As China continues to have problems with its own internal ethnic tensions, some of those it faces in Burma are richly ironic, but the entire situation is becoming more complex and fraught by the day.
- Michael Sainsbury, “For China, Burma is thorny territory”, The Australian, 8 September 2009. This old New Mandala picture provides some context for the headline.
19 responses so far ↓
1 jud // Sep 8, 2009 at 9:41 pm
A US citizen Nyi Nyi Aung (aka) Kyaw Zaw Lwin, brother of Burmese activist Thet Thet Aung, went missing after he landed in Burma on Thursday, September 3, 2009. His sister Thet Thet Anug, 35, mother of 3 boys, was sentenced 65 years in prison for her pro-democracy activities. Her activist husband Chit Ko Lay was also sentenced 11 years. Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s mother is serving a 5-year imprisonment. His aunt & cousin are also severing at least 6-year in prison.
Subject: Request Assistance in the Arrest/Detention of Ko Kyaw Zaw Lwin at Rangoon Mingaladon International Airport
http://democracyforburma.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/help-neededsubject-request-assistance-in-the-arrestdetention-of-ko-kyaw-zaw-lwin-at-rangoon-mingaladon-international-airport-us-burma-citizen/
2 aiontay // Sep 9, 2009 at 12:43 pm
While it was a good article overall, it seems to conflate ethnic Chinese with China. For example, yes Chinese businesses have always been part of the fabric of the region, but the Chinese running the businesses in many case have fled from the policies of China. I’m not sure exactly how Singapore splitting off from Malaysia really has anything to do with the Chinese government’s problems with Burma.
3 Bamar // Sep 9, 2009 at 11:59 pm
aiontay: “I’m not sure exactly how Singapore splitting off from Malaysia really has anything to do with the Chinese government’s problems with Burma.”
In Malaysia, the Chinese are discriminated and feared, just as they are in Burma. Singapore is a country of Chinese run by Chinese.
There are two major things that the Burmese junta desperate want to solve. The influx of Chinese settling in Burma worries the Burmese, this is one reason Chinese traders and new settlers are being targeted, quite probably and perhaps covertly encouraged by the Burmese junta. The second reason is that they want to be rid of the peace treaty groups and their autonomy of the border region. The Chinese now have their billion dollar gas pipe-line at stake. Do they side with the Burmese junta and wipe the Kokangs and Wa off to protect their gas pipeline or do they remain faithful to the long-term allies, the remnants of the Communist party?
History repeats, or perhaps the military junta is working on how to repeat their previous success along their border with Thailand. First, it closes off the Thai border trade as well as fishing rights until Bangkok began to squeal in pain. Then it demanded Thai cooperate with rounding up and handing over Burmese dissidents that were active on Thai soil. Then Thailand ceased being the sanctuary and arms conduit for the Karen National Union (KNU) which helped to escalate the fall and end of one of the largest armed groups which had been warring with the Burmese for decades.
If the Chinese cooperate with the Burmese junta, then the end is nigh for the various alphabetical groups on the Sino-burma border.
If the Chinese cooperate, Burma will be rid of the ‘alphabets’ but will have to put up with the influx of Chinese taking over Burma. China may choose to be loyal to their long-term allies, not because of scruples, rather as a thorn to twist into the Burmese junta on a rainy day.
4 Moe Aung // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:44 am
Whilst the Kokang happen to be Han Chinese on the Burmese side of the border, the Wa live on both sides of the border ( Mao first met these erstwhile headhunters on his historic Long March to Yenan). With the Kokang they made up the main fighting force of the Communist Party of Burma after it had lost its strongholds in the Burman heartlands in the mid 60s. They were trained and supported by China in the 70s and 80s, until they mutinied and toppled the Burman leadership who went into exile in Yunnan in 1989.
They remain a trump card for the Chinese which the Burmese generals are all too aware of. Strategic thinking on the part of the Chinese leadership may well change in favour of a democratic as well as stable Burma, not one in constant turmoil and lurching from one crisis to the next. The junta seems to have become too much of a liability, particularly when China’s main trading partners in the West begin to lose their patience. Burma after all hardly enjoys the same stature in the global scheme of things for China.
The junta on its part appears to have an endless capacity to offend international sensibilities by one misdemeanour after another, even as the West itself is dying to tap into the Burmese market, and looking for an excuse to ease the sanctions may prove politically untenable so long as Aung San Suu Kyi remains incarcerated.
The generals’ attempt, notwithstanding Suu Kyi’s plight, at cosying up to the US by defying China could end in tears since China is better positioned than the West to give the junta real grief in a very concrete way, and we are not talking about something pretty tame and ineffectual as sanctions here. Not an invasion but a proxy war of attrititon, perhaps even a revival of a communist-led rebellion and civil war.
5 Bamar // Sep 13, 2009 at 11:04 am
Moe Aung: “Not an invasion but a proxy war of attrition…”
That would be the last thing that both the Chinese and the junta would have in mind to happen – a lose-lose situation. On the other side of the spectrum, a win-win situation would be clearing the “alphabets” along the common border so that the gas pipelines can flow free and fast. This of course would create a bigger lose-lose situation with the international community as well as internally. ASEAN and its allies will feel the threat of Burma driven too close into the arms and influence of China. Internally, the wedge would widen for the hopes of unification with all the various nationalities. The junta itself does not want to be held beholden to the Chinese, hence its courtship with Russia and its bid at ‘cosying up’ with the US. There is no doubt that the junta is in the clutches of China. We have yet to see what the Obama administration would come up with in terms of changes of policy to wards Burma.
6 Moe Aung // Sep 14, 2009 at 9:50 am
Bamar ,
‘Clearing the “alphabets” along the common border’ is easier said than done without Chinese collusion. Even so they’ll simply be investing in future conflict and long-lasting animosity between the nationalities and the two governments. China will need both the ethnics astride the border and whatever colour Burmese administration they have to deal with happy with the overall situation for genuine stability.
Whilst China depends on trade with the US, Burma depends on trade with China. So it’s clear who’s got a hold on whom. That’s why the generals desire as many trading partners as they can attract, most importantly the West and hence the call for lifting of the sanctions. But they can’t afford to release Suu Kyi (they believe it’s political suicide), so they try the China card. It’ll be interesting to see what Obama does next, but I won’t hold my breath.
7 Bamar // Sep 14, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Moe Aung,
The junta would dearly love to have full control of their side of the Sino-Burma border. If China were to collude, they would have to put up with many more refugees on its side of the border and China does not need more population as it stands. There is no doubt the ball is in China’s court.
The junta did have a better outcome along the Thai-Burma border, Thailand also did not do too badly after colluding with the junta, as they did not have to put up with looking after the refugees either. Thailand is happy with the gas pipeline illuminating its metropolitan.
The situation of Thailand and China cannot be compared, but it seems like the junta is testing the waters with China for a similar outcome.
8 Moe Aung // Sep 14, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Bamar,
‘The situation of Thailand and China cannot be compared, but it seems like the junta is testing the waters with China for a similar outcome.’
Yes, I’m sure you are right about that. How China will respond to the situation will be more interesting and important than Obama’s predicted change in policy. The Kokang Incident as they call it seems ‘over’, but I don’t think the Chinese are amused.
9 Bamar // Sep 14, 2009 at 9:29 pm
China’s sway over Myanmar limited, says crisis group
http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSSP473247
” Beijing’s sway over Myanmar may be too weak to deter the junta from launching fresh offensives against armed ethnic groups on its volatile frontier with China, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a new report.
In a survey of the opaque relationship between China and its neighbour, the group found Beijing’s influence over the generals who rule Myanmar is more brittle than many human rights campaigners and Western diplomats assume…..”
Interesting.
10 Moe Aung // Sep 15, 2009 at 12:58 am
It is a common and crass misconception that the Burmese generals are puppets of the Chinese. Burmese have never listened to anyone throughout history, and you ignore Burmese nationalism at your peril. They are however definitely engaging in a game of dangerous brinkmanship. That’s why they’d taken Sen. Webb’s visit as a kind of green light to launch a planned attack on the Kokang.
Obama doesn’t even have to lean on the Chinese to tame the generals if that’s what the Chinese want. But is it also what Obama wants, never mind Webb? China may withdraw its support for the junta at the UN, or simply choose to support the various armed ethnic groups and breathe life back into the communist insurgency like they did back in 1968. That’s if it reckons the disruption will be only short term, since unlike four decades ago there is now a lot at stake in the way of Chinese economic and strategic interests in Burma .
Now that’s a very long shot, but if push comes to shove, it might do just that, short of an invasion. An all out war between the two countries however is very unlikely. They agreed to co-exist peacefully shortly after the modern states came into being, and the last time hostilities broke out was in the 18th century when China saw Burmese expansionism as a threat.
11 Bamar // Sep 24, 2009 at 4:10 pm
The United States has changed its policy towards Burma, announcing it will engage diplomatically with the military run nation.
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/200909/2695228.htm?desktop
12 Moe Aung // Sep 24, 2009 at 6:49 pm
The Depayin massacre and the Yettaw incident both resulted in a hardening of the official US position. Nonetheless you underestimate the power of the US business lobby at your peril. It is after all the driving force of American history; the rest is little more than window-dressing for a means to an end.
Witness how Obama, like Clinton before him, faces an uphill struggle with his health reforms against the powerful insurance and health industries, indicative of the substantial gap between rhetoric and practice.
Elsewhere too, witness the rapid demise of New Labour’s ‘ethical foreign policy’ in Britain. Witness India’s turn-around in her attitude towards Burma from a moral stance to that of unashamed self-interest.
To paraphrase Palmerston, “Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests.”
13 Bamar // Sep 26, 2009 at 2:14 am
Moe Aung,
Alas, Aung San Suu Kyi is not as savvy, smart, pragmatic, dogmatic as her father. If her father was in her place, he would have first made friends with the Chinese and Indians against the junta. Politics is about U-turns and turn-arounds (ref to India’s turn-around’).
Under General Aung San, the Burmese army trained under the Japs to fight the Brits and then later on sided with the Brits to drive the Japs out.
Aung San Suu Kyi has too many friends in the West, she needed to cultivate Eastern friends too, afterall they are the immediate neighbours.
In 1990, after the landslide victory results of NLD, she was said to be flanked by the Western Ambassadors while the Eastern Ambassadors at the distance were hoping to get closer.
When the junta was being isolated, Chinese officials were said to have claimed that the fate of the junta was in the hollow of their hand.
I am waiting to hear responses if any, from China and other world leaders to Obama’s change of policy. The only response I have noticed is from Singapore. I think ASSK has jumped in too early to support this announcement.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/24/myanmar.us/
(CNN) — Myanmar’s imprisoned pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday she accepted a new shift in U.S. policy toward her country, her spokesman said. “It’s a good thing, I accept that, but it must be the right engagement on both sides of the junta and the opposition,” Suu Kyi said …”
How is the junta going to respond to Obama I wonder.
14 Moe Aung // Sep 26, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Bamar,
I’m afraid ASSK’s Western education seems to overshadow her earlier school days in India and later sojourns in Bhutan and Japan. Too much of the Western liberal in her but alas not nearly enough of political acumen despite having studied PPE at Oxford.
I remember very well the moment she rejected U Nu’s offer of joining an interim government out of hand in next to no time in 1988. My heart sank as I realised it was over. The split in the opposition, the inability to work together towards the common goal of overthrowing the military dictatorship, and the fear of civil war as if it hadn’t been going on for four decades by then, sealed the fate of the uprising after so many had made the ultimate sacrifice. She had already done the army a favour by denying publicly she wasn’t trying to split the Tatmadaw that her father founded. They of course closed ranks given the wrong signal they received. She could most certainly have done a Cori Aquino otherwise and would have been the premier for the best part of the last two decades. U Nu after all was very old but still with a good following, and did not live more than a few more years; it would have been easy enough to get rid of him later in any case. It’s all spilt milk now, and you would have thought she’d transformed from someone still politically wet behind the ears.
You are absolutely right about getting China and India on side. They are our immediate and giant neighbours after all. And she certainly is not her father. He had no qualms about the people’s right to armed resistance for freedom.
15 Bamar // Sep 28, 2009 at 9:49 am
Moe Aung,
I thought the world was made up of two camps. One camp that absolutely abhors ASSK and the other camp that absolutely loves and adores her and thinks she can do no wrong. I thought my little ’stir’ against her may have solicited some bashing.
I thought with the case of U Nu the shoe was on the other foot. What U Nu said at that time when it seems that the army had conceded defeat was that: “This is legally my seat, I won it lawfully and therefore I want it back”. Personally, I blame U Nu, as far as I could remember there was no room for consensus and I don’t think she had a choice.
The other chance that ASSK had or worked towards was getting closer to the junta and perhaps in Khin Nyunt there was a glimmer of optimism and then the junta became very uncomfortable and uneasy.
It seems the world is doing a ‘wait and see’ stance over Obama’s change of policy. There may be a lot of talk going on behind the scenes but no public comment so far.
16 Moe Aung // Sep 28, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Bamar,
Most of us do belong either to the ASSK fan club or to the junta’s current and future beneficiaries club. Personally I feel she is still someone who can and should head the new Burma regardless of my own misgivings. U Nu’s lust for power was well known but an interim government was what the masses headed by student activists were calling for. He of course was the elected PM that the military had overthrown, and politics after all involves smart compromises and temporary alliances, but crucially at that moment in history a united opposition in a bid to topple the dictatorship.
People have also said she had no choice but to deny the junta’s allegations that she was trying to split the army, and to refuse U Nu’s offer, as it would tantamount to sedition and setting up a parallel government provoking a civil war. Yes, but together they could certainly have pulled a Cori Aquino. Clearly there’s always a price to pay in this scenario but the sacrifice of so many ordinary Burmese out in the streets of Rangoon and other cities all over the country might not have been in vain. Instead of merely riding on the crest of the tremendous wave of the popular uprising, it could have been harnessed to hammer and crash through the barriers once and for all by winning over part of the army to the people’s side, to rally to a unified opposition and authority. We could still do it round the next bend, come the fire next time.
17 Bamar // Sep 29, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Moe Aung,
Change is definitely in the air. With the junta’s PM talking to Obama’s senior ranks on the UN sidelines; with ASSK writing an open letter to Than Shwe, offering her services.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1503548.php/Myanmar-opposition-leader-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-pushes-sanctions-talks
Yangon – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has requested permission from the ruling junta to talk about lifting economic sanctions with the Australian, US and European embassies, opposition sources said Monday.
Burma, during Ne Win’s reign was compared to Suharto’s Indonesia, that comparison has stopped; we have also gone pass the seemingly opportunistic junture of Cori Aquino as well. Burma may not get the regime change it wants so much — not right away.
But we are looking at a marriage of convenience – a Mugabe/Tsvangirai; a Botha/Mandela — unpleasant as it may sound, a Than Shwe/Suu Kyi marriage. Than Shwe is getting on in age and he will not want a repeat of what he did to Ne Win.
18 Moe Aung // Sep 29, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Bamar,
I hope you are proved right but I won’t hold my breath. A marriage of convenience sounds good and even like that tradition of the royal houses of old, but the physical image doesn’t bear thinking about as you said.
Khin Nyunt was deemed moderate (though not something everyone will agree with) and change was also then in the air. Power sharing began to be mooted, but didn’t bear thinking about on the part of Than Shwe Inc., and the rest as they say is history. Some including Western analysts still talk about KN’s comeback, but does he have a real following in the army?
Unfortunately for Burma there seems no sign of a de Klerk on the horizon, no Tatmadaw knight in shining armour coming to the rescue of our damsel under house arrest.
19 Bamar // Nov 19, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Myanmar mulls railway link with China
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