[NYTr] Burma: China Has Much at Stake

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

IPS News - Oct 1, 2007
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39476

BURMA:  China Has Much at Stake

Analysis by Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 1 (IPS) - Jarring against a dearth of official news about
the turmoil in Burma, the ‘Southern Weekend’ -- one of China’s more
liberal official newspapers -- has chosen to run a lengthy feature
about an ethnic Chinese entrepreneur striking it rich in the jade
business in that neighbouring country.

But the feature was curiously apt. Describing the country as the "jade
kingdom on earth" where fortune is easily made as long as one is
hard-working, the article effectively perpetuated a centuries-old
perception here of Burma here as a country of riches from which
successive Chinese dynasties commanded a tribute.

Tellingly, the weekender article steered around Burma’s current state
of turmoil and the brutal suppression by the military junta of peaceful
demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

The event eerily resembles China’s own suppression, in 1989, of
student-led democracy protests. And it comes at a time when Beijing is
preparing to hold the 17th congress of its ruling Communist Party and
is wary of anything could jeopardise the country’s fragile social
stability.

However much the official Chinese press chooses to ignore popular calls
for political change in Burma, China’s rulers have a long history of
involvement in the country’s fortunes and hold a unique capacity to
influence its future.

Going back 800 years to the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongol rulers of China
invaded Burma three times. There were two more invasions by the
succeeding Ming Dynasty. And under the sway of the last imperial
dynasty, the Qing, Burma came to be regarded as a vassal state whose
kings were regularly sending tributary missions to Beijing along with
gifts of elephants.

This traditional patron-vassal relationship became fiercely ideological
under the reign of China’s communist Chairman Mao Zedong (1949-1976)
when Beijing wanted to establish itself as the leader of a world
revolution and take over the leadership of the communist movement from
Moscow.

Under Mao, China financed and trained long-running insurgencies over
the whole of South-east Asia. In Burma, it supported the now defunct
Burmese Communist Party, which several times came close to winning
power.

Over the years the Chinese grew to dominate Burmese trade in many
commodities, including rice. Resentment sometimes exploded into
anti-Chinese riots. Chinese shops and warehouses were ransacked and
Chinese homes burnt down.

Such anti-Chinese riots gave China an excuse to invade Burma in 1968.
In an undeclared war, that was little noticed because it took place
during the Tet offensive in Vietnam, Beijing sent 30,000 heavily armed
troops who rapidly occupied swaths of the country and forced the
government of Gen. Ne Win to negotiate.

But the effort to spearhead a communist revolution across the region
and the cost of subsidising large-scale insurgencies like that in Burma
had exhausted communist China -- itself impoverished and starving.

The death of Mao in 1976 signalled the end of an era of ideological
crusades and failed industrial campaigns. China assumed a low profile
in international affairs and concentrated on rebuilding relations and
gaining an economic foothold in the region.

Since 1990 China has been the only big country backing the military
junta that rules Burma, supplying it with aid and arms. Observers
reckon Beijing has provided the generals with more than two billion
dollars worth of arms and ammunition. In return, China has received
teak and gems, promises of Burma’s oil and gas reserves through a
planned pipeline and access to a large market for its cheap consumer
goods.

Around a million Chinese are said to have migrated to Burma, dealing in
trade, constructing dams and laying a road that, when ready, will
stretch from the Chinese border across Burma to its shores. Isolated by
western countries, Burma’s rulers have become ever more dependent on
trade with China. Two-way trade doubled between 1999 and 2005 to 1.2
billion US dollars.

Protecting its investments and business interests, China has also come
to play the role of Burma’s staunchest supporter at the United Nations.
It has consistently resisted action against Rangoon, insisting that its
behind-the-scenes political negotiations work better with the regime
than imposing sanctions.

While the international community deplored the bloodshed in Rangoon and
other cities last week, China blocked calls for a strong statement
condemning Burma’s repressive actions. China’s U.N. ambassador Wang
Guangya told the media afterwards that the situation in Burma did not
"constitute a threat to international and regional peace", the formal
threshold needed for Security Council action.

Yet despite appearances of inaction on Beijing’s part, foreign
diplomats here believe China would seek to exert pressure on the
Burmese military to prevent a repetition of the 1988 massacre, when
3,000 peaceful protesters were killed by the army.

"The stakes are too high for China," said one Western diplomat. "They
have been criticised for remaining passive in Sudan for far too long
and don’t want to have another Darfur crisis unfolding right at their
doorstep".

The approach of the 2008 Beijing Olympics has brought heightened
international scrutiny on China and its leaders are loath to see the
preparations marred by any association with a Burmese massacre that
some are already calling the "Asian Darfur".

In meetings with Burmese leaders last month, Chinese diplomats were
unusually forthright about the possibility of violent suppression of
peaceful protests that were gathering momentum in Rangoon and other
cities.

"China, as a friendly neighbour of Myanmar (Burma’s formal name as used
by the junta), sincerely hopes Myanmar would restore internal stability
as soon as possible, properly handle issues and actively promote
national reconciliation," the Xinhua News agency quoted state
councillor Tang Jiaxuan as telling visiting junta leader Gen. Than Shwe.

(END/2007)