By Prof. Kanbawza Win

It is not realistic to think that Beijing will listen to any voice from Burma, much less from the rank of the opposition, as it even view the Burmese Junta as rude, crude, rustic pipsqueak of little consequence, when every body knows that the dragon men are very pragmatic and happy with the status quo in Burma and elsewhere. The Chinese elites in Beijing do not nowadays want to change the world, but only their silk socks and satin jocks daily wrote the late Chao Tzang Yawnghwe.

The entire people of Burma have joined Olympic boycott over complaints ranging from Beijing’s human rights record to its failure to more actively press Sudan in the Darfur region that has killed at least 200,000 people. Currently Burma’s military regime has burned down or otherwise destroyed 3,200 ethnic minority villages, forcing 1.5 million refugees to flee their homes, while the Chinese slyly encouraged it by letting its arms and ammunition to continue to flow in. Beijing has closed its eyes as Burma recruited more child soldiers than any other country in the world.  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is locked up in prison along with 2,000 other political dissidents.  Despite its huge influence on the Burmese Junta, China refuses to call for her release. But the most important aspect is that the United Nations has been completely paralyzed, unable to take any action to prevent genocide in Burma, only because China has used its veto at the UN Security Council to block any meaningful actions on Burma, as a result, the UN is making the same mistakes it made on Darfur and Rwanda. In short China is partly responsibility for what is happening in Burma.

China not only graciously funds the dictator but also is the diplomatic protector for Burma’s military regime.  Adding insult to injury, the Olympics are scheduled to begin on August 8, 2008 — the anniversary of a major massacre in Burma.  On the same date in 1988, thousands of peaceful protesters were massacred by the regime during Burma’s largest democracy uprising.  Each year, thousands of people around the world commemorate this slaughter and honor those who spoke out for human rights and justice. What a mockery for the world to witness that the most populated country of the world to celebrate the Olympics on that day. Like the Berlin Olympics in 1936 that wrongly brought world acclaim to Adolf Hitler, the Beijing Olympics in 2008 are becoming a monument of suffering. We recollect how the English soccer team, in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, giving a Nazi salute of Hail Hitler the picture of impressionable footballers obeying orders from mutton-headed apparatchiks went round the world and became a lasting source of shame as even now Britain kow tow to the Chinese demand forbidding any of it athlete from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games. The US President George W. Bush said he would go to China for the Olympics but would not talk publicly there about Beijing’s policies. Because the two arsenals of democracy has bowed down to the men in the Dragon throne Beijing seems to construe that we Burmese activist should also do likewise?

Although China is not the only country engaged in Burma and did not carry sole responsibility for the emerging crisis, it is a member of the UN Security Council and thereby indirectly accountable for any actions that are, or are not, taken. In view of a regime that unscrupulously mistreats its citizens and spurns with impunity all standards of civility, Beijing clearly lacks a sense of urgency. Faced with the current crisis, however, China has reverted to its traditional stance of non-interference in another country’s internal affairs. In doing so, Beijing is not only arguably damaging its international image, but also squandering a unique opportunity to take an active and moral role in influencing Burma’s leadership. Globally, it could enhance its image considerably by acting as a responsible stakeholder. It could also distinguish itself from regional rival India, which so far has similarly preferred to deal with Burma’s crisis by looking the other way.

China’s policymakers understand that the effectiveness of US-led sanctions has been undermined by Beijing’s willingness to economically engage the regime. In the current situation, change can only come from within the military and China could use its channels, contacts and influence to convince the regime that now is the time to change.

However, China has in reality been interfering in Burma’s internal affairs for at least half a century. During much of the Cold War, Beijing overtly supported the Communist Party of Burma, which fought against government-led forces. China has invested heavily in Burma’s infrastructure, business and natural resources and has tacitly supported the waves of migration of Chinese citizens into that country. This kind of interference is no different from Western approaches to maintaining influence in their former colonies, and without a change in policy, China will continue to be subjected to accusations of neo-colonialism.

The latest round of protests in Rangoon in 2007 highlighted the futility of previous international democracy campaigns and non violent struggle. Some human-rights advocates have turned their eyes to China — to see if it would force reform in Burma, but China just made a feeble attempt to call on the Burmese regime to “show restraint.” Obviously it was more concerned about stability than democracy. Thus, human-rights activists and pundits are now urging Washington to threaten a boycott August Olympic Games. Washington Post columnist Fred Hiatt recently said: “Tell China that, it can have its Olympic Games or Burma (which also stands for Darfur and Rawanda)  It can’t have both. If a threat to those Games … could help tip the balance, then let the Games not begin. Some things matter more,” The message is loud and clear, either stops using your veto on the UN Security Council or do something to make this regime understand this can’t go on any longer or we will boycott the Olympics.

As a country that is determined to achieve its “peaceful evolution” or “peaceful development, it is crucial to take the non-military option at all point, in order to consolidate its soft power. Therefore, earning the world’s positive affection and attention are crucial to China’s resurrection as a responsible power in the eyes of global public opinion. US actress Mia Farrow has apparently understood this point very well, and threatened to have the Beijing Olympics in 2008 potentially classified as a “genocide game,” if China does not try to use its seeming influence on Sudan to put an end to the humanitarian tragedy in Burma and Darfur.

Isn’t the Olympic a non military weapon to force China to see to reason?

For months and years, pressure groups have been trying to use China’s fixation on the success of the Olympics as leverage to force Beijing to act on pressing human rights issues inside China and on Darfur, but the results have been negligible. China’s highly effective Internet firewall prevents the people of China to know these Olympics-linked efforts are underway. That makes it easier for Beijing to keep ignoring its critics. Nobody apart from the International Olympic Committee seems to believe the Chinese government will make significant human rights concession before the Games start. Every time a journalist or blogger is released, another goes into prison, China’s dissidents will probably be having a hard time this summer.”Yes, the Olympics are going to be a huge success and will demonstrate to the world that China is a modern, developed nation.” Deviations from that line are not always received well and sometimes elicit outright hostility. PRC ideology and the minds of the Chinese people “the West” seek to undermine China’s development to satisfy their own selfish strategic goals, and finally, barely smoldering resentment born out of a history of foreign imperialism in China.

Educated Chinese who speak out against their own government in the foreign media are pilloried on electronic bulletin boards as hanjian, traitors to their race, an epithet to which Chinese nationals working for foreign media organizations are also frequently subjected. The Chinese media is also fond of parroting government officials who label the US and West as human rights hypocrites, citing the usual suspects (slavery, imperialism, policy toward indigenous peoples) as well as tossing out a few new ones (weatherboarding, the invasion of Iraq). Whether one feels this is a valid defense or not, the salient point is that many in China accept the government line as unequivocal proof that foreign critics cannot be trusted.

In this case with Olympics sponsors, there is no such contradiction — these multinational corporations have no corporate credo about not doing evil, promoting free speech, or any other idealistic principle about furthering the human community. Instead, their own credo is maximum profits and maximum returns for their shareholders. Therefore, we are not surprised at all to hear that apparently, the vast majority of them consider activist protests against their participation in the Chinese Olympics as a mere public relations nuisance. Corporate sponsors, governments and National Olympic Committees should urge Beijing to improve human rights is very dear to our hearts. If so why did we award China, the Olympics with this record of human rights abuses, when the Chinese administration is evil and dangerous? Perhaps we are taking risk hoping against hope that China would see to reason in Burma and elsewhere, in the world without knowing that the sleeping dragon sleeps with its eyes wide open.

On the other hand, with the power of the Internet and its ability to facilitate communication and coordination of activism, these corporations may be in for a rude awakening if calls for boycotts and other actions against them reach a critical mass, due to their implicit support of Chinese repression. Public revolts against oppression — and those implicitly supporting oppression — are real and in many cases, are effective. The Burmese people inside and outside he country should make every available effort to highlight the situation as this is one of the best way to compel China to see to reason.

[Prof. Kanbawza Win (a) Dr. Ba Than Win, former Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Prime Minister of Burma, has served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Menno Simons College of University of Winnipeg and later as a Senior Research Fellow at the European Institute of Asian Studies, Brussels; and is now the incumbent Dean of the Students of the AEIOU Programme, Chiangmai University Thailand and an Adjunct Professor of the School of International Studies, Simon Fraser University, of British Columbia, Canada.]