A friend of mine who had just visited Myanmar cried to me, "How could
Myanmar become a developed country overnight!" But what he was
ironically marveling at was the local hotel prices. The price of the
hotel he stays in was less than $100 per night a year ago, but has now
soared to $250.
The Myanmar government's hopes toward its
country's future development seem to have soared as high as the hotel
prices. President Thein Sein has stated that he expects Myanmar will
become "a modern, industrialized country" by 2030.
However, the
rising price of hotels is one thing, and realizing a country's
industrialization is quite another. Due to Myanmar's opening-up,
restrictions on many things have been lifted. Investors, tourists and
explorers are all swarming into this virgin territory, pushing up the
prices for hotels catering to the standards of the well-off.
Myanmar
needs ambition as well as earnestness. It needs more investment. At the
same time, it needs well-implemented laws and policies geared to
international standards.
If Myanmar wants to be like China,
which has sustained its stable development for over 30 years, there
should be social consensus that development is a priority. Myanmar
should not have any illusions but seek its own development path that
suits its development level and reality.
It is not possible for
Myanmar to suddenly exceed its ASEAN neighbors such as Thailand and
Malaysia. It cannot become a developed country that keeps abreast with
Singapore by skipping the necessary stages on its development path and
avoiding the costs that come with its development.
Therefore, the
biggest challenge of Myanmar's infant modernization process is not the
speed but whether Myanmar can resist any enticement. The enticement
includes the democracy advocated by Westerners and the environmental
protection stressed by non-governmental organizations.
Myanmar's
reform and opening-up not only bring opportunity for development, but
also make it aim beyond its grasp. Many require the country to look to
the West on issues of human rights and environmental protection
regardless of Myanmar's realities.
Everyone would like to live in
a country as pleasant in Switzerland. And all developing countries wish
for a business foundation like the Silicon Valley in the US. But it's
nothing but a fantasy to make the two places into one.
The
Silicon Valley will never move to Myanmar. And investment from Thailand
will hardly put the environment as a priority. Workers in Myanmar will
not earn as much as their Chinese counterparts any time soon.
The
foreign investment programs in Myanmar cannot ensure that they are 100
percent environmentally friendly. According to reports from the UN
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the main reason
for the economic growth in Myanmar is that foreign countries have
increased investment in energy and minerals.
Taking Myanmar's
current development level into consideration, demanding Myanmar
overnight reach the goals that Western developed countries took
centuries to achieve will only lead to the stagnation or even retreat.
No
country in the world can achieve modernization without paying the costs
in human rights or environment protection. Western developed countries
couldn't make it, nor has there been any precedent in the East.
The
difficulty for Myanmar is that it needs to find a development path
suitable for the development of human rights and environment protection,
based on the premise that development is prioritized to help the public
get rid of poverty.
Myanmar doesn't lack the potential for
development. But as for how to find a development path that is best for
itself, Myanmar may need to learn from its neighbors such as China,
Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia rather than the West.
The realization of dreams is based on an earnest attitude, but dreams that break away from reality can only stay dreams.
source: Global Times
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/760596.shtml
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