Time for the U.S. to Get Real About Myanmar
The United States needs to have an honest conversation about Myanmar. For years, Washington has pursued a policy of isolation and sanctions against the country’s military junta, driven primarily by human rights concerns following the 2021 coup. This approach may satisfy American moral sensibilities, but it has failed to achieve any of its stated objectives while simultaneously undermining core American strategic and economic interests in Southeast Asia.
It’s time for a dose of foreign policy realism: The current approach isn’t working, and continuing down this path serves only to hand Myanmar—and its vast strategic resources—to China on a silver platter.
The Limits of Moral Posturing
Let’s be clear about what U.S. isolation policy has accomplished: precisely nothing. The military junta remains firmly in power. Human rights conditions have not improved. Democratic opposition forces remain marginalized. Meanwhile, Myanmar has pivoted decisively toward Beijing, deepening economic, military, and diplomatic ties with America’s principal strategic competitor in the Indo-Pacific.
This is the predictable outcome of a foreign policy that prioritizes virtue signaling over strategic calculation. When the U.S. cuts off engagement with countries whose governments offend its sensibilities, it doesn’t gain leverage—it loses it. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in geopolitics, China is more than happy to fill it.
The China Factor
Beijing has wasted no time exploiting Washington’s self-imposed absence from Myanmar. Chinese investment has flooded into the country’s infrastructure, from ports and pipelines to telecommunications networks. Military cooperation has expanded. Myanmar has become increasingly dependent on Chinese economic lifelines and political support at the United Nations.
This isn’t just about one country in Southeast Asia. Myanmar occupies critical geography, providing China with potential access to the Indian Ocean and serving as a crucial link in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. Every day that passes with American disengagement is another day that China consolidates its influence over a strategically located nation of 55 million people.
The Biden administration has spoken eloquently about the need to compete with China in Southeast Asia. Yet on Myanmar, we’re forfeiting the game before we even take the field.
The Resource Reality
Beyond the geopolitical imperatives, there’s a hard economic reality that Washington seems determined to ignore: Myanmar sits atop some of the world’s most significant deposits of rare earth elements and critical minerals essential to modern technology and defense systems.
These aren’t luxury goods—they’re strategic necessities. Rare earth elements are vital for everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to advanced weapons systems and renewable energy technologies. Currently, China dominates global rare earth supply chains, controlling approximately 70 percent of production and 90 percent of processing capacity. Myanmar’s untapped reserves represent one of the few potential sources that could diversify this dangerous dependency.
By maintaining a policy of isolation, the U.S. effectively ensures that these resources will be developed exclusively for China’s benefit. This isn’t just economically shortsighted—it’s a national security liability. As the United States pushes to reshore critical supply chains and reduce dependence on Beijing, abandoning access to Myanmar’s mineral wealth is geopolitical malpractice.
The Realist Alternative
Reengagement doesn’t mean endorsement. It means recognizing that the world is not divided neatly into democracies Americans embrace and autocracies Americans shun. American foreign policy throughout the Cold War and beyond has routinely involved cooperation with unsavory regimes when core interests demanded it. The U.S. maintains relationships with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and numerous other countries with problematic human rights records because it understands that moral purity and strategic effectiveness rarely align.
The case for pragmatic engagement with Myanmar rests on several pillars:
Strategic competition: Countering Chinese influence in a critical theater requires presence, not absence. You can’t compete where you refuse to show up.
Economic security: Access to rare earth minerals and other critical resources is a vital national interest that transcends the political character of Myanmar’s government.
Regional stability: ASEAN countries have largely maintained engagement with Myanmar. America’s outlier position undermines our credibility and influence with regional partners who view our approach as naïve and counterproductive.
Long-term influence: Change in Myanmar, if it comes, will more likely result from sustained engagement that builds relationships with various power centers—including the military—than from isolation that eliminates our leverage entirely.
A Path Forward
Reengagement need not be unconditional. Washington can pursue targeted cooperation focused on counternarcotics, border security, and economic development while maintaining pressure on specific human rights issues. The U.S. can work with the military government on areas of mutual interest while supporting civil society and keeping channels open to opposition groups.
This is the messy, imperfect work of actual diplomacy—as opposed to the clean, ineffective satisfaction of moral condemnation from afar.
The question facing American policymakers is straightforward: Do we want to shape outcomes in Myanmar, or do they want to issue press releases about our values while China shapes those outcomes instead?
The answer should be obvious to anyone serious about advancing American interests in the Indo-Pacific. It’s time to get real about Myanmar—before the U.S. completely ceded the field to Beijing.