By Prof. Kanbawza Win

A Burmese saying goes; the snake sees the legs of another snake, meaning we Asians can see the motive of another Asian. For decades people from the Dragon throne have laboured to portray that China is benign, well mannered, and friendly and have no ulterior motive whatsoever and is to be counted as the front man in the community of civilized nations. Now to the world, seems that their labour has paid off for the Chinese Dragon appeared to be not so scary and once the visceral fear felt in many of the business quarters had quieten and President, Hu Jintao’s  ‘Peaceful Rising’ has swayed some of the hearts and minds.

Gone are the days when the Chinese army help the BCP (Burma Communist Party) and party to party relations was not with the ruling BSPP (Burma Socialist Programme Party) but with the biggest rebel force of Burma exporting revolution in every neighbouring country. Chairman Mao, which the Beijing Radio coined a new vocabulary in Burmese as Ma Hà Ma Har (Greater than Great) Mao Tse Tung (not change to original Mao Hse Dong yet) topped the Western world rogues. Now a tectonic shift in global power, elicits an international response is free trade, which may explain why the Caucasians tend to over look its less savory aspects.More…

As far as Southeast Asia is concerned China has effectively blocked the United States in politics such as ARF or economically as ASEAN plus one or ASEAN plus three or even the Mekong projects, etc. Obviously all these make a perfect sense in the context of an on going regional trade boom linking China. It was able to make the former rival economies to cooperate and integrate with China controlling the economic say from Tokyo, passed through Southeast Asia on to New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay)

In Southeast Asia only the Vietnamese and the Burmese are wary of the Chinese encroaches. These are the only two peoples that have fought the Chinese for more than 2,000 years. The Indians have fought only very lately in the 60s. Every Burmese remember the battle of Ngasounggyan in1287 when the Chinese Mongols ended the first Burmese dynasty better known as the Pagan Dynasty and of course with fond pride when the Burmese monarch Hsinbyushin defeated the flower of the Chinese army invading our country posing as Yunannese army in 1768. The defeat of the Red Chinese army in the latest Sino Vietnamese War in 1979 ending the modern communist myth that a socialist country will never attack another socialist country, is still fresh among the Vietnamese who now trust more of their former enemy, America, than the neighboring China. Â It seems that the world have not experienced the wrath of yellow peril.

In Africa, China’s emergence as the largest outside investor and the trading partner can be construed as a mixed blessings. In the late 2006 as the Sino-African summit in Shanghai attended by 48 African countries and dignitaries highly praised Beijing’s promised double trade with Africa in 2010 by 100 billion dollars. But China’s minded purpose of raw materials and the way it has flooded the local markets with low cost clothing and other consumer goods have concerns that African economy will remain extraction based and never achieve the kind of manufacturing led revival which most of the Asian countries including Burma managed in the 60s.

On the surface, all appears well and good as the PRC and African states strengthen their partnerships. China’s strategy meets the immediate developmental objectives of the partnership. However, it fails to balance human and social costs with attendant economic growth. This imbalance, in conjunction with failure to adhere to international normative frameworks and practices, threatens to undermine the long-term ambitions of both China and other nations. The Chinese offer of an interest-free loan with no accounting required and on the terrain of traditional aid providers has caused apprehension among policy makers at the IMF and World Bank. They fear China’s pursuit of its narrow economic self-interests, coupled with its practice of noninterference, will prop up dubious regimes, produce a new cycle of unsustainable debt, and damage antipoverty efforts across the continent.

The Chinese Diaspora in Burma run everything from grocery stores and building material shops to restaurants and corner stores in even the most remote provincial towns. Beijing has zeroed in on pariah states like Sudan and Burma where Western firms are either barred by sanctions or constrained from doing business because of concerns over human rights, repressive policies, labor standards and security issues. The thirst of the  of China for commodities and its no-holds barred approach, together with its close political relationships with rogue elites, has led to an explosion in Sino-African and Sino Burma trade.

Isn’t this a Chinese neocolonialism, seeing a re-run of the policies of 20-30 years ago, while China has a poor human rights record and its disregard for international frameworks for accountability? The elites in Burma, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Angola do not seem to share these sentiments. The Western donors tend to place emphasis on transparency and human rights. This reality is nowhere more evident than in Burma which provides a classic example of the negative dynamic critics point to Sino-Burma ties. As Western nations have imposed sanctions, divested and pulled their companies out of Rangoon, China has taken the opposite tack – heavily investing in the oil-rich nation. With the Shwe Gas pipe line in Arakan state, Rangoon is expected to supply progressively more of the People’s Republic of China’s energy needs. ‘Development by China’ is a calculated move on Beijing’s part. The presence of a Chinese Diaspora and access to coveted business contracts for Chinese companies are all linked to one powerful card Beijing wields – its tied aid and loans. The Burmese democrats predict that Burma will soon become the ‘Autonomous Region of China’ like Tibet. This is a peaceful Chinese colonialism without an empire.

Chinese investment in Burma, like any shot in the arm, appears good for the Burmese people in the short term. Although the benefits of money flowing in right now are accruing to the military elites, the potential for the net of benefits spreading wider is undeniable. The Burmese Generals need to rectify its current plight to focus on strengthening the institutions needed to correct its problems — the state, the legal framework, corporate business, trade unions, rule of law and the political party system. Local political will is one half of the equation.

Need a Rethinking of the US Policy

The strategic landscape in Southeast Asia has begun to change in ways that demand a rethinking of U.S. policy towards Burma. China’s economic and military capabilities have grown dramatically at a time when China’s traditional security concern, Russia, has faded. Japan remains a long-term, but not an immediate security problem for China. This has left China free, in geopolitical terms, to shift its attention to the south. The most striking manifestation of this development has been a very assertive policy toward the South China Sea; i.e., the entire sea and all the land outcroppings within it are claimed as Chinese sovereign territory. This has been accompanied by a number of statements from senior Chinese civilian and military officials that seem to presage a kind of Chinese Mon-roe Doctrine for South-east Asia-a modern reprise of the historic preponderance of the Middle Kingdom. This, plus China’s recent resort to bare knuckled military intimidation aimed at Taiwan, has reinforced a growing perception in Southeast Asia of China as a major security factor-and perhaps a threat. The discovery of Chinese facilities on a reef near to, and claimed by, the Philippines did nothing to dispel these concerns.

Southeast Asian uneasiness concerning Beijing’s capabilities and intentions also has been fed by China’s growing presence in Burma. On August 6, 1988, even as pro-democracy demonstrators clashed with police in Rangoon, China and Burma signed a border-trade agreement. Two months later a high level Burmese delegation went to China and the first shipment of Chinese arms arrived in Burma the following August. Thus began an increasingly intense relationship that has seen Burma drawn deep into China’s embrace. Veteran Southeast Asia correspondent, Bertil Lintner, recounts a conversation with a Chinese resident on the Burmese border who described one night time convoy of over 500 military trucks crossing the border from China headed south.  Economically, China’s presence, particularly in northern Burma, has exploded. In 15 years cross border trade went from $15 million to over $800 million on to one billion dollars. A flood of inexpensive Chinese goods now dominate the Burmese consumer market. Large numbers of Chinese traders and undocumented immigrants have changed the demographic profile of northern Burma. Today, Mandalay is described by Burmese visitors as a predominantly Chinese city dominated by Chinese money.

Chinese construction crews are now building and upgrading highways, bridges, and railroads through northern Burma to the sea, while Chinese officials describe Burma as a potential lucrative outlet to the Indian Ocean for Chinese trade. There has been occasional speculation, and some official concern, in Southeast Asia that China seeks more than trade along Burma’s coast. Lintner reports: “Most alarming, from the perspective of ASEAN, was the fact that some of the equipment for the Burmese navy had to be installed and at least partially maintained by Chinese technicians. To ASEAN strategists, this meant that the Chinese had gained a toehold in the maritime region between India and Southeast Asia for the first time.”

From a geopolitical perspective, Burma’s approach to its huge northern neighbor is anomalous. The obvious point is that Burma has developed increasingly close ties with the only country in the world, that is in a position to seriously threaten its vital security interests. The issue is whether the Burmese Generals have fully thought through the implications of their policy. When this question was posed to Burmese military intelligence officers, it was evident that the whole issue was the subject of great interest and no little controversy among them. The Burma-China connection has captured the attention of ASEAN. The basic ASEAN approach to Burma has been “Constructive Engagement,” i.e., normal relations with an effort to build economic and political ties to Rangoon. As such it is diametrically opposed to U.S. policy and has been the subject of recurring debate between ASEAN and Washington. ASEAN believes that a policy of isolation and pressure toward Burma only heightens the regime’s insecurity, causing it to resort to greater repression at home and to turn to it’ only perceived friend abroad-China. China is using Burma to extend its military and political reach in the region.

An economic relapse will have the pernicious effect of reinforcing the Junta’s siege mentality, exacerbating its tendency toward police state methods. Such an economically hard pressed regime will be likely to increase its collaboration in the narcotics trade and to turn to China. The result will be more cross border migration and increasing control of the economy by well-capitalized Chinese traders, at least in the northern parts of the country. More far-fetched, but not impossible, is an absorption of some of the country along the lines of Tibet. For many ethnic groups, their historical experience with the Chinese has been better than that with the Burmese, and the de facto territorial integrity of a poor, weak, and divided nation cannot be taken for granted.

Current US policy toward Burma authentically reflects American political values and is morally validated by the long record of human rights outrages by the Burmese regime. But Washington must ask itself whether current policy meets two other tests: First, does it have any realistic prospect of success in altering the character of the Burmese regime? And secondly does it jeopardize U.S. strategic and foreign policy interests in Southeast Asia, particularly as they relate to China and ASEAN? Chinese investment in Burma is grossly underestimated because it does not go through the National Investment Board. Chinese trade seems greatly undervalued and Chinese immigration into Burma has been extensive (estimates range from three to four million Chinese now in the country, compared to several hundred thousand before 1988). Three quarter of Mandalay is said to be Yunnanese Chinese, as is one-half of Lashio and the major Burmese cities.

Nor is there any open Chinese sympathy for the plight of its leader, Daw Suu, held under house arrest at her home outside Rangoon for nearly a dozen year? Within Burma, critics of NLD policies call for greater efforts to forge ties between the Burmese opposition and China, arguing that such a strategy would undermine the military regime’s propagandistic claim that Suu Kyi is just a puppet of the West. It can’t have escaped Beijing’s notice that Suu Kyi has never openly criticized China or its ties with Rangoon. Chinese foreign policy pundits must also be aware that Suu Kyi has also never expressed clearly pro-Western sentiments. Her aides describe her as a nationalist and maintain she would never, for instance, allow an American military presence in Burma—another source of comfort for Beijing. But the people at the Dragon throne deliberately did not do anything with Daw Suu, lest their support to the Junta might wane.

Burma offers China a direct route to the Indian Ocean, and railroad and oil pipeline projects are under scrutiny in Beijing and Rangoon. The oil pipeline would connect Kunming, capital of China’s Southwestern Yunnan Province, and Akyab on the Burmese coast, cutting 1,200 km from the present sea route between the Persian Gulf and China’s Guangdong Province, via the Straits of Malacca. More than 60 percent of China’s oil travels this route

The Invisible Pressure of Beijing

China is generally pretty thick-skinned about human-rights criticisms. Its practices at home leave much to be desired, and it does business with more than its share of unsavory regimes abroad. But genocide to the ethnic Karen is different, and Beijing knows it. China is already embarrassed by its support for Burma in vetoing the UN Security Council. Surely Beijing does not want the world to see it as the main obstacle to sending a U.N. force to end the killing in Burma. But right now, that is exactly the case. Other countries, like Russia, are also hanging back. But if China dropped its objections, they would probably follow its lead.

China’s leaders now see Burma as the cornerstone of their strategy toward Southeast Asia. It is no coincidence that the generals announced the planned resumption of the National Convention in mid-July just as the Junta’s Prime Minister Thein Sein arrived in southwest China. He briefed senior Chinese leaders on the country’s constitutional drafting process and the subsequent referendum. Thein Sein was given a lesson in Chinese-style democracy as he was the guest of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress. This is likely to involve borrowing some significant components from the Chinese system – and may mean adopting a National People’s Congress approach to parliamentary democracy and following the Chinese constitution on giving some form of ceremonial autonomy to ethnic areas.

But, China’s leaders have consistently feared that Burma’s military junta lacked real legitimacy and could collapse overnight, leaving Beijing powerless and its military and economic investment in the regime worthless, according to a senior CCP cadre who deals with foreign-policy issues. China’s greatest fear remains that Burma is extremely unstable and poses a security risk, especially along its southern border. More than a million Chinese – farmers, workers and business people – have crossed into Burma in the past 10 years and are working and living there. The Chinese authorities fear that any upheaval in Burma would result in a mass exodus of Chinese back across the border, creating increased industrial and social unrest in their sensitive border regions.

China’s other concern is that Burma’s economy, far from expanding and producing business and investment opportunities for Chinese businesses, especially those based in bordering Yunnan province, is actually contracting. Two decades ago, China’s leaders and economists saw that the development of their relatively backward southwestern provinces would rely on expanding bilateral trade with its southern neighbors, particularly Burma. So far Burma has not fulfilled that early promise.

In the past few years, Chinese businesses and government enterprises have boosted their investment in Burma – Lashio, Mandalay and Muse are virtually Chinese cities now. The Chinese are also involved in the building of a special tax-free export zone around the port of Rangoon.  For the Chinese authorities, Burma has also become a strategic transit point for goods produced in southern China. They want to transport these by road to the Rangoon port for shipment to India, the Middle East and eventually Europe. Repair work is under way on Burma’s antiquated internal road system that links southern China through Mandalay to Rangoon. Now there are plans to rebuild the road through northern Burma to northeastern India. The Chinese have agreed to finance the construction of this highway using 40,000 Chinese construction workers, according to Asian diplomatic sources in Rangoon. Some 20,000 would remain after the work was completed to do maintenance work on the road. “Soon, the northern region of Burma will be swamped by the Chinese – government officials, workers, truck drivers and businessmen’ said Larry. It will no longer be Burma, but the autonomous region of China as Prof. Dr Khin Maung Kyi has predicted in his special lecture at the AEIOU, the Burmese university in Diaspora. The Chinese authorities are planning to use Burma as a crucial transit point, not just for the products grown or manufactured in southwestern China, but as a way of transporting goods from the country’s economic powerhouses along the eastern seaboard. By shifting the transit route away from the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait to using Burma’s port facilities to reach South Asia, the Middle East and Europe, they hope to avoid the dangers of crowded shipping lanes and pirates – the Malacca dilemma, as Beijing calls it,

Some time ago, the Chinese authorities decided that the only way to insure their existing investment in Burma was to strengthen economic and business ties with Burma,” said a Chinese government official. China already has major oil and gas concessions in western Burma, and is planning overland pipelines to bring it to southern China from Akyab to Kunming. The Chinese have also agreed to finance and build several major hydroelectric power stations in northern Burma.

But Beijing is also well aware that the Junta’s failure to implement political reform may backfire, not only on Burma, but on China as well and is slowly but silently pressuring the Burmese Generals. Already under increased international criticism for its unswerving support for what the international community regards as pariah states – especially Burma, North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe – Beijing has begun to take a more active role in trying to influence its allies to be more flexible. That has certainly been the case as far as Burma is concerned. Beijing has been far more proactive behind the scenes in pressing the country’s military rulers to introduce political and economic reform as quickly as possible.

The Chinese are now pressing both the US and Burma, behind the scenes, to start a secret dialogue to try to overcome some of the issues that keep Burma internationally isolated. Beijing is also unimpressed by Burma’s nuclear ambitions, and the recent deal with Moscow to build a nuclear reactor in the country. China’s leaders have already communicated their displeasure, according to Chinese government source, and warned them that they cannot rely on Chinese assistance if anything goes wrong.

According to Larry Jagan, China’s leaders were also extremely annoyed at Burma’s re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. “They no longer trust North Korea and were dismayed that two important neighbors had effectively gone behind their backs and resumed relations,” said a Chinese government source. Officially, of course, Beijing welcomed the development. But despite these irritations, China’s leaders realized that Burma is its strongest ally in Southeast Asia. For some time Beijing has eyed suspiciously the growing US influence, especially in what it regards as its back yard and natural sphere of influence – Cambodia and Vietnam, and to some extent in Laos as well.

China’s leaders now fear that in Thailand the opposition Democrat Party is going to sweep back into power if elections are held according to plan in December. The Chinese see the Democrats as avowedly pro-US and have already threatened to overhaul or rescind the free-trade agreement between Bangkok and Beijing. China’s only trustworthy and truly anti-American ally in the region is Burma, Rangoon has become increasingly important to Beijing and seen as pivotal to its relationship with Southeast Asia as a whole. While there may still be irritations between the junta and China’s leaders, neither side is going to allow them to endanger what over the past six months has become a very special relationship indeed. It is one in which Beijing is likely increasingly to give the Burmese Junta everything it wants, what ever the case the Burmese ethno democratic forces stands little to gain.

On 26th instant following testimony and an open debate, the UNSC has call for the rule of law and judicial redress to be respected and implemented. “If there is one thing we need to do above all, it is to end the culture of impunity which underlies so many abuses,” stated United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, while the United States Deputy Ambassador, Jackie Sanders, told the Council that “there are widespread reports of serious human rights abuses, including rape, by Burmese military personnel in conflict areas and other ethnic minority areas.” She went on to infer that there comes a time when, due to the lack of political will or capability of domestic government, the international community should consider intervening in the affairs of member states. The people of Burma are just yearning for that day.

[Prof. Kanbawza Win, aka Dr Ba Thann Win, former Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Prime Minister of Burma has served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the MSC, University of Winnipeg and later as a Senior Research Fellow at the European Institute of Asian Studies, Brussels, is now the incumbent Dean of the Students and International Director of the AEIOU Programme, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. He is also serving as a Professor of the School of International Studies, Simon Fraser University, of British Columbia, Canada. ]