Tango with China

By Pho Thar Aung

September 16, 2003-Since the massacre in Upper Burma on May 30, many have been waiting for China to use its influence to force the generals to face up to their misdeeds. But Beijing has continued with stoic support, saying they will not interfere in another nation's affairs.

China has been a good friend to virtually all of Burma's regimes since 1948. Beijing has furnished its neighbor with aid and arms, despite regular attempts by regime leaders in Rangoon to crush communists inside Burma's borders.

Anti-Chinese fervor simmered throughout Burma after the speech and came to a head in June 1967 when rioters attacked Chinese people and businesses in Rangoon.

Even when Burma was ruled by a civilian government, ties with China were strong. There were regular cultural missions and exchanges between Rangoon and Beijing in the early 1960s. Beijing's approach to Rangoon has been relatively consistent, except for during China's overly nationalist Cultural Revolution.

Ordinary Burmese people never resented magnanimous aid flows from China and rarely viewed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League and the Burma Socialist Program Party governments as being under Beijing's thumb. In fact, the people of Burma have always treated the Chinese with affection. Chinese people are sometimes called "paukphaw" (kinsmen) and chubby children with fair complexions used to be nicknamed Mao Zedong.

Relations between China and Burma have soured only once, when Gen Ne Win and the Revolutionary Council inspired anti-Chinese riots towards the end of the 1960s. The riots were triggered after Ne Win responded to public jibes that he was of Chinese descent. During a speech at Rangoon University in 1965, the dictator emphatically denied he had any Chinese heritage and explained that he even had his ears pierced when he was a boy, as was common in traditional Burmese villages. Ne Win's chauvinistic defense turned into jingoism and his attitude ended up offending China.

Anti-Chinese fervor simmered throughout Burma after the speech and came to a head in June 1967 when rioters attacked Chinese people and businesses in Rangoon. Exact details on the number of injured and killed were never released, and the incident was shrouded in the same kind of secrecy seen after the recent ambush in Depayin. At least one staffer from the Chinese Embassy was killed. This enraged leaders in China, who came to see Burma as unfriendly and ungrateful.

Before the violence in June, Chinese leaders had repeatedly assured Rangoon that the hundreds of Burmese communists isolated in China's southern Sichuan Province would not be allowed to cross the border into Burma and launch an attack on the Burma Army. But the riots gave Beijing a reason to renege, and China encouraged the Burmese to return with as much weaponry as they could carry.

China now sticks to a non-interference approach in dealing with Rangoon, and has recently said it believes Burma can solve its own problems. But this has not always been Beijing's way.

The Communist Party of Burma (CPB), composed mainly of Burman and Kachin members, crossed the China-Burma border in January 1968 and set up bases and "liberated areas" inside Burma. They launched new offensives around the Salween river in Shan State and in areas north of the road between Kengtung and Taunggyi.

The offensives shook the resolve of leaders in Rangoon and drove Kuomintang troops from some of their stations in Shan State. This pleased China, who had feared the threat of the Kuomintang in the South.

Animosity between Burma and China escalated. Aung Gyi-a key figure in Ne Win's Revolutionary Council before being ousted and jailed-wrote to Ne Win from Insein Prison to convince him that the Burmese communists were a growing threat. According to Aung Gyi, the Burmese communists were planning to help open Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh trail. He told Ne Win that China needed to be engaged in order to stop the CPB's rise.

Aung Gyi begged Ne Win to let him travel to China and broker a truce with Chinese leaders. But Ne Win was smarter than that-he decided to go to Beijing himself.

Ne Win arrived in 1971 and despite his strong anti-Chinese attitude, he humbly cajoled leaders in Beijing. Not only did he get the Chinese to stop supporting the communists, he also managed to repair the broken friendship. Aid was restored and the two nations signed a trade agreement, giving each favored nation status. From then on, Ne Win made regular trips to Beijing.

Since Rangoon mended relations with Beijing, CPB leaders at Panghsang, Shan State, have struggled to find a way to stand on their own feet. Rangoon, on the other hand, has been maintained by generous military and economic aid from China.

China now sticks to a non-interference approach in dealing with Rangoon, and has recently said it believes Burma can solve its own problems. But this has not always been Beijing's way. In 1963, it helped broker peace talks between the military government and the armed opposition groups. In 1980, China brought the CPB and the Kachin Independence Organization to the table and helped Rangoon map out a blueprint for the ceasefire agreements signed after 1989.

What would it take to turn China against the junta again? History has shown China does have the will to interfere. But with the relative quiet on the China-Burma border right now, Beijing is expected to keep a friendly distance.

Pho Thar Aung lives in exile and is a veteran member of the Communist Party of Burma.