The trajectories of changes in Thailand and Myanmar have been remarkable - undulating and confusing, shifting in various ways (since the Second World War) that confound the casual observer. Foreign observers tend to group the two states together because of proximity and a common predominant Buddhist culture. This oversimplification masks substantial and highly important historical differences, and potentially critical future issues.
Thailand is so far advanced over Myanmar today that it seems a fantasy to relate that in the 1950s diplomats stationed in Thailand frequently went to Rangoon for rest and recuperation, and where more foreign goods were available. Going "upcountry" in Burma was a different story, as insurgencies flourished and waned and travel was unpredictable, while Thailand, although Spartan, was safe and pleasant.
If one had been asked to predict the development trajectory of the two countries, one would have said Burma would surpass Thailand. With both having approximately the same per capita income, Burma's glorious past rice exports - the world's highest - far surpassed Thailand's. Thailand had squandered its teak reserves while Burma was touted as having the best forest service in the world and had 80 per cent of those hardwood resources. Burma had better universities, a more literate population, a constitutional if fractured democracy, and extensive mineral deposits such as onshore oil, tin and tungsten, and the world's finest rubies and jade.
All promised well for the future. Yet that promise was never fulfilled - wasted by poor economic policies promulgated by myopic regimes, and a periphery in various stages of rebellion. Even population, once about equal in the two countries at 20-22 million in the mid-1950s, expanded faster in Thailand (today about 50 million in Myanmar compared to 77 million in Thailand). Burma later had autocratic military governments after 1962, while Thailand was able to expand its economy in spite of what seems like a myriad of coups and multiple constitutions.
Later, however, Thailand was the obvious developmental choice. With all its problems, Thailand now has per capita income about four times that of Myanmar. Foreign investment was encouraged in Thailand and eschewed in Burma, and foreigners were welcomed in Thailand not only as investors but as tourists, while they were actively discouraged in Burma. In 1988, 4 million tourists went to Thailand; 40,000 went to Burma.
Both states had ambiguous relationships - generally formally correct but often strained. History impinged on contemporary reality. Both sides have never forgotten that the Burmese destroyed the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya in 1767, and the principal relationships between the two states were an extensive smuggling operation into Burma; the Thai unofficial support for Burmese insurrections along the border to insulate the conservative government in Bangkok against what was regarded as a radical regime in Rangoon; and a mutual drug problem, with such goods grown or manufactured in Burma but shipped abroad through Thailand. Even today the Burmese spoken word for Thailand is "Yodiyah" (Ayutthaya), certain classical Burmese dances are known to have been Thai in origin, and a popular dish in Myanmar is Yodiyah hincho, or Thai soup.
In economic terms, all that has shifted. Thailand is the leader, mutual trade is important. Twenty percent of all Thai electricity is derived from Burmese offshore gas through a pipeline into Thailand. Plans are afoot to link the two states through improved roads, and some 2 million Burmese workers in Thailand do the jobs that Thais now disdain. Thailand plans a multi-billion dollar development of the port and facilities in Myanmar's Dawei (Tavoy) area, the former Thai prime minister blatantly noting that polluting industries can be opened in Myanmar that are prohibited in Thailand.
Both Thailand and Myanmar have issues of national unity in a multicultural society, but of different proportions. Thailand's are concentrated in the South, where religion and language resist integration. Myanmar's envelop the ethnic Burman core like a horseshoe. The Thai monarchy provides a focus for unity while no such institution exists in Myanmar, creating more difficult issues.
But if Thailand is leagues ahead of Myanmar in economic terms, there are social indicators that seem to reverse the pattern. Thailand is a society with structural, historical social rifts that seem insurmountable. The hierarchy of the military and bureaucracy seem functionally split from the mass of the rural communities, making governance problematic and exacerbating economic and social chasms so evident in Thailand that healing them will be questionable over the next decade. These divisions, symbolised by the yellow and red banners, have been played out violently in the streets in the past few years, and cannot easily be resolved in spite of elections. So Thailand is a quasi-democracy, where occasional elections do result in shifts of power, but with populist and other dangers continuously lurking.
Benighted Burma, or Myanmar, has suffered over the Asian life cycle of sixty years. The dictatorship and its designated party, incompetent socialism, the destruction of education and health systems, stagnation or deterioration of living standards for the bulk of the population that is below or at the poverty line, all had reduced the most sanguine observers of that state's future to virtual tears.
Yet in the past two years or so we have witnessed the beginnings of change and major reforms across the society. They auger well for the country if effectively implemented. If "democracy" there is still "discipline-flourishing," as the former Burmese head of state described his plans, Myanmar has one singular advantage over Thailand.
Thailand seems to have inescapable, historically accentuated, social rifts. Those in Myanmar are quite different. The pre-colonial elite essentially disappeared from the country's power structure. What has evolved may be a "new class", to quote Djilas a half-century ago, but it is a new class of military from the same social background as the rest of the population. The military-civilian split in Myanmar was no doubt egregiously destructive of its development potential, but the healing of that split is likely to be relatively quick and seamless, if the reforms continue and become embedded, because the military elite has risen in society from the ranks of the people. Although Burman society is hierarchical, as its language attests, there is extensive mobility through the military channel, and likely through other means as reforms take place.
This is an overlooked strength of the Burmese scene in contrast to relatively affluent Thailand. Social chasms will likely create continuing problems for Thai society. So today if one were to try to predict which of the two states would progress more rapidly, albeit they each start in stark contrast to and distance from each other, Myanmar may surprise even the most ardent Siam-wallahs.
David I Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. His latest book (with Fan Hongwei) is Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence.
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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/17/dichotomies-of-social-and-economic-development/
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