China is emerging as the leading economic force in Burma, and the Burmese are starting to get uncomfortable... "With Western sanctions and endemic levels of corruption, Burma?s economy has typically been of little interest to international investors, except for those with significant strategic interests. Desperate and unstable, the country has been left wide open for exploitation by Chinese state actors seeking energy and access to the Indian Ocean. Referring to the growth of India and China at the 2011 Myanmar/Burma Update, historian Thant Myint U stated that it ?will change Burma?s prospects for better or worse, more [than] anything else that is happening at the moment.? Burma is definitely in a state of rapid transition. During the last 18-month period, the country has received 20-percent more official foreign direct investment (FDI) than in all of the previous 20 years put together. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people in ethnic minority regions have suffered from a severe escalation of conflict and displacement. For the first time in 50 years, popularly elected politicians have been able to raise genuine topics of concern in parliament. However, the new constitution gives greater power and impunity to the military than any of those introduced previously..."