How the Burmese Military Endeared Itself to the World

In recent weeks, nations around the world have laid into Burma’s military, which has overseen a massive campaign of violence in Rakhine State against the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group. While the violence dates back to 2012, since August, over 500,000 Rohingya have reportedly fled into Bangladesh.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, recently spoke to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of Burma’s armed forces, Canadians’ “extreme concern for human rights violations against [the] Rohingya.” At a late-September UN Security Council briefing on Burma—the first such briefing in eight years, and the first to focus on Rakhine State—Britain’s representative also Min Aung Hlaing for the violence. Earlier in the month, Senator John McCain had his intention to pull language in the annual defense authorization bill that would have boosted military-to-military ties with the