But just hours before she was to become the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in more than 50 years, there were no obvious signs of preparations in Naypyitaw on Wednesday for her arrival, aside from some policemen outside the hotel compound where she will stay.

In striking contrast, a large billboard had been strung up at a nearby hotel, welcoming the prime minister of Belarus, who is also due to visit in coming days.

The broad avenues of the city, which was only built five years ago when the then ruling generals decided on a new capital to replace the biggest city, Yangon, were largely deserted.
A construction worker at a building site next to parliament said he had no idea who was coming.

“All I know is someone important is coming but I don’t know who,” said the worker, Ye Pun Naing. Told that it was Clinton, he shrugged his shoulders and said that meant nothing to him.

That’s not surprising.

Myanmar has only just begun in recent weeks to emerge from an extraordinary half-century of isolation with the most dramatic changes in the former British colony since the military took power in a 1962 coup when it was known as Burma.

A series of reforms, breathtaking by Myanmar’s standards, has been introduced by former generals who swapped fatigues for civilian clothes in March when a new parliament opened following last year’s elections, the first in two decades.

When Clinton arrives, her first stop will the capital which bears no resemblance to the rest of the country, one of Asia’s poorest, or to nearby villages of mostly thatched wooden huts.

Naypyitaw is a maze of ministry buildings, government mansions, civil servants’ quarters and presidential palaces complete with grand Roman-style pillars — all rising from dusty, arid scrubland. At its heart is parliament’s 31 buildings, with pagoda-style roofs.

Bestowed with manicured lawns, the city with its two Hluttaws, or legislative chambers, was built from scratch, allowing the former military rulers to isolate themselves some 320 km (200 miles) from the old capital and port of Yangon, where Clinton will visit on Thursday.

PUZZLINGLY WIDE ROADS

Naypyitaw’s attractions include half a dozen resort-style hotels and golf courses, drinkable tap water, a Western-style shopping mall, a zoo, an elaborate “water fountain garden,” lavish mansions and 24-hour electricity in a nation beset by chronic power outages.

Much of it was built by workers toiling in searing heat with basic equipment. When Reuters journalists visited early last year, women were hauling stacks of bricks balanced upon their head and men cleared land with wooden-handled scythes. Ox carts transported wood.

Diplomatic sources say the construction of Naypyitaw would have cost billions of dollars, drawing criticism from aid groups over the priorities of a country where a third of its about 50 million people live in poverty and where infrastructure is in tatters due to trade-crippling sanctions and mismanagement.

The city’s rise reflects the riches reaped by its rulers as Southeast Asia and China tap its natural resources, from timber and natural gas to precious gems, despite the Western sanctions imposed in response to rights abuses.

It may have amenities but there’s no lively city centre thronged with people, even five years after the government moved nearly all its workers there. Officials put its population at about 1 million, including surrounding townships.

Its roads are puzzlingly wide, including one 20-lane boulevard, but they are largely empty. Civilian cars are rare. The city centre, a roundabout where five roads meet, is populated mostly by palm trees and potted flowers.

One person the former ruling junta were happy to leave in Yangon was opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate freed from years of detention last year.

But Suu Kyi has since visited several times and could even enter parliament when her political party contests by-elections expected early next year.

The country’s nominally civilian — but military-aligned — government may also be seeking self-preservation and avoidance of an Arab Spring-style uprising with its surprising recent political and economic reforms.

Clinton’s visit beginning Wednesday signals international recognition of those reforms and could open a new era of friendlier relations.

Just six years ago, one of Clinton’s predecessors listed Myanmar among the “outposts of tyranny.” Washington shunned and sanctioned the country after its bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising in 1988, refusing even to call it by its preferred name, Myanmar — sticking instead with the colonial-era Burma.

In part, Clinton’s historic journey is a culmination of behind-the-scenes overtures since a newly elected President Barack Obama told the world’s despotic regimes in 2009 that the “U.S. will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Since then, Myanmar has released pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, and its recently elected government has opened a dialogue with her, giving Washington just enough opening to re-engage.

The generals, eager to avoid the kinds of chaotic uprisings faced by authoritarian leaders in the Middle East and hopeful of new friendships as a counterweight to their reliance on China, have lowered their profile and loosened their control over the country.

They have opened up the economy after 25 years of disastrously quirky socialist rule, overhauled an antiquated infrastructure, implemented a new constitution and reached cease-fire agreements with more than a dozen fractious ethnic minority groups, although some groups continue to fight.

Analysts say the generals want some credit for these gestures. They want U.S. sanctions lifted so they can keep pace with a changing world, get the international respect they feel is their due and be allowed to send their children to American universities.

“They do feel that they are in such a solid position that they can begin to do things that they could not do before,” said David Steinberg, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The United States hopes the carrot of improved relations will encourage Myanmar’s new government to continue the reforms and ultimately restore true democratic rule.

Steinberg and Maung Zarni, a longtime exiled activist who is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, agree that the Arab Spring may have put the generals on notice that managed change may be their best bet for survival. They must also be seeing the political churning going on in virtual one-party states such as Malaysia and Singapore as a bad omen.

“First and foremost what drives the reforms is the military’s desire to maintain its primacy in a way that is more acceptable to the regional and international community,” said Maung Zarni.

The U.S. withdrew its ambassador and stopped all aid after the military, in power since 1962, brutally put down a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that left hundreds dead. The battle lines firmed when the generals locked up Suu Kyi in 1989 and nullified an election that her National League for Democracy party won handily in 1990.

However, with huge natural gas reserves, the junta wasn’t short of friends, and neighboring China — never one to fuss about human rights — moved in to provide aid and diplomatic cover.

But the generals have become increasingly uncomfortable with China, which has exploited Myanmar for its natural resources and strategic location near the Indian Ocean.

Myanmar’s military rulers implemented a self-styled roadmap to democracy, holding a general election last year that brought in the first parliament in more than two decades and installed an ostensibly civilian government this year, though one guaranteed to do their bidding.

“The question was not whether or not to move away from a pure military dictatorship and dysfunctional economic policies, but in what way and at what pace,” said Myanmar historian Thant Myint-U, who is based in Thailand.

Obama’s offer in his inaugural address to “extend a hand” to dictatorial regimes if “you … unclench your fist” struck a chord in Myanmar.

Within weeks, the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar reported fresh approaches from government officials.

A Feb. 9, 2009, cable to Washington from the embassy — one of the trove of documents released by WikiLeaks — reported on a meeting with a Myanmar Foreign Ministry official, Yin Yin Oo, who suggested that initial topics for engagement could include anti-narcotics cooperation and recovery of U.S. remains from World War II.

U.S. diplomats described the approach as “yet another signal that the regime wants a visibly improved relationship,” but perhaps one more symbolic than substantive.

The “senior generals are embarrassed by their international pariah status and crave respect. … Whether, in the words of President Obama, they are willing to unclench their fists in order to deserve a measure of respect is yet to be seen,” said the cable by Charge d’Affaires Larry Dinger.

Still, the wheels had been set in motion, and by April the embassy had produced a comprehensive analysis with the hopeful title “Burma’s Generals: Starting the Conversation.” The 2,900-word cable remains a useful guide to the stakes the two sides bring to the table.

The analysis tries to explain why the generals had decided to unclench their fists:

— “The most senior generals are looking for an escape strategy”;
— “They hate being subject to sanctions and aspire to be treated with the respect accorded other world leaders, including some authoritarian ones”;
— “The current senior generals are getting old … (they) undoubtedly want assurances that, if they voluntarily step aside, they and their families will retain their assets and will not be prosecuted.”

The cable identified a range of areas where Myanmar might seek cooperation, including narcotics, terrorism, trafficking and economic policy advice. Myanmar could ease restrictions on U.S. diplomats in return.

U.S. officials have stated repeatedly that substantive moves are contingent on Myanmar releasing political prisoners, estimated at somewhat under 2,000 after two rounds of amnesties this year.

Positive political steps could lead to “an easing of broad-based economic sanctions,” the analysis said.

“With sufficient progress, the sanctions specifically targeted at the regime and its cronies could be on offer, too,” the cable suggested.

Suu Kyi spoke by webcast Wednesday to the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, shortly after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Myanmar on the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state in more than 50 years.

Suu Kyi said she supports increased U.S. engagement with Myanmar’s government to encourage continued reforms that have seen it shift from five decades of direct military rule.

No date has been set for the parliamentary elections, which follow a nationwide poll in 2010. Suu Kyi’s party boycotted that vote but is now reregistering after regulations that would have prevented her running for parliament were changed.

A spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy had indicated last week she would run, and Suu Kyi addressed that point directly in her remarks to the council.
“I will certainly run for the elections when they take place,” Suu Kyi said in the webcast.

Malaysian star Michelle Yeoh, a former “Bond girl”, plays “The Lady” in a two-hour biopic that focuses on the private life of Suu Kyi, her British husband Michael Aris and their two sons.

Suu Kyi’s struggle for her country came at a high personal cost. Her husband died in 1999 in Britain, and in the final stages of his battle with cancer the Myanmar junta denied him a visa to see his wife.

Suu Kyi refused to leave Myanmar to see him, certain she would never have been allowed to return.

“It was the price she had to pay,” said Besson. “Thousands of people give their lives unquestioningly, simply because they believe it is a just cause.”

“The love that united her with her husband gave her immense strength,” said Yeoh.

The daughter of Myanmar’s assassinated independence hero General Aung San, Suu Kyi began her own political career late after spending much of her life abroad.

She studied at Oxford University, had two sons after marrying Aris and looked like she was going to settle into life in Britain.

But when she returned to Yangon in 1988 to nurse her sick mother, protests erupted against the military, which ended with a brutal crackdown that left at least 3,000 dead.

She took a leading role in the pro-democracy movement, delivering speeches to crowds of hundreds of thousands.

This is the point where Besson’s film takes up her story.

Yeoh, who learned Burmese to help her play the part, said she finally got to meet Suu Kyi at her crumbling lakeside mansion in Yangon, where she was under house arrest, as filming was winding down in Thailand.

“She walked up to me to embrace me and take my hand,” she said. “She looks fragile but she emanates great strength.”

Besson also met the subject of his film after her release last November, when filming on the project had already finished.

He recalled finding himself outside the house which his team had scrupulously recreated “practically to the centimetre” in Thailand, where most of the film was shot.

The French filmmaker, whose recent movies also include the popular animated “Arthur” series, did manage to film some scenes in Myanmar itself, where he posed as a tourist and shot with a small camera.

“I filmed 17 hours of rushes, sometimes with a soldier three metres away,” he recalled.

The film’s actors were then super-imposed on the Myanmar scenes with the help of “green screen” technology.

Suu Kyi told Besson that she was not yet ready to watch the two-hour film which covers the deaths of her father and her husband.

“She told me ‘I’ll see it when I’m courageous enough,’” he said earlier this month.

But one of her sons has seen it and “was very moved,” the director added.

Besson said he had cried when he first read the script and immediately decided to make “The Lady”.

“It’s very moving when you look at this woman who is fighting for neither power nor money but so that her people can be free,” he told AFP.

Clinton, whose trip was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama during his recent Asia tour, is the first U.S. official of her rank to visit the isolated South Asian country in more than five decades. The visit comes as Myanmar, formerly called Burma, has begun to make progress toward democratic reforms under the new civilian government of President
Thein Sein after decades of brutal military rule.

“I am obviously looking to determine for myself and on behalf of our government what is the intention of the current government with respect to continuing reforms both political and economic,” Clinton told reporters before meeting with Myanmar officials, The Washington Post reported. “We and many other nations are quite hopeful that these flickers of progress … will be ignited into a movement for change.”

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Post: “We are actually deeply realistic for what can be expected. There have been a number of failed attempts at reform, over decades. We are mindful of the risks, and we will be very careful as we go forward.”

The State Department delegation said the Myanmar government has accommodated Clinton’s visit in every respect with no restrictions, The New York Times reported.

The State Department said Clinton’s three-day visit “will register support for reforms that we have witnessed in recent months and discuss further reforms in key areas, as well as steps the U.S. can take to reinforce progress.”

Clinton “will consult with a broad and diverse group of civil society and ethnic minority leaders to gain their perspectives on developments in the country,” the department said.

In announcing Clinton’s visit, Obama said the United States is considering a new relationship that would depend on “the Burmese government taking more concrete action.”

Thein Sein, a former general, became president after last year’s elections, the first in two decades.

Immediately after the elections, the new government freed opposition and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been held under house arrest for years.

The new government also changed some laws to allow Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party to field candidates. Public protest, not encouraged during the junta rule, resulted in the new government suspending a hydroelectric dam project involving aid from China, a close ally of Myanmar.

In another major reform, the government has freed dozens of political prisoners. The government also has passed reforms for protection of basic human rights.

Aung Zaw, editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, was quoted by CNN as saying Clinton’s visit will boost the government’s reform process and legitimacy.

Clinton’s Myanmar trip comes as U.S. foreign policy pivots to the Asia-Pacific region, with Washington determined to play its leadership role. Some experts have expressed doubts as to whether the new leadership in Myanmar will remain committed to democratic reforms.

Clinton, now on a visit to South Korea for an aid forum, plans to visit Myanmar, also known as Burma, later this week, the first trip there by a U.S. secretary of state in more than half a century.

President Barack Obama assigned her to travel to the country in a bid to accelerate “flickers of progress” in efforts to bring democracy there.

“The release of some political prisoners in Burma and the return of democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi to the political process are limited but welcome developments. However, the Burmese Junta’s atrocities, systematic human rights violations, and pursuit and proliferation of dangerous weapons continue unabated,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

Ros-Lehtinen expressed concern that Clinton’s trip may send the “wrong signal to the Burmese military thugs that cosmetic actions, or mere ‘flickers of progress,’ as President Obama recently spoke about, are sufficient for the U.S. to engage the regime.”

She also pointed to allegations that Myanmar is in partnership with North Korea in the development of nuclear weapons.

“Further, reported sightings of North Koreans in remote minority areas deepen concerns that the North Korean regime is aiding and abetting the Burmese junta in its efforts to acquire contraband weapons, including for the possible development of a nuclear program,” she said. “Any ‘flickers of progress’ would certainly be further overshadowed by more weapons proliferation by the regime.”

The State Department said it is aware of the suspicion over such shady ties between the two nations but the secretary’s
trip this time is more about democratizing Myanmar.

“We’ve raised this as an issue before. It’s been a topic of discussion with Burma,” department spokesman Mark Toner said at a press briefing. “But you know, we’re also … as we say, we have a full agenda, which includes the release of political prisoners and opening up the democratic space there to all political parties.”

On her historic visit to Burma this week, Hillary Rodham Clinton will wrestle with how to address its human rights abuses, its handling of political prisoners and its rumored weapons trade with North Korea. Meanwhile, her speechwriters will struggle with a vexing issue of their own: how exactly she refers to this country.

Should she call it Burma, Myanmar or nothing at all? Each is a choice fraught with political implications.

For more than a decade, the repressive government — still largely controlled by the military – has insisted that the country be called “Myanmar” in English, a name it adopted in 1989 after it declared martial law and brutally cracked down on pro-democratic uprisings, killing thousands in the process.

A year later, when Aung San Suu Kyi and her democratic party decisively won the general election, the military junta cracked down again, barring her party from power and keeping her under house arrest for most of the next two decades.

In support of her 1990 victory and in protest of the military’s actions, the U.S. government to this day persists in using “Burma” in all speeches and publications.

But dig a little deeper, and it gets more complicated.

There are some, even among the pro-democracy movement, who argue Myanmar may technically be the better name because it’s perceived as being more inclusive. While members of the country’s ethnic majority are known as Burmans, there are hundreds of other ethnic minority groups who may feel excluded by the name “Burma.”

“In some ways, Myanmar makes more sense,” said Aung Din, a former student protestor and leader of the pro-democracy group U.S. Campaign for Burma. “But you look at the way the government did it. As if by changing the name, they could change the past … as if it could make people forget all those killed in the streets, all the suffering they caused.”

Others like Suu Kyi, who at first opposed the change to Myanmar, have pointed to ironies inherent in having such a repressive government — responsible for killing and raping ethnic minorities — invoking ethnic inclusiveness as an argument for the usage of Myanmar.

“It’s not the name itself but the way it was changed, without asking the people what they wanted, without a referendum,” noted Charm Tong, a Burmese women’s advocate.

Linguistically, the difference between the two is murky. In the Burmese language, “Myanma” is the written version often used, and “Bama” the colloquial spoken name. Bama is believed to have derived from Myanma as the “m” sound eroded into a “b.”

To some, Burma — the name chosen by the country’s British rulers in the 19th century — carries a bitter taste of colonialism. But to others, Myanmar carries equally bitter overtones of its current rulers.

Even as the debate has continued within Burma, it has spread to the international community.

Within five days of the military junta’s decision, the United Nations endorsed the new name — under its general rule that countries should be referred to by their chosen name. Some countries, including China and Germany, have followed suit. But several English-speaking countries — the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia among them — have held firm.

Even non-governmental organizations involved in human rights disagree. Amnesty International calls it Myanmar, while Human Rights Watch uses Burma.

Nowhere has the arguments raged longer and been so thoroughly examined than in the media, with the sharp eyes of copy editors and persnickety style mavens.

For years, editors have argued the finer points of both sides. As a Lexington Herald editor explained in a 2008 to its readers: “It’s hard to apply the principle of ‘what do the people call themselves’ with regard to Burma/Myanmar, since a significant portion of the country’s common populace and exiles are at odds with its military government.”

The hallowed style gurus at the Associated Press made the switch to Myanmar in 2006.

The New York Times did it even earlier, in 1989, a decision that can be traced to Joseph Lelyveld, then foreign editor and later executive editor, who expressed regret in a 2007 Boston Globe column for having settled on Myanmar too early, before seeing how brutal its government would become.

“Now Myanmar is associated with those dreadful people,” Lelyveld told the Globe. “Basically, I was too fast off the mark.”

Some have tried to have it both ways. The Lonely Planet franchise, for example, has titled its guides “Myanmar (Burma).”

But over time, Myanmar has become the more popular option — adopted by CNN, most networks and outlets like Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.

The Washington Post is now one of the lone holdouts, sticking with “Burma” but requiring that its scribes dutifully include the phrase “also known as Myanmar” in each story.

In recent years, the Burma/Myanmar dispute has spread to new media. After a rhetorical skirmish broke out on Wikipedia, editors proposed a two-week debate on the issue on the site. Advocates on both sides wrote up lengthy dissertations on the topic, citing precedents (like Burkina Faso, formerly known as Upper Volta) and invoking the founding principles of Wikipedians, Google search statistics and much more.

For a while reconciliation seemed near, with the floating of a grand compromise involving two articles. A “Burma” entry, it was proposed, would cover all history before 1989, and a “Myanmar” post would tackle post-1989. But that, too, was shot down.

Wikipedia’s administrators had the last word. The site’s page on the country now says “Burma …officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.”

For U.S. and Burmese officials, the subject remains incredibly touchy.

In January, at a U.N. discussion on human rights violations in Burma, the country’s delegate interrupted the U.S. representative, bristling over her passing reference to “the Burmese delegation.” After intervention by the session’s president, the U.S. representative continued her talk, simply avoiding the use of either name.

With Burma’s leaders just beginning to open up and reform, U.S. officials say they want to avoid sparking similar disputes during Clinton’s visit.

So instead, they will use phrases like “your country,” “what you call Myanmar,” “this land,” and the new capital of Naypyidaw in its place, according to senior administration officials who were not authorized to speak for attribution.

“This is the first time for us in visiting, so we want to come with respect for them, knowing it’s a sensitive issue,” said the official traveling with Clinton, “but also keeping in mind that it’s a sensitive issue for us, too.”

Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become China’s top leader in 2012, met with him, as did Gen. Chen Bingde, the chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army. General Chen told General Min Aung Hlaing, in the words of the state news agency Xinhua, that “bilateral relations have developed well through the joint efforts of both sides.”

In any given week, such meetings would have been quickly noted and just as quickly forgotten. But the visit by Myanmar’s top general has become a subject of conversation among scholars and journalists because it came just two days before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to visit Myanmar, the first appearance there by an American diplomat of that rank in 56 years.

One Chinese scholar, Xu Liping from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview on Tuesday that although the general’s trip “does come at a sensitive time, the meetings are not closely linked to Hillary’s visit.” But another scholar, Mu Gengyuan of the Chinese Institute of International Studies, said the general’s arrival was “clearly an opportunity to reassure Beijing and communicate with Chinese leaders before Hillary’s arrival in Myanmar tomorrow.”

The attention paid to General Min Aung Hlaing’s visit reveals the importance that Chinese officials and scholars attach to the Obama administration’s policy of engagement with Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and its potential effect on Myanmar’s relations with China. This nation is Myanmar’s biggest economic partner, and its influence in Myanmar has in recent years overshadowed India’s.

China’s interests in Myanmar include oil and natural gas pipelines that are under construction; access to the Indian Ocean; and the stability of border regions, where ethnic clashes have broken out between the Burmese military and guerrilla groups. Trade between China and Myanmar reached $5.3 billion last year, and China is the biggest foreign investor in Myanmar, with $15.8 billion in investments there.

Now, the Chinese are warily watching as the United States makes overtures toward Myanmar’s leaders.

“There is no doubt that many inside the Chinese establishment interpret it as part of a larger U.S. strategy on China,” said Mr. Xu, an expert on Southeast Asia. “It is another step taken by the U.S. to strengthen its presence in the region.”

Conservative voices in Chinese military and foreign policy circles now talk regularly about American attempts to hem in China, despite denials from American officials. On a trip through the region two weeks ago, President Obama announced he was sending 2,500 military personnel members to Australia. He also joined Asian leaders at a summit meeting in confronting Prime Minister Wen Jiabao over China’s expansive territorial claims to the South China Sea.

Thomas E. Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, wrote in an opinion article published on Sunday in The Financial Times that the United States intended to “maintain and enhance a strong network of allies and partners” in the Asia-Pacific region. Some Asian countries, Vietnam especially, have expressed concern over China’s growing clout.

Myanmar has been more circumspect, even under the new government of President Thein Sein, who American officials say has signaled a tolerance for experimentation with political and economic reforms. But one action this year — the suspension by the Burmese government on Sept. 30 of a Chinese-financed, $3.6 billion dam project that had ignited popular protests — caught the attention of Chinese leaders.

Some Chinese officials and scholars contend that the Obama administration played a role in persuading Mr. Thein Sein to block the dam or even in stoking the protests. The administration has not acknowledged any involvement.

“The incident sends a clear signal to China,” said Ms. Mu, the scholar at the Chinese Institute of International Studies, which is linked to the Foreign Ministry. “With the U.S. strategy of refocusing on the region, it is already making inroads in Myanmar. It also acts as a reminder that the public diplomacy of China still leaves much to be desired.”

Ms. Mu said that China and Myanmar remained committed to strong ties, but that their relations had changed since the United States became more involved in the region.

“The Myanmar government exhibited a strong desire to amend its relationship with the U.S. and Europe probably out of fear of becoming over-reliant on China and turning into a vassal state of an increasingly powerful neighbor,” she said.

On Wednesday, as Mrs. Clinton traveled to Myanmar, the English-language edition of Global Times ran an editorial on U.S.-Myanmar relations that highlighted the Myitsone Dam fiasco and concluded with this: “China welcomes the opening-up of Myanmar, but firmly opposes it stepping on China’s interests.”

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, an analyst in Beijing for the International Crisis Group, said there was a range of opinions in China on the American involvement in Myanmar. While many people examining the strategic aspects see efforts by the United States to encircle China, others view Myanmar’s desire to diversify its foreign relations and escape sanctions as a natural development. “On the economic side, there are businesspeople who think they will gain from Myanmar opening up to the rest of the world in terms of a better business environment,” she said.

Relations between the Chinese Communist Party and the Myanmar government, long run by a military dictatorship, have waxed and waned. In the 1960s, when China was trying to foment Cultural Revolution-style upheaval in Burma, people were suspicious of China, wrote Thant Myint-U, a scholar with a new book on modern Myanmar, “Where China Meets India.” Anti-Chinese riots broke out in June 1967. But in the 1990s, when much of the world tried to isolate Myanmar, China kept up relations.

“There is no special dislike of China or Chinese culture; dislike suggests a familiarity that is not there,” Mr. Thant Myint-U wrote. “Rather, there is a sense of the dangers of being next to an increasingly powerful and populous nation, whose internal wars and politics have time and again spilled over to wreak havoc on the much smaller country to the southwest.”

Here are some of the pros and cons, and how some investors are going about getting exposure to the country.

First, the positive signs.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to arrive in Myanmar on Wednesday, the first such visit in half a century. She isn’t likely to unveil relaxation of economic sanctions yet, but many analysts believe that’s where talks are headed. A European diplomat in Yangon is pushing his government to weaken sanctions when the E.U. reviews the policy next April.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been free of house arrest for a year and is expected to run for parliament, as the military-backed civilian government loosens restrictions on the media, releases political prisoners and pushes economic liberalization. Of particular to interest to foreign investors, the government is looking for ways to simplify its complex foreign-exchange regime that involves multiple exchange rates, and it is proposing rules aimed at giving foreign investors more clout after years of favoring businessmen with close ties to Myanmar’s military. It’s also said to be working on a new foreign-investment law that would allow outsiders  more control over property and businesses.

U.S. sanctions imposed over the past 15 years because of Myanmar’s poor human rights block or heavily discourage American companies from direct investments. But companies from Asia and some parts of Europe  are freer to deal in the country formerly known as Burma. Even U.S. companies are not restricted from selling most goods to Myanmar, so long as they aren’t financial products, arms or involve dealings with specific members of the government and tycoons targeted by the sanctions.

Now for the bad news.

Although Myanmar’s potential is large, so are the obstacles. Its population of around 50 million is more than Spain’s, but also among the poorest in Asia. Ports are dilapidated and electricity scarce in some areas, and investors frequently complain about a lack of rule of law. Labor costs are cheap, which Japanese and Korean apparel makers have exploited on a small scale, but if the country opens up more, there will likely be pressure to push wages up to reduce the grinding poverty tied to years of harsh military rule.

And of course, there are still plenty of people who believe the country’s government is not serious about sustainable reform — and that investors should steer clear altogether. Of particular concern are reports that human rights violations continue in ethnic minority areas of the country.

For those who decide to overlook those issues, natural resources are among the key draws for foreigners. Gas, timber and precious stones have enriched the regime through what critics say are unscrupulous deals. Many hope openness legitimizes those sectors, as there are likely many more mining and energy projects to be developed. Some say it will remain difficult to access raw materials themselves, but servicing companies might find opportunities.

Meanwhile, analysts are hoping there will be more opportunities in the agricultural sector, as the government has flagged plans to boost access to credit in rural areas, which in turn could lead to more investments in basic farming equipment and irrigation infrastructure. Myanmar was once the world’s biggest rice exporter, a status experts say it could regain with more reforms.

Hotel developers are poking around looking for opportunities, with room occupancy levels at their highest in years.

For Westerners, investment choices remain limited. Individual investors can, however, get some exposure to the country through publicly traded stocks outside of Myanmar.

One choice is Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic Holdings, which has property development and biofuel plantations in Myanmar. Though its market capitalization is just around $50 million, it is thinly traded and also has exposure to China’s property market. Italian-Thai Development PLC, listed in Bangkok, is the lead contractor on a multi-billion-dollar ports and infrastructure project that would make Myanmar an entry point for goods to the region, though progress on the project remains uncertain.

Large multinationals have Myanmar angles but their investments tend to be only a small part of their global operations. These include France’s Total, China oil giant CNOOC, listed in Hong Kong, and South Korea’s Posco, whose Daewoo International unit has operated garment factories there for nearly two decades and has gas exploration interests. Thailand’s oil giant PTT is another name.

There are other caveats. Many inside the country fear a backlash from military hardliners that could snuff out the latest reforms. And some exile groups say the latest changes are a ruse to get sanctions lifted to further enrich the country’s military. Activists say the government continues to keep hundreds or more dissidents behind bars, while many fear cronyism will keep reserving the best bits of the economy for selected businessmen.

And investors from countries that have sanctions should consult a lawyer before investing. The rules are tricky. For instance, the U.S. forbids investments in companies outside Myanmar whose profits are “predominantly derived” from Myanmar business. There’s a Treasury Department cheat sheet on the U.S. sanctions here(http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/burma.pdf), and more on the E.U. sanctions here(http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/sanctions/docs/measures_en.pdf) and here(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:105:0022:0108:EN:PDF).

Meanwhile, Central Seminary is securing services of missionaries Duane and Marsha Binkley, fluent in both Thai and Karen, to help minister to the many refugees from Myanmar who are coming into the United States.

Jointly appointed by American Baptist International Ministries and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Binkleys have ministered to Karen refugees in the U.S. and Thailand since they were commissioned at a combined CBF/ABC meeting in Washington, D.C., in 2007. Their work recently was broadened to work with other ethnic groups from Burma.

This fall the couple has helped Central to develop educational resources for refugee leaders from Burma. Beginning in January they will put their language skills and experience to work in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

The new cross-cultural doctoral program, the result of a longtime partnership between Central Seminary and the Myanmar Institute of Theology, focuses on the missional studies track for the D.Min. in congregational health. After students from Myanmar studied in Kansas, students from Shawnee were scheduled to travel to Myanmar. That way the two groups learn from each other about contextualizing the gospel message and how to adopt a missionary lifestyle in ministry to their own culture.

“I am very glad that Central is working for the Burmese people, not only in the D.Min. program but also with people who are refugees here,” said Samuel Ling, president of the Myanmar Institute of Theology. “It’s a great seminary and we are very blessed by having cooperation with Central.”

American Baptist ties to Myanmar date back to missionary Adoniram Judson, who arrived in Burma in 1813. For six decades Myanmar’s military dictatorship has targeted minority groups like the Karen for ethnic assimilation. In order to survive, these groups must flee Myanmar by crossing the border into Thailand. Tens of thousands of them have relocated to the United States. When they do, they frequently turn to Baptists for help with assimilation and physical and spiritual needs.

Central has been granting degrees for MIT students since the 1950s. In 2009, the Henry Luce Foundation gave $300,000 to support the partnership between the two schools for three years, underwriting joint study, faculty and student exchanges and ministry to Burmese refugees in the United States.

“One of the key emphases in Central’s curriculum is global Christianity,” said Central President Molly Marshall. “Central frankly acknowledges that Europe and North America are no longer the strongholds of Christianity and keenly recognizes that the many flourishing cultural forms of Christian identity can also inform the processes of ministry preparation. There is much to learn from our global Christian neighbors.”

Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.

“The new [Burmese] government’s desire to normalize its international relations and balance against China should be seen as an opportunity to engage a broad range of stakeholders in Burma on a range of issues, in order to encourage further change,” said Ashley South, a Burma researcher based in the UK.

South said that it is important that the international community recognizes and encourages the Thein Sein government’s reforms. He suggested that Naypyidaw’s international relations with the US should be encouraged for the sake of further reform.

Writing in the Asia Times on Tuesday, author Bertil Lintner said that Burma and the US, two long-term adversaries, may now be on the same side in the emerging regional power struggle with China.

“But more friction and perhaps even hostility could color future relations between China and Myanmar, an antagonism that could help the military regime shake its pariah status and isolation from the US,” he wrote.

Also writing recently in the Asia Times, David Steinberg, a Burma scholar at Washington’s Georgetown University, said that it has taken the US two decades to realize that isolation and calls for “regime change” will not work. The interests of both countries have now become intertwined to a degree hitherto unrecognized, but that had always been there.

Clinton visits Burma on Wednesday and plans to meet with Burmese President Thein Sein and government ministers in Naypyidaw on Thursday. She will then fly to Rangoon to meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her party, the National League for Democracy.

Other Burma observers generally agree that Naypyidaw seems willing to engage with Washington in order to balance its dependence between China and the West. Most concur that this news is encouraging and that Naypyidaw is showing a desire to reform and to rekindle its relations with the US and the West.

South said that Western sanctions and a policy of isolation have driven Burma into the Chinese sphere of influence since the 1990s. China remains a key patron, providing diplomatic cover at the UN, plus investment, loans and military hardware.

He said that in the past year, the government, however, has begun to distance itself from China—for example, through canceling the Myitsone dam (which was done primarily in response to domestic pressure).

“The US will be been keen to promote a re-balancing of Burma’s foreign relations, which represents a rare opportunity to counter Chinese influence in the region,” he said.

Burma specialists said that Burmese governments have long sought to play-off regional powers against each other, balancing between India, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including a policy of “natural resource diplomacy.”

However, Burma still faces many problems, he said, including serious and widespread human rights abuses, particularly in areas affected by ongoing armed conflict.

“Burma’s social and political problems cannot be solved without addressing the aspirations and grievances of ethnic nationality communities. This should involve resolving armed conflicts in ways which are just and sustainable,” said South.

Lintner and Steinberg also raised the issue of Burma’s ethnic conflicts in their commentaries this week.

“This [ethnic conflict] is the most intractable problem facing the state since independence. I would argue it is more important than ‘democracy’ as an issue.” Steinberg was quoted as saying by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Rights groups and activists say that thousands of civilians in ethnic areas, especially in Kachin State, are still suffering from serious human rights abuses at the hands of the Burmese army despite the new government’s reforms.

In a report released on Wednesday, Physicians for Human Rights say they conducted an investigation in Kachin State, and found that between June and September 2011, the Burmese army looted food from civilians, fired indiscriminately into villages, threatened villages with attacks, and used civilians as porters and human minesweepers. The rights group called on Hillary Clinton to focus on abuses against ethnic civilians.

In an earlier interview with The Irrawaddy, Thant Myint-U, a US-born Burmese historian and the author of two bestselling books on Burmese history, said, “I think the recent political changes and economic reforms are incredibly significant and represent the country’s best opportunity since 1962 to move in a positive direction.

“But, progress in Naypyidaw or Rangoon cannot be divorced from progress in those largely border areas that have suffered terribly from armed conflict for decades,” he said.

Speaking with The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, Brig-Gen Gun Maw, the deputy military chief of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), said that the government has to solve ethnic armed conflicts by political means.

“The way President Thein Sein said that the Burmese army can annihilate us within one day is inappropriate. The only way [to peace] is by political means,” said Gun Maw.