June 15, 2021

Scaling up the U.S. Response to the Coup in Burma

(Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images)

On February 1, the Burmese military thwarted the will of the Burmese people and carried out a coup. Heritage Senior Policy Analyst Olivia Enos writes that the coup dashed the Burmese people’s hopes for a brighter, more democratic future for the Southeast Asian nation.

The U.S. response to the coup has been relatively swift. The Biden Administration undertook a sanctions review and redirected aid away from the Burmese government toward the people and civil society. Since then, the Administration has issued additional sanctions against Burmese military leaders and their affiliates.

As the coup stretches on, the U.S. Administration may look for additional steps that it can take to strengthen the hand of the Burmese people while holding the Burmese military accountable. To these ends, the Administration should:

• Finally issue an atrocity determination saying whether the Burmese military carried out genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya;
• Broaden its application of preexisting sanctions tools, including by designating Burma as a Primary Money Laundering Concern (PMLC) or identifying specific entities that might qualify as PMLCs; and
• Press the Burmese regime to release all political prisoners.

The U.S. has an opportunity to send a clear signal to the Burmese military that they will not get away with a coup without paying a price. The Administration should do what it can to support the will of the Burmese people, and this will require a comprehensive approach to sanctions implementation and enforcement—an approach that targets revenues generated through secondary sources and leaves no option unexplored when it comes to targeting specific lucrative industries.

By themselves, however, sanctions do not a policy make. Additional steps are needed to increase aid and assistance to the Civil Disobedience Movement in tandem with punitive measures, and safe haven should be extended to those who are in imminent danger.

The most successful approach will include all Burmese voices and will be carried out with support from the international community. As a global defender of freedom, the U.S. must do everything it can to address the deteriorating conditions in Burma.

G-7 Summit Cannot Overcome Strained South Korean-Japanese Relations

NEWQUAY, ENGLAND - JUNE 11: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his wife Mariko Suga arrive at Newquay Airport on June 11, 2021 in Newquay, England. This year the UK has invited Australia, India, South Africa, and South Korea to attend the Leaders' Summit as guest countries as well as the EU. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Heritage Senior Research Fellow Bruce Klingner writes that the Biden administration’s efforts to use the G-7 summit meeting to soothe relations between South Korea and Japan were unsuccessful because of long-standing sensitive historic issues and sovereignty disputes between America’s Asian allies.

Washington had encouraged a bilateral meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

Prior to the G-7 summit, there were encouraging signs of potential progress on addressing the contentious historical issues between both nations. Moon extended an olive branch to Tokyo during the March 1st Movement anniversary celebration of Korea’s 1919 independence effort against Japanese occupation. Moon downplayed nationalist themes and instead called for a future-oriented relationship that separated difficult historical issues from current and future challenges. Moon called on both sides to “sit down together while seeking to understand each other’s position.”

In early June, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed a civil damages lawsuit brought by 85 South Korean plaintiffs against 16 Japanese companies for forced labor during Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. The court ruled that the lawsuit would violate the Korea-Japan Treaty of 1965 that formalized relations between both countries. This countered a 2018 South Korea Supreme Court ruling that ordered two Japanese companies pay compensation to South Korean citizens for wartime forced labor. That ruling triggered a series of Japanese and South Korean retaliatory steps and harsh rhetoric that led to the current downturn in bilateral relations.

Despite the G-7 summit’s setbacks, the Biden administration should continue efforts to improve relations between America’s critically important Asian allies by separating centuries-old historic animosities away from current issues.

The Endless Frontier Act Is Deeply Flawed

Last month, as the Senate wrapped up its work on the Endless Frontier Act, which has expanded and been renamed the United States Innovation and Competition Act, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) observed that the United States is at a crossroads in its strategy to counter the threat posed by China. Lee was concerned that the bill focused primarily on boosting government spending on high-tech research and development. That, he warned, is an exercise in “trying to beat China at its own game,” one that may end up “taking us across a frontier we ought not traverse.” Lee is correct that we should not rely too heavily on government-sponsored research. America’s technological edge over centralized economies, such as that run by the Chinese Communist Party, lies in the private sector, which generates innovative ideas and takes risks to which government bureaucracies are allergic.

The less free the private sector is to pursue novel ideas, and the more rewarded it is to channel its research in a limited number of government-approved directions, the faster the U.S. technologic advantage will wither.

America is in a long-term strategic competition with China. This struggle requires a broad range of policy tools—diplomatic, informational, military and economic. Using all of these tools, Beijing has moved aggressively to carve out greater political, economic, and diplomatic space for itself around the world. Its successes not only further Chinese interests, but they also constrain Washington’s efforts to advance American interests. Washington must think carefully about China’s actions, its ambitions and its evolving position in the world and act strategically to protect America’s interests where necessary.

At the core of the intended course of “reforming and rethinking” should be the task of advancing economic freedom. This is the proven way to achieve the dynamic growth needed to preserve and enhance America’s overall long-term competitiveness. For over a quarter-century, The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom has measured the impact of economic liberty and free enterprise in countries around the globe. The strongly positive correlation between a nation’s level of economic freedom and its citizens’ overall standard of living and competitiveness underscores just how critical economic freedom is in practice. This correlation is the reason why so many countries seek ways to enhance their economic freedoms and, ultimately, the real success of their people.

To be more effective in responding to Beijing’s threat to U.S. national security and foreign interests, Washington’s strategy must factor in a greater understanding of the Chinese economy, as well as expose its grave lack of transparency and accountability. Ongoing discussions among U.S. policymakers and other like-minded partners around the world may find The Heritage Foundation’s China Transparency Project, launched last year, to be a useful resource for conducting a global campaign to systematically expose the Chinese Communist Party’s highly secretive behaviors.

Far less useful is the Endless Frontier Act. Flawed from the beginning, it morphed into more of an Endless Spending Act it made its way through the Senate.

Related: Click here to view the Heritage Foundation's China Transparency Project. Check out the China Uncovered podcast, season two coming soon!

Be sure to tune in: Join us virtually on June 25, 2021 @ 12:0pm-12:45pm (EDT) for the preview event of the 2021 China Transparency Report.

International Civil Aviation Organization: United States Should Repair Chinese Damage and Focus the Organizations on Its Core Mission

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), currently under the leadership of Secretary General Fang Liu, is a specialized agency of the United Nations that provides vital services to civil aviation by codifying international aviation law, standards, and practices to ensure safety and security.

Including ICAO, Chinese nationals currently lead four of the 15 United Nations specialized agencies. The Chinese leaders of these organizations have supported pro-Beijing positions and endorsed Chinese projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative. The partiality of Chinese nationals, demanded by Beijing, violates the principle of neutrality that international civil servants are expected to observe and, in some instances, compromises the missions and mandates of the international organizations they lead. In addition, an underappreciated detriment of Chinese leadership is a management style that rejects transparency and accountability.

Heritage Senior Research Fellow Brett D. Schaefer and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Senior Fellow Danielle Pletka write that these problems should concern the United States and other members of the United Nations that depend on specialized agencies to act in a neutral manner to fulfill their missions and mandates and contribute to the safety, security, and reliability of international commerce, transportation, and other critical matters.

During her six years of leadership, Secretary General Liu has undermined the impartiality and neutrality of ICAO and compromised the security of the organization. Specifically, ICAO blocked Taiwan’s participation in the organization, failed to promptly respond to abuses of the Chicago Convention—which underpins ICAO’s role in global civil aviation—and concealed a cyber breach linked to a group with ties to the Chinese government that gained control of two ICAO servers with intent to spread malware to member governments and private industry. As a manager, Liu has failed to modernize ICAO, resisted efforts to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the cyber breach, defied demands for transparency, took little action to address pervasive sexual harassment, and condoned retribution against whistleblowers within the agency.

Liu will complete her second term this summer. Juan Carlos Salazar of Colombia will succeed her in August 2021. The United States should work closely with him to repair the damage done by Liu, including investigating the cyber breach and addressing any outstanding vulnerabilities, modernizing and reforming ICAO to improve transparency and accountability, confronting threats to civil aviation, and securing full international compliance with aviation safety standards.

June 25, 2021 @ 12:00 pm EDT - VIRTUAL: Preview of The Heritage Foundation’s 2021 China Transparency Report

As China continues its rise, the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have implications across the globe and the need for transparency is increasingly important. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the CCP has often withheld, manipulated, and falsified data for its own purposes. In 2020, The Heritage Foundation launched an initiative to shed light on alternative sources of transparency.

As part of that initiative, The Heritage Foundation is excited to announce the upcoming release of the 2021 China Transparency Report. This report will be the inaugural launch of Heritage’s annual assessment on the current state of transparency, both official and private, vis-à-vis China across eight categories. Please join us as we take an exclusive sneak peak of findings from this report, featuring keynote remarks from U.S. Representative Steve Chabot and Q&A discussions with contributors to the report.