The panel discussed the trend of
foreign investment in Myanmar in the past two years, the measures the
government has taken to promote growth as well as the challenges and
problems. It explored Myanmar’s relationship with China, the
country’s largest foreign investor in terms of cumulative foreign investment.
As multiple controversial Chinese projects ran into major trouble in Myanmar,
China’s investment in Myanmar dropped significantly.
Featured Speakers:
Lex Rieffel, nonresident senior fellow with the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution
Yun Sun, Fellow, Stimson’s East Asia Program
Moderator:
Alan D. Romberg, Distinguished Fellow and Director of
Stimson’s East Asia program
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Lex Rieffel is a nonresident senior fellow with Global
Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. He is currently
working on policy studies related to Southeast Asia, emerging markets finance,
and reform of the IMF and World Bank. He published an edited volume, entitled Myanmar/Burma:
Inside Challenges, Outside Interests (Brookings, 2010), that examined
Myanmar primarily through the eyes of its ASEAN partners, its neighbors China
and India, and its own people. It provided insights into the overarching
problem of national reconciliation, the strategic competition between China and
India, the role of ASEAN, and the underperforming, resource-cursed economy. In
2007, Rieffel published a policy study, co-authored with Jaleswari
Pramodhawardani, focusing on military reform in Indonesia: Out of Business
and On Budget:The Challenge of Military Financing in Indonesia. His essay
on the remarkable political and economic transitions in Indonesia in 2004 was
published in the September-October 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs. He
joined Brookings in 2002 and published Sovereign Debt Restructuring: the
Case for Ad Hoc Machinery (September 2003).
Yun Sun is a fellow with the East Asia program at Stimson. Sun
was previously a visiting fellow at the Center for Northeast Asia Policy
Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC in 2011, where she
focused on the analysis of China’s national security decisionmaking system. Yun
was also the China Analyst for International Crisis Group (ICG) based in
Beijing from 2008 to 2011, specializing in China’s foreign policy toward
conflict countries in Asia and Africa. Prior to ICG, she worked in the Asia
policy circle in Washington DC for five years. Her expertise is in Chinese
foreign policy, US-China relations, and China’s relations with neighboring
countries and authoritarian regimes. Yun earned her master’s degree in
international policy and practice from George Washington University, an MA in
Asia Pacific studies, and a BA in international relations from Foreign Affairs
College in Beijing.
Alan D. Romberg is distinguished fellow and the director of
the East Asia program at Stimson. Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he
enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues, both in and out of
government, including more than 25 years in the State Department. Romberg was
the principal deputy director of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff,
principal deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs and deputy
spokesman of the department. He served in various capacities dealing with East Asia,
including director of the Office of Japanese Affairs, member of the Policy
Planning staff for East Asia, and staff member at the National Security Council
for China. He served overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Additionally, Romberg
spent almost 10 years as the CV Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations, and was special assistant to the secretary of the
navy. Romberg holds an M.A. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton
University.
For more information, contact Lin Le at [email protected] or 202-223-5956 x5130