Jiang visit cements Myanmar-China ties
The Washington Times
December 11, 2001
When Jiang Zemin, the first Chinese president ever to visit Myanmar, steps off his plane at Yangon International Airport on Wednesday morning, he will be giving the clearest sign yet of the growing strategic partnership between Beijing and the generals who rule Yangon.
Jiang and his wife, Madame Wang Yeping, will receive a 21-gun salute from their hosts and a personal welcome from Senior General Than Shwe, chairman of the ruling State Peace and Development Council.
Behind the formal welcome will be an informal acknowledgement of how much Myanmar's generals have come to depend on their collosus of the north.
Ever since 1988, when the present junta seized power after gunning down hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators on the streets of Yangon and other cities, China has been its staunchest supporter.In return, the junta provided a rare foreign voice in support of Beijing's brutal crackdown on its own democratic demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
But throughout the 1990s, while the West cozied up to China for largely economic reasons, Myanmar remained a pariah, with the United States downgrading relations by withdrawing its ambassador and banning American investment in the country.
This forced the Myanmar junta to look elsewhere for support. It looked no further than Beijing, which has provided an estimated 2 billion dollars worth of Chinese military hardware. These Chinese weapons, including fighter jets, tanks and warships, have made it possible for the junta to consolidate its hold on the country and defy the imposition of economic and military sanctions by the United States and most European countries who have objected to the regime's dismal human rights record and its refusal to accept democratic reforms.
Last Saturday, a group of 20 Nobel prize winners issued a public appeal to the junta to release some 1,500 political prisoners,including fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held under defacto house arrest in Yangon. It marked the 10th anniversary of Suu Kyi's winning of the Nobel Prize, although she has spent most of that time confined to her house guarded by military police.
The junta shrugged off the Nobel laureates' appeal and replied that it would introduce democracy to the country according to its own timetable.
Frustration over the junta's decade-long failure to make good on its promise to introduce democratic reforms has intensified since October 2000, when a special United Nations envoy to Myanmar began acting as a mediator between the junta and Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in a closed-door "dialogue."
Local analysts see the ongoing and and thus far largely fruitless negotiations as yet another attempt by the junta to cling to power while courting international legitimacy.
During his four-day visit, Jiang is scheduled to sign several economic cooperation treaties, increasing the already extensive penetration of Myanmar by Chinese businesses. On Thursday afternoon he is scheduled to fly to the northern city of Mandalay, where he will meet with junta representatives and members of the city's influential Chinese business community.
Recent visitors to the northern Myanmar, particularly the former royal capital of Mandalay, report that ethnic Chinese businessmen already dominate nearly all sectors of the economy. And Chinese financed construction is booming. Chinese immigration, much of it illegal, has changed the character of much of the country's north, submerging Myanmar culture and causing resentment among many of the majority Burman population.
It was resentment by the Burmans against foreigners, including the British colonialists and the large ethnic Indian and Chinese communities, that helped hatch the coup of 1962. Between 1962 and 1988 dictator Ne Win expelled thousands of Indians and Chinese as part of his economically ruinous "Burmese way to socialism." On Saturday morning Jiang is scheduled to return to Beijing by direct flight from Mandalay.