INDIA-BURMA-ASEAN---CHINA

[darnott@xxxxxxxxxx]

                  REQUEST FOR INFORMATION/IDEAS
 
 
A few weeks ago I posted an article (edited version below) on
the Net about how Burma forms the bridge for India/ASEAN
commercial and, essentially, strategic links. Burma's entry
into ASEAN would run counter to my idea of China's interests
in the region. 
 
What I have not seen on the Net or anywhere is an indication
of China's response to ASEAN's plan to admit Burma.         
 
Could anyone with information (privileged or not -- sources
guaranteed confidentiality) or ideas on this topic, please put
them on the Net or email me at darnott@xxxxxxxxxxx
 
 
                       THE GREAT GAME OF GO 
 
 
"I would like to stress that ASEAN is a political
organization. It was not meant to be an economic grouping. We
came together because we had problems with our neighbors and
we needed to sit down and discuss them." 
 
Mahathir Mohamad ("Asiaweek", 9/May/97)
 
 
India, ASEAN and other international actors are planning the 
long-term strategic shape of the Asia-Pacific, and see a
strategic and trade alliance between India and ASEAN as
essential to the Southwestern containment of China.
Geographically, Burma is the bridge between India and ASEAN --
or the barrier, if China consolidates her grip. 
 
Seen from China's perspective, Burma is the way to the Indian
Ocean, both commercially, for land-locked Yunnan, and
strategically.  Talk to Indian or Chinese diplomats and they
will gush about the warm relations between their two
countries, and how the Cold War is over. But talk to the
Indian navy, and they will tell you that in a 20 or 30 year
time scale, if they were a Chinese admiral, they would want a
base here, and here, and here. And ask I.K. Gujral about
India's strategic borders. During his most recent period as
Indian Foreign Minister the "Gujral Doctrine" of befriending
neighbours was focussed to a significant degree on ASEAN. Now
he's in a position to move this policy forward, and bringing
Bangladesh and, who knows? eventually Pakistan, with him. If
China's domination of Burma passed a critical point (whatever
that point might be), the potential links between India and
ASEAN would be considerably reduced, and China would have won
a significant strategic and commercial advantage. 
                         ................
 
(For the ludically illiterate, Go, originating in India or
China as early as 2356 BC, is a board game of strategy played
with black and white pieces (called stones) in which
"...Players try to conquer territory by completely enclosing
vacant points with boundaries made of their own stones. Two or
more stones are "connected" if they are adjacent to each other
on the same horizontal or vertical line..." (Encyclopaedia
Britannica).  The Great Game was another game of strategy
played in Central Asia in the 19th Century between the British
Empire and Tzarist Russia (see Kipling's "Kim" and some
histories of Tibet or Afghanistan).
 
David Arnott, Geneva