevertheless, in the '90s, Myanmar slowly began to reopen its borders to both people and capital - a process that continues today. Considering the wealth of natural resources and labour advantages a liberalised Myanmar could potentially offer, it's worth taking a closer look at where the country is headed.

In 1990, for the first time in thirty years, Myanmar held multiparty free elections. The results, however, were nullified when the opposition party headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of one of the country’s founders, won a decisive victory. In 1991, Myanmar became the focus of international attention and the target of US sanctions when Aung, who had been placed under house arrest along with other leaders of the elected government, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Under General Than Shwe, who assumed leadership of the ruling junta in 1992, the political repression diminished somewhat. A convention was called to draft a new Burmese constitution in 1996. (Aung San Suu Kyi’s father had been instrumental in liberating Burma from the British, and the constitution whose drafting he oversaw stipulated that Burma could not be placed under the leadership of someone married to a foreigner. Aung San Suu Kyi, educated at Oxford, had been living in England before the election, and was married to an Englishman when she ran for Prime Minister, making her ineligible for the position, according to the country’s military rulers.)

At the same time, the country began to emerge from its international isolation. In 1997, in the face of US trade sanctions, Myanmar was made a full member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the region’s powerful trading group. Twenty years ago, there weren’t tourists in Myanmar. Fifteen years ago, tourists could spend a week there. In the mid-1990s things loosened up even more. Around the country, tourist hotels started appearing. The government declared 1997 the Year of the Tourist.

When I started posting reports from Myanmar on my Web site (http://www.jimrogers.com ), I received numerous e-mails from people who were furious that I was there, insisting that I was merely supporting the rule of the evil generals in charge. I should have been boycotting the country along with all good people, they said. But not all good people were boycotting the country.

Numerous nations were and are engaging Myanmar and doing business there: Japan, China, India, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, for instance. These countries were poised to exploit a variety of natural resources - timber, natural gas, gold, and other minerals - and to capitalise on the inevitable growth of tourism.

I would submit that the best way to change a country is to engage that country. Isolation rarely brings change. You want to put an end to Fidel Castro’s hold over Cuba? The pope’s visit in the late 1990s did wonders - the Cubans have openly celebrated Christmas ever since, not having done so in more than thirty-five years. Send Jennifer Lopez next. Castro will not live forever, and while the US State Department is sitting around waiting for him to depart this vale of tears, the Europeans, the Mexicans, the Canadians, and everybody else are flooding into Cuba, buying up all the good stuff. By the time Castro is gone, there are not going to be any decent deals left for Americans. If it were legal to do so, you can bet I would be putting money there now.

In Delhi I had visited Indian friends, Ajay and Aodiiti Mehta, who had studied in the United States. With them was an American woman who talked about her upcoming trip to Myanmar. When I told her I would be there the following month, she grew indignant, claiming that US sanctions prohibited my going. “Why can you go and I can’t?” I asked.

“Because I work for an NGO,” she said.

Terrific.

“I’m going to Myanmar to examine the situation,” she said.

“So am I,” was my answer. “Why should I let you go to Myanmar, examine the situation, and make a judgment for me?”

Did I mention that we did not get along?

The road to Mandalay, to which we were heading, was no road at all; it was the Manipur and Chindwin Rivers. We had to find our own roads, winding through the jungle. And many of the roads were horrible. Myanmar is a primitive country, and thus it was all the more striking to observe that all the houses, however modest, were made of teak. But, of course, teak is the country’s major export. What would have been really surprising, once we thought about it, would have been to see a building constructed of pine.

One of the first things we noticed about Myanmar was how pious the Burmese people are. Everywhere we turned we saw another Buddhist temple. Every day in Mandalay at four in the morning, at a shrine to Living Buddha, the monks wash Living Buddha’s face and brush his teeth, preparing the statue for a busy day. For the next twelve hours, as they have every day since 1784, the faithful, lining up and awaiting their turn, walk up to the figure and apply gold leaf to its surface.

The leaf is procured from goldsmiths who work nearby. Wielding heavy sledgehammers, unpacking gold as it is delivered, they pound for hours, flattening it out. They work all day, taking breaks only when indicated by a variation on the hourglass: a hollow coconut, with a hole punched in the bottom, floating in water. When the coconut fills with water and sinks, it is time to take a break. I bought leaf from one of them - only men, no women, are allowed to approach the statue - joined the queue outside the temple, and added gold to the two hundred years’ worth that had been applied to Living Buddha.

We left Myanmar with a certain amount of regret. All in all, it was an exquisite country to visit. The people were gentle, religious, hard-working, and disciplined. While I predict that the country will become more prosperous and more open to the outside world, I do not see a great future for Myanmar within the confines of its British-drawn borders. It is unlikely to survive the next fifty years intact. Already parts of the Shan State are practically autonomous, controlled by warlords empowered by the opium trade. Nor will violent separatist movements in other parts of the country be put down easily.

Perhaps the Burmese ethnic group will have its own country eventually. Nonetheless, if you want to see a country that is untouched and pure, if you enjoy noodle soup and fried dough for breakfast - you will get plantains for dessert and a vegetable stew made with fish paste, called ngapi, at all other times - I recommend Myanmar as one of the great places to visit, and I suggest travelling there soon before the rest of the world arrives. Entrepreneurs should be especially quick, as the rest of Asia is rushing in.


Regards,

Jim Rogers
for the Daily Reckoning


P.S. When we were in Bagan, now a UN World Heritage site, hundreds of people were completing pilgrimages to the temples there, making offerings of food and flowers and saying their prayers. In the countryside we stumbled upon a cheroot factory, where one of the women rolling cigars asked if we could send her some perfume when we got to Yangon. Paige sent her some Chantilly. I suspect that the NGO woman, with her concern about sanctions, would not have approved.

In the past decade, sanctions have become a favourite tool of the United States. Wherever we went, however, we found that they were not effective, because competing products swept in or American products were smuggled in. Either way, American workers, businesses, and taxpayers, not the 'offending' countries, were the losers. Sanctions resulted only in more enemies for the United States.