In the Name of Pauk-Phaw: Myanmar's China Policy Since 1948

4. Sino-Myanmar Relations 1988-2010: Towards Closer Cooperation

4 Sino-MyanMar relationS 1988–2010 towards Closer Cooperation Myanmar’s China policy since 1988 has been essentially directed toward securing and consolidating Chinese political support for the government in international and regional forums. To this end, the Myanmar government makes full use of its geopolitical realities, geostrategic position and economic resources to keep China committed to Myanmar’s cause. Although Myanmar has cultivated a very close Pauk-Phaw relationship with China and although China has practically become Myanmar’s security guarantor, Yangon has always tried to find alternatives to counter China’s growing influence in the country. This is by no means intended as a balance against China since Beijing does not currently pose a threat to Myanmar. To the government in Yangon (or Naypyitaw), Myanmar occupies a strategic position that deserves attention from Beijing. In September 1991, in the state-owned newspaper, a senior Tatmadaw officer stated: “The two nations have resolutely resolved that whoever governs them and whatever systems they practise, they will continue to uphold the traditional friendship for ever and ever because these two nations, according to geopolitics, are interdependent”.1 Again, a decade later, in the words of an official spokesman of the SLORC/SDPC government, Myanmar is “the weak link in the regional China containment policy”, although he did not elaborate further.2 It is fairly clear, however, that the Myanmar leadership believes that China has always regarded their country as an important factor in her security calculus. 105 106 In the Name of Pauk-Phaw When the International Crisis Group (ICG) published a timely report entitled “China’s Myanmar Dilemma” on 14 September 2009, detailing China’s frustration over what was described as the “erratic and isolationist behaviour of the military leadership” in Naypyitaw, the report, citing interviews with Chinese diplomats, stated that “while China holds a prominent place in Myanmar’s foreign policy, the reverse is hardly true and Myanmar is currently a low priority for Beijing”. It further noted that “this loss of priority has been noted by Myanmar, which has become increasingly suspicious of China’s strategic intentions [and] many in Myanmar fear that China might use it as a bargaining chip in its relations with the U.S.”.3 Just four days later, state-owned newspapers in Myanmar [in both Myanmar and English languages] published an article titled “To serve as a land bridge”, which basically highlighted the geopolitical and geo-economic significance of Myanmar in Asia. The article claimed that “being situated between Southeast Asia and South Asia as well as between China and India, Myanmar occupies a strategic position in terms of geopolitics”. The article further observed that “China’s energy security will not be guaranteed so long as it relies on the Malacca Strait for the shipment of oil. If it lays an oil pipeline from Kyaukphyu deep water seaport to Yunnan, it will enjoy energy security and the benefit of less cost due to shorter distance”.4 The article reveals Naypyitaw’s perceptions of China’s grand strategy, of its strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, and its growing concern for energy security. It presents the view that Myanmar is a vital factor in China’s security calculations. By adhering to Beijing’s rhetoric about Washington’s attempts to contain China and about the Chinese desire to expand its strategic presence into the Indian Ocean, and by reinforcing China’s fear that the Malacca Straits might possibly be blockaded by unfriendly powers, the Myanmar government feels that it can expand its space for diplomatic maneuver. Moreover, in the light of the new global distribution of power and the geopolitical realities of the post-Cold War period, Beijing has been following the “policy of good neighborliness” since the early 1990s. The hallmarks of this policy are accommodation and restraint in China’s relations with her neighbors as well as the application of political-diplomatic support, military-security ties, and economic cooperation in the forms of trade, aid and foreign investment as foreign policy strategies towards neighbouring countries. When the Tatmadaw organized a military coup d’etat and took over the state in the name of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) on 18 September 1988, after the heavy-handed crackdown on the antigovernment demonstrations that aimed to overthrow the BSPP and institute a regime change, and the Chinese government adopted a position of neutrality, Sino-Myanmar Relations 1988–2010 107 the...