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Clinton’s Visit to Myanmar Raises Hopes and Concerns

Political bubbling in Burma/Myanmar. The parliamentarians’ model for democratic politics? The West Wing. A great example of the operation of entertainment in global society.

Hoping to nurture what President Obama called “flickers of progress,” Mrs. Clinton will make the first trip to Myanmar by a secretary of state since early in the cold war.

One senior administration official familiar with the evolving diplomacy said he was convinced that the country’s leaders were embarking on a path of profound change, but that they were uncertain of how to proceed after so many years under an isolated, dictatorial military junta.

He cited a small but striking scene: Seeking to learn something about legislative and electoral politics, some new parliamentarians were passing around a DVD containing episodes of “The West Wing.”

“They’re coming out of a cave,” he said.

Related article: In Myanmar, Government Reforms Win Over Some Skeptics

“When I talk to Aung San Suu Kyi, she says, ‘Forget the past,’ ” Ms. Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein said. “She says have faith in Thein Sein. If she says that, we must have faith in him.”

Ms. Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein, who was imprisoned for seven years for opposing the military, has ample reasons to mistrust the government. Her father — a former deputy prime minister who was in power during the last visit by an American secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, in the 1950s — was jailed for seven years. Her mother was detained for three years, and so was her former husband.

But in an interview on Tuesday, she said she was very excited about Mrs. Clinton’s visit and her meeting with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Let the two smart women talk,” she said. “It’s unbelievable that Mrs. Clinton is visiting us.”

Mr. Nay Zin Latt, the president’s adviser, said in an interview that Myanmar was no different from any country undergoing radical transformation.

“I don’t see hard-liners and soft-liners,” he said, “just different points of view.”

“Some people don’t want faster change.” Others, he said, “say we are very much behind other countries, and we should go fast.”