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Yangon still under Beijing's
thumb
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - While the sacking of Myanmar's
prime minister Khin Nyunt in mid-October last year
might have taken China by surprise, his exit from
the power structure appears not to have weakened -
as India had hoped - Beijing's influence in the
country. China's influence in Myanmar seems well
protected by the significant dependence of the
military junta in Yangon on Chinese weapons and
investment.
Khin Nyunt was widely regarded
as pro-China. His arrest and subsequent ouster for
"corruption" was therefore seen in Delhi as the
removal of a big obstacle in the path of India's
growing quest for influence in Myanmar. India and
China, Myanmar's two large neighbors, are
competing for influence in the country. But unlike
India's more recent wooing of Myanmar's generals,
China's ties with them are well-entrenched.
In fact, Myanmar's close relations with
China go back several decades. And analysts have
often drawn attention to the fact that Myanmar's
ties with China are marked with several "firsts".
Myanmar was the first country outside the
communist bloc to recognize the People's Republic
of China in 1949, the first to conclude a Treaty
of Friendship and Mutual Non-Aggression with the
nation, the first to achieve a boundary settlement
in 1961, and one of the first to patch up
relations with China after the Cultural Revolution
which was officially declared over in 1977.
Since 1988, when Myanmar's army seized
power in a bloody coup, China has been the
military junta's staunchest ally. The ruling junta
is shunned by the West for its abysmal
human-rights record and for its stubborn refusal
to hand power to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, whose National League for Democracy won
around 80% of the seats in the 1990 elections.
China has been among the few countries that have
refrained from criticizing the ruling generals for
the bloody coup or for their utter contempt for
democratic norms since then.
Myanmar's
generals see China's substantial economic,
military and political support as vital, in a
world where they have few powerful friends. China
is officially Myanmar's third-largest trading
partner after Singapore and Thailand - though the
figure probably underestimates the substantial
informal trade that takes place across their
shared border. China has provided Myanmar with
more than US$200 million in economic assistance.
It has helped with the development of Myanmar's
infrastructure - the construction of roads,
railroads, airfields, ports and dams throughout
the country. And China is believed to be the
largest foreign investor in Myanmar, though the
size of this investment is not recorded and not
visible in international statistics.
China
is also Myanmar's most important defense ally,
supplying most of its military hardware and
training. Over the past decade, China's military
sales to Yangon, which include jet fighters,
armored vehicles and naval vessels, have been
valued at around $2 billion. This has made the
Myanmar military - the second largest in Southeast
Asia after Vietnam - much more technically
sophisticated. It has enabled the army to expand
from 180,000 men to more than 450,000 today.
Khin Nyunt is believed to have played a
substantial role in expanding and deepening this
relationship with China, and his departure from
Myanmar's political scene was therefore seen as a
setback to China's role in Myanmar. This
perception was further strengthened by the junta's
top leader, General Than Shwe, who is also the
commander-in-chief of its defense forces, going
ahead with his visit to India - the first by a
Myanmarese head of state in 25 years - within a
week of Khin Nyunt's ouster.
A significant
warming in the India-Myanmar relationship was
visible during Than Shwe's visit, contributing to
some jubilation in New Delhi that its decade-long
efforts to woo the generals were slowly paying
off. The exit of Khin Nyunt, especially in light
of Than Shwe's visit to India, was viewed in Delhi
as likely to result in a possible tilt in
Myanmar's equations with its two giant neighbors
in India's favor. Such hopes have, however, been
dismissed by analysts such as Mohan Malik,
professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security
Studies in Honolulu, who warn that "expectations
of a major strategic shift" in Yangon's foreign
policy are "premature and unwarranted".
Indeed, while Than Shwe indicated through
his India visit that he was willing to romance
Delhi, the military junta quickly took steps to
reassure China of its friendship. Within days of
Than Shwe's visit to India, the new prime
minister, Lieutenant General Soe Win, visited
China. Myanmar's Chief of General Staff General
Thura Shwe Mann went to China soon after. During
his visit, China and Myanmar signed a memorandum
of understanding on the establishment of a border
defense talks mechanism and the management of
border affairs.
These events indicate that
notwithstanding Khin Nyunt's exit, Myanmar, on
account of its substantial dependence on China's
political, diplomatic, economic and military
support, is unlikely to disturb its relationship
with Beijing. While it might be keen to improve
ties with India and has shown considerable
sensitivity to India's concerns regarding
anti-India insurgents taking sanctuary on Myanmar
soil, this is not going to be at the cost of its
ties with China.
How Beijing
benefits
It is not just the junta that is
keen on not shaking the Myanmar-China
relationship. Beijing too is anxious to ensure
that its influence in Myanmar is not eroded.
Economic ties with Myanmar are viewed in Beijing
as vital to the economic development of its own
impoverished provinces in the southwest - Yunnan,
Sichuan and Guizhou. More importantly, Beijing
sees Myanmar as an important path through which it
can expand its strategic influence into Southeast
Asia and the Indian Ocean.
Malik argues:
"An objective and realistic assessment of China's
strategic and economic needs and Burma's
[Myanmar's] predicament shows that Beijing is
unlikely to easily give up what it has already
gained in and through Burma ... Beijing will use
all means available to keep Burma under its thumb.
Clearly, Beijing did not provide diplomatic
protection, arms, aid and finance - all on very
generous terms - to Rangoon [Yangon] in its hour
of need for nothing."
Two reasons why
China will double its efforts to ensure its
influence in Myanmar are India's growing role in
Myanmar and also Myanmar's declining dependence on
Beijing. Sources in India's Ministry of External
Affairs maintain that while China is miles ahead
of India in the race to woo the generals and is
nowhere near dislodging China as the junta's
staunchest ally, India's influence in Myanmar is
growing. They admit that China is unlikely to sit
back, while India slowly builds its ties with the
generals.
Besides, today Myanmar is not
quite so friendless. At one time it had no other
choice than to be completely dependent on China.
Today, it has other options. It can look to India,
Japan and the members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations and has been diversifying
its economic and defense partners. Moreover, it is
said that members of the military junta,
especially people such as Maung Aye, the second
most powerful man in Myanmar, are keen to reduce
the country's dependence on China.
Another
factor that has prompted the generals' growing
wariness of China's influence in Myanmar is the
serious influx of ethnic Chinese into the country.
There are stretches of land in Myanmar that are
completely peopled by Mandarin-speaking ethnic
Chinese and more than a million Chinese are said
to have moved into Myanmar over the past decade.
This influx is believed to have changed the
demographic makeup of the country's north. Myanmar
people are said to be very unhappy with the influx
of Chinese, a development that they blame on the
junta's embrace of the Chinese government.
This, added to the groundswell of
discontent against the generals in Myanmar, is
prompting the junta to rethink its excessive
dependence on China and it's encouragement of
Beijing's role in the country. An attempt to break
out of China's control was visible from the late
1990s onwards. China responded by twisting the
generals' arms. For instance, it insisted that
Myanmar pay interest on loans that had originally
been granted interest-free when the junta sought
closer defense ties with other countries in the
region.
The exit of Khin Nyunt is sure to
have unsettled China. And China is unlikely to
take the development quietly. Neither is it likely
to be comforted by mere assurances from the
generals that the Sino-Myanmar relationship will
remain unchanged under the new dispensation in
Yangon. It will expect Myanmar to show its loyalty
to Beijing by not moving too enthusiastically in
India's direction.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
researcher/writer based in Bangalore, India. She
has a doctoral degree from the School of
International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
in New Delhi. Her areas of interest include
terrorism, conflict zones and gender and conflict.
Formerly an assistant editor at Deccan Herald
(Bangalore) she now teaches at the Asian College
of Journalism, Chennai.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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