Page 2 of 2 Why China has it wrong on
Myanmar By Bernt Berger
migration of Chinese citizens into that country. By providing arms to the
regime, Beijing has also disturbed government-society relations and helped to
shift the center of political power toward the military. 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.
Interference no longer narrowly implies the disturbance of a
smaller country's political and economic development, as it arguably did across
the developing world during the Cold War. Today, the conviction in the West and
many parts of the developing world is that social rights are integral to
political stability and development. Indeed, the lack of interference into a
rogue regime's internal affairs can have important humanitarian and
developmental implications for the global community. Insistence on human rights
and development is not just a way to pressure abusive governments, but because
of spillover effects, is increasingly important to maintaining global security.
Nonetheless, Beijing frowns on any external intervention toward Myanmar,
including a multilateral response led by the UN, because of the precedent it
would set. Observers have argued that Beijing fears a similar fate if in future
it proves unable to manage the rising number of internal challenges it faces.
However, despite its own spotty human-rights record, today China's pragmatic
Communist Party leadership is not viewed as darkly as the likes of Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe, Myanmar's General Than Shwe or other rogue governments
with which Beijing is known to have close ties. There are no serious external
initiatives to promote regime change in China, and whatever international
action is taken toward Myanmar's military junta is unlikely to set any
precedent for future action against Beijing.
China has recently said that no country in Myanmar's immediate neighborhood
seriously believes that the recent anti-government protests represent a threat
to regional stability and security. Yet even before last week's crackdown on
demonstrators, some ASEAN members had come around to view Myanmar as more of a
liability than an asset to the grouping's international standing.
Despite several diplomatic overtures, Myanmar has steadfastly ignored ASEAN's
urgings to improve its human-rights record and move toward more democracy. The
grouping's condemnation of recent events underscored its members' growing
frustration with the military regime and mounting concerns that Myanmar's
obstinacy could undermine efforts under way to become a more rules-based
organization.
If China's influence is to transcend merely maintaining good commercial
relations with regional governments, its handling of the crisis in Myanmar
represents an important test case. Yet all indications so far are that China
aims to support the status quo in Myanmar, reaffirming global perceptions that
Beijing's foreign policy is guided almost exclusively in pursuit of its
narrowly defined economic interests. Beijing clearly fears that international
pressure on Myanmar's leadership or possible regime change would harm its
economic interests, including in particular its privileged access to the
country's energy and natural resources.
After the Cold War, Myanmar's leaders learned to survive by strategically
playing their neighbors, namely India and China, against one another as they
competed for access to Myanmar's resources. The ideal scenario now would be for
China and India to join forces with the West in demanding political change in
Myanmar. If China appears now as a progressive force toward influencing
political change in Myanmar, potential future democratic governments will be
less likely to exclude Beijing from their list of preferred trading partners.
China is Myanmar's biggest neighbor and will inevitably remain a factor in the
country's future. In the event of possible regime change, presumably where the
military is knocked from power, any new government would be well placed to
leverage China's financial resources and technical expertise in managing the
transition. Yet any democratic-minded government that rises in Myanmar will no
doubt lean toward the US and Europe - which have long maintained economic
sanctions against the military regime - at China's expense.
China's accustomed role of blocking UN Security Council resolutions that
involve sanctions or interventions against abusive regimes no longer
necessarily reflects the spirit among other UN member states from the
developing world. Today, many countries, rich and poor, stand for
democratization, human rights and good governance and are ready to condemn
regimes such as Myanmar that routinely flout those ideals. It's a global
reality that China's leadership has, to its international detriment, failed to
embrace.
Bernt Berger is a research fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and
Security Policy, Hamburg (IFSH) and associate researcher of the Institute for
Asian Studies at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA).
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