Japan’s refusal to sanction Myanmar undermines US president’s strategy

Bloomberg

When hundreds of protesters gathered outside Japan’s embassy in Yangon during the height of nationwide anti-coup protests in February, Ambassador Ichiro Maruyama emerged from the gates with a firm warning for the junta: Release the detained civilian leadership “immediately.”
The remarks, delivered in Burmese, drew applause from pro-democracy demonstrators hoping Japan would take concrete action to pressure Myanmar’s military, also known as the Tatmadaw. But since then Japan has resisted calls to impose sanctions or suspend infrastructure projects, saying only it would avoid carrying out any new non-humanitarian deals with the junta. What’s more, some influential Japanese voices want to embrace the junta.
Yusuke Watanabe, secretary general of the influential Japan-Myanmar Association — a group stocked with top Japanese politicians and business leaders — wrote in an opinion piece last month that Tokyo “must position itself as a bridge between the Tatmadaw and the United States and other democratic countries rather than blindly aligning itself with the Western policy of regime change.”
Japan’s reluctance to put financial pressure on the military shows the difficulties President Joe Biden faces in convincing US allies in Asia to put real teeth behind calls to defend democracy, a key theme he expressed last week at the G7 summit and other stops in Europe.
For Japan and India in particular tough measures against the junta only risk increasing the regional influence of China. As of April, Japan was its third largest foreign investor nation behind Singapore and China.

with nearly $2.4 billion in capital since the 2016-17 fiscal year, according to data from Myanmar’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration.
But since the February 1 coup, companies have come under intense pressure to back away from investments tied to the military after security forces killed hundreds of protesters.
Among them is Kirin Holdings Co., which said days after the coup it would end its joint-venture partnership with military-run Myanma Economic Holdings Public Co in the country’s largest brewer after buying a $560 million majority stake six years earlier. In a statement, the company said it’s “taking urgent steps” to terminate the arrangement but didn’t have a timeline yet.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group was listed in a December report by Justice for Myanmar among international companies connected to Telecom International Myanmar Co, or Mytel, a company the U.S. Department of the Treasury said was set up by Min Aung Hlaing. A Mitsubishi spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on individual businesses.
Justice for Myanmar alleges that Mytel’s biggest shareholder, Viettel Group, which is owned by Vietnam’s Defense Ministry, mines user-data that could be used for military purposes by the Myanmar junta. The regime had also ordered operators to shut their networks in an effort to stifle protests following the coup. A Viettel spokesperson said the company would not comment on the issue, while Mytel didn’t respond to multiple requests via email and phone for comment.
The Japanese government is more concerned with economic and human security in Myanmar than punishing the military with coercive moves, according to Moe Thuzar, a fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
“The half measures here are probably intended as negotiation points toward a constructive outcome,” she said. “The risk here is of course the military junta manipulating any space that it is given, or deciding to ‘walk with fewer friends.’”