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Myanmar Saint Aung San Suu Kyi and the hypocrisy of imperialism

Marxist Theory · 2020-01-23

Core Argument

The article argues that Aung San Suu Kyi's fall from grace is not a personal moral failure but a structural exposure of how imperialism manufactures and discards "saints" as instruments of geopolitical competition. Her defence of the Myanmar military's genocide of the Rohingya is presented as the logical endpoint of liberal leadership: once in office, such figures inevitably subordinate democratic promises to the interests of the ruling class and the imperialist powers that elevated them. The central claim is that the West's outrage over the Rohingya genocide is entirely hypocritical — a weapon to isolate a country that has slipped from US influence back toward China, not a genuine commitment to human rights. The ICJ's ruling, while formally condemning Myanmar, is shown to be impotent, since enforcement depends on the UN Security Council where China holds a veto. The article concludes that justice for the Rohingya cannot come from bourgeois courts or liberal saviours, but only from mass struggle against the regime.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the Marxist theory of imperialism, specifically the Leninist tradition of understanding inter-imperialist rivalry as the driving force behind geopolitical manoeuvring. It draws on the concept of imperialism as a system in which capitalist states use diplomatic, economic and military leverage — including the manipulation of "human rights" discourse — to secure spheres of influence, markets and strategic resources. The article also deploys a class analysis of liberal "saints": figures like Aung San Suu Kyi are not accidental heroes but deliberately selected by imperialism precisely because they represent bourgeois interests and will contain mass movements from below. This echoes the Marxist critique of bourgeois democracy and the state — the argument that liberal democratic institutions (including the ICJ and the UN) lack any real power to constrain capitalist states and serve primarily as legitimising apparatuses for imperialist interests. The article also implicitly draws on the Marxist understanding of nationalism and racism as tools used by ruling classes to divide working people and deflect class struggle onto ethnic scapegoats.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in January 2020, at a moment when the US-China rivalry was intensifying across Southeast Asia. Myanmar was a key battleground: the US had attempted to pry the country from China's orbit by supporting the "democratic transition" that brought Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD to power, but by 2020 it was clear that Myanmar was swinging back toward Beijing. The article cites specific evidence: Xi Jinping's January 2020 state visit — the first by a Chinese president in 19 years — during which Aung San Suu Kyi hosted a lavish banquet and committed to accelerating Belt and Road Initiative projects, including the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. The article also details China's use of armed ethnic militias (particularly the United Wa State Army, with 30,000 troops and Chinese weaponry) as a "stick" to discipline the Myanmar regime, alongside the "carrot" of investment. The ICJ ruling on 23 January 2020 — finding that Myanmar had a case to answer for genocide — is analysed not as a victory for justice but as a diplomatic weapon in the US-China struggle, since enforcement depends on a Security Council where China holds a veto. The article also notes the hypocrisy of the West's silence on Bangladesh's treatment of Rohingya refugees — Bangladesh being a US ally — and contrasts it with the absence of ICJ cases against Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Bin Salman or Tony Blair.

Where the Argument Continues

This article sits within a broader IDOM corpus on imperialism, the Rohingya crisis, and the critique of bourgeois democracy. Readers should consult:

  • IDOM articles on the Rohingya crisis — particularly those analysing the class character of the Myanmar military and the ethnic conflicts in Rakhine state, which develop the argument that the Rohingya genocide is not simply a product of military racism but is functional to the regime's attempt to rally nationalist support amid economic stagnation.
  • IDOM articles on the Belt and Road Initiative — which develop the analysis of China's imperialist strategy in Southeast Asia, including the use of debt traps, infrastructure projects and ethnic militia proxies.
  • IDOM articles on bourgeois democracy and "human rights" — which generalise the critique of liberal institutions like the ICJ and the UN as instruments of imperialist power, not neutral arbiters of justice.
  • Against the Stream episodes — particularly those covering US-China rivalry and the situation in Myanmar, which provide more recent updates on the conjuncture (the 2021 military coup, the civil war, and the shifting alignments of ethnic armed groups).

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — the theoretical foundation for understanding inter-imperialist rivalry and the division of the world among capitalist powers.
  • Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours — on the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality and the use of "universal" values as weapons in imperialist competition.
  • IDOM, "The Rohingya Crisis: A Marxist Analysis" — a companion piece that develops the class analysis of the Rohingya genocide in greater depth.
  • IDOM, "China's Belt and Road Initiative: Imperialism with Chinese Characteristics" — for the broader analysis of Chinese imperialism in Southeast Asia.
  • IDOM, "The UN and Imperialism: A Bourgeois Talking Shop" — for the critique of international institutions as instruments of capitalist power.

Key Quotes

  1. "The swift collapse of her reputation has exposed and discredited western liberalism, with its imperialist practice of canonising its stooges as saints. It is also a sign of US imperialism's relative loss of influence in Myanmar, so soon after it appeared to have wrested the country out of China's control by means of the very same Aung San Suu Kyi."

  2. "The West's condemnation of Myanmar is completely hypocritical and cynical. They know the ICJ will do nothing to change the situation, but for them it is useful because it helps to isolate a country they have failed to dominate. The Rohingyas are just small-change in their struggle with China."

  3. "Her behaviour is graphic proof of the hypocrisy of liberals, who are always happy to jettison their heroic fight against oppression once they and their class (the capitalists) have what they want."

  4. "We do not want to encourage the kind of revolutions that [could] turn our country upside down. We will be patient but we will be persistent." — Aung San Suu Kyi, Singapore Lecture, September 2018 (quoted in the article as an authentic expression of liberalism's cowardice).

  5. "China's proximity not only gives it a greater carrot, but also a bigger stick with which to threaten Myanmar. ... China controls a massive military force and territory within Myanmar. It can threaten the regime in Naypyidaw with a resumption of ethnic conflicts and even outright civil war at a moment's notice."

  6. "Justice for the Rohingya people cannot be found in the hypocritical and impotent courts of bourgeois powers, but only in the strength of mass struggle of ordinary people against the regime."