December 2, 2011
With Western sanctions and endemic levels of corruption, Burma’s economy has typically been of little interest to international investors, except for those with significant strategic interests. Desperate and unstable, the country has been left wide open for exploitation by Chinese state actors seeking energy and access to the Indian Ocean. Referring to the growth of India and China at the 2011 Myanmar/Burma Update, historian Thant Myint U stated that it “will change Burma’s prospects for better or worse, more [than] anything else that is happening at the moment.”