American-Chinese “Battle” for Burma

It should be noted that the East Asian countries are significantly changing their policy.

This region sees now Washington as the main guarantor of their freedom and independence. The most striking example of this was the change in American attitudes regarding the military regime in Burma. Americans in past were treated with undisguised hostility to the military regime of General Ne Win, and welcomed his overthrow and doing the democratization of the country (Singh, 2011). The military coup in 1988 caused by them active hostility, and US policy had kept to ensure that by the political and economic pressure and blockade to force the Burmese military to cede power to his opponents from the democratic camp, which is the undisputed leader Aung San Suu Kyi (Wintle, 2008). Such policies have been carried out over the past twenty years, while Washington was sharply critical of any attempt to neighboring ASEAN countries to establish closer relations with the Burmese regime. Even in ASEAN Burma was adopted under the accompaniment of criticism and condemnation from the USA.

The blockade and the constant threat of their power put the Burmese generals and the country in a difficult position. Economy developed very slowly and the standard of living of the majority of people remained very low. Civil war against the army and armed groups of Burmese ethnic minorities, held with varying degrees of success.

Caught in a deadlock military regime of Burma, with all the traditional mistrust of Burmese to Chinese had to turn to China for help. Firstly, these were loans that were not burdened by any conditions, then the cooperation has increased. China began to offer a new infrastructure projects, of which the burdened with accumulated debts Burmese regime could not refuse (International Crisis Group, 2009). Another form of pressure on the Burmese military is the ability of China to fuel separatist movements and to provide financial and other assistance. If looking at the map of Burma, the main areas of control separatists obviously gravitate to the Chinese border, which is a considerable distance outside the effective control of Burmese authorities (Berger, 2013).

USA believes that “China needs Burma more than Burma needs China”. This conclusion is based on the fact that the favorable geopolitical position, when through Burma China opens itself corridor to the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal and turns it

into a center of China’s efforts in the region and makes Burmese generals as “beggars with golden fleece”.

Officially, the meaning of infrastructure projects proposed by Beijing is to dramatically reduce the delivery path to China the hydrocarbons from the Gulf. Beijing wish their tankers not to go through the narrow Malacca and Singapore Straits, and would own the Burmese coast in Arakan, where oil pipelines would be delivered to Yunnan and later in other Chinese provinces in the south. With this aim the Chinese forced the Burmese generals to give them one of the ports of Arakan, where it has built the pipeline to its southern territories. At the same time the Chinese have put control of the coastal Burma Shwe gas field with total reserves of almost 200,000 billion cubic meters. That’s why close to the transit pipeline Chinese built the gas-pipeline

(Arakan Oil Watch, 2012). In July 2013, China has received its first gas through this pipeline (Aung, 2013). Just Chinese workers built all of this as well as the road to the Indian Ocean. Chinese promised Burmese military that the new pipeline will bring them about $ 29 billion over 30 years, which would mean at least a doubling of all the revenue of the budget Burma annually (“Pipeline Nightmare,” 2012).

Figure 1.6: Chinese gas and oil pipelines from Indian Ocean till China’s Yunnan province through the Myanmar territory

Source: http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs14/Danger-Zone-en-red.pdf

The increasing dependence of the Burmese military on Beijing, which could result in consolidation of China in this country and the policies concerning the local authorities bothered the initiators of inviting China into the country, i.e. the Burmese military and all the neighbors of Burma, exactly ASEAN and India, which saw a real threat to face with the Chinese navy in their marine waters. Apparently the pressure on both sides, as well as the Burmese military expressed a desire to cooperate with the United States has pushed the new US administration to reconsider its policy towards the Burmese military. “While we are trying to isolate Burma because of the reluctance of the junta to respect human rights, China’s influence in this country is growing exponentially”

expressed Chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific International Affairs Committee of the US Senate Jim Webb (Webb, 2009:23). This statement was a sign that Washington is willing to change its policy with regard to the Burmese regime.

After the senator’s visit to Burma the USA decided to start a direct dialogue with the authorities of Burma. The United States offer Burma to remove the existing sanctions on Burma, but in response it seeks the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, finishing the conflict with ethnic minorities and gross violations of human rights and starting trusted internal political dialogue. After the dialogue with the USA, Myanmar was going to change its policy concerning China. In 2010, the Burmese army decided on a full-scale attack on the position of one of the rebel groups, which located in the border with China. The attack was especially carried out on the area, where inhabited predominantly by ethnic Chinese. After that more than 40,000 ethnic Chinese were forced to leave their homes and flee to China (“The Moment Burma’s Separatist..,” 2012). That Burmese step angered the Chinese authorities. Another anti-Chinese gesture was the published article about the Dalai Lama in the newspaper “Myanmar Times” for the first time in the last twenty years (Weekly Diary, 2009). Even such modest by any measure and small steps to democratize the Burmese regime gave Americans a convenient excuse to officially reject the sanctions regime, and thus allow the Burmese regime to feel free in relations with China.

In general, the position of the Burmese regime, seeking to escape from the clutches of Beijing is quite understandable, and it reflects the general mood in the ASEAN countries. Nobody wants to go in “Chinese Express”. Everyone is looking for the

balance of powers and interests, which would allow to retain maximum freedom and independence. And consequently there is not right to say that Americans lose or have already lost the East Asia and the Chinese are not stopped. The fact is that the general weakening of the USA in this region is clearly offset by the increasingly hot desire of the ruling elites of most countries. By all means keeping the American influence on regional affairs is the dream of an independent region that is isolated from the influence of external forces and managed exclusively for the benefit of its components is becoming a phantom, which hinders rather than helps the ASEAN countries actually navigate the world around them. Americans feel that interest and they are ready to use it. Thus, in the regional ASEAN summit in Phuket former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States intended to increase its presence in Southeast Asia.

And openly declared that the USA was returning to the region by signing a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the United States and ASEAN, on which work was carried out over the past 17 years (“Press Availability,” 2009). In this regard, at the first bilateral US-ASEAN summit which held in Singapore at the end of 2009, US President Barack Obama solemnly told that this meant the raising of status of the US presence in the region (Bower, 2009).