The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

by Thant Myint-U

He told her he wanted to learn from the US Congress. She suggested otherwise.

Ye Htut

In 2011, he was excited about Thein Sein’s invitation to peace talks. He had met Ye Htut (the president’s spokesman) the year before and had been impressed.

Harn Yawnghwe,

bonhomie?

A newer type of businessman (and woman) also emerged, not cronies attached to army elites but self-made entrepreneurs, many of them working in the fast-expanding tourism and IT sectors.

The Yucheng Group was a Chinese financial company owned by a thirty-something-year-old entrepreneur named Ding Ning. Its

In 2012, they worried that Aung San Suu Kyi was not building enough of a team, and so, when she visited the Foreign Office in London that year, they had deliberately walked her past offices filled with staff before meeting foreign secretary William Hague “so she could be shown he did not work alone.”

rebuffed.

rigmarole.”

teetotaler

There was also little in the way of succession planning.