Burma and its Neighbours

Abstract

By Bertil Lintner An Overview The importance of the “China card” in western strategic thinking began to decline in the mideighties as the dynamic Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched his daring economic policies and, in their wake, completely overturned Moscow’s traditional foreign policy. World-wide detente made the Soviet Union a dialogue partner, not an enemy, from the West’s point of view. Meanwhile, China was becoming an increasingly embarrassing ally: the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989 was a watershed in China-US relations. Human rights issues, and the fact that China’s previous role as a counterweight to the Soviet Union had become irrelevant, undermined the argument that friendship with Beijing was important to the balance of power between the “Western Bloc” and the “Eastern Bloc.” The final blow to this old perception came when communist rule was irrevocable overthrown in Moscow in August 1991. The subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, ushered in a completely new set of alliances on the international arena. China, realizing its diminishing international importance, became bus strengthening ties with smaller Asian countries in order to remain a regional power. China also began to stress bilateral relations with more important powers in the region and even announced that it was interested in promoting relations with non-communist political parties in the third world.1 Within a few weeks of each other in August-September 1991, China played host to Prime Ministers Toshiki Kaifu of Japan, John Major of Britain and Giulio Andreotti of ltaly; Heads of State King AzIan Shah of Malaysia and President Wee Kim Wee of Singapore; elder statesmen Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and former Polish Premier Mieszyslaw Rakowski; Foreign Minister Nguyen Ngoc Cam of Vietnam; and assorted legislators, press lords and senior diplomats from elsewhere. China’s Prime Minister Li Peng’s five-day visit to India in December should also be seen as an outcome of Beijing’s new regional concerns. However, two Asian countries seem to be of a more profound strategic importance than others to China as a new regional power: Pakistan and Burma. China for years has been a major arms supplier to Islamabad, and Pakistan was also a major conduit for Chinese military hardware destined for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The Karakoram Highway, completed in 1982, provided China with a direct road link to the Indian Ocean. Burma, on India’s eastern flank, began to develop into an important Chinese ally on 6 August 1988 when the two countries signed an agreement establishing official trade across the common border. This agreement was the first of its kind that hitherto isolated Burma had entered into with a neighbour. The present Burmese junta which seized power on 18 September 1988 after crushing a nationwide uprising for democracy, clearly saw in China a potent ally, especially when the leaders in Beijing staged a very similar massacre of pro-democracy activists in June the following year. China was one of the few countries that resumed assistance of Burma after the bloodbath in Rangoon in August-September 1988. On 30 September 1989, the chief of Burma’s dreaded secret police, the Directorate of the Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI), Brigadier-General (now MajorGeneral) Khin Nyunt, said in an address to a group of Chinese engineers working on a project in Rangoon: “we sympathize with the People’s Republic of China, as disturbances similar to those in Burma last year, [i.e. 1988] broke out in the People’s Republic [in May-June 1989].”2 The importance of relations between these two international condemned regimes Increased following a twelve-day visit to China in October 1989 by a twenty-four member military team from Burma. The team which was led by Lieutenant-General (now General) Than Shwe, included Khin Nyunt, the director of procurement, David Abel, and the chiefs of air force and navy. The visit resulted in a massive arms deal: China pledged to deliver US$1.4 billion worth of military hardware to Burma, including a squadron of F-7 jet fighters (the Chinese version of the Soviet MiG-21), at least four Hainan-class naval patrol boats, about 100 light tanks and armoured personnel carriers, antiaircraft guns, rockets, a substantial quantity of small arms and ammunition, and radio equipment for military use.3