Myanmar recently enacted a new investment law, which was more or less written by the International Finance Corporation, a wing of the World Bank. The law eases restrictions on foreign investors, opens new industrial sectors to Foreign Direct Investment, and guarantees that foreign companies will be treated on an equal basis with local firms. In other words, they are guaranteeing uneven players an even playing field.
This is undoubtedly a disaster for local companies, but a boon for multinationals and for the local elites who collaborate with them. Multinational Agribusiness is going to move in to Myanmar, land-grabbing by the military under the pretext of security clearing operations will increase, and ultimately, the country’s food sovereignty will dissolve. It is just a matter of time before the energy sector is almost, or completely privatized and taken over by foreign businesses.
The more Myanmar pursues Neoliberal policies, the more the general population will suffer, and the more they suffer, the more the government will need to keep them distracted and divided against each other; and it will become increasingly necessary to maintain a strong military presence and harsh control in areas where investors see potential profit; like in Arakan.
The Rohingya issue is, at its heart, an economic issue. Religious and ethnic hatred are being mobilized essentially as a strategy by the government to enable it to continue pursuing Neoliberal policies that impoverish the many and enrich the few. Integration into the global economy means little more than subordination to a corporate imperial structure, again, in which local elites collaborate with global elites, to the detriment of the rest of the population; just like previous imperial models.