China Remains Key Despite Burma’s Western Focus – The Irrawaddy
January 17th, 2012
BANGKOK – Leadership changes and economic challenges facing China and the US this year will impact how far and fast Burma goes with its nascent political reforms.
A total of 302 political prisoners were freed on Friday with another 128 still in jail, according to Burmese government figures. Some have criticized the amnesty as incomplete, but it made international headlines and resulted in elated crowds greeting freed prisoners outside jails across Burma, as some of the country’s iconic dissidents emerged from detention.
In response, the US said it will appoint an ambassador to Burma for the first time since the bloody crackdown on student demonstrations in 1988. Leaders of these protests were among those freed last week, after spending many of the intervening years in jail.
However, it remains to be seen how far Burma’s reforms go and what the impact of geopolitical rivalries will be on Burma. Simon Tay, author of Asia Alone, a study US-Asian relations, said that Burma’s reforms are perhaps “an attempt to woo America and wean itself off China, rather than genuine attempt to reform domestic politics.” (more…)
Myanmar buys time with dam block – Asia Times
October 3rd, 2011
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MJ04Ae01.html
BANGKOK – China has reacted coolly to Myanmar’s surprise suspension of a controversial US$3.6 billion hydropower dam project it backed in the country’s war-torn Kachin State. Hitherto cautious observers have greeted the stoppage as the first tangible reform move undertaken by the Myanmar’s six-month-old, nominally civilian government led by former general Thein Sein.
According to the government, work on the controversial Myitsone dam will be suspended “according to the desire of the people. The announcement followed an upsurge in popular opposition to the project, where certain members of the old military elite and Aung San Suu Kyi-led political opposition found rare common cause. The project threatened the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River, the cradle of Burmese civilization. (more…)
New turns in South China Sea debate – The Irrawaddy
September 28th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22155
BANGKOK – The ongoing wrangle between China and a number of smaller neighbours over jurisdiction on the disputed South China Sea took a new turn yesterday with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in Tokyo.
Without mentioning China, PM Noda told reporters after the summit that both countries would increase “cooperation between coastguards and defense-related authorities”. According to a joint statement issued after the meeting, both countries “confirmed that freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce, and compliance with established international law including the UNCLOS (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea) and the peaceful settlement of disputes serve the interests of the two countries and the whole region”. (more…)
A Grim Trade: Burma’s ethnic women trafficked to China – The Irrawaddy
June 14th, 2011
http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21486
BANGKOK – A mix of unscrupulous traffickers, Burma’s economic decline and militarisation, and a shortage of males caused by China’s one-child policy contribute to the trafficking of women from the Palaung region of Burma into China, says a locally-based activist group.
“Since 2007 we documented 72 cases of actual and suspected trafficking involving 110 people” said Lway Moe Kam of the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO), adding that her research showed that 11 children under ten years of age were among the victims.
25% of the women trafficked were forced to marry Chinese men and 10% of the caseload were coerced into the sex trade, according to the PWO, which grimly concluded that 90% of trafficking victims do not escape. (more…)
Territorial Hissings – The Irrawaddy
June 6th, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21433
BANGKOK—A rare public protest held on Sunday in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi illustrates how seriously the country’s government takes what it describes as Chinese violations of its sovereignty.
On Sunday morning in Hanoi, hundreds of protesters gathered for half an hour outside the Chinese Embassy, not far from a landmark statue of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, in the center of the capital. Some apparently came after rallying calls made on social networking sites such as Facebook, despite the latter being officially blocked in Vietnam. After being turned back by police, some of the gathering paraded through city’s streets as far as Hoan Kiem Lake near the old town, chanting anti-Chinese slogans and carrying placards in Vietnamese and English with slogans such as “Protesting Against China Causing Trouble.” In Ho Chi Minh City, the sprawling commercial capital in the south, demonstrators converged on the Chinese consulate on Sunday. (more…)
Any Openings Between the BRICS on Burma? – The Irrawaddy
April 22nd, 2011
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21148
Last week’s gathering of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) heads of government in China looks like another landmark in the Asia-tilted re-balancing of global economic power that has gathered pace since the 2008 banking and financial crisis spread from the United States.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that by 2016 the total GDP of the five countries will exceed that of the US. China last year passed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, while overtaking Germany to become the world’s biggest exporting country. Predictions vary, but depending on how growth numbers in both countries pan out over the coming years, China could overtake the US to become the world’s biggest economy within two decades or less. (more…)
Japan disaster not thwarting nuclear plans – Sunday Business Post
March 20th, 2011
http://www.sbpost.ie/news/world/disaster-not-thwarting-international-nuclear-plans-55172.html
Simon Roughneen in Bangkok and Niall Stanage in New York – While Asian countries say they might revise nuclear energy plans in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and Fukushima crisis last week, planned projects seem likely to go ahead in the longer-term.
China and India both plan to increase their current nuclear energy capacity, and Beijing’s expansion plan, adding 28 reactors to its current 13, is around 40% of the new nuclear facilities being planned globally. China plans an additional fifty reactors further down the line, taking its overall number of plants close to 100. (more…)
Charcoals in winter: China comes calling in Europe – Asia Sentinel/Jakarta Globe
January 6th, 2011
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2904&Itemid=422
DUBLIN – Europe is becoming a new horizon for China’s business-based diplomacy, less than a year after the European Union overtook the US to become China’s second-largest trading partner. Chinese investment expansion is increasingly turning to Europe, and it is finding a grateful audience.
Last September, before the arrival of the International Monetary Fund and an €85 billion bailout offer-you-can’t-refuse for the economy once known as the Celtic Tiger, Ireland Prime Minister Brian Cowen tried to sell Chinese investors on the proposition that the country could be a low-tax Anglophone gateway to Europe.
After meeting with a Politburo delegation in Dublin, Cowen said that China’s representatives had vowed to be “as helpful as they can to a friend like Ireland in the difficult times that we have.” That friendship appears to include a consortium of Chinese investors who are starting work on “an investment gateway to Europe” – an industrial park in central Ireland. (more…)
Talking to dead people – The Irrawaddy
December 15th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20323
US Embassy cables released by Wikileaks show that Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew scorned Burma’s “stupid” junta, as China claims it sought political prisoner release and advised the US to talk directly to “easy-going” dictator Than Shwe
Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew told US officials that the Burmese military rulers are “dense” and “stupid,” saying that talking to the regime was akin to “talking to dead people,” according to documents released by WikiLeaks this week.
Ridiculing the junta generals’ mismanagement of what he termed Burma’s resource-laden economy, Lee said that the US should approach Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to act as an interlocutor with the Burmese junta, or failing that, sound out Vietnam as a possible mediator. Dismissing his own suitability for the job, Lee said that he was perceived as too close to the US for the junta’s liking.
Lee’s comments were made to then US Ambassador to Singapore Patricia Herbold in Oct. 2007 as the Burmese dictatorship crushed the monk-led “Saffron Revolution” protests taking place in cities across the country. A confidential briefing on a 2007 conversation between Lee and US officials was released by WikiLeaks this week.
Earlier in 2007, China facilitated talks between the US and the Burmese government, with Beijing’s diplomats suggesting that the US deal directly with junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, according to the documents released by WikiLeaks. (more…)
China’s dim(ish) view of the Myanmar junta – Asia Times
December 10th, 2010
China wanted Myanmar’s junta to enter into dialogue with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minority groups in the months after the 2007 “Saffron” revolution protests, newly released US diplomatic cables show. Yet Beijing also warned US officials that even if talks made progress, the generals’ inept handling of the economy could throw the country into turmoil.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LL11Ae01.html
BANGKOK – Newly released United States diplomatic cables show that in the months after the August-September 2007 “Saffron” revolution protests in Myanmar, China was concerned about the country’s stability and preferred that the military regime enter into dialogue with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minority groups.
“The Chinese ambassador no longer tried to defend the regime, and acknowledged that the generals had made a bad situation worse. The Chinese have used their access to the generals to push for change, without much observable result, but remain interested in working with us to promote change,” according to an account of a January 17, 2008 meeting between US charged’affairs Shari Villaraos and China’s ambassador to Myanmar, Guan Mu.
“The Chinese are clearly fed-up with foot-dragging by Than Shwe regime,” Villarosa’s report of the meeting concluded. (more…)
