Myanmar - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Myanmar Index / Locations Transcripts Jake Sullivan ...of the major Asia issues—opening to Burma , etc.—I was less directly involved i... ...the opening and normalization with Burma -Myanmar, the deepening of ties wit... ...opening and normalization with Burma- Myanmar , the deepening of ties with Vietnam... Avril Haines ...in the later years like Cuba and Burma and certain things like that. So thes... Thant Myint-U ...in efforts related to reform in Burma . In 2012, he was appointed a member o... ...appointed a member of the president of Myanmar 's National Economic and Socia... ...Council and a special advisor at the Myanmar Peace Center, the body responsible fo... ...He's the author of four books about Burma and the world. The most recent is Th... ...most recent is The Hidden History of Burma : Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis o... ...I could help with the situation in Burma , which was, as today, a very ba... ...the UN, began a long journey back to Burma over those years. And in 2010, '11, ... ...were such intense years for Burma , as you said; particularly 2007, 2008... ...did you assess what was happening in Burma 's larger history? I guess th... ...that a big part of the answer to Burma 's problems and Burma's challenges wa... ...of the answer to Burma's problems and Burma 's challenges was going to be to find ... ...to change this dynamic of isolation of Burma ? I had been at the UN in New Yor... ...that I felt was at the root of Burma 's problems. I remember very well th... ...include a review of policy towards Burma as well. So, take us back to you... ...that took you, eventually, back to Burma . And it sounds like on the night o... ...the night of the election, you were in Burma . What were you doing around that time... ...of reform? I mean, a lot of the Burma policy from the West—there were man... ...were concerned about the situation in Burma , and the general reaction of peopl... ...we had to find a different way out of Burma 's situation, and began a series o... ...forward. So, at exactly the moment that Burma 's generals were looking for a way ou... ...there, were looking also to engage with Burma 's generals. So I think it was a... ...in 2010—you're somebody who knows Burma from the inside and from the out an... ...of confluence of reforms going on in Burma while the world's eyes are trained o... ...in the world at that time. But in Burma , it was something very specific... ...conflate her imprisonment with all of Burma 's problems. If I have that argumen... ...past decade as well—is that interest in Burma was often completely conflated wit... ...things that were bad or evil. I think Burma became a kind of morality play, wher... ...interests and everything else, but in Burma those things are not very important, o... ...and sanctions to shift the situation in Burma , and to rethink sanctions, and t... ...supporters of the democracy movement in Burma for, then, twenty years or more. So th... ...by this. And I think in general, the Myanmar political establishment—including th... ...diplomats, others—felt that Myanmar 's natural foreign policy was to b... ...the US that could balance China; that Myanmar could cultivate good relationships wit... ...Clinton, you might have some people in Burma , in the government, in the army, wh... ...visit marked the real end of Burma 's isolation, isolation from th... ...you witnessed there. [Unclear] in Burma . Because you have to remember, I mean... ...the administration wants to see from Burma ; that it's not a blanket seal o... ...I'm curious, from your perspective in Burma , to what extent you saw the presiden... ...same time not trying to declare that Burma had entered a new phase or recogniz... ...again, I think people were looking at Burma through this kind of romanticized len... ...I think people had always hoped that Burma would end in a fairytale kind of wa... ...more generally about the situation in Burma , about the politics in Burma, th... ...in Burma, about the politics in Burma , the reasons for change, what wa... ...happening, his trip to Naypyidaw, about Burma 's relations with her neighbors... ...twenty, thirty questions he had about Burma , but I wasn't really quite prepared t... ...priorities, some of the constraints in Burma ? It was a brief interaction, but I'... ...was this going to be. And you look at Burma 's neighbors, you look at China and it... ...I had a sense of him thinking of Burma as a country that still had all kind... ...the US could be a big part of helping Burma , again, learn those mistakes and tr... ...sense that the president was eager that Burma learn the lessons from othe... ...with the world. And in a way, because Burma was so isolated, there seemed to b... ...at urbanization across Asia, and if Burma sort of grows like many other Asia... ...American military officials, come to Burma and even come to places quite close t... ...between the United States and Burma , but in fact, it's kind of come u... ...you saw that from your perspective in Burma and, after years of this engagement an... ...second and more important was that Burma was then undergoing this telecom... ...Like in the rest of the world, Burma over the past ten years experience... ...of globalization. It was a period where Myanmar was a site of lots of multinationa... ...exponentially. And I think that in Myanmar what was needed really was kind of ... ...the government, or any government, in Burma to take the lead in thinking about wha... ...making in your most recent book: that Burma actually is a container of some o... ...observations and historical view on Burma with us. We really appreciate it. ... Show more... Mark Lippert ...in overcoming those. I think about Burma , Vietnam, Cuba, there are others. Bu... Anne-Marie Slaughter ...talking to Iran and to Cuba, and to Myanmar . Those were three states who had bee... ...Obama had made huge progress with Myanmar —which was the smallest, but stil... Samantha Power ...President Obama in November 2012 to Burma , Myanmar, and he was the first sittin... ...Obama in November 2012 to Burma, Myanmar , and he was the first sittin... ...news story of what was happening in Myanmar . He had used a kind o... ...Burmese dynamics and dynamics inside Myanmar at work, but we had contribute... ...sent to negotiate a communiqué that the Myanmar government and the US government, th... ...But some of them were things that the Myanmar government just did not want to do. S... Show more... Kenneth Roth ...The two most obvious cases are Myanmar and Cuba. I'm wondering if there's on... ...it as much as they could have. With Myanmar , ironically when Hillary Clinton wa... ...big victory?” she kept coming back to Myanmar . I remember a speech that she gave. I... ...of what was going on, because the Myanmar military was basically forced to allo... ...necessarily the interests at all of the Myanmar people. You see today that the peopl... Terry Szuplat ...the Buddhist monks, the activists in Myanmar and Laos; the peacekeepers who ar... ...He could stand up and speak to that in Myanmar , in Indonesia, in Vietnam, in Korea... 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