YANGON – Foreign companies and chambers of commerce doing business with Myanmar’s military junta face new reputational and potential security risks with a grave, new warning sounded by the National Unity Government (NUG) opposing coup rule.
Firms and business groups from Australia, China, South Korea and Thailand, among others, have continued to work closely with the junta regime, despite massive and increasingly armed resistance to the military’s February 1 democracy-suspending coup.
The NUG and other critics say those foreign commercial ties have lent a facade of legitimacy to the generals and weakened the anti-coup movement by providing the regime a financial lifeline at a time national strikes and other protest actions have deliberately hit the economy.