Page 2 of 2 Myanmar best bad buddies with
Beijing By Larry Jagan
relatively backward southwestern provinces
would rely on expanding bilateral trade with its
southern neighbors, particularly Myanmar. So far
Myanmar has not fulfilled that early promise.
In the past few years, Chinese businesses
and government enterprises have boosted their
investment in Myanmar - Lashio, Mandalay and Muse
are virtually Chinese cities now. Even in Yangon
over the past two years, Chinese business has expanded
enormously. The Chinese are
also involved in the building of a special
tax-free export zone around the port of Yangon.
"The number of Chinese restaurants in
Yangon has grown, and the quality of the food
served there is far better than in Bangkok," said
a Thai-Chinese businessman.
A few years
ago, when things looked bad for the economy,
Chinese workers and business people left Yangon,
according to an ethnic-Chinese businessman who
owns one of the best-known Chinese restaurants in
the city. "The clientele - mainly Chinese from the
mainland - steadily dwindled away. Now, it's
virtually impossible to get a table without a
booking," he said.
For the Chinese
authorities, Myanmar has also become a strategic
transit point for goods produced in southern
China. They want to transport these by road to the
Yangon port for shipment to India, the Middle East
and eventually Europe. Repair work is under way on
Myanmar's antiquated internal road system that
links southern China through Mandalay to Yangon.
Now there are plans to rebuild the road
through northern Myanmar to northeastern India.
The Chinese have agreed to finance the
construction of this highway using 40,000 Chinese
construction workers, according to Asian
diplomatic sources in Yangon. Some 20,000 would
remain after the work was completed to do
maintenance work on the road.
"When this
happens, the northern region of Burma will be
swamped by the Chinese - government officials,
workers, truck drivers and businessmen. It will no
longer be Burma," said a senior Western diplomat
based in Bangkok who has followed Myanmar affairs
for more than a decade. (Many in the West,
including the US government, do not recognize
"Myanmar" as the country's official name; the
junta renamed it from "Burma" in 1989.)
The Chinese authorities are planning to
use Myanmar as a crucial transit point, not just
for the products grown or manufactured in
southwestern China, but as a way of transporting
goods from the country's economic powerhouses
along the eastern seaboard.
"By shifting
the transit route away from the South China Sea
and the Malacca Strait to using Myanmar's port
facilities to reach South Asia, the Middle East
and Europe, they hope to avoid the dangers of
crowded shipping lanes and pirates - the Malacca
dilemma, as Beijing calls it," a senior Chinese
analyst told Asia Times Online on condition of
anonymity.
Some time ago, the Chinese
authorities decided that the only way to insure
their existing investment in Myanmar was to
strengthen it. "More than six months ago, China's
leaders sanctioned increased economic and business
ties with Myanmar," said a Chinese government
official. "This will be in all areas, but
especially the energy sector."
China
already has major oil and gas concessions in
western Myanmar, and is planning overland
pipelines to bring it to southern China. The
Chinese have also agreed to finance and build
several major hydroelectric power stations in
northern Myanmar.
But Beijing is also well
aware that the junta's failure to implement
political reform may backfire, not only on
Myanmar, but on China as well. Already under
increased international criticism for its
unswerving support for what the international
community regards as pariah states - especially
Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe - Beijing
has begun to take a more active role in trying to
influence its allies to be more flexible.
That has certainly been the case as far as
Myanmar is concerned. Beijing has been far more
proactive behind the scenes in pressing the
country's military rulers to introduce political
and economic reform as quickly as possible.
They have also quietly raised the vexing
issue of the detained opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi, suggesting that she be freed. But when
Thura Shwe Mann told Chinese leaders last month
that this was impossible as she still posed a
security risk, they backed off. Instead, they are
now pressing both the US and Myanmar, behind the
scenes, to start a secret dialogue to try to
overcome some of the issues that keep Myanmar
internationally isolated.
Beijing is also
unimpressed by Myanmar's nuclear ambitions, and
the recent deal with Moscow to build a nuclear
reactor in the country. China's leaders have
already communicated their displeasure, according
to Chinese government source, and warned them that
they cannot rely on Chinese assistance if anything
goes wrong.
China's leaders were also
extremely annoyed at Myanmar's re-establishment of
diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. "They no
longer trust North Korea and were dismayed that
two important neighbors had effectively gone
behind their backs and resumed relations," said a
Chinese government source. Officially, of course,
Beijing welcomed the development.
But
despite these irritations, China's leaders
realized that Myanmar is its strongest ally in
Southeast Asia. For some time Beijing has eyed
suspiciously the growing US influence, especially
in what it regards as its back yard and natural
sphere of influence - Cambodia and Vietnam, and to
some extent in Laos as well.
China's
leaders now fear that in Thailand the opposition
Democrat Party is going to sweep back into power
if elections are held according to plan in
December. The Chinese see the Democrats as
avowedly pro-US and have already threatened to
overhaul or rescind the free-trade agreement
between Bangkok and Beijing.
China's only
trustworthy and truly anti-American ally in the
region is Myanmar, so strategically the junta in
the new capital Naypyidaw has become increasingly
important to Beijing and seen as pivotal to its
relationship with Southeast Asia as a whole.
While there may still be irritations between
the junta and China's leaders, neither side is
going to allow them to endanger what over the past
six months has become a very special relationship
indeed. It is one in which Beijing is likely
increasingly to give Naypyidaw everything it
wants.
Larry Jagan previously
covered Myanmar politics for the British
Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a freelance
journalist based in Bangkok.
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