Australia’s political elite seem to have a knack for clawing their way into prestigious international bureaucracies.

This time, it’s former Liberal Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who has been named special envoy to Myanmar by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Ms Bishop already has a job as the Australian National University chancellor, which she will keep as she steps into the UN role.

That’s wise, because the UN appointment is far from ideal.

‘I am deeply honoured to be appointed special envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Myanmar to help deliver on the mandate of the general assembly and the security council resolution of December 2022,’ said Ms Bishop.

What is it Ms Bishop intends to achieve, other than inhabiting the role and shaking hands for a designated period of time?

The question of how to handle Myanmar is something a lifelong expert and seasoned international negotiator would struggle with, let alone a former minister who has never navigated a serious conflict on home soil, let alone a military coup. Her last experience with a political coup left her out-played by Scott Morrison.

Myanmar is complex, with insurmountable problems that rely on the corporation of foreign nations who have no reason to abide by the toothless pleas of UN envoys.

The Myanmar military coup and resulting violence is not a matter of internal politics, but rather one facilitated and supported by extremely powerful dictatorial regimes. Their money and equipment are far more powerful than handshakes and stern words from a UN that is handcuffed by vetoes held by the same nations propping up the coup.

Over a billion dollars worth of weaponry and military vehicles have been imported into Myanmar since 2021 (at least $400 million from Russia and $260 million from China). The dictators of these nations have vested interests in keeping Myanmar in a state of controlled military conflict, including keeping Western influence at arm’s length. To them, Ms Bishop is a fly to be swatted away with a few closed doors and low-level champagne conferences.

Her predecessor, Singaporean scientist and diplomat Noeleen Heyzer, was arguably more qualified and yet departed midway through 2023 after only 20 months in the role. Little, if anything, was achieved during her term. The envoy role to Myanmar is considered to be a poisoned chalice with those who clutch it effectively set up to fail. By sacrificing names to the career disaster of Myanmar, the Secretary-General is able to deflect attention away from the larger failure of his leadership.

.@antonioguterres appointed Julie Bishop of Australia as his Special Envoy on #Myanmar.

Read more: https://t.co/5jVtOMlMXb pic.twitter.com/LzPxLPToho

— UN Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (@UNDPPA) April 5, 2024

The UN statement, padded with meaningless waffle, reads:

Ms Bishop brings extensive political, legal, management and senior leadership experience to the role. She has held several high-level positions in the Australian Government, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs (2013-2018), Cabinet Minister for Education, Science and Training, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues and Minister for Ageing. She was a member of the Australian Parliament (1998-2019), following a 20-year legal career.

Throughout her career, Ms Bishop has strengthened engagement with regional partners and led international negotiation efforts, including the first-ever United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea conciliation. 

Current Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been nothing but giddy, saying:

‘Ms Bishop brings a wealth of experience to the role and her appointment comes at a critical time as the political, humanitarian, and security situation in Myanmar continues to worsen.

‘The people of Myanmar continue to demonstrate great resolve in the face of unspeakable violence and human rights abuses, and Australia remains resolute in our support for them.

‘Australia will work closely with Ms Bishop as United Nations Special Envoy, ASEAN, and the international community to deploy our collective efforts to build conditions for sustainable peace in the country.’

Even if their intentions are pure, Ms Wong and Ms Bishop are going to struggle to support the people of Myanmar while navigating Labor’s undying obedience to the Chinese communist regime, with a high-profile report naming China as one of two major entities arming the military regime that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.

‘Ultimately, the Chinese government has decided it would prefer to move forward with business as usual with the State Administration Council and has sought to shield the junta from international accountability in the interest of maintaining its economic and strategic interests in Myanmar,’ said one witness during an inquiry into Beijing’s military support of the coup.

Russia, meanwhile, appears to have been trading weapons in exchange for Myanmar supporting the invasion of Ukraine. The military in Myanmar have been accused of  murdering civilians and flattening villages using Russian fighter aircraft and helicopters.

Aside from contributing a fortune’s worth of blood money to Myanmar, China has been pushing ahead with infrastructure in what is effectively a military twist on their usual debt-trap diplomacy.

According to the East Asia Forum in 2023:

‘For Myanmar, supplies of food, fertiliser, and stable electricity are urgent, and China is addressing this through infrastructure. Since February 2023, the 770-kilometre-long Chinese-operated oil pipeline from Rakhine to Yunnan has been used to transport Russian oil to China. The pipeline begins at the deep-sea port in Kyaukphyu on Ramree Island and is very important to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.’

This pipeline is responsible for 5 per cent of China’s daily demand. While Western governments give themselves paper-cuts over fossil fuels, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation have important strongholds within Myanmar that include upgrading Burmese oil and gas fields. Myanmar, for China, is all about strengthening its workaround for the Strait of Malacca in case of global conflict. Once China realised that stabilising the military coup provided better security for its interests, that’s what it did. When Ms Bishop and Ms Wong attempt to argue human rights, democracy, and Net Zero, no one will be listening.

As reported by China Center:

China currently receives 95 per cent of its energy imports by sea, with approximately 80 per cent passing through the Malacca Strait. Most of those supplies comes from the Middle East. Myanmar’s location on the Indian Ocean presents a money-saving alternative route and strategic geopolitical advantage by avoiding the Malacca Strait, a major international shipping lane dominated by the US Navy. Energy resources can be shipped through the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal and transported to China from Myanmar through pipelines, cutting off 3,000 kilometres, reducing transport time by five to six days, and avoiding a potential confrontation with the US.

Myanmar also is a potential energy source for China, thereby reducing dependence on energy from the Middle East. Two of China’s top three countries for energy supplies are Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Myanmar boasts the most diverse energy resources among ASEAN members, with a total of 104 oil and natural gas blocks, 51 of them on land with the rest in the sea. According to 2017 data, Myanmar controls 0.3 percent (139 million barrels) of known world oil reserves, in the Salin Basin and in the seaside Yetagun Field. In addition, according to 2019 data, Myanmar has 0.6 per cent (1.2 trillion cubic meters) of the proven natural gas reserves in the world. These reserves are located primarily in the Yadana, Yetagun and Zawtika areas in Moattama on the west coast of the country and the Shwe area in Rakhine.

And for those on the Net Zero bandwagon, a significant portion of China’s rare earths are sourced from Myanmar. (How many social justice warriors cried when 8,000 acres were stolen from citizens for a Chinese copper mine during the socialist era? Or when Myanmar’s crops were poisoned and destroyed by heavy metal contamination?) Negotiating with the military leaders was crucial for China’s production of electronics and renewable technology and has led to a rapid expansion of the market hand-in-hand with a devastated landscape. Any diplomacy that undermines the system will be ignored.

Every significant investment China builds in Myanmar has to be protected from ethnic violence. This is already a problem, with boycotts and attacks directed against Chinese assets from furious local people who feel China has shown disregard for the environment and local workforce. Ethnic strife is as old as the nation, but a military that wants to guarantee continued funding and equipment will likely suppress its own population to protect Chinese assets. Essentially, the same problems we are seeing in the Pacific Islands where corrupt governments do deals with Beijing against the interest of their nation.

The report mentioned earlier says of the situation in Myanmar:

‘Since the illegal military coup led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing one year ago, the military has killed more than 1,500 civilians, detained at least 12,000, and forcibly displaced over 440,000 people, 150,000 of whom are children. There is strong evidence that the junta has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, imprisonment, sexual violence, enforced disappearance, deportation and forcible transfer, and torture. Fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, assembly and association have been criminalised. The situation of human rights in Myanmar is dire and deteriorating.’

It goes on to add:

‘Since the coup, three Member States have authorised the supply of the types of weapons to the Myanmar military that it is using to attack civilians: the Russian Federation, China and Serbia. As this paper demonstrates, these transfers have occurred with the full knowledge that they would be used to attack civilians, in probable violation of international law.’

The report continues:

‘Despite this, credible reporting shows that arms continued to be provided to the Myanmar military since the coup. Arms transfers from China and Russia – and commitments of even more transfers – are particularly egregious, collectively providing the military with numerous fighter jets, armored vehicles, and in the case of Russia, the promise of further arms. Since the coup, Serbia has authorised rockets and artillery for export to the Myanmar military, while prior to the coup Serbia transferred limited heavy artillery systems. Pakistan, through its partnership with a Chinese state-owned entity, was involved in the manufacture and transfer of jet fighters prior to the coup, and late breaking reports indicate that Pakistan may soon transfer munitions to Myanmar. Belarus and Ukraine provided lethal arms pre-coup and have yet to impose an arms embargo on the military. Pre-coup, the Republic of Korea transferred an amphibious landing craft and Israel transferred attack boats. Notably, the Republic of Korea has imposed an embargo since the coup, and Israeli officials have indicated Israel now maintains a policy of not transferring arms to Myanmar.’

And in detail:

‘Since 2018, China-origin sales to Myanmar have focused on fighter jets, missiles, and related munitions. China has supplied the Myanmar military with JF-17M “Thunder” jet fighter airplanes as part of a 2015 $560 million USD agreement between the military and Chinese state-owned enterprise Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) and Pakistan’s state-owned Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC)…’

It goes on this way for pages and pages…

As Mikael Gravers writes in the East Asia Forum, ‘If China’s support for Myanmar continues to be guided by a desire to serve its own interests, prospects for changing the situation will remain dim.’

And so we return to the question of Ms Bishop and what she intends to achieve in Myanmar.

Ms Bishop has had little to say or do on the topic of Myanmar, except during her role as Foreign Minister when she handed ‘an extra $15 million’ of Australian taxpayer dollars to the Rohingya crisis, with the money going to the World Food Program. In total, the aid budget for the crisis was $46.5 million at the time. She has also said that she greatly admired the former leader, who was thrown out during the military coup.

Her ambitions may not matter. The role of envoy feels and looks like busywork for a former politician. This sort of situation makes you wonder if there is any use to the UN, except as a layer of bureaucratic sludge that muddies the waters of international conflict.

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