敏昂莱渴望重新赢得世界的好感。这位独裁者于2021年在缅甸夺取政权，今年早些时候进行了一次形象改造。他退出军队，并在一次被操纵的选举后自封为总统。如今，他在亚洲展开了外交攻势，并正与美国进行对话。要求结束军队暴行的呼声至今未被理睬；但这位暴君手中仍有一些牌可以打。
MIN AUNG HLAING is keen to get into the world’s good books. The dictator, who seized power in Myanmar in 2021, underwent a makeover earlier this year. He quit the army and made himself president following a rigged election. Now he has gone on a diplomatic blitz within Asia and is talking to America. Calls to end military atrocities have gone unheeded; but the despot has some cards to play.
其中一张牌是接回那些逃离缅甸战争和经济崩溃的人们。这为敏昂莱赢得了10月7日至8日访问马来西亚的机会——马来西亚曾是该地区他最大的批评者。马来西亚总理安瓦尔·伊布拉欣接待了他，作为交换，双方达成了遣返数千名缅甸公民的协议，旨在平息当地对移民的不满。
One is taking back those who have fled Myanmar’s war and economic collapse. This won Mr Min Aung Hlaing a visit on October 7th-8th to Malaysia, formerly his biggest critic in the region. Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s prime minister, received him in return for a deal on repatriating thousands of Myanmar nationals, a bid to fend off local anger about the migrants.
安瓦尔主张务实，但敏昂莱受到的红毯待遇是他重新获得东南亚国家联盟（ASEAN）领导人认可的一步。此次马来西亚之行紧随其后，他在过去四个月内先后访问了柬埔寨、老挝、泰国和越南。
Mr Anwar pleaded pragmatism, but the dictator’s red-carpet welcome was a step towards his rehabilitation among leaders of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Malaysia visit followed ones in the past four months to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
其他牌包括打击网络诈骗和出售稀土。这些举措有助于吸引美国与该政权展开对话。美国国务院情报首席迈克尔·万斯于9月会见了敏昂莱。万斯的访问名义上是为了争取释放被囚禁的商人亚当·卡斯蒂略。但这一初步对话的焦点在于诈骗中心和矿产开采。
Other cards include fighting online scams and selling rare earths. These have helped lure America into talks with the regime. Michael Vance, the State Department’s intelligence chief, met Mr Min Aung Hlaing in September. Mr Vance’s visit was ostensibly to secure the release from prison of Adam Castillo, a businessman. But the budding dialogue is focused on scam centres and extracting minerals.
实现和解将是减少缅甸对中国依赖的关键，而中国一直在该政权遭受武装叛乱重大损失期间予以支持。中国的支持伴随着针对针对中国公民的诈骗中心的高压关闭命令。美国想要让这些中心关闭的难度不亚于中国。诈骗利润使这些中心能够买通政权官员，据称甚至包括其前反诈骗委员会负责人。
A rapprochement would be key to lessening Myanmar’s reliance on China, which has propped up the regime amid its heavy losses to rebels. That help has come with high-handed orders to close scam centres targeting Chinese citizens. It is unlikely that America will have any more luck than China in getting them closed. Scam profits have allowed the centres to buy off regime officials, allegedly including the former head of its anti-scams committee.
与此同时，缅甸的稀土矿藏大多不在政权的控制范围之内，而是位于民族武装组织控制的地区，并且已经被纳入中国的供应链。美国官员可能只是利用这些矿产来引起唐纳德·特朗普的注意。“众所周知，白宫和总统对稀土非常关注，”一位曾在华盛顿工作且有缅甸经验的前官员说。“这就是我和其他人在会议上会提出的话题，以此来吸引注意。”
Myanmar’s rare-earth deposits, meanwhile, are largely beyond the regime’s reach, in areas controlled by ethnic armed groups, and are locked into Chinese supply chains. American officials may simply be using the minerals to get noticed by Donald Trump. “Everyone knows the White House and president are fixated on rare earths,” says a former Washington-based official with Myanmar experience. “That’s what everyone, including me, would throw out in meetings to get attention.”
敏昂莱也在保留他最强的筹码。卡斯蒂略的交易显示出对人质外交的渴望——而其中有一名囚犯的地位远高于其他人。Aung San Suu Kyi（昂山素季）曾在2016年至2021年期间领导缅甸，自政变以来一直被拘留。如果获释，她很可能会被禁止从政。但她的获释可能会为东盟及其他国家提供一个象征性的胜利，使他们能够洗刷缅甸恶劣的人权记录，恢复照常营业。
Mr Min Aung Hlaing is also holding his strongest card in reserve. The trading of Mr Castillo shows an appetite for hostage diplomacy—and there is one prisoner who far outranks the rest. Aung San Suu Kyi, who led Myanmar between 2016 and 2021, has been detained since the coup. If freed, odds are that she would be barred from politics. But her release might provide the symbolic win that ASEAN and others need to wash their hands of Myanmar’s atrocious human-rights record and get back to business as usual.