Burma´s Foreign Relations since the Third Indochina Conflict

Abstract

The principles and practices of foreign policy that allowed Burma to remain outside of the first two Indochina conflicts has also made it possible for the country to avoid embroilment in the third. However, to the degree that the third conflict has involved the extension of the Sino-Soviet dispute directly into mainland Southeast Asia, Burma has had to take account of new circumstances. Burma's policy-makers have long held that great power rivalry should be excluded from South and Southeast Asia because such rivalry can only be detrimental to regional stability and peace. For Burma, the linking during the 1970s of the Sino-Indian conflict on its west to the Sino-Soviet dispute posed problems similar to those resulting from the current Indochina problem on its east, and thus the present conflict is seen as an intensification of a familiar but seemingly intractable policy dilemma. Burma's rare public statements on world affairs between 1979 and 1982 indicated that in Rangoon's view, conflict in South and Southeast Asia had reached a new and more intense level because of further extra-regional linking of neighbouring states' bilateral conflicts to superpower rivalries. But while the Vietnamese alliance with the Soviet Union after 1978 has not, in the view of Burma, been beneficial to peace in the region, the improvement of relations to the level of an incipient informal alliance between China and the United States, coupled with their support for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has somewhat lessened Burma's security problems. These new circumstances have not, however, led to any radical rethinking of Burma's foreign policy possibilities. Because Burma lies at the divide between South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, and the government has chosen to pursue a socialist, mainly self-reliant, development strategy, Burma's foreign policy requirements have been different from those of the communist and capitalist states of Southeast Asia. Non-alignment and political, military and economic independence are principles the government has attempted to follow to their logical conclusions, and the country is free of military and political commitments to intraand extra-regional powers. In practice, Burma's foreign policy is based upon a search for friendly bilateral relations with all countries and reliance upon the United Nations for the setdement of general global issues. As the Council of Ministers reponed to the Pyithu Hluttaw (People's Assembly) in March 1982,