Joe Biden threatens sanctions on Myanmar over military coup

President Biden threatened Monday to level sanctions against Myanmar in response to the military coup in the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation, whose instability risks igniting a new flashpoint of great-power tension between the U.S. and China.

Mr. Biden’s threat — and condemnations from the U.N., Western countries and rights groups around the world — came hours after the coup and detention of Myanmar’s most senior civilian politicians, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in what analysts are say is a reversal of progress the country had made toward democracy since a long-entrenched military junta was dissolved in 2011.

An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV declared a national emergency and said Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the military commander in chief, will now be in charge of Myanmar for one year. The military has insisted November’s parliamentary elections were riddled with fraud, and acted Monday just as the new parliament was set to be seated.

A proxy party tied to the military lost handily in the elections in which Mrs. Suu Kyi’s ruling National League for Democracy party won an overwhelming majority of the parliamentary seats up for grabs. The announcement also claimed the civilian government had erred in allowing the elections to go ahead amid the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic.

Myanmar has known long periods of military rule but appeared to be emerging from decades of isolation and poverty with the dramatic return of civilian rule in recent years. Monday’s coup also marked a shocking fall from power for Mrs. Suu Kyi, who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country toward democracy and then led the National League for Democracy to power in elections in 2015.

The Associated Press reported that a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s party said Monday that, in addition to Mrs. Suu Kyi and the president, members of the party’s Central Executive Committee, many of its lawmakers and other senior leaders had also been taken into custody.

While Beijing has so far offered a muted reaction to the coup that ended a decade of delicate civilian rule in Myanmar, Mr. Biden called it a “direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and rule of law.

Myanmar, which is roughly the size of France, has long been a playground for outsider influence given its natural resource wealth and strategic location between China’s southwestern border and the Indian Ocean.

Known in some circles as “North Korea without nukes,” the country also referred to as Burma has been wracked for by decades of ethnic guerrilla wars. Global attention in recent years focused on a repression campaign that Myanmar’s military is accused of carrying out against the country’s Rohingya Muslim population.

Monday’s coup by that same military was roundly condemned by nations around the world, although major questions swirled around how China’s communist government, which has substantial oil and gas interests in Myanmar — and once bristled at the success of Western efforts to promote democracy there — will ultimately respond.

Chinese leaders were notably cautious in their public comments Monday. “We noticed what’s happening in Myanmar, and we’re [gathering] more information,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

“China is Myanmar’s friendly neighbor,” Mr. Wang said. “We hope all sides in Myanmar can properly manage their differences under the constitution and legal framework to uphold political and social stability.”

But Mrs. Suu Kyi herself has a complicated background. In her long struggle as a dissident, she was a darling of Western diplomatic circles and widely celebrated as a human rights activist. But she has faced international criticism in more recent years for failing to stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

U.N. investigators have said Myanmar’s military should be prosecuted for “genocide,” including rape and systematic killings that lead to more than 730,000 Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh in 2017. Mrs. Suu Kyi joined Myanmar’s military in denying the genocide charges.

Great-power rivalry

The Chinese government’s muted reaction to Monday’s coup came in stark contrast to the response emanating from the newly-inaugurated Biden administration in Washington.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed alarm at the military detention of Myanmar’s civilian leaders as soon as news of it first broke on Sunday night in Washington.

“We call on Burmese military leaders to release all government officials and civil society leaders and respect the will of the people of Burma as expressed in democratic elections on November 8,” Mr. Blinken said in a statement. “The United States stands with the people of Burma in their aspirations for democracy, freedom, peace, and development. The military must reverse these actions immediately.”

Mr. Biden elevated the issue on Monday, noting that “the United States removed sanctions on Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy.”

“The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action,” the president said. “The United States will stand up for democracy wherever it is under attack.”

There was also bipartisan outcry from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said reports that “Burma’s military has rounded up civilian leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi and key civil society figures are horrifying, completely unacceptable, and obviously a saddening step backwards for Burma’s slow and unsteady democratic transition.”

It’s not clear, however, what impact fresh U.S. sanctions would have on the situation. China is by far Myanmar’s top import and export market, with the U.S. far down the list.

Washington already has substantial sanctions in place against Min Aung Hlaing — the Myanmar military commander now ruling the country — over his role in the Rohingya campaign.

There are concerns that Gen. Min is already prepared to withstand an international pressure campaign.

Little is publicly known about the 64-year-old general, who spent much of his military career as a publicity-shy officer steadily promoted to higher positions.

The activist organization Justice for Myanmar, which describes itself as a “covert group” fighting for the country’s citizenry, claims Gen. Min carried out the coup to protect himself from possible investigation into lucrative financial operations he controls with other top military officials.

Justice for Myanmar claims the general has ultimate authority over Myanmar’s two military conglomerates — Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and

Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) — which are reportedly invested in the country’s commercial port activity, container depots, jade and ruby mining, real estate, construction and other valuable sectors.

But there were signs Beijing is not happy with the change in leadership in Myanmar.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper noted that a meeting occurred last month between Gen. Min and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during which Gen. Min set out claims that Myanmar’s November election had been fraudulent.

“China will not welcome news of the coup,” said Champa Patel, the director of the Asia-Pacific Program at the Chatham House think tank in London. Beijing has “warm relations with [Aung San Suu Kyi] that have deepened as Western countries criticized her civilian government’s response to the Rohingya crisis.”

“The military, on the other hand, is perceived as having a more independent streak that sought to balance against Chinese influence,” Ms. Patel said, according to The Guardian.

But Walter Lohman, who heads the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation in Washington said that reports of friction between Beijing and Myanmar’s military are overblown.

“There will be some who will say we cannot be too tough on Burma because it will give room for the Chinese to consolidate its relationship,” Mr. Lohman said in comments circulated to reporters on Monday. “The truth is that Beijing already has a relationship that far outstrips Washington’s. This same logic vis-a-vis competition with China led the U.S. to normalizing relations in the first place. It did not work.”

Other analysts characterized Monday’s developments as a blow to the fragile pursuit of democracy in Myanmar.

“The military is promising elections in a year,” said Lucas Myers of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington. “But my sense is … the military will likely be reluctant to give up power again.”

• Dave Boyer in Washington and Richard S. Ehrlich in Bangkok contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.