china engages myanmar as client state.pdf-red

7/31/2019 China Engages Myanmar as Client State.pdf-red

1/30


2/30

Institute of China StudiesUniversity of Malaya50603 Kuala Lumpur

MalaysiaTel: 603-79565663 Fax: 603-79565114

http://ics.um.edu.my

Institute of China Studies

First published in 2009

COPYRIGHTAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied ortransmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Under theCopyright Act 1987, any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to thispublication shall be liable to prosecution and claims for damages.

Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Regional political economy of China ascendant : pivotal issues and criticalperspectives / editor Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh.Includes indexISBN 978-967-5148-32-3

1. ChinaEconomic conditions. 2. ChinaForeign economic relations.I. Kok-Kheng, Emile Yeoh.338.951

Printed by Vinlin Press Sdn. Bhd.No. 2, Jalan Meranti Permai 1Meranti Permai Industrial Park

Batu 15, Jalan Puchong

47100 Puchong, Selangor Darul Ehsan

China Ascendant book.indb 4 4/21/2009 7:22:51 PM


3/30

Contributors

Dr Cheong Kee Cheok, Adjunct Professor and former Dean, Facultyof Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Malaysia; formerSenior Economist, World Bank, Washington, D.C.; former Consultant, WorldBank and UNDP; former Vice-President, Malaysian Economics Association.Email: [email protected]

Dr Yang Mu , Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator, ChinaCooperation Program, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore.Email: [email protected]

Lim Tin Seng , ResearchOfcer, EastAsian Institute, NationalUniversity of Singapore.Email: [email protected]

K.S. Balakrishnan, Senior Lecturer and Head, Department of Internationaland Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University ofMalaya, Malaysia.Email: [email protected]

Dr Pak K. Lee, Lecturer in Chinese Politics and InternationalRelations, Department of Politics and International Relations, University ofKent, United Kingdom.Email: [email protected]

Dr Gerald Chan, Professor in Political Studies, Department of

Political Studies, University of Auckland, New Zealand.Email: [email protected]

Lai-Ha Chan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UTS China ResearchCentre, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Dr Chen Shaofeng , Visiting Research Fellow, East Asian Institute,National University of Singapore.Email: [email protected], chenshaofeng@

gmail.com



4/30

ii Contributors

Dr Im-Soo Yoo /, Emeritus Professor of Economics, EwhaWomans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; President, Asia-EuropePerspective Forum; former President, Korean Association for ContemporaryEuropean Studies, Korean-German Association of Social Science and Korean-German Association of Economics and Management. Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Dr Chen-Chen Yong, Deputy Dean, Institute of Postgraduate Studies;Lecturer, Faculty of Management; Member, Centre for Borderless Markets andEconomies, Multimedia University, Malaysia.Email: [email protected]

Dr Siew-Yong Yew, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics,Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Malaysia.Email: [email protected]

Dr Hui-Boon Tan, Professor, Faculty of Business Economics andFinance, Nottingham University Business School, Malaysia.Email: [email protected]

Dr Mohamed Aslam, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Facultyof Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Email:[email protected]

Lye Liang Fook , Research Fellow, East Asian Institute, NationalUniversity of Singapore.Email: [email protected]

Dr Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh, Director and Associate Professor, Instituteof China Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia.Email: [email protected], [email protected]



5/30

0 Pak K. Lee, Gerald Chan and Lai-Ha Chan

China Engages Myanmar as aChinese Client State?*

Pak K. Lee, GeraldChanand Lai-HaChan

4

Introduction: The Role of Energy in Sino-Myanmar Relations

Conventional wisdom has it that the pursuit of energy resources is the primarydriving force for Chinas foreign policy in the early 21st century.1 Within theAsian region, Chinas resource hunt prompts it to cultivate relations withMyanmar. It began to step into the vacuum and become Myanmars majorsource of investment and aid as well as its staunchest ally as soon as the Westimposed sanctions on Myanmar. Most external assistance came to a halt afterthe junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), assumedpower as a result of a military coup in September 1988. The coup aimed tobring a country-wide protest against the Burma Socialist Programme Party toan end. The junta annulled the results of the May 1990 legislative elections,which brought a sweeping victory to the National League for Democracy(NLD), a party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Aung San Suu Kyi is a pro-democracy activist, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the daughter ofAung San, the late Burmese nationalist leader who is considered as the father

of modern-day Burma. She was placed under house arrest by the junta in July1989 before the general election which in effect prevented her from assumingofceasPrimeMinisterofMyanmar. 2 In the wake of the regimes allegedattack on her and her entourage in May 2003 (known as the Depayin Incident)and the subsequent house arrest of her, the US imposed new economicsanctions in August 2003, including a ban on imports of Myanmar productsandabanonprovisionofnancialservicesbyUSpersons.3 As a result ofthe violent crackdown on anti-government protestors in Yangon in September2007, the US tightened its sanction.4

There have been high-level mutual visits by leaders of the two countries.

Among the dignitaries were Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Qian Qichen, Wu Bangguo



6/30

China Engages Myanmar as a Chinese Client State?

and Hu Jintao (from China) and Than Shwe, Maung Aye, Soe Win, SawMaung and Khin Nyunt (from Myanmar). Bilateral contacts have included thesales of Chinese armaments and machinery to the military junta, joint effortsto combat cross-border trafcking of narcotics, border trade of consumer

goods, and Myanmars exports of timber (largely through illicit smuggling)and precious stones to Yunnan, Chinas south-western province. China hasconsequently shielded the Myanmar regime from Western and United Nationsopprobrium and sanctions (Than, 2003). China (and Russia and South Africa)defeated a draft resolution tabled at the United Nations Security Council(UNSC) in January 2007 by both the United Kingdom and the United

States calling on the Myanmar government to cease military attacks againstthe ethnic minorities in the country and to take steps to become a genuinedemocracy.

More recently, prodded by Yunnan, Chinas central government considersto build an oil pipeline and a gas pipeline from the Myanmar south-westernport of Sittwe (also known as Akyab) to the city of Kunming in the provincedelivering oil and natural gas from Myanmar to China.5 With depleted oilresource, Myanmar is not likely to be a supplier of crude oil to China; the oilpipeline is rather for carrying oil from the Middle East and Africa, bypassingthe bottlenecked sea lane of the Malacca Strait, which currently delivers 80per cent of Chinas oil imports.6 It is said that the plan will help China toreduce its reliance on the Malacca Strait for oil transportation by at leastone-third (Zhang, 2007). According to Chinese analysts, an over-reliance onthe Strait would present two threats to Chinas energy security: the threats ofpiracy and maritime terrorism in the region and the attempts of the powerfulstates, notably the US, to exert dominance over the Strait through suchprogrammes as the Cargo Security Initiative (2001), the Proliferation SecurityInitiative (2003) and the Regional Maritime Security Initiative (2004).7

With the aim of shifting its energy use to natural gas which causes much

less pollution than the burning of coal, China began joint gas explorationswith Myanmar in 2001. Four years later Myanmar allowed China to explorein the areas off its western coast in the Bay of Bengal (Zhang, 2008). Assoon as India suffered a setback in reaching an agreement with Bangladeshabout delivering gas from Myanmar to India via Bangladeshi territory,Myanmar swiftly decided in December 2005 to sell its gas to China throughthe overland pipeline to Kunming. Myanmars leaders were not willing tochange the direction of gas sale even when New Delhi was allegedly preparedto construct a much more costly overland pipeline to bypass Bangladesh(Kols, 2007). More recently, in January 2008, Myanmars Ministry of

Energy inked a contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)



7/30


to explore natural gas in three deep-sea gas blocks off western Myanmar.8

Inthe following May and June, Daewoo International of South Korea signedanagreementwithCNPCtojointlyexploreablockintheShweeld,off

Sittwe in western Myanmar, estimated to hold 4.5 trillion cubic feet (TCF) ofnaturalgas,andtosellgasfromtheeldtoChina.9 As a result, China is oftenportrayed by security analysts and journalists to be supportive of the reclusiveregime out of a strategic consideration of securing its own energy security.10

While there are some elements of truth in these arguments, they over-estimate the role of Myanmar oil and gas in Chinas grand foreign policyand fail to address a couple of puzzles regarding the importance of oil and

gas to China. As commonly argued, China has become an ally of the militaryregime since 1988, but China did not perceive the danger of oil insecurity atthattime.Until1993Chinawasself-sufcientinoil,therebypayinglittle

attention to its energy security.11 Yunnan province has been more active thanthe central government in forging diplomacy with the military regime (Bray,1995: 44-48). Growing economic engagement with Myanmar is believed to beconducive to the economic development of Chinas landlocked south-westernregion, helping to narrow the income gap between it and the more prosperouscoastal provinces (Liu, 2001). This has been echoed by Lin Xixing of JinanUniversity, Guangzhou, who argues that the central government is less thandetermined to implement the pipeline plan (Lin, 2006, 2007). Despite Chinaspenchant for overland oil and gas pipelines, there are controversies over theviability of the pipelines simply because Myanmar produces little oil and thegas pipeline is costly to construct.12 The Rakhine state in western Myanmar,where Sittwe is located, is also plagued by Islamic radicalism, as the militaryregime has used Theravada Buddhism to suppress Rohingya Muslims in thecountry (Egreteau, 2003: 113-14; Rabasa, 2003: 22-23). Tension betweenBangladesh andMyanmarhasared upovercontested territorial borders

between the two countries, particularly when Daewoo International attempted

to extend offshore exploration into Block AD-7 in the Bay of Bengal, about93 km southwest of St Martins island of Bangladesh.13 To bypass the chokepoint of the Malacca Strait, China has the option of using the Gwadar portin Pakistan, which China helped to construct, although the route has to passthrough the politically volatile Kashmir area. Myanmars material value toChina is therefore open to dispute.

Furthermore, if this energy-security argument were to hold true, then onewould expect China to engage equally wholeheartedly with Iran in the MiddleEast and Libya and Sudan in Africa which are also regarded as energy-richpariah states by the West. But the correlation remains unclear. First and

foremost, China did not develop cordial ties with Libya, whose oil reserves



8/30

China Engages Myanmar as a Chinese Client State? 3

aresixtoeighttimesthoseofSudan,whentheGaddaregimewasostracizedby the West until 2003 (see Table 4.1).14 Were oil to be so important toChina, why would not China engage with the countries which have the mostpromising energy assets, even if this would inevitably tarnish its internationalimage? Furthermore, when the West takes steps to impose United Nationssanctions on the other three pariah states, China is less cooperative in thecases of Myanmar and Sudan than in the case of Iran. Bowing to intensepressure from the US, China began in 1997 to dissociate itself from Iransnuclear programme. Nonetheless, even after 1997 China frequently cameto Irans defence by claiming that as a signatory state of the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the right to develop nuclear energyprogrammes for civilian use. China was loath to cooperate with the US in2004 in referring the nuclear issue to the UNSC. To secure Chinas support inthe Security Council, Iran allegedly offered Chinese corporations precedencein more than 100 economic projects, which included China Petroleum and

Table 4.1 Proven Reserves of Oil and Gas in China andFour Pariah States, 2007

Oil Natural GasProven reserves R/P ratio Proven reserves R/P ratio(billion barrels) (years) (trillion cubic feet) (years)

China 15.5 16.0 11.3 66.54 80.00 27.2Iran 136.27 138.4 86.2 974.00 981.75 More than 100Libya 41.464 41.5 61.5 52.65 52.80 98.4Myanmar 0.05 N.A. 10.00 21.19 40.8Sudan 5.0 6.6 39.7 3.00 N.A.

Notes: N.A. = Not available. BP Statistical Review of World Energy June2008does not give any data about Myanmar proven oil reserves andSudaneseprovennaturalgasreserves.R/Pratio,denedasthelengthof

time, in years, that the remaining reserves would last at the prevailingannual rate of production, measures the life span of the energy resourcesfor individual countries.

Sources: BP, BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2008 (London: BP,2008), pp. 6, 22; Country Energy Profile, Energy InformationAdministration, US Department of Energy. (accessed 20 October 2008).



9/30

Pak K. Lee, Gerald Chan and Lai-Ha Chan

ChemicalCorporation(Sinopec)sinvestmentintheYadavaranoileld,closeto the Iran-Iraq border. But Beijing still voted in the Security Council in 2006-2008 in favour of imposing punitive sanctions against Tehran and reportedlyshared intelligence about Irans nuclear programme with the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency.15AlthoughChineseoilofcialsemphasizedthatthenegotiations with their Iranian counterparts over Sinopecs development oftheYadavaranoileldwerestymiedbydisagreementsovercommercialterms

rather than politics, one cannot rule out the possibility that the lack of anyprogress on the investment for three years until late 2007 was partly due toIrans displeasure at Chinas increasingly pro-Western attitude with regard to

its nuclear programme.16ThisdeesthepresumedlogicthatChinaattachesprimary importance to the quest for external oil and gas in dealing with therest of the world because among these three pariah states Iran holds thelargest reserves of oil and gas and has the longest span of life. This chaptertherefore suggests that securing energy supply, though a key national goal,cannot fully explain Chinas foreign policy towards oil-rich, unsavoury statesand it is not the exclusive factor for Sino-Myanmar engagement. Factors otherthan energy supply should be considered to account for Chinas pragmaticapproach to Myanmar.

While Myanmar has been ostracized by the West since 1988, it has notbeen isolated by regional powers, we therefore propose to examine in thefollowing sections Sino-Myanmar relations in the context of regional powerscontinuous partnership with the military regime.

Myanmar Plays the China Card

Despite the fact that Myanmar is often labelled as a de facto Chinese clientstate,17 the mutual relations are less than one-sided. This patron-client claimoverstatestheinuenceofChinaandinaccuratelyplaysdownthenationalist

aspirations of Myanmar leaders as well as the role played by Myanmarsneighbouring countries, particularly the member states of the Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in Chinas calculus.

Bolstered by xenophobic nationalism, Myanmar makes every effort tomaintain cordial relations with all major powers in the region to ward offover-independence on any one country.18Although itwas the rst non-socialist country that recognized the Peoples Republic of China in December1949, the decision was largely made out of fear of a possible invasion bythe Chinese Communists. Burmas colonial history left a legacy of borderdisputes between the two countries. Burmas U Nu was wary that China

would invade his country under the pretext of pursuing the remnant forces



10/30


ofGuomindang that ed across the border between the two countries.19

Mutual hostility heightened during Chinas Cultural Revolution period whenthe Burmese government was concerned that the Chinese revolutionary zealwould be exported to its country via the local Chinese community and whenanti-Chinese riots broke out in Burma in 1967. Afterwards, Burma was closerto the Soviet Union than to China (Charney, 2009: 125-126). Even today, theMyanmar regime is resentful of Chinas support for the Burma CommunistParty (BCP; also known as the White Flags) which lasted until the mid-1980s(Kols, 2007; Liu, 2007). An illegal party in the country, the BCP is oftenassociated with the insurgent armed forces in the politically sensitive ethnic

minority areas along the Sino-Myanmar border.As a consequence of these historical factors, China is not the only, nor

is the biggest, supporter of the abusive regime, although Chinas closerelationship with Myanmar has been put under the spotlight in the inter-national community for many years. Contrary to what is widely believed,Myanmars largest trading partner is Thailand, not China, due to the gas saleto Thailand.20 Although Thailand and Myanmar had experienced strainedrelations in the past, as early as December 1988, shortly after the coup bySLORC, Thailand began to adopt a policy of constructive engagement withMyanmar with a visit to Rangoon (renamed Yangon in 1989) by the Thaicommander of armed forces, General Chaovalit Yongchaiyut. Thailand invitedOhn Gyaw, then-Myanmar foreign minister, to attend ASEAN ministerialmeetings in Bangkok in 1994.21 Commercial interests between the twocountries have since developed rapidly and they include the offshore YadanaandYetagungaseldsintheGulfofMartaban,south of Yangon, forestry andhydroelectric power projects (Bray, 1995: 40-42). More recently, as a resultof its agreement with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in June2008, Thailands PTT Exploration and Production (PTT-EP) is to exploreoffshore gas from the Gulf of Martaban.22 Thailand has refused to cooperate

with the West in imposing sanctions on the regime. In December 2003 ThakinShinawatra invited representatives from 11 countries to Bangkok (knownas the Bangkok process) to discuss Myanmars seven-point roadmap todemocracy proposed by General Khin Nyunt (Holliday, 2005: 404, 408).Other ASEAN member states, with the possible exception of the Philippineswhich has strong ties with the US, are all supportive of strengthening politicaland economic ties with Myanmar.

ASEANs policy of constructive engagement is characterized by theregional endeavour not to embarrass and isolate the military regime andby the commitment to resolving Southeast Asian issues by nations within

the region (i.e. regional autonomy) (Acharya, 2001: 110). A rationale for



11/30


this proactive engagement is their common concern over increased ChineseinuenceoverMyanmar.There are also beliefs that economic propensitycontributes to national security and the security of a state is a derivative ofregional, common security (ibid.: 113; Bray, 1995: 40; James, 2004: 539-543).Another motivating factor is the regional efforts to create an intraregionalcooperative partnership to counter American hegemony.23 Myanmars rulingregime also goes to great lengths to persuade its neighbouring countries not tointervene into its internal affairs so as to lower confrontations with the ethnicminorities along the countrys borders and to avoid undue reliance on China(Haacke, 2006: 20, 27-29).

In light of the competition and rivalry between China and India, the juntatends to play China off against India in the negotiations over the gas route(Zhang, 2008). Both India and Burma were parts of British India beforethey won independence in August 1947 and January 1948 respectively.Between 1962 and 1991, however, India had not had good relations with themilitary junta, partly because of its moralistic rejection of the legitimacy ofthe anti-democracy coup detat, established by Jawaharlal Nehru and IndiraGandhi. However, as a result of the rise of P V Narasimha Rao to powerfollowing the death of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, the Indian governmentbegan to implement pro-market economic reforms domestically and to adoptexternally a Look East Policy to cement ties with the economically vibrantSoutheast Asia and to counterbalance China.24 The starting point of thepolicy of reaching out to Southeast Asia was naturally Myanmar. India alsofelt compelled to seek Burmese support to rein in anti-Indian insurrections inIndian northeast.25 This presaged a U-turn on dealing with its neighbour tothe east.26 U Aye, Director General of Myanmars Ministry of Foreign Affairs,visited New Delhi in October 1992. Indian foreign secretary, J.N. Dixit, paid areciprocal visit to Yangon four months later. Both countries agreed in principlenot to interfere into each others internal affairs.27 Since then, bilateral trade

has increased remarkably from US$87.4 million in 1990-91 to US$323.4million in 2001-02 with India becoming a major market for Myanmar exports(Egreteau, 2003: 132-133; Lall, 2006).

The visit by Jaswant Singh, then Indian Minister for External Affairs, toMyanmar in February 2001 kicked off a series of protracted negotiations onpurchasing natural gas from Myanmar. Two Indian oil and gas companies ONGC Videsh Ltd and GAIL are involved in the exploration of theShwegaseld,ofwhich,asmentionedbefore,DaewooInternationalholds

the majority stake. Ideally India wished to deliver Myanmar gas to Kolkata(Calcutta) via a pipeline going through Bangladesh. But due to New Delhis

reluctance to meet the conditions imposed by Dhaka in 2005, an alternative



12/30


pipeline which would bypass Bangladesh and yet be 40 per cent longerand at a cost of three times of the original route was under consideration(Lall, 2006). It was, however, revealed in December 2005 that the Myanmargovernment favoured selling natural gas from Blocks A1 and A3 to Chinarather than India. Despite this setback, bilateral cooperation between Indiaand Myanmar continued. In August 2007 India sealed a US$150 millioncontract for gas exploration in the Gulf of Martaban. During the militarycrackdown in September 2007, Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was inYangon to observe the signing of an additional oil and gas explorationcontract between his countrys ONGC Videsh Ltd and Myanmars military

leaders.28 In April 2008 when Maung Aye, vice chairman of the SLORC,visited India, the two countries signed an agreement in which India wouldinvest US$130 million to expand the Sittwe port facilities and build a 62-km road from Kaletwa to the border between the two countries. Indian VicePresident Hamid Ansari reiterated his countrys opposition to imposinginternational sanctions on Myanmar. In the wake of Cyclone Nargis thatkilled138,000BurmesenationwideinMay2008,Indiawasoneoftherst

countries to provide emergency aid to Myanmar. During a visit of JairamRamesh, Indian Minister of State for Commerce and Power, to Myanmar inJune 2008, the two countries signed several agreements, including a creditline of US$64 million to build three 230 kilovolt electricity transmissionlines and another US$60 million for a power project at Thatay Chaung inMyanmar.29

Another important country in this power game is Japan. Its relations withBurma can date back to the 1940s when the Thirty Comrades, includingAung San and Ne Win, received military training from the Japanese. Up to1988 Japan was the principal provider of development aid to Burma. Between1954,when Japans ofcial development assistance (ODA) programme

started, and 1988 Japan offered it more than US$2 billion in grants and loans.

UnderthestronginuenceofmajorJapanesetradingrmsandtheexternalpressure from Washington to isolate the military regime, Tokyo exercisedquiet diplomacy in dealing with Yangon. In February 1989 it formallyrecognized the military regime and resumed disbursements of funds agreedupon before the coup. In March 1990 the Japanese government annulledBurmese debt worth US$22.8 million by converting it into an untied grant.Four years later, it offered two new humanitarian aid grants to Myanmar(Bray, 1995: 52-53; Haacke, 2006: 73; Seekins, 2007: 97-98, 132). Threemonths after the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in July 1995,Japan approved a grant of 1.6 billion yen for the renovation and expansion

of the Institute of Nursing in Yangon. This was followed by a low-key visit



13/30


to Tokyo by Maung Aye between late October and early November 1995(Seekins, 2007: 133). Japan offered Myanmar in February 1998 a loan of 2.5billion yen (US$19.8 million) for the renovation of Mingaladon airport inYangon. The nature of the loan whether it was a new loan or humanitarianaid has remained ambiguous.30 Yoriko Kawaguchi, Japans Foreign Minister,made a visit to Myanmar in August 2002 after the junta lifted restrictions onAung San Suu Kyi who was put again under house arrest between September2000andMay2002.Thevisithadenormoussymbolicsignicance,asitwas

therstvisitbyaservingJapaneseforeignministerin19yearsandtherst

by any incumbent G8 foreign minister to Myanmar since 1989. In meeting

both government leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi, Kawaguchi indicatedJapans support for Myanmars democratization and nation-building.31 TheJapanesegovernmentdidnotimposeanyofcialeconomicsanctionsonthe

regime, so direct investment from Japan continued after 1988 and amountedto US$212.57 million in the period 1988-2003.32 Mitsui Trading Companyentered into an agreement in April 1996 to construct a gas pipeline from theYadanagaseld.33 Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) Ltd holds a 19.3 percentstakeintheYetagungaseld.34

Mutual ties have, however, become strained since the Depayin Incidentof May 2003. New grants were suspended. Technical assistance has largelybeen restricted to the grant aid for afforestation and improvement in maternaland child health care services under the Initiative for the Mekong RegionDevelopment.35 Nevertheless, the Japanese government has steadfastly main-tained that quiet diplomacy works better than sanctions. Yoshinori Yakabeof the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying that Japans mostimportant goal is to work together with ASEAN countries rather than supportsanctions.36 Bilateral relations have been frostier than ever after Kenji Nagai,a Japanese video-journalist, was shot dead by a Myanmar soldier in the juntascrackdown on anti-government protests in September 2007. A Japanese grant

for a business education centre at Yangon University worth 552 million yen(US$4.7 million) was consequently cancelled.37 But Japan did not end itsaid to the military-ruled country, as it pledged in January 2008 to extendhumanitarian aid worth US$1.79 million.38 To assist Myanmar in overcomingthe grave humanitarian crisis after the southern Irrawaddy Delta (also knownas Ayeyarwady Delta) was devastated by Cyclone Nargis, the Japanesegovernment sent through the United Nations a US$10 million emergencyrelief package for the victims. Japan also offered through Japan InternationalCooperation Agency disaster relief supplies worth US$950,000. Japan arguedthat the relief aid was given after taking into account the friendly relationship

between the two countries and the scale of the disaster.39



14/30


In 2007 Myanmar began to adopt a proactive diplomacy by reaching outto the states which have strained relations with the US and/or the EuropeanUnion; they include Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Russia. It resumeddiplomatic relations with North Korea, which was broken off in 1983, and wassuspected of seeking Pyongyangs aid in its nascent nuclear programme. Thejunta was also in talks with Russia for setting up a nuclear research reactor,about which China has had serious reservations.40

This chapter has so far challenged the widespread claim that Myanmar is aclient state of China. Rather there are signs that, intentionally or not, Myanmarhas skilfully played the China card to improve or maintain good relations with

its ASEAN brotherly states, especially Thailand, together with India andJapan. Largely due to their mounting concern about Chinas overwhelmingdominance over Myanmar, ASEAN, India and Japan have all acknowledgedthe need to be involved with Myanmar and hence accepted the principle ofnon-intervention in their dealings with Myanmar, laying aside both India andJapans initial principled support for human rights and democratization in thereclusive country. As a result, Myanmars natural gas sector does not comeunder Chinese domination.41 More recently the military junta began to forgerelations with fellow outlaw states to counterbalance its growing engagementwith China.

China Engages Myanmar in the ASEAN Way

In response to the active involvement with Myanmar in the names ofconstructive engagement by ASEAN, Look East Policy by India andquiet diplomacy byJapan, Chinahas fortied its determination tocling

to its longstanding Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. In particular,to develop close ties with Myanmar, it has adopted the principles of mutualrespect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and mutual non-interference in

each others internal affairs. But this line of argument has to face the challengepresented by an equally widespread assertion about China-Myanmar relations:that in exchange for Chinas political support on the world stage, the militaryjunta allows the Chinese navy to set up military facilities in its countrysmilitary bases. Since 1992 there has been considerable and continuingspeculation about the existence of Chinas naval bases on the Great CocoIsland and Hainggyi Island in Myanmar.42 This allegedly forms part of Chinasemerging assertive maritime diplomacy, also known as a string of pearlsstrategy, which covers ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand andCambodia(Pehrson,2006).Thereis,however,noconsistentandveriable

evidence for the claims that Chinese naval technicians are permanently



15/30


stationed in the bases or are in direct control of the operation of the militaryfacilities there. Even Admiral Arun Prakash, Indias Chief of Naval Staff,admitted in August 2005 that there were no Chinese military or intelligencefacilities on the Great Coco Island.43 The speculation is further discredited bythe fact that the US, which possesses the most advanced intelligence collectioncapability, has not voiced any concern about the reported presence of Chinesebases in the Indian Ocean.44

We therefore contend that Chinas policy towards Myanmar in general andits stance on its internal problems in particular are not entirely shaped by theconsiderations of bilateral relations and mutual exchanges of energy, military

and political interests. Short of regime change in Myanmar which might resultin a spillover of political instability into Chinas south-western border, Chinais willing to cooperate with the West in urging the junta to undertake domestic,albeit limited, reforms. It is in Chinas interests to see a civilianization ofthe regime, propping up the legitimacy of the ruling generals, and conciliationbetween Myanmar and the US. China brokered talks between Eric John, USDeputyAssistantSecretaryofStateforEastAsianandPacicAffairs,and

two Myanmar ministers in Beijing in June 2007. China also backed the effortof the UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to promote reconciliation betweenAung San Suu Kyi and the generals, and the resumption of the NationalConvention which is primarily tasked with drawing up a new Constitution(Storey, 2007).

Furthermore, there is a non-material or social element in Sino-Myanmarrelations: the ASEAN Way, a general approach adopted by ASEANcountries that encompasses, among other things, non-confrontational,consensual, incremental, and non-interventionist ways to resolve regionalconicts.45 Chinas policy is largely contingent on how ASEAN treats itsreclusivemember state. In the rst place, this isbecauseChinabelieves

that regional institutions have the primary right to speak on the issues that

directly concern them. Chinas state-centric approach to global governance isto be built on individual states at the basic level, regional intergovernmentalorganizations at the middle level and the United Nations at the global level.This would serve to restrain the US from exercising power unilaterally andmeddling in the domestic affairs of other states, indirectly enhancing Chinassecurity and freedom of action on various fronts. As we argue elsewhere,the Chinese government was annoyed by the fact that without UNSCsauthorization, the US-led NATO in March 1999 used armed forces againstthe former Yugoslavia, a sovereign state, not a member of the regionalorganization, and posed no direct threat to it. China has since then demanded

that forcible humanitarian intervention be authorized by the UNSC and



16/30


receive prior consent of the host state.46

Chinas appreciation of an increasedrole of regional organizations in regional and global governance is evidentin its Position Paper on the United Nations Reforms released in June2005. China maintains that the reforms should safeguard the principles ofsovereign equality and non-interference in internal affairs. Even if a massivehumanitarian crisis takes place, it says, the opinions of the country in questionand the regional organizations concernedshould be respected, and that it iseventually the responsibility of the Security Council to make the decision toease and defuse the crisis within the framework of the UN.47

Second, given the prevalence of the China threat arguments in theregion,ChinandsthatitisinitsintereststoworkintandemwithASEANto allay the latters concern over its increasingly close ties with Myanmar.48

It has gone to great lengths to maintain good relations with ASEAN at largeand not to marginalize the organization.49 Otherwise, China is fearful thatit would likely push the regional countries to form an anti-China coalitionwith Japan as well as the US.50 That explains why Beijing is loath to play aproactive role in resolving Myanmars domestic crises despite the calls byhuman-rights activists on China to use its leverage over the military juntato push it to embrace a more liberal standard of governance. Instead, it issupportive of the involvement of ASEAN in the domestic affairs of Myanmar.In the aforementioned double veto by China and Russia in January 2007,Chinas rationale was that the Myanmar issue was an internal affair of asovereign state and that Myanmars immediate neighbours, ASEAN memberstates, did not believe that the grave challenges Myanmar was facing poseda threat to them. What has escaped the notice of many pundits, however,was Indonesias abstention from the voting. The Southeast Asian state,a non-permanent UNSC member in 2007-2008, agreed with China thatthe host of issues such as democratic transition, human rights, HIV/AIDSandnarcotics and human trafcking did notmakeMyanmar a threat to

international peace and security. The Human Rights Council would be amore appropriate venue than the Security Council for tackling the issues.Indonesia emphasized that both the United Nations and ASEAN could worktogether to address them.51

In contrast, in September 2005 Vclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutucalled for the UNSC to take action against the Myanmar regime. They arguethat the problems of the country were not restricted to human rights abuses.Theoutowofrefugees,drugproductionandtrafckingandthespreadof

HIV/AIDS have led the country to become a problem for the region andinternational community.52 While China does not publicly endorse this view,

Chinese diplomats have been allegedly critical of the Myanmar government



17/30


for its inability to prevent illicit drugs from entering China.53

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread in Asia along four major routes, all originatingin Myanmar, the second-largest producer of opium. Three of them run fromeastern Myanmar to Yunnan, Xinjiang and Guangxi in western China.54

Myanmarshealth-caresystemisnotoriouslyawed.Itwasranked190thout

of 191 nations by the World Health Organization in 2000 and spent meagrelyUS$137,000 in 2005 to control HIV/AIDS.55 With approximately 240,000people living with HIV, Myanmars HIV/AIDS prevalence rate among adults(aged 15-49) is 0.7 per cent, seven times of Chinas.56 China has engaged itsneighbouring countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Vietnam,

Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia about containing the spread ofcontagious disease.57

After the violent Cyclone Nargis devastatingly hit Myanmar in May2008, 24 countries and the United Nations swiftly offered aid and assistanceto the Myanmar government. However, in fear of foreign intervention intoits domestic politics and even aggression, the military regime refused toaccept aid from Western nations.58 China was one of a few Asian countrieswhich successfully dispatched relief supplies to the country. US Secretaryof State Condoleezza Rice made an appeal for China to press the militaryregime to accept more external disaster assistance.59 While China was moresuccessful than Western countries and non-governmental aid agencies indispatching relief supplies to Myanmar and had pledged aid worth US$15million, it resisted putting pressure on Myanmar to open up its borders foremergency relief from other donors. When France argued in the UNSC forinvoking the notion of responsibility to protect to deliver aid forcibly tothe victims of the disaster without the consent of the military regime, Chinadisagreed. But one has to note that in addition to China, Russia, Vietnamand Indonesia, the latter two being Myanmars fellow members in ASEAN,rejected the involvement of the UNSC.60 Eventually it was ASEAN that

took the lead to coordinate a coalition of mercy to undertake humanitarianrelief. An ASEAN-UN International Pledging Conference was held inYangon on 25th May 2008 which received international aid amounting toUS$50 million.61

Mounting evidence indicates that a quest for national and regionalautonomy and international legitimacy occupies a more central placein Chinas grand strategy than a hunt for energy resources in countrieswith moderate oil wealth. The former, which has a direct bearing on itsregime security, requires an international order built less on US hegemonythan on heightened cooperation between sovereign states and regional

intergovernmental organizations. China increasingly relies on the support



18/30


of nation-states and regional organizations that share the cardinal principlesof inviolability of national sovereignty and non-interference in the internalaffairs of other states to constrain the sole superpower, the US. This is moresalient in Southeast Asia due to several reasons. First, ASEAN is an importantpolitical ally of China not only because the Southeast Asian states are on itsperiphery but also because they share a commitment to repudiating the post-Cold War normative assertion that only liberal democracies are rightful andlegitimate members of the civilized international society and to resistingan increased temptation of liberal democracies to intervene into the internalaffairs of other states.62 China acts in accordance with the norms and rules of

a regional order fashioned by both ASEAN and itself: a pluralist order basedon a common commitment to the fundamental institution of state sovereigntyenshrined in both the United Nations Charter and the ASEAN Treaty of Amityand Cooperation. According to the English School of International Relations,this pluralist conception of international society does not prevent cooperationbetween states even if they hold varying political values and ideologies.63Second,AmericanpoliticalinuenceandauthorityinSoutheastAsiawason

the wane under the George W. Bush administration, particularly in its secondterm. Since the US started the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of9/11, it has shown reduced interest in Southeast Asian affairs. During herfour-year tenure as US Secretary of State between January 2005 and January2009, Condoleezza Rice skipped two ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)meetings. George W. Bush was absent from a summit meeting with ASEANin September 2007, which marked the 40th anniversary of the founding ofthe organization.64 In a way, as a gradual shift in power balance in favour ofChina in East and Southeast Asia seems to be taking shape, China is at painsto carve out a normative buffer zone on its border with Southeast Asia tocounterAmericanhegemony.Abattleforinuenceandleadershipbetween

China and the US is, however, on the horizon. With only a few weeks into

his administration, Barack Obama made a conscious attempt to re-invigorateties with Southeast Asia by dispatching Hillary Clinton to visit Asia, includingIndonesia, in February 2009. Clinton admitted in Indonesia that economicsanctions on Myanmar had been futile in effecting political change insideMyanmar, suggesting a possible review of American policy towards thecountry. Unlike the stance of the previous Bush Administration, Clinton saidthat she would attend an annual ARF meeting in July 2009 and that the USwould also consider signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.65 Third,critics of the West charge that the sheer moral hypocrisy of Western powersis evident in Southeast Asia. In spite of economic sanctions against Myanmar

by both the US and the European Union, Chevron/Unocal (US) and Total



19/30


(France), two international oil majors, have not ceased their operation in theYadana and Yetagun gas pipeline projects.66

Conclusion: Norms, Energy and Beyond

This chapter has demonstrated two points. First, although ASEAN, China,India, and Japan form partnership with Myanmar for different reasons,interactions among the regional stakeholders with regard to Myanmar havereinforced the regional norm of non-intervention into other states internalaffairs. Both India and Japan, the two democratic countries in the region,

have been socialized, though in varying degrees, into the norm when theyengage Myanmar as well as ASEAN.67 The regional normative environmentorstructureinwhichallstakeholdersndthemselvesdenesorconstitutes

their Asian identities, national interests, and more importantly, what countsas rightful action. At the same time, regional actors create and reproducethe dominant norms when they interact with each other. This lends supportto the constructivist argument that both agent and structure are mutuallyconstitutive.68 This ideational approach prompts us to look beyond suchmaterial forces and concerns as the quest for energy resources as well asmilitary prowess to explain Chinas international behaviour. Both rational-choice logic of consequences and constructivist logic of appropriateness areat work in Chinas relations with Myanmar and ASEAN. But pundits grosslyoverstate the former at the expense of the latter. To redress this imbalance, thischapter asserts that China adopts a business as usual approach to Myanmarlargely because this approach is regarded as appropriate and legitimateby Myanmar and ASEAN and practised by India and Japan as well, andbecause China wants to strengthen the moral legitimacy of an internationalsociety based on the state-centric principles of national sovereignty and non-intervention.

As a corollary, we argue that regional politics at play have debunkedthe common, simplistic belief that Myanmar is a client state of China andthat Chinas thirst for Myanmars energy resources is a major determinantof Chinas policy towards the regime. A close examination of the oil andgas assets in Myanmar reveals that it is less likely to be able to become asignicantplayerininternationaloilpolitics.WhereasMyanmarmayoffer

limitedmaterialbenetstoChina,itandASEANatlargeareofsignicant

normative value to the latter. Ostensibly China adopts a realpolitik approachtoMyanmar; however, the approach also reects Chinas recognition of

thepresenceandprominenceofaregionalnormativestructureanditsrm

support for it.



20/30


Notes* This chapter is a slightly updated and revised version of our paper entitled

Chinas Realpolitik Engagement with Myanmar, China Security, 5(1), 2009,pp. 101-23.

1. See, for example, Zweig and Bi (2005).2. The State Law and Order Restoration Council changed the name of the country

from Burma to the Union of Myanmar in June 1989 and it itself was renamedthe State Peace and Development Council in November 1997. The NationalLeague for Democracy fetched 392 of the 485 contested seats in the Parliament.Myanmar has been regarded as a pariah state by the West following its failure

to transfer power to the NLD (Acharya, 2001: 108; Than, 2003). A biography ofAung Sang Suu Kyi from 1942 to 1995 is available at Nobelprize.org at , accessed 2ndJanuary 2009.

3. Central Intelligence Agency, US, The World Factbook , accessed 28th April 2008;James (2004), especially p. 550n; Kurlantzick (2007: 150).

4. Peter Baker, Bush Sets New Sanctions against Burmese Military Junta,Washington Post, 20th October 2007 , accessed 27th November2008.

5. According to Mi Gongsheng, the director of Yunnan Provincial Developmentand Reform Commission, the pipelines would be built at a total cost of US$2.54billioninthersthalfof2009.ChinaNationalPetroleumCorporation(CNPC)

will hold a 50.9 per cent stake of the project while Myanmar Oil and GasEnterprise (MOGE) will own the remaining 49.1 per cent. (Wan Zhihong,Yunnan To Build New Gas Pipeline, China Daily, 19th November 2008 , accessed20th November 2008)

6. Myanmar Pipelines yet to be Approved, South China Morning Post, onlineedition, 6th March 2008. Myanmar is an oil-importing country due to the

depletionofitsonshoreoilelds.SeeThan(2006)andLall(2006).7. Zhang (2008), Zhang (2007). According to Zhang, China has grounds to besuspicious of American motives regarding the Regional Maritime SecurityInitiative because it is not open to Chinese participation and because of theunpleasant memories of the Yinhe incident in 1993. For more detailed studiesabout the Malacca dilemma, see You (2007), Lanteigne (2008).

8. Zhang (2008), China-Myanmar Oil Pipeline Project Approved, AlexandersGas and Oil Connections News & Trends: E & SE Asia , 13(7), 15th April 2008, accessed 27th November2008.

9. Daewoo International began in 2000 to explore natural gas in the Bay of Bengal

in partnership with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). Four years



21/30


later Daewoo Internationalannounced the discoveryofa gas eld inShwe.DaewooInternationalholdsa51percentstakeintheShweeld.Minorpartnersinclude Indias Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (17 per cent), MOGE (15 percent), GAIL of India (8.5 per cent) and Korea Gas Corporation (8.5 per cent).(Kols, 2007; Charles Lee, Myanmar Gas Sales, Transport to CNPC Set,Platts Oilgram News, 24th June 2008, via Nexus; Song Yen Ling, DaewooSigns Myanmar Pact with CNPC,International Oil Daily, 24th June 2008, viaNexus)

10. See, e.g. Amy Kazmin, Beijing Holds Key to Change in Burma, FinancialTimes, online edition, 7th August 2008 and Brian McCartan, Chinas Footprintin Myanmar Expands, Asia Times Online, 1st November 2008 , accessed 2nd November2008; Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Small (2008), especially p. 50.

11. Lee (2005), especially p. 265.12. The cost of constructing the 2,380km-gas pipeline would be up to US$1.04 billion

and China has to offer Myanmar credit of US$83 million to help it develop thegas reserves. (Raman, 2007. See also Lee, 2005: 270, 286.)

13. China urges both countries to settle the dispute through equal and peacefulnegotiations. (Bangladesh Looks to End Offshore Gas Dispute with India andMyanmar,Alexanders Gas and Oil Connections News & Trends: E & SE Asia,13(13), 21st July 2008 ,

accessed 27th November 2008; Andrew Symon, Bangladesh and Myanmarin Fuel Spat, Asia Times Online, 20th November 2008 , accessed 22nd November 2008;Nirmal Ghosh, Dhaka Reinforces Border Security; High Alert Comes afterMyanmar Said to Have Mobilised Ground Troops, Straits Times (Singapore),10th November 2008, via Nexus.)

14. In spite of the fact that China National Petroleum Corporation and LibyasNational Oil Corporation signed a cooperative agreement during Jiang Zeminsvisit to Libya in April 2002, China did not import oil from the African countryuntil 2003. China bought meagrely 128,900 tonnes of oil that year. (Wang,

2007) The United Nations Security Council lifted sanctions against Libya inits Resolution 1506 of 12th September 2003 , accessed 27th November 2008.

15. Garver (2006: 139-165); Lee (2005: 282); AP: China Gave IAEA Intel onIrans Nuclear Activities, USA Today, 2nd April 2008 , accessed 6th January 2009.China supported United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1696of 31st July 2006, UNSCR 1737 of 23rd December 2006, UNSCR 1747 of 24thMarch 2007, and UNSCR 1803 of 3rd March 2008. Full texts of the resolutionsare available at ,, , accessed 20th November 2008); and



22/30


, accessed 5th January2009.16. Chen Aizhu, China-Iran Oil Talks Slowed by Terms, Not Politics, Reuters,

13th November 2007 , accessed 13th November 2007; Chinas Sinopec, Iran InkYadavaran Deal, China Mining Association, 11th December 2007 , accessed 4thJanuary2009; SINOPECStartsYadavaranOileldBODOperation,Tehran

Times International Daily, 18th September 2008 , accessed 4th January 2009.

17. Cited in Than (2003: 208). See also Haacke (2006: 26-27).

18. It is an argument shared by Myanmar specialists. See Haacke (2006), James(2004), Selth (2003).

19. Cheng (2004), especially p. 35. The author was a former Chinese ambassador toMyanmar. Charney (2009: 79-80).

20. Thomas Fuller, Regions Energy Needs Enable Myanmar Junta,InternationalHerald Tribune, 2nd October 2007 , accessed 2nd October 2007.

21. Myanmar became an observer to ASEAN and began to participate in the ASEANRegional Forum two years later. (Than (1998), especially pp. 403, 412)

22. Brian McCartan, Myanmar Signs up Energy Partners,Asia Times Online, 10th

July 2008 ,accessed 11th August 2008.23. The US decision to impose sanctions on Myanmar in May 1997 prompted

ASEAN to grant Myanmar a membership in July of the year (Acharya, 2001:113).The growth of regionalism as a response toexternal inuence iswhat

Beeson (2003) calls reactionary regionalism.24. Lall (2006). The closer links between China and Myanmar since 1988 and the

increasingChineseinuenceonthemilitaryjuntawereperceivedbyIndiaas

potential threats to its national security. The alleged installation of electronicsurveillance facilities along the Myanmar coasts and on the Great Coco Islandwas denounced in 1998 by George Fernandes, then Indias Defence Minister, asa military threat to his country. In order to avoid the Myanmar junta becominga Chinese military pawn against Indian interests, India chose to reconcile withMyanmar rather than confronting head-on with the junta. See Renaud Egreteau,India Courts a Junta, Asia Times Online, 20th September 2003 , accessed 17th October 2008.

25. There were as many as 20,000 anti-Indian insurgents operating within Myanmar.(Egreteau, 2003, chapter 6, especially pp. 130-32, 150-58; Taylor, 2008,especially p. 262)

26. Egreteau (2003), chapter 5, especially pp. 102-03.27. Thenon-interventionpolicywasconrmedin1996byPranabMukherjee,Indian

Minister of Foreign Affairs. (Egreteau, 2003: 133)



23/30


28. China and Myanmar: Our Friends in the North, The Economist, onlineedition, 9th-15th February 2008; Mehta (2007). Another example is Myanmarsendorsement in October 2005 of Indias endeavour to become a member of theUnited Nations Security Council in spite of Chinas reservation about Indiasmembership. (Haacke, 2006: 33)

29. Siddharth Srivastava, India lays out a Red Carpet for Myanmar, Asia TimesOnline, 5th April 2008 , accessed 27th November 2008; Brian McCartan, Myanmar Signs upEnergy Partners, Asia Times Online, 10th July 2008 , accessed 17th October 2008.

30. The grant of 3.5 billion yen (US$28 million) for the repair of the Baluchaung

hydro-electric station, which generated 30 per cent of the electricity needed byMyanmar, in April 2001 aroused a similar controversy. Seekins (2007: 138, 143-44).

31. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Minister for Foreign Affairs YorikoKawaguchis Visit to Myanmar (Overview and Evaluation), 6th August 2002, accessed31st October 2008.

32. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Japan-Myanmar Relations, July 2008, accessed 31stOctober 2008.

33. The investment was later called off or postponed. (Seekins, 2007: 119, 122)34. Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC), Major projects;Southeast Asia , accessed 31st October 2008.

35. Haacke (2006: 74); Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Major Projects ofJapans Initiative for the Mekong Region Development (Dec. 2004 Present),13th December 2005 , accessed 31st October 2008.

36. Suvendrini Kakuchi, Japan: Activists Pressure Tokyo on Burma Sanctions, InterPress Service, 5th July 2006, via Nexus.

37. Japan Cancels Large Aid Grant to Myanmar, International Herald Tribune,16th October 2007 ,accessed 2nd November 2008.

38. Japan Pledges 1.79 Million Dollars in Aid to Sanction-hit Myanmar,MyanmarNews Update, No. 75, 14th-18th January 2008 , accessed 2nd November 2008.

39. Embassy of Japan in Myanmar, The Handling Over Ceremony of EmergencyRelief Goods for the Cyclone NARGIS Victims of Myanmar, 18th May 2008, accessed8th November 2008.

40. Taylor (2008: 264); Norman Robespierre, Nuclear Bond for North Korea and

Myanmar, Asia Times Online, 4th October 2008


24/30


atimes/Southeast_Asia/JJ04Ae01.html>, accessed 25th January 2009. As early asFebruary 2001 the Russian Atomic Energy Minsitry proposed building a nuclearreactor in Myanmar for research purposes. Not only the US but China wereopposed to the proposed project in the wake of an International Atomic EnergyAgencys study that concludes that the saftety measures in Myanmar did not meetthe international standards. (Charney, 2009: 187)

41.ChinasXinhuaNewsAgencyquotesofcialsourcesofMyanmarassayingthat

a total of 13 foreign oil companies, from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, India,Russia, South Korea, in addition to three ASEAN member states, are operating inMyanmar. (Xinhua News Agency, Companies from China, Myanmar, S. KoreaSign Gas Pact in Myanmar, Xinhuanet.com, 24th December 2008 , accessed 3rd January2009)

42. For journalistic reports, see, e.g. Myanmar and China: New Horizons, TheEconomist, 23rd January 1993; Bilveer Singh, China Gives S-E Asia TwoCauses for Anxiety, Business Times (Singapore), 9th June 1993; David Blair,India Targets Chinas Oil Supplies as Tensions Grow between Rivals, DailyTelegraph (London), 15th September 2008; Blue Water Marks,Indian Express,22nd December 2008; all via Nexis. For an academic study, see Chellaney (2008),especially p. 27 ,accessed 5th January 2009. The Great Coco Island is in the Bay of Bengal, 45

km north of Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Hainggyi Island is located inthe Irrawaddy/Ayeyarwady estuary.43. India Says No China Defence Posts on Myanmar Island, but Will Verify,

EagleSpeak, 24th August 2005 , accessed 3rd January 2009; No Report of Anti-India Activity at Coco Island, Indiainfo.com, 25th August 2005 , accessed 3rd January2009; India Says No China Defence Posts on Myanmar Island,Reuters News,24th August 2005, via Factiva.

44. The alleged existence of Chinese military bases in Myanmar is superbly discussedand dismissed by Selth (2007). See also Bert (2004), especially p. 273.

45. A classic work on the ASEAN Way is Acharya (2001), especially chapter 2.46.BothconditionswerefullledintheresolutionoftheindependencecrisisofEast

Timor in September 1999. (Chan, Lee and Chan, 2008, especially pp. 9-10)47. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, Position Paper of

the Peoples Republic of China on the United Nations Reforms, 7th June 2005, accessed 14th September 2007;emphasis added.

48. Despite the misgivings about accepting the autocratic Myanmar into ASEAN onthe part of the latters dialogue partners in the West, ASEAN was determined towelcome Myanmar in 1997 because, among others, it wanted to draw Myanmar

away from Chinas orbit. (Selth, 2003: 6)



25/30


49. China acceded to ASEANs Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in October2003. The guiding principles of the TAC are mutual respect for the independence,sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of nations;non-interference in the internal affairs of one another; peaceful settlement ofdifferences or disputes; and renunciation of the threat or use of force. See TheTreaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, ASEAN Secretariat, 24thFebruary 1976 , accessed 18th June 2008;and ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations, ASEAN Secretariat , accessed 18th June 2008.

50. Glosny (2006), especially p. 26. On its part, China had also harboured reservationtill 1997 about participation in ASEAN-based regional institutions. For analyses

of its changing views about regional multilateralism, see Johnston and Evans(1999), Shambaugh (2004), Foot (2005).

51. United Nations Security Council, Security Council Fails to Adopt DraftResolution on Myanmar, Owing to Negative Votes by China, Russian Federation,12th January 2007 ,accessed 21st November 2008. Established in March 2006, the Human RightsCouncil is a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly. All 192 UN memberstates human rights records are to be reviewed once every four years under theprocess of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). With a two-thirds majority vote,the General Assembly may suspend the rights and privileges of any Council

Member that it decides has persistently committed gross and systematic violationsofhumanrightsduringitstermofmembership.SeeInformationOfce,United

NationsOfceinGeneva,FrequentlyAskedQuestions:HumanRightsCouncil

, accessed 3rdJanuary2009;OfceoftheHighCommissionerforHumanRights,Universal

Periodic Review, , accessed 3rd January 2009.

52. See their report entitled Threat to the Peace: A Call for the United NationsSecurity Council to Act in Burma , accessed 5th January 2009. Cited in the Foreword. Wethank Ian Holliday for bringing the report to our notice.

53. David Lague, China Makes Contingency Plans for Juntas Fall,InternationalHerald Tribune, 27th September 2007 , accessed 20th February 2009.

54. Garrett (2005), especially p. 58; Patrick (2006), especially pp. 39 and 41.55. Chris Beyrer, Burma and the Challenge of Humanitarian Assistance, The

Lancet, 27th October-2nd November 2007, p. 1465, via Nexis.56. While Myanmars total population is only 3.6 per cent of Chinas, the size

of the people living with HIV in Myanmar is 34.3 per cent of that of China.The data aredrawn fromUNAIDSs country prole and , accessed 20th February 2009.



26/30


57. GMS Nations Join Hands in Combating Communicable Diseases, RedOrbitNews, 6th July 2005 ,accessed 20th February 2009.

58. For a study of the threat perception on the part of the military junta, see Selth(2008).

59. Redai Fengbao Tuxi Miandian [Tropical cyclone swiftly attacks Myanmar],Wanxia [Sunset clouds], June 2008, pp. 40-43.

60. JasonLeow,ChinaisUrgedtoUseInuencewithJunta,The Wall Street Journal

Online, 12th May 2008 , accessed 13th May 2008; Louis Charbonneau, China, Indonesia RejectFrances Myanmar Push, Reuters News, 8th May 2008, via Factiva; Global

Policy Forum, Security Council Update: Myanmar, 14th May 2008 ,accessed 21st November 2008). Note that Ramesh Thakur, one of the authors ofthe Responsibility to Protect report, also warned against invoking the concept tointervene into Myanmars humanitarian aid programme. See his Should the UNInvoke the Responsibility to Protect? The Globe and Mail, 8th May 2008, viaFactiva.

61. Myanmar after the Cyclone: A Modest Opening, The Economist, online edition,24th-30th May 2008; Myanmar: A Turning Point? Straits Times, 30th May2008, via Nexus.

62. Clark (2005), especially chapter 9. During the 2008 US presidential electioncampaign, key advisors to both Barack Obama and John McCain were supportiveof the idea of establishing a league or concert of liberal democracies to promoteinternational security, democracy and human rights protection, and economicintegration. (Daalder and Lindsay, 2007; Kupchan, 2008)

63.Apluralistinternationalsocietyismarkedrstbytheclaimthatsovereignstates

are its primary members and they mutually recognize each others rights tonational sovereignty. Second, members of the pluralist international society havecommon interests in maintaining the order of the modern states system and thesurvival of the units within it (Dunne, 2008). We have argued elsewhere that therecent Chinese notion of a harmonious world (hexie shijie) bears a resemblance

to the English School. See Chan, Lee and Chan (2008: 14).64. Philip Bowring, Neglecting East Asia, International Herald Tribune, 3rdAugust 2007 , accessed 31st October 2008; Ashwini Devare, USA Elections: Impact onSoutheast Asia, Jakarta Post, 26th October 2008 , accessed 31stOctober 2008; Funabashi (2008), especially p. 112.

65.ClintonistherstUSSecretaryofStatesinceDeanRuskin1961tomakeAsia

astherstdestinationofheroverseastrips.SheraisedtheissueofMyanmarwith

senior leaders of both Indonesia and China. Jay Solomon, Clinton Says U.S. WillExpand Southeast Asia Ties, Wall Street Journal Online, 19th February 2009, accessed 22nd



27/30


February 2009; Glenn Kessler, Shift Possible on Burma Policy, WashingtonPost, 19th February 2009 , accessed 22nd February 2009;American Diplomacy in Asia: Hillary Says Hello to Asia, The Economist, 21st-27th February 2009.

66. Earthrights International (2008); Oil companies Look to Exploit Burma, SydneyMorning Herald, 30th September 2007 , accessed6th November 2008; Earthrights International (2003). Chevron Corporationacquired Unocal (Union Oil Company of California) in August 2005.

67. It is, however, open to dispute whether observance of the non-interference norm

is conducive to resolving the political impasse of the country. Ian Holliday issceptical about it. See Holliday (2005).

68. Risse (2007), especially p. 128; Hurd (2008), especially pp. 303-304. Glen Hooket al. have noted a revival of shared Asianist norms in Japan and the ASEANmember states. (Hook, Gilson, Hughes and Dobson, 2005: 223)

References

Acharya, Amitav (2001), Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia:ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order, London: Routledge.

Beeson, Mark (2003), ASEAN Plus Three and the Rise of Reactionary Regionalism,Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 251-268.

Bert, Wayne (2004), Burma, China and the U.S.A.,Pacic Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 2,pp. 263-282.

Bray, John (1995),Burma: The Politics of Constructive Engagement, Discussion Paper58, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Chan, Lai-Ha, Pak K. Lee and Gerald Chan (2008), Rethinking Global Governance: AChina Model in the Making?, Contemporary Politics, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 3-19.

Charney, Michael W. (2009), A History of Modern Burma, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Chellaney, Brahma (2008), Assessing Indias Reactions to Chinas Peaceful Develop-ment Doctrine,NBR Analysis, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 23-36.Cheng Ruisheng (2004), Cong Zhong-Mian Guanxi Kan Wu Xiang Yuanze deQiangda Shengmingli [To look at thegreat vitality of theve principles (of

peaceful co-existence) from Sino-Myanmar relations], Ya-Fei Zongheng [ExploringAsia and Africa], No. 4, pp. 35-41.

Clark, Ian (2005), Legitimacy in International Society, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Daalder, Ivo and James Lindsay (2007), Democracies of the World, Unite, TheAmerican Interest, Vol. 2, No. 3, January-February , accessed 4th November 2008.

Dunne, Tim (2008), The English School, in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal



28/30


(eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, pp. 267-285.Earthrights International (2003), Total Denial Continues: Earth Rights Abuses

along the Yadana and Yetagun Pipelines in Burma, Washington, DC andChiang Mai: Earthrights International , accessed 6th November 2008.

Earthrights International (2008), The Human Cost of Energy: Chevrons ContinuingRole in Financing Oppression and Profiting from Human Rights Abuses in

Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar), Washington, DC and Chiang Mai: EarthrightsInternational , accessed6th November 2008.

Egreteau, Renaud (2003), Wooing the Generals: Indias New Burma Policy, NewDelhi: Authorspress.

Foot, Rosemary (2005), Chinas Regional Activism: Leadership, Leverage, andProtection, Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 141-53.

Funabashi, Yoichi (2008), Keeping up with Asia: America and the New Balance ofPower, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 5, pp. 110-125.

Garrett, Laurie (2005), The Lessons of HIV/AIDS, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No.4, pp. 51-64.

Garver, John W. (2006), China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World,Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

Glosny, Michael A. (2006), Heading toward a Win-Win Future? Recent Develop-ments in Chinas Policy towards Southeast Asia, Asian Security, Vol. 2, No. 1,pp. 24-57.

Haacke, Jrgen (2006), Myanmars Foreign Policy: Domestic Influences andInternational Implications, Adelphi Paper No. 381, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Holliday, Ian (2005), Japan and the Myanmar Stalemate: Regional Power andResolution of a Regional Problem, Japanese Journal of Political Science, Vol.6, No. 3.

Hook, Glen D., Julie Gilson, Christopher W. Hughes and Hugo Dobson (2005),Japans International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security, Abingdon,Oxon: Routledge.

Hurd, Ian (2008), Constructivism, in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds),The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press,pp. 298-316.

James, Helen (2004), Myanmars International Relations Strategy: The Search forSecurity, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 530-553.

Johnston, Alastair Iain and Paul M. Evans (1999), Chinas Engagement with Multi-lateral Security Institutions, in Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (eds),

Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power, London: Routledge,pp. 235-272.

Kleine-Ahlbrandt, Stephanie and Andrew Small (2008), Chinas New DictatorshipDiplomacy: Is Beijing Parting with Pariahs?, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 1, pp.

38-56.



29/30


Kols, shild (2007), Burma in the Balance: The Geopolitics of Gas, StrategicAnalysis, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 625-643.Kupchan, Charles A. (2008), Minor League, Major Problems: The Case against a

League of Democracies, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 6, pp. 96-109.Kurlantzick, Joshua (2007), Charm Offensive: How Chinas Soft Power Is Transform-

ing the World, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Lall, Marie (2006), Indo-Myanmar Relations in the Era of Pipeline Diplomacy,

Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 424-446.Lanteigne, Marc (2008), Chinas Maritime Security and the Malacca Dilemma,

Asian Security, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 143-161.Lee, Pak K. (2005), Chinas Quest for Oil Security: Oil (War) in the Pipeline?,

Pacic Review, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 265-301.Lin Xixing (2006), Miandian-Zhongguo: Xin Shiyou Liuxiang [Myanmar-China:new direction ofoil ow],Zhongguo Shiyou Shihua [Chinas petroleum andpetrochemicals], 1st April, pp. 28-29.

Lin Xixing (2007), Zhong-Mian Guandao Weihe Haoshi Duo Mo [Why is the roadto China-Myanmar pipeline strewn with setbacks?], Zhongguo Shiyou Shihua[Chinas petroleum and petrochemicals], 1st March, pp. 30-31.

Liu Shaohua (2001), Lun Zhong-Mian Guanxi [On China-Myanmar relations],Wuhan Daxue Xuebao (Renwen Kexue Ban) [Journal of Wuhan University(humanities edition)], Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 325-329.

Liu Wu (2007), Miandian Waijiao Zhengce de Xin Tiaozheng: Cong Dui Hua Youhaodao Daguo Pingheng Waijiao [The new adjustment of Myanmars foreign policy:from a China-friendly to a balance of great powers policy], Dongnan Ya Yanjiu[Southeast Asian studies], No. 2, pp. 44-49.

Mehta, Manik (2007), On Their Own, India and China Wont Pressure Myanmar,World Politics Review, 10th October , accessed 11th October 2007.

Patrick, Stewart (2006), Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction?, TheWashington Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 27-53.

Pehrson, Christopher J. (2006), String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of ChinasRising Power across the Asian Littoral, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War

College, June ,accessed 3rd January 2009.Rabasa, Angel M. (2003), Political Islam in Southeast Asia: Moderates, Radicals and

Terrorists, Adelphi Paper No. 358, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Raman, B. (2007), Myanmar Gas: The Pipeline Psywar, South Asia Analysis

Group Paper No. 2244, 12th May , accessed 19th October 2008.

Risse, Thomas (2007), Social Constructivism Meets Globalization, in David Heldand Anthony McGrew (eds), Globalization Theory: Approaches and Controversies,Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 126-147.

Seekins, Donald M. (2007),Burma and Japan since 1940: From Co-prosperity toQuiet Dialogue, Copenhagen: NIAS Press.



30/30


Selth, Andrew (2003), Burmas China Connection and the Indian Ocean Region,Working Paper No. 377, Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre,Australian National University.

Selth, Andrew (2007), Burma, China and the Myth of Military Bases, AsianSecurity, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 279-307.

Selth, Andrew (2008), Even Paranoids Have Enemies: Cyclone Nargis andMyanmars Fears of Invasion, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp.379-402.

Shambaugh, David (2004), China Engages Asia, International Security, Vol. 29,No. 3, 2004/05, pp. 64-99.

Storey, Ian (2007), China, Burma, and the Saffron Revolution, China Brief, Vol. 7,

No. 19, 17th October ,accessed 7th January 2009.

Taylor, Robert H. (2008), Myanmar in 2007: Growing Pressure for Change but theRegime Remains Obdurate, in Daljit Singh and Tin Maung Maung Than (eds),Southeast Asian Affairs 2008, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp.247-273.

Than, Tin Maung Maung (1998), Myanmar: Preoccupation with Regime Survival,National Unity, and Stability, in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.),Asian Security Practice:

Material and Ideational Inuence, Stanford: CA: Stanford University Press, pp.

390-416.Than, Tin Maung Maung (2003), Myanmar and China: A Special Relationship?,Southeast Asian Affairs 2003, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp.189-210.

Than, Tin Maung Maung (2006), Myanmars Energy Sector: Banking on NaturalGas, Southeast Asian Affairs 2005, Singapore: Institute of Southeast AsianStudies, pp. 257-289.

US Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, accessed 28th April 2008.

Wang Youyong (2007), Zhongguo yu Libiya de Nengyuan Hezuo [China-Libyaenergy cooperation], Guoji Guancha [International survey], No. 3, pp. 47-52.

You Ji (2007), Dealing with the Malacca Dilemma: Chinas Effort to Protect ItsEnergy Supply, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 467-489.

Zhang, Xuegang (2007), Southeast Asia and Energy: Gateway to Stability, ChinaSecurity, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 18-35 , accessed27th November 2008.

Zhang, Xuegang (2008), Chinas Energy Corridors in Southeast Asia, China Brief,Vol. 8, No. 3, 4th February , accessed 27th November 2008.

Zweig, David and Bi Jianhai (2005), Chinas Global Hunt for Energy, ForeignAffairs, Vol. 84, No. 5, pp. 25-38.

china engages myanmar as client state.pdf-red

Documents