 I see you're in the order of it. Perfect. That wasn't me. So good morning, folks. I'm Vikram Nehru. I'm a senior associate here at the Carnegie Downfield International Peace and the Chair of the Southeast Asian Studies. And it's my pleasure to welcome all of you to this morning's event. Today is Super Tuesday. That's because we have such a super panel to speak on Myanmar's burden of high expectations. Expectations, incidentally, not just the people of Myanmar, but also of the international community. So much so that this morning there's a quote from Aung San Suu Kyi when she was talking to the ethnic members of parliament and she said the following, she said, we frequently have to remind people that we are not the government yet as no power transition in the world takes so long as here in Burma. Very nice. It's true because the transition is already one week shy of four months since the November the 8th election. And incidentally, all of you probably know today's announcement that the presidential nomination has been brought forward to March the 10th from March the 17th. And that is a signal that the negotiations between Aung San Suu Kyi and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces about her path to the presidency are more or less dead. And they've decided therefore to bring forward the nomination to March the 10th which was always the date for presidential nominations in previous elections. It was the delay to March the 17th that was of interest because clearly they wanted time for those negotiations to proceed. The transition nevertheless will end on April the 1st and we will have a new president and new government that will take the reins of power. And the big question is whether the incoming government will be ready to take on the huge challenges that Myanmar faces the political, social, economic and security challenges. And we have three outstanding speakers to take us through that Mary Callahan of the University of Washington, Hongdae as well as Christina Fink of George Washington University you have your bios with you so I'm not going to go into the bios. What I've asked them to do is to speak for seven minutes each initially to give us their initial views. We'll then have a short conversation based on the issues that they raise and then we'll open it up to Q&A and I hope that we'll be able to finish this within an hour. So Mary, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here. I want to use my seven minutes to talk about popular expectations domestically not in terms of the international community. And I would say that the popular expectations veer between being completely distorted and unrealistic and being in fact actually relatively tolerant and pragmatic. So in terms of the distortions, anybody who's been to Myanmar in the last seven or eight years when taxi drivers freely would start talking and not be afraid of military intelligence listening so much and I live in Yangon so I take probably eight taxis a day and every single taxi ride is when Aung San Suu Kyi is president there will be no more traffic. When Aung San Suu Kyi is president there will be no more corruption, floods, fires, dengue fever, street dogs or global warming is one of my favorites. Everyone will have electricity and this is very good news to me because actually just in the last three days is when the electricity cuts started already. They're starting early this year so can't wait for April first. Other things, SIM cards will be free as opposed to being $1.20. Bandwidth of the internet will be open and connections will be blazing fast. And so these are reflective of a couple things. One is a country that's been quite isolated and been under the thumb of a regime that never responded to any kind of grievances or problems raised. But it's also I think reflective of serious pent up grievances that not only could not be raised publicly but there was no chance of any kind of redress. But on the other end of the spectrum I think there's also a basic realism that there's only so much that can be done that the NLD has indeed inherited a lot of very difficult problems and even any government that took over in 2016 and takes over in 2021 is going to inherit them as well. And so for the more realistic views, I suspect there would be more tolerance as long as it's not the battled regime. So I want to just say quickly five things to watch for in terms of the disconnect between expectations and capabilities or not really capabilities but just the realm of the possible. First, and Professor Steinberg has written about this. The first two items actually come due in April. One is the Musondam decision which was suspended for the length of President Dane Sain's term. There is a universal expectation that Aung San Suu Kyi will stridently continue the suspension but also stridently stand up to China more generally such as on investment in Chau Pui on the Chau Pui special economic zone and the Thanh Luan dams which has the whole eastern part of the country up in arms. I think that that's not an easy thing for Aung San Suu Kyi to do given the power of China in her country and also the influence of China on the peace process. However, if she delays a decision, greater and greater distrust will grow among the population. Second, also comes due in April and that's when the military retires off officers who have aged out at their ranks and typically re-employs them in civil service positions and you probably know above a certain rank most are ex-military. Now, the problem here is that starting about last August there was what was called a ribbon movement where civil servants in many different ministries put on a colored ribbon, took group photos, pasted them on Facebook and what those ribbons signified was a call for demilitarization of ministries. Now, if Suu Kyi responds to the populace call, then she runs into big trouble potentially with the military because the retirement and re-employment procedure is over 40 years old and it's the main pension program for the military. So that comes up in April so that's not going to be an easy decision. Third point is the peace process. Thus far I haven't seen a lot of serious content on what the NLD is going to do with the peace process. If the peace process lingers, if it gets shunted aside as monsoons come and floods are which are predicted at the El Nino year, then I think distrust will also grow among ethnic nationalities. To date, most of the rhetoric we've heard from the NLD is something along the lines of a new pen long and I can speak more about why that's wholly inappropriate and a misreading of history if you're interested. Fourth, land issues. To the degree there was any issue based campaigning that was done in the election by the NLD, it was over land. Now, here's the problem. Myanmar is home to at least two and a half decades and arguably considerably more with the nationalization of the socialist period. Large-scale land confiscation and there's huge pent-up expectations that farmers who lost their land 25 years ago are going to get it back and that land isn't going to be easy to disentangle. I mean it's not like it just sat there and wasn't used. And this is particularly problematic over the last 10 years I'd say among the ethnic nationalities living in border regions because that's where the biggest confiscation has gone on. Actually, it goes back probably 20 years but the biggest confiscation has gone on at the hands of the military. Number five, and this is my last point in terms of what to watch for and the disconnect between expectations and what can be delivered is the promise of more inclusive economic growth. Ordinary people have not really felt much more economic security as a result of the reforms over the last five years. And small and medium enterprises, despite since 2013 President Thane saying making SMEs a priority, they really are at such a disadvantage as opposed to the Big 15, the companies that profited from very tight connections to the military in the previous 20 years. So I suspect it's going to be a lot harder for the NLD to unhinge the economy from the so-called bad actors. There won't be an easy or straightforward way to do it. Or it will create big losers who are powerful and therefore maybe somewhat politically destabilizing. So I'll close on that and happy to come back to questions. Thank you very much, Barry. Who on then? Please. Good morning. By ground first, I want to thank you and the Carnegie Endowment for Organizing Dispending Discussion. I also thank you, all of you, for here in this room because you have interest in my native country, Burma or Myanmar. And then I was so very honored to be here, to be able to distinguish academics who are experts on the situation in Myanmar for many, many years. I did some of my friends in Virginia who are not becoming here today because today is Super Tuesday. I was one of the student leaders who organized the nationwide popular democracy uprising in Myanmar in 1988. I spent about four years in prison. I was one of the thousands of political prisoners arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the military regime just simply for demanding the visit, human rights and democracy for the people. I fled the country when I was released from the prison. However, I never stopped working to support my colleagues at home from the thousands of miles away from Asia. So from 1988 to this day, it has been over 27 years that I have been involved in the Burmese democracy movement. And during these years, these are 12 years that are filled with the severe oppression by the Burmese military honda. And the peaceful and courageous defiance of the people of Myanmar against the tyranny and the tireless efforts of the people like me in Asia. I campaigned to increase the international pressure on the Burmese military honda. And sometimes I felt depression, sometimes I lost hope. Sometimes I even thought that we are fighting the war that we're going to win. However, the situation in Myanmar has been changed dramatically since 2011. And the military regime that ruled the country over 23 years have left from the power. Hundreds of political prisoners were released. The iron curtain placed between the country and the international community was lifted. So we are seeing the positive outcomes that for the hard work and sacrifice that people of Myanmar has been made over the last 27 years. And then the current recent victory of the opposition party, nationally for democracy in the upcoming, in the 2015 election, encouraged us to continue to believe that. But many ending of the authoritarian rule in Myanmar is still possible and not very far away. This month, I have seen proudly Mongolian spectrum democracy activists who spent a lot of years, many years in prison, for their commitment in the non-violent democracy movement, taking their places in the parliament rightfully and with the majority positions in the parliament for the first time in 27 years. This is a very wonderful event. I'm really, really proud to see them. With this majority position, they are going to abolish existing laws that prevented the freedom of the people of Myanmar. Also, they are going to write new laws that were guaranteed and brought to the rise of the people. And in April, we are going to see the new government, new civilian government left by the NLD, which was continuously and severely harassed and abused by the military honda for many, many years and two years ago. So it is true that even though there is a new parliament, a new government, have faced great challenges ahead. The military is still powerful and has authority to get involved in the governing and lawmaking. And the countries, the judiciary system is still weak, poor and corrupt. And also, the countries' economy is still controlling the military's economic enterprises and the chronic business tycoons. The use of Nagoda drugs among the young people and the Nagoda trafficking are uncontrollable. And then, even though some ethnic groups have signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement, many groups have refused to sign. Anchorages are continuing in the South ethnic state, making the thousands of people homeless and refugees. And also, the negotiation to lift our suspense among the session 59F of the constitution, which makes our sensitivity ineligible for the residents is not successful. Naturally, the transfer of power to the new government is not even started yet, but the expectation of the people for the new government, which they have voted for, is extremely high. So it is reasonable for the Bami's Myanmar watchers to worry about these challenges. I'm worried too. However, I have a belief in my colleagues that they will be able to overcome all of these challenges with the support of national reconciliation and with the help of their friends in the international community. They have endured the burden of tortures and louder imprisonment by the military hunder. They are seasoned soldiers, so they will be able to move the country toward the democracy. And they are also, even though they might not have the governing experience, they have the strong will to serve their best for their own people and for their own country. And they also have the strong desire to learn everything to improve their capacity. So the people of Myanmar will not be able to see the economic and social development of the country or in their lives right away. But they already have seen the same kind of differences. The new leaders of the parliament are not preventing putting themselves into the isolation from the people they have to serve. They have refused to take the privilege of exiting the office, such as the luxury cars, several luxury cars, several body cars, several mansions, several assistants, which come together with their newly appointed positions. They are taking buses to attend the parliament meetings. They don't take special dining room, but they are eating with their colleagues in the common cafeteria. And then they are donating their significant amount of their salaries for their body and for the victims of a natural disaster. They allow constituents to come and see them without building the walls with the gatekeepers. They are showing that they are sincere, more sincere and more honest than the previous power holders. So BBIs, they have traveled all over the constituency, listening to the voices of ordinary citizens. So during the weekend, they went to get out with their party members and cleaned their streets and their cities. So BBIL has seen clearly that the differences are more in the humanity between the previous power holders and the new ones. I believe that they will be able to accept the fact that their expeditions will be met gradually as long as they are being treated by the new power holders as masters of their governments for their first time in their lives. So I will compare to the detail of those challenges in further conversation and let me start here. Thank you all. Thank you very much. It was an extremely powerful statement coming from somebody who has actually been at the receiving end of the military junta's treatment of people in Myanmar. And it's important to keep in mind that the commitment of new parliamentarians is extremely strong and we really need to be patient. Christina? Thank you. It's an honor to be here today with all of you and I wanted to take this opportunity to review the transition period over the last four months. So right after the election, there was a lot of surprise that the NLD won such a landslide victory and there was concern about how the military was going to handle this outcome. And whether there might be problems during the transition period. And given the length of the transition period, as Vikum said, four months, that seemed to allow a lot of time for things to go wrong and problems to emerge. And I think that it's worthwhile to look back and reflect on the fact that in fact overall this transition period has gone very smoothly. And I think that there are three things we want to talk about during this transition period. The first is that the NLD had been accused of not having any competence to run the next government. So what has the NLD done during this period to try to demonstrate that it would be in a position to run the government effectively? The second issue is ethnic inclusiveness. So the NLD won a landslide victory. Very few ethnic minority politicians were elected from the ethnic parties. So what was the NLD going to do to be able to show that this would be a government that was inclusive and responsive to ethnic concerns? And then the third thing and most important is the relationship between the NLD and the military. How could a positive working relationship be established between the NLD and the military? So that's what I'd like to cover in these seven minutes. So I'll start with competence. So the NLD has held parliamentary training sessions for its own members and even a test on whether people knew the Constitution well enough or not. And then more recently there was training for the entire parliament in Napida about a week or two weeks ago. There was a full week of training that was conducted by members of parliament and other experts from other countries on how the legislature works. What are the role of parliamentarians to ensure that they would be able to carry out that role successfully? In addition, Aung San Suu Kyi has set up or has basically revised the membership of a committee that existed under the last parliament, which is a commission that consists of some parliamentarians but also other outside experts who could advise the parliament on legislation and other affairs related to the parliament. This had been set up by Shwayman, who was the speaker of the lower house in the last parliament, and it was basically his personal think tank, enabling him to move pieces of legislation through the parliament and over time introduce legislation that was coming from the parliament, not just from the executive branch. So what's interesting about this commission today is that it has now been reformulated with Shwayman as the head of the commission. And 10 out of the 23 members of this commission are former senior members of the Union Solidarity Development Party who served in parliament, mostly in positions as heads or deputy heads of committees such as the bills of committee and public accounts committee. So there's this brain trust that's there for the parliament to draw on as it tries to move forward with legislation. And potentially this might be a body that would be involved in drafting amendments to the constitution. In addition, the NLD seems to be indicating that it will keep members of the former government in other positions. For instance, in the Myanmar Peace Center, there are indications that some of the staff, some of the technical staff who've been involved in those peace negotiations and the work behind that will be asked to stay on through the next government. And there's an expectation as well that there may be USDP representatives in the cabinet, as Aung San Suu Kyi has been very clear to NLD MPs and also ethnic MPs do not expect that you're going to get seats as ministers or deputy ministers. That shouldn't be your expectation. You should take whatever role you're given and be satisfied with that, which seems to indicate she wants to leave space for other people from the former government. So to a certain extent, I think that's a laid concerns about the competence of the NLD government to move forward. The second issue is ethnic inclusion and the ethnic political parties were very upset before the election that the NLD decided to campaign in all the ethnic states rather than allowing the ethnic political parties, even those allied with the NLD to campaign without NLD involvement in their states. And what happened was the NLD swept the seats in general in most of the ethnic states, with the exception of Rakhine state. But three out of the four speakers and deputy speakers in the parliament are ethnic minority representatives, either from the NLD or in the case of one person, the Rakhine person, he is actually from the Rakhine political party. So that has also served to allay ethnic concerns that they would be shut out of this government. And there's an expectation that there will also be ethnic minority representation in the cabinet. And then to move on to the relationship between the NLD and the military and the former USDP government, both sides set up, the former government and the NLD set up transition teams to work both in terms of the executive transition and also at the legislative level, the transition that would take place there. And Aung San Suu Kyi has held three meetings with the Commander in Chief Min Ong Lai over the last four months. And while it was difficult to get those meetings going and there was a bit of resistance in the beginning from the government side when to move forward with this transition process and these meetings with the NLD, those meetings have happened and have gone relatively smoothly and have allowed an exchange of information and some degree of trust building, which has been important in the smoothness of this transition. And particularly the legislature has now transitioned. The new legislature has been in power since early February and that has gone smoothly. There is no more concern about the transition at the executive level, which we will see on April 1st. Aung San Suu Kyi is in a difficult position because on the one hand her goal is to change the constitution and reduce the power of the military. On the other hand, she needs to work with the military at this point in order to be able to accomplish other things that are important to her. And we saw this tension come up in the parliament in the last week when an NLD representative raised an issue of the fact that the U.S. D.P. government has been in this fire sale over the last couple of months selling and leasing state-owned assets without any accountability to the parliament about this process. And in addition, the lepidown copper mine issue came up and that is a project that has resulted in a lot of protests by people in the area. It's a Chinese-owned company that partnered with the military holding company to develop a copper mine. And as the NLD MP raised this issue in concerns about how lepidown is going to work going forward, the military MPs in parliament stood up as a block as one of their representatives stood up to refute what the NLD MP was saying. And you may know that in the past parliament the military tended to be quiet. Once in a while somebody would stand up and speak, but there was never, I don't think, an instance where the entire 25% of the parliament in green stood up to show their unhappiness with the situation. And so, the lower speaker of the House has recessed parliament for the rest of this week until the presidential nominations are made next week and also has instructed NLD MPs to not raise any issues that would be sensitive with the military until after the transition has taken place. So I think this gives us a sense of, while on the one hand the transition has gone very smoothly, this is still a very delicate and sensitive process. Well, thank you, Christina. Listening to all three of you, there is one big issue which we haven't touched on at all and that is the peace process. So today's news, for example, is that I mentioned Aung San Suu Kyi talked to the ethnic members of parliament and she basically said that the new government would prioritise the peace process in Myanmar. But there's fighting going on in northern Shan State. There's a lot of internally displaced persons now who are the victims of this conflict. What exactly is the state of the current peace process and what do you think the NLD is going to do in relation to the peace process? Perhaps you could start, Christina, and then you'll come to the others. So I think there's a big question mark there because Aung San Suu Kyi had very little involvement in the peace process over the last five years. And also the military's involvement in the peace process was often limited until the end. And in many ways, the military's position has been that this is a conflict that probably ultimately needs to be solved by the military taking control of the territories that are still under the control of ethnic armed groups. So there was tension between the military and the Thane St. Government in terms of the peace process with the military often reluctant to participate and unhappy with how much the Thane St. Government seems to be willing to give to the ethnic armed groups. So now you have a military which is skeptical about the peace process and Aung San Suu Kyi who has not been involved in the peace process and has not had warm relations with the ethnic armed groups. And so it's a real question of how this process is going to go forward and to what extent they will continue to use the formats that have already been established or whether there might be adjustments to that process. Well, then what do you think? Because the expectation of the part of the ethnic groups is very high that the NLD will somehow accommodate their aspirations. Well, first, why I understand from the Bangladesh inside the country is that maybe it might be the funny thing, but NLD and military, they are on the same page about the peace process. Aung San Suu Kyi has agreed many points of the military about the opposition of the peace process. So this is something you might have seen strange. And then, yeah, MPC, Myanmar Peace Center is now at the government affiliate organizations. So it might be reformed. It will be reformed, maybe not even with this name, a different name. And then I believe, I know that Aung San Suu Kyi will be personally lead at this peace process. So we have been talking about how to move forward the peace process. The first intention is to convince other non-signatories and ethnic groups to sign in the nationwide ceasefire agreement. So she might start with the new monstay party, also in the currently national revolutionary and KMPP progressive party. She might also convince the United States party to come on the dialogue table. So there are two options. One thing is try to push them, try to convince them to sign the NCEA and then attend the nationwide union peace conference. Or let them attend the union peace conference as a full participant without signing the nationwide ceasefire agreement. They are a lot of considerations they are thinking. But I believe that once they set up the new government, they might be ready to move forward the current peace process with some significant actions. Mary? Yeah. I suppose I actually want to take issue on the ethnic groups having very high expectations that the NLD can move the peace process quickly to some sort of comprehensive agreement. Or at least take it up in some new and more productive way. I think that might be their positioning. I mean, I think that might be what they're saying in order to try to push this high on the agenda. But actually the ethnic groups, the non-state armed groups are quite divided on how they view the NLD. Many of those groups themselves were split within on whether to sign the NCEA or not sign the NCEA. And some of them were convinced those who didn't want to sign thought they'd get a better deal out of Onsansuchi and others thought that they were going to get a better deal out of a president things saying government that could bring the military to the table and actually get the military to sign. So I have a question about that, but I just want to say, you know, in terms of the peace process, the process envisioned by the things saying government is actually continuing. So what's going on in Nipido this week is the second round of the political dialogue. And who knows where that goes after April 1. But Suchi was invited at the request of ethnic nationality, anti-state armed anti-state groups to address, be the opening address or opening speaker. And I found her comments somewhat concerning. So Suchi, who's party won the November, this is coverage from Tim McLaughlin, I believe, from orders. Suchi, who's party won the November general election, said she was optimistic that quote, the fighting will be finished soon, unquote, if the nation's political standards are improved and all groups work together. I think there's a lot more to it. I mean, the violence has gotten so much worse in the northern part of the country. I think it's possible the southeast can proceed according to what she imagines, but the north is so much more complicated. And there are vast conflict economies, there are vast numbers of intermediaries coming from Yunnan and who are profiting immensely from the conflict going on. Now, she also said at the political dialogue that the NLD is committed to federalism. Well, there's so many different kinds of federalism, and I have to say that I haven't seen a lot of evidence of, and you probably know this better than I do, of the NLD reaching out and listening to what both the non-state armed groups want, but also other kinds of ethnic representation. So I'm a little concerned that, and I guess this comes back to Christina's point, I'm a little concerned that this is so new for the NLD that they're going to run into many of the same barriers that the past peace process ran into. So it may really linger and it could fester, frankly. Yes, please. One thing we have to know is that one of her colleagues, one of her close aide Dr. Tim Young, he's a bone member of the NPC. He has been embodying all the whole process of the mission-wide ceasefire agreement. So he has a lot of knowledge about the current peace process. I think he has a lot of information. Actually, he will not leave the DOSA to continue the peace process. So there will be a good chance that NLD can be able to pick anything left by the previous government. Also, there's a, my understanding is there will be, it's a kind of deadline. The first Union Peace Conference was held in January, right? So now the Burmese military already agreed to host another second round of Union Peace Conference within six months. So that means NLD have time about six months or four months to host another ethnic groups to gamut joy. So I think they have the time now to move forward. Yeah, I like your point that they may not necessarily insist that they sign the ceasefire accord in order to be present in the peace talks. That's an interesting, interesting and useful point. All right, so let's open it up to a Q&A from the audience. May I suggest that if you have a question, you raise your hands. Please wait for a microphone to come to you. Give us your name and your affiliation and state your question as briefly as possible. John, to the back. Good morning. My name is John Brand and I'm with the Asia Foundation. My question is, is that we have a new elected parliament with a president soon to be elected by those members. And I believe a budget that is a new budget that's supposed to start on April 1. Who has crafted that budget? The last government, the current members of parliament, and if it's the former members of parliament, what are the spending priorities and how amenable or difficult will it be for this new government wanting to implement that budget? Thank you. Terrific question, John. So the current budget, there was a lot of debate actually last November, December in the public accounts committee, at least in the upper house as to whether the budget should be passed by or should be submitted by the outgoing government and then passed by the former parliament. And ultimately, they decided that for efficiency's sake, they needed to get the budget in place since, you know, you can't hand over power to an executive branch on April 1 that then has to write its own budget. The way the budget process works in Myanmar is actually that starting in August or September, ministries estimate what they want their budget to be and they submit that through a series of oversight committees that are on the executive branch side. And there is where the priorities get set, and most of the priorities were set in the last budget according to various national development plans, you know, the plans that came out of the framework for economic and social reform. The parliament, the political actually has very little power to, they can't put anything into the budget. They can reject things from the budget or haul in ministries, ministers to answer questions about the budget. But otherwise, they actually had, the parliament itself has very little other than an oversight capacity. So, this was a concern among some in the NLD that they were going to get stuck with a budget that was passed by a lame duck government. But honestly, you know, the NLD will take power on April 1. Then the government will basically go into recess for the water festival. They'll come back in May and maybe the executive branch will get going at that point. But by about June, they'll be preparing what's called the supplemental budget. And so they're going to by September, so have their budget. So it was largely decided to just sort of take this and go with it. Ong Lin, please. Yeah, this new budget was written by the previous government or outgoing government. So the NLD government helps to stick with this budget. However, so that means the NLD government cannot ask more money for the budget because budget was already approved by the previous parliament. But budget allocation might be changed because now that this budget is based on the 36 ministries of the government, 14 states and regional governments, right? So now NLD has planned to abolish some ministries or maybe combine two ministries to one into one. So there will be a lot of budget allocation changes when NLD government implement the budget. Well, I mean, this seems to you that frankly does raise a concern with me because I'm looking at the budget and the previous budget but also this current one. All the allocations seem to be going in the right direction, huge increases for health and education, primary health, reductions in allocation for the military, and so on and so forth. The challenge of the budget is not so much the allocations. The challenge of the budget is the absorptive capacity of ministries to use those resources in a way that will actually promote development. I think that's the big issue is the absorptive capacity. Hunter? Hi, Hunter Marston with the Brookings Institution and a former alum of the University of Washington. My question regards some news I saw from the NLD this morning. Somebody was speaking about Aung San Suu Kyi's combating article 59F and it looks like she has agreed to retreat or back down on the contest for the presidency. What are her prospects for working within the government? Do you see, based on past statements of being above the president, any desire to sort of poke the bear from the outside? Is she going to upset the status quo of power sharing? It's a question to all panelists. Thank you. Let's start with you, Christina, on this in the middle. So she's got a couple of options. One option which has been reported on, although she hasn't said whether she is going to take this option, is that she could be the foreign minister. The value of being the foreign minister is that there's a body that brings the military and the elected government together, which is the National Defense and Security Council. And that has 11 members. And if she were the foreign minister, she would be on that body. And that's an important body because it has the power to declare a state of emergency. And in the past, the military has tried to actually expand the role of this body. So that would be one reason why she might want to take that role. On the other hand, she could be a senior minister, a kind of Lee Kuan Yew of Myanmar, above the president, and she could still attend that meeting by being invited by the president to attend those meetings, although she would not have voting power on that committee. Anybody else? I agree with her, Christina, about these two options. There's one more option, which means she will not do any official position within the government. She was just as a chairman of her party, but she was leading peace movement, peace process. That means that leading the peace process, she will have a chance to engage with the bombish military more closely. Then she can find a way to soften the views of the military to Myanmar, such as 59F, maybe in future. There's another option. Great. On this side, Michael? Michael Martin. It's working. Oh, good. Michael Martin, Congressional Research Service. Christina, SMOOZ is a relative concept. As you already pointed out, there's been some issues afterwards, but even during the transition period, the old parliament tried to pass and in fact did pass some laws that were seen by many as rather controversial. In addition, the ministry, the various ministries have basically refused to respond to requests from questions from parliament and to engage with the new parliament. The Minister of Information has also said that what the past parliament did or the past, what the then saying government has done is only responsible for the previous parliament, not for the current parliament. So there's some tension on that stuff. So, interesting to get your comments on how SMOOZ you actually think it is during that. General to the panel, a particular, Mary, you said the Panglong agreement or a new Panglong agreement is not a reasonable scenario. But the UNFC, for example, still talks in those terms. Nobody's mentioned the UNFC. So, my question on that is, what role do you see for the UNFC? Why is the Panglong agreement no longer a relevant issue in Burma as you imply? And then to what extent do you think the military is really open to some sort of peace process? Or are they really, as Christina sort of implied, fighting time to get a military solution to a longstanding low grade civil war? Christina, you first. I think that when we say a SMOOZ transition, we have to think about the context. The context in Myanmar is one of over 50 years of military rule and the fact that the NLD government is going to take power is, I think, indicative of a SMOOZ transition within that context. You're right that there have been challenges, particularly in the last week or two. Between the things saying government, the cabinet and the parliament. I would like to highlight, though, that the parliamentary transfer itself was very positive. And I think what was interesting there was that the outgoing members of parliament were very interested to convey what institutional knowledge they had to the new parliament because of their feeling that the creation of a legislative body was so important and a legacy that they wanted to see really deeply rooted. So that's been positive. But from the president and the cabinet itself, yes, we have seen a bit of tension, which is why the NLD has said let's cool off in parliament. Let's not challenge them. Let's just wait it out. It's just a couple more weeks and then we're in power and we'll go from there. And long too. Actually, I just want to say something on the smoothness. One thing to keep in mind is the military actually knew months ahead of time that the NLD, at least two months ahead of time that the NLD was going to get a landslide. And they could have at any given point manufactured an emergency and stopped the election, but they didn't. Partially because I think they had grown so weary of USDP politics. So that's one part of smoothness. But the other part is that I see no evidence that 59F was ever on the table in the discussions from no military sources. Is there any indication, whether it's military MPs, anybody in the Ministry of Defense or the commander of chiefs himself. All of his speeches have been very clear that the Constitution is what the military is loyal to and they'll protect it forever. So that's one point. Penlong. If you actually go back and look at the Penlong agreement, it's a small number of ethnic leaders, some of whom were handpicked by Aung San because he knew that they would tow the line. And it was basically an agreement that was a leverage point to convince the British to give independence to Burma as a whole. It wasn't, and actually Aung San himself, if you go back to the notes of Penlong, actually the agreement is Penlong too. There was an earlier Penlong conference, so actually it's also a historical to call this one Penlong too. But in the notes of Penlong too conference, he actually is very clear that he has no authority to sign this. It's 1947. He's not anything at that point. He's not the head of the Army. He's not the head of the AFDF. He's nothing at that point. So he has no authority. What Penlong actually promised was very little. But it promised or it suggested that those signatories to the agreement would get autonomy. And that was what he had to give to get them to sign it so that he could push the British. And I don't think that that kind of autonomy is going to be viable with the military. I mean, first of all, you know, yeah, I don't think it's going to be something that the military is going to accept. I think it's interesting the military will use the term federal, but they won't really embrace the idea of any kind of extensive autonomy. In terms of UNFC, I'm not sure what its role is going to be, to be honest, going forward. It is true that most of the ethnic nationality groups constantly use the term Penlong to talk about what the ultimate comprehensive peace agreement has to look like. But that's really the myth of Penlong, as Mandy Sedan has written about. There's a famous phrase, and I'll just pull off on this. There's a famous phrase that Aung San supposedly said, which when he was in Kachin State, to chat to chat. So one chat spent on Burma, meaning Burma proper in the center, and one chat spent on ethnic nationality areas. It turns out that nobody can actually find any documentation that he said this. This first appeared in a Shan historian's article in 1963. In the Shan historian was not present, nor is there any indication he did any original research on that moment. So in general, I think the comprehensive peace agreement needs to be a peace agreement for the 2020 to 2025 Myanmar, not for 1947 Myanmar. Which was really about leveraging against the British. All right, so I think we have time for two more questions. Let's take them together. The lady in front here and Professor Weiss at the back there. Thank you. My name is Myra Dagipur with US Campaign for Burma. Going back to the peace process, the very thing that ethnic leaders keep calling for is all inclusiveness. And the most important reason behind it is to try and counter back the divide and rule policy that the Burmese military has been using for decades. And therefore they're trying to call for the all inclusiveness. And I wonder how the panelists sees how important the all-inclusiveness is to this peace process in order to gain the genuine democracy, especially for the ethnic groups. And also to what extent the armed ethnic groups should play a role or can play a role in this new government and new democratic reform. Thank you. Question and question. Professor Weiss. Bill Weiss from Johns Hopkins SICE. We have quite rightly focused almost entirely on political, economic, social, domestic issues. But whether states like it or not, foreign affairs often intrudes even unwanted. Could you suggest some of the areas of foreign policy that the NLD needs to be cognizant of, even if it is not the highest priority at the moment? Particularly, how the NLD might look at the emerging relationship with the United States, China, and ASEAN countries? Thank you. So I'm going to ask all three of you to answer both questions or take either one, if you wish. But let's start with you. First, the question about all inclusive nefs. Inclusive nefs not only depend on the government and the military, but also depend on the ethnic forces. They have to choose one way or another, whether we like it or not. I mean, I'm happy to see the draft of the test of the nationwide ceasefire agreement. I know the process to make this document is not very smooth and very fair. But anyhow, now we've got the legal documents talking about the nationwide ceasefire agreements. And then even though some people complain about not inclusive nefs, I'm happy that at least eight groups have signed this document. Because of the signed the document, now this document is not just on the paper. It became a debate. It became legalized. Now open the door for the other M-groups to come and sign it. So this is a display of the way for the further political dialogue, political discussion, which we didn't have in the past. And you know that successive governments in Obama have done a lot of peace process. But these process were ended with abandoning your weapons, abolishing your crews, surrender to come to the legal forum, take part in the political process by election, through the election. At least now we have the documents not only to end the fighting, but also to continue to discuss all the differences on the debate through the political dialogue. So inclusive, I mean, not only depend on the government and the army's military, but also depend on the ethnic armed groups. They have to decide which one is the best for the future of their own people that they represent. And then a civil society group. They have to play an important role in making up this peace process. That's why now I even made a complaint to the peace process because this is in the delegation selected for the Union Peace Conference. Numbers of civil organizations are very lesser than armed groups. So the peace is not only concerned for the armed groups, but also concerned for the people without arms. Down the delegates, you look at the Union Peace Conference. There are only 50% for the invited gas, only 50% for the ethnic non-armed groups. These are very little. They might have equal chance to get present. They abuse in the Union Peace Conference. That's why I even made a talk to an audit to reform this framework of the political dialogue, political conference. In terms of foreign policy, I think that we were independent from the British Prime Minister said that the very good foreign policy for the Obama, which is a non-interference. At the time, the communist China's were free, independent. Obama is actually a small nation between the two giants, China and India. China invaded part of India and occupied the area for a long time. And then Obama was also occupied by the China shake. That one is true for many, many years. Obama like a small nation cannot compare with these big neighbors with its own capacity. That's why Prime Minister will choose to set up the non-interference policy. And he discussed with NASA from Egypt, NATO from India, and the China and China. And then also the other five members. Obama was one of the first founder of the non-aligned movement. They set up the five principle of the non-interference. I believe that NLD will continue this policy, continue to stick in this policy in terms of foreign policy making. The other two were President Tito of Yugoslavia and President Sokarno of Indonesia. Christina? In terms of all inclusiveness, I think that I'd like to make two points. The first is that NLD won a landslide victory in part because it was able to take the ethnic states with the election manifesto promise that it will work for a genuine federal union with self-determination and equality. And so I think that if the NLD is able to somehow work with the military to move in that direction, even if it's not as far as all ethnic peoples would like to see, that in a way you're solving the problem even if you aren't dealing with the specifics of the military process on the ground. And what might happen is there may be a kind of moving apart of the ethnic armed groups and the ethnic political parties, ethnic civil society, ethnic people. In other words, if there's a political movement toward that goal, then the armed groups may become marginalized in a way from their population. So I think when we're talking about inclusive, we also have to look at what is this relationship going to be between the armed groups, the ethnic political parties, ethnic civil society and ethnic populace as a whole as this process goes forward. And in terms of foreign relations, what I see is that all the countries in ASEAN have to struggle with this balance in their relationship between China, which is the dominant economic power in the region, and the United States, which has provided a certain degree of security from dominance by China, at least in terms of national security. And Myanmar is just being pulled into the same type of relationship and therefore will look to ASEAN members and of course hopes to be a leading member in ASEAN. But in terms of bringing ASEAN together and balancing the relationship between China and the United States, both within their countries and for the region as a whole. Mary, you have the last word. Excellent. I'm generally in complete agreement with my distinguished colleagues. But actually I appreciate the all inclusiveness question and I also appreciate the answers that you've given because it's very important to understand that this is not a two or three year process. This is probably a 15 to 20 year process and to get to a comprehensive peace agreement because it is so complicated. And therefore it is really important to have as you noted a wide range of representation from ethnic nationalities along the way interests of communities and formal and informal ethnic organizations are going to change. And so it's very important for quite a bit of representation. In terms of the foreign policy, I mean, one thing I'd just like to suggest Bill is that one thing is, and I've seen this pretty consistently over the last 10 years is the lack of awareness among opposition groups, civil society groups, etc. on what the domestic politics are behind U.S. Chinese and Asian foreign policy toward Myanmar. So as an example, when news gets covered or news gets carried on what the Appropriations Act has in it about limitations on what international financial institutions can do, for example. Over the last few months there's been a lot of confusion that this is in there as though it is about punishing a democratically elected government. Why would the United States be punishing a democratically elected government? So I think one thing is that, and I think President Bainsain said this in a speech here in Washington, and I'll close with this, is that the major challenge for this country isn't economic growth, it isn't figuring out what to do with China or the cronies. The major challenge for this country is de-isolation. It's very hard to understand how the world acts upon Myanmar if you've been so isolated within Myanmar. And for those who have like owned in, spent a lot of time in jail, the nature of isolation also carries with it a degree of trauma that is carried forward. And so I think maybe for the United States anyway, it's important to try to see things from the point of view of a population and now an elected opposition party that has very little familiarity with what domestic politics drive. Well, with those very profound comments, let's bring this to a close, but before we end, I just want to say the following. This was a part of the Myanmar Votes 2015 series and we have as collaborators for this series, the Asia Society Policy Institute as well as the Southeast Asia Program of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. I want to thank both those institutions as well as JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization, which has allowed us to actually hold this series. So thank you to all of them. Thank you for coming and please join me in thanking the panel for an absolutely outstanding set of comments.