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China in Burma--Shadow over Asia



Errors-To:owner-burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx
FROM:NBH03114@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Burmese Relief Center--Japan
DATE:June 2, 1995
TIME: 8:33PM JST

CHINA IN BURMA: A SHADOW OVER ASIAN
SECURITY?

-by- Kenneth A. Mackay

BURMA, now known officially as the Union of Myanmar,
lies at the juncture of three regions within Asia: East Asia,
Southeast Asia, and South Asia.  The country, despite its
strategically sensitive geographic location, managed to
remain aloof from crises in other parts of Asia because its
leader, General Ne Win, who seized power from the civilian
government of Prime Minister U Nu in March 1962,
adhered faithfully to U Nu's policy of strict neutrality and
non-alignment.  Indeed, it could be argued that this policy,
pursued at a time when neighboring countries in Southeast
Asia were extremely unstable, was the most positive
achievement of Ne Win's otherwise oppressive and
reactionary regime.  A new military regime, the State Law
and Order Restoration Council (SLORC, known by the
acronym Nawata in Burmese), however, assumed power in
a "fake" coup d'etat on September 18, 1988.  Ne Win was
not pushed from power, but allowed a deeply loyal younger
generation of hardline generals to set up a new martial law
regime which depended on "the Old Man's" (that is, Ne
Win's) implicit support and influence.  Like Deng Xiaoping
in China, Ne Win remains in the background of the political
stage and the extent of his hold on power is unclear.

SLORC made major changes in the wake of its seizure of
state power.  It introduced economic liberalization policies. 
The "Burmese Way to Socialism" which impoverished the
economy for over a quarter of a century since 1962 was
abandoned.  But liberalization did not allow an indigenous
class of entrepreneurs to compete freely in the marketplace. 
Instead, the military
elite retained a tight hold on the economy while making
profitable joint venture deals with foreign capitalists.  They
have exchanged Burma's natural resources such as teak,
gems, natural gas, and fisheries for hard currency or barter
goods.  This has enabled SLORC, shunned as an outlaw
regime by Western nations because of its massive human
rights violations, to finance its operations, especially the
modernization of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese armed forces. 
Although foreign businessmen, including some from Japan
and the United States, flock to Rangoon (now known
officially as Yangon) in order to make investments, the
general opinion among economists and investment risk
analysts has been that the country is too unstable politically
to offer a promising environment for foreign business.  The
regime's lack of a coherent economic policy has been
another obstacle to foreign investment.  Vietnam, which
does have credible liberalization policies, has eclipsed
Burma as the "last frontier" for profit-hungry capitalists in
Southeast Asia.
A second major policy change under SLORC occurred in
the field of foreign relations: the abandonment of strict non-alignment in fav
or of close, friendly and even dependent
relations with Burma's giant northern neighbor, the People's
Republic of China.  By the mid-1990s, relations between
Beijing and Rangoon had economic, ideological and military
dimensions.  It is these issues which I will discuss in this
paper.  My argument is that Beijing is attempting, with
SLORC's collaboration, to draw Burma tightly into its
sphere of influence.  This policy not only benefits Chinese
entrepreneurs, especially those based in the adjacent border
province of Yunnan, but could give China access to the
Indian Ocean as Sino-Burmese defense cooperation
increases.  In the words of one Rangoon-based diplomat,
"(t)he Chinese have won through diplomacy what the
[Burmese Communist Party] rebels failed to achieve for
them on the battlefield ... Today China controls Burma
economically, militarily and politically".1   A vital equation
in this defense cooperation is China's sale or barter of
weapons to SLORC in exchange for Chinese, or Sino-Burmese, installations on Bu
rmese soil or in its territorial
waters.

China's assertive nationalism -- much like Japanese
militarism in the 1930s and 1940s -- threatens the stability
of the South, Southeast and East Asian regions.  Beijing and
Rangoon's close alignment throws a shadow over Asian
security at the end of the twentieth century, a century in
which the people of Asia's smaller countries have suffered
greatly from the aggressive and expansionist ambitions of
the great powers.

The Historical Background
Burma has not, like its eastern neighbor Vietnam, had to
struggle repeatedly for its national independence and
cultural identity against its large northern neighbor.  This is
because of its relatively remote location from centers of
Chinese political power (i.e., northern or eastern China)
over the centuries and the dominant influence exerted by
India on Burma's culture and religion.  There were periods
when strong Chinese dynasties intervened in Burmese
affairs, however, and caused considerable havoc.  In 1287,
Khubilai Khan, emperor of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, sent
an army through Yunnan Province (which had been an
independent kingdom called Nan Chao) to pillage the
Burman capital of Pagan, the "city of ten thousand
pagodas".  The Mongol incursion effectively brought to an
end the first unified Burman kingdom.2   Manchu Qing
armies invaded northern Burma in order to capture the last
successor to the Ming throne, Prince Yong-li, who had fled
to Ava (the Burmese capital) in the late seventeenth
century.  During the eighteenth century, competing claims
by Burma and Qing China over the Shan States, Chiang Mai
and Laos led the two countries to war.  There were three
Chinese invasions, including one led by the Qing emperor's
son-in-law, between 1766 and 1769.  On these occasions,
Burman and Shan forces, led by the great general Maha
Thiha Thura, were triumphant.  The Chinese were forced to
withdraw from Burmese territory although Maha Thiha
Thura wisely sought to save Chinese face by agreeing to a
de jure tribute relationship between Ava and Beijing.

In more recent times, China has on several occasions posed
a threat to the independent Union of Burma (1948-1962)
and its socialist, military-ruled successor, the Socialist
Republic of the Union of Burma (1974-1988).3   During the
late 1940s and early 1950s, the civil war between
Kuomintang (Nationalist) and Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) forces spilled over into Burma.  Kuomintang
generals, with support from the United States Central
Intelligence Agency, organized Chinese armies which were
based in Burma's remote Shan States.  Their mission was to
use Burma as a place from which to attack communist-held
Yunnan Province.  They wished to open a "second front"
against the Beijing regime, the first front being the heavily
fortified island of Taiwan.  Although the Taiwanese and
United States governments agreed to repatriate KMT
troops at the insistence of the U Nu government and 6,000
had been evacuated by 1954, Rangoon was obliged to make
a deal with the Beijing regime to allow 20,000 People's
Liberation Army soldiers to cross onto Burmese soil in
order to crush remaining KMT guerrilla units.  The latter
were forced to flee to the northern part of neighboring
Thailand.4

In the late 1960s, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
convulsed Chinese society and politics.  For a brief time, it
also caused a rift in relations between General Ne Win and
his Chinese counterpart, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong.  In
1967, Beijing's embassy in Rangoon began encouraging
local Chinese to wear Mao Zedong badges and participate
in Cultural Revolutionstyle activities such as Mao Zedong
Thought study sessions.  Ne Win's regime prohibited such
activities, and a confrontation soon emerged between local
Burmese and Overseas Chinese, especially Maoist Chinese
students.  Burmese mobs in the capital city attacked the
Chinese embassy and Chinese-owned shops and restaurants
and killed a Chinese official.  Bilateral diplomatic relations
were suspended.5

The most important consequence of the rift was Beijing's
increasingly generous support for the Burmese Communist
Party (BCP) armed insurgency located in the northeastern
part of the country, bordering China.  Through the skillful
use of personal diplomacy, Ne Win succeeded in
normalizing relations between Rangoon and Beijing by the
early 1970s.  However, Chinese support for the BCP
continued to be a point of irritation between the two
regimes.  The BCP was one of the most powerful and
effective insurgencies in Burma's frontier area.  Chinese
arms and money continued to flow to the BCP rebels even
as the two governments improved relations, and even as
Burmese leaders again described Sino-Burmese ties as those
of pawkphaw (Burmese, "kinsmen").

Beijing justified its two-faced policy toward Burma (friendly
state-to state relations coupled with support for anti-state
insurgents) on the ground that revolutionary parties such as
the CCP and BCP could pursue foreign policies of their
own independent of the state.  Thus CCP-BCP ties,
including military aid from the former to the latter, were
described as " fraternal party" relations.6 In the years
leading up to the great Burmese political crisis of 1988,
however, Beijing lessened support for the BCP and began
pressuring its leadership to consider retiring from the field
of battle and settling in China on comfortable pensions.  The
breakup of the BCP in April 1989 -- the result of ethnic
minority resentment of the party's aging Burman leadership
-- removed this irritant from Sino-Burmese relations.

Economic Dimensions of the post-1988 Relationship
In most if not all Southeast Asian countries, Overseas
Chinese have played a major role in local economies, often
becoming rich while indigenous people suffered from
poverty and underdevelopment.  The Burmese case was
somewhat different.  During most of the British colonial
period (all of Burma was part of the British empire between
1885 and 1948), Burma
was a province of British India.  Hundreds of thousands of
Indians, ranging from civil servants, professionals and
moneylenders to unskilled plantation and dock workers,
traveled with little difficulty from their South Asian
homeland to Burma.  There, they lent their minds and
muscle to the British colonial regime's modernization of
Burma's infrastructure and its integration into the
international system of capitalist imperialism.  Compared to
Indians, Chinese were relatively few.  They exercised,
however, an economic influence which far exceeded their
numbers.  It is a little known fact that Burma's strongman
Ne Win is himself a Sino-Burmese whose original name was
Shu Maung.

In the late 1970s, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping initiated
the Four Modernizations program which had, over the
succeeding years, major repercussions not only for China
itself but for its Asian neighbors and even the world as a
whole.  China's dynamic economic growth, coupled with the
active collaboration of Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia
and elsewhere, has promoted the establishment of a China-dominated economic sp
here of influence which, in the case
of Burma, extended far beyond China's border.

Because of the size and state of development of their
respective economies, the adoption of free market reforms
by Beijing in the 1980s and Rangoon after 1988 created a
situation in which, to a large extent, the latter became
dependent on the former.  In confirmation of the classic
"dependency theory" school of international economic
relations, Burma plays the role of exporter of low value-added natural resourc
es while China exports finished
manufactured goods, from tennis shoes and rice cookers to
heavy trucks and railway equipment, to Burma.  Because of
the relative cheapness (if not high quality) of Chinese goods,
any Burmese industry which managed to survive the years
of Ne Win's Stalinist-style socialism cannot compete with its
Chinese counterparts.  While neighboring countries such as
Thailand and Malaysia industrialize, Burma remains an
exporter of raw materials dominated not, as in the past, by
the British but by the Chinese and to a lesser extent by the
Thais, Singaporeans and other foreign business people.

Trade between northern Burma and China's southwestern
province of Yunnan has taken place for centuries.  Thus it is
natural that Yunnan has taken the lead in the bilateral
economic relationship.  This province of 38 million people
has a comparatively well-developed industrial sector
because Chinese industry was geographically decentralized
during the Mao Zedong era to protect it from American or
Soviet aggression .7  According to the Far Eastern
Economic Review, trade between Yunnan and northern
Burma has increased from about US$15.0 million a year to
US$800.0 million a year over the past decade.8  Beijing has
given towns located in Yunnan near the Burmese border
(Wanding and Ruili; see map A) special free trade zone
economic status and an area south of the town of Ruili has
been designated a "special economic development zone". 
The region has a "Wild West" atmosphere, with tall
buildings, luxury hotels and shopping centers competing
with discos, karaoke bars and red light districts for the
traveler's attention.  It is difficult to believe that these gold
rush settlements have sprung up in what was a few years
ago one of the most remote and landlocked regions of Asia.

On the Burmese side of the border, the Chinese have given
aid to rehabilitate the famous "Burma Road" which led from
Rangoon and Mandalay to the Chinese city of Kunming,
Yunnan's provincial capital, during World War II. A new
Chinese-built bridge now spans the Shweli River, which
separates the two countries.  The Burma Road has become
a major conduit for the entry of consumer goods and arms
from China.  Chinese economic influence spreads south to
Mandalay, Burma's second-largest city.  The town has
enjoyed a real estate boom due to Chinese land purchases
and development.  The core of the old royal city has become
a high-priced "Chinatown" while indigenous Burmese, too
poor to afford rising property prices, are forced to move to
the town's outskirts.  According to one observer, as many as
23,000 Chinese nationals settled in Mandalay in 1992, and
an additional 27,000 in 1993. 9   Given the generally
suspicious and xenophobic attitude of Burma's military
leaders since the coup d'etat of 1962, it is surprising that
SLORC has looked the other way while thousands of
Chinese buy Burmese identity cards and enter the country
possessing the same rights as Burmese nationals.  It has
become a common occurrence that when a Burmese person
in the northern part of the country dies, his or her demise is
not reported to the authorities.  Instead, his/her identity card
is sold to a go-between who then sells it to a Chinese
wishing to settle in Burma.  These Chinese are, among other
things, eligible to hold Burmese passports. 10
         The increasing Chinese domination of the Upper Burma
economy has cultural as well as economic repercussions. 
Traditionally, the Burmese have been a very conservative
people, retaining and developing their own distinct national
identity as symbolized by their determination not to replace
the traditional longyi or sarong with Western (or Chinese)
style clothes.  The Buddhist religion, moreover, has acted as
Burmese society's moral compass, extolling modesty, good
works, and compassion for others.  The import of what
could be called "Neo-Asian Materialism" by Chinese and
other Asian businessmen, however, is turning this
unfortunate country into a land of shopgirls, waiters,
bellboys, masseuses, taxi girls and prostitutes.  The sex
industry, once largely confined to Burma's swinging
neighbor Thailand, has spread into the country both with the
establishment of brothels inside the country and the "export"
of poor Burmese girls to Thailand and other countries as
prostitutes.  The drug trade, aided by corrupt Burmese and
Chinese officials, moreover, has flourished as never before. 
Heroin generates much of the cash flowing between Burma
and China.

On a nation-to-nation level, China has supplied Burma with
foreign aid for major infrastructure projects such as a bridge
connecting Rangoon to outlying districts and a new
international airport to be built near Pegu, a town located
80 kilometers northeast of Rangoon.  The SLORC regime's
systematic violation of human rights after the 1988 power
seizure, its house imprisonment of prodemocracy leader and
Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi since
July 1989 and its decision to ignore the May 1990 general
election which gave oppositionists a majority in the national
legislature have resulted in Western countries (and to a
limited extent Japan) and multilateral agencies such as the
Asian Development Bank suspending aid programs.  Since
the military regime became "hooked" on large infusions of
foreign aid during the 1970s, official development assistance
(ODA) has been essential for its survival.  The aid boycott
by the West after 1988 gave China the opportunity to step
in and become Burma's largest aid donor.

Ideological Dimensions
Both SLORC and the Chinese communist regime hold a
similar worldview: a strong defense of national sovereignty
which tolerates no interference from other countries in the
nation's internal affairs, even on a verbal level.  SLORC's
bloodbath when it seized power in 1988 was matched, less
than a year later, by the Tian'anmen Incident in June 1989 in
which the People's Liberation Army killed hundreds if not
thousands of prodemocracy demonstrators in the heart of
the Chinese capital.  Elites in both countries combined
appeals to nationalism and xenophobia with "cultural"
arguments that claim, unpersuasively, that Asians are not
receptive to Western-style concepts of human rights.

Both regimes, moreover, place a higher estimation on
economic rather than political development.  Prosperity,
they believe, can be achieved without the establishment of
an open, civil society of the kind found in Europe, North
America and some Asian countries such as South Korea,
Taiwan and Thailand.  Behind the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
facade of the People's Republic of China and the Union of
Myanmar's paranoiac xenophobia can be found the
phenomenon mentioned above, "Neo-Asian Materialism",
which combines political repression with rapid economic
growth.  Neither traditionalist nor progressive, Neo-Asian
Materialism promotes reckless economic growth,
breakdown of old social patterns and traditions, superficial
"Westernization", the oppression of socially disadvantaged
groups such as minorities and women, and environmental
ruin.  It is the late twentieth century manifestation of the
pragmatic if short-sighted spirit expressed by the leaders of
Meiji Japan in the nineteenth century who pursued the goal
of Fukoku Kyohei ("Rich Country; Strong Military") at
great cost to their country's traditions and old ways of life.

Neither Beijing nor Rangoon has been slow in promoting a
special bilateral relationship.  In August 1991, then SLORC
Chairman General Saw Maung made a visit to Beijing with
an entourage of 53 officials at the invitation of Yang
Shangkun, China's president who coincidentally had been
one of the leaders who ordered the Tian'anmen Massacre. 
The five-day visit, the first made by Saw Maung to a foreign
country, conferred an aura of much-needed legitimacy on
the SLORC regime, which at the time suffered very low
international prestige.  In December 1994, China's prime
minister Li Peng reciprocated by visiting Rangoon with a
79-person entourage at the invitation of SLORC Chairman
General Than Shwe who had succeeded Saw Maung in
1992.  Perhaps the most important official visit, however,
was made by SLORC Secretary-1 Khin Nyunt around the
same time.  Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt is the most
powerful and dynamic SLORC leader, and is a major force
behind Rangoon's close alignment with Beijing.  In 1992
Burmese military intelligence agents uncovered an
assassination plot against Khin Nyunt among officers in the
Tatmadaw who believed that he had sold his nation's
independence to China. 11

The Military Dimension
During the Ne Win era, the Tatmadaw fought insurgents,
including the BCP, with relatively unsophisticated weapons,
many of which were of World War II vintage.  Aside from
controlling restless urban populations, the armed forces'
mission was a simple one: curb, and if possible eliminate,
guerrillas in the border areas.  There was little if any
concern with projecting Burma's military strength beyond its
own borders.  Ne Win's continued adherence to non-alignment in foreign policy 
meant that Burma was careful to
avoid foreign entanglements.  Thus, its military activities
were, in comparison with many other military-run states,
modest.

During the 1930s, the Japanese Kwantung (Kanto) Army
established the puppet state of Manchukuo in order to
advance what it perceived as Japan's interests on the Asian
continent.  During the Cold War, the United States made
the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and members of
the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) bulwarks
against communist expansion in the region.  Washington,
not its allies' national governments, directed regional
security policy.  In the post-Cold War era, China's rapid rise
from revolutionary pauperdom and isolationism to aspirant
Great Power status has also led to foreign entanglements:
Beijing's assertion of sovereignty over the Spratly Islands in
the South China Sea which has brought it into conflict with
five other Asian nations making similar claims; a similar
claim to the Senkaku (Diaoyutai) Islands against Japan; and
Beijing's growing military presence in Burma, a presence
which, by the mid-1990s, was a source of great concern to
other Asian countries.  Some observers went as far as to
speculate that China aspired to impose its own "Monroe
Doctrine" on Southeast Asia.12
The military presence has manifested itself in three ways:
first, the sale by Beijing of hundreds of millions of dollars of
relatively advanced weaponry to the Tatmadaw; second,
Chinese construction of military facilities and infrastructure
which could pave the way for a significant Chinese presence
in the Indian Ocean; and third, Chinese pressure on ethnic
minority guerrillas in the China-Burma border area to make
peace with SLORC.  In addition, high ranking Burmese and
Chinese officers have visited each other's countries to
strengthen personal relations between the Tatmadaw and
the People's Liberation Army.  Tatmadaw personnel have
also received advanced training in China. 13

As early as 1989, SLORC agreed to buy US$1.2-US$1.4
billion worth of weapons from China, including fighter
aircraft, patrol boats, tanks, armored personnel carriers,
anti-aircraft guns and military trucks.  The purchases were
financed with low-interest Chinese loans and probably also
barter trade (trade of natural resources for weapons).  In the
early and mid-1990s, many of these weapons were
conveyed from China over the refurbished Burma Road
connecting Yunnan Province with northern Burma.  Many
foreign observers believe that China's aid for construction of
modern roads in this region reveals its desire to build a
corridor from landlocked Yunnan to the Indian Ocean.

During the early 1990s, Beijing made agreements with
SLORC to assist it in the construction of modern naval
facilities on the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal.  In 1992,
a Western intelligence satellite detected a 150-foot radar
antenna on the Coco Islands, two small islands located just
north of the Andaman Islands which are Indian territory.  It
is believed that Chinese technicians directed its
construction.  The Chinese have also assisted in upgrading
old Burmese naval bases at Sittwe (Akyab) in Rakhine State
and on Hainggyi Island in the estuary of the Irrawaddy
River near Bassein.  Although information on Rangoon-Beijing military negotiat
ions is scanty, some sources believe
that Beijing wishes to obtain access to Ramree Island in
Rakhine State and Zadetkyi Island off Tenasserim State
which is close to the Thai port town of Ranong (see Map
B).14

>From a regional security point of view, the location of these
bases is extremely sensitive.  First, they are located in the
Indian Ocean, which New Delhi has traditionally regarded
as Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) where it has enjoyed
unchallenged dominance.  The Sino-Burmese installations
mentioned above are a direct challenge to New Delhi's non-negotiable claim.  S
econdly, they, especially Zadetkyi Island
in the south, are close to Indonesia (the western tip of
Sumatra and outlying islands such as Pulau Sabang), a
country which has long been suspicious of Chinese regional
ambitions, as reflected in Jakarta's sympathetic attitude
toward the Socialist Republic of Vietnam during the
Cambodia crisis.  Finally and perhaps most seriously, these
installations have the potential of threatening free passage
through the Strait of Malacca, the principal sea link between
the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.  In the sixteenth
century, Portuguese adventurers seized control of the port
of Malacca (Melaka) in order to dominate maritime trade
routes between the Indies and Europe.  "He who holds
Malacca," they claimed, "has his hand on the throat of
Venice".  Today, he who controls the Strait of Malacca has
his hand on the throat of those industrialized East Asian
countries -- Japan, Taiwan and South Korea -- which
depend upon Middle Eastern sources for imports of oil and
natural gas.  At the very least, the Chinese presence at the
eastern end of the Indian Ocean littoral adds an unwanted
element of unpredictability to the natural resource strategies
of these resource-poor but highly industrialized countries of
East Asia.

Chinese authorities in Yunnan have also been active in
assisting SLORC to make cease-fire agreements with border
insurgents, especially the Kachin Independence
Organization which had been one of the best-organized and
motivated rebel movements.  Rebels who make peace with
Rangoon have been allowed to keep their arms and profit
from the increasingly active trade across the Burma-China
border.  In the words of one newspaper report, "the
Burmese junta is grateful to China for enabling it to get a
better grip on its minorities".  15

The Reaction of Asian Countries to Burma-China Ties
Because the Chinese presence in Burma and the Indian
Ocean is a relatively new development, few governments
have formulated consistent and clearly articulated responses
to this threat.  In general, one can say that Southeast Asian
Countries, members of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), have followed a policy of "constructive
engagement" which not only enables their businessmen to
make money from investments in Burma, but gives them
some leverage with SLORC in order to counteract Chinese
influence.  The same can be said of the Japanese
government's policy of "peaceful dialogue".  Unlike the
Western countries, Japan has insisted that its lines of
communication remain open to SLORC and that a Japanese
economic presence -- in the form of limited foreign aid and
private investment -- is needed to prevent Burma's isolation
and a closer dependent relationship on China.  This is
reflected in Japan's recent decision to reopen the aid
pipeline, in the form of modest grants for humanitarian
purposes, to Rangoon.

India's response to the Chinese presence in Burma has been
more complex.  In the wake of the 1988 political crisis and
SLORC's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrators, India was the only Asian country to express,
through official channels, criticism of SLORC and sympathy
for the Burmese pro-democracy cause.  Thus, state-owned
All India Radio (AIR) broadcast strong criticisms of the
new military regime in its Burmese language programs and
the Indian government welcomed Burmese student refugees
with open arms.  By the mid-1990s, however, New Delhi
initiated a more conciliatory policy toward its eastern
neighbor.  One reason was that it wanted SLORC's
cooperation in the suppression of ethnic rebels and the
cross-border heroin trade.  But like the Southeast Asian
countries and Japan, New Delhi also feared Beijing's
growing influence in Rangoon and attempted a carrot rather
than stick method of enticing Rangoon away from Beijing. 
Burmese programs with political contents were no longer
broadcast by AIR, high officials from both countries met on
a more frequent basis, and Burmese refugees found their
position in India increasingly precarious. 16

Conclusion: Broader Security Implications
Like a pebble -- or a large stone -- dropped into a pond,
China's growing presence in Burma has a ripple effect on
other aspects of Asia-Pacific security.  During the Cold War
era, a fairly stable "division of labor" among the Great
Powers and their smaller allies in Asia emerged in which the
military power of the former -- the United States, the Soviet
Union and China -- was delicately balanced through their
preservation of discrete spheres of influence.  Thus,
Washington, even after its defeat in the Indochina War,
retained close ties with its former SEATO allies, Japan, and
South Korea.  After the fall of Saigon in April 1975, Russia
made an alliance with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and
had great influence on Laos and Cambodia after the 1979
Vietnamese invasion of that country.  The People's Republic
of China sought friendlier ties with the United States and
non-communist states in Southeast Asia such as Thailand in
order to offset Soviet influence.  India, which had signed a
treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union in 1972, remained
suspicious of China.  Since the Sino-Indian War of October
1962, however, relations had been fairly stable if not
hospitable.  In part, this was due to the fact that China did
not possess the military power to challenge India's
domination of the Indian Ocean.

The "End of the Cold War" has resulted in the collapse, or
at least the drastic rearrangement, of this delicate balance. 
The most important factor has been the rapid rise of China
as a military power with a "power reach" far beyond its
borders.  In recent years, Chinese real spending on defense
has increased by large percentages.17  The number of long-range warships which
 have been built since the 1980s is
giving China a "blue water navy".  As the United States'
security role in Asia diminishes because of deterioration of
America's economic situation, Japan will have to face a
serious decision: whether to play an active military role in
the region to protect its own interests or remain semi-isolated and witness th
e emergence of China as the
dominant military power in Asia.

END NOTES:
1:  "Rangoon's Rubicon".  Far Eastern Economic Review,
February 11, 1993: p. 28.
2:  Writers usually use the term "Burman" to refer to the
majority ethnic group of Burma which comprises about
two-thirds of its population (the present SLORC regime
prefers to call them "Bamars"); "Burmese" is used to
describe a national of the country, who might be Burman or
belong to one of the country's ethnic minorities such as the
Shan, Karen, Kachin, Karenni, or Wa.
3:  Between March 1962 and the promulgation of the
Socialist Republic's own constitution in 1974 there was a
period of martial law in which a Revolutionary Council
headed by General Ne Win ruled the country. 
4:   Bertil Lintner.  "The CIA's First Secret War".  Far
Eastern Economic Review, September 16, 1993: pp. 56-58.
5:  Seekins, Donald M. "Historical Background".  In Bunge,
F. M. ed.  Burma:  A Country Study.  Washington: the
American University, 1983: p. 66.
6:  Probably the best description of the evolution of the
BCP in the northeastern part of Burma is Martin Smith's
Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity.  London:
Zed Books, 1991.  See also Bertil Lintner's The Rise and
Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (BCP).  Ithaca:
Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1990. 
7: Bertil Lintner.  "Enter the Dragon".  Far Eastern
Economic Review, December 22, 1994: pp. 22-24.
8:  Lintner.  "Enter the Dragon", p. 22.
9:  Seekins, Donald M. "Government and Politics".  In
Dolan, R. ed.  Burma: A Country Study.  Washington D.C.:
the Library of Congress, forthcoming, ms. p. 59.
10:  Bertil Lintner.  "Rocks and a Hard Place".  Far Eastern
Economic Review, September 9, 1993: p. 26.
11: "Murmur in the ranks".  Far Eastern Economic Review. 
February 18, 1993: p. 20.
12:  Bertil Lintner.  "Enter the Dragon", p. 23. 
13:  Seekins, Donald M. "Politics and Government".  In
Dolan, R., ed.  Burma:  A Country Study.  Washington: the
Library of Congress, forthcoming: ms. pp. 60, 61.
14:  Bertil Lintner.  "Enter the Dragon".  Far Eastern
Economic Review, December 22, 1994: p. 23 "Snooping
Around".  Far Eastern Economic Review, August 4, 1994:
p. 12.
15:  Philip Bowring.  "Burma smashes the rebels with Thai
and Chinese help".  International Herald Tribune, February
3, 1995.
16:  Seekins, Donald M. "Government and Politics", ms. pp.
61-72.
17:  Michael Richardson.  "Growing military might worries
Southeast Asians". International Herald Tribune, April 24,
1995: p. 18.