I have to say it is childish of the Burmese generals to dream about acquiring nuclear technology, since they can’t even provide regular electricity in Burma…
- Extracted from a wide-ranging interview with Thakhin Chan Tun, former Burmese Ambassador to North Korea: “Burma wants the bomb”, The Irrawaddy, 27 June 2009.
New Mandala readers who pay attention to such matters will already know that there has been recent analysis by some well-placed figures on the topic of the Burma-North Korea nuclear nexus. You can read tentative appraisals of this issue in pieces by Andrew Selth (February 2009 – he also wrote a longer report on Burmese nuclear ambitions in 2007) and Bertil Lintner (December 2008 and June 2009). Of course, commentary on this issue goes back years. A selection of earlier reporting takes us to July 2007, May 2004 and July 2001.
This week as a North Korean ship with a mysterious cargo apparently heads towards Yangon TIME explains “Why Burma may be North Korea’s best friend”. In that current analysis the nuclear issue lurks in the shadows.
Comments from readers are, as always, very welcome here.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Susie Wong // Jun 29, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I appreciate the details chronological of the events. I would like to add a few comments:
1. I think it is beneficial to explain the Burma military regime’s perception from Robert Jervis’s psychological approach dealing with motivational bias. However, I think the same approach should be applied to the U.S. and U.K. but from cognitive bias perspective because at the time their scholars were flirting with the “democratic peace” approach, which had led to the mishandling of Burma.
2. Both Albright and Rice were Russian experts with little knowledge of Asia, plus they were the product of the Cold War education, while the emergence of the 1988 Aug San Suu Kyi pro-democracy movement was the Post-Cold War Japan’s hegemonic challenge objective. The continue lacking of the theoretical knowledge of the Post-Cold War new strategic landscape and the changing of main actors in the arena, had led to the September 11, 2001 attacks. I feel the article did not differentiate between the two very different theoretical frameworks: the Cold War and the Post-Cold War. Japan, the main actor behind Aung San Suu Kyi, was completely not even mentioned in the article.
3. Maintaining the Cold War approach has made the article missed the crucial explanatory tools to explain the strategic interaction of the events. In other words, it can only explain half of the underlie reasons of why the events occurred. For example, the article continued to explain about China from the Cold War attitude when China’s role in the Post-Cold War is just the opposite i.e. India-China relationship.
4. I think it’s time to begin positive and constructive engagement with Burma. Isolating Burma would simply leave political and military vacuum to an undesirable outcome. In order to achieve that, the analyst needs to understand the Post-Cold War Grand Strategy of Hegemon. The hegemonic challengers and the Hegemon have the same Grand Strategy because we just have one world.
Thank you for the details information, I hope to have a chance for intellectual exchange at some point in the near future.
2 Sidh S // Jun 29, 2009 at 7:05 pm
What next after nuclear Myanmar – nuclear Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia??? Myanmar seems to now want to take the N.Korean route to geopolitical ‘respectability’ – and the N.Koreans are more than happy to aid them… The Junta can deter future Thai and/or ASEAN governments from raising the issue of ‘democracy’ and/or Aung San Suu Kyi by ‘testing’ a missile into the Gulf of Thailand or the Strait of Malacca???
3 aiontay // Jun 29, 2009 at 10:32 pm
How exactly was Japan the main actor behind ASSK?
4 jud // Jul 2, 2009 at 6:57 am
Burma’s military regime: Digging the tunnels
special report includes vdo material
June 24, 2009 (DVB)–New images have emerged that show North Korean and other foreign advisers in Burma consulting with officials on what now appears to be an extensive network of some 800 underground tunnels across much of the country.
While rife government corruption and uneven development in Burma yesterday awarded Burma a spot at the bottom of Foreign Policy magazine’s Failed States Index, billions of US dollars are now known to have been channeled by the Burmese government into building the tunnels.
http://www.dvb.no/english/nkorea-news.php
5 Nord // Oct 4, 2009 at 5:41 pm
It is all a proxy – the normal modus operandi of China – it is their LONG SAUGHT conduit to the Indian Ocean to dominate that part of the world …
They have tried via Afghanistan-Pakistan and that got thwarted when US joined the people of Afghanistan from a ghoulish Chinese Proxies reared and bred as Pakistani “Talibans” … a takeover that was taking place … Same things are marching on in Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, … all captured land properties of India in the last Chinese -India (Chines-Land-Grab-War – which they succeeded in and also so FELL Tibet !!!) while they used Pakistan to stretch and distract India !
So called “Maoists” are their normal gun-runner operations throughout the Himalayasa and now inside India as Naxalites, etc, etc. Nepal and Bhutan are near soon conquests on the heels of what they have achieved over Tibet (A COUNTRY that used to sign treaties with China, India, Nepal countries at one time AS a FULL FORCE LEGITIMATE COUNTRY in its own right!!!
Rubies and other HEAVY wealth booties go over to the RULING Chinese TOP LEADERS” COFFERS in exchange for CHINA sleazily gaining land-grab by proxy throughout Burma and the Burmese Junta is playing “pussy” for them … As Chinese put Dollars in the accounts of these Burmese leaders!!!
Great Chinese tunnel conduit for their HEAVY supplies, missiles, nukes, etc facing over the Indian Ocean nations … guess which one !!!
Burma is getting Chinese Nukes as and vi a China’s proxy … as North Korean Nukes …. Some Assembly Required … Or “No assembly Required for a few more Top-Grade RUBIES” !!!
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