She was thin, even frail, but with unmistakable inner strength. There was a quiet dignity about her, and the coiled intensity of a vibrant mind inside a long-imprisoned body. She exhibited qualities I had glimpsed before in other former political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela and Václav Havel. Like them, she carried the hopes of a nation on her shoulders.
The first time I met Aung San Suu Kyi, on December 1, 2011, we were both wearing white. It seemed like an auspicious coincidence. After so many years of reading and thinking about this celebrated Burmese dissident, we were finally face-to-face. She had been released from house arrest, and I had traveled thousands of miles to talk with her about the prospects of democratic reform in her authoritarian country. We sat down for a private dinner on the terrace of the chief U.S. diplomat’s residence in Rangoon, a lovely old colonial home on Inya Lake. I felt as if we had known each other for a lifetime, even though we had just met.
I had a lot of questions. She had just as many. After years as an icon of the pro-democracy movement, she was preparing for her first experience with actual democracy. How does one move from protest to politics? What is it like to run for office and put yourself on the line in a whole new way? The conversation was easy and open, and soon we were chatting, strategizing, and laughing like old friends.
We both knew it was a delicate moment. Her country, which the ruling generals called Myanmar and the dissidents called Burma, was taking the first tentative steps toward momentous change. (For years our government maintained a strict official policy of using only the name Burma, but eventually some began using the two names interchangeably. In this book I use Burma, as I did at the time.) The country could easily fall backward into bloodshed and repression, as had happened before. Yet if we could help chart the right course, the prospects for progress were better than at any time in a generation.
For the United States, the chance to help Burma move from dictatorship to democracy and rejoin the family of nations was tantalizing. On its own, Burma was worth the effort; its millions of people deserved a chance to enjoy the blessings of freedom and prosperity. There were also outsized strategic implications. Burma was situated at the heart of Southeast Asia, a region where the United States and China were both working to increase influence. A meaningful reform process there could become a milestone of our pivot strategy, give a boost to democracy and human rights activists across Asia and beyond, and provide a rebuke to authoritarian government. If we failed, however, it could have the opposite effect. There was a risk that the Burmese generals were playing us. They might be hoping that a few modest gestures would be enough to crack their international isolation without changing much of anything on the ground. At home, many thoughtful observers believed I was making the wrong choice by reaching out when the situation was so unclear. I had my eyes open about the risks, but when I weighed all the factors, I didn’t see how we could pass up this opportunity.
For two hours Suu Kyi and I sat and talked. She wanted to know how America would respond to reforms the regime was considering. I told her that we were committed to match action for action. There were many carrots we could offer, from restoring full diplomatic relations to easing sanctions and spurring investment. But we needed to see more political prisoners released, credible elections, protections for minorities and human rights, an end to military ties with North Korea, and a pathway to ending the long-running ethnic conflicts in the countryside. Every move we made, I assured her, would be aimed at nurturing further progress.
Suu Kyi was clear-eyed about the challenges ahead and the men who controlled her country. Her father, Aung San, a general himself, had led Burma’s successful fight for independence from the British and Japanese, only to be assassinated in 1947 by political rivals. Suu Kyi was first imprisoned in July 1989, less than a year after entering politics during a failed democratic uprising against the military the previous year. She had been in and out of house arrest ever since. In 1990, when the military allowed an election, her political party won a resounding victory. The generals promptly nullified the vote. The next year she won the Nobel Peace Prize, which was accepted on her behalf by her husband, Dr. Michael Aris, an Oxford professor and leading scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as their sons. During her years of house arrest Suu Kyi was able to see her family only a handful of times, and when Aris was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the Burmese government denied him a visa to come spend his final days with her. Instead they suggested that Suu Kyi leave the country, which she suspected would mean permanent exile. She declined and never had a chance to say good-bye. Aris died in 1999.
Suu Kyi had learned to be skeptical of good intentions and had developed a thoroughgoing pragmatism that belied her idealistic image. The possibility of a democratic opening was real, she thought, but it needed to be carefully tested. We agreed to meet again the next day to dig into more details, this time at her home.
As we parted I had to pinch myself. When I became Secretary of State in 2009, few could have imagined that this visit would be possible. Only two years before, in 2007, the world had watched in horror as Burmese soldiers fired into crowds of saffron-clad monks who were peacefully protesting against the regime. Now the country was on the brink of a new era. It was a reminder of how fast the world can change and how important it is for the United States to be ready to meet and help shape that change when it comes.
Burma is a nation of close to 60 million people strategically located between the Indian subcontinent and the Mekong delta region of Southeast Asia. It was once known as “the rice bowl of Asia,” and its ancient pagodas and lush beauty captured the imagination of travelers and writers like Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell. During World War II it was a battleground between Japanese and Allied forces. A sharp-tongued American general nicknamed “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell helped reopen the famed Burma Road as a vital supply route into China, and the wartime leadership of Suu Kyi’s father helped to ensure Burmese independence following the end of the conflict.
Decades of military dictatorship and economic mismanagement turned the country into a poverty-stricken pariah. Now Burma ranked among the world’s worst abusers of human rights. It was a source of instability and hostility in the heart of Southeast Asia, and its growing narcotics trade and military ties with North Korea represented a threat to global security.
For me, the road to Rangoon began with an unusual meeting on Capitol Hill in January 2009. I knew Mitch McConnell reasonably well after eight years together in the Senate, and we rarely saw eye to eye on anything. The conservative Republican Minority Leader from Kentucky made no secret of his intention to oppose the new Obama Administration on virtually our entire agenda. (At one point he said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”) But there was one area of foreign policy where I thought we might be able to work together. Senator McConnell had been a passionate champion of the pro-democracy movement in Burma since the brutal 1988 crackdown. Over the years he led the fight for sanctions against Burma’s military regime and developed contacts in the dissident community, including with Suu Kyi herself.
I came into office convinced that we needed to rethink our Burma policy, and I wondered if Senator McConnell would agree. In 2008 the regime had announced a new constitution and plans to hold elections in 2010. After the failure of the 1990 elections, few observers took the prospects of a new vote very seriously. Suu Kyi was still barred from holding office, and the generals had written the rules to ensure that the military was guaranteed to hold at least a quarter of the seats in Parliament, and likely the vast majority. But even the most modest gesture toward democracy was an interesting development from such a repressive regime.
To be sure, there had been moments of false hope before. In 1995 the regime had unexpectedly released Suu Kyi from house arrest, and Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Ambassador to the UN, had flown to Rangoon to see if the military might be ready to loosen its grip. She carried with her a poster from the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing that I and others had signed. But reforms proved elusive. In 1996, while visiting neighboring Thailand, I gave a speech at Chiang Mai University calling for “real political dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and the military regime.” Instead, starting in 1997, the generals began sharply restricting Suu Kyi’s movements and political activities, and by 2000 she was back under house arrest. Bill recognized her heroism by awarding her America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which she of course could not accept in person. Engagement, for the moment, had failed. But by 2009, it was hard to argue that our policy of isolation and sanctions was working any better. Was there anything else we could do?
I told Senator McConnell I wanted to take a fresh look at our Burma policy, from top to bottom, and I hoped he’d be part of it. He was skeptical but ultimately supportive. Our policy review would have bipartisan backing. The Senator proudly showed me a framed note from Suu Kyi that he kept on the wall of his office. It was clear how personal this issue had become for him. I promised to consult him regularly as we moved forward.
There was one more Senator I needed to see. Jim Webb was a decorated Vietnam veteran, Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, and now a Democratic Senator from Virginia and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He was feisty and unconventional, with strong views about U.S. policy in Southeast Asia. Jim told me that Western sanctions had succeeded in impoverishing Burma but that the ruling regime had only become more entrenched and paranoid. He was also concerned that we were inadvertently creating an opportunity for China to expand its economic and political influence in the country. Chinese companies were investing heavily in dams, mines, and energy projects across Burma, including a major new pipeline. Jim thought a Burma policy review was a good idea, but he wasn’t interested in going slowly. He pushed me to be creative and assertive and promised to do the same from his perch on the subcommittee.
I also heard from the other side of the Capitol, where my friend Congressman Joe Crowley of New York had long been a leading proponent of sanctions against the regime. Joe is an old-school straight shooter from Queens. When I was in the Senate and we’d run into each other at New York events, he’d serenade me with Irish ballads. He had been inspired by his mentor on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the late, great Tom Lantos, to champion human rights in Burma. His support and advice would also be crucial as we moved forward.
On my first trip to Asia, in February 2009, I consulted with regional leaders for their thoughts on Burma.
The most encouraging was Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He told me that he had talked to the Burmese generals and came away convinced that progress was possible. That carried weight with me since he himself had been a general who took off the uniform and ran for office. What’s more, he reported that the regime might be interested in starting a dialogue with the United States. We had not had an Ambassador in Burma in years, but there were still channels through which we occasionally communicated. The prospect of more robust discussions was intriguing.
In March I sent Stephen Blake, a senior diplomat and Director of the State Department’s Office for Mainland Southeast Asia, to Burma. In a show of good faith, the regime offered Blake a rare meeting with the Foreign Minister. In return Blake agreed to be the first American official to travel from Rangoon to Nay Pyi Taw, a new capital city the military had built in a remote part of the jungle in 2005; according to a widely circulated rumor, the site was chosen on the advice of an astrologer. He was not allowed to meet Suu Kyi, however, or the country’s aging and reclusive senior general, Than Shwe. Blake came home convinced that the regime was indeed interested in a dialogue and that some in the leadership were chafing at the country’s deep isolation. But he was skeptical that it would lead to real progress anytime soon.
Then, in May, came one of those unpredictable quirks of history that can reshape international relations. A fifty-three-year-old Vietnam veteran from Missouri named John Yettaw had become obsessed with Suu Kyi. In November 2008 he had traveled to Rangoon and swam across Inya Lake to the house where she was imprisoned. Avoiding police boats and security guards, Yettaw climbed over a fence and reached the house undetected. Suu Kyi’s housekeepers were aghast when they found him. No unauthorized visitors were allowed at the house, and Yettaw’s presence put them all in danger. Reluctantly he agreed to leave without seeing Suu Kyi.
But the next spring Yettaw was back. He had lost seventy pounds, and his ex-wife reportedly feared he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet in early May 2009 he made the swim across Inya Lake again. This time he refused to leave and claimed to be exhausted and in poor health. Suu Kyi allowed him to sleep on the floor and then contacted the authorities. Yettaw was arrested at about 5:30 A.M. on May 6, as he attempted to swim back across the lake. Suu Kyi and her housekeepers were picked up the following week for violating the terms of her house arrest. Yettaw was eventually convicted and sentenced to seven years of hard labor. Suu Kyi and her staff were given three years, which was immediately commuted by Than Shwe to eighteen months of continued house arrest. That would ensure she remained imprisoned for the promised 2010 elections. “Everyone is very angry with this wretched American. He is the cause of all these problems. He’s a fool,” one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers told the press.
When I heard the news, I too was furious. Suu Kyi and the progress we desperately hoped to see in Burma should not have to pay the price for the reckless actions of one misguided American. Still, because he was an American citizen, I had a responsibility to help him. I called Senator Webb and Senator McConnell to strategize. Jim offered to go to Burma to negotiate Yettaw’s release, and I agreed. It was certainly worth a try.
In mid-June, there was another potentially explosive event. The U.S. Navy began tracking a 2,000-ton North Korean cargo freighter that we and our South Korean allies suspected carried military equipment, including rocket launchers and possible missile parts, bound for Burma. If true, this would be a direct violation of the ban on North Korean arms trafficking imposed by the UN Security Council in response to a nuclear test in May. Reports swirled of contacts between the Burmese military and a North Korean company with expertise in nuclear technology and of secret visits by engineers and scientists.
The Pentagon dispatched a destroyer to shadow the North Korean freighter as it sailed through international waters. The UN resolution empowered us to search the ship, but the North Koreans vowed to take that as an act of war. We reached out to other countries in the region, including China, looking for assistance. It was crucial that every port where the ship might stop along the way enforce the UN edict and thoroughly inspect the cargo. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang agreed that the resolution “should be carried out in a strict manner so that a strong unified message can be sent to the North Koreans.” At the last minute, the North Koreans blinked; the ship turned around and went home.
In August Senator Webb went to Nay Pyi Taw. This time Than Shwe agreed to meet. Jim had three items on his agenda. First, he asked to bring Yettaw home on humanitarian grounds. The man was refusing to eat and suffering from a number of ailments. Second, he wanted to meet Suu Kyi, which Blake had not been allowed to do. Third, he urged Than Shwe to end her house arrest and allow her to participate in the political process; that was the only way the upcoming elections would be taken seriously. Than Shwe listened carefully and did not betray his thinking. But in the end Jim got two of his three requests. He went to Rangoon and met with Suu Kyi. Then he flew to Thailand with Yettaw on board a U.S. Air Force jet. When Jim and I spoke on the phone, I could hear the relief in his voice. But Suu Kyi remained imprisoned.
The next month I announced the results of our Burma policy review at the United Nations in New York. Our objectives had not changed: we wanted to see credible democratic reforms; the immediate, unconditional release of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi; and serious dialogue with the opposition and minority ethnic groups. But we had concluded that “engagement versus sanctions is a false choice.” So going forward, we would use both tools to pursue our goals and reach out directly to senior Burmese officials.
Over the next year there was discouragingly little progress. Suu Kyi remained under house arrest, although she was permitted to meet twice with Kurt Campbell. She described her solitary life to Kurt, including a daily ritual of listening to the BBC World Service and Voice of America to learn about events beyond her prison walls. The state-run newspaper cropped her out of the photo of Kurt that ran after his visit.
Unlike in 1990, there was no pro-democracy landslide in the 2010 elections. Instead the military-backed party claimed an overwhelming victory, as expected. Opposition groups and international human rights organizations joined the U.S. in condemning the vote as largely fraudulent. The regime refused to allow journalists or outside observers to monitor the election. It was all depressingly familiar and predictable. The generals had missed an opportunity to begin a transition toward democracy and national reconciliation. Meanwhile the Burmese people were falling deeper into poverty and isolation.
Though the election results were disappointing, a week after the vote in November 2010, the generals unexpectedly released Suu Kyi from house arrest. Then Than Shwe decided to retire, to be replaced by another high-ranking general, Thein Sein, who had previously served as Prime Minister. He would put away his uniform and lead a nominally civilian government. Unlike other members of the regime, Thein Sein had traveled around the region, was well known to Asian diplomats, and had seen firsthand how Burma’s neighbors were enjoying the benefits of trade and technology while his own country stagnated. Rangoon had once been one of the more cosmopolitan cities in Southeast Asia; Thein Sein knew just how far it now lagged behind places like Bangkok, Jakarta, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. According to the World Bank, in 2010 only 0.2 percent of the country’s population used the internet. Smartphones were nonexistent because there was insufficient cellular service. The contrast to their neighbors could not have been starker.
In January 2011 I called the newly released Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time to see what she made of these developments. It was a thrill to finally hear her voice, and she seemed energized by her new freedom. She thanked me for the firm support that the United States and Presidents of both parties had given her over the years and asked about my daughter’s wedding. Her political party was stepping up its organizing, testing the limits of the government’s new tone, and I told her we wanted to help and were prepared to share lessons from other pro-democracy movements around the world. “I hope I can visit you one day,” I said. “Or even better, you can come visit me!”
That spring Thein Sein was formally sworn in as Burma’s President. Surprisingly, he invited Suu Kyi to dinner in his modest home. It was a remarkable gesture from the most powerful man in the country to the woman the military had long feared as one of their gravest enemies. Thein Sein’s wife prepared the meal, and they ate under a painting of Suu Kyi’s father. They would meet again that summer, in Nay Pyi Taw. The first conversations were tentative. The general and the dissident were both understandably wary of each other. But something was definitely happening.
I wanted the United States to play a constructive role in encouraging the better instincts of the new Burmese government, without rushing to embrace them prematurely or losing the leverage our strong sanctions provided. Formally returning a U.S. Ambassador to the country would be too much too soon, but we did need a new diplomatic channel to start testing Thein Sein’s intentions. In our strategy sessions I asked Kurt and his team to get creative and develop various scenarios for our next steps. We appointed a veteran Asia expert named Derek Mitchell as the first Special Representative for Burma. Congress had created the position in legislation introduced by the late Congressman Tom Lantos in 2007 and signed into law by President Bush in 2008, but it had never been filled. Selecting a Special Representative to Burma would not confer the prestige of installing a permanent Ambassador, but it would open the door to better communications.
The Irrawaddy River cuts through Burma from north to south and has long been at the heart of the country’s culture and commerce. George Orwell recalled it “glittering like diamonds in the patches that caught the sun,” bounded by vast stretches of rice paddies. Bundles of teak logs, a major Burmese export, float down the river from inland forests all the way to the sea. Fed by glaciers in the eastern Himalayas, the Irrawaddy’s waters run through countless canals and irrigation systems, feeding farms and villages up and down the country and across its wide and fertile delta. Like the Ganges in India and the Mekong in Vietnam, the Irrawaddy occupies a revered place in Burmese society. In the words of Suu Kyi, it is “the grand natural highway, a prolific source of food, the home of varied water flora and fauna, the supporter of traditional modes of life, the muse that has inspired countless works of prose and poetry.”
None of this stopped a state-run Chinese electric power company from using Beijing’s long-standing relationship with the ruling generals to win permission to build the first hydroelectric dam across the upper Irrawaddy. The massive project threatened to cause lots of damage to the local economy and ecosystem, but it held significant benefits for China. Along with six other Chinese-built dams in northern Burma, the Myitsone Dam, as it became known, would deliver electricity to energy-thirsty cities in southern China. By 2011 Chinese construction workers in hard hats had descended on the banks of the Irrawaddy’s headwaters in the remote northern hills that are home to the separatist Kachin ethnic group. The Chinese began blasting, tunneling, and building. Thousands of villagers living nearby were relocated.
In a country long ruled by capricious autocrats, such a disruptive project wasn’t particularly surprising. What was surprising was the reaction from the public. From the beginning, local Kachin groups had opposed the dam, but soon criticism spread to other areas of the country and even appeared in heavily censored newspapers. Activists got their hands on a nine-hundred-page environmental impact statement conducted by Chinese scientists that warned about damage to downstream fish and other wildlife, as well as proximity to a major seismic fault line, and questioned the necessity and wisdom of the project. Anger over ecological damage to the sacred Irrawaddy tapped into deep-seated popular resentment toward China, the military regime’s main foreign patron. As we’ve seen in other authoritarian states, nationalism is often harder to censor than dissent.
A wave of unprecedented public outrage built across Burma. In August 2011 Suu Kyi, who had kept a relatively low profile since her release from house arrest, published an open letter criticizing the dam. The new, nominally civilian government appeared divided and caught off guard. The Information Minister, a retired general, held a press conference and tearfully pledged to protect the Irrawaddy. But other senior officials dismissed public concerns and insisted that the dam would continue as planned. Finally Thein Sein addressed the matter in Parliament. The government had been elected by the people, he said, so it had a responsibility to answer the concerns of the public. Construction on the controversial dam would be halted.
This was the most compelling evidence yet that the new government might be serious about reforms. It was also a surprising official repudiation of China, where the news was met with consternation.
I marveled at the success of Burma’s emerging civil society, which had been persecuted for so long and prevented from organizing or speaking freely. The use of the Myitsone Dam as a galvanizing issue reminded me of a wonderful insight from Eleanor Roosevelt. “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?” she asked in a 1958 speech to the United Nations, and then gave her answer: “In small places, close to home,” in “the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. . . . Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” The people of Burma had been denied so many of their fundamental freedoms for so long. Yet it was environmental and economic abuse that ultimately sparked widespread outrage because it hit home in a direct and tangible way. We see a similar phenomenon with antipollution protests in China. What starts as a prosaic complaint can quickly become much more. Once citizens succeed in demanding responsiveness from their government on these everyday concerns, it can raise expectations for more fundamental change. It’s part of what I call making “human rights a human reality.”
Stopping the dam seemed to unleash a flood of new activity. On October 12 the government began freeing a few hundred of its more than two thousand political prisoners. On the 14th it legalized labor union organizing for the first time since the 1960s. These moves came on the heels of modest steps earlier in the year to ease censorship restrictions and defuse conflicts with armed ethnic minority groups in the countryside. The government also initiated discussions with the International Monetary Fund about economic reforms. A cautiously optimistic Suu Kyi spoke to supporters in Rangoon and called for more prisoners to be released and additional reforms.
In Washington we monitored these events closely and wondered how much weight to give them. We needed a better feel for what was actually happening on the ground. I asked the State Department’s top human rights official, Mike Posner, to accompany Derek Mitchell to Burma and attempt to get a read on the intentions of the new government. In early November Mike and Derek met with members of Parliament and had encouraging discussions about further reforms, including allowing freedom of assembly and opening up registration for political parties. Suu Kyi’s party remained banned and would not be able to participate in 2012 Parliamentary elections unless the law was changed. This was one of the top concerns of the skeptical opposition leaders who Mike and Derek met. They also cited the large number of political prisoners still being held and reports of serious human rights abuses in ethnic areas. Suu Kyi and others were urging us not to move too hastily to lift sanctions and reward the regime until we had more concrete evidence of democratic progress. That seemed sensible to me, but we also had to keep engaging the leadership and nurturing these early advances.
In early November, as Mike and Derek were meeting with dissidents and legislators in Burma, President Obama and I were busy planning how to take the pivot to the next level. We knew the President’s upcoming trip to Asia would be our best opportunity to demonstrate what the pivot meant. We started with APEC economic meetings in Hawaii and then he went on to Australia. I stopped in the Philippines to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of our mutual defense treaty on the deck of the destroyer USS Fitzgerald in Manila, and then met the President in Thailand, another key ally.
On November 17, President Obama and I both arrived in Bali, Indonesia, for a meeting of the East Asia Summit and the U.S.-ASEAN Leaders Meeting, the most important annual gathering of heads of state across Asia. It was the first time a U.S. President attended the East Asia Summit. This was a testament to President Obama’s commitment to our expanded engagement in the region, and a direct result of the groundwork we had laid beginning in 2009 by signing the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and making multilateral diplomacy a priority in Asia. As in Vietnam the previous year, territorial disputes in the South China Sea were once again on everyone’s mind. Just as at the ASEAN meeting in Hanoi, China did not want to discuss the issue in an open, multilateral setting, especially one that included the United States. “Outside forces should not, under any pretext, get involved,” said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The Vice Foreign Minister was more direct. “We hope the South China Sea will not be discussed at the East Asia Summit,” he told reporters. But smaller countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, were determined to have the discussion. In Hanoi we had tried to advance a collaborative approach toward peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea, but in the months since that encounter Beijing had dug in its heels even deeper.
On the afternoon of November 18, I accompanied President Obama to the private leaders meeting, where we met with seventeen other heads of state and their Foreign Ministers. No other staff or journalists were allowed in. President Obama and Premier Wen both listened quietly as other leaders began the discussion. Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia were among the early speakers, all of them with an interest in the South China Sea. Speaking in turn for two hours, nearly every leader repeated the principles we had discussed in Hanoi: ensuring open access and freedom of navigation, resolving disputes peacefully and collaboratively within the framework of international law, avoiding coercion and threats, and supporting a code of conduct. Soon it was clear there was a strong consensus in the room. The leaders spoke forcefully and without equivocation, but also without acrimony. Even the Russians agreed that this was an appropriate and important issue for the group to discuss.
Finally, after sixteen other leaders had spoken, President Obama took the microphone. By now all the arguments were well aired, so he welcomed the consensus and reaffirmed U.S. support for the approach the rest of the region had articulated. “While we are not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute, and while we do not take sides,” he said, “we have a powerful stake in maritime security in general, and in the resolution of the South China Sea issue specifically—as a resident Pacific power, as a maritime nation, as a trading nation and as a guarantor of security in the Asia-Pacific region.” When the President finished, he looked around the room, including at Premier Wen, who was visibly displeased. This was even worse than Hanoi. He had not wanted to discuss the South China Sea at all; now he faced a united front. Unlike Foreign Minister Yang in Hanoi, Premier Wen did not ask for a recess. He responded politely but firmly, defending China’s actions and again insisting that this was not the appropriate forum for such matters.
While this diplomatic theater was playing out, I was equally focused on unfolding events in Burma. In the weeks leading up to the trip, Kurt had been recommending bold new steps to engage with the regime and encourage further reforms. I had been discussing Burma with President Obama and his national security advisors, who wanted to be sure we didn’t lower our guard or ease pressure on the regime prematurely. I had a strong ally in the White House helping to push engagement: Ben Rhodes, the President’s longtime aide who served as Deputy National Security Advisor. Ben agreed with me that we had laid the groundwork and now needed to move forward. Ultimately, though, there was one person in particular from whom the President wanted to hear to be reassured that the time was right. I asked Kurt and Jake to speak with Suu Kyi and set up a call between her and President Obama. While flying from Australia to Indonesia on Air Force One, he got on the phone with her for the first time. She underscored the important role America could play in helping her country move toward democracy. The two Nobel Peace Prize winners also swapped stories about their dogs. After the call the President was ready to move forward. The next day I stood next to him as he stepped to the microphones in Bali and announced that he had asked me to travel to Burma to personally investigate prospects for democratic reform and closer ties between our countries. “After years of darkness, we’ve seen flickers of progress,” he said. I would be the first Secretary of State to visit in more than half a century.
On the flight home from Indonesia, my mind was racing ahead to the upcoming trip. It would be an opportunity to size up Thein Sein for myself and to finally meet Suu Kyi in person. Could we find a way to fan those flickers of progress the President talked about and ignite truly far-reaching democratic reforms?
We stopped to refuel in Japan in a pouring rain. Two Foreign Service officers with experience in Burma stationed at our embassy in Tokyo were waiting. After hearing the President’s announcement, they had brought me a stack of books about the country and a copy of a film about Suu Kyi called The Lady. It was just what I needed. The whole team, including the traveling press corps, watched the movie as we flew east across the Pacific back to Washington, where I immediately began planning my trip to Burma.
I arrived in Nay Pyi Taw late on the afternoon of November 30, 2011. The remote capital’s small airstrip is paved but does not have sufficient lighting for landings after sundown.
Just before we left Washington, Asia experts at the State Department had sent around a memo advising the traveling party not to wear white, black, or red clothing because of local cultural norms. It is not unusual to get that sort of memo before a trip; there are places where certain political parties or ethnic groups are associated with particular colors. So I diligently went through my closet trying to find outfits in the appropriate colors for Burma. I had just bought a lovely white jacket that was a perfect weight for hot climates. Would it really be culturally insensitive to bring it along? I packed it just in case the experts were wrong. Sure enough, when we stepped off the plane, we were greeted by Burmese wearing all the colors we had been warned to avoid. I hoped that wasn’t a sign of deeper misconceptions on our part, but at least now I could safely wear my white jacket.
Our motorcade emerged from the airport into a landscape of vast open fields. The empty highway seemed twenty lanes wide. Occasionally we’d see a bicycle but no other cars and very few people. We passed a farmer wearing a traditional conical straw hat and riding a wagon filled with hay pulled by a white ox. It was like looking through a window into an earlier time.
In the distance we saw the towers of Nay Pyi Taw’s cavernous government buildings. The city had been built in secret in 2005 by the military and was heavily fortified with walls and moats intended to defend against a hypothetical American invasion. Few people actually lived there. Many of the buildings were empty or unfinished. The whole place had the feeling of a Potemkin village.
The next morning I visited President Thein Sein in his ceremonial office. We sat on gold thrones under a massive crystal chandelier in an enormous room. Despite the setting, Thein Sein was surprisingly low-key and unassuming, especially for a head of state and leader of a military junta. He was small and slightly stooped, with thinning hair and glasses. He looked more like an accountant than a general. When he had served as Prime Minister in the military government, he had always appeared in a heavily starched green Army uniform, but now he wore a traditional blue Burmese sarong, sandals, and a white tunic.
Many people in Burma and beyond speculated that the former ruler, Than Shwe, had chosen the mild-mannered Thein Sein as his successor because he was seen as both nonthreatening to the outside world and pliable enough to be a front man for regime hard-liners. So far Thein Sein had surprised everyone by showing unexpected independence and real backbone in pushing his nascent reform agenda.
In our discussion I was encouraging, explaining the steps that could lead to international recognition and easing sanctions. “You’re on the right path. As you know, there will be hard choices and difficult obstacles to overcome,” I said, “[but] this is an opportunity for you to leave an historic legacy for your country.” I also delivered a personal letter from President Obama, which underscored the same points.
Thein Sein responded carefully, with sparks of good humor and a sense of ambition and vision peeking through his deliberate sentences. Reforms would continue, he said. So would his détente with Suu Kyi. He was also keenly aware of the broader strategic landscape. “Our country is situated between two giants,” he said, referring to China and India, and he needed to be careful not to risk disrupting relations with Beijing. Here was someone who had clearly thought long and hard about the future of his country and the role he could play in achieving it.
In my travels I met at least three kinds of world leaders: those who share our values and worldview and are natural partners, those who want to do the right thing but lack the political will or capacity to follow through, and those who view their interests and values as fundamentally at odds with ours and will oppose us whenever they can. I wondered into which category Thein Sein would fall. Even if he was sincere in his desire for democracy, were his political skills strong enough to overcome entrenched opposition among his military colleagues and actually pull off such a difficult national transformation?
My inclination was to embrace Thein Sein in the hopes that international recognition would strengthen his hand at home. But there was reason to be cautious. Before saying too much, I needed to meet Suu Kyi and compare notes. We were engaged in a delicate diplomatic dance, and it was essential not to get out of step.
After our meeting we moved into a great hall for lunch, and I sat between Thein Sein and his wife. She held my hand and talked movingly about her family and her hopes to improve life for Burma’s children.
Then it was on to Parliament and meetings with a cross-section of legislators, most carefully picked by the military. They wore brightly colored traditional dress, including hats with horns and embroidered furs. Some were enthusiastic about engagement with the United States and further reforms at home. Others were clearly skeptical of all the changes going on around them and longed for a return to the old ways.
The Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, Shwe Mann, another former general, met with me in another gigantic room, beneath a painting of a lush Burmese landscape that seemed to stretch for miles. He was chatty and good-natured. “We’ve been studying your country trying to understand how to run a Parliament,” he told me. I asked if he’d read books or consulted with experts. “Oh no,” he said. “We’ve been watching The West Wing.” I laughed and promised that we would provide even more information.
Back at the hotel that evening, sitting outside at a large table with the American press corps, I tried to sum up what I had learned that day. The steps the civilian government had taken were significant, including easing restrictions on media and civil society, releasing Suu Kyi from house arrest along with some two hundred other political prisoners, and enacting new labor and election laws. Thein Sein had promised me he would build on this progress and push through even more far-reaching reforms, and I wanted to believe him. But I knew that flickers of progress could easily be extinguished. There is an old Burmese proverb: “When it rains, collect water.” This was a time to consolidate reforms and lock them in for the future, so that they would become ingrained and irreversible. As I had told Thein Sein that morning, the United States was prepared to walk the path of reform with the Burmese people if they chose to keep moving in that direction.
The flight to Rangoon took just forty minutes, but it felt like entering another world after the surreal government ghost town of Nay Pyi Taw. Rangoon is a city of more than 4 million people, with bustling streets and faded colonial charm. Decades of isolation and mismanagement had taken its toll on crumbling façades and peeling paint, but one could imagine why this place was once considered a “jewel of Asia.” The heart of Rangoon is the soaring Shwedagon Pagoda, a 2,500-year-old Buddhist temple with glistening gold towers and countless golden Buddhas. As a sign of respect for the local custom, I took off my shoes and walked barefoot through the pagoda’s magnificent halls. Security guards hate removing their shoes; it makes them feel less prepared in case of an emergency. But the American journalists thought it was great fun and loved getting a look at my toenail polish, which one described as “sexy siren red.”
Accompanied by a throng of monks and onlookers, I lit candles and incense in front of a large Buddha. Then they brought me to one of the enormous bells that reputedly weighed forty tons. The monks handed me a gilded rod and invited me to strike the bell three times. Next, as instructed, I poured eleven cups of water over a small alabaster-white Buddha in a traditional sign of respect. “Can I make eleven wishes?” I asked. It was a fascinating introduction to Burmese culture. But this was more than sightseeing. By visiting the revered pagoda, I hoped to send a message to the people of Burma that America was interested in engaging with them, as well as with their government.
That evening I finally met Suu Kyi in person, at the lakeside villa where American Ambassadors used to live. I wore my white jacket and black pants; the cautionary clothing memo now officially forgotten. To everyone’s amusement, Suu Kyi arrived in a similar outfit. We had a drink with Derek Mitchell and Kurt Campbell and then sat down for a private dinner, just the two of us. Her political party had been allowed to register in November 2011, and after numerous meetings among its leaders, they had decided to participate in the 2012 elections. Suu Kyi told me that she herself would run for Parliament. After so many years of forced solitude, it was a daunting prospect.
Over dinner I offered my impressions of Thein Sein and the other government officials I had met in Nay Pyi Taw. I also shared some memories of my first run for office. She asked me many questions about the preparation and process of becoming a candidate. This was all so intensely personal for her. The legacy of her slain father, the hero of Burmese independence, weighed on her and spurred her on. That patrimony gave her a hold on the nation’s psyche, but it also created a connection to the very generals who had long imprisoned her. She was the daughter of an officer, a child of the military, and she never lost her respect for the institution and its codes. We can do business with them, she said confidently. I thought of Nelson Mandela embracing his former prison guards after his inauguration in South Africa. That had been both a moment of supreme idealism and hardheaded pragmatism. Suu Kyi had the same qualities. She was determined to change her country, and after decades of waiting, she was ready to compromise, cajole, and make common cause with her old adversaries.
Before parting for the evening, Suu Kyi and I exchanged personal gifts. I had brought a stack of American books that I thought she would enjoy and a chew toy for her dog. She presented me with a silver necklace that she had designed herself, based on a seed pod from an ancient Burmese pattern.
Suu Kyi and I met again the next morning, across the lake in her old childhood colonial home, with hardwood floors and sweeping ceilings. It was easy to forget that it had also been her prison for many years. She introduced me to the elders of her party, octogenarians who had lived through long years of persecution and could hardly believe the changes they were now seeing. We sat around a large round wooden table and listened to their stories. Suu Kyi has a way with people. She may have been a global celebrity and an icon in her country, but she showed these elders the respect and attention they deserved, and they loved her for it.
Later we walked through her gardens, resplendent with pink and red blossoms. The barbed-wire barriers that bounded the property were a pointed reminder of her past seclusion. We stood on the porch, arm in arm, and spoke to the crowd of journalists who had gathered.
“You have been an inspiration,” I told Suu Kyi. “You are standing for all the people of your country who deserve the same rights and freedoms of people everywhere.” I promised that the United States would be a friend to the people of Burma as they made their historic journey to a better future. She graciously thanked me for all the support and consultation we had given over the past months and years. “This will be the beginning of a new future for all of us, provided we can maintain it,” she said. It was the same mix of optimism and caution that we all felt.
I left Suu Kyi’s house and drove to a nearby art gallery dedicated to work by artists from Burma’s many ethnic minority groups, who make up nearly 40 percent of the population. The walls were covered with photographs of the many faces of Burma. There was pride in their eyes, but sadness too. Ever since the country achieved independence in 1948, the Burmese military had waged war against armed separatist groups in the country’s ethnic enclaves. Atrocities were committed on both sides, and civilians were caught in the crossfire, but the Army was the primary perpetrator. These bloody conflicts were major obstacles to the new era we hoped Burma would soon enter, and I had stressed to Thein Sein and his Ministers how important it was to bring them to peaceful conclusions. Representatives from all the major ethnic groups told me how much their people had suffered in the conflicts and hoped for cease-fires. Some wondered aloud whether Burma’s new rights and freedoms would extend to them. It was a question that would haunt the reform process.
The flickers of progress were real. If Thein Sein released more political prisoners, passed new laws protecting human rights, sought cease-fires in the ethnic conflicts, cut off military contacts with North Korea, and ensured free and fair elections in 2012, we would reciprocate by restoring full diplomatic relations and naming an Ambassador, easing sanctions, and stepping up investment and development assistance in the country. As I had told Suu Kyi, it would be action for action. I hoped my visit had provided the international support that reformers needed to bolster their credibility and push ahead with their work. On the streets of Rangoon, posters went up with photographs of my walk in the garden with Suu Kyi. Her portrait was quickly becoming almost as common as her father’s.
Meanwhile, I wished I could have experienced more of this picturesque country, traveling up the Irrawaddy, seeing Mandalay. I promised myself that I would return one day soon with my family.
Suu Kyi and I stayed in close touch over the following months as the reform process moved forward, speaking five times on the phone. I was delighted when, in April 2012, she won a seat in Parliament, as did more than forty of her party’s candidates, winning all but one seat they contested. This time the results were not annulled, and she was allowed to serve. Now she could put her political skills to use.
In September 2012 Suu Kyi traveled to the United States for a seventeen-day tour. I remembered the wish we had shared in our first phone call. I had visited her, and now she would visit me. We sat together in a cozy nook outside the kitchen in my home in Washington, just the two of us.
The months since my visit to Burma had been full of exciting changes. Thein Sein had pulled his government slowly but surely down the path we had discussed in Nay Pyi Taw. He and I had met again over the summer at a conference in Cambodia, and he reaffirmed his commitment to reform. Hundreds of political prisoners were released, including students who organized the 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations and Buddhist monks who participated in protests in 2007. A fragile cease-fire was signed with some of the rebel groups representing ethnic minorities. Political parties were beginning to organize again, and soon privately owned newspapers would be allowed to publish for the first time in nearly half a century.
In response, the United States had begun easing sanctions and had sworn in Derek Mitchell as our first Ambassador in years. Burma was rejoining the international community and was set to chair ASEAN in 2014, a long-standing goal. While the Arab Spring was losing its luster in the Middle East, Burma was giving the world new hope that it is indeed possible to transition peacefully from dictatorship to democracy. Its progress was bolstering the argument that a mix of sanctions and engagement could be an effective tool to drive change in even the most closed societies. If the Burmese generals could be coaxed in from the cold by the lure of international trade and respect, then perhaps no regime was irredeemable.
Reassessing the conventional wisdom on Burma back in 2009 and then experimenting with direct engagement against the advice of many friends back home had been a risky choice, but it was paying off for the United States. Burma’s progress, in the wake of President Obama’s well-received Asian tour in November 2011, which helped erase any lingering memories from 2009 in Beijing, was making the administration’s pivot look like a success. There were still plenty of questions about what would happen next, both in Burma and across the region, but in February 2012 the journalist James Fallows, who has long experience in Asia, wrote glowingly about the pivot and the President’s trip in the Atlantic: “Much like Nixon’s approach to China, I think it will eventually be studied for its skillful combination of hard and soft power, incentives and threats, urgency and patience, plus deliberate—and effective—misdirection.” Professor Walter Russell Mead, a frequent critic of the administration, called our efforts “as decisive a diplomatic victory as anyone is likely to see.”
Still, despite the progress we had seen in Burma, Suu Kyi looked worried when we met in Washington. When she arrived at my house, she asked to speak to me alone. The problems, she said, were that political prisoners still languished behind bars, some ethnic conflicts had actually gotten worse, and the gold rush by foreign companies was creating new opportunities for corruption.
Suu Kyi was now in Parliament, cutting deals and forming new relationships with former adversaries, trying hard to balance all the pressures on her. Shwe Mann, the Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament, was gaining stature, and Suu Kyi had developed a positive working relationship with him; she appreciated his willingness to consult with her on important matters. The political situation was complicated by the possibility that Thein Sein, Shwe Mann, and Suu Kyi were all potential Presidential candidates in 2015. The behind-the-scenes maneuvering, shifting alliances, and political competition were getting intense. Welcome to democracy!
Thein Sein had gotten Burma moving, but could he finish the job? If Suu Kyi withdrew her cooperation, there was no telling what would happen. International confidence might collapse. Thein Sein would become vulnerable to hard-liners who still hoped to roll back the reforms they resented. Suu Kyi and I discussed the competing pressures she faced. I sympathized because I too had experienced the push and pull of political life. And I knew from years of painful experiences how hard it can be to be cordial, let alone collegial, with those who had once been your political adversaries. I thought her best option was to grit her teeth, keep pushing Thein Sein to follow through on his commitments, and keep their partnership alive at least through the next election.
I know it’s not easy, I said. But you are now in a position where what you’re doing is never going to be easy. You have to figure out a way to keep working together until or unless there is an alternative path. This is all part of politics. You’re on a stage now. You’re not locked away under house arrest. So you’ve got to project many different interests and roles all at once, because you are a human rights advocate, you are a member of Parliament, and you may be a future Presidential candidate. Suu Kyi understood all this, but the pressure on her was enormous. She was revered as a living saint, yet now she had to learn to wheel and deal like any elected official. It was a precarious balance.
We moved to my dining room and joined Kurt, Derek, and Cheryl Mills. As we ate, Suu Kyi described the district she now represented in Parliament. As much as she was focused on the high drama of national politics, she was also obsessed with the minutiae of constituency service and solving problems. I remembered feeling exactly the same way when the voters of New York elected me to the U.S. Senate. If you can’t get the potholes fixed, nothing else matters.
I had one more word of advice. The next day she would receive the Congressional Gold Medal in a lavish ceremony in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. It would be a well-deserved recognition for her years of moral leadership. “Tomorrow, when you get that Congressional Gold Medal, I think you should say something nice about President Thein Sein,” I told her.
The next afternoon I joined Congressional leaders and about five hundred others at the Capitol to honor Suu Kyi. When it was my turn to speak, I recalled the experience of meeting Suu Kyi in the house that had been her jail for so many years and compared it to walking through Robben Island with Nelson Mandela years before. “These two political prisoners were separated by great distances, but they were both marked by uncommon grace, generosity of spirit and unshakable will,” I said. “And they both understood something that I think we all have to grasp: the day they walked out of prison, the day the house arrest was ended, was not the end of the struggle. It was the beginning of a new phase. Overcoming the past, healing a wounded country, building a democracy, would require moving from icon to politician.” I looked at Suu Kyi and wondered whether she had thought about my suggestion from the night before. She was visibly moved by the emotion of the moment. Then she started to speak.
“I stand here now strong in the knowledge that I’m among friends who will be with us as we continue with our task of building a nation that offers peace and prosperity and basic human rights protected by the rule of law to all who dwell within its realms,” she said. Then she added, “This task has been made possible by the reform measures instituted by President Thein Sein.” I caught her eye and smiled. “From the depths of my heart, I thank you, the people of America, and you, their representatives, for keeping us in your hearts and minds during the dark years when freedom and justice seemed beyond our reach. There will be difficulties in the way ahead, but I am confident that we shall be able to overcome all obstacles with the help and support of our friends.”
Afterward she asked me, with a twinkle in her eye, “How was that?”
“Oh, that was great, really great,” I said.
“Well, I’m going to try, I’m really going to try.”
The next week I met with Thein Sein at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and talked through many of the concerns Suu Kyi had raised with me. He seemed more in command than in our first conversation, in Nay Pyi Taw, and he listened carefully. Thein Sein was never going to be a charismatic politician, but he was proving to be an effective leader. In his speech at the UN he praised Suu Kyi as his partner in reform for the first time in a public setting and pledged to continue to work with her toward democracy.
In November 2012 President Obama decided to see Burma’s “flickers of progress” for himself. This was his first foreign trip since winning reelection, and it would be our last as a traveling team. After visiting together with the King of Thailand in his Bangkok hospital room, we flew to Burma for a six-hour stop, to be followed by the East Asia Summit in Cambodia. The President planned to meet with both Thein Sein and Suu Kyi and address students at Yangon University. Crowds jammed the streets as we drove by. Children waved American flags. People craned to see something that was impossible to imagine not long before.
Rangoon felt like a different city, although it had been just under a year since my previous visit. Foreign investors had discovered Burma and were rushing to put down stakes in what they saw as the last Asian frontier. New buildings were under construction, and real estate prices were soaring. The government had begun relaxing restrictions on the internet, and access was slowly expanding. Industry experts expected the smartphone market in Burma to grow from practically no users in 2011 to 6 million by 2017. And now the President of the United States himself had come to Burma. “We’ve been waiting fifty years for this visit,” one man along the route told a reporter. “There is justice and law in the United States. I want our country to be like that.”
For the ride from the airport, Kurt and I joined the President in the big, armored Presidential limousine that is transported everywhere the President travels (known fondly as “the Beast”), along with his close aide Valerie Jarrett. As we rolled through the city, President Obama looked out the window at the soaring golden Shwedagon Pagoda and asked what it was. Kurt told him about its central place in Burmese culture and that I had gone there to demonstrate respect for Burma’s people and history. The President asked why he wasn’t going there too. During the trip-planning process, the Secret Service had vetoed the idea of visiting the busy temple. They were concerned about the security risks posed by the crowds of worshippers (and they certainly didn’t want to take their shoes off!), and no one wanted to close down the site and inconvenience all the other visitors. Having years of familiarity with the concerns of the Secret Service, I suggested that they might agree to an unscheduled “off the record” stop, or “OTR,” as they are called. No one would know he was coming, and that would allay some of the security concerns. Plus, when the President decides he’s going to go someplace, it’s very difficult to say no. Soon enough, after the meeting with President Thein Sein, we were strolling through the ancient pagoda, surrounded by surprised Buddhist monks, about as close to being a couple of regular tourists as a President and a Secretary of State ever get.
Following the meeting with Thein Sein and the unscheduled stop at the pagoda, we were at Suu Kyi’s house and she was welcoming the President into what had once been her jail and was now a hub of political activity. She and I embraced like the friends we had become. She thanked the President for America’s support for democracy in Burma but cautioned: “The most difficult time in any transition is when we think that success is in sight. Then we have to be very careful that we are not lured by a mirage of success.”
The end of Burma’s story is yet to be written, and there are many challenges ahead. Ethnic strife has continued, raising alarms about new human rights abuses. In particular, spasms of mob violence against the Rohingya, an ethnic community of Muslims, rocked the country in 2013 and early 2014. The decision to expel Doctors Without Borders from the area and not to count Rohingyas in the upcoming census brought a barrage of criticism. All this threatened to undermine progress and weaken international support. The general elections in 2015 will be a major test for Burma’s nascent democracy, and more work is needed to ensure that they will be free and fair. In short, Burma could keep moving forward, or it could slide backward. The support of the United States and the international community will be crucial.
It is sometimes hard to resist getting breathless about Burma. But we have to remain clear-eyed and levelheaded about the challenges and difficulties that lie ahead. Some in Burma lack the will to complete the democratic journey. Others possess the will but lack the tools. There is a long way to go. Still, as President Obama told the students at Yangon University that day in November 2012, what the Burmese people have already achieved is a remarkable testament to the power of the human spirit and the universal yearning for freedom. For me, the memories of those early days of flickering progress and uncertain hope remain a high point of my time as Secretary and an affirmation of the unique role the United States can and should play in the world as a champion of dignity and democracy. It was America at our best.