"Burma/Myanmar has moved from stagnation to dynamic reform. Much attention has focused explaining the timing, shape and key personalties of the reform process. What this approach neglects is an examination of the ideological frameworks that shape political culture and action in Burma/Myanmar. The democratic opposition and the military leadership, the two major political forces in the majority Burman population, are actually united by an underlying ideological framework derived from understandings of the colonial era. According to this framework Burma's rich natural resources and strategic location were the reason for its colonization by the British, and mean that Burma is perpetually in danger of neocolonial interference from covetous foreigners, be they Western or Chinese. The former military government argued that the democratic opposition would sell the nation out to neocolonial interests in the West. The democratic opposition and popular sentiment, in contrast, have seen the post-1988 military governments as neocolonial and deeply complicit in selling the nation out to the Chinese. These surface differences mask underlying structural similarities that derive form a shared ideational framework..."