Beijing's support for the junta in Burma has strengthened immeasurably over the past six months as China's leaders now see the country as the cornerstone of their strategy toward Southeast Asia. The internationally shunned military regime has become a crucial part of Beijing's policy toward Asia in the face what it fears is the growing influence of the United States in the region.
As a result, there has been a flurry of visits between the two
capitals, the most important being the recent trip by Burma's acting prime minister, Thein Sein, to Beijing. There has also been increased diplomatic and business contact between the countries as both governments have sought to strengthen their new relationship. Both countries are keen to boost bilateral trade and investment ties as well as develop social and cultural exchange programs.
But on the political front, irritations remain, with Beijing quietly pressing Burma to introduce concrete political reform as soon as possible.
"It is no coincidence that the generals announced the planned resumption of the National Convention in mid-July just as the junta's prime minister arrived in southwest China," Win Min, an independent Burmese analyst based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, told Asia Times Online.
The National Convention will have drawn up a new constitution by the end of the year, junta leader Than Shwe told a senior Chinese diplomat who visited Burma this year. For months it seemed the National Convention would not resume its deliberations until after the rainy season, possibly in November. It would seem that the sudden decision to move forward on the roadmap is a gesture toward Beijing. Thein Sein announced that this forthcoming session of the National Convention would be its last.
Thein Sein, who is also the key person overseeing the National Convention, reportedly briefed senior Chinese leaders on the country's constitutional drafting process and the subsequent referendum. At the same time, Thein Sein was given a lesson in Chinese-style democracy as he was the guest of China's parliament, the National People's Congress. The members of the NPC are selected through an indirect, tiered system that only allows direct elections at the first stage of the process, where delegates are elected who then elect representatives at the next levels - the provincial and then national assemblies.
"It is clear that the regime is now planning changes to the principles of the new constitution that have already been drafted," an informed source in Yangon told Asia Times Online. "This is likely to involve borrowing some significant components from the Chinese system - and may mean adopting a National People's Congress approach to parliamentary democracy and following the Chinese constitution on giving some form of ceremonial autonomy to ethnic areas."
Thein Sein is also believed to have outlined Than Shwe's planned sweeping changes in the military command and the shakeup in the cabinet, according to a senior Burmese government source.
Win Min said: "The Chinese have always been informed well ahead of time of any significant planned changes, with the exception, of course, of the arrest of [Myanmar's] former prime minister and intelligence chief, Khin Nyunt."
At the time Khin Nyunt was Beijing's main man in the military regime, and was often called Burma's Deng Xiaoping - something that angered Than Shwe. Now the Chinese have broadened their contacts with the regime, maintaining close and cordial relations with all three top generals - Than Shwe, Maung Aye and Thura Shwe Mann.
A senior Asian diplomat who closely follows Burma's affairs said China's leaders are "intent on not making the same mistake they did before by relying on only one ally within the regime. Instead, they have cultivated close contacts with all three men they see as the key leaders in the country."
For a while Beijing courted army chief Thura Shwe Mann, expecting him to be the main man of the future. He has made several visits to China over the past two years, including a secret trip to Beijing last month.
Now more cautious about its relations with the regime, China has been careful not to be seen to favor only one member of the junta. For years the Chinese leaders feared the possibility of Maung Aye succeeding Senior General Than Shwe as Burma's top leader, for they regarded him as pro-India and relatively anti-China.
But Beijing's attitude changed in the wake of a secret mission by Maung Aye to Kunming and Beijing in the middle of last year. He was hosted by Chinese military commanders and an understanding was struck, according to a senior Chinese government source in Beijing.
"Military men understand each other and talk the same language," the Chinese source told Asia Times Online. "They sat down together, talked and joked, as they drank strong liquor and got drunk together."
Senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) representatives from Beijing also told ethnic leaders they met in Kunming recently that they did not have a problem with Maung Aye.
Many activists from Burma have long feared that Beijing supported the country's rulers unquestioningly, but this has not been the case, especially in the past. China's leaders have consistently feared that Burma's military junta lacked real legitimacy and could collapse overnight, leaving Beijing powerless and its military and economic investment in the regime worthless, according to a senior CCP cadre who deals with foreign-policy issues.
China's greatest fear remains that Burma is extremely unstable and poses a security risk, especially along its southern border. More than a million Chinese - farmers, workers and business people - have crossed into Burma in the past 10 years and are working and living there. The Chinese authorities fear that any upheaval in Burma would result in a mass exodus of Chinese back across the border, creating increased industrial and social unrest in their sensitive border regions.
China's other concern is that Burma's economy, far from expanding and producing business and investment opportunities for Chinese businesses, especially those based in bordering Yunnan province, is actually contracting. Two decades ago, China's leaders and economists saw that the development of their relatively backward southwestern provinces would rely on expanding bilateral trade with its southern neighbors, particularly Burma. So far Burma has not fulfilled that early promise.
In the past few years, Chinese businesses and government enterprises have boosted their investment in Burma - Lashio, Mandalay and Muse are virtually Chinese cities now. Even in Rangoon 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 Rangoon.
"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 Rangoon, 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, Burma 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 Rangoon.
Now there are plans to rebuild the road through northern Burma 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 Rangoon. 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 Burmese 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 Burma 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 Burma 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 Burma, 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 Burma.
But Beijing is also well aware that the junta's failure to implement political reform may backfire, not only on Burma, but on China as well. Already under increased international criticism for its unswerving support for what the international community regards as pariah states - especially Burma, 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 Burma 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 Burma, behind the scenes, to start a secret dialogue to try to overcome some of the issues that keep Burma internationally isolated.
Beijing is also unimpressed by Burma'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 Burma'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 Burma 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 Burma, 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.